Audio Blog Episode 3: James Keena, author of 2084: American Apocalypse
Category: Free-Market
Gov. Cuomo Admits COVID-19 Projection Models “Were All Wrong,” Yet Clings to the Central Planner’s “Pretense of Knowledge” – Foundation for Economic Education
“There are a lot of variables,” Cuomo admitted. “I understand that.”
But does he really? If he truly understood how infinitely complex social problems are, he wouldn’t act as if they can be solved top-down by politicians, bureaucracies, and a government-connected expert class. He would admit that all central planners can do is stumble around in the dark, breaking things and people.
And if he understood economics, he would realize that the complexity of social problems are such that they can only be managed bottom-up by local actors with local knowledge and skin in the game interacting with each other in a free society and a free market.
2084: American Apocalypse – by James Keena
For anyone not yet convinced of the dangers to civil society posed by divisive “isms” and ideologies, including religious dogma and the murderous results of forsaking the sovereignty of the individual, this book is a must read.
James Keena calls into question the notion that our society simply swings indefinitely like a pendulum between the political right and political left. He makes the case that allegiance to either faction will eventually lead to tyranny, oppression and death.
And that the solution always returns to individual sovereignty; not Darwinian rugged individualism. It starts with a true understanding that entropy is always fought at the individual level. No one can escape that responsibility; to do otherwise unfairly burdens others with your obligation.
Karma is not a boomerang, but a seed that either bears good fruit or poisons the tree. And the bonds made between individuals, families and friends which are based on love & respect & benevolence cannot be scaled to apply between millions of strangers.
The only way to ensure the reproducibility of peaceful collaboration on a large scale is for society to be based on the bedrock principle that the only just law is one that protects individual sanctity and does not tolerate coercion. We should not coerce or allow ourselves or others to be coerced.
I think you might like this book – “2084: American Apocalypse (The Pathless Land Series Book 1)” by James Keena.
Start reading it for free: https://a.co/6mBr6gE
Focus on People During Economic Crises, Not Macro-Statistics – Foundation for Economic Education
By Mark Hornshaw
“Economics studies human choice under scarcity. Humans must act in the present to provide for the future. Informed choice relies on market data in the form of prices—specific prices for specific things, as we assess various different means to satisfy our ends—that is what economics is about.
Macro-statistics such as GDP and CPI, whether they are rising or falling in the aggregate, do not help much with this vital task. These statistics are compilations of vast amounts of data to come up with averages across entire countries and time-periods. It’s a dilution of the data, not an enhancement.
” “What a country wants to make it richer, is never consumption, but production. Where there is the latter, we may be sure that there is no want of the former,” said John Stuart Mill, citing Say’s law.
In a tune of rapid change and disruption, we need prices to do their job more than ever so the entrepreneurial process can work. High prices show which industries to move more resources into, and low prices show which ones to move resources out of to free them up for more urgent uses. From the point of view of consumers, high prices show us what we should cut back on, and low prices show where we can pick up bargains.
This process takes time. Interfering with this process just locks in shortages and surpluses.
So-called “stimulus,” just thrown at “the economy” to increase “aggregate demand” in the abstract, cannot work, when there are supply constraints in some industries and prohibitions in others.
Government policy should be on mending holes in the social safety net, compensating those it has forced out of business and jobs, and reducing the tax and regulatory burden it places on businesses, workers and consumers as they try to adjust.
These are all microeconomic responses to relieve suffering and remove impediments.”
https://fee.org/articles/focus-on-people-during-economic-crises-not-macro-statistics/
When Will We Learn?
Why Hong Kong’s Economy Has Grown 7x Faster Than Cuba’s Since Since the 1950s – Foundation for Economic Education
By Dan Mitchell
“Communists claim that their ideology represents the downtrodden against the elite, yet the evidence from Cuba shows wretched material deprivation for most people.
In Hong Kong, by contrast, incomes have soared for all segments of the population.”
How important are key individuals in shaping the success or failure of economies? …Neil Monnery’s A Tale of Two Economies is in some sense a polemic against historical determinism, at least insofar as promoting economic reforms is concerned.It stresses the importance of two single individuals, one a great man for many, one an obscure official and political unknown to the most, in shaping the destiny of their respective countries. …Ernesto “Che” Guevara and John Cowperthwaite. …Monnery insists that both of them were “deep and original thinkers.” …The key difference between the two was perhaps that Cowperthwaite had a solid education in economics… Neither the way in which Hong Kong progressed, nor Cuba’s, were thus inevitable.
Monnery points out that Hong Kong’s success happened not because Cowperthwaite and his colleague were trying “to plant an ideological flag,” but because they were “professional pragmatists.” …Then the success of relatively libertarian arrangements in Hong Kong perpetuated itself. …Cowperthwaite tested what he knew about classical economics when he “first arrived in Hong Kong, in 1945” and “was put in charge of price control.… He soon realized the problems with attempting to set prices low enough to meet consumer needs but high enough to encourage supply, and in a dynamic environment.” He opposed subsidies that he saw as “a brazen attempt to feed at the trough of government subsidies.” …Cowperthwaite is a hero to Monnery, who emphasises his competence, and even more, his integrity.
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Implicit in the mission of this blog is to support independent professionals, not just medical professionals, and the unencumbered ability to pursue their chosen profession; and to do so without excess gov’t restrictions.
Watch “What Was the Enlightenment?” on YouTube
What Advances & Virtues Do We Really Owe to the Enlightenment?
Is being “Woke” the Dark Side of Enlightenment Thinking?
