Worstall on Bureaucratic Actions

The study does not confirm the daily objective observable facts.

The daily objective observable facts confirm the study.

This survey is laughable, Don. It's taken as a given that Bush can't possibly be inherently worse than somebody else. Is it a bit crazy to compare Bush to Hitler? Sure, it's also a bit crazy to compare typical leftists to Hitler as is done *all* the time by right wingers. There's even a book called "liberal fascists" with a little picture of a stick figure wearing an adolph 'stache.

But there is clear evidence that people as whole are much unhappier with Bush and Cheney today than they ever were with Clinton. So simply comparing the two numbers is foolish. I couldn't say for sure how to normalize them, but even something as simple as comparing to their national approval rating wasn't attempted. How did Clinton score in 1998 among people describing themselves as centrist or moderate, vs. Bush today? I'll bet there's a difference, wouldn't you?

By the methods of this so-called "study", if we *did* have hitler for a president, the resulting disgust among everyone sane would be grounds to call them "left-wingers" (or perhaps "right-wingers") and "intolerant", because they're opinion of him was so low.

Also, the facile comment that Bush is hated by liberals more than anyone in the world, merely because the one person *mentioned* with a lower score is now dead, is specious as well. Did they take scores for all the miscreants all over the world? I doubt that Kim Jong-Il would score better than Bush/Cheney, even among us stupid irrational hate-driven (ha ha!) liberals.

I'm surprised that you could take this "study" the least bit seriously.

Yes. There was a group of people who, living in a different time, honored the right of other people to sell stock in themselves as well as bonds.

I'm sure that the millions of people who were forcibly beaten into submission and carried away on slave ships against their will and with zero compensation will be very happy to know that "liberty lovers" like you are around to defend their captors on these grounds.

Spare me.

Oh BTW muirduck, that last post.....there is another one and it was even addressed to you.

Happens with amazing regularity, but we are all still waiting for the day that you post something displaying education or intelligence.

I just treat you different than I treat educated and intelligent people, muirduck. My 66 years of experience taught me that treating you any other way is a waste of time. Only hitting that brickwall of government will change you.

"You find ONE post where the guy doesn't resort to name calling and you'd have done well but you'd be looking pretty long to do so.

Posted by: muirgeo | Jan 20, 2008 10:12:20 AM"

You want to debate one thing without name calling and emotion, okay let's go with this one:

Only humans engage in market activites and there are currently over 6 billion independent markets in the world today. Is this true, or can you provide reason, rationale, or educated argument to refute it?

There you go, ball's in your court.

You see muirduck,

Your post here:

"Posted by: muirgeo | Jan 20, 2008 11:22:49 PM"

is why I make fun of you as a little child.

Everything you said comes from the educational level of a child, the understanding of a child, and the relevance of a child; coupled with the unique stupid blindness of a socialist evangelical.

To repeat what I have said before, to refute every lie, distortion, misquote, out of context quotes, evasion, and stupidity of yours would mean taking each sentence you write and destroying everything you say with logic and reason.

Which is not difficult to do, but since your stupidity invades this blog with such regularity it becomes tedious. As tedious as expecting you to eventually learn something.

Like I said before, someday you're going to hit that brick wall of government headon and it'll knock your bassackward brain around to where you can see clearly and you'll be blinded by your past stupidity.

Then maybe you'll be fit to join in a discussion carried on by your betters. In the meantime we dread your teacup chihuahua excursions off the porch and into the play of the big dogs.

I love how offering something for sale is considered coercive, yet taxes are not. I love how working at a job is considered enslavement, but National Service is not.

Mr. Graf, 66 years of experience of markets providing or ignoring and I have yet to be coerced into buying anything.

Posted by: vidyohs

Yeah cause you see Mr Graf, for instance, vidyohs doesn't use an internal combustion machine to get around and he surely doesn't use petrol.... because he's an independent person. Now if he did use petrol and the IC engine it would be because he had a free choice (no coercion involved) to use that as his mode of transportation. But he doesn't use it because he has other options and again is not dependent on any given product for his livelihood.... again because he's a completely self-made man and doesn't give into coercion when he buys things like petrol...which he doesn't...cause he doesn't have to.

"Vidyohs and Sheetwise,

I suspect that the difference between slavery as practiced by slave owners and the so-called slavery of the state //Mr. Graf, what would that difference be, if you can explain it// would be very apparent to you if you had been a slave in the antebellum south //Mr. Graf, is the physical part of being a slave more denigrating than the mental part?//. It's also interesting how you ignore the role of the market in the establishment and expansion of slavery in the United States //I don't believe sheetwise ignored it, I believe he acknowledged it, but then I did not agree with his words about "markets", you will notice I addressed my complitment to his words about slavery//. Markets can subvert freedom //Mr. Graf, please give an example of any market subverting freedom without use of government coercion or outright force//. It's a historical fact //Mr. Graf, really? A historical fact? Then you won't have any problem providing an example as I asked, eh?//. Ditto for governments. That's why it seems wrongheaded to me to assign all virtue //Mr. Graf, please sir, what does virtue have to do with free markets?// to free markets and all blame to governments //Mr. Graf, the only way I could ever own you would be in the absence of government, in which case I would be the dominating power; or, with government approval. If the blame is not to government when government exists, then to whom or what?//. Instead, as citizens, we ought to be concerned about either markets or governments becoming dismissive of the rights and needs of ordinary people. //Mr. Graf, 66 years of experience of markets providing or ignoring and I have yet to be coerced into buying anything. Now government on the other hand....coercion, force, daily occurances.//

Posted by: David P. Graf | Jan 20, 2008 10:03:00 AM"

Mr. Graf, I'd love to see how you justify a conclusion that the activities and thoughts of immoral or ignorant people diminish the value of free markets.

Vidyohs and Sheetwise,

I suspect that the difference between slavery as practiced by slave owners and the so-called slavery of the state would be very apparent to you if you had been a slave in the antebellum south. It's also interesting how you ignore the role of the market in the establishment and expansion of slavery in the United States. Markets can subvert freedom. It's a historical fact. Ditto for governments. That's why it seems wrongheaded to me to assign all virtue to free markets and all blame to governments. Instead, as citizens, we ought to be concerned about either markets or governments becoming dismissive of the rights and needs of ordinary people.

Sheetwise,

Your post here:


"Posted by: SheetWise | Jan 19, 2008 12:30:06 AM"

on slavery was very good.

I might add that some people think a long leash and a nylon collar is freedom, simply because it is comfortable.

I guess I haven't seen much change in the quality of comments. I always remember Cafe Hayek attracting its share of trolls. Frankly, I don't believe in muirgeo. I think she's a Russ Robert's doppelganger, designed to stir up the nest and raise our animus (animi?).

Mesa,

Yeah, the quality of the comments has dropped recently. I used to come away from every post on CafeHayek feeling as though I had learned something, but I have recently almost stopped reading the comments at all. (I do not deny any responsibility for helping to bring that quality down :P).

I said: "Let us not forget that there are many quasi-libertarians that have fallen into accepting more government intervention, as longs as it dresses up in private clothing."

Mesa Econoguy asked: "Really? May I have a list of their names an addresses?"

You do not need a list…just some criteria.

Check any libertarian you know of and ask yourself whether he has uttered a word questioning the wisdom of that mother of all outsourced-to-the-private-sector-government-interventions, namely the empowerment of the credit rating agencies.

Also on my continent, South America, and that might not limit itself to what it used to include, now when global warming keeps shifting the parallels of the banana republics northward, it used to be very saloon-elegant to complain about our badly managed electricity distribution companies when they were in the hands of government, but any comment about badly managed and even worse regulated electrical distribution company once it had been privatized was definitely not considered something decorous.

Has anyone seen Methinks recently?

I think Methinks is a hedgie (hedge-fund person), and given current market conditions, well…

We do miss Methinks’ informed commentary.

"Let us not forget that there are many quasi-libertarians that have fallen into accepting more government intervention, as longs as it dresses up in private clothing."

Really?

May I have a list of their names an addresses?

Also,

"It is high time to get rid of the fake-libertarians! And don’t get me wrong, I do not purport to be a true original 100% libertarian; as I do believe in market failures and that on many occasions there are good reasons for government to interfere..."

[That would be you, Per, you are excused...]

“Private interests, working within a framework of limited government, are the most efficient and useful allocators of resources, capital and labor. Limited government includes not only the physical size of government, but also the burdens and costs it imposes (taxes, investment crowding out, etc.). … We do not currently have limited government.”

Posted by: Mesa Econoguy | Jan 18, 2008 10:36:03 PM

Let us not forget that there are many quasi-libertarians that have fallen into accepting more government intervention, as longs as it dresses up in private clothing.

Could you imagine the Fed having thousands of government bureaucrats employed telling the banks and the economy where it can go or not go? Well that is exactly what you have got with the credit rating agencies!

It is high time to get rid of the fake-libertarians! And don’t get me wrong, I do not purport to be a true original 100% libertarian; as I do believe in market failures and that on many occasions there are good reasons for government to interfere; but still, I can sure recognize the need for having true 100% libertarians hanging around, warning us about the possible consequences of our arrogant meddlings.

Here

"Of course you don't get bloody wafers with it!!!"

Actually, Dr. Albatross, the lyrics were Pink Floyd, and I was thinking of John Cleese:

“Albatross!!! Albatross!!!”

“Of course you don’t eat it, it’s a bloody sea-bird!”

“Albatross!”

"The Ice was here, the Ice was there,

The Ice was all around:


It crack'd and growl'd, and roar'd and howl'd--


Like noises of a swound.


At length did cross an Albatross,


Thorough the Fog it came;


And an it were a Christian Soul,


We hail'd it in God's name.


The Marineres gave it biscuit-worms,


And round and round it flew:


The Ice did split with a thunder-fit;


The Helmsman steer'd us thro'.


And a good south wind sprung up behind,


The Albatross did follow;


And every day for food or play


Came to the Marinere's hollo!


In mist or cloud on mast or shroud


It perch'd for vespers nine,


Whiles all the night thro' [fog-smoke white]


Glimmer'd the white moon-shine.


"God save thee, ancyent Marinere!


"From the fiends that plague thee thus--


"Why look'st thou so?"--with my cross bow


I shot the Albatross."

“The market doth bring us plenty and comfort, and then we shoot it.” The Albatross

Although I agree that the "left" is less tolerant of free market ideas than the "right", I still feel uncomfortable about reinforcing any association of the free market with the right.

In the minds of most people today the right equals the Republicans, & the left equals the Democrats. When most common people (who frankly don't think their ideas through, they merely "feel" them & then rationalize their emotions, fallaciously if necessary) think of the "right" they think of people like Bush & Huckabee & Guiliani & Rush Limbaugh & Sean Hannity, etc. I don't want them to even subconsciously associate these people with what we're advocating.

Most of us have had a variant of this conversation:

A: "I advocate letting the free market work itself out."

B: "So you want to invade countries & steal their oil & give huge cash subsidies to multinational corporations?"

A: "No, of course not. That's not what free market means."

B: "That's what Bush does! So there!"

A: "Bush isn't a free market guy."

B: "He says he is."

A: "He's a liar. You didn't know that?"

B: "But he's a conservative & they love the free market!"

A: "What's conservative about him?"

B: "He's a Republican & he advances free market policies, & this is where they lead! To doom!"

A: "Those aren't free market policies."

B: "But he's a conservative, so they are! See?"

And so forth, around in circles, leading nowhere. The terms left & right & conservative & liberal are bunk anyway. Completely useless. They remind me of some pointless 5th grade theme essay like "What does America mean to me?" where you go on to react emotionally to abstractions. I think trying to associate our objective scientific conclusions with people's wildly differing fanciful whims is an unproductive strategy at best.

And no-one called us to the land

And no-one knows the wheres or whys


But something stirs and something tries


And starts to climb towards the light

Ah, yes, blustery muirgeo, but is not the pen mightier than the sword?

Overhead The Albatross hangs motionless upon the air

And deep beneath the rolling waves


In labyrinths of coral caves


The echo of a distant time


Comes willowing across the sand


And everything is green and submarine.

The method of this study is almost childish.

Lets see if I was ranking Hitler on my hate scale I'd give him a 0 (from 0 to 100) . I'm guessing he might give me a 10 or 20. So I'm probably more intolerant then Hitler.

Hate and intolerance are far better measured by actions then by words.

Here, here Mesa,

Must resist last reading of Plato’s Republic, Must resist—damnitt, I want to tell people what to do—Everyone Loves Raymond Really is that awful—should be banned and producers put in camps--ok better now—the Albatross is a Liberal Again (see Ludwig von Mises book of the same title).

Whew close call--man that jackboot is tempting

In your humble service, Sir Brotio……

Oooh! It also looks like I get to beat Murthaduck ("the children they've killed in cold blood") to the punch and point out that the biofuel solution didn't come from His Holiness, The Divine Prophet Algore I, so it shouldn't have been considered as a viable means of saving The Environment.

Please people! Algore I knows the what the problem is, and He knows the solution! If you'd all just listen to Him and follow His example we can save The Environment!

Mesa,

I loved the Sergeant-At-Arms post.

Why do we need a mission statement? Totally pompous.

Screw that. Let’s go…

[IBM uses “Stop talking. Start doing. Ironic.]

But let’s continue to pile heavily upon pseudo-liberals.

Before we pile too heavily upon liberals, let's remember that the strongest advocates of free trade and limited government and property rights in the United States prior to the Civil War were slaveowners - not exactly a group of politically tolerant or enlightened individuals.

Yes. There was a group of people who, living in a different time, honored the right of other people to sell stock in themselves as well as bonds.

In our more enlightened times, we allow people to sell bonds, but not stock.

We now have liberals who seem intent on limiting the right of the individual to even sell bonds unless they conform with a State regulated return.

Don't kid yourself about political tolerance or enlightenment.

Slavery is not dead, and never will be -- It just comes in different forms. Slaveowners and slaves were simply a part of a process that is foreign to us -- it would be foreign to us today in this country whether or not the Civil war took place -- whether or not civil rights legislation took place.

Slavery today is no different than it has ever been -- it's roots are in the State.

Freedom today is no different than it has ever been -- it's roots are in the Market.

Tolerance and enlightenment are concepts best left to the politics of Statism -- the Market simply responds to the efficiencies of freedom (those not outlawed by the State).

And, just in case you still might accidentally think bureaucrats are intelligent people, here’s a wonderful moment from Bernanke’s testimony yesterday (take a wild guess at the party affiliation of the "questioner"):

Bernanke as CEO.

Since we're on the topic of bureaucratic intervention, here's a little Sergeant At Arms:

I can’t believe the number of economic misconceptions and false statements in recent comments on this blog. I’m flabbergasted as to where to start. This blog used to be a bastion of free thought – now it’s become a repository for government apologists and overzealous overregulators. Either I got a whole lot smarter (highly unlikely), or you people got a whole lot dumber.

Many comments are simply stupid, assuming that market economies evolve toward disequilibrium, rather than various equilibria. I’m convinced this is false, and Russ and Don have done amazing work demonstrating just that, and that many (most?) disequilibria can be either directly or indirectly attributed to government interference and distortion in the first place.

Most of the offending comments start with the false premise that private business exists because of government, which is absurd. Government does not create private businesses. This is not the Soviet Union.

Public and private is indeed becoming increasingly blurred, because government is becoming increasingly intrusive, not private enterprise or property. This country was founded on the principles of limited government and ownership of private property. Statements otherwise (Krugman) are fundamentally ignorant of American economic history.

If I may,

Suggested Mission Statement for Café Hayek:

Private interests, working within a framework of limited government, are the most efficient and useful allocators of resources, capital and labor. Limited government includes not only the physical size of government, but also the burdens and costs it imposes (taxes, investment crowding out, etc.).

We do not currently have limited government.

It also should not be up to the government to decide distributions and subjective abstractions such as “fairness, ” which are far better (and more efficiently) determined by the marketplace.

You either understand these things, or you don’t. It appears that most commentators on this blog don’t.

Let's tighten this up, people.

Before we pile too heavily upon liberals, let's remember that the strongest advocates of free trade and limited government and property rights in the United States prior to the Civil War were slaveowners - not exactly a group of politically tolerant or enlightened individuals.

Having personally witnessed liberal hatemongering and been affected by left-wing unconstitutionalities such as quotas, I’m quite sensitive to the overt hypocrisy of the modern left, and their book-burning, speech-stifling tendencies.

[Yes, I do mean that quite literally.]

Economically, modern left-wingers (dating back to FDR) wish to control means of production, distribution of wealth, speech and thought, and equality of outcome (instead of opportunity).

Sounds like fascism to me….

I couldnt agree more but I would argue that libertarians in general are much more tolerant than self professed conservatives. Right wing talk radio and their thriving book market is less than tolerant of differing views. Its this intolerance that lead us to go to war in Iraq.

I agree with Shawn. But it's important to keep in mind that, for whatever reason, the term "the right" today is understood to embrace free-market, laissez-faire advocates as well Mike Huckabee-like social conservatives. "The left," as far as I can tell, is universally opposed to laissez-faire in matters of economics.

...unfortunately, far too many who consider themselves 'conservative' yearn to remake society according to their own image, as well.

The most helpful thing on that that I've heard is pointing out how quickly most would prefer the government to have less power if it were run by people with very different viewpoints.