A message for all the libs from a right winger on why I do things my way

[Baruch Menachem]

So deal.

 

[rightwinger]

Stupid cat pic....not worth the effort

 

[Baruch Menachem]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

 

[CrimsonWhite]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

Pickup some Harry Browne and Isaiah Berlin. You won't be disappointed.

 

[Dis]

Stupid cat pic....not worth the effort

Cat's worth more effort than you are..

 

[Kex]

So deal.

Um, ok?

 

[Toro]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

I have about 50 books from the likes of Friedman, von Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, Hazlitt, etc., plus a bunch of Ayn Rand books, all purchased for my own consumption, and all purchased by my early 20s. I have only one book on my shelf from Keynes that I had to buy for my History of Economic Thought class back in university. I was a True Believer.

Then I found employment in the capital markets, and after spending nearly 20 years of actively participating in and watching how stocks, bonds, commodities, housing, etc., move, I have come to the conclusion that Keynes was more right than all the others. Often times, markets are efficient allocators of capital, rationally determining which industries and companies are deserved recipients of savers' funds to grow their businesses. But other times, markets are just batshit insane, acting without rhyme nor reason, like a squirrelly manic depressive.

 

[Baruch Menachem]

October 2008 being a case in point.

 

[VaYank5150]

So deal.

So, how long have you known you were gay?

 

[xotoxi]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

Here's what I have in my library:

• Michael Connolly
• Robin Cook
• Jonathan Kellerman
• Robert B. Parker
• John Sandford
• Karl Marx
• John Grisham
• Stephen King

 

[chanel]

Ha ha. That list could be mine but replace Marx with Palin. lol

 

[Nosmo King]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

Try Steinbeck, Fitzgerald, Twain, Vonnegut, even Spillane.

You might have fun instead of delusions of economic intellectualism!

 

[Truthmatters]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

I have about 50 books from the likes of Friedman, von Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, Hazlitt, etc., plus a bunch of Ayn Rand books, all purchased for my own consumption, and all purchased by my early 20s. I have only one book on my shelf from Keynes that I had to buy for my History of Economic Thought class back in university. I was a True Believer.

Then I found employment in the capital markets, and after spending nearly 20 years of actively participating in and watching how stocks, bonds, commodities, housing, etc., move, I have come to the conclusion that Keynes was more right than all the others. Often times, markets are efficient allocators of capital, rationally determining which industries and companies are deserved recipients of savers' funds to grow their businesses. But other times, markets are just batshit insane, acting without rhyme nor reason, like a squirrelly manic depressive.

How very true. The idea that somehow THIS human endevor is immune from the frailty of mans greed, shortsightedess, whim or outright sabatoge is as silly an idea as exsists.

 

[JWBooth]

Friedrich Hayek
Russell Kirk
Friedman (Kinky not Milton)
Thomas Woods
Thomas DiLorenzo
Dan Jenkins
James Burnham
P.J. O'Rourke
T.R. Fehrenbach
Joel Chandler Harris
James and Donnie Kennedy

 

[Baruch Menachem]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

I have about 50 books from the likes of Friedman, von Mises, Hayek, Bastiat, Hazlitt, etc., plus a bunch of Ayn Rand books, all purchased for my own consumption, and all purchased by my early 20s. I have only one book on my shelf from Keynes that I had to buy for my History of Economic Thought class back in university. I was a True Believer.

Then I found employment in the capital markets, and after spending nearly 20 years of actively participating in and watching how stocks, bonds, commodities, housing, etc., move, I have come to the conclusion that Keynes was more right than all the others. Often times, markets are efficient allocators of capital, rationally determining which industries and companies are deserved recipients of savers' funds to grow their businesses. But other times, markets are just batshit insane, acting without rhyme nor reason, like a squirrelly manic depressive.

How very true. The idea that somehow THIS human endevor is immune from the frailty of mans greed, shortsightedess, whim or outright sabatoge is as silly an idea as exsists.

I do recomend most of these authors to you, as not only might you learn something and come out of your active armor shell, but it might give you an interesting insight to where we are coming from, so you can insult us better.

The whole point of the argument of Smith, Friedman, and Hayak is not that humans are angels and should be trusted to run wild, but because humans are all to human, these forces of veniality, greed, shortsightedness should be harnessed and used for progress, rather be used by those in authority to cause damage.

Properly used, the basest clay can be made into a work of great art. Badly used, it is little more than a pile of mud.

 

[Truthmatters]

They are wrong.

Unfettered markets consolidate into fewer and fewer hands.

Those willing to DO ANYTHING to win outpace the people who have moral motivations to keep them from DOING ANYTHING for personal gain.

Its a simple human condition fact.

On the streets of your city there are laws to protect people from the greed and indifferance to other humans needs from JUST TAKING what you own and they want.

These are the same range of people who are at the helm of our economy.

Most people are mostly good, some are saints and others are monsters.

No rules for behavior and no punishment for those who break the rules gives you a very Ugly society.

There is no SANE reason to assume the people at the helm of our markets are any different.

 

[editec]

What I have in my library

• Milton Friedman
• Robert Ardrey
• P J ORoarke
• H L Mencken
• Herbert Spencer
• F A Hayek
• Machiavelli

I had a subscription to Newsweek when I was in High School. They had an interesting feature back then where they had liberal writers do columns one week, conservatives the next.

Friedman split economics discourse with Paul Samuelson. Friedman was a funny, engaging, direct and clear writer. Paul Samuelson struck me as a pussyfooting bore.

One of my long held beliefs is that clearer thinking leads to better writing. Foggy thinking leads to muddy prose. Admiration for Friedman and Mencken leads me to try and emulate them any time I write on these matters. Not that I am as good as they were, but it tends to keep really embarrassing stuff down to a lower level.

No Kenneth Galbraith?

Seems to me if you truly want to dismantle the opposition, you really need to know what they think to do a credible job.

 

[xotoxi]

Ha ha. That list could be mine but replace Marx with Palin. lol

How un-Marxist of you!

 

[Baruch Menachem]

I had to read a book of his (Gailbraith) in college 30 years ago.

At least I was supposed to. I cliff noted it.

Man was a colossal bore.

I have to agree that is a major failing on my part, that I am not willing to wade through the turbid streams in the fever swamps of liberal thought like Galbraith and Veblen. The loss is all mine.

As I said, it is a belief of mine that clarity of thought leads to clarity of expression. Other folks seem to have the feeling that turgidity is the same as erudition. I feel that windy prose is usually empty, and that over use of the passive voice is dishonest.

I think Truthmatters should read Friedman not because he will convince her. The shell of her prejudices is harder than diamond, and I don't see that there is anything that will change her prejudices once she has one. But Friedman was a very entertaining writer, and she will have fun reading him. Reading Gailbraith works as punishment for a major felony.

 

[Toro]

They are wrong.

Unfettered markets consolidate into fewer and fewer hands.

I don't know if I necessarily agree with this.

Certainly, markets can consolidate into fewer and fewer hands. This is what happened during the time of the Robber Barons. However, technology usually obliterates market power. If you look at the largest 50 companies today, most weren't the on the list of the largest 50 companies 30 years ago. And if you look at that list from 30 years prior, again, you'd see mainly a different roster of companies.

Part of the problem with the dogma of the free market theoreticians is that they pay lip service to the influence of money in politics. They generally do not address the capture of government by special interests. And most special interests are corporate interests, because they have all the money. Union or environmental special interests are dwarfed by the amount of corporate money sloshing around Washington.

Having said all that, markets generally work. The onus should be on those who say that the government needs to interfere, rather than the other way around.