May 29, 2013
May 15, 2013
My Ideology
If there’s one thing I could’ve[1] said to my Sociology of Inequality class, it’s that markets are natural forces. They cannot be defied indefinitely. Just as ideology is more powerful than coercion in the survival of societies, markets are more powerful than our resistance to them. If you don’t do things efficiently it doesn’t matter your goal, you wasted resources. Our optimal progress depends on working with natural forces; it’s just like sailing.
Progress that more widely benefits humanity is certainly possible. Every dictator who falls, or monopoly that can’t adapt fast enough will benefit that progress. When markets are not manipulated to serve governments, businesses, countries, regions, or groups in particular, but the people of all of them in general, we’ll have reached our potential. That is what we should be striving to do, because nothing else will work.
Progress that more widely benefits humanity is certainly possible. Every dictator who falls, or monopoly that can’t adapt fast enough will benefit that progress. When markets are not manipulated to serve governments, businesses, countries, regions, or groups in particular, but the people of all of them in general, we’ll have reached our potential. That is what we should be striving to do, because nothing else will work.
May 4, 2013
April Jobs Report
165,000 jobs were added in April. A number that is neither good nor bad. The unemployment rate went down to 7.5% and not because people were leaving the labor force this time. In better news, March's terrible number has been revised up to a less bad 138,000 jobs added. February's numbers were revised up to 332,000 jobs added, the highest number since May of 2010.
May 2, 2013
Front Page Billing for Maryland
This is the most front page Maryland I've seen on a non-Maryland news source site or paper. When gay marriage was upheld in referendum we had to share the glory with some other states. But now here we are:
As the Governor, Martin O'Malley, put it, "Evidence shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent, it cannot be administered without racial bias, and it costs three times as much as life in prison without parole." Not to mention, as was communicated by the presence of an exonerated death row inmate at the signing, it can't be administered without killing innocent people. So woo.
Actually far more important is the 260,000 people dying in the East African famine during 2010-12. For some reference the UN estimates around 70,000 people have died in Syria's civil war in the past two years. The UN has many early warning famine indicators, and they did see the famine coming. But rich countries didn't want to help out any until it was a popular story in the news.
Also apparently the ECB has realized monetary policy is too tight and has made it a quarter percent less too tight.
As the Governor, Martin O'Malley, put it, "Evidence shows that the death penalty is not a deterrent, it cannot be administered without racial bias, and it costs three times as much as life in prison without parole." Not to mention, as was communicated by the presence of an exonerated death row inmate at the signing, it can't be administered without killing innocent people. So woo.
Actually far more important is the 260,000 people dying in the East African famine during 2010-12. For some reference the UN estimates around 70,000 people have died in Syria's civil war in the past two years. The UN has many early warning famine indicators, and they did see the famine coming. But rich countries didn't want to help out any until it was a popular story in the news.
Also apparently the ECB has realized monetary policy is too tight and has made it a quarter percent less too tight.
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