flinthills

Someone Needs their Head Examined

I had the best laugh I've had in a long time reading the local Wichita newspaper this morning. This is the Op-Ed ("Liberal" is not "Anything Goes") piece I am referring to - written by... a clinical psychologist -- which in the context of what he writes is way too rich with irony to fully take advantage of here.

I'm wondering though - is he trying to increase understanding of what an American "liberal" is or is he trying to hypnotize us so we'll swallow this goofy stuff? The end of the piece is this recurring, "Liberals are the ones who... Liberals are the ones who... Liberals are the ones who..." Getting sleepy yet?

The article confuses far more than it clarifies the "liberal" term - maybe he's applying the term as a clinical definition for political insanity? He seems to list every possible goal on the planet - with the notable exception of "world peace." Affordable health care? To whom? Save the environment? What does save mean? Who gets to decide? At what cost?

He can't possibly be talking about Democrats, or Republicans for that matter. At least not the ones serving terms right now. Based on their track records with submitting recent highway bills, Medicare enhancements, and other quacky stuff it seems to me none of them has especially demonstrated a willingness to balance a budget or control reckless spending.

The punch line: "Liberals are the ones who care about you," brought tears (of laughter) to my eyes. I think that was more of the French "vous" - and not in the formal-first-person-deep-respect-for-the-individual sense - but in the collective y'all-get-over-here-and-listen-up-'cause-I-know-what's-best sense.

I'm pretty sure he doesn't consider himself a liberal in the classical tradition.

Fever and High Gas Prices

A couple of years back Charles Wheelan, previously the midwest correspondent for the Economist, wrote an outstanding intro to economics for the layman titled Naked Economics. While summing up the lessons of the first chapter, under the heading, "Because we use price to allocate goods, most markets are self-correcting," he offers this interesting simile: "But high prices are like a fever; they are both a symptom and a potential cure."

Apropos to our current situation with high gas prices, the full quote is as follows:

Periodically the oil ministers from the OPEC nations will meet in an exotic locale and agree to limit the global production of oil. Several things happen shortly thereafter: (1) Oil and gas prices start to go up; and (2) politicians begin falling all over themselves with ideas, mostly bad, for intervening in the oil market...

Here's the meat of it:

While politicians are puffing away on the House floor, some other crucial things start to happen. We drive less. We get one heating bill and decide to insulate the attic. We go to the Ford showroom and walk past the Expeditions to the Escorts...

Things start to happen on the supply side, too. Oil producers outside of OPEC start pumping more oil to take advantage of the high price; indeed OPEC countries usually begin cheating on their own production quotas. Domestic oil companies begin pumping oil from wells that were not economical when the price of petroleum was low. Meanwhile, a lot of very smart people begin working more seriously on finding and commercializing alternative sources of energy. The price of oil and gasoline begins to drift down as supply rises and demand falls.

At $40+ per barrel, even inflation adjusted we're starting to get pretty high on prices of oil - but those high prices are absolutely essential in communicating reality to all of us (the "market"). Some will take lots of risk and attempt to supply more oil to the market, others will take even more risk and invest precious resources (especially their time) into finding alternative substitutes. The rest of us will conserve or continue on depending on our individual circumstances and preferences. All the right things will happen all by themselves - that is the invisible hand of Adam Smith.

Don't Allow another Draft.

There's a lot of talk out there now about re-instating a draft for military conscription. Tom Palmer has a nice rejoinder to the call in his April 21st blog entry, appropriately titled "Of All the Dumb Ideas!"

One of the tougher challenges put forth is the moral duty of the young of this country to pay their debt to society. But, as so many before me have already pointed out, society and government are not one and the same. And we all have a debt to each other - not just 18 year olds to us. Doug Bandow at Cato flushes these ideas out better and in more depth than I ever could in this 1999 paper. He also wrote Fighting the War against Terrorism: Elite Forces, Yes; Conscripts, No which is also worth a read.

Cafe Hayek has some good discussion on this topic as well - one example is this post.

It is immoral to conscript young people who wouldn't otherwise volunteer to join the military. If we want to maintain a free society, our military must remain voluntary. I hope you help me raise a racket if our representatives in Kansas start supporting such a measure.

What's Really Wrong Here?

It's nice to see debate among the pages of our local paper regarding Thomas Frank's inflammatory article, "lie Down for America - How the Republican Party Sows Ruin on the Great Plains," that appeared in last month's Harper's. Unfortunately it's been rather one-sided and vague.

The summation of the articles I have read so far seems to be: If you are poor or run a family farm, what's wrong is that you vote Republican. You vote Republican because, by misdirection, they get you to focus on conservative social issues that you are passionate about to make you fear Democrats and vote them (the Republicans) into office where they achieve their "real" purposes, which are in direct opposition to your economic interests. So don't vote Republican.

Part of the frustration in answering the article and its bolstering op-eds is the volume of poorly substantiated claims and vituperative accusations hurled at a large but undefined group of blank-faced star-chamber types variously referred to as conservatives, Republicans, corporate fat-cats, and capitalists (did I leave anyone out?).

The other frustration is that no alternative vision or framework is put forward that can be analyzed on its own independent merits.

The real problem throughout is the assumption that our state's economic woes can be solved through political means. But in that world everyone is trying to live at the expense of everyone else.

Real wealth is created through economic means. And that is something we Kansans actually know a lot about. There is a rich history of entrepreneurship here - Koch, Garvey, Coleman, Eby, Ritchie, Wagnon, Cady... it's a long list that grows bigger every year.

To do this requires freedom -- as in the abscence of coercion: freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement; not mastery over our circumstances, just the freedom to take our best shot at dealing with them.

Currently the Federal Register alone is filled with over 400,000 regulations that make it nearly impossible for a normal person of limited means to open a simple business. That doesn't seem to hold people back from trying. Just reviewing some of the ideas that kids in the Youth Entrepreneurs of Kansas (YEK) program come up with each year can make you believe in the future again.

I can't tell you how to vote. Personally, I don't see much overall difference between Republicans or Democrats anymore - I'm sure they used to walk their talk. They don't anymore. Both want the same thing: more government, more regulation, more control over our personal lives and finances. Term limits seem like a great answer there to me. If there's to be nostaligia it ought to be for the time when being a politician was a short stint away from your real job. If we opine for anything political, it ought to be for the days of limited government.

Free markets, freedom, free trade, capitalism. Everywhere government gets out of the way and allows them to flourish wealth blossoms for everyone.

Enjoying John Blundell

We've enjoyed having John with us in Wichita - we at Flint Hills experienced a real treat yesterday evening having dinner and conversation with him at the Wichita Country Club. In the picture from left to right: George Pearson, Martin Eby, John Blundell, Ben Pratt, Walter Lewis. More soon.