Charles Murray’s Irving Kristol lecture on Human Happiness. Life in a social democracy might be pleasant, but it is rarely satisfying, and therefore lacks happiness.
What to do about the Danes and their high happiness? The key to the Danes’ happiness might be their low expectations.
I’m reading Charles Murray’s book What It Means To Be A Libertarian right now. Best – meaning simplest and most personally engaging – defence for classical liberalism I have read in a long time.
“Earmarks” are items on congressional spending bills where the funding goes to specific, localised projects in either one state or a few states (more bridges for the Ohio river) or for a very specific group of people (one-legged teenage moms in Nebraska). The “Earmark” is typically either a “pet project” of a specific lawmaker or grease for a lawmaker’s local community (electorate) in a state or part of a state. An earmark is also called “pork” (the Danish term, used somewhat differently, is “valgflæsk”).
Economically, earmarks are spending that would not take place if the beneficiaries of the earmark had to spend the money themselves. An earmark can only become a reality because the cost of the earmark is spread out on all taxpayers. Of course, this goes for most government spending, but earmarks are the extreme text-book case.
Politically, earmarks become a reality because Congress doesn’t vote on spending one item at a time, but rather vote on gigantic bills full of hundreds or thousands of items. In this way earmarks find their way into the bill as a way of buying favor among the Congressmen. “You support my California windmills and I will support your bridge-to-nowhere in Alaska”. It is a common feature of political life in all democratic states, not only in the US.
Additionally, the advantage of including earmarks in one big spending bill is that if the President wants the earmark out of the bill, he will have to veto the whole bill or send it back to Congress. This is usually too much trouble, so the earmarks stay even if the President doesn’t want them there. After all, there’s so many other good things in the bill.
Earmarks are a byproduct of the way democracy works. See Public choice theory.
Reportage from a country where the women actually have a reason to complain: Iran. Read Syma Sayyahs report.
Since I first thought like a woman many moons ago I have honored this day, which women have celebrated since 8th March 1909 in New York. The one thing I so deeply admired about them is the fact that they did not think of themselves as victims, despite all the odds, together they took some initiatives and took their lives in their own hands, and did they think themselves better than others. Here we also have to change men and women’s attitudes and upbringing. A women’s job is more important since it is women, as mothers, wives, sisters, colleagues and so on have a great influence on how men think about women, thus they must show and prove, individually and collectively, that they do not need a protector and are able to take care of themselves, thus accepting full responsibility for their lives.
Christopher Hitchens on the new U.N. resolution on Defamation of Religion:
Rather than attempt to put its own house in order or to confront such other grave questions as the mass murder of Shiite Muslims by Sunni Muslims (and vice versa), or the desecration of Muslim holy sites by Muslim gangsters, or the discrimination against Ahmadi Muslims by other Muslims, the U.N. resolution seeks to extend the whole area of denial from its existing homeland in the Islamic world into the heartland of post-Enlightenment democracy where it is still individuals who have rights, not religions. See where the language of Paragraph 10 of the resolution is taking us. Having briefly offered lip service to the rights of free expression, it goes on to say that “the exercise of these rights carries with it special duties and responsibilities and may therefore be subject to limitations as are provided for by law and are necessary for respect of the rights or reputations of others, protection of national security or of public order, public health or morals and respect for religions and beliefs.” The thought buried in this awful, wooden prose is as ugly as the language in which it is expressed: Watch what you say, because our declared intention is to criminalize opinions that differ with the one true faith. Let nobody say that they have not been warned.
Denmark in the news! Interesting article here from Reason Magazine on the fate of Christiania and the legal battles the Freetown faces. I don’t know enough about the issue to correct Reason (except for some spelling errors), but I do have a certain sympathy for the Christianites, at least the settlers of yore. Let’s find a legal solution that works for both parties, but let the Christianites keep their own identity.
Pusherstreet, originally named to be absolutely upfront and unambiguous about what goes on there, is the commercial heart of the Freetown of Christiania, a scruffy micronation in the Danish capital’s upscale, canal-incised Christianhavn district. This notorious community of utopian rebels, who expropriated the 85-acre former army barracks in 1971, has much more to deal with these days than a crimp in its marijuana business. Christiania is facing both an existential and a property rights crisis, with an aging population of ’60s counterculturalists battling a less tolerant and increasingly antagonistic national government that sees great untapped value in the commune’s waterfront land. The two sides are now facing off in one of the nation’s most momentous court cases.
Why not have more Freetowns? And let’s liberate cannabis while we’re at it.
Daniel Beattie’s classic defence of Christiania.
Nice one by Jonathan Jarvis.
The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.
New Tax Reform: The Government fails to lower the marignal tax from 63 %. However, new taxes are issued on everything from computers to gummi bears.
The reform shuffles some taxes around, but fails to address the two main problems: The general level of taxation and the high marginal taxes. The American economic policy seems quite foolish at the moment, but the Danish has for years appeared completely self-destructive. It simply makes no sense to tax the citizens this hard no matter how much you are pro or against government spending.
Update: I see now that the middle marginal tax in fact has been removed, so the highest tax is now 56 %. However, all gains are counter-moved with new taxes. Additionally there are wild protests against the reform – as it creates ‘inequality’ – and the opposition vows to roll back the reform when they come to power. Which is probably very soon.
Bottom line: When it comes to taxes, politics in Denmark basically treats citizens like cattle they can boss around any way they want to. Not a nice thing to do.
WSJ editorial on Barack Obama’s Address to Congress (which I found both impressive and vague).
Mr. Obama clearly believes the recession has created a political moment when Americans are frightened enough to be open to a new era of expanded government. The question is whether his vast ambitions will allow the private economy to grow enough even to begin to pay for it all.
We watched the speech last night, almost by coincidence. 52 minues on the “state of the nation”, outlining the President’s economic policy. Probably his most important speech since his Inauguration. However, though the speech got wild applause in Congress (did you see the extatic Nancy Pelosi?), and New York Times and Washington Post appreciated the many proposals and five-year plans with some reservations, they didn’t go down well in all quarters.
Op-ed by Holman Jenkins here:
Put away the idea that more government control is the cure for health care. We already bribe, through supremely asinine tax policy, the most affluent, capable consumers on the planet not to use their smarts to make sure the system returns value for money.
Let’s fix this — by eliminating the tax subsidy for employer-provided health insurance. Then it might actually become economically feasible to subsidize health care for the needy.
The Economist asks: A brighter future, but who pays? – Good question indeed. It seems like a lot of people can get something for nothing from Obamas plan. Sounds nice, doesn’t make sense.
At a Monday budget summit with congressional leaders and again on Tuesday Mr Obama rightly noted that the cost of old people’s health care and pensions are the country’s biggest long-term fiscal threats, but on neither occasion did he propose how to deal with them. In fairness it is early and stabilising the economy should be Mr Obama’s priority, not long-term fiscal discipline. Premature fiscal tightening could abort a recovery. The summit on Monday and the speech on Tuesday were part of the process of softening up the public for future pain.
Both events also demonstrated that despite being jilted on his quest for some Republican support during the debate on the fiscal stimulus, he is not giving up on his pursuit of bipartisanship. On Tuesday night, at least, Republicans were co-operative, rising in applause almost as often as Democrats.
An earlier Economist article on Obama’s problematic economic plans. Too much done the wrong way, too little done the right way. Escpecially Geithner’s bank plans gets a lot of criticism – it is vague and inconsequential.
Despite talk of trillion-dollar sums, stockmarkets tumbled. Far from boosting confidence, Mr Obama seems at sea.
Update: Tyler Cowen is worried. Matt Welch on The Two Faces of Barack Obama. More from Politico and Reason:
He has consistently pledged to, you know, stop spending right after well, you know, he and Congress stop spending.
Totally unrelated: Christopher Hitchens blasts Avigdor Lieberman‘s authoritarian politics. Lieberman is a kingmaker in the recent Israeli elections and now he wants an “oath of loyalty” from all Israelis, both Arab and Jews.
I’ve many times criticized Barack Obama on this blog, and I still do think many aspects of his economic policies will be harmful. But his opening speech at the “Fiscal Health of the Nation Summit” was candid, and in a lot of ways very “conservative”. Although words like these are much easier to say than to implement, they just needed to be said:
“We cannot and will not sustain deficits like these without end… We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences,” the president said Monday. He said the government must both confront the current economic crisis and address skyrocketing deficits or “we risk sinking into another crisis down the road.”
“I refuse to leave our children with a debt they cannot repay,” Mr. Obama declared.
More here. Updates: Information and transcripts from The White House here and here.
Right now at spokesman Robert Gibbs’ White House Briefing, both politicians and journalists (except Helen Thomas with her usual non sequiteurs) are actually acknowleding the future implosion of the Social Security funds and the costs of Medicare. I wish that Danish politicians would at some point have an honest debate on the rising costs of welfare as the ratio of workers vs. non-workers change. That is: seeing future liabilities as part of the budget.
Of course, Obama’s goal of halving the deficit at the end of his term is probably wildly unrealistic, considering the speed of spending right now. In the end, it’s probably all rhetoric, but it sounds good.