The Crucible

Kindle-icious

2010-09-07T19:16:00.001-05:00

As promised a few pics of the new Kindle.

A few items for reference

Next to the now gargantuan-seeming 10” MSI netbook.

Close-up showing cover detail.

And even closer showing text from a free Gutenberg text.

I’ve been Kindle-ated

2010-09-06T19:56:00.001-05:00

My Kindle arrived this weekend!

When Amazon released their 3rd generation Kindle e-book reader and significantly reduced the price point (the Wi-fi only version is $139, 3G wireless is $189) I took the plunge.

Those of you who’ve been following my more recent posts on the e-book developments (click here and here) know that I’m starting to favor Amazon’s Kindle model over Apple’s iPad model for ebooks. Here are the 3 basic reasons:

1. Amazon is platform agnostic. Yes, I can get a Kindle, but I can also use my PC, my netbook, my Blackberry, or even my iPod and iPad to read Amazon Kindle books. Amazon wants the ebook channel; the money is in the consumables (as it is with iTunes). Not every Kindle book has to be read on a Kindle device ahd Amazon recognizes this.

2. Amazon has the channel already. Selling books over the internet for years they have been dealing with book publishers for that long, and they have pull with publishers due to the volume of books they sell online.

3. They get the pricing, both with device and the content. This is especially true with the latest generation Kindle readers. They are not trying to compete with the iPad; instead they are trying to offer a slimmed down device, but a highly improved reading experience. And the book prices. Kindle editions are all normally 30%-50% off of the regular Amazon list price. If I save roughly 5$ on every book purchase I will have paid for the device after only 30 purchases.

So here are the things I like about the new Kindle.

e-paper. Any LCD screen has always been a readability compromise for me. I can only read on my netbook for an hour or two before feeling it. The Kindle display is amazing. I read today for almost 8 hours without any sort of fatigue. The newer display boast a higher contrast ratio, and resolution than previous models and the white is a bright white that is visible even in dimly lit situations (although you can’t read in the dark with it.) In fact, the Kindle arrived with the screen on! The screen boasted a high res image of a famous author and it took me a few seconds to realize that it wasn’t a vinyl decal I had to peel off, but rather it was the actual display.
Size and weight. The 3rd generation Kindle has decreased both size and weight by about 20% in each dimension, without reducing the screen area. At only 8 ounces and not much larger than a trade paperback, the unit is amazingly comfortable. It reads with the comfort of a think paperback, and I can hold it easily with two fingers. My netbook weights 2.2 lbs and the iPad weights 1.6 lbs. No comparison on the reading experience. The Kindle is the only one that’s comfortable to hold for extended periods. It’s hard to get a sense of actually how comfortable the Kindle is until you’ve compared it.
Multi-platform sync. If I bookmark or write a note in the Kindle “margin,” it syncs with all my other versions of the Kindle software. Boot up my laptop and open up the same book and all my notes and my previous location have been updated. I can even see notes that others have made in the same book.
Annotation. While the Kindle keyboard and note functionality isn’t great for extended annotation, it is great for “marginalia.” In fact, if I’m actually going to “study” a book, I prefer this as it lets me “mark and go,” and then later sync to a platform that is much better for note taking or broad synthesis of multiple notes across multiple chapters.This is the way I study paper books. I make prolific marginalia as I’m reading, but focus on the flow; only later sit down with a pad of paper to synthesize major points and broad themes by reviewing my margin notes. I even get all my marginalia in a separate note file with references, which I can then export and edit on my laptop.
Battery life. A huge Kindle plus. Because the e-ink display uses batter power primarily only when it’s changing pages, the battery life is up to a month (with wireless turned off). This makes it truly more like a book than a computing device. My netbook will give me 4 max with the screen contrast turned down. The iPad claims more like 10 or 12 hours. With both you have to worry about charging regularly. With the Kindle I can take it on vacation and not worry if I forget my charger.
Amazon conversion of personal documents. I can email personal word, text, html and pdf documents to an email address set up for my Kindle and Amazon will convert them automatically to the proper format and put them into my download queue. If you’re wi-fi, then download is free (wireless download incurs a charge).
Social networking. I can quote a passage, along with my marginalia comments to Facebook and/or Twitter. Great when you find a juicy quote you know others will appreciate.
Onboard dictionary. Let’s face it. I don’t stop to find out what a new word means. It’s rare that I absolutely need it. With the Kindle just move the cursor to the word and it’s definition pops up. I now know what a “daube” is.

Downsides. There are a few, although rather than restating how the Kindle is not an iPad, I’m going to focus things that could be improved qua the e-book reader that it is.

Keyboard. The keyboard is a small QWERTY keyboard at the very bottom of the unit. I type on it more like my Blackberry (unit held with two hands, using thumbs to type). This works ok, but I find that the keyboard is a little two low on the unit and as a result is a little top-heavy as I’m trying to type. Also, to reduce keys they have added a “symbol” menu but typing symbols requires you to move the cursor amongst 4 rows and 10 or so columns of optional symbols to select each one individually. Not so bad if they were less frequently used, but even basic punctuation can only be accessed via this clunky menu. Numbers can be reached by key combinations on the keyboard (although they aren’t marked). It would help is at least a question mark, exclamation point, and comma were also accessible in this manner. I also find myself expecting cell phone-like text shortcuts and am remiss when my “u r” doesn’t change into a “you are” automatically like it does on my Blackberry.
Interface. It’s basic. You can put your books into file folders or “collections,” go shopping at the Kindle store, search relatively easily but that’s about all.
Extras. The extras are curiosities at best. There is a web browser. You can listen to music via mp3’s you load on the unit, and text to speech is neat. However, none of them are particularly highly functional. Text to speech is a drone monotone that misses most unpunctuated turn of phrase. Buy an audio book instead.

The take-away for me is this. In the spirit of “sticking to it’s knitting” the Kindle lets you do one thing and one thing superbly well: read books. It does so at an unbeatable price point, and gives you access to the best-priced selection of ebooks on the market. I’m sold.

I do plan on posting pics shortly.

Objectivist Round-up #162

2010-08-19T21:25:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the August 19, 2010 edition of objectivist round up.

Welcome to this 162^nd edition of the Objectivist Round Up, a blog carnival of posts written by individuals who are advocates of Objectivism: the philosophy developed and defined by Ayn Rand.

If you are new to Ayn Rand and would like to discover more about her "philosophy for living on earth", I recommend you read her two great novels, Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead. If you enjoy her novels, I recommend her essays Man’s Rights, and The Nature of Government. The Ayn Rand Institute and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights provide relevant information and commentary.

Following, in an order of my choosing, are the posts for this Objectivist Round Up.

Kelly Elmore presents Tennyson's "Ulysses" posted at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "Objectivists all seem to really love this poem. It has been read in OCON courses by Lisa Van Damme and Leonard Peikoff. I used it in my class at Mini-Con. It is even tattooed onto one Objectivist I know. In this post, I read the poem and give some background to help you better understand it."

[Editors note: hat tip to anyone who gets Tennyson tattooed on his body! Must be one cool dude.]

Paul Hsieh presents Hsieh AT OpEd: The Real Problem Is Not The Mosque But The Nukes posted at NoodleFood, saying, "I had two OpEds published this week! This one was on the NYC Mosque, at American Thinker."

Paul Hsieh presents Hsieh PJM OpEd: "Transparency For Me, But Not For Thee" posted at NoodleFood, saying, "This OpEd was on the relationship between "transparency" and limited government, at PajamasMedia. (It also got Instapundited!)"

Doug Reich presents "The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves" posted at The Rational Capitalist, saying, "Some commentary on recent Fed actions and its attempt to cure the devastation caused by easy money with...easy money."

Doug Reich presents Jefferson, Voltaire, and Turgot posted at The Rational Artist, saying, "Solving the mystery of a Houdon sculpture at Jefferson's Monticello"

Stephen Bourque presents Regulation Begets More Regulation posted at One Reality, saying, "What does the government do when it causes a crisis? It adds more government."

Rachel Miner presents Anxiety, Angst, that Internal Ahhhh Response posted at The Playful Spirit, saying, "I've been contemplating childhood anxiety after comments made by son's counselor. I love her approach to helping him work out feelings around social issues and that she's a safe haven without being in an authority position (if he's grappling with something where a mentor that has both experience raising a kid on the spectrum and helping kids process smoothly is desired). Growing up involves learning new skills and is going to provoke anxiety as there is so much that is unknown. I wonder how much anxiety is normal and what methods others have tired to help their children."

David C Lewis, RFA presents Life Settlements: How Government Made Investing In The Death Of Other People A Profitable Business posted at A Revolution In Financial Planning, saying, "Today, the life settlement business is booming. Investors are able to profit off of other people's deaths. And, this investment opportunity was created, in large part, because some politicians in Washington D.C. thought that using life insurance as an investment was wrong. How ironic."

Round-up Intermission.

I’m listening to this song as I put together the Round up and I can’t get it out of my head. So I’m sharing it with you.

And now back to our Objectivisty goodness:

Rory presents In which Rory takes a moral perspective on the practical posted at Mind To Matter, saying, "My protracted study of Aristotle's ethics, for the sake of a 4000 word essay due in two months on the nature of virtue, has led to some very interesting thoughts. Here is one of them."

Diana Hsieh presents Rationally Selfish Q&A #003 posted at NoodleFood, saying, "I answer the question, 'When the mind insists on wandering, what are some good ways to help it settle down and focus?'"

Ari Armstrong presents Why Sam Alexander is Wrong on 'Personhood' posted at Free Colorado, saying, "The "continuum" argument fails to establish a zygote is a person."

Beth Haynes presents Social Justice and Medical Ethics posted at Black Ribbon Project, saying, "The AMA is actively working in conjunction with Association of American Medical Colleges to inculcate young physicians with the ethics of "social justice." "Social justice" is a euphemism for economic egalitarianism--and since people do not naturally come by equal wealth, "social justice" requires taking from some to give to others. This means the basic tenet of Marxist socialism is being pushed as the new medical code of ethics."

David C Lewis, RFA presents Dear Dave: I Hate Life Insurance: Life insurance | Precious Metals | Retirement Plans | Financial Planning | Investing | Saving Money posted at A Revolution In Financial Planning, saying, "Today's hate mail comes from a blog commenter who writes in: "Dear Dave, I hate cash value life insurance". I respond to the idea that life insurance companies are "evil & deceptive" in their policy designs--*sigh*, here we go again..."

Kelly Elmore presents Child Friendly without being Child Centered posted at Reepicheep's Coracle, saying, "This post contains my observations about a singing group's great attitude about kids, making them a part of the activity without making them the center of the activity. Beware, child-haters and parents who don't make their kids behave in public!"

Edward Cline presents Towering Babble Over Cordoba House posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "I do not think Charles Krauthammer saw it coming, but in a rare alignment of political planets, he agreed with President Barack Obama by opposing the planned site of the Ground Zero mosque in lower Manhattan for the same reason that Obama endorsed it. Krauthammer claims that Ground Zero is “sacred” and that no mosque should be built on or near it. Obama, on the other hand, claims that it is the right of Muslims to build a mosque on private property as an instance of “religious freedom,” which one guess he regards of “sacred,” as well. One shakes one’s head over Krauthammer’s confusion, and is tempted to laugh at Obama’s citation of “private property,” an institution he is devoted to abolishing."

Jeff Montgomery presents Belford/Oxford Run posted at Fun With Gravity, saying, "I finally made it to the top of Mount Oxford after three tries. With photos."

Peter Cresswell presents Off the ‘Spirit Level’ [update 4] posted at Not PC, saying, "The authors of British book 'The Spirit Level' have a political agenda of radical egalitarianism that's got the world's politicians talking. This is a short post pointing to intellectual ammunition to shoot it down."

Rational Jenn presents Recycling posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "How much do I love the Amelia Peabody books? Lots and lots and lots. And I think you'll enjoy them, too. :)"

Gene Palmisano presents Reality Transcends Racism « The Metaphysical Lunch posted at The Metaphysical Lunch, saying, "Stop the Nonsense."

Sean Saulsbury presents Barcode Hero Checks In posted at SeanCast.com, saying, "A review of the new iPhone app, Barcode Hero."

Harsha Vardhan presents Value of Indian Rupee and the role of RBI. posted at Harsha blogs!, saying, "This post analyzes the role of RBI(similar to the Federal Reserve in the US) with respect to the value of the Indian rupee and how it actually destroys rather than promoting the Indian rupee."

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of objectivist round up using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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Upon the Retirement of Dr. Leonard Peikoff

2010-07-10T14:28:00.001-05:00

Today at his final lecture of OCON 2010, Dr. Leonard Peikoff announced his formal retirement from philosophical work. There will be no more books, lectures, courses, or long treatises from him. He will continue to issue podcast episodes as he indicated that this work is a great enjoyment to him as a way to deal with the practical day to day application of philosophy to everyday problems. In essence he enjoys being the Dr. Laura of Objectivism.

He received a standing ovation that lasted several minutes upon completion of his lecture, and I suspect that many others in the room were as emotional as I was becoming. I have only seen Dr. Peikoff twice, and I have never spoken to him, but that really is unimportant to me. In the mid-90’s when I was the only Objectivist in a small town in Michigan, and when I thought we were so few that I might never meet another one, it was his voice, and the knowledge he imparted to me through his courses that kept me motivated and kept me going. The Art of Thinking, Introduction to Logic, The Principles of Grammer, Introduction to Objectivism, Understanding Objectivism, Eight Great Plays; it was his confident voice, imparting rational ideas that was in inspiration.

In my course on poetry this week with Lisa Van Damme, we studied what is already one of my favorite poems. Its theme seems appropriate to today and so I post a few excerpts from it, in honor of a man whose work, next to Rand’s, changed my life, and who helped me take an abstract philosophy out of the pages of the literature I loved and craft it into a practical method of living my own life.

Thank you, Dr. Peikoff.

from Ulyssess – Alfred Lord Tennyson

…

I am become a name;
For always roaming with a hungry heart
Much have I seen and known; cities of men
And manners, climates, councils, governments,
Myself not least, but honoured of them all;
And drunk delight of battle with my peers,
Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy³.
I am a part of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch wherethrough
Gleams that untravelled world, whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move.
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnished, not to shine in use!
As though to breathe were life. Life piled on life
Were all too little, and of one to me
Little remains: but every hour is saved
From that eternal silence, something more,
A bringer of new things; and vile it were
For some three suns to store and hoard myself,
And this grey spirit yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star,
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
…

Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down:
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles⁴,
And see the great Achilles⁵, whom we knew
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.

OCON Update #2

2010-07-07T11:43:00.001-05:00

It’s Wednesday morning and Session 2 has started at OCON. I’ve got a few minutes before the General Session starts and I thought I’d dash off an update.

Session 2 finished strong. It seems that one or two of the lectures in each class for me contain the “ah-ha” points, and the lecturers are so good at essentializing their analysis that when those moments of discovery come, they are very forceful. You’ll many times exit a class, talk amongst the participants afterward and they all agree that a particular lecture was very impactful. The energy around those lectures is palpable.

David Lewis finished off his course on Ancient Athens in 5 B.C. by looking at the intellectual factions within Athens, and the aggressive nature of the Athenian democracy which ultimately led to its downfall. Lewis is a marvelous lecturer with his dry wit, and a real excitement and passion for the power of history to inform us.

Eric Daniels finished off his course on the Morality of Trade with another such lecture, comparing modern consequentialists theorists with Rand ethical basis, showing how a consequentialist view (trade is good because it results in the greatest good, or more efficient outcomes) necessarily leads to statism because it is unable to defend itself against any empirical argument. He then delved into Rand’s theory of trade, rooted in her objective theory of value, and ultimately man’s rational nature. Rand’s approach to a moral defense of capitalism is unique in that it focuses on the requirements of the process of trade, rather than attempting to justify trade based upon its outcomes. Yes it is true that capitalism may be the system that works the best, but that is not the fundamental basis to defend it.

Leonard Peikoff continues with his series of Lectures on his DIM Hypothesis, that the fundamental trends in Western history can be looked at and determined by the way in which each culture viewed the nature of human knowledge. After two lectures completing his survey of ancient cultures, his last lecture launched into a fascinating discussion of the factors by which cultures shift from one mode of action to another. This lecture was incredibly dense and action packed as he attempted to survey all six major historical eras and review the change both coming into and out of each one. I was typing furiously the whole time. He’ll continue in his last lectures by looking at our society today and teasing out issues and factors that one needs to consider based upon this hypothesis.

Beyond that, the conference has been full of social activities, catching up with old friends, and making new ones. I also had great conversations with Lin Zinser and Keith Lockitch. Lin helped me understand some of her plans for the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, and also differentiated ARC from ARI’s activities. Keith and I discussed our common interest in environmentalism, and in addition to helping me with some writing I’m working on, he also put me in touch with a few conference attendees who also have an interest in chemistry, the chemical industry and environmentalism. Hopefully those networks turn into a small nucleus of expertise in these areas.

After a spa day at the pool yesterday which included some decadent lounging and a massage, I am ready for Session 2!

OCON Update

2010-07-03T21:14:00.001-05:00

OCON is off to a roaring start this year!

I’ve got a little time before the next lecture; I’m lounging by the pool as a hot desert wind seeps across the Red Rock resort in Las Vegas. The venue this year is one of the best I’ve seen for an OCON yet.

Yesterday consisted of the opening banquet, and general catching up with old friends. Each year I come, the handshakes and hugs become more numerous, stronger, and the excitement of seeing old friends wells up greater. So many this year… OAC classmates, fellow Obloggers, and friends I’ve made over the years of interaction with Objectivists online; from California to Colorado, NYC to Michigan. OCON is as much about the social as the intellectual.

My first session coruse schedule is a little lighter than in previous years (to make room for, well, lounging at the pool…) Thought not planned, it seems that I’m opening with a focus on the classical period.

John Lewis Ancient’s course this year covers Athens in the 5th century B.C. This is the zenith of Athenian society and saw the establishment of Athenian democracy and of the advent of philosophers such as Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. And of course you can’t ask for a better lecturer than John Lewis, which is energy and dry wit.

The general sessions are dominated by Leonard Peikoff’s second course series on his forthcoming book on the DIM hypothesis, his hypothesis that western society can be viewed in terms of it’s approach to human knowledge, and from this one can even begin to make predictive conclusions for the progression of societies. His focus this week will be on looking at early societies from the Greeks through the Medieval period through this lens.

David Harriman gave a great general session lecture on the inductive method in scientific discovery, looking at science’s inability to characterize and articulate the essence of it’s epistomological method, and it’s suffering as a result of this inability. He then focuses on the effect of Rand’s seminal theory of concepts on the ability to accurately characterize the scientific process, and what this means for the future of scientific education. This is the focus of his recently released book, The Logical Leap: Induction in Physics, which represents collaborative work between him and philosopher Leonard Peikoff. I’m excited to read the book, and will be ordering it soon!

Finally, Eric Daniels, in his usual witty style opened up his course on the Moraltiiy of Trade, examining this fundamental aspect of capitalism, and surveying historical views of trade. Today it was the Ancient’s characterization of trade. His intent is to look at various common objections to trade itself given by both opponents and defenders of capitalism.

Tonight’s lecture is on the state of the Ayn Rand Institute, offering up an enthusiastic look at the progress the Institute has made in changing the culture over the past year. Afterward, a cocktail party with OActivists.

Couple of notes. The Twitter hashtag #OCON is hot. Numerous attendees are tweeting and you can get great updates by the minute. The netbook is working wonderfully, and I’ve almost gone entirely paperless this year.

I also wanted to give a shout out to my friends in Atlanta who have put together a budget version of OCON, called MiniCon, put on by the Atlanta Objectivist Society. As always there are so many Objectivists who I miss seeing each year. Here’s to you. Hope to see you at a future conference, and I hope that the various updates keep you tied in and make you feel like you were here, as much as we wish you actually were.

All for now; onto the next event1

Convergence vs. Format vs. Channel – Why the iPad has not yet Won my Heart

2010-06-28T21:05:00.001-05:00

I am in the throes of a continuing dilemma: to iPad or not to iPad. The Apple legions would tell you my agonizing is futile, that Apple will dominate the “netbook/bookreader” space the way it’s dominated the “mp3/mobile phone” space. I am not yet convinced, and here’s why.

Format

There is certainly room in the market for a portable device with a larger screen format. The larger format lets you interact with richer information sources and given a robust input mechanism such as a keyboard, it let’s you richly tie your own information to the information you interact with. This is compared with the smaller handheld platform which in many ways limits the depth of information that can be dealt with. Think of blogging vs. texting; think of the difference in web surfing on a phone vs. a laptop; or reading a book on a Kindle vs. a phone. And the fact is that the converse is also true. No one is going to be holding a iPad up to their ear to take a phone call, nor sticking the iPad in their pocket to listen to tunes on the school bus.

The question for me then become what set of features will something of this format converge upon, and what sort of business model captures value from that? The iPad is not and will not simply be a larger iPod. Users who choose it will have unique requirements and the types of information one interacts with may not be open to the same business models that information sources do on the iPod. Internet, email for all practical purposes are free. Music and cellular service were not.

Media Anchors the iPod

The exception to the media richness rule for handhelds is media, music and voice. One can store and retrieve this sort of content easily from a handheld device. The interaction with this type of content then is less about codifying knowledge but by instant retrieval in a contextually relevant situation. One interacts with their world by bringing their music into it, accessing it instantaneously according to the immediate desires and needs.

Music anchors the iPod in more ways than usage patterns. Apple’s business model is based upon it. Let’s be clear about it. Apple is not just a purveyor of iPod’s. Apple is a media store. Apple has a phenomenal market cap, not because it sells iPods, but because it sells the music that you put on the iPod. Apple has become the dominant channel for media. Think of the mall CD store around only 10 years ago. They are all but extinct.

So the logical question is: what will anchor the iPad? Is there a ongoing revenue stream that Apple can take over that will be of the equivalent of music for the iPod? Apple thinks its written media. Make no mistake about it. Music is to the iPod what books, magazines, and newspapers are to the iPad. If Apple cannot dominate more complex textual media the way it dominated music its business model will be significantly diminished.

It’s unclear to me yet that the stickiness of music for the iPod will necessarily translate to the iPad and text content. There are several reasons for this.

Amazon and Google

First, much of the textual media we access is already free. Internet, blogs, etc. All one needs here is simply access to the internet. And while the iPad may be a better platform for accessing the information, much in the same way that you can contextually access music on the iPod, without a viable keyboard, you’re ability to manipulate and create your own such content limits your ability to interact with the media in the additional dimension that this expanded format would allow.

Apple claims it’s reinvented how one interacts with such basic programs as email or calendaring. This may be the case, but let’s recall that Google dominates “the cloud.” How long before Google puts similar features onto it’s already popular versions of mail, calendaring, and documents, and before netbooks with touchscreens allow Google to make use of similar looks and feels, much like it’s Android platform now snipes at the iPhone platform.

And what about books and magazines, the closest analogue to it’s iTunes store? The problem here is that electronic channels are already well established. Unlike the burgeoning electronic music industry which Apple helped create and solidify in the midst of it’s early chaotic beginnings, we’ve been buying books online since the beginning of the internet. Have they been e-books? No. but I counter that this is not what matters. Once you’re selling books electronically, it is really a small step to selling electronic books. Amazon and Barnes and Noble already are established as online sellers of books. They have power with book publishers. Apple is not the pioneer in a new channel, but rather a newcomer to already established set of channel relationships. Don’t underestimate that power. Apple’s early domination of the e-music channel allowed it to command price premiums and gave it power to compete on price at the right time. It used proprietary standards only until it’s iTunes dominance was so well established that reversing it’s position on standards actually served to buttress it’s already entrenched position. Amazon [and Barnes & Noble] commands that sort of position with book publishers now and they are well established “clicks and mortar” players.

The Convergence Conundrum

I’ve never owned an iPod, but I love the platform. I’ve decided that once my current mp3 player (an iRivier H10 I bought almost 6 years ago) dies (and contrary to jokes about all things Windows-based, it continues to be rock solid performer – much to my chagrin) that I’ll replace it with an iTouch (no iPhone; my job supplies my cell, iPhones will never be enterprise standards, and I don’t need more small gadgets.) Here’s the problem. Once I have a device that runs the Apple apps platform, why would I need two? Wouldn’t I buy the device that best meets the needs of only those incremental things that I still lack?

This is part of the issue. It’s easy to see how the integration of phone, music, and small packet internet integrate well into one package, i.e. how they converge. But once we establish the viability of a separate device, the additional advantage of convergence becomes less sure. This is what Amazon is betting on. It’s what Google is betting on. There are 3 points of convergence that are already established and it is unclear which will actually win. Google owns the convergence of the cloud. Amazon owns the convergence around the ebook channel. Apple wants to own the convergence of the device.

My Bet

My bet here is that the channel and hence Amazon will win. Amazon wants you to buy books through their bookstore but use them on any device you want, including their popular Kindle reader, and including the iPod/iPad platform. Apple wants you to buy books and only use them on their platforms, hoping its platform is sticky enough to convert you. Amazon already does significant volume and reaps significant profits from its books sales and so has price advantage. Neither will advocate open standards until one wins out.

My bet is that the platform will not establish the same sort of stickiness that it did in the case of the iPod, because Apple is not starting from the same sort of position and in an industry with the same sort of immaturity as the e-music industry.

Here’s where the competition will come from.

Amazon will continue to sell books for the best pricing. Publishers won’t like it, but then neither did music distributors when Apple did it. Until people figure out exactly how e-books are best read (small devices, backlit LCD, or EPaper) Amazon’s platform agnostic strategy seems better to me. Amazon has just dropped it’s price on the 2nd gen Kindles to $198, and I predict that Apple will eventually be forced to remove the Kindle apps from it’s app store. Google will develop and proliferate next gen operating systems, enabling netbook manufacturers who cannot compete with Apple’s resources to establish iPad-competitive platforms on their machines (think Android). Next gen netbooks with touch screens and these updated operating systems will come out faster than expected. And at the prices that manufacturers will be willing to charge under Apple’s premium pricing, they will compete.

To be sure, Apple has it’s brand, and it’s legions of loyal (dare I say rabid) users, and they will certainly get spill-over sales from this, although for reasons I’ve mentioned, and because lots fewer people read books than listen to music, it’s difficult to say how that will play out. They key will be if Apple and it’s app developers can develop apps that make use of the iPad’s unique format for as of yet un-thought-of uses and if they can do this faster than the entrenched competitors can refine their particular points of advantage.

As for me, Amazon just released an update to its Kindle for PC software to add the features I needed that were missing (screen color changes to adapt LCD screens for more comfortable reading, annotation capability, and support for screen rotation). My netbook is now the e-book reader I need, and short of the Kindle’s e-paper, perfectly adequate, especially given it’s ~$250 price tag. Given Amazon’s still unbeatable e-book pricing, I’ll be buying books from their store, and unless Apple pulls the Kindle apps, I’ll still have the option of switching to an iPad should the platform play out differently.

Now that’s Funny

2010-06-16T18:42:00.001-05:00

For those of you who read my last post on the BP “Coffee” Spill, and might have thought I should just loosen up and laugh a little, here’s a vid that is the proper philosophical counter point to the Coffee Spill. Hugh Laurie offers us his solution for the oil spill and… well, for whatever else might need fixing. The bufoonery is now in the right place. And I think it’s freakin’ hilarious!

BP and Coffee or “Why I’m Not Laughing”

2010-06-15T22:10:00.001-05:00

This video clip has been circulating the interwebs appearing on various friends Twitter feeds and Facebook pages. Even a few Objectivists friends have linked to it approvingly. I admit I chuckled the first time I watched it as well. I’ll ask you to watch it and see what your first response is.

The fact is that I no longer find it funny. In fact, I find it an insulting smear. I admit to being seduced by it’s premises, and after thinking about why it was funny to me I realized I accepted a premise hidden in its humor which is absolutely false. The answer lies in the answer to a simple question. Why is it funny? For me analyzing automated emotional responses is interesting, many times because I find unexpected implicit judgment embedded in them.

The video portrays BP executives spilling coffee and then attempting to clean up that spill unsuccessfully. Obviously a metaphor for BP’s handling of the recent Gulf spill caused by the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig. The executives try all sorts of bizarre and overly complex solutions to mitigate the spill, ultimately ending in a failed attempt under the direction of movie actor Kevin Costner.

The essence of the humor here is the executives myriad of failed attempts in the face our own knowledge of a remedy that is simple, commonly known by all, and virtually guaranteed of success. One could simply use a paper towel to wipe up the spill (an irony made more concrete by the use of such a paper towel, not for its obvious use, but instead to draw a schematic for another overly complex failed mechanical attempt). The video is funny because the executives are portrayed as buffoons. If we laugh at those things we find insignificant, then it is the executives status as incompetent clowns that forms the basis of the humor in this case.

But does this metaphor actually hold? A simple question reveals the problem with the metaphor. In the case of the Deepwater Horizon incident, what is represented by the metaphorical paper towel? What is the solution to this incident that is obvious even to you, simple, and has an almost 100% guarantee of success? Do you know? You must know if the metaphor is to hold. But you don’t. I’m certainly not a petroleum engineer or deepwater geologist. I don’t know what it is. This is because the metaphor doesn’t hold, not in the least.

Drilling for oil a mile beneath the ocean’s surface is a complex technological marvel requiring teams of men with highly specialized knowledge in order to succeed. Staunching a gusher such as the Deepwater Horizon leak is an equally amazing marvel requiring the same men, with the same types of knowledge. Consider that there are only about a hundred deep water drilling rigs in the world capable of drilling oil wells at this type of depth. There is no “paper towel” in this case. Capping this well is one of the most complex engineering feats and only a few men have the requisite knowledge to even be able to attempt it.

And yet it is these men that the video attempts to smear. The video trivializes the nature of the problem before us and belittles the very heroes who will be responsible for saving the day.

And aren’t these men responsible for the spill? As someone who works in the petrochemical industry, it is not at all clear that this is the case. Determining negligence in cases of complex technical problems is a complex issue. The fact that the spill exists does not in any way imply that there was negligent behavior. And it is my experience that the largest companies are usually safer and more conservative in their practices than smaller companies. Certainly if BP is negligent, then it bears liability in the spill; however, this is far from proven.

But what do these responses, our implicit belief in the “paper towel” solution, our seeming justified impatience with BP and a desire to believe them incompetent and negligent, all have in common? In his blog post “Plug the Damn Hole!” Tom Bowden highlights the fundamental that I believe underlies this response: ignoring the causal. When one ignores the actual nature of a thing and its consequences, then all one is left with is whim. We wish the gusher were plugged so we become impatient, yet ignore what it takes to get such events under control. Our impatience is unwarranted. It’s based on whim. We believe the spill should be pluggable immediately as if one was wiping up a coffee spill, so all the efforts and machinations of the men working on solving this problem must signify incompetence. Our judgment of incompetence in unwarranted. It’s based upon whim. Our political leaders issue directives, haul oil company CEO’s before committees and call their responses inadequate only in hindsight and yet they will not change what it will take to solve this problem. Their fury is unwarranted. It’s based upon whim.

The fact is that the petrochemical industry is one of the safest industries on the planet. I am safer working in the average modern petrochemical plant today than I am living in my home and driving to work. If it’s true that oil companies have little experience plugging leaks like this it is ironically because such incidents are rare. It is because of the competence of men like these that we don’t have leaks like this everyday. And so their inexperience is a sign of their extreme competence, and the fact that we’re operating at the edge of our knowledge.

This problem will take time to solve specifically because it is a daunting problem to solve. The limited resource here is not money. It is specifically the brainpower to work on this problem. That brainpower is limited. There are relatively few men with the experience and knowledge to contribute to the solution of the problem. The minds who build the equipment used are rare, because the equipment and operations are so complex that only a few men have the knowledge to build them. But these men are not created overnight. It takes time and investment. What fuels that time and investment? Profits. Oil company profits to be exact.

In my post recounting my experience with cancer I said I wanted as much profit going to pharmaceutical companies as possible so that they could put as many scientists as possible working on cures for cancer. I said that there was an urgency fueling this desire since my life was at stake should my cancer recur. Today we’re faced with a similar urgency. I hope the leak gets staunched as soon as possible, and for that reason I advocate laissez faire capitalism. Because profits ensure that we don't have shortages of brainpower when we need it.

Some on the right are calling this crisis Obama’s “Katrina,” saying that his inaction will be his example of poor leadership. I don’t think it is. The perpetuation of the spill and his complicity in it will only fuel his ability to advance his environmental agenda. It will give him the momentum to make his deepwater drilling moratorium a complete ban and to further regulate. It will allow him to get cap and trade legislation enacted, thereby crippling US industry. In the words of Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and environmentalist, “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” [as a tool to influence policy]

What could Obama be doing, or what could be doing to put in place conditions that would help resolve this and future situations? Here are a few things among many options:

Advocate the lifting of bans on drilling in lower risk areas like ANWR and shallow water continental shelf. Today we are drilling in high risk areas because cheaper less risky sources of oil have been deemed off limits. Technologically, this is the equivalent of banning farming in the Midwest and relegating farmers to ply their trade on the moon.
Accept offers of aid in the form of material and most importantly, “mindpower” from other countries and other companies. Up to now the US has politely declined such aid.
There is one proven technique that has been used to rapidly stop deep water oil leaks, successful in 4 out of 5 attempts by Russia in the 1960’s and 1970’s, quickly and permanently stopping those oil leaks. That technique is a controlled nuclear detonation, a “nuclear option.” The US government can authorize the use of such an option, if the conditions of this well favor its use.

How I’ve Changed – Part III Philosophy

2010-04-30T23:50:00.001-05:00

[Author’s note: This is the third in a series of musings on a few of the fundamental ways I’ve matured over the last two decades. Part I of this series is here. Specifically I chose to focus on three aspects:

The use of philosophy as a practical science for determining how to live one’s life, and more specifically a framework to understand what role value plays in one’s life. i.e. this is the science of ethics, what should man value, and how should he go about pursuing those values.
The development of a useful framework to be able to deal with and integrate my emotional responses.
The development of a useful framework to characterize and deal with my relations with other people.

This post will focus on the third, philosophy.

Ideas matter…

That’s the short answer of course. But it’s also the bottom line, and it’s a more profound statement than I realized twenty years ago. I’ve always been the intellectual sort, but in many ways I’ve only fully internalized and operationalized that principle in the last few years. So what does it mean? What does it really mean?

The first question one might be tempted to ask is “why?” “Why do ideas matter?” The answer is simple, but not always obvious: ideas are the way that you, as a human being, figure out how to make your way in the world. You cannot escape your need, nor your use of them.

Consider your average day. You get up and go to work. Consider how you arrived in that state. How did you choose your education? On what basis did you choose your career? On what basis should one choose a career? What are your career plans? Are you achieving them?Do you like your job? Should you like your job?

You go out to lunch. What do you eat? Is it good for you? Do you enjoy it? Who do you eat with? Do you pay for your meal? Should you pay for your meal? Why?

And finally you go home. Do you have a family? Do you love your wife or husband? Why? How should you treat someone you love? What do you do in your free time? Why? Is it rewarding? Are you happy?

To make these choices; to think about and act on your life on any basis that is more than simply what do I feel like doing now, you have to use ideas.

Maybe you’re a little skeptical of this statement. You think to yourself, “yeah, but what if I don’t actually live by ideas? What if I simply do what I feel and don’t think about it?” Putting aside that most people who say this don’t actually follow that principle consistently, consider the fact that unlike an animal you choose this course of action. And your basis for choosing it is the principle that people shouldn’t live by ideas. Except that this is itself an idea.

Philosophy then is simply the science that provides a framework for how one uses ideas in their life. It is a guide for living. Philosophy doesn’t answer every single question about life or the world around us; however, it does answer the fundamental ones. By fundamental I mean the ones upon which all the rest of knowledge is built. Philosophy properly conceived answers a few fundamental questions:

What is the nature of the world around us?
Can I know this world, and if so by what methods do I know that I understand it?
What should I do as a result of this knowledge? What goals should I pursue, and how?
How should I treat other people in my dealings with them?

I have trouble thinking of a more profoundly practical set of questions, ones that in various ways you and I have to consider daily. In fact, most religions make attempts, however primitive, to answer these questions, because the questions themselves are ones that we all seek answers to. We do this, because we need the answers, i.e. the ideas they provide, in order to live.

Of course philosophy is a little circular in a way. My statement above that ideas matter is itself a philosophical statement from a particular viewpoint. It is a particular answer to one of the questions above, “by what methods does one know reality?” This seeming circularity makes some people prone to claim that ideas are all relative, i.e. that the questions above can never be answered definitively, but that we can only express our opinions about them. Others claim that there are absolute answers to them, but ones that we can’t develop ourselves. Rather have to have given to us by God or by society.

So rather than get stuck as one is wont to do having to start explaining every single idea within a philosophy, I want to highlight a few ideas about the importance and pervasiveness of the need for philosophy, as such. In other words, what are some of the ways that one understands the concept that ideas do matter.

Ideas Matter - All the Time

The fundamental of life is choice; the choices we make, large and small. We choose a career. We choose to have a family. We choose where to live, and what to eat. Unlike animals who act instinctively, humans choose almost everything they act toward. it is the conceptual content of our minds, i.e. our ideas, which inform our choices. Our fundamental option then as regards our choices is to make them, informed by consciously held ideas or uninformed by such ideas. We can make choices because of a reason or we can make choices “just because.” One of the key concepts philosophy has added to my life is the realization that our ideas should be consciously, deliberately brought to bear on all of our choices.

Now one might argue that there are certain choices that don’t require ideas. Do I really need a reason to choose between vanilla or chocolate ice cream for dessert tonight? Can’t I choose it “just because?” In a sense this choice is quite arbitrary and philosophy certainly won’t tell you that vanilla or chocolate is the “right” choice. However, on a completely different level, there is an idea that is crucial to this choice; namely the idea that certain choices are arbitrary and certain choices are not. That is, you have to have a reason to put the choice of ice cream flavor into the class of arbitrary choices. Although we can probably think of many sorts of these choices, there are very few truly arbitrary choices. (I chose chocolate, by the way.)

Nor am I suggesting that one must have fully formed ideas before acting. Thinking, experience, reasoning all take energy and resources, and we have a limited amount of time to deal with the choices in our lives. This morning I had to make a decision about the price I was going to charge a customer on a particular product that I have marketing responsibility for. Ideally, one could imagine that I make this choice with complete knowledge. What are the customer’s other options? How unique is my product compared to those options? Does my customer value certain features of my product? What application will he uses this product for? What is his financial state? Practically, however, I don’t have all of this information, and I cannot expend the effort to obtain all of it before I run out of time and must make my decision. This happens to us on a daily basis. However it is not being frivolous with ideas to go ahead and make this decision.

So what would taking ideas seriously all the time imply about partially informed decisions?First, one ought to consider their choices in terms of relative importance, and expend more effort to inform the more important ideas. It is treating ideas frivolously to spend days and days researching the choice of a make of television to buy, but then spend a few minutes to make a career choice. Second, when making partially informed choices, one must recognize the fact that it is a partially informed choice and this means that one is taking risk. It is treating ideas seriously to revisit partially informed choices as more information becomes available and evaluate them again.

Ideas are Interrelated

What do sex, an iPhone and political theory have in common? Do they have anything in common? Do you know someone who is terribly brilliant in a particular field of endeavor in their lives, and a complete idiot in another? Why is the phenomena of a “Renaissance Man” particular to, well, ages like the Renaissance? Like the first question, this set of questions might appear themselves to be very unrelated, but at their essence they are related by a crucial element, the idea that all ideas are interrelated.

What is meant by this statement? Our ideas are based on our descriptions of the world around us. And in the world around us things are related by the nature of the various entities that make it up. For instance, take the 3 items mentioned previously: sex, and iPhone, and U.S.foreign policy. While seemingly disparate, these things are related. How? One key aspect is that they are all products of men’s choices. As such, ideas relating to each can be informed by a common account of human nature. For instance if you think that man has free will this can and should influence your views of each of the above. A man is responsible for his sexual choices and they inform on his character. The innovative creations of entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs are seen as an inspirational accomplishment because of the force of will that they take. And finally, countries should be founded on the basis that men are able to govern themselves. If however you hold that man is a walking bag of water and chemicals and his free will is an illusion, you may hold that his sexual choices say nothing about him. The accomplishments of Steve Jobs are nothing special, and men’s desires, being randomly generated always pit them against each other and government’s role should be as parent to its population in order to control these conflicts. So because things may have commonality in reality, our ideas about them should be congruent.

To take ideas seriously then is to check your ideas against each other; to assure that where they interrelate, that they are compatible with each other. In fact, it is more than simply checking ideas against each other, but it means actively seeking out ideas from various fields and working to discover their interrelations. One cannot have a complete and error free account of human nature, for instance, without understanding philosophy, biology, psychology, economics, etc.

This is why, in eras where societies take ideas seriously, one finds the particular phenomena of the Renaissance Man. When one understands that fields of endeavor are all informed by information from other fields, one is motivated to study multiple fields and indeed the best men in a society are the ones who become knowledgeable in multiple fields of endeavor. The compartmentalized genius, the man who is an expert in one field while being ignorant in all others ignores the fact that ideas are interrelated.

How One Arrives at their Ideas is as Important as the Ideas Themselves

The truth of the ideas that drive your choices depends on how well the ideas correspond to reality. Man is not given truths; he must determine what is true and what it not. He must have a method for validating that he has formed his ideas properly and that they do in fact correspond to reality. The method one chooses is therefore as important as the conclusions one arrives at.

Let’s suppose that two persons are studying physics. One dutifully comes to class, takes notes, accepts what the professor says as truth without question. He goes through laboratory exercises by rote. The second on the other hand asks questions, attempts to understand how the ideas were arrived at originally. He integrates his observations of the world around him into those scientific ideas and sees the ideas as accurately describing his world. He uses labs to work through the basics of each principle he’s being taught.

At the end both may score well on exams, but what the first person can be said to have is hardly knowledge. Not having understood how conclusions were arrived at, he may be able to parrot the one’s he’s taught, but it’s dubious whether or not new conclusions he arrives at would be valid.

It is very possible that one may hold ideas that are true, but having arrived at them via invalid methods is as dangerous as operating with untrue ideas. Method speaks to your ability to develop new ideas of your own, to integrate new knowledge into your existing knowledge. Without it you’re stuck with what you have, and what you have may not even be that good.

This are some of perspectives I hold on the role that philosophy plays. With that perspective however, one can begin to answer basic questions about life: What is the good? What is virtue? What is the purpose of life? One simply need not take them as given, either by a higher power, nor by some social authority. Nor does one need think that the questions are unanswerable. One can develop clear, objective answers to questions like these. And when one does, they are able to have clear, consistent principles to guide their actions on a daily basis. And that is one of the most practical, valuable endeavors one can pursue. That clarity is refreshing. The confidence and ability to know that you’ve got a set of well developed principles for living, and that they work; well that’s enabling. It’s exhilarating.

And that has made all the difference since…

How I’ve Changed – Part II Emotions

2010-03-01T21:19:00.001-05:00

In Part I of this series I introduced my musings on a few of the fundamental ways I’ve matured over the last two decades. Specifically I chose to focus on three aspects:

The use of philosophy as a practical science for determining how to live one’s life, and more specifically a framework to understand what role value plays in one’s life. i.e. this is the science of ethics, what should man value, and how should he go about pursuing those values.
The development of a useful framework to be able to deal with and integrate my emotional responses.
The development of a useful framework to characterize and deal with my relations with other people.

I focused on personal relationships in Part I, and I’ll be focusing on integrating emotions in this post. Specifically, I want to discuss a framework from which to think about and work with emotional responses, and ultimately being able to harmonize emotional responses with our conscious values. Here are a few of the observations I made from the last post with regards to emotions:

I find today a far greater integration of my head and my heart, of my thoughts and emotions. This yields a feeling of peace or centeredness or balance.
I think my daily emotional responses today are far less mixed, or clouded and as a result are much more intense, pure and powerful. I describe this to people as living in “technicolor.”
I seem to be able to stop and live purely in the moment, savoring even small pleasures and joys fully without the immediate weight of that adult list of goals, and tasks, and worries. Again, this lends an incredible feeling of intensity in the moment.
I don’t feel a nostalgia for a “simpler, easier” time in my life. The simplest, easiest, most joyful time in my life is right now.

Why might we be interested to think about this? The basic answer is the emotions have utility in leading our lives. They can be powerful motivators or demotivators to action. I’m sure you’ve all felt the surge of drive and motivation when something you’re doing also generates a positive emotional response. When choosing a career for instance, the popular bromide that you should so something that you’re passionate about reflects this. Emotions help us sustain and act upon our conscious decisions. Conversely, I’m sure you’ve all felt the lack of action or initiative when our emotional responses are negative toward the action. I had to work out this morning and my heart wasn’t in it, even though I know and want to be physically fit. Because emotions can be so powerful, it would benefit our lives greatly if we could find a way to harness their power and align them with the things we want to pursue.

Before delving into the ideas here I want to make a disclaimer. First of all, this will not be a post about psychology or psychological theory. My intent is not to provide the methods by which we analyze and modify our emotions, but rather to provide a framework for thinking about them that sets the stage for our approach to them. I have little familiarity with psychological sciences other than lay reading and small levels of experience with psychologists directly, and I don’t try to represent them. Nor is it any comment on psychotherapy or the use of medications in treating psychological conditions. All are valid practices in the right context

Emotions as automated, evaluative responses to sensory input

In order to articulate a framework for thinking about emotions, it is first necessary to say something about what emotions are. Simply stated, emotions are automated responses to sensory inputs. That is, subsequent to sensing something, our minds respond with some sort of processing of those sensory inputs, and this results in an emotional response. Unlike sensations such as pain and the automatic reflexes that might follow, there is some sort of processing that our minds perform in an intermediate step that results in an emotional response. By automated I mean that emotional responses typically operate faster than our conscious reasoning processes. It is not that we stop and think about something in order to realize how we feel about it, but that we usually feel something first and only subsequently might we know why. You’ll notice that I use the word automated rather than automatic. This is important and I’ll elaborate on the distinction shortly. What do I mean by evaluative? Emotions unlike other automated responses (such as reflexes), reflect some sort of judgment about something. They indicate an assessment of something as good or bad. A marathoner feels pain (a sensation) in his legs and responds with anxiety (an emotion) because he is too far from the finish line. Another also feels pain but responds with joy because he knows that he is near the finish line and pushing himself as hard as he can. While the sensation, pain, may be the same, emotional responses vary depending on the situation.

What’s interesting here is that normally we associate evaluation with conscious thinking, Yet emotions are evaluative in nature but not really products of conscious thinking. How do we to account for this observation? This for me comes in the explanation of how emotions come to be automated. Emotions come to be automated through experience. It is through repeated experience that emotional responses develop. However, experience by itself is insufficient to explain the evaluative nature of emotions. Rather it is our past experiences coupled with our past evaluations of those experiences that serves to automate our emotions. The first time our marathoner raced he may not have known what the early pain he felt would portend. It would be only after experiencing a disappointing performance(s) and realizing that the pain was an early indicator of this problem that he might feel anxiety at the first sign of pain. Now I’m not going to spend too much time developing this point as I want to get to the framework for dealing with it. Specifically I don’t want to get into the realm of early emotional development or how emotions develop from early ideas, only to acknowledge that there certainly times during development when the impact of experience can be much more critical to healthy emotional development and that the basic mechanism of automation has to in some way be genetic. However I don’t think that these observations take away from the basic idea which is that emotions are products of our past experiences and also our ideas and evaluations of those past experiences.

Emotions are not cognitive

Emotions do not automatically give us information about the world that can be taken as valid without conscious reasoning. In other words, emotions are not mechanisms for automatically knowing the truth. If our past evaluation of an experience was in error, then it is certainly possible that we have trained our emotions in error. If our marathoner does associate the early pain he feels with the resulting performance, he may subsequently respond to the pain ambivalently, when it really should concern him.

It is possible that if our previous evaluations of experiences were correct that emotional responses may yield correct evaluations of a situation; however, it is not necessarily so. It is also possible that while our previous evaluations of experiences were correct that the experience that is causing our emotional response now does not match our previous experiences. In other words it is possible to mistake the experience one is having now and respond with the wrong emotion. If our marathoner switches to running 5K’s he may not realize that the manner in which he experiences pain will be different, and he will mistake early pain as a sign of trouble.

Emotions as trainable

The fact that emotions are developed experientially provides us with a mechanism by which we can shape our emotional responses. Because we are beings of freewill, we can choose both the ideas we hold, and the experiences we undergo; these are the critical components of emotional development. That is, at a certain stage of maturity we can direct our emotional development.

Now, this does not in any way suggest that emotions are infinitely malleable or that directing them takes no effort or knowledge. To the contrary, emotions have a specific nature. They come to be through a specific mechanism. And as such, one cannot simply wish for them to be different. However the fact that they do have a specific nature provides us with the mechanism to direct their development. The fact that they are trainable affords us the opportunity to train them, and that is a powerful concept.

Note also that because emotions arise out of experiences in the context of ideas, neither is sufficient by itself to cause desired emotional development. It is insufficient to simply change one’s ideas and expect one’s emotions to automatically change to reflect those ideas. In addition it is insufficient to simply throw oneself into new situations and hope that your emotions develop properly.

Moral Judgments of emotional responses as invalid

A very common response I have seen in myself and others is to make negative moral judgments about unwanted emotional responses. Because I feel a certain way, that must say something about me as a person. If I continue to desire chocolate cake after I’ve already pledged to a diet and weight loss, this can bring feelings of guilt simply for having this sort of emotional response. I may even question myself wondering “I know that’s not good for me; why do I still want it?” The fact of this response does not warrant a moral evaluation of the person. Emotions are automated responses, and moral evaluations apply to those things that are volitional. Just as one wouldn’t make a judgment about themselves for having a slow reflex, so one should refrain from taking emotional responses personally.

This is especially true of adolescents just becoming aware of their emotional natures or people who have recently changed fundamental ideas that they hold. Both are liable to feel emotionally out of control or disconnected from the ideas they hold. The proper perspective on this is to take emotional responses as they are, without moral judgment, and then set about to understand and craft them into a set of much more useful, harmonious responses.

Introspection as a key skill to aid emotional development

Suppose you were wandering in the desert and came upon an ancient, alien form of transportation, some sort of spaceship maybe. You found the control center and notice a set of controls and an instrument panel. How would you go about understanding the craft? A couple of obvious questions to ask are “What do the instruments tell me?” and “Are they in proper working order?” You might try operating the craft and seeing what controls resulted in certain actions, and which instruments responded to various actions. You might remove some access panels and examine how the instruments are wired to various parts of the craft.

The process is analogous when dealing with emotions. They are or can be effective instruments for the operation of our corporeal “craft.” However, we become aware of their existence and operation as already formed entities. Only then do we set about to understand their function, and where their function is not useful or helpful to rewire them so as to make them more useful.

One of the fundamental ways that we understand how our emotions are wired, and how they function is through the process of introspection. By introspection, I mean the focusing inward to understand what is causing your emotions. I mean an conscious active probing and seeking, as opposed to a passive “pondering” or reflecting. Active introspection about seeks to answer two questions: “What am I responding to?” and “What ideas led to the formation of this emotion?”. The second question might not seem so obvious at first, but if you buy the explanation above, that ideas held now or in the past are built into your emotional responses, then this has to be at the root of figuring out your emotional “wiring.” There are lots of ways to accomplish this step. I find journaling a good way of verbalizing feelings. Other methods include role playing, fantasizing, and replaying events or memories in your head. All are methods of experimenting with your feelings to find out what ideas they are connected to.

As a side note, cognitive psychology seems to be the psychological school that best reflects therapy based on these principles, i.e. that emotions can be understood, and bringing them to a conscious level of understanding allows you to then work on modifying your responses.

So that’s the basic framework. So much more to discuss, methods, contrasting perspectives, errors, etc. But the post is long enough. Ask a question and I’ll go there though.

2010 Goals

2010-01-05T23:05:00.001-05:00

It is that time of year again; the time when I put together my objectives for 2010. Looking back at last year’s goals I am quite pleased with my accomplishments. Although I didn’t complete everything on last year’s list (most notably getting published, and titling Moxie) I am still happy with the way I ended the year. I experienced a significant unplanned life event in the form of my move to Philly and a new job, and my while I only competed in one duathlon this year, I shredded it, turning in a personal best after only 8 weeks of training to prepare.

This year’s goal list is a bit shorter. I have a set of professional goals, but I don’t list them here, and this is a pretty pivotal year for my career. So I expect that my priority will be there and my personal goals less so. However, there are still a few pretty aggressive goals here, and a few that excite me as well. Without further adieu.

Fitness – compete in a road triathlon, an off-road tri/du and one marathon. While it may sound similar to last year’s goal, this goal implies that I’m going to improve my swimming, get my MTB riding to the point where I can race, and put some serious time into running. All new activities that I’ve not focused on before.
Reading – Read 1 book per month for a total of 12. I had this goal from last year, but the reality it I only hit about 6 or 7. Maybe the choice to bite off Anna Karenina mid-year did me in.
Writing – publish 1 TOS article. Another repeat, but this one is really important to me. I’m going to focus less on blogging this year, although I need to get Simply Capitalism back on its feet. Also I’m going to finish that short story I’ve been working on for the last year or so.
Dmitri – try to bring Dmitri out to Philly at least 3 times during the year. My step son is back in Michigan and seeing him is important to me. This is a critical must do goal.

I have a few items in the new activity area.

Get certified to charter a large sailboat. I’ve been sailing since I was a kid, and I’ve sailed on big boats as well, but never learned enough to charter sail. Since I’m not living near the ocean and sailing schools, this is the perfect opportunity to complete something I’ve always wanted to do. Of course this means that there is a charter vacation in my plans sometime next winter. Anyone want to join me for a week in the British Virgin Islands for a week aboard my boat?
Learn to surf. Something else I’ve wanted to do. I used to windsurf extensively, and again living so close to the Jersey shore means that surfing is readily available.
Become more competent at drawing. Part of a longer term goal to eventually learn to do some painting, I want to get my drawing skills improved. Several places convenient in the city where I can do this.

That’s it. With my professional goals as well, this will keep me quite occupied for 2010. What are some of your goals?

Year End Objectivist Round-up

2009-12-31T10:54:00.001-05:00

Hey, Jen has the year end Round-up over at her blog. This issue is a “Best of 2009” issue. Don’t miss the extra-special Objectivisty goodness! Two of my most read posts are included in the mix.

Realizing a Long-term Goal – How to Make Yourself into a Cook

2009-12-26T15:27:00.001-05:00

It’s a lazy day after Christmas and I am doing what I normally do at year’s end: using the time to clean up unfinished tasks that I’ve been meaning to complete. Today it’s reading; I’m cleaning out my backlog of magazines and trying to make progress on the two books I’m reading. One of the sets of magazines I’m catching up on is a few back issues of Cooking Light. Given that this is the time of year to think about goals and given that I’ve used that subscription to improve my cooking skills over the last few years, I thought I’d relate that method for you as a way to look at developing goals and making good on them over the long term.

Cooking was always something I enjoyed but never really spent enough time on to do really well. Mostly I appreciate eating good food. As I was exiting my marriage about two years ago I decided that I wanted to become a better cook, specifically I wanted to be able to make meals that I could enjoy eating, that is being able to make really tasty food. I chose to do this with a particular method or formula that was regimented and thereby relatively easy to follow and stick to. Here’s what I did:

Bought a subscription to a cooking magazine. In my case it was Cooking Light. I had a few friends who made recipes from the magazine regularly, and had enjoyed tasting them so my decision was easy.
As each month’s issue arrived, I would in reading it mark those recipes that I thought looked good.
I’d make photocopies of the marked recipes and place those copies into a stack.
I resolved to make a regular habit out of grocery shopping picking the same time each week to go the store. This afforded me the ability of being able to plan menus for the week.
At planning time I’d go through the recipes in the stack and pick 2 or 3 that sounded good at the time, and make a shopping list for the ingredients for that recipe.
That week I’d take a few nights to prepare the selected recipes. If I liked them, I’d make a few notes about them (what they would go with, suggestions to improve the taste, etc) and then place them into a 3 ring binder. If not, then I’d either consider retrying them or discard the recipe altogether.

Over the course of a year or so then I managed to build up a repertoire of recipes that I liked, and in the course to improve my cooking skills. Sometimes, I’d make an error in the preparation by not realizing the importance of particular step. I’d make a note about it on the recipe, and then maybe a month or two later retry the recipe. If a particular combination of two dishes didn’t pair well, I’d make a note about what I thought the recipe would be better paired with, or maybe make a note about what sort of wine would pair well with the dish.

I think that this method had some really nice advantages over say simply buying a cookbook.

I wasn’t committing a lot of extra time, but rather was committing to a consistent routine. Any week I never was biting off more than I could chew or expecting to become proficient overnight. I simply was taking time to plan menus that were selected based upon my interest in eating the foods described.
I was learning techniques as I was making recipes. For example, 2009 saw Cooking Light do a while series of issues on basic techniques (braising, steaming, sautéing, grilling) and with each I’d understand the mechanisms of how each worked, what types of dishes they were used to prepare, and what they did not do well.
I was using my own interest in eating good food, by reading about it regularly to continue to keep myself motivated to try the recipes. I think this aspect is critical. Considering the fact that you’re going to have days when recipes fail (and believe me I did! sometimes a whole week’s worth turned out poorly) its easy to get discouraged.
Because the method is systematic, when it came down to the preparation of the dish on a particular evening, the planning had already been done. The recipe was tacked to the fridge. I knew all the ingredients were already purchased. On any evening I could simply focus on the basics of preparing the dish. And when you’re coming home from a long day at work, this is the sort of ease that you want. In fact I actually got to the point where cooking was a form of decompression for me. My work is at times abstract, long term, and at time frustrating. Cooking is immediate, concrete, and “hands on.” My success or failure was entirely mine, and would be evident within 60 minutes of starting.
Finally I was learning how to think about the science of preparation, not just trying to make recipes. By understanding cooking concepts and then attempting to use them, and by analyzing what went wrong or right I was making these techniques concrete for myself. Essentially applying theory to practice.

The result? Well, I won’t say that I’m a great cook. There are still lots of people whose skills I admire much more than my own. But what has changed is that I’m confident that I can assemble a menu, and prepare a meal well; one that I enjoy eating and would not be embarrassed to prepare for someone else. And that was essentially my goal. I also find that now I can modify recipes to suit my taste because I understand the principles behind how they are put together. All this has had the effect that making food at home is now something I can do as a social activity. I used to enjoy greatly going out to eat with friends or heading to a party where I knew the host(ess) was a great cook. There is something about enjoying good friends and good food together. Now I can do that by my own hand. This sort of sensual, emotional experience is one that is tied to experiencing our values through the people that we value, and our ability to provide them an enjoyable experience, and it is a fantastic experience to be able to create. Some people even make their careers by helping others understand and create this experience, such as good friend and objectivist Jen Iannolo, whose Culinary Media Network strives help people bring that sort of sensual experience into their own lives.

As an example, I had my sister over yesterday for Christmas. The day consisted of not much more than playing with our pups, and chatting, maybe watching a movie. But I inserted food into the mix and it added a special ingredient. In the afternoon I had a small cheese plate, and made up some homemade guacamole (first time I’d ever made it) which turned out fantastically. Then for dinner I made a tenderloin steak with sautéed spinach, and herbed potatoes. My Philly apartment isn’t conducive to owning a grill so I’ve been working on the best way to prepare meats without it. After several different attempts using slightly different technique variations, I made these steaks by first searing them in a pan for about 3 minutes a side, and then finishing them using the broiler, using internal temperature to gauge doneness. The spinach was sautéed in sesame oil and garlic and finished with just a bit of rice wine vinegar to complete the wilting process. The potatoes tossed in olive oil and herbs, and then roasted in the oven. The whole meal came out perfectly; the preparation was part of the experience as she sat at the bar and helped while we chatted.

It’s taken a year or so to get to this point, but this is what I envisioned as a goal. A goal that was reached by a method that was rather simple to execute looking back on it. Next year, cooking will be about expanding my repertoire. We’ll see what comes out in my goals for the year. That post will be up in a about a week. Stay tuned.

Pierre and the Caroline Blue Bells

2009-12-25T20:34:00.001-05:00

I’m sitting back after a wonderful Christmas spent with my sister, and feeling generally radiant about life. So rather than a heavy post on some intellectual topic I thought I’d pull something a little bit more personal out. This story is from almost twenty years ago, but I posted it to a private blog a year or so ago (original post date: 1/11/08) after pulling out my journal from the experience and reliving it through those words. I’m not too sure what it has to do with Christmas other than I think this time is a time to sit back and reflect on one’s life; to savor it. You’ll see how this ties into it if you keep reading.

+ + +

It was 1992, and I'd decided to go on a backpacking expedition. I'd graduated college a year earlier and taken a two week trip to Colorado with Lori. Before that, the last packing trip I'd taken was as a Boy Scout in my teens. So I decided that I was going to do a solo trip and had chosen Maine's Hundred Mile Wilderness, based upon a review I'd read in Backpacker magazine. The Wilderness is the last 100 miles of the Appalachian Trail, ending at it's northern terminus, Mt. Katahdin. It is a contiguous, uninterrupted, rugged, foreboding hundred miles buried deep in the northern Maine woods. Once you start, there is really no way out but to finish, and for most of the trip one will be at least 50 miles from help. The idea of such a trip might seem like biting off more than one could chew, but for some reason I was drawn to it. Maybe it was a testosterone-laced sense of bravado, the need to prove something to myself after my breakup with Lori, or just plain stupidity. It was probably a mix of all those and more. So the decision was made.

After arriving in Maine at midnight after a marathon drive out from Michigan, a brief sleep, and huge breakfast, I set out, with a 60 lb pack on my back filled with 2 weeks of provisions. The trip started horribly. I was carrying so much weight, that I was slow, and on my first day, I stopped several miles short of my planned camp site. Rain set in. Day 2 saw me still hiking at 10 pm, exhausted, headlamp lighting the way, stumbling along the trail, arriving in camp after most other hikers had gone to sleep. Also unknown to me, my pack frame had cracked and the weight of my pack was poorly distributed causing chafing that by week's end would have me plastering duct tape to my hips to hold together the patches of blistered skin. Day 3, the third day of constant rain. I was losing feeling in my feet as they had been wet and cold for a solid three days, and I was behind my hike schedule by almost a full day. The weight of the pack was wearing me out by lunchtime. I was cold and wet, and demoralized, and at times scared. Suddenly this trip had become a daunting demon staring me down, and I was quickly crumbling under its constant stare.

I was considering quitting. There was one escape route about half way in that involved hiking out 15 miles on a logging road and then hitching a ride back to the start, and I was now considering taking it. But that was only one week of hiking and so I was also replotting my route to shorten each day so that I could stretch out the hike to a more respectable length. I hated doing it. I was ashamed. I was trying to grit every day out, and quickly crumbling and I had told everyone at home about my trip and they had been impressed. And now I was faltering. The trail was incredibly tough with wind-sucking, quad-burning climbs and root-littered, muddy trails. Several times I'd lost the trail and almost panicked at the thought of being lost in the woods. I felt alone and I felt like a failure, and worried about how I'd explain it all.

There were hikers all over the trial of course, "thru-hikers" mostly, walking the entire AT for the last 5 months from Georgia to Maine, all with colorful handles (e.g. "Cotton Patch," "Silverback," "Seabear," "Wild Bill," "The April Fools,"), forming a little trail micro-culture. And there were others as well, people doing just The Wilderness. By the fourth day I'd seen many of them a couple of times and was starting to learn their names. They were all friendly, but I was despondent and not in much mood to talk. On night 4 I stayed in a shelter about 5 miles shy of a creek. My plan was to camp at the creek the next night, and then the next day to the jump off point. With me in the shelter that night were two hikers, one a chemist who'd recently been laid off from a pharmaceutical firm and was thru-hiking the AT before starting a new job, and the other a French Canadian named (of all things) Pierre. Pierre was hiking the wilderness only, and I'd already spent a night or two with him at other shelters. His english was poor and we'd spoken very little, but he was a friendly, calm, quiet type. That night the three of us talked over dinner. I confessed to them that I was changing my plans and that I'd not go all the way through the wilderness. I talked a little bit about my frustration and disappointment. The next day's hike would mean that even if I changed my mind, I had lost enough distance that I probably had no way of making Katahdin. I'd "lost the moon" as Tom Hanks would say in Apollo 13.

The next day I was the last one out of the shelter and onto the trail, maybe trying to stretch my time since I only had a few miles to go before I camped. I reached the creek at about noon. Pierre was on the other side. He'd arrived a couple of hours before, and had taken a lazy lunch while he waited for his boots to dry out. I forded the stream and sat next to him and ate my own lunch quietly. I was through for the day. Half way through, Pierre got up, loaded up and turned to continue on the trail. I wished him well. He turned to me and said in broken english, "I see you at the shelter tonight." He didn't ask me; he just said it calmly as if it was simply the truth. And in those words he laid bare my options, my decision. He knew I wasn't planning on going to the shelter tonight, but he'd said it anyway.

And as I finished my lunch alone I weighed it. In my fear and concern at what others would think, and my depression and my efforts to quickly make my journey easier for myself at the least trifle, I'd somehow overlooked what I was giving up. I had 60 miles to go. And I realized that those 60 miles were looming up at me as an impenetrable fortress. They intimidated me. I considered the pain in my legs and my back and my hips, and my fatigue, and 60 miles seemed impossible. But it was only 5 miles to the next shelter. If I continued on I was committed. I'd have to go the distance, there was no turning back. And at that moment, what other people would think ceased to matter; no one was there with me. I asked myself if I could go 5 more miles, and I asked myself if I was prepared to go the full distance. It was not the next step that was daunting. It was thedecision to take the next step. It was somehow finding the will to begin, knowing the journey I had in front of me. I'm not sure what broke then, but I thought of Pierre and what he had said so calmly, and in that instant I was the person he was referring to. I simply saw myself making it. I finished my lunch, and I put my boots back on deliberately, and I loaded up, and I started off.

The trail was still as difficult, and although the rain had stopped, it was still wet and slippery. But I didn't falter. I was going to do this. The "escape plan" had evaporated and I was replotting camps and hikes in my mind order to make up time. My feet were still numb, but they carefully and deliberately put themselves one in front of the other for the next five miles until I reached the shelter just before sundown. Pierre was there cooking his dinner and he smiled and greeted me calmly as if he'd been expecting me. My trip changed that day as did my life. I learned that the way to conquer the seemingly insurmountable is not through strength, but through will, the courage to take the first step. That insurmountability is an illusion; a function only of your perspective. I learned where will comes from, from deep inside, motivated by self. The external does not motivate it, it must spark itself. And I learned what that spark feels like and what it takes to light it.

But that was not the only lesson I was to learn on this trip.

I continued on, the next three days, with daunting hikes each day. The first 60 miles of The Wilderness crosses 2 ranges of mountains. After that it spends 40 miles in the lowlands until coming upon Katahdin and the end of the AT. I spent the next 3 days finishing those first 60 miles. I gutted out each day. I saw many hikers during that time as well, and was moderately cordial to them. I was focused on the goal, and I was determined, and I had a schedule to keep. I took pictures during the first part of the trip but I can't say that I remember appreciating the scenery much. Even now that I had committed to Katahdin, I wasn't focused on it as much as the trail and my goals. The final peak in this segment was Whitecap mountain and as I crested it's summit, I was proud and happy. I could see Katahdin in the distance from the peak and I even though the path between here and there seemed incredibly long I knew that I would make it, one step at at time. I took a few pictures and descended to the next shelter at the base of Whitecap to camp for the night.

I grabbed a spot in the shelter, and began unpacking my pack to make dinner and go to sleep. Several other hikers had already picked out their spots in the shelter and were doing the same. I heard a noise from the trail and looked up to see two women arriving from the trail headed in the opposite direction as I was. I was a bit amazed when I saw them, as one of them looked to be in her mid 60's and the other was more frail and seemed to be more like 70. They were walking slowly and chatting happily together. They came up to the shelter and stopped and said hi to every hiker in the shelter, asking their name and where they were from. Through those various conversations I pieced together their story.

Aurelia Kennedy and Kakii Haudley were two retirees and best friends from North Carolina. They'd come from Katahdin!! I couldn't believe it. I then figured they'd be jumping off at the same mid-point I was planning on or that they were taking 3 weeks. No, they were doing the entire 100 Mile Wilderness in the same 10 days I planned! They backpacked regularly, and had the lightest equipment, in order to keep their packs under 25 lbs. In the spirit of thru-hikers they'd taken the handle of "The Carolina Blue Belles". They were friendly and bubbly, and infectious. After a while Aurelia unpacked her stove and began heating water for a late afternoon snack, while Kakii began scouting out a spot to pitch their tent. She decided on a spot next to the nearby brook after calling back and commenting to Aurelia how lovely the spot looked and how she loved to sleep next to a babbling brook.

Their snack consisted of tea and reconstituted vegetables that Kakii had grown in her own garden and then dried for the trip. And they talked to each other and the other hikers, asking each about their travels. I asked them about the trail they'd just come on from Katahdin, and they went one about how lovely it was, and how their climb of Katahdin had been gorgeous and such a sunny day. They spoke about the lakes and rivers they'd seen and the various thru-hikers they'd met, some of which I'd also met earlier in my hike. I asked how they got along on the trail and they said it was fine. They packed light, started early each day, walked at a leisurely pace and made good time as a result.

By this time I'd finished my dinner, and the sun was setting. I'd laid out my sleeping bag, and was talking to them tucked in my bag while they finished fixing their own dinner. I was amazed by these women. They were on a different kind of trip that I was. Not different in content for that was identical, but worlds apart in perspective. They had the same goals, the same "one foot in front of the other" perspective, for at their age they had to. But they were happy! They were living in this moment, soaking everything up, and appreciating every little thing they could. And they were infectious. They seemed to genuinely care about the other people they met, and take interest in their stories, enriching their own travels through their interaction with others. I on the other had, though having conquered my fear and set my sights on the goal, was "gutting" it out, stoic, focused.

Aurelia then spotted a book under my sleeping bag, and asked what I was reading. I pulled it out and showed it to her. It was a book of poems by Robert Frost. I'd brought it with me from Michigan somehow thinking that my favorite poet at the time and the Maine woods would go together. Truth was, I had been too preoccupied and too exhausted to enjoy it, even though I dutifully pulled it out and tried every night. Upon seeing it Aurelia gasped and asked if I wouldn't please regale them with a reading of some poetry. She asked so sweetly, and in that wonderful genteel Southern lilt found in the Southeastern coastal states, that I couldn't refuse. They had infected me by that time and I was having the first good night of my trip, one not focused on sleep and pain, and planning out the next day's trip. So I read to them. They each had a favorite and I found it for them and when I asked them to read they said no, they wanted me to do it, and so I did. "The Road Not Taken..," "My November Guest," "Fire and Ice," "Stopping by Woods," "Mending Wall" and on. At the end of each one, they would say "Oh, how lovely," and ask me what I thought of it, and talk of which images they liked the best and recall some memory from their own lives that was similar. And we talked like that for an hour or more. I made hot chocolate, and they had tea, and it was wonderful. Then they packed up their gear and thanked me ever so graciously for reading to them and headed off to their tent.

I sat and read Frost for another hour by the light of my headlamp and I loved it. I took in every poem I read and paused and considered it as they had, and the words seeped into my exhausted body until it finally reminded me that I needed sleep too. They awoke in the morning and made breakfast by their tent and broke camp. Before they left, they came over to the shelter where I was also packing up to head out. They thanked me again for the evening of poetry, and wished me well on my travel and ascent of Katahdin. Then Aurelia asked if I wouldn't like to read them one more poem before they left. They thought it would be a wonderful way to start the day. They asked if I had a favorite and I said I did, and they asked me to read it, and I did. They paused when I finished and said, "Oh my, that is a beautiful poem." And they thanked me again and I hugged them, and then they started off.

When I finally donned my pack that day it felt lighter, and I knew that the reason was not that it was lighter than the day before. My back still ached, and my legs did too, but not as much it seemed. That day, I was in the moment too, and it was as if I was floating over the terrain I was so light. And instead of looking down at the trail in front of me, I looked up, and I finally saw the forest and the beautiful colors, the streams, and the ponds and lakes with moose grazing in them. The air was clear and sunny and fresh and I felt alive. It had all been burned away, all the inessentials and I was here, with myself, for myself. It was not about the goal now. I was the goal. And Katahdin was merely a means of expressing myself. It was not that I seemed insignificant to the world. It was that I was more significant than anything. The world seemed smaller and I seemed larger, and everything was calm and effortless.

I walked 20 miles that day, if you can believe it. I scarce can. I hit my planned campsite at the 13 mile mark by 2 in the afternoon, and decided to press on another 7 miles to the next. The world was in technicolor, and I took it in, and I talked to everyone I met, and asked them at least one question about themselves, and I smiled when I left each of them and wished them well.

Another 4 days to Katahdin, and there were some rough patches, but I carried those lessons with me, and the trials never seemed quite so hard as a result. I climbed Katahdin on October 1st, along with several thru-hiker friends I'd met in the last 4 days, and even witnessed a wedding of two thru-hikers at the summit. I was elated at the summit and so was everyone else. It was a wonderful feeling, pure and rich and floating.

I have a difficult verbalizing how that trip changed my life. I'm certainly not in those perfect states all the time, but much more of the time now. When I came back I had this sort of calmness as someone coming back from war, who sees the trials of everyday life and realizes that they are insignificant compared to the past experience, and who handles themselves calmly and matter of factly. I look back among the posts I've written in the last few months and realize that these two lessons, the lessons of will and savoring the moment litter everything I've written about. For me they are two of the pillars of egoism, and I would see those characteristics purely expressed in the heroes of The Fountainhead, which I was to begin reading shortly after returning home. One cannot coexist one without the other, for it is value and purpose that give life it's meaning, that allow one to sit back and savor the accomplishment. Without value savoring is simply idleness, and without the savoring value is simply stoicism. Together they are pure joy.

And that has made all the difference...

A few of the many pictures here.

Excerpts from my Journal

Things I Learned

1. Carry a walking stick. It helps you through the tough spots and keeps your pace up when you're getting tired.

2. The secret to making good time or distance in a day isn't to go faster - it's to start earlier.

3. Treat each root, boulder, brook, rock slide as a new and challenging problem all its own.

4. Patience - slow and methodical wins the race and keeps you alive.

5. Instant mashed potatoes are the thru-hiker's "perfect meal."

6. Never overestimate what you can get done on the 1st day.

7. Never underestimate what you can get done through the long haul.

8. Wear gaiters every single day. They work!

9. If you have to rest, at least find a place that's pretty - kills two birds with one stone.

10. Don't step on the roots. Step over them.

11. If you follow rule #8, then you can just plow through the mud instead of picking your way across the slippery log bridges. Have fun with it!

12. Wear your boots when you ford a river. Much safer.

13. If you don't stop to take in a view, then why hike.

14. When you get to camp, unload everything you're going to need right away cause you're going to unload it sooner or later anyway.

15. Don't pack your stove after dinner. You never know when you're going to want hot chocolate to go along with good conversation.

16. Let other people have their triumphs. Congratulate them and get out of their way.

17. Take time for your own triumph.

18. Never be afraid to give a little. It comes back to you in so many ways.

19. Get more names and addresses next time.

20. Everybody who tries makes a difference.

21. Thanks to everyone I met, I will keep you all in my heart.

Saying written in shelter logbook by AT thru-hiker

What is above knows what is below.

What is below knows not what is above.

There is a manner of conducting oneself in the lower regions by the memory of what one saw from above.

One cannot always see, but one can still know...

Kendall's poem for the Carolina Blue Belles to start their day

Into My Own - Frost

One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze,
Were not, as 'twere, the merest mask of gloom,
But stretched away unto the edge of doom.

I should not be withheld but that some day
into their vastness I should steal away,
Fearless of ever finding open land,
or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.

I do not see why I should e'er turn back,
Or those should not set forth upon my track
To overtake me, who should miss me here
And long to know if still I held them dear.

They would not find me changed from him they knew--
Only more sure of all I thought was true.

Poem for a frigid Oct 1st 1992 ascent of Mt. Katahdin

My November Guest - Frost

My Sorrow, when she's here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.
She talks and I am fain to list:
She's glad the birds are gone away,
She's glad her simple worsted grey
Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.

Not yesterday I learned to know
The love of bare November days
Before the coming of the snow,
But it were vain to tell her so,
And they are better for her praise.

The eBook Explosion

2009-12-24T20:02:00.001-05:00

It seems Obloggers are into their eBooks. Both Diana and Paul Hsieh have each weighed in with successive posts looking at their versions of the Amazon Kindle and Ari Armstrong weighs in at his blog as well. No one it seems is quite happy yet. Diana doesn’t like the “Heraclitean stream” of words, and the inability to make detailed annotations. Ari naively thinks that the DRM is killing the industry. And Paul, although closest to thinking his DX ideal, only uses it to read books as he’s travelling.

Given the debate I thought I’d weigh in with my experiences. Although I’ve been reading eBooks for over 2 years now, I have yet to buy into an e-reader like the Kindle. The reason is simple. I’m an techie contrarian; eBook technology and devices are yet too immature, and I prefer to buy in when winners have been determined and the technology and business model are proven. I will forgo being the first one on the block with a new technology and keep my options open until such time as it makes sense to commit to a proprietary channel. Although my family has had iPods since their inception, I am only now considering buying one. I still remember the first Shuffles, and Mini’s that were overpriced pieces of junk.

If I haven’t bought a reader, how have I been reading eBooks? I started reading them on my mobile smartphones, first a Palm Treo and most recently a Blackberry 8800 series. Great options when I was travelling on business and there was simply nothing else to read, but difficult experiences at best. Since I purchased a small MSI Wind netbook over a year ago, I’ve been reading books on that platform as well. My software of choice has been Mobipocket reader and my content has almost exclusively been open source content obtained from Project Gutenberg. Almost anything published before 1925 is available at Gutenberg (Aristotle, Locke, The Federalist, Hugo, Dumas, Twain, Fitzgerald… the list goes on), and given that I’ve been wanting to add classical literature to my repertoire, this seemed like a perfect way to experiment with the ebook experience without making an early commitment. Mobipocket has it’s own store as well, and I have purchased one book mostly as an experiment with the purchase process and to understand the DRM issues. I have recently added Kindle’s e-reader software for the PC and eagerly am looking forward to the Blackberry version which should be out soon. I want a Kindle desparately but I’m holding out until a few features are better developed.

My thought so far? Well, if you’re a very specific type of reader – if you read mostly popular literature in high volume without much study of the content - then ebooks have matured enough to satisfy you. This is the target segment that commercial eReaders like the Kindle are targeting to build their initial bases and I think that they are being quite successful in penetrating this market. That is, ebook readers have mastered the features of readability, convenience in purchase, and portability. If you’re the type who always has a book or newspaper wherever you go, reads for enjoyment, and doesn’t need to study the text, and hangs out in Barnes & Noble or Borders on weekends, then go buy an eReader. The fact is, this really is most consumers. You’re ready for it and it is ready for you. This type of reader is simply replacing the book you’d normally tote with a much more convenient eReader and that is certainly an improvement.

So let’s talk about technology for a moment. The one feature that I wish I had on my platforms is the e-ink technology. I am working entirely with backlit LCD displays. They each have pros and cons as pertains to reading environments (e-ink is great in full light and daylight – lcd’s rock in dimly lit spaces such as the bar I’m writing this from) LCD’s can be hard on the eyes and I find that I fatigue much more quickly when reading from and LDC display. I have managed to compensate for this a bit by using the Mobipocket software’s settings to change background and text color so as to make it easy on the eyes. (I use a light beige background with grey – not black – text. In low light, I darken the background, and in daylight I shift to a white background)

My netbook although slightly heavier than say a Kindle is quite easy to use. I have an app that rotates the screen with a key combination so I can hold it in my hand as if I was holding an open book. The advantage of the netbook is two-fold. First, I can make detailed annotations using the netbook’s fully functional PC keyboard, and second, the netbook itself is multifunctional so I don’t carry a separate laptop and e-reader when I travel. My netbook is my e-reader, PC, and last ditch phone and music player.

Diana’s observation that she found navigating an ebook more frustrating than a paper book is one that I share. I didn’t realize this until I studied the ways in which I use a paper book to help me navigate and recall my location in the text. When I’m returning to a paper book after weeks of not reading, I may not remember where I am. As a result I’ll hold my place and flip back a few pages, scanning paragraphs as I go until I can get enough of a gist of where I am in the story to return to my spot and continue forward. This is eminently easier with a paper book than with an ebook, as the pages and visual patterns of the pages are an aid to fast navigation. I find myself grasping for page numbers. Without those visual cues, re-familiarizing myself my location is much more difficult. This leads to the feel of a Heraclitean stream that Diana reports.

As for the use of a phone like the iPhone or Blackberry to read, this in my mind is a last ditch option and will always remain so. The “Heraclitean” problem is compounded because not much more than a paragraph or two can be displayed on these devices. I have used them either when travelling, or commuting, but I have found that the best thing to read here are short stories, where one is not trying to integrate a story over more than a few sittings. As such the experience of page-size readers like the Kindle will be critical to the broad proliferation of the technology until such time as a leadership position is established.

Returning to business models, Amazon and the Kindle are the clear leaders, but the technology is still young and this could easily change. However, Amazon is 2 generations ahead in it’s reader technology, has a growing installed base, and is quickly taking the correct and savvy next steps to advance its position. I think that the development of this technology will ultimately follow the iPod model where the storefront and installed based will determine the dominate leader. The reader hardware may or may not play a critical role although successive generations need to improve the experience. However, DRM is critical to hold the installed based until a leadership position is established.

As an aside, Mobipocket is owned by Amazon, and the proprietary .mob format is identical to the Kindle’s .azw format, save for a digital switch that requires a check of the Kindle hardware’s id in order to read it. Gutenberg is now publishing in the .mob format and so that makes these open source files immediately readable on the Kindle platform. I think this is a brilliant move as it allows Amazon to experiment with the experience of different consumer segments without blurring the two until such time as they think they understand each consumer’s needs independently at which point they can remove this switch and allow instant cross platform compatibility of e-book libraries. Genius!

My recommendation? If you’re type of high volume reader I mentioned above, jump in with both feet. If you need more from your experience such as detailed annotation or clear cross-platform access then experiment with the experience. See what you like. See what you need.

Dan Edge Weighs In

2009-12-21T20:07:00.001-05:00

Dan Edge has posted a thoughtful review of my previous post on relationships. Thanks Dan. I’m happy that he pulled out a key point from the post, and that is the focus on an action orientation. And as such I take as a great honor that he chose to spend his time reading, digesting and ultimately responding to the post. He also rightly points to my discussion of how to think about chemistry as needing further clarification. Dan and I discussed this point last night and it definitely could use some concrete examples. So I plan to come back with some thoughts on it, but not before I finish the 2nd installment in the series.

For those of you who are eagerly waiting on that post, know that I haven’t forgotten you. I’m still sorting through some of the essential points and hope to get to work on it over the Christmas break. Stay tuned!

How I’ve Changed – Part I, Personal Relationships

2009-10-10T10:23:00.001-05:00

It’s an overcast Saturday morning in Philadelphia. I’ve a cup of tea in hand; my dog is still lazily crashed out on the sofa. I’ve yet to build a desire to start my weekend chores so I’m banging out a post.

This post has been knocking around in my head for a couple of weeks now. The idea for it came from an exchange I had recently with a good friend who I haven’t seen in over a decade. He used to be a student employee of mine, and has since had a very successful career overseas and is still stationed in Hong Kong. I had sent him an example of some poetry I’d written (he was/is a poet as well and I thought he’d appreciate the note). The response he sent was a thoughtful mix of thanks, and regret for not staying in touch. And then he said this,

I know how much I've changed since those days -- some of the changes I'm glad for and some I'm not so sure about ..

And that’s what started it. I know I’ve changed in the past twenty years of adulthood; but how would I describe that change? If I had to boil it down into essentials, what would I say is different? I like thinking about that sort of thing; trying to see if I can look at this mass of data that is the last twenty years of my life and see if I can tease out some fundamental understanding from it. What I came up with interested me and so I decided to turn it into a series of posts (originally just to have been Facebook posts, but now deemed quality enough for The Crucible)

Starting to think on this topic, my mind wandered back to a facebook status update I’d made only a day before that seemed really fundamental to the tone of the change that the last twenty years of my life has taken. I wrote this,

There's no other place in the world I'd rather be right now than right here living this life.

That blurb was not some sort of self-talk, scripted phrase I was speaking to myself because I wanted to feel that way. No, at the moment I wrote it I was in the throes of a powerful emotional response to my life in general. I had just left work after a good day; it was a beautiful September day in Philadelphia, and I was headed home to a slate of activities that night around a whole set of goals I’d set for myself. I was feeling this incredible emotional high about my life. But instead of being a rare occurrence it is something I feel almost daily. While I don’t think that the feeling itself is a rare thing, I think the consistency, strength and level of integration of that emotion throughout my daily life is, well, rare.

That became my lead. I certainly couldn’t have said that about my life twenty years ago. Find the root of that change in my life, and I had this sense that I’d find some of the key things that have happened to me over the last two decades.

So I began noodling. I started by chronicling in my head data related to this idea. What other changes could I describe that in part lead to this feeling? Here are a few of the things that I noticed about myself that are very different from the me of twenty years ago (some of this will sound a bit “zen” to my Objectivist friends. Don’t worry, I didn’t leave it at that level of mystery, but instead try to look at the fundamental causes.) :

I find today a far greater integration of my head and my heart, of my thoughts and emotions. This yields a feeling of peace or centeredness or balance.
I think my daily emotional responses today are far less mixed, or clouded and as a result are much more intense, pure and powerful. I describe this to people as living in “technicolor.”
I seem to be able to stop and live purely in the moment, savoring even small pleasures and joys fully without the immediate weight of that adult list of goals, and tasks, and worries. Again, this lends an incredible feeling of intensity in the moment.
Yet, in contrast, today my goals are far more long range and far more complex than they’ve ever been, and I simultaneously feel incredibly effective and competent in my ability to plan and make decisions that will affect my life years out in the future.
I don’t feel a nostalgia for a “simpler, easier” time in my life. The simplest, easiest, most joyful time in my life is right now.
I find that my relationships with other people are far richer, deeper and stronger than they have ever been. This includes both my ability to strike up a rapport with new people I meet, my ability to develop deep lasting friendships with a wide variety of people, and my ability to hold those friendships even across time and distance (as with my friend.)

Now I look at this list and the first thing I feel is pride. I’m not suggesting perfection in describing these things, but when I think across a continuum, I am far more to this side of things than their less mature counterparts. And certainly after thinking about this list, I was highly motivated to ask the next question: How? How have these sorts of things come about in me? What were the key causal factors that led to these changes? Like my friend I wondered if they were changes I had made consciously or had simply happened to me. Where they mysterious or could they be traced back to certain actions and choices?

Of course, my Objectivist friends know what perspective I’ll start with as a default, that the things that others might see as “mysteries” in life are actually knowable, understandable, and actionable. That somewhere these changes are the result of choices conscious or unconscious in my life over the last twenty years. And that there is a causal aspects to them. This doesn’t make life less wondrous, but in fact (I think) even more wondrous and beautiful.

So after weeks of mulling things over, of taking examples from my life and testing out my ideas, I think I’ve boiled it down to 3 major things. Listed with most fundamental first they are:

The use of philosophy as a practical science for determining how to live one’s life, and more specifically a framework to understand what role value plays in one’s life. i.e. this is the science of ethics, what should man value, and how should he go about pursuing those values.
The development of a useful framework to be able to deal with and integrate my emotional responses.
The development of a useful framework to characterize and deal with my relations with other people.

So obviously these are three very broad and abstract ideas. I’ll try to deal with one each in a series of posts, beginning with what I viewed as the least fundamental but one of the most enriching, relationships.

_____________________________

The basic principles on relationships comes straight from Objectivism and Rand, but learning how to operationalize those principles has been a years long journey of steady progress. When I speak of relationships here I speak both of romantic love as well as the respect and admiration that form a friendship as I think that at the root, they are driven by the same sorts of guiding mechanisms. I’ll use the term “love” to denote all these forms in my discussion.

As an aside, I recently met Objectivist blogger Dan Edge, and over a brief dinner the topic of relationships, and specifically my ideas in this post came up. This is a big area of interest for Dan and he’s written extensively on the psycho-epistemology of relationships. He was extremely helpful in clarifying some of my ideas, and I’m sure he’ll have a few comments as well.

So here is my framework and a little bit of development of each of these guiding principles.

Love as the selfish expression of value for oneself and another.

If there is one idea that is the most pernicious today and that I hear repeated far too often with regard to relationships it is the idea that the essence, the fundamentality of love lies in its unconditionality. Yet, if the highest moral form of love is to love, without regard for ourselves or for the type of person whom we are to love, then the very concept of love is destroyed. And I would counter that if we look at the relationships that we have that we feel strongly about, that we get emotional about, that one would find that this response is not directed at those things that are common to every man including the cretin or mooch. But rather that these responses result from the unique, the highest in others. We respond to people because we admire them, because we respect them. And we respect them not because they are like every other man including the thief and the liar, but because they are different, because they are good, because they share the same sorts of ideals that we hold. When we admire, we must differentiate, and when we admire, we admire the best, the uncommon. And we admire those things because we share in them.

This is a profoundly selfish act. And it is causal. Love, respect and admiration are the things that we feel when we find in others the things that we hold to be the best within us. This, not selflessness or unconditionality is fundamental essence of love and friendship. Here is how Rand puts it.

“Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character. Only a brute or an altruist would claim that the appreciation of another’s person’s virtues is an act of selflessness, that as far as one’s own selfish interest and pleasure are concerned, it makes no difference whether one deals with a genius or a fool, whether one meets a hero or a thug, whether one marries and ideal woman or a slut.” – The Objectivist Ethics

So this is a fundamental shift in my thinking over the last several decades. Coming from a Christian background I used to believe in the unconditionally principle, that love was a selfless thing and that its highest expression was to give of our selves to all people regardless of status, expecting nothing in return. I can’t begin to describe how destructive this idea was in my life, and it took years to weed out all of the places that it’s tentacles reached into my psyche.

So does unconditionally describe something that has merit. Yes, but only in a very limited contextual sense. When we evaluate a person we do so in a hierarchy of value. Some things are more important than others in a person’s character. To forgive someone a fault is a recognition of this hierarchy. We forgive the small things, but we do so because the more important things are good and valuable. We forgive a good husband the fact that he sometimes forgets to take out the trash, but we do so because he is a solid, good, and faithful husband. This is not an expression of true unconditionality, but rather a reflection of the fact that that love is based upon the virtues of another and that those virtues have a priority of importance. We do not ask the beaten wife to forgive her unrepentant, violent husband by virtue of the fact that he remembers steadfastly to take out the trash. That would be true unconditionality.

Now Dan Edge challenged me a bit on this idea, asking whether it is really always virtue that we identify and psychologically respond to. What of this notion of the idea of psychological “chemistry.” In his series “The Psycho-Epistemology of Sexuality” he discusses what he calls “individuating elements of self,” that we are also drawn to and have emotional responses to. If for instance you and someone else share a love of the baseball and specifically the Philadelphia Phillies, that this aspect could be a basis for having a shared emotional connection, and that this is also a fundamental part of a relationship. Doesn’t this fly in the face of a claim that virtue is what we really respond to? I agree with this in a qualified sense. A few years ago, as I was crystallizing the ideas in my head that would lead to my decision to divorce, I wrote to a friend on the topic of relationships. It’s still one of the best posts I’ve written on the topic. Here is what I said about chemistry.

“Character before chemistry (or make sure the chemistry you're attracted to is tied to character)…
I'm not saying that chemistry (i.e. all those behavior things that attract you to a person) isn't important. What we are really attracted to initially in a person is their "sense of life" [after all]. But some of what makes up chemistry is easily mutable, and some of it is more stable. The part that is more stable is more closely tied to values and virtues. If you can, ask yourself if you can tell that behaviors have value judgments behind them, or if they are value-less, or if they show contradictions. Find the chemistry that you believe flows out of character and that is the chemistry that is likely to be more stable. Additionally I think some elements of chemistry can be "learned", so even if you don't feel chemistry in a particular area look for character traits that are still there.”

So what has this change in perspective led to in terms of my relationships? What did my previous more self-less relationships look like? I think when you lose the idea of self, and it’s importance, two things happen. First, if respect and admiration are a reflection of value, one fails to know explicitly their own values, leaving ones responses to other people to be whatever your range of the moment emotional responses give you. In essence I didn’t know why I valued people so I found myself choosing based solely upon my emotional responses. Secondly, without this concept of value in a relationship, one completely fails to recognize and take into account why another person would want to reciprocate. That is, one fails to recognize that a relationship requires not only value on your end, but on the end of the other person. This leads to a very sort of immature conception of relationships, where one response to one’s own range of the moment emotional responses without focusing on either one’s own or the other’s needs in the relationship. Some people mislabel this as a “selfish” response. Dan calls it “self-centeredness” contrasting it with objective selfishness. I prefer to keep it distinct as a form of selflessness because I think at it’s heart that is what really drives is.

The substance of that value as a series of actions, as trades, or spiritual payments.

So what makes up the substance of a personal relationship with someone else? What does it consist of? Certainly we’ve talked about valuing and respecting another, and we’ve talked a bit about the emotional joy one takes in that esteem for another. But these are not enough. At its core a relationship is made up of a series of actions. In the Objectivist ethics, to value something is to act to keep and or gain it. What you think about something is important because it helps you decide what to value, but it is insufficient. The same is true of a friendship or love that you value. It is defined by the actions you choose. what is the nature of this set of actions? It has a unique set of characteristics. Back to Rand,

“Love, friendship, respect, admiration are the emotional response of one man to the virtues of another, the spiritual payment given in exchange for the personal, selfish pleasure which one man derives from the virtues of another man’s character.” – The Objectivist Ethics

We act out of respect, admiration or love because we have received pleasure or joy from another person, and if we are consciously explicit about it, that pleasure is derived from the best within them. In that sense the action is a payment or trade with another. Now I’ve heard some decry the idea of actions as trades or exchanges as a crude example of why conditionality is bad. “How can you force a claim on someone by giving to them with the expectation of some return.” My answer is that this is a mischaracterization of the trade. I am not making a payment with the expectation that I can now claim some reciprocation. It is not a quid pro quo, in that sense. I have already received my benefit! It is the joy I am already deriving from this relationship! My payment is not for future benefit, but for benefit already received. This is why Rand calls it a spiritual payment. Such actions say, “I’m doing this for you, because I admire/respect/love you, and the person you are today brings me great joy.” And that’s all. There is no claim on future returns. Accounts are already paid.

So what sort of actions might we choose in this exchange? The answer to this question lies in the recognition that a relationship must be of value to the other person for them to want to continue it as well. And if relationships at their core are based upon admiration for the highest virtue and character in another, then that should be a component of what you return. If you derive joy from the best and the highest in another, then give of the best and the highest within yourself. Give what will be valued, in terms that the other person will see and value. Sounds awfully abstract. What does this mean?…

Dan challenged me again on this point over dinner, effectively saying “Come on Kendall, do you really think that every action we undertake in a relationship is somehow tied to our value of another? Every single little action?” My answer to that Dan is that it need not be. But in fact, to the extent that it is, to the extent that I hold those ideas explicitly in my mind, and act consistently on them, is the extent to which one is able to enrich and deepen connections with other people. It is the very illustration of the point I’m trying to make. For those of you who weren’t there, Dan stopped by Philly on his way north, and we had a brief dinner and conversation. Within about ten minutes of meeting we bonded. I don’t think that was an accident, and that it was our choices and actions that became a series of trades which ultimately led to a very intense discussion and a feeling of connection. I offered dinner and conversation because I know we both revel in ideas. I specifically chose to discuss this post because I know relationship theory is a particular interest for Dan. And he chose to engage me, to challenge my ideas where he saw gaps, because I’m sure he knew that if I was rational and honest, I would value such a frank discussion. To the extent that we held this framework consciously in our minds and acted upon it, I’m convinced helps explain why we bonded. That has been my experience.

I’ll give another example in a more romantic context. One of the best dates I can think of is cooking dinner for a woman. I am a huge lover of all things beautiful and sensual, of esthetics in general; art, music, food, flowers. On one level to prepare a meal with all the trimmings (music, flowers, candlelight) for a woman takes effort and skill. It is not an easy thing, and to do it in a sense requires the best of what you are. But on a sensual level it is an esthetic, spiritual gift. It says “I’m going to use all my effort and skill to surround you with things that are beautiful; that you can directly perceive as beautiful through your senses, and in doing so directly create for you the emotional response that you bring me.”

Look at how the nature of a relationship changes with this framework. One admires the best in people, gives of the best in themselves to express this admiration. One understand explicitly why one feels the way they do, and seeks to understand how they can provide value for value gained from the relationships. One does not seek to be loved in spite of their flaws but because of their virtues. The things that generate pride in me, generate admiration when I see them in others. When reciprocated in the same fashion it creates an almost electric spiral of connection whether a friendship or a romantic relationship. I can only describe relationships like these as heroic. This is what I feel so much more of today.

Love as a dually volitional

I think the final aspect of relationships that I’ve come to understand and appreciate much more deeply is the aspect of relationships as dually volitional. That is, both people must decide that they value and want to pursue a relationship. Unlike goals or values that we pursue individually, where only our own choice determines if we succeed or fail, one aspect of any relationship is forever out of our direct control: the choice of the other person.

The younger me had trouble sometimes differentiating this difference. I would take it personally when others chose not to pursue relationships with me. I would continue even after that to try to pursue such relationships, thinking somehow (as with all my own individual goals) that the force of my will would eventually persuade them that they really did value me.

I no longer take this personally, nor do I take responsibility for another’s choices. I am responsible only for my half of the equation. I hold myself responsible to know why I value people. There is no guarantee that I’ll be valued in the same way. I hold myself responsible to offer the best within me. There is no guarantee it will be reciprocated. I hold myself responsible because I want and pursue relationships because I value them, and derive selfish joy and pleasure from them. There is no guarantee that others view relationships in the same way.

Operationalizing it

So here are my four action rules that operationalize the principles listed above. I’m not going to expound on them too much as hopefully they will seem clear after the discussion.

Find people of the highest character you can. Seek out admirable people regardless of means, background, and all the other superfluous characteristics. Where chemistry is concerned, its ok to seek more optional factors, but seek out those that ultimately stem from character if you can determine them.
Know why you like them. Spend time to introspect and be explicit and concrete about why you like them. Yes, you have direct emotional responses to people. They are not magic or mysterious. They are causal. Know the causes. Doing this will help you become a better judge of people, and it will help you hold that admiration and respect much more strongly and clearly.
Seek to understand them. Understand what they value and how they value it. This will help you not only understand their character, but also help you craft actions that they will strongly value.
Act to express you admiration, respect and love. Remember, it’s not a relationship until you act to keep it. Do this by reflecting that respect and admiration, by offering of yourself in ways that give of the best of you, and in ways that the other person will value.

I believe these ideas are at the core of the relationships I have today. I believe they are the reasons that I have the strong connections with people that I do. And while there is no guarantee that everyone you approach will reciprocate, I can assure you that if you practice these ideals, that you will end up with an incredible rich and durable set of relationships in your life.

In my next post I’ll deal with the topic of emotions.

Published

2009-08-17T07:00:00.000-05:00

I am happy to announce that an op-ed I wrote on Carbon Cap and Trade policy was published in my (then) local newspaper, The Midland Daily News. It was published in its entirety and with no editing.

Sadly, the article is not available online, but I am providing a link to my copy of it. This article was also my final paper for my OAC Intro to Writing course. I’m very proud of the piece and while MDN is a small town paper, it was a valuable introduction into the submission process. Consider it a small indicator of bigger things to come.

Booting Up and Back Online

2009-08-14T22:31:00.001-05:00

It’s been a long almost 3 months since I was regularly blogging. A few posts from OCON in between and almost 10 weeks of silence. I stopped for good reason. I needed to focus on a series of changes in my life. If you missed me, great! Know that my life is getting settled after going through significant change, and the time off has enabled me to focus on the changes and come back to blogging that much more quickly. Hopefully my regular readers are still out there and glad at my return. I expect that posting will ramp up both on The Crucible and sCap from this point forward so stay tuned!

To explain the changes a bit, I’ve transferred to a new job within my company and moved to a new city, Philadelphia! This after a period of turmoil within my company as the financial crisis hit, and we attempted a large acquisition right in the middle of it. Most of my colleagues and I have spent the last nine months wondering if we’d even have a job at the end of it. I had friends who sadly lost theirs. Luckily, I not only have mine, but I have been afforded a wonderful opportunity to work in the acquired company and to completely change my lifestyle. In the last month I’ve picked up my life in a small town in the Midwest, sold my four bedroom house on a quiet comfortable street and am now living in downtown Philadelphia in a small apartment not a few blocks from Independence Hall. I love the adventure, and Moxie and I have settled right in and are reestablishing all the routines that help keep life in balance and allow me to begin to focus on longer range pursuits.

And so as this process begins to happen and the tide of stress recedes, I thought I’d take a blog post to take an accounting of the goals I set at the beginning of the year. Part of the process of living a goal directed life is to use those goals to steer by.That is, as one works toward them, and unexpected events occur, one needs to periodically step back take stock of current position, get new bearings and adjust plans. I need to decide what the lost time of the last three months means, and which of my goals may have become unattainable this year, and which are still attainable yet need modification to the action plans.

So here is that analysis on those goals which I shared at the beginning of the year. The original goals are shown in bold.

House - Remodel two bathrooms, repaint two bedrooms, install that steam shower, and put in a very large flower bed in my back yard. That assumes I stay in this house (but that is a story for another time).

Well, I don’t have a house anymore so this one is nixed. I did manage to remodel one of those bathrooms, and get the painting done. I highly regret never finishing the steam shower installation. I would so liked to have used it just once.

Health - Compete in at least 3 duathlons, two of which are Olympic distance - bettering my 2007 time.

This one must be changed, just for the time component required to prepare. The season is ending, and realistically is over in early October. That is eight weeks away, and that is almost too short. 3 races are impossible, and after searching for races in my area, Olympic distance is also out since one has to pick what’s available. That means this one, or this one, both Sprint distance.

I’ve gotten to a minimum level of stamina and endurance to be able to kick training into high gear, but that training has to be very structured and focused. I’ve decided that since I’m proficient in technique for the run and bike, and that the race is shorter, that I don’t need to spend long hours there to get into shape. Instead, I’m opting for the first 2 months of a modified P90X program, supplemented by 1 or 2 well-designed training rides/runs every couple of weeks. Rather than risk pushing too hard and overtraining in the specific sports I’ll need, I am hoping that more cross training, and overall strength and conditioning will get me fit, with less risk of injuring myself. A buddy had convinced me to try the P90X earlier in the year and the move was an opportune moment to get set up, since I wanted to supplement my riding/running with work I could do in a small apartment with a minimum of equipment.

Needless to say, training starts Monday. I’m not worried about my time, although I’d like it to be competitive (yeah, I get like that….). My last slightly-shorter-than-Olympic-distance du was a 2:06, but that was a hilly course and a trail run, and I was in great shape. Honestly, I don’t know what that would translate into for a sprint distance, and I doubt I’ll have a good sense of it given the low level of actual ride/run time I’ve planned. I’ll just have to take what I can get.

Education - Complete next two OAC classes. Get a better grade than I got on the first one! (so humbling that was for this over-achiever!)

This one is on track. 1st class finished in winter semester, and 2nd due to start with the beginning of 2nd year. I wish I knew what my grade was for the first class (grumble, grumble…) but I felt as though I was getting the hang of it.

Books - Read at least one work of good literary fiction per month (for a total of 12). Yes, this might not seem like many, but Anna Karenina is on the list. Definitely a stretch goal.

Ugh. I am plugging away at this one, but I’m on book three (Anna Karenina) in month eight. I suspect I will fall short. Five to six may be more realistic.

Writing - Increase blog readership to a steady 100 visits/day (or ~3000/month). That's going to require a whole lotta changes, and a commitment to more regular blogging.

Taking a break from blogging has been a setback for this goal so I’m going to have to backtrack here. I may be doing well to get my readership back to what it was in January. That’s ok though. It’s a worthy goal, and I don’t think regardless of how busy I am that I could ever stop blogging for good. I got some great tips from Diana at OCON, and hope to implement those as well.

Writing - By years end, I will author one article for the Objective Standard. Yup, this one scares me a bit.

Still on the drawing board. Still a bit scary. I had hoped to take my OAC final op-ed on Cap and Trade and turn it into a 5000-6000 word article, but with C&T already languishing in Congress, I may have to change subjects. I don’t have good inspiration for a new topic yet. Ideas welcome! In good news, I did have that op-ed published, but there’s another post about that coming!

Canine - Title Moxie in AKC Agility - Open Class - both Jumpers and Standard. I'm not a high volume trial attendee so this one is going to require some finesse.

This one is going to require more than finesse now. I have not trained, have not found a new training facility (which I must have since I don’t have a yard or equipment anymore), and trial schedules get thinner after summer. Like the du, this requires preparation time with Moxie, and I am not sure I have it. I suspect I’ll have to table this goal until next year.

That’s it, the rest of my year (mostly)…

OCON Final Days

2009-07-11T15:25:00.001-05:00

It’s been a long week.

Saturday afternoon, and my optional courses are completed. I’m going to crash the closing dance tonight, and then quickly pack as my flight out is early tomorrow. Not much to update but here are the remainders:

Peter Schwartz gave a great lecture on the role of the free unfettered mind as part of a free market. Peter is a marvelous speaker and specializes in analyzing key controversial topics such as multi-culturalism, and libertarianism. He did this topic justice, literally!
Harry Binswanger completed his two part series on the nature of objectivity. In this lecture he analyzes the subjectivism/intrisicism/objectivism trichotomy and then illustrated the disastrous effects effects of subjectivism and intrisicism and the redeeming value of objectivity in various fields including ethics, law, art, and politics. He offered to illustrate the same in baseball, but alas we didn’t get to hear it. Binswanger is a master of epistemological concepts, especially at showing their immediate relevance to real life actions and current events.

Social

Diana’s Obloggers dinner was a success, with such notable bloggers attending as C. August of Titanic Deck Chairs, the husband and wife duo of One Reality and 3 Ring Binder, Gus Van Horn, TOS’s Criag Biddle, and new blogger Rational Egoist’s Jason Crawford in addition to Paul (GeekPress) and Diana (Noodlefood). We burned the midnight oil back at the hotel discussing all sorts of topics!

Beyond that I’m exhausted, but in the good way. I’m looking forward to the flight back and a little bit of downtime before work on Monday. Also, next week is the week of my move so plenty of other excitement going on. Within a week or so I’ll be calling Philadelphia home.

Thanks to everyone I met! What a great time, filled with intellectual discussion, fun and food. See you Vegas next year!

OCON Day 6 & 7

2009-07-09T15:09:00.001-05:00

It’s Thursday afternoon and I’m parked at the Seaport enjoying some downtime between classes. I find that, as an introvert, I get drained by continued interactions with others and have to recharge my batteries periodically, so I’ve got the iPod plugged into my brain and thought I’d post another entry. These are discussions of Session 2 courses

Academic

Greg Salmieri gave his first OCON general session presentation. His talk focused on the role of man’s mind in Atlas Shrugged. Specifically he focused on two classes of action, productiveness and valuing. Excellent talk. While most people could easily point to Atlas as an example of productiveness in action, the act of valuing, at least in Rand’s conception of it is harder. I think her conception of valuing is a very unique perspective, specifically as active rather than contemplative
John Allison, former CEO of BB&T, gave a rousing talk detailing how philosophy enters into the core values of BB&T and how BB&T operationalizes those values. It’s stunning to see the success that BB&T has had over Allison’s 20 year tenure and the operationalization of these values is certainly one driver of that success.
I’m taking two history courses this session. The first is Eric Daniels “History of Religion in America” which examines what the role of religion has been in America both prior to and after the founding. The second is John Lewis’ “History of Archaic Greece” which looks at the period of Greece’s infancy, prior to the Classical Period. both are excellent courses, and I think that Daniel’s course contains analysis relevant to today, while Lewis’ course is a bit more enjoyment and part of a larger series on Greek history.
I’m taking Ellen Kenner’s course on psychological visibility in relationships and in Atlas Shrugged. I think that this principle is a fundamental principle for evaluating and enhancing personal relationships, and this course is excellent. If you’ve not been exposed to the thinking here, I highly recommend it.
Finally, last night was the academic panel where key Objectivist academics discussing their activities in academia. I twittered this even heavily and it’s worth looking at the detailed points if you want to build your enthusiasm. Three years ago, academics were talking about trying to place Objectivist philosophers in academia and scratching to get a seat at the table. Today, there are several Objectivist philosophers at key universities, and active dialogue with non-Objectivist philosophers on Rand’s ideas.

Social

Tonight is Diana Hsieh’s Obloggers dinner, and I’m looking forward to seeing many of my fellow bloggers!

OCON Days 3,4 & 5

2009-07-08T14:34:00.001-05:00

Session 1 is over. Session 2 began this morning. I’m going to limit my comments to the material in session 1, and pick up session 2 in a few days. My crow is overloaded and I’m blogging on break so I’ve got to unload now, as there’ll be more coming right behind.

Coursework

Biddle course on Rights and Metaphysical law: still superb, still highly recommended
Tara Smith followed up her first General session presentation with a second one on the significant threat of Non-Objective Law. This course was more technical in nature and paralleled her talk last year on the menace of Pragmatism. Bottom line is that non-Objective Law is a danger, not simply because it fails to provide for the protection of individual rights, but that it enables and activates their destruction.
Harry Binswanger is the king of teasing out the intricacies of epistemology and highlighting the absolute necessity for good epistemology on downstream ethics. His lecture dealing with the nature of Objectivity is no exception.

Social / Personal

I’ve met several fellow Obloggers and OAC students, many of whom I’ve only known virtually up until now. This includes Reasonpharm’s Stella Daily, Titanic Deck Chair’s C August, the husband and wife team of One Reality and Three Ring Binder. The OAC students met up at a mixer a few nights ago which also served as graduation ceremony for 4th year students.
I’d have mentioned Galileo Blogs’ Ray Niles in the above, but he deserves a note of his own as he’s also my roommate and a significant source of intellectual discussion.
Due to my lighter schedule in Session 1 I had 2 afternoons entirely free so I availed myself of the hotel facilities and obtained a massage, steam bath, and an hour or so by the pool reading Tolstoy. Yesterday I went over to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and spent a very enjoyable afternoon exploring. Highlights include Leighton’s Painter’s Honeymoon, John Singer Sargent’s Daughters of E.D. Boit, and Monteverde’s Columbus as a Boy.
Just a side note, I decided to use my netbook for taking notes, and it has surpassed all my expectations. I can take notes very effectively, and with roaming wireless access from the hotel Twitter in real time. Battery life is exceptional as long as I cut processor speed and screen brightness, and the weight of my briefcase is significantly less. The only downside is that my fountain pens which I dearly love using are seeing little use.
Finally, I’ve had a large number of conversations both light, and technical with various persons throughout the conference. Highlights include a discussion with Prof. Doug Altner regarding the status of Objectivist economists, and more coaching from Diana Hsieh on blogging and her experience running a multi-contributor blog.

OCON – Day 1 & 2

2009-07-05T13:09:00.001-05:00

It’s lunch time on Day two of 2009 Objectivist Conference. I had intended to blog daily but alas, yesterday was so full, I’ve not gotten to the post until today. In essence that is the theme concretized. This is my third conference and what always amazes me is the level of intellectual stimulation, through presentations, dinners, and the casual side conversations that arise spontaneously.

Highlights from the first few days of Session #1

Lectures

Craig Biddle’s course on Metaphysical Law and Moral Rights. This is a phenomenal course. Biddle essentially develops Rand’s basis for individual rights, as contrasted with the Founders. In essence day 1 he analyzed the philosophical basis behind the lines in the Declaration of Independence, “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights…” Self-evidency and endowment by their creator are not accidents. They trace back to Locke in his ideas of “natural law” and Jefferson’s conception of “moral sense.” Starting with Day 2 he masterfully develops Rand’s contrasting basis for rights from the facts of reality. Biddle’s case is clear and well presented, and I highly recommend this course.
Dr. Tara Smith’s lecture on Atlas Shrugged, entitled No Room for Ceasar: Good and Evil in Atlas Shrugged examines the either / or nature of key hero’s decisions in Atlas Shrugged. It is a powerful look at how the facts of reality give rise to absolute decisions, and how one cannot shirk from making those types of decisions in leading a fulfilling life.
Finally, today Dr. Onkar Ghate presents a tremendous analysis of the philosophical basis of the “separation between church and state” essentially articulating what is meant by the term, and tracing it’s roots back to Locke’s proper conception of rights, and the role of government and the church. He then illustrates how both today’s religionists (“freedom of religion”), and secularists (“freedom from religion”)make incorrect and unfounded arguments for the meaning of this separation. Dr. Ghate is brilliant and this lecture shows it. Highly recommended!

Themes

A few themes I see in this year’s conference

Several courses are analyzing Locke’s influence on philosophy. Biddle examines Locke’s incorrect conceptions of natural law, and the divine basis for rights, while Dr. Ghate examines his very well formulated concept of the separation between church and state.
The courses are increasingly presented in a way that does not require a background in Objectivism to be clear. Biddle’s development of Rand’s idea of rights is inductively based and relies at each step upon observations of the facts of reality.
The passion exuded by both speakers and the attendees gives on a sense of how importantly ideas are taken, and how clearly and powerfully those ideas are presented. Whether its Tara Smith forcefully entreating us to commit to live our own lives, or Craig Biddle beginning to tear up as he relates the story of an 11 year-old girl whom the FDA restricted from obtaining experimental cancer drugs, as a way to show that force is anti-life, you see real concrete evidence of the power of ideas and philosophy in living on earth.

Social

Opening Banquet. I always go to this, as it’s a great chance to meet everyone at the start of the conference, and to meet new people as well. I had a great dinner with Paul and Diana Hsieh, and fellow OAC classmate Brian Olive. Paul and I continued a discussion we’d started via email on methods and tips to help get some of my newly written op-eds published.
Dinners. I had dinner last night with my roomy Ray Niles, Richard and Lisa Salsman, and John Lewis and his wife. It was fantastic! Good food, good wine and certainly fantastic intellectual conversation.
I’ve gotten the opportunity to meet several objectivists who I knew only online or who were fellow OAC students. It’s always a pleasure to meet people who I’ve only known electronically, and finally put a personality to the ideas we’ve exchanged.

Communications

Just a quick reminder that there should be several bloggers posting on Ocon as well. I saw Paul Hsieh writing a post in lecture just this morning so Noodlefood should have something new. Also, multiple OCON attendees including myself are Twittering their activities at OCON. You can follow them all if you look for the #OCON tag.

OCON

2009-07-03T16:11:00.001-05:00

Quick note for those of you who’ve missed me. I’m at the 2009 Objectivist Conference in Boston, and plan to blog some highlights from it during the conference. Stay tuned!

The Bostonians

2009-06-02T21:46:00.001-05:00

The 2nd book in my reading goal is completed. Reading this one was painful, and while I now have Anna Karenina on my nightstand, I’m convinced that it will be a far easier task than plowing my way through Henry James’ The Bostonians.

Published in 1886, The Bostonians tells the story of Boston feminist Olive Chancellor, and her rivalry with Southern lawyer and cousin Basil Ransom. At stake in this rivalry is the allegiance of young Verena Tarrant, a young Bostonian woman, whom Olive has recruited as a protégé in the feminist movement. Verena is a capable public speaker and Olive hopes that she will use those skills in the interest of advancing women’s independence. Basil’s interest in Verena is purely romantic; however, he is a Southern conservative and disagrees with her feminist views entirely.

The plot of the novel chronicles the interactions of these three characters and revolves around Verena’s choices as a result of the influence exerted on her by Ransom and Olive Chancellor. The plot concept has potential and James could have taken it in several interesting directions. However, the book falls flat due to several key aspects.

First, James prose is stiltingly dull and tiresome. I am used to the long extended sentences prevalent during the period, but his descriptions are lifeless and far too abstract. Second, James characterizations do not add to the plot or help explain the characters actions. In fact, the key plot turn centers around Verena’s final decision. To explain this decision he does not expose us to the arguments that Basil uses to effect her change of heart. Even more egregious, he misleads the reader in regards to Verena’s character, effectively saying that her final decision reflects the fact that her actual character is nothing like what he has described throughout the entire book! This is the equivalent to the pulp crime mystery whose final attribution is explained by the revelation of critical knowledge heretofore unavailable to the reader.

I have been told that The American is James’ best novel, but unfortunately, it’ll be a while before I can muster the courage to plunge back into a book by this author.

Oh, did I say that posting would be light?

2009-06-01T20:43:00.001-05:00

It’s been a few months since I’ve posted. I learned a couple of months ago that I was being transferred to a new job in a new city. The past weeks have been spent learning the job, preparing my house for sale, and miscellaneous “stuff which I hadn’t considered, but that keeps sucking up my time.”

The new job is in Philadelphia, and I’m terribly excited both for the work and for the chance to live in a large city and nearer to my sister. If anyone is in the area, please zip me an email. I’d love to build a network of Objectivists in the area.

I’ve got my head above water for the present so a few posts will probably come out. I’d like to think that I’ll be able to stay with it, but not knowing the things that will tug at me I can’t promise anything. When I do post it will be with the level of quality that keeps all five of you coming back.

Oh, my latest is up on simply Capitalism. It was my first paper for my OAC Intro to Writing class, which is one of the best writing classes I’ve taken. Also a great post by Doug on the backdoor money presses our states are trying to create.

Tweenbots

2009-04-12T08:53:00.001-05:00

There is an idea that I’ve heard repeated at various times in my life, that there is not enough charitable feeling in naturally “self-centered” man to be of meaningful help to those in need. When I respond that there is ample benevolence in man, and in a capitalist society, ample surplus of productive resource (time, money, etc) that we should not make it a forced duty to be charitable, but rather allow man’s natural benevolence to take its course, most people tell me that resources have to be aggregated and centrally directed to be effective.

Here at least a is small demonstration that this thinking is completely wrong.

Saturday Round-up #7

2009-04-11T09:27:00.001-05:00

My puppy is being groomed this morning so I have a few extra minutes in the coffee shop.

1. Paul Volker, Reagan’s FED chairman and the engineer of Reagan’s economic recovery in the early 80’s, continues to be marginalized in the Obama administration. One wonders if the messages he’s delivering don’t jive with the desired policy direction. Of the top advisors Obama has, I thought he was the best hope for reasonable policy.

2. For those of you following the development of e-books, things are heating up. Kindle is working on a larger screen version. I’m still on the sidelines waiting for the right time to jump in. Until then, my netbook will suffice.

3. Steve Forbes is probably the one public figure rationally advocating for a gold standard or at least a dollar peg to gold. I am seeing this sort of argument being made more and more. Very good editorial by him here. In the same issue publisher Rich Kaarlgard, who I normally love, get the “Biggest Letdown by a Headline” Award. Reading the title “Failure of Morality, Not Capitalism” I was hoping that maybe a reasonable philosophical argument was coming next. Alas, the moral problem is not altruism, but “man’s animal side.” His prescriptions for what to do next reflect of a hash of mixed premises, with government playing the role of keeping man’s animal nature from hurting itself.

4. I follow a whole bunch of conservative and/or libertarian blogs. Mostly, I want to get a sense of what sort of intellectual discourse is going on these days in an attempt to remake the right into something that will have political clout, (and hopefully more philosophically grounded). David Frum’s NewMajority.com has become for me a huge disappointment in that area and a continued reflection of how the lack of philosophical grounding leads to terrible mix of ideas. It is what I would expect from a “moderate” website; mostly an amalgam of issues borrowed from the left and right, all toned down so as to appear more palatable to a greater majority of Americans, and almost all compromising any sense of principle. It is in essence borrowing the worst of all worlds. I especially was incensed at this article “God’s Climate Plan” which blends religion and environmentalism together in what Onkar Ghate forecasted at last year’s OCON would be a real warning sign of the continued dominance of religion: the coming together of religious mystics and environmental mystics.

My Latest on Simply Capitalism

2009-04-10T11:14:00.001-05:00

… can be read here.

Even the Smallest Action

2009-04-03T23:35:00.002-05:00

I’m back. I’ve learned not feel guilty when I take a hiatus from blogging, so I won’t apologize, but I will explain. First, I’ve been working on a few of my other goals, specifically remodeling one of those bathrooms. It’s good at times to get concrete, immediate tasks in your radar screen, but jobs like these become all consuming else they take too long. Second, my company is not immune from the economic crisis and good friends have been losing their jobs in the last few months. It’s not over yet, but hopefully will be soon. Third, there is so much in the news these days that is infuriating, I find myself not only struggling to keep up with the other things going on, but also quickly enraged. I’ve learned that while a rant is good for my own psyche, it makes for particularly poor writing quality and I am more keenly aware of my blogging efforts as efforts to communicate something rather than simply unload my frustration. So I’ve refrained from writing until I felt I could be a little be more controlled in what I wanted to say. In that sense, not writing is actually practicing better writing.

I’m almost finished reading The Aristotle Adventure, Burgess Laughlin’s great book detailing the historical fate of Aristotle’s philosophical ideas through the Middle Ages and into the Renaissance. For those who believe that ideas drive the course of history moreso than extraneous physical factors, and who know the fundamentality of Aristotle’s ideas about reason recognize that it was the rise of religious mysticism and the repression of the study of philosophical ideas that led to the destruction of the classical world and ushered in the aptly named Dark Ages. For a millennium, Aristotle’s ideas hung by a very thin thread until they were rediscovered by Christian scholastics in the twelfth century. The Aristotle Adventure recounts the route by which those ideas survived. It is a detailed account of the various scholars throughout the various cultures who preserved and transmitted those ideas. It started out to me as a somewhat encyclopedic account of these scholars, but somewhere in the middle it became for me a fascinating look at the mechanisms by which ideas are translated. By examining specific actions, and their results in the successful transmission of ideas, Burgess paints a picture of what is fundamentally necessary to advance ideas. Here are some big “take-away’s” for me.

1. Battle of Reason vs. Mysticism. This whole era is dominated fundamentally by a battle between advocate of religious mysticism (early Christians and Muslim) and advocates of reason, with mystics having the upper hand. Unlike the Hellenistic period, where free inquiry was generally accepted and which had a strong tradition of intellectual inquiry, the Dark Ages see advocates of reason generally suppressed and persecuted. Books were destroyed; philosophers were constantly being denounced as heretics. When reason itself is on the defensive, it becomes terribly difficult to keep an intellectual tradition going.

2. Value, i.e. human imparted meaning as a key to transmission. A book can molder on a shelf or in a cellar, the ideas it expresses languishing in the culture. It is only when people internalize and hold those ideas as a value and then act upon that value that ideas are disseminated. That is a powerful lesson to any advocate of reason today. Unless you know what ideas to value and then you act upon those values, nothing changes. Ideas don’t change the world. People acting on them do.

3. The value of books. This was a fascinating sideline to me. At this time, “books” were not mass produced, but rather generated as single volumes, often by the author himself. When you realize the value of the ideas contained within them, and that many times during this era that the transmission of ideas from one generation to the next relied upon a few texts surviving into the next generation, you get a sense of the value that scholars must have place on particular volumes. When you read of Spanish scholastics travelling to Babylon in the Arab world, in search of books (!) it makes you consider the ubiquitousness of ideas today, and the knowledge available within a few clicks on Amazon.com in a whole new light.

4. Role that even small actions play in advancing or preserving ideas. Sometimes the difference between the loss of ideas and their preservation consisted of nothing more than hiding volumes from those who would burn them, or maybe a copyist replicating a key text so that it would survive into the next generation for some scholar to find and make use of, or maybe simply teaching others the ideas so that they could pass them on as well. At times it did not matter if these persons even understood the ideas they were transmitting (although ultimately that is critical). Again another lesson of intellectual activists. There is plenty of work to do. And sometimes that work consists of even the littlest things.

I had a friend today express personal dissatisfaction with some of the things he was doing, searching for more “meaningful” objectives in his life. I look back upon the lessons of Burgess’s book, of the various factors required for success: valuing, understanding ideas, small steps in disseminating them. I look back at a millennium of struggle for reason, and then I think of my friend’s frustration. So here he is at a protest he led outside the G20 this week, a pro-capitalist protest in the face of all the anti-capitalist protests that abounded there. I think about the fact that he’s valuing ideas, disseminating those ideas, the right ideas, with an understanding of what he is saying. And I realize that he’s standing on the shoulders of giants, and yet in his own way, reaching just that little bit higher. Meaningless? Hardly. Thanks to Burgess for writing his book, and nice job, Rory.

“Anyone who fights for the future, lives in it today.” Ayn Rand.

Objectivist Round Up

2009-03-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Tito has it this week. Check it out!

Saturday round-up #6

2009-02-28T09:00:00.000-05:00

The Swedish model of bank nationalization has been pointed too as a possible model. It wasn’t actually a nationalization. Detail here.
The Obama budget has been analyzed in multiple posts (Mankiw, Mankiw 2, RCM, EconLog, Cafe Hayek). Bottom line: rosy growth projections bolstering huge deficits beyond the recession. Credit for “fiscal discipline” to use worst year of the recession as the benchmark. Lots of spin, lots of ‘redistribution’, little financial discipline.
ARI has posted the video of John Allison’s talk on the causes of the financial crisis. It is a very insightful talk from an industry insider with many concrete examples. Invaluable.
For a near daily dose of examples of entrepreneurs, and businessmen who have changed the way we live, I subscribe to the Heroes of Capitalism blog. Headed up by Dr. Eric Daniels of the Clemson Institute for the Study of Capitalism. Great histories of capitalists from the last two centuries!

Follow up

2009-02-27T12:57:00.001-05:00

And a follow-up to my last from Will on private vs. public education.

The international evidence shows that private provision of education is often better but never worse than public provision. That there is so little private provision — not just in the U.S., but anywhere – can seem like a puzzle if you happen to think policy will tend to reflect the preferences of a benevolent technocrat. As Carney’s piece below shows, powerful entrenched interests may have a stake in making sure private provision stays crowded out.

Want to know who has an interest in keeping school socialized? Read on.

Control of Education

2009-02-27T12:50:00.001-05:00

Will Wilkinson has a great post on the absolute size and power of the public teacher’s union lobby in Washington. Think that big corporations are the ones with political pull. Guess again.

Saturday Round-up #5

2009-02-21T21:30:00.001-05:00

Interesting article over at Forbes.com. “The Social Democratic Moment” asserts that political system that has come out on top over the course of the 20th century is “social democracy” rather than any sort of laissez faire liberalism. I’m interested in this and large scale economic/political/cultural trends since I’m involved in advocating for ideas I believe in. It certainly is not lost on me that most modern states have some variant of welfare statism, and I have to wonder if this trend is reversible.
Over at simply Capitalism, my fellow blogger RealistTheorist, examines a variant of the “broken window” hypothesis, namely that war is somehow good for economies.
Watch out for the N word (Nationalization) to become more prevalent in the discussion around the financial crisis. I feel another simply Capitalism post coming on.

Round-up

2009-02-20T09:00:00.000-05:00

Latest O Round-up. Rule of Reason. Check it out!

Epstein on Obamanomics

2009-02-19T08:00:00.000-05:00

Over at VOICES for REASON, Alex Epstein has a great post recounting how Obama in eschewing the “same ideas that got us here” is actually embracing them.

Inflation at sCap

2009-02-18T17:00:00.000-05:00

Over at simply Capitalism, I’ve just posted discussing the drivers of potential use of inflation as monetary policy during this crisis.

Greenspan on the Free Market

2009-02-18T09:00:00.000-05:00

It’s gotten to the point that whenever I read about any of Alan Greenspan’s new commentary on the economy, I’m sure to be unable to finish the article without disgust. I’ve been working on a small op-ed for my OAC class regarding the mortgage crisis and as a result I’ve had to read some of Greenspan’s commentary over the last few years. What I’ve come to understand is that in any given context, it’s not what he says that is so crucial it’s what he fails to say. Take his commentary last night at a New York Economic Club dinner regarding the recent crisis, from a WSJ blog entry. [bold mine]

In comments at a New York Economic Club dinner late Tuesday, the retired Fed chairman steered clear of much self-reflection on his role in the credit boom. But he did take a new swipe at the market’s self-correcting tendencies and bowed his head to a new period of increased regulation.

“All of the sophisticated mathematics and computer wizardry essentially rested on one central premise: that enlightened self interest of owners and managers of financial institutions would lead them to maintain a sufficient buffer against insolvency by actively monitoring and managing their firms’ capital and risk positions,” the Fed chairman said. The premise failed in the summer of 2007, he said, leaving him “deeply dismayed.”

Self-regulation is still a first-line of defense, Mr. Greenspan said. But after the financial collapse of 2007 and 2008, “I see no alternative to a set of heightened federal regulatory rules of behavior for banks and other financial institutions.” He said hoped hoped it would come in the form of tougher capital requirements for banks.

The glaring omission of course is that if sophisticated mathematics and wizardry did not allow bankers to see [past the distorted economic policy he himself was implementing – but I digress] the future then by what method will a regulator be able to a priori prevent the same thing from happening? This is the key omission when anyone clamors for central planning or regulation. Anyone can apply regulations in hind sight, which only guarantees that the next financial crisis will occur somewhere else that was also unforeseen.

Controls will not prevent financial crises. They will only breed more controls.

Follow up to my last post

2009-02-17T17:00:00.000-05:00

About 10 minutes after my last came out, I saw a similar blog post come out of VOICES of REASON. Part 2 of a 2 Part series entitled “The Czars Come to America”, author Onkar Ghate discusses the growing role of regulators in running of the economy. Part I is here.

Great posts. Definitely check them out!

Wither Wesley Mouch

2009-02-17T09:00:00.000-05:00

Just a follow-up note to RealistTheorist’s post over at simply Capitalism on economic bureaucrat Larry Summers and the concern over what his influence on the Obama administration might mean. Yves Smith at naked capitalism has a great post on the consolidation of power by Summers and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. Paul Volker has already been marginalized in his role. Here’s Yves take:

For the record, we have never been happy about the prominent roles Geithner and Summers are playing. Both played significant roles in creating and maintaining the system that lead to our financial mess. They are simply unable to see beyond their ideological blinkers. And as proteges of Robert Rubin, they are epitomes of what Willem Buiter calls "cognitive regulatory capture".

It seems Realist’s concern expressed in his original post is founded. Here’s a quote from Wikipedia describing Wesley Mouch, the character in Atlas Shrugged who ends up becoming the nation’s economic Czar:

Eventually he becomes the most powerful Looter, and the country's economic dictator, thereby illustrating Rand's belief that a government-run economy places too much power in the hands of incompetent bureaucrats who would never have positions of similar influence in a private sector business.

Atlas is becoming more prophetic every day.

Saturday (Sunday) Round-up 4

2009-02-08T20:36:00.001-05:00

I’m sorry for the light posting and the delay in the round-up this week. My dog was sick all week and getting him back to health took up my time. Without further ado however here’s a few interesting links from the week.

Speaking of my puppy, 3 Ring Binder has had a series of posts covering each of the classes in the upcoming Westminster Kennel Club show and she featured a few pics of my own poodle, Moxie, when she reviewed the Non-Sporting Group.
Fr33 Agents has a summary of BB&T CEO John Allison’s recent talk in Washington DC regarding the roots and solutions to our current financial crisis. It is a very nice summary. I am working on an op-ed on the same topic for my OAC Intro to Writing class, and I’m glad to see Mr. Allison speaking out.
The Keynesian notion that consumption drives the economy, in practice leads to the articulation of several interesting paradoxes. For example, the Paradox of Thrift decries saving during a recession since it can lead to supposed deflationary “death spirals.” I think these paradoxes actually expose the errors in Keynesian thinking. Last week discussion of another paradox seemed to be fashionable. Will Wilkinson calls it Macroeconomics as mind control. I like to think of it as “The Paradox of Panic.” It involves an inordinate amount of focus on consumer confidence, the restoration of which will recharge consumption. This is one of the main targets of stimulus packages such as the one working its way through the Senate this week. Of course the paradox here is that in order to spur Congress to such confidence-restoring action, the common tactic used is an attempt to scare the bejeezus out of the American public by asserting that eminent collapse of the economy greets those who do not vote to enact the stimulus. Of course, once passed we’re sure to see some of that stimulus money go toward public service campaigns aimed at telling the public that it’s ok to spend now. Go figure.
Great post by Yves Smith on what continues to NOT happen regarding the financial system. The Paradox of Panic leads regulators to specifically NOT want to analyze bank balance sheets and to take any action that would serve to repair those banks because such action would serve to spook depositors. And as banks continue un-restructured, they remain broken. So concern for consumer confidence, leads regulators to forego just the actions that would restore consumer confidence. This is why bankruptcies would be better solutions compared with anything Treasury continues to propose.
Oh, almost forgot. Update on the MSI Wind. I love it! It has met all my expectations, and I have now tested it on all the intended uses I articulated in my previous post. In fact, I’m writing this post from the coffee shop!

New Blog Online

2009-02-02T09:00:00.000-05:00

I would like to introduce you to a new Objectivist blog devoted to discussion of economics, business and free-markets. It is called "simply Capitalism" and it is located at:

http://www.simplycapitalism.com/

Subscribe to our RSS feed at: http://feeds.feedburner.com/SimplyCapitalism

It is a multi-author blog, staffed by Objectivists who work in business and industry, and who have a special interest in economic and business issues. Our intent is to write on current events, attempting to dissect and disseminate clear ideas and principles.

Our audience is broader than just Objectivists. My intent in forming the blog was to try to insert Objectivist thoughts into a very vibrant blog environment that exists today covering economics. We are not an activist blog per se, but I expect that the topical concentration, the development of writers with that interest, and writing for a broader audience will eventually spawn activist efforts.

We've got a great panel of contributors, who each are seasoned bloggers in their own right, and who all blog regularly on economic topics. These include myself, and:

Galileo Blogs of "Galileo Blogs"
Doug Reich of "The Rational Capitalist"
Beth Haynes of "Wealth is Not the Problem"
Realist Theorist of "Software Nerd"

I'm excited about the concept and the stable of writers who've agreed to contribute their efforts! Check it out!

With that, this blog is getting re-tasked, and renamed. The Crucible and Column will become simply The Crucible, and its focus will become broader, although hopefully still known for thoughtful analysis. Most of my business and economic content will be featured over at simply Capitalism.

Saturday Round-up 3

2009-01-31T17:09:00.001-05:00

Objectivist Round-up

2009-01-30T09:00:00.000-05:00

Making Progress has the latest Objectivist Round-up. Check it out here!

My OCON Schedule

2009-01-28T23:43:00.001-05:00

Attached is my tentative schedule for OCON 2009. For those of you who haven’t registered yet, you have 3 days before the early bird rates uptick!

General Sessions

Optional Sessions (I don’t recall which sessions I signed up for which class, sorry)

Moral Rights and Metaphysical Law – Biddle
Religion in American History – Daniels
The Moral Defense of Capitalism: A History – Brook
The History of Ancient Greece: The Archaic Period – Lewis
Property Rights and Wrongs – Bowden

Opening Banquet

I’ll be staying in the Seaport Hotel.

Let me know if you’ll be coming! I’d love to plan a meet-up.

Saturday Round-up 2

2009-01-24T09:56:00.002-05:00

Five more from the week’s reading.

I’ve added NewMajority.com to the list of blogs that I read. During this election cycle, many Republican intellectuals chose not to back John McCain in the final contest. This included the likes of George Will, Peggy Noonan, Christopher Buckley (who publicly announced his intention to vote Obama as he left The National Review), an David Frum. These people were not pro-Obama so much as they were embarrassed by what the Republican Party has become. Most are moderates; some lean libertarian; but all are intellectuals. NewMajority is David Frum’s new website dedicated to reasoned dialogue about where the Republican’s go from here. It’s worth keeping an eye on what the debate looks like here, and if possible having a voice. I think Objectivists need to get involved in mainstream, rational debates like this. I’d love to see Ari Armstrong’s “Toward a GOP Revival” get air time on forums like this.
The Three Economists. Much publicized discussion by three leading macro-economists on the Obama stimulus plans. Healthy skepticism is growing on the prudence of such a plan, as it should be. [Hat tip: Megan McCardle]
Buffett on whether the stimulus will work. Notice the complete lack of certainty he claims as to whether anyone knows what the right course of action is; and conversely the complete certainty that doing nothing is not an option. A lesson in bad epistemology, and a fatal flaw in the logic. The question that exposes it: "What if government interference makes things worse? a lot worse?” [Hat Tip: Tyler Cowen]
Univesity of Chicago professor Luigi Zingales has some continued advice for government regulators. He continues to advocate what I think is the clearest solution to the financial crisis: streamlined bankruptcy and speedy recapitalizations. This is also the most free-market solution one can get given the high level of government involvement in the financial sector.
I wanted to echo Ari’s recommendation of the movie Slumdog Millionaire. It is a wonderfully told tale of the pursuit of values, where the plot is threaded through the 20 questions of a quiz show.

Chekhov

2009-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

One of twelve on Goal #4 is complete.

The Russian sense of life is incredibly dark, and gloomy, but Chekhov is a master at using concrete images to create a mood. Plot begins to disappear in some of his stories, but characterization is good.

Next up: James’ The Bostonians

Objectivist Round-up

2009-01-22T23:49:00.001-05:00

It’s up now at The Rule of Reason blog. Check it out!

LTC: Vote NO on TARP Extension

2009-01-19T20:39:00.001-05:00

The following went to my congressman today (LTC = Letter to Congressman). Unfortunately, I missed the Senate vote, and I’m not sure I hold out much hope for the House to block the measure.

Dear Sir:

I am writing to you to request that you vote against the upcoming release of the 2nd $350 billion in TARP funding.

The original TARP legislation was wildly unpopular with the American people, yet you voted for it. The first installment of funds was not spent in the manner that was originally planned and it failed to accomplish its objective, yet the same people are now going to oversee a successful spend of the second installment? This is madness!

We were told that we could not sit back and do nothing or the economy would collapse. We were told that again when the Detroit auto companies were bailed out. We certainly shall be told the same thing for this second installment of funding, as well as the upcoming Obama stimulus. The economy has not collapsed yet we are told we must do more. We are told that the cause of the crisis was profligate spending and the overextension of credit, but that the solution to it is for government to commit those same sins.

This economic crisis was caused by government policy, most notably a loose money policy on the part of former FED chairman Alan Greenspan and a zealous desire to overstimulate the economy on the part of the Republican administration. The crisis is not the result of the free market, but rather the result of government interference in the free market. Continued government interference will not resolve the issue. Continued government spending will lead to severe inflation and risk a second Great Depression.

The only way to resolve this crisis is to stop government spending, and facilitate the private restructuring of our banking system. You must vote now to rein in excessive, ineffective government spending.

Regards,

Kendall Justiniano

Saturday Round-up 1

2009-01-17T10:27:00.001-05:00

Those of you who follow this blog may occasion to glance at the “What Kendall’s Reading” pane off to the left there. This is a collection of articles that I pull from the news feeds that I read every day. There are usually new articles posted to the list every day, and usually not more than 10 or so. The list is very easy to generate as I simply mark the article I’m reading and Google assures it is posted to the window.

Topically, it’s a mix of everything; sometimes raw material for my posts; sometimes off-topic article of interest; sometimes humor or human interest stories. For those of you who find yourself glancing at it and sometimes clicking through, you can also view the articles as their own RSS feed, which can be found at: “My Favorite Posts.”

I find myself at times wanting to leave a comment about these articles, but not really enough for a full blown post. So I’ve decided to pull four or five from the week and formulate a “round-up” post for Saturdays.This is the first installment! I’ll also add a few sentences of commentary or a quick quote as well so you have the essence of my perspective on the topic.

Certainly if you have elaborations or comments on the links, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

I. Next to Obama’s speech writers, I think that nobody does pure, consistent altruism better than Colin Powell. This week he weighs in on the subject in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal, “Let’s Renew America Together.” With a subtitle “Everybody can be great because anybody can serve,” he delivers a consistent missive on the topic of “our shared responsibility to one another.”

II. The antidote to the Powell’s thinking is to be found in the winter edition of The Objective Standard, in Craig Biddles lead essay “Capitalism and the Moral High Ground.”

Altruism does not call merely for “serving” others; it calls for self-sacrificially serving others. Otherwise, Michael Dell would have to be considered more altruistic than Mother Teresa. Why? Because Michael Dell serves millions more people than Mother Teresa ever did. The difference, of course, is in the way he serves people. Whereas Mother Teresa “served” people by exchanging her time and effort for nothing, Michael Dell serves people by trading with them—by exchanging value for value to mutual advantage—an exchange in which both sides gain.

Renewal will not come from the type of service Powell talks about. It will only come from the type of service which does not even appear on Powell’s radar screen as service.

III. For a look at how Powell’s sort of service specifically banishes and excludes the kind of service we need, see The Wall Street Journal op-ed “The Mugging of Bank of America.” In September Bank of America stepped up to buy financially failing Merrill Lynch. After enough due diligence to realize how toxic Merrill’s balance sheet was, and that absorbing the bank would threaten the solvency of his own firm, CEO Ken Lewis attempted to back out. The article details how he was forced by the Treasury Department to execute the deal anyway. Today, Bank of America is teetering itself. A prime example of the effects of Powell’s type of “service.” Read this article. It is straight out of Atlas Shrugged.

IV. The big talk these days is the final installment of TARP and Obama’s proposed stimulus package. In a follow-up to my post on emerging skeptics, I offer a few more links. Two more economists come out wondering who thought the stimulus was a good idea. University of Chicago Economist Gary Becker wonders where the hell all the Keynesians came from. Finally Brian Kaplan asks the most basic of questions to be put to anyone advocating a stimulus package, “How will we know that the bailout worked?”

V. Finally, while we’re on the topic of service and The Objective Standard, I wanted to highlight an article in this month’s issue by my friend Ray Niles. It is “Net Neutrality: Toward a Stupid Internet” and it very effectively concretizes how government regulation in supposed “service” of those who would seek broadband access only hurts them. Unfortunately you’ll have to subscribe to get the whole article, or you can drop by your local Barnes & Noble and see if they carry the journal. If they don’t, ask them to Start!

Chinks in the FED’s Armor, and the Reducto ad Keynsianism

2009-01-15T21:18:00.001-05:00

Two items. First, not everyone at the FED agrees with the current “stimulus” tack taken by Bernanke. In a Market Watch article, “Fault Lines Emerge at the FED,” Philadelphia FED President Charles Plosser and former St. Louis FED President William Poole publicly took issue with Bernanke’s policies.

Plosser urged the Fed to "proceed with caution" with the new policy. Others outside the Fed are much more strident and want plans in place immediately to reverse it. They believe an inflation storm is already in train…

Fed officials who pay attention to the money supply believe that the Fed's current policy of printing money never ends well and the danger of inflation is very high. They believe the Fed must withdraw the stimulus before there is any sign of inflation or it is too late….

William Poole, who recently left his post as president of the St. Louis Fed, says it is crucial that the Fed set a target for cutting its balance sheet.

Poole said the expansion of the Fed's balance sheet is unprecedented and research suggests that a surge of inflation is sure to follow.

"I would say if the policy is not reversed, there is a high probability that the unpleasant risk (of inflation) materializes," Poole said in an interview.

I chuckle when I see the empiricist phrase “there is a high probability that…” as though we are simply relying on some unexplained correlation in the data to suggest that inflation is on it’s way. We know what causes inflation. It occurs when the government cranks up the printing presses. If the FED President knows that such policies are occurring, he could be a little bit more certain of what it portends. As in 100%.

I am preparing a letter to my congressmen specifically advocating them to deny additional TARP funds and also vote down the Obama stimulus. I urge my readers to do the same. Maybe we’ve become too used to seeing the large bills from the IRAQ war, but the fact remains that these stimulus packages are tremendously large. Our Congress is mortgaging our future to accomplish very little, and ultimately damage us greatly.

My next item is an analysis discussed by Yves over at naked capitalism. Martin Wolf has an analysis over at the Financial Times (free RSS feeds there!) looking at the stimulus package. He attempts to understand the cost imposed on the US private sector of all this government “stimulus.” The answer? The stimulus won’t work.

The stimulus required is significantly larger than anyone has estimated, and since public money comes from the private sector, the damage that paying down this stimulus debt will inflict on the private sector is significant.

The argument still seems to take a Keynesian perspective on the whole issue, but at least he is attempting to account for where this stimulus money is going to come from, and the damage that obtaining it will do.

This is the logical conclusion of Keynsianist policies. The government doesn’t create anything of value. It is simply mortgaging the private sector’s productivity in order to supposedly fix the private sector. On the surface this makes no sense, and I marvel at how seemingly rational people can hold the idea. If the problem was over-leverage the solution cannot be more of the same.

Yves comes back with some rational analysis in her critique. Banks were not restructured using the TARP funds, and this is what must occur. True asset values must be discovered and write downs must be taken. Treasury is simply providing banks with operating cash and ignoring the toxic balance sheets. This is like throwing money down a bottomless pit. It does nothing.

We are avoiding the bitter pill, spending like there is no tomorrow, hoping that we won’t have to deal with the problems. I’ve not seen a situation like this in my lifetime.

Distortions due to Subsidies and Protectionism in Domestic Corn Production

2009-01-13T09:00:00.000-05:00

When discussing government intervention in the economy, many times we see industries where government's role is primarily one of suppression of an industry. That is, regulation, taxation, and trade restrictions serve to depress an entire industry. This is true in my industry, the chemical industry. It is also true in the pharmaceutical industry. While there may be differences in impact from firm to firm, generally all firms suffer from government intervention, and generally all firms can be viewed in some ways as victims of government intervention.

But what happens in an industry when government subsidizes a particular set of players at the expense of another? Are all firms victims? No, The picture it turns out is very different.

Dr. Monica Hughes of Free Agriculture - Restore Markets and I have been having a discussion on the economics of the agricultural industry. I wanted to understand where the biggest economic impacts were and their mechanism of impact. She has been extremely helpful in providing background information on the subject. Subsidies are a huge factor in agriculture, and I've decided to use the largest subsidized segment of agriculture, corn, as an example.

Two things happen when government subsidizes an industry. First, on the economic side, the subsidies create distortions in normal markets. These distortions generally benefit some players in the industry, and hurt others. Also, these distortions can usually be shown to be inefficient. That is, the distortions incur costs that would not normally be incurred if the system were free of intervention. Second, on the political side, some firms that benefit from subsidization use political influence to attempt to preserve those subsidies. Essentially, some firms use their political "pull" to attempt to preserve (or maybe even increase the benefit) to themselves, at the expense of others. The subsidy creates a class of "Orren Boyle" businessmen [referring to the corrupt steel mill owner who uses his political connections to stay in business in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged]. Not all businessmen are innocent victims. Some are complicit in preservation of the distortions, and economic inefficiencies, through the use of political "pull."

Agriculture is an industry that takes on this sort of character. Let's illustrate with corn. I've put together a small diagram showing corn production and consumption in the U.S. today. Now analyzing this industry as a whole is a complex undertaking and I don't purport to be an economist. But I have shown the corn production "envelope," extended out to one step beyond simple production. That is, I've shown some of uses that contribute to the consumption of corn, and their impact on the corn subsidy as well.

2008 corn production in the U.S. totaled 13.2 billion bushels, and utilized 87M acres of farmland. It was consumed primarily in four downstream uses: grain for export, feed for meat production, raw material for fuel ethanol production, and as an input to the food and sweetener industry. Stunningly, food for human consumption is a very small part of this mix.

This envelope is subsidized to the tune of about $20 billion dollars annually. It's important to consider all of the various ways in which subsidies act on this envelope. This includes direct Federal payment to corn producers, capital funding and subsidies for ethanol production, subsidies for feedlot waste disposal, and the sugar import tariff/quota system (which is currently cost neutral but will become an additional subsidy soon), and also the additional price consumers must bear for ethanol and corn sweeteners.

These subsidies create huge distortions. Both the fuel ethanol industry and the corn sweetener industry are industries that exist almost entirely due to the subsidy. The U.S. sugar quota / duty system inflates domestic sweetener prices by two times. High fructose corn syrup and other corn-based sweeteners, along with domestic sugar, cost twice to manufacture than international sugar does, but the quotas and duties on imported sugar assure you'll pay the extra cost. Fuel ethanol costs twice what gasoline does, but ethanol content laws in some states assure you'll pay the extra cost. The subsidy of corn and feedlot waste disposal make concentrated farming operations more competitive than they would normally be, and thus much more prevalent.

All of this has the effect of inflating corn and corn product production at the expense of the substitutes it replaces. Ultimately this comes at a net cost to the consumer and the taxpayer. Firms within the industries that exist as a result of subsidization now have a direct incentive to use political pull to maintain their positions. Who are these firms? They are those firms who lobby for and directly receive government benefit. Monica has shown that large corporate farms (not the small independent farmer) are the most prevalent recipients of direct corn subsidies. Also included in this mix are ethanol producers, and corn-based sweetener producers, neither of which would exist in any significant number without the subsidy. Probably the most notorious recipient of corn-based subsidies, and one who possesses a formidable Federal lobby is corn-products firm Archer Daniels Midland. From a 1995 profile of ADM by The Cato Institute:

ADM is certainly the nation's most arrogant welfare recipient. And it is one of the few welfare recipients that spend millions of dollars each year advertising on Sunday morning television shows populated and watched by politicians. Chairman Dwayne Andreas's and ADM's success in farming Washington represents the rational result of contemporary government policies that turn elections into "an advanced auction of stolen goods," as H. L. Mencken quipped. Thanks to its multi-million-dollar hustling in Washington, a company that lives and dies on the generosity of the American taxpayer has managed to get itself revered as a great public servant. Although ADM is not the only corporation with its hand out in Washington, it is easily one of the most successful beggars on the block.(1)

This is the nature of those who would use political pull to get government to force you to subsidize them, and to force you to pay higher prices for the products they produce. It is reprehensible.

What would the industry envelope look like without subsidies? I took a first pass estimate, assuming ethanol and HFSC are eliminated as a result of the changes, and animal feed is replaced mostly by grass feeding practices (for beef only using Monica's analysis), but all other consumption is steady. The answer is that we would produce significantly less corn, use less land overall, replace sweeteners with cheaper [by half!] imported sugar, and cut the cost of fuel by approximately $0.22/gallon of gasoline.

Now the practicality and effectiveness of a laissez faire system is part of what makes it moral. But the laissez faire system fundamentally preserves individual rights; it prevents the confiscation of funds from some to benefit others; and it rewards the free productive farmer, not the skilled politico's. Notice how many laws go toward the distortion of the corn industry? A truly free market means the repeal of them all.

The answer is laissez faire!

What Really Caused China’s Success?

2009-01-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

In November of last year, China announced a massive stimulus plan in response to its current economic crisis. While smaller in nominal value than the U.S. TARP package, it is huge relative to the size of China’s economy. The conventional economic wisdom heralds China for it’s blended economic policies which combine strong government spending with private enterprise. From the New York Times article cited above:

State-driven investment projects of this kind have been a major impetus to Chinese growth throughout the 30 years of market-oriented reforms, a strong legacy of central planning.

News of the stimulus was received generally well, given this perspective, and certainly it adds to the general momentum in favor of such Keynesian measures. But is the perspective, that mixed economies function better than more pure forms of capitalism, correct?

A recent article I ran across challenges this thesis with hard research on China’s development. The article is “Private Ownership: the Real Source of China’s Economic Miracle” by MIT Sloan School of Management Associate Professor, Yashen Huang, and it appeared in this last month’s McKinsey Quarterly. It summarizes the thesis of his book, Capitalism with Chinese Characteristics: Entrepreneurship and the State. [Note: I have not read the book, but plan to in the next year. My observations are taken from the article. “Capitalism with Chinese characteristics” is the Chinese government’s somewhat nationalistic description of their system, couched in a “we’re going to do it out own way” tone.]

What stands out as a credit to the author is that he has analyzed economic data on China’s 30 year journey toward a market economy in order to tease out the factors contributing to China’s phenomenal growth. China is a complex case and it surely has experienced phenomenal economic growth. Understanding the true causes of this growth is critical because it is such a compelling growth story. According to the author, the popular thinking is wrong.

The received wisdom on the country’s economic miracle – it was a triumph of technocracy, in which the Communist Party engineered a gradual transition to the market by relying on state-controlled businesses – gets all the important details wrong. This standard account holds that entrepreneurship, private-property rights, financial liberalization, and political reform played only a small role. Yet my research, based on a detailed analysis of the Chinese governments’ survey data and government documents at the central and local levels, indicates that property rights and private entrepreneurship provided the dominant stimulus for high growth and lower levels of poverty.

…

The real mystery of China’s miracle isn’t how the economy grew, but how Western experts got the growth story so wrong.

The author backs up his thesis with hard research, looking at the issue from several different perspectives. He shows that China’s growth was fueled in the more rural coastal areas, and that private enterprises dominated the mix, grew at a faster rate, and generated the bulk of economic growth. In a second example he compares to nominally similar provinces, Zhejang and Jiangsu, who used very different mechanisms to fuel their growth. Jiangsu province “courted foreign investment and benefitted significantly from public-works spending. However, Zhejang province relied on private growth mechanisms. The difference in outcomes tells the tale. Starting out as a poorer province, Zhejang eventually caught up with and surpassed Jiangsu over a 20-year period. Today it leads on every significant economic measure. Zhejang’s asset base is more productive and its residents enjoy a higher standard of living.

In another example he examines rural policy vs. the more interventionist policies in large cities, showing that their change in living standard is far greater in those rural regions where privatization measures were stronger and government stimulus spending was lower. Contrasting rural municipality of Wenzhou with metropolitan Shanghai, the author notes:

Today, Wenzhou is China’s most dynamic municipality, teeming with businesses that dominate European garment markets. By contrast, Shanghai, once home to China’s earliest industrialists, is now oddly bereft of native entrepreneurs.

Wenzhou’s transformation resulted almost entirely from free-market policies. As early as 1982, officials there were experimenting with private lending, liberalized interest rates, cross-regional competition by savings and loan organizations, and lending to private-sector companies. The Wenzhou government also worked to protect the property rights of private entrepreneurs and to make the municipality friendly to business in many other ways.

Bold mind. Here we see not mixed economic policies, but laissez faire policies, with government performing it’s proper function, protecting property rights. And the contrast is clear. Capitalism with Chinese characteristics is simply another name for the mixed economy, and when the analysis is done, laissez faire capitalism is the winner.

We need more analysis like this to understand the phenomena, and to break the myths that reign today, especially in this time where government intervention is seen as the solution to our financial woes.

Rand in the Wall Street Journal

2009-01-10T18:00:00.000-05:00

Stephen Moore has a fantastic opinion piece in yesterday's Wall Street Journal, entitled "Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 Years." In it, he draws parallels between government actions in Atlas, and in today's financial crisis.

Other than his unnecessary mention of David Kelley, the article does Rand justice (bold mine).

Many of us who know Rand's work have noticed that with each passing week, and with each successive bailout plan and economic-stimulus scheme out of Washington, our current politicians are committing the very acts of economic lunacy that "Atlas Shrugged" parodied in 1957, when this 1,000-page novel was first published and became an instant hit.

...

For the uninitiated, the moral of the story is simply this: Politicians invariably respond to crises -- that in most cases they themselves created -- by spawning new government programs, laws and regulations. These, in turn, generate more havoc and poverty, which inspires the politicians to create more programs . . . and the downward spiral repeats itself until the productive sectors of the economy collapse under the collective weight of taxes and other burdens imposed in the name of fairness, equality and do-goodism.

In the book, these relentless wealth redistributionists and their programs are disparaged as "the looters and their laws." Every new act of government futility and stupidity carries with it a benevolent-sounding title. These include the "Anti-Greed Act" to redistribute income (sounds like Charlie Rangel's promises soak-the-rich tax bill) and the "Equalization of Opportunity Act" to prevent people from starting more than one business (to give other people a chance). My personal favorite, the "Anti Dog-Eat-Dog Act," aims to restrict cut-throat competition between firms and thus slow the wave of business bankruptcies. Why didn't Hank Paulson think of that?

These acts and edicts sound farcical, yes, but no more so than the actual events in Washington, circa 2008. We already have been served up the $700 billion "Emergency Economic Stabilization Act" and the "Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act." Now that Barack Obama is in town, he will soon sign into law with great urgency the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." This latest Hail Mary pass will increase the federal budget (which has already expanded by $1.5 trillion in eight years under George Bush) by an additional $1 trillion -- in roughly his first 100 days in office.

The current economic strategy is right out of "Atlas Shrugged": The more incompetent you are in business, the more handouts the politicians will bestow on you. That's the justification for the $2 trillion of subsidies doled out already to keep afloat distressed insurance companies, banks, Wall Street investment houses, and auto companies -- while standing next in line for their share of the booty are real-estate developers, the steel industry, chemical companies, airlines, ethanol producers, construction firms and even catfish farmers. With each successive bailout to "calm the markets," another trillion of national wealth is subsequently lost. Yet, as "Atlas" grimly foretold, we now treat the incompetent who wreck their companies as victims, while those resourceful business owners who manage to make a profit are portrayed as recipients of illegitimate "windfalls."

Into the Clouds

2009-01-10T08:00:00.001-05:00

I have joined the ranks of those who compute “in the clouds!” Well, not really. But I did recently purchase a "netbook.”

For those of you unfamiliar with the term, “cloud computing” is the moniker given to the concept of using the existence of ubiquitous internet access to shift data and applications which one used to run on a personal computer to the web. By hosting data and applications on the internet, one becomes independent of any particular PC, being able to access their personal information from any internet access point. As a result of this, one’s personal computers tend to shift from larger more powerful processor machines to focus instead on connectivity (LAN, wireless, etc) and portability. Hence the purchase of my MSI Wind netbook.

Cloud computing isn’t really anything new. Most large corporations like the one I work for have had large corporate networks using a similar type of approach for years. Since1995, my company has implemented such a network. Today, all employees have basic laptops, outfitted with standardized software, and wireless capability. Our files are stored collectively on servers rather than on our machines. We can access those files via VPN connections from any internet connection. Most recently we converted to VoIP telephony so that our telephones use internet connections to transfer data rather than regular phone lines. I have a phone emulator on my laptop as well. This means that I can sit down anywhere in the world, plug in my laptop and it is as if I was sitting in my office. I can go anywhere I want, and my “stuff” is “up in the clouds.”

However, until recently that required a lot of back-end infrastructure and support which wasn’t necessarily available to the individual consumer. That is all changing however. I actually noticed the change slowly over the last year or two. My current machine is a 17” Dell Laptop, high res, DVD, large capacity hard drive. It’s portable but not convenient. I certainly wouldn’t take it with me on vacation. Over the last few years; however, I began shifting applications and data storage to the web. First my email went when I started using Google’s Gmail. Then I switched my RSS feed to Google Reader. I recently began creating and hosting some of my documents using Google Documents. I eliminated my home phone by switching to Skype. As this began happening I found that I preferred to grab my work laptop and sit downstairs in an easy chair or by the fireplace rather than up at my desk with my big Dell. It was a more convenient machine because it was smaller, lighter, had great wireless connectivity, rock solid operating system, simply no hassle. I was slowing migrating my home computing environment to a cloud environment without realizing it.

Then earlier this year, Gus bought an ASUS eePC netbook and I was intrigued. I’ve been watching netbook models with interest over the last several months and finally decided to take the plunge. My Wind is a small, ultra-portable, paperback-sized PC, costing approximately $400; wireless card, 160 GB hard drive, 1024x600 high-res 10” screen,1Mpixel webcam, running a stable WinXP OS. All of this comes in a small beautiful white package, weighing 2 lbs and measuring about 9”x7” (about the size of a large format paperback book. It has as much computing power and screen resolution as my Thinkpad T60 I use for work, but in an ultra-light package. In fact, as I write this, I’m sitting downstairs in my easy chair, listening to music, and typing comfortably away. Almost everything I can access upstairs on my big Dell machine, I can also access here. I’ve included a picture of my Wind next to my 17” Dell and a large paperback for comparison.

For those of you who know me, I’m a “value” buyer. I don’t need the flashiest. I want dependability and functionality for the price. My experience with Mac’s for instance has always been that they are very pretty, and cutting edge, and overpriced for the functionality provided. (If you want that sort of thing, more power to you.) I thought a long time about the cost vs. the functionality I’d be buying, and in my estimation, what I expect of this thing for the $400 I paid is good value. So these are the functions I expect to utilize for the new Wind, those which are enabled by it’s portability.

Roaming laptop: Yes, I want to blog from the coffee shop. Yes, I want to have a laptop with me on vacation and not have to remember how heavy it is. I’ve already tied in Google Documents offline functionality so I have document editing capability even offline.
Stereo component: I love Pandora. For those of you who’ve not used it and love discovering music, you must. Type in any favorite song or artist, and Pandora will pull music that is similar. I don’t mean similar as in genre. I mean similar musical structure. I’ve long wanted to stream it to my stereo, but the dedicated devices that do it, still cost hundreds of dollars.
DVR: I don’t have cable service, but I do have Netflix subscription, which I love. For those of you who’ve played around with their on-demand streaming video, it’s superb. Yes there are boxes you can get that interface, but again, they’re in the $100’s.
Phone: like my office phone, I now have my personal phone and voicemail anywhere in the world I choose to be.
eBook reader: The netbook is about the size of large format paperback, and given it’s size and weight it is suitable to carry as an eBook reader. I can rotate the screen orientation and hold it in my hand as I would an open book. I’ve long carried books on my cell phone for those times when I’m travelling and need some diversion. Mobipocket reader has a PC version as well, and it has nice, basic functionality, along with direct access to their eBook store. In addition I’ve fallen in love with Gutenberg where you can obtain e-versions of open domain literature. The beauty of this setup is that in something the size of a single book, I can carry my entire library, and access to virtual bookstores where I can obtain additional reading instantly. (However, I may opt for one of the new Kindle’s when the come out.)

So that’s the story. I’ll keep you posted on how it works out.

The Round up is here!

2009-01-09T07:12:00.001-05:00

Rational Jenn! Objectivist Round-up! Click here for the goodness.

“Rising Water Worsens Flooding”

2009-01-09T07:09:00.002-05:00

I was reading the Wall Street Journal Wednesday and happened upon a poorly written general interest story which I promptly blew off until I saw that it was the second most read online article of the day. In “Hard-Hit Families Finally Start Saving, Aggravating Nation's Economic Woes” author Kelly Evans attempts to make the case that the sudden contraction in consumer spending is somehow making the recession worse.

Usually, frugality is good for individuals and for the economy. Savings serve as a reservoir of capital that can be used to finance investment, which helps raise a nation's standard of living. But in a recession, increased saving -- or its flip side, decreased spending -- can exacerbate the economy's woes. It's what economists call the "paradox of thrift."

The premise of this article is flawed. It implies that the shift in savings rates are somehow independent of the recessionary condition itself. To imply that the economy is made worse by saving leads one to the question “worse compared to what?” A contraction in spending is what happens during the initial stages of a recession. It is the recession! To imply that it worsens the recession is like implying that rising water worsens flooding.

This sort of thinking is at the heart of the reasoning of those economists who think that we must try to stimulate the economy by spending. Implying that something that is a natural part of any recession is worsening it gives credence to the idea that one could spend their way out of a recession. Ultimately, if the public won’t spend, then they must be “stimulated” to spend by allowing the government to spend their money for them. This is a failure to understand a basic law of economics, Say’s Law, which says that supply constitutes demand. One way to consider this is that it is ultimately capital (i.e. money) put to productive use in the hands of capitalists, which causes costs to drop and buying power to increase stimulating consumer demand.

We have seen capital destruction in the last few years, and with it, a natural contraction in the resulting demand. In order to quickly recover then, one would want to accumulate that capital, and put it to productive use. In other words, the best thing one can do when faced with destruction of personal capital is to reaccumulate it, i.e. to save!

Note the funny logic implied as well. This crisis was supposedly caused by a glut of consumer credit, a binge of spending, a lack of savings. But now, the solution to exiting the crisis is to spend. Don’t believe it. The best thing for the public to do today is to save. Yes that will cause a contraction of demand for a time, but the capital saved and ultimately deployed will mean that demand will again begin to increase naturally.

The Politics of Fear

2009-01-08T21:30:00.001-05:00

President-elect Obama in a speech (full text here) at George Mason University today called for “dramatic” action on the part of the Federal government in response to the U.S. economic situation. The basic premise of his speech is one that we’ve heard many times in the last few months. We heard President Bush present it when he called for the initial $700 million “bail-out” package for key Wall Street financial institutions. He reiterated it when he bypassed a grid-locked Congress to extend TARP funds to the Detroit Big Three. And today Obama gave the same justification:

I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years. The unemployment rate could reach double digits. Our economy could fall $1 trillion short of its full capacity, which translates into more than $12,000 in lost income for a family of four. We could lose a generation of potential and promise, as more young Americans are forced to forgo dreams of college or the chance to train for the jobs of the future. And our nation could lose the competitive edge that has served as a foundation for our strength and standing in the world.

In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse.

This is the “government can’t sit by and do nothing” argument or as I like to call it, the “Doomsday scenario.” It consists of positing some sort of unnamed, nebulous “worst case” scenario, claiming that this scenario is what we face in the absence of any action, and then claiming that government must act to prevent such a scenario. It is a spurious argument, and the key to its success lies in two key aspects.

First, it relies on the fear of such an event as a motivator for action. Notice that he provides no discussion of the mechanism by which this disaster will come to pass, but only dire predictions of the result. This is the basic premise that should be questioned of course, but the hope is that your fear will be so great, and your ignorance of the situation so blinding that you’ll not question it. Note that if we do not face such a dire situation, that the basis for “dramatic” action becomes questionable.

Second, its success also relies on the fact that once action is taken one can’t confirm if the original premise was indeed true. This makes it almost impossible to appear to “fail".” Let’s say that we are indeed headed for a “cliff.” By what measure will we determine if government action actually succeeded? Well, the economy won’t fail. But isn’t this the exact outcome we would expect if there were in fact actually no “cliff?” How do we tell the difference between those two scenarios? We can’t. And so the average person is bound to conclude that the stimulus package actually worked.

This whole line of thinking is simply a enticement to help us get used to the idea of looking to government to solve our problems. In fact, Obama brazenly claims that government is the only way out of the dilemma.

There is no doubt that the cost of this plan will be considerable. It will certainly add to the budget deficit in the short-term. But equally certain are the consequences of doing too little or nothing at all, for that will lead to an even greater deficit of jobs, incomes, and confidence in our economy. It is true that we cannot depend on government alone to create jobs or long-term growth, but at this particular moment, only government can provide the short-term boost necessary to lift us from a recession this deep and severe. Only government can break the vicious cycles that are crippling our economy – where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit.

That is why we need to act boldly and act now to reverse these cycles. That’s why we need to put money in the pockets of the American people, create new jobs, and invest in our future. That’s why we need to re-start the flow of credit and restore the rules of the road that will ensure a crisis like this never happens again.

We can’t depend on government to create jobs at all. Don’t buy this line. The irony, of course, is that both this stimulus and the original TARP package will only end up hurting the economy more. Of course we now have the momentum of the precedent set by the Republican administration fueling a Democratic spending binge. This is nothing but the justification for a money grab using your taxpayer dollars. Don’t stand for it.

We are not headed for a cliff. The best thing the government can do for the economy is let it recover on it’s own. University of Michigan economist Mark Perry has been collecting data to quantify how big this economic crisis is at his blog Carpe Diem. It is a much needed antidote to fear, and I suggest following it for a while. In this post (check the comments) you’ll see that looking at the volume of bank failures in nominal dollar value, we have yet to see as much bank failure as occurred in the S&L crisis in the late 80’s. There certainly is economic stress, but it is not a Doomsday scenario. The best thing the government can do is “laissez faire!”

Goals for 2009

2009-01-05T22:36:00.001-05:00

Alex Epstein has a great op-ed on New Year's Resolutions over at the ARC which has made it into several media outlets. He correctly points out he difference between the perspective that views resolutions as a "flash in the pan" and the perspective that views them as part of a goal oriented mentality.

It is a sad irony that those who write off New Year's resolutions because so many fail reinforces the passive approach to life that causes so many resolutions--and so many other dreams--to fail. The solution to failed New Year's resolutions is not to abandon the practice, but to supplement it with a broader resolution--a commitment to a goal-directed life.

If any of you have to write annual goals for work, you have an Objectivist to thank for it. Dr. Edwin Locke is probably one of the most cited organizational psychologists in the field, and his name is synonymous with the work that he is best known for: goal-setting theory. As part of a planning and action process, goals are crucial tools to help maintain focus, and by which to measure progress. That is, given things that you value, goals are instruments used to help obtain those values.

I write annual professional goals every year and take some time in deriving them. They serve as milestones to a larger action plan, and periodic review points. I summarize them at the end of the year as accomplishments. We use S.M.A.R.T. goals at work. That is good goals are specific, measurable, actionable, realistic and timely. I also add a little "stretch" to mine since that little nervousness you feel if you're not entirely sure you can accomplish it all is a great motivator.

So this year, I've decided to share some of my goals for 2009. Each goal implies an underlying action plan, a series of steps to achievement, but I won't list all of that thinking out for you. I have personal and professional goals for 2009 as well, but the personal ones are... well, personal, and the professional ones would be cryptic to anyone not in my business so I've dispensed with them.

House - Remodel two bathrooms, repaint two bedrooms, install that steam shower, and put in a very large flower bed in my back yard. That assumes I stay in this house (but that is a story for another time).
Health - Compete in at least 3 duathlons, two of which are Olympic distance - bettering my 2007 time. [Note: I've never been one for diet/exercise goals. Weight loss is certainly specific, but to me lifestyle and health need to be in the service of some other end, some other value. Yes, this goal implies weight loss and a host of other things. It just seems more purposeful this way.]
Education - Complete next two OAC classes. Get a better grade than I got on the first one! (so humbling that was for this over-achiever!)
Books - Read at least one work of good literary fiction per month (for a total of 12). Yes, this might not seem like many, but Anna Karenina is on the list. Definitely a stretch goal.
Writing - Increase blog readership to a steady 100 visits/day (or ~3000/month). That's gonna require a whole lotta changes, and a commitment to more regular blogging.
Writing - By years end, I will author one article for the Objective Standard. Yup, this one scares me a bit.
Canine - Title Moxie in AKC Agility - Open Class - both Jumpers and Standard. I'm not a high volume trial attendee so this one is going to require some finesse.

And that wraps it up. What are your goals for 2009?

Objectivist Round-up - Best of 2008

2009-01-01T20:47:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year and welcome to the January 1st, 2009 edition of the Objectivist Round Up! Our New Year's roundup features some of the best posts from 2008, written by authors who are animated by Objectivism, the philosophy of Ayn Rand. According to Ayn Rand:

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

"About the Author," Atlas Shrugged, Appendix.

Valda Redfern presents There's no pragmatic way outposted at Valzhalla, saying, "Can we find pragmatic solutions to today's crises? No - pragmatism isn't practical"

Burgess Laughlin presents The third greatest sacrifice? posted at Making Progress, saying, "This article, about sacrificing one's beloved work, personalizes an earlier post, "What is a central purpose in life?" (Making Progress, May 20, 2008)."

Brian Phillips presents A Christmas Fantasy posted at Houston Property Rights, saying, "Americans awoke today to startling news-- the federal government declared itself morally bankrupt and closed the doors on virtually all of its operations. "We have realized the error of our ways," President Bush announced on the steps of the White House."

Khartoum presents Islam: What The West Needs To Know. posted at Philosophy, Law and Life., saying, "My first identification of Islamic totalitarianism."

Darren Cauthon presents Earth Day Advice posted at Darren Cauthon, saying, "Here's a post I wrote in April about Earth Day that was a great starter to some good conversations with family and friends. I also submitted it to the local morning radio guy who read and talked about it on the radio. Very fun!"

Greg Perkins presents Why the New Atheists Can't Even Beat D'Souza: The Best and Worst in Human History posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Dinesh D'Souza has been famously beating up the "New Atheists" in debates and op-eds, but it is not because he is a strong Christian Apologist. Rather, it is due to their fundamental philosophical weaknesses. This series of articles shows how D'Souza and his ilk don't stand a chance against Objectivism, by demolishing his biggest-scoring points in metaphysics ("Science vs. Miracles"), epistemology ("The Gap in Religious Thought"), ethics ("Morality and Life"), and the fundamental role of reason in human life ("The Best and Worst in Human History")."

Valda Redfern presents Valzhalla: Baltic delights posted at Valzhalla, saying, "If you read to the end, you'll find out how to add a bit of shine to your philosophy"

Ari Armstrong presents Politicians Caused and Worsened the Great Depressionposted at FreeColorado.com, saying, "Will modern American politicians repeat the mistakes of history?"

K. M. presents Freedom of Speech « Applying philosophy to life posted at Applying philosophy to life, saying, "A post defending an absolute right to free speech with some good exchange in the comments. I chose this post because 'Freedom of Speech' is perhaps the most important idea to understand today."

Paul Hsieh presents How The GOP Lost My Vote posted at NoodleFood, saying, "My favorite piece of 2008 was this Denver Post OpEd which I wrote immediately after Election Day, on the dangerous influence of the Religious Right on the Republican Party. Once it hit the conservative blogosphere, I received lots of positive feedback from disaffected Republicans as well as plenty of hate mail from religious conservatives. This was yet another demonstration of the fact that (1) this country needs our ideas, and (2) there are many people ready and willing to listen to them."

Rational Jenn presents Heroic Me posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "The first part of 2008 was marked by our resistance to participation in the "mandatory" American Community Survey. I have continued to receive hits from the domain "census.gov" ever since. Just a reminder--the ACS is completely over the top, and to my knowledge, no threat of fine or jail has ever actually been carried out by the government. I'm so happy that we refused to comply with this serious invasion of our privacy!"

C. August presents Boston's Medallion Morass posted at Titanic Deck Chairs, saying, "From June 27th, an analysis of the absurd taxi medallion mess in Boston, and the only real solution to it."

Diana Hsieh presents Jury Nullification posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Should jurors ever acquit a person they know to be guilty of breaking the law on the grounds that the law is unjust? This post explores that question."

Kendall J presents My Hero Anna Schwartz posted at The Crucible and Column, saying "A monetarist's look at causes of the financial crisis."

Beautiful Logic Puzzle

2008-12-08T22:40:00.001-05:00

OK, this just sucked me in. It's intriguing as hell. And it's beautiful.

Hat tip: Diana

Objectivist Round Up

2008-12-04T10:52:00.000-05:00

Next edition is up at Titanic Deck Chairs. Check it out!

What Pragmatic Thinking Gets You

2008-12-04T10:27:00.004-05:00

I couldn't pass this one up. Hat tip: Carpe Diem

It's funny, yes, but at the same time there is a fundamental there I'm trying to figure out. I'll write more on it as well, but I've been amazed at the number of people who advocate some aspect of this ongoing government intervention in the economy. A recent Wall Street Journal Op-Ed by noted economists Oliver Hart and Luigi Zengales, entitled "Economists Have Abandoned Principle" articulates the same thing. I'm also seeing the same phenomena on a vast array of economics blogs.

Is the integration required to be able to trust Adam's Smith's invisible hand that much more difficult to make than the direct (although deeply flawed) action of government?

The Continuing Collapse

2008-11-20T18:15:00.001-05:00

As some of us have continued to say, it will continue to get worse until fundamentals are addressed. Money was given to banks, but balance sheets were not restructured. As such it is only a temporary delay in financial troubles. As long as financial markets are stopped up, demand freezes, and the longer that persists the more impact it has on actual demand. A general slow down ensues, and real firms, the worst run, and most at risk, begin to falter. Voila, autos slump; retailers are next.

The financial bail-out has failed. Primarily this is indicated by the precipitous drop in selected financial stocks after they were infused with cash. Bank of America, Citigroup, and Goldman Sachs are off more than 50%. There was no need to hide which banks were in trouble, since the bailout wouldn't work, we were bound to find out by watching their stocks.

Some suggest that this is not yet as bad as The Great Depression, pointing at the jobless rate as a key indicator. However, we must remember that in the Depression our economy was much more self-providing than it is now. Most of our manufacturing has been moved off shore to places like China. If you look at what's happening to factories, and unemployment there, it is not pretty.

Our government continues to throw money at the problem, and attempt to improve things by stimulating consumers to buy. However, this is attempting to change the cause by stimulating the effect. It is doomed to failure. What does the Federal Government risk through this policy? It already is close to lowering interest rates as much as it possibly can (to 0% effectively). But that is absolutely the wrong thing to do. Lower rates are what got us into this problem, and it only encourages poor investing. Capital has already been destroyed. What we need is higher rates to spur conservative investing and capital preservation, but this does not fit with the stimulatory policy of the monetarist Fed. While sound policy guarantees a protracted recession, doing the opposite is now almost sure to guarantee a depression. The Fed has thrown so much money at this, that it now threatens the viability of the dollar as a currency of standard. If dollar confidence erodes enough, expect massive dollar flight and a significant decline in dollar values, making the problem even worse. We're in a deflationary period now, but that is due to real demand destruction. If the Fed continues its stimulatory policy, expect the deflation cycle to turn to rapid inflation.

We also do not need industry bail-outs. This phenomenon is nothing more than poorly run company "pigs" to an ever widening trough. The other half of the US auto industry is fine. Why do we continue to reward failure? Every bail-out, the financial one included, has done nothing but reward those who have failed to manage their companies well, and punished those who have succeeded. While some advocates of a bail-out continue to think that it can be structured in such a way as to force Detroit to restructure, Megan McCardle points out that things have become so cynical back in Washington, the those who support the auto bailout there now nakedly see it for what it is, a cash grab, "Hail Mary" play. Yet, they advocate it anyway. My God, what have we become!

Citi begs for help, and Wells Fargo has "help" forced upon it. A free market would work in reverse. Wells would gobble up Citi, but as long as the govt is in play, Citi resists, holding out for a hand-out. When strong banks suggest that they will use bail-out funds to make acquisitions, the one rational, helpful action in this crisis, tax payers howl.

This crisis could have been avoided. If the government had only stayed out when the banking sector worsened, and let the natural course of bankruptcy restructure sick balance sheets.

There are letters being penned to my congressmen, and I'm planning a few LTE's as well. Now more than ever, there is only one thing to advocate, lasseiz faire!

Prophetic

2008-11-20T10:11:00.000-05:00

For those of you who believe today's crisis looks a lot like Atlas Shrugged, Zip has two prophetic passages from Rand's non-fiction. It's worth clicking through the links as well.

That pain in your chest is not...

2008-10-24T06:35:00.002-05:00

going to go away. Like a heart attack victim who stops to rest and get temporary relief, Treasury's half-hearted measures do not get at the root of the problem. Until they do we can expect good days and bad days, but with a general trend downward. We got some "relief" this week, but it's not over.

The Blogging Experience

2008-10-23T22:04:00.004-05:00

Andrew Sullivan of the Atlantic monthly (and his blog The Daily Dish) has a wonderful article in this month's issue on the ephemeral experience of being a blogger. This vibrant article captures some of the emotion and the experience of this unique occupation. Some of my favorite snips:

On the dialogue between blogger and commenter,

Readers tell me of breaking stories, new perspectives, and counterarguments to prevailing assumptions. And this is what blogging, in turn, does to reporting. The traditional method involves a journalist searching for key sources, nurturing them, and sequestering them from his rivals. A blogger splashes gamely into a subject and dares the sources to come to him.

...

Not all of it is mere information. Much of it is also opinion and scholarship, a knowledge base that exceeds the research department of any newspaper. A good blog is your own private Wikipedia. Indeed, the most pleasant surprise of blogging has been the number of people working in law or government or academia or rearing kids at home who have real literary talent and real knowledge, and who had no outlet—until now.

and on the unique improvisational "vibe" of blogging,

To use an obvious analogy, jazz entered our civilization much later than composed, formal music. But it hasn’t replaced it; and no jazz musician would ever claim that it could. Jazz merely demands a different way of playing and listening, just as blogging requires a different mode of writing and reading. Jazz and blogging are intimate, improvisational, and individual—but also inherently collective. And the audience talks over both.

The reason they talk while listening, and comment or link while reading, is that they understand that this is a kind of music that needs to be engaged rather than merely absorbed. To listen to jazz as one would listen to an aria is to miss the point. Reading at a monitor, at a desk, or on an iPhone provokes a querulous, impatient, distracted attitude, a demand for instant, usable information, that is simply not conducive to opening a novel or a favorite magazine on the couch. Reading on paper evokes a more relaxed and meditative response. The message dictates the medium. And each medium has its place—as long as one is not mistaken for the other.

I try to explain blogging to my friends and colleagues who are not aware of the medium and they usually don't get it. Andrew captures the feeling wonderfully!

My Hero Anna Schwartz

2008-10-21T21:14:00.001-05:00

Anna Schwartz co-authored "A Monetary History of the United States" with Milton Friedman. While the monetarists have their own issues, she gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal this week on the financial crisis, "Bernanke is Fighting the Last War, and it is superb. She made five key points that echoed themes I've been discussing in the past weeks.

First, the current Federal policies are not addressing the fundamental cause of the confidence problem. That cause is distressed balance sheets which can only be fixed by write down and recapitalization.

This is not due to a lack of money available to lend, Ms. Schwartz says, but to a lack of faith in the ability of borrowers to repay their debts. "The Fed," she argues, "has gone about as if the problem is a shortage of liquidity. That is not the basic problem. The basic problem for the markets is that [uncertainty] that the balance sheets of financial firms are credible."

So even though the Fed has flooded the credit markets with cash, spreads haven't budged because banks don't know who is still solvent and who is not. This uncertainty, says Ms. Schwartz, is "the basic problem in the credit market. Lending freezes up when lenders are uncertain that would-be borrowers have the resources to repay them. So to assume that the whole problem is inadequate liquidity bypasses the real issue."

Second, bank failures are not the end of the world, and in fact are part of the restructuring process that is needed.

In fact, by keeping otherwise insolvent banks afloat, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury have actually prolonged the crisis. "They should not be recapitalizing firms that should be shut down."

Rather, "firms that made wrong decisions should fail," she says bluntly. "You shouldn't rescue them. And once that's established as a principle, I think the market recognizes that it makes sense. Everything works much better when wrong decisions are punished and good decisions make you rich." The trouble is, "that's not the way the world has been going in recent years."

Third, the idea of "systemic risk" as a Doomsday scenario is bogus, and only propagates the "too big to fail" mindset.

Instead, we've been hearing for most of the past year about "systemic risk" -- the notion that allowing one firm to fail will cause a cascade that will take down otherwise healthy companies in its wake.

Ms. Schwartz doesn't buy it. "It's very easy when you're a market participant," she notes with a smile, "to claim that you shouldn't shut down a firm that's in really bad straits because everybody else who has lent to it will be injured. Well, if they lent to a firm that they knew was pretty rocky, that's their responsibility. And if they have to be denied repayment of their loans, well, they wished it on themselves. The [government] doesn't have to save them, just as it didn't save the stockholders and the employees of Bear Stearns. Why should they be worried about the creditors? Creditors are no more worthy of being rescued than ordinary people, who are really innocent of what's been going on."

Fourth, regardless of market forces that reacted during the buildup, one of the underlying causes was loose money policy at the FED. Anna, as a monetarist obviously focuses on this as a primary cause, but I can forgive that. I like this development, not so much for it's errors, but because of the fundamental idea that seemingly unexplainable phenomena are explainable. That mysterious "booms" are not so mysterious.

How did we get into this mess in the first place? As in the 1920s, the current "disturbance" started with a "mania." But manias always have a cause. "If you investigate individually the manias that the market has so dubbed over the years, in every case, it was expansive monetary policy that generated the boom in an asset.

"The particular asset varied from one boom to another. But the basic underlying propagator was too-easy monetary policy and too-low interest rates that induced ordinary people to say, well, it's so cheap to acquire whatever is the object of desire in an asset boom, and go ahead and acquire that object. And then of course if monetary policy tightens, the boom collapses."

And finally, on Alan Greenspan's role in the mess,

The house-price boom began with the very low interest rates in the early years of this decade under former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan.

"Now, Alan Greenspan has issued an epilogue to his memoir, 'Time of Turbulence,' and it's about what's going on in the credit market," Ms. Schwartz says. "And he says, 'Well, it's true that monetary policy was expansive. But there was nothing that a central bank could do in those circumstances. The market would have been very much displeased, if the Fed had tightened and crushed the boom. They would have felt that it wasn't just the boom in the assets that was being terminated.'" In other words, Mr. Greenspan "absolves himself. There was no way you could really terminate the boom because you'd be doing collateral damage to areas of the economy that you don't really want to damage."

I have an entire post on the revisionist perspective that Alan Greenspan has himself put to his decisions and actions. However, every time I sit to write it, I get too infuriated to finish it. This particular account made my blood boil as it shows in his own thinking the pragmatist and sell-out he has become. And in the end in doing so he's become capitalism's worst detractor.

Thanks Anna for saying what had to be said!

Objectivist Round Up

2008-10-17T11:40:00.002-05:00

Rational Jenn has this week's Objectivist Round-up. Check it out!

What We Need Now is Some Good Old-fashioned "Collusion"

2008-10-15T20:53:00.001-05:00

The last debate starts in an hour or so. I can't do it, really. I'll be ill if I try. After watching the last several weeks of an incredible resurgence of statism from government intervention in the economy, it really doesn't matter what the candidates say.

I was tempted for a while to vote McCain, just because the economic crisis is so bad, and will potentially be so devastating if mishandled. My hope was that there was some semblance of basic economics somewhere in his camp. However, after reading about what Franklin Roosevelt promised regarding monetary policy and what he actually did after being elected (which you can find in this publication: The Great Myths of the Great Depression) it's clear to me that a vote for a pragmatist who says he's for the free market, and consistently bashes it in word and deed is no vote at all. The Republicans are slaves to religion and a pragmatist like McCain will go wherever his handlers lead him. And a Democratic Legislative / Executive combination can only do no good. There is no choice this year. I'm sitting this one out. I'll use the time to pen a few letters to my congressman, and maybe some Letters to the Editor.

Today I read of the heavy handed tactics used by Treasury on our nine largest banks. I read of force used to take ownership rights in banks in exchange for capital. Forced used on both good banks and bad banks alike, and capital thrust upon good banks that didn't need or want it. You should read some of the account here. It is chilling.

The only difference between Hank Paulson and Hugo Chavez is that Paulson "feels badly" about what he's done. Our American statism takes the unique form of a seemingly concerned, reluctant paternalism. Here, instead of the stern dictator, we have the "reluctant father." Never mind that both have to punish their misbehaving children, in exactly the same fashion.

But I digress. On to the topic at hand.

Megan McCardle almost had me snookered last week, but not this week. She's concerned about something in the market called "systemic risk," and thinks that this is cause for some form of government regulation in the financial markets. For those of you who don't know finance, systemic risk is risk that an entire system is subject to. It is said to be the risk that you cannot eliminate through diversification. This concept however has become the basis for a line of thought which has a parallel in the environmental movement, namely The Doomsday Scenario. Last week this scenario was posited for the commercial paper and money markets.

The idea is that these systemic risks threaten the very existence of the financial markets, and because the markets move so fast it is possible that once they near a certain point, it will be impossible to stop the financial system from imploding. Therefore one needs to regulate the markets in such a way that they are kept away from these systemic "cliffs." While markets do move quickly, and can get themselves into trouble, I think it is fallacious to then posit that the outcome is catastrophic, and that it can be mitigated by government action.

I'm not suggesting that such risk doesn't exist, but I am seriously questioning that idea that one can mitigate it by regulation. Forgetting for a second that governments themselves are subject to systemic risks, that their meddling can in and of itself be a systemic risk through unintended consequences (as is the case in this crisis), and that systemic risks are in part unmitigatable because the are unforseeable (making one wonder how one a priori regulates against them). The argument that caught me off guard was her thought on why governments are uniquely qualified to do the damage control when a crisis hits.

In her discussion on the crisis with Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism (whose blog I have come to rely on for its up to the minute detailed information on this crisis, and who is "gobsmacked" at the Paulson bailout. For her take on why the bailout won't work see her BloggingHeads with McCardle - 18:00. It's quite good.) Megan posits (bold mine),

One of the core issues here, I think what the government is really good at in doing this kind of regulation is first of all it's great at transparency and it's really good at coordination. And so some of the things that people are suggesting, like Luigi Zengales is saying 'look just force people to do an equity transfer' and the reason you want the government to do this is that anyone who does it by themselves sends a bad signal to the market, but if you force everyone to recapitalize at once, then there's no signaling of [balance sheet problems].... But the government is really good at that stuff, when you have a collective action problem in the financial markets which you often do. (passage starts at 38:30, the whole discussion of systemic risk starts at 28:00)

My first response to this was "hmm, ok, yes government can generate broad, unified action." It is of course telling that she uses the word "force" since that is the mechanism by which government accomplishes "unified" action. And it is true that this crisis needs a unified action. I spent a day noodling on that problem, until one of my favorite capitalists, J.P. Morgan, gave me the answer. Back to my post of last week, Morgan's answer to the crisis of 1907 was to bring all bankers together, turn out balance sheets, and restructure them with capital infusions and write-downs.

In a sense the action required here is the same, a unified action, involving all the main banks, restructuring through write-downs and capital infusions. A free market could do this on it's own. Treasury might be able to do it, but it inherently requires nationalization. So why isn't the free market acting? Why is government supposedly better at such action? Because if bank heads do this today, it goes by the term collusion, and it is patently illegal. But it should not be! Government is better at it because it has made the act of doing it illegal for all but itself. Also, for the CEO who has managed his bank poorly, the free market option means he will lose his firm. Such a person, acting pragmatically, would rather hold out for a government bail-out, even if he risks bankruptcy. Implied government action creates that moral hazard that prevents these free-market-led negotiations!

A "collective action" problem is better handled by the free market, but today such action is illegal. It should not be. The truth is that instead of Henry Paulson forcing good banks to accept nationalization, it is the good banks who should be presiding over the recapitalization of their more poorly-run brethren.

Lasseiz faire!

Factor #6: It Won't Actually Be Paulson's Money

2008-10-02T18:17:00.001-05:00

I realized this today. In a follow up to my post on "Why Paulson's Money is No Good" describing why government money can't replace private capital, I forgot one key item, and it's a really good one.

Broad open-ended "emergency" legislation such as the $700b bailout is implemented and interpreted by men. A key feature of the rule of law, and the principle behind the idea the idea of a "government of laws, not men" is that the caliber of people to objectively interpret and benevolently administer law varies. And one feature of a pragmatic approach to public service is that credible men make us think that a government of men is alright. Greenspan, in many times running the FED as if he were a private banker, lulled us into thinking that the FED as legal entity isn't so bad.

Enter Hank Paulson. He's credible as an ex-Wall Street CEO, right? I have many conservative friends who, on that basis alone, are willing to at least entertain the idea that the bail-out money can't be spent that poorly. But civil servants change. New ones come. Sometimes the one we entrust a particular policy to is not the one who actually carries it out, and as a result, they carry it out poorly.

Hank Paulson isn't going to be the one administering this bail-out. In all likelihood, it will be the person selected as Treasury Secretary under President Obama [sic]. Do you know who that is? I certainly don't. Are you willing to trust that person to make good judgements about how to effectively spend this money? I shudder at the thought.

Unintended Consequences

2008-10-02T17:58:00.001-05:00

The Bail-out bill continues it's steady march to realization. While the mainstream media and a lot of intelligent people I know continue to advocate for the bail-out, the narrative of the proper causes of the bailout is making it into the mainstream. I don't think it's a majority voice yet, but it is a mainstream voice. Radio commentators like Glenn Beck, Dennis Miller, and even morning radio entertainer Mancow (this morning he identified Fannie/Freddy, the CRA, and government intervention as the key causes of the mess) are openly advocating and identifying root causes properly. Senator DeMint and popular economic commentators are starting to advocate strongly against the bail-out.

The problem however, judging from those I've talked to is that the analysis of the cause and effect seem to be superfluous to the thinking of what to do going forward. I have a whole post brewing on why this is, but I think that we who advocate on the principles of free markets, also have to begin to articulate the concrete free market options, and question the wisdom of the prevailing thinking. That is why I changed my tone on the last letter to my Congressman. I don't think it's necessary that you have a knowledge of economics take this tack. You can also focus on experts in the media who are advocating options, and pointing out problems with the bail-out option.

I have a post brewing on some of what I perceive as the faults in this line of thinking. One aspect is that while many people consider the intended consequences of any advocated action, it is many times the unintended actions that actually can do the damage. Many examples abound, and here are two regarding the crisis.

From a Wall Street Journal Article "Free AIG", it appears as though, in retrospect, the nationalization of AIG a few weeks ago, may not have been a good idea (bold mine).

We don't know if AIG debt deserves a downgrade, but the ratings drama tells us something about the original deal. In fact, the further we get from the New York Fed's takeover of AIG, the worse this transaction appears for both taxpayers and shareholders. In the wake of Lehman's bankruptcy filing, an intervention might have appeared necessary. Now this alleged rescue is even drawing skeptical looks from state insurance regulators, triggering a surreal press release on Monday.

The New York Fed's release had no news, only an assurance that its credit facility was actually intended to help AIG: "This program is designed to stabilize AIG with sufficient liquidity, and to enable AIG to make appropriate dispositions of certain assets over time." (Read full press release here.) Why does the Fed need to convince people that it's helping a company it is lending $85 billion to? Perhaps because shareholders didn't vote for this federal help and might reject it if they could.

There's also downside for taxpayers, because the bizarre structure of this deal encourages the company to put them on the hook for all $85 billion. AIG would have to pay 10.5% this year on the full $85 billion, even if the company didn't borrow a nickel. Taking the money only increases the rate to about 14%. Naturally, the company has already borrowed more than half of the available taxpayer funds.

Once accepted, the onerous terms of this facility force AIG to immediately commence asset sales. Taxpayers might celebrate that the Fed is driving such a hard bargain when owners of a business come to Washington for help, but again, the owners never did. We have found no evidence to suggest that the AIG board, the Treasury or the New York Fed consulted the firm's largest shareholders before striking this deal.

Some shareholders are wondering if a Chapter 11 filing wouldn't have been a better deal. Clearly the word "bankruptcy" in news stories about an insurer can be toxic. Customers begin to flee and state regulators might seek to put even the healthy insurance subsidiaries in conservatorship. But with the company preparing to sell off pieces to satisfy Fed loans, AIG is not exactly in a growth phase now. Shareholders have occasionally prospered when a holding company with a liquidity problem but otherwise healthy business has reorganized under Chapter 11.

Only weeks after the deal, it's unclear that it had any effect that a Chapter 11 filing wouldn't have had. Here's a great example of a free market option that simply wasn't taken, that could have been, and may have been better for the company in the long run.

And on another note, the common belief among many smart but pragmatic advocates of the bail-out today deals with the belief that the short term credit market (commercial paper, and money markets) is too big to fail. This market is used to fund ongoing operations (payroll, accounts receivables, etc) at many companies, and so many CEO's are worried about how to finance these operations, and whether they can raise capital. This is one key aspect addressed Treasury's "sorta" plan. However, some technically knowledgeable people are now considering whether the act of the FED raising $700B in capital by selling Treasury notes won't harm these short term markets rather than help them, simply by sucking cash from them, because of investors seeking safer investments than the currently shaky markets are offering. Think about that. It starts to make everyday common sense. If the problem is one of liquidity (cash flow), where is Treasury going to get the $700B? By sucking it out of the markets that are already illiquid! An unintended consequence. See discussion here, and here.

It is the unintended consequences that will hurt us here, and given that it is highly unclear that government action will improve things and it is very possible that it will make things worse.

These types of arguments are directed at the question "What do we do next?" and they are concrete. I believe that this is what we can start to point out. In essence we argue for more time and consideration, for a rational consideration of the options. Argue it on common sense grounds. Argue to give more time for the voices which are starting to hear raised. Yes, argue in principles, but we also need to make those principles understood by chewing them and giving very easily inducible, concretized arguments that they support. "Capitalism by Induction" if you will.

More Letters

2008-10-02T15:59:00.001-05:00

This letter went to my Representative today (or at least it will as soon as his website isn't so jammed.) I took a little more pragmatic approach in my positioning, only because of where I'm seeing the argument leading among honest individuals these days. More on that in another post. There is still time. Please write your congressman.

Dear Sir:

As the House now considers a 2nd “Bail out” provision, I again urge you to vote NO on any such provision.

This crisis was caused by extended government intervention in the financial markets, over the course of many years. It is very difficult to see how our government’s ability to understand the unintended consequences of its actions is going to improve by an increasing level of panic, shortened time of execution and far too little consideration of alternatives. It is said that “we cannot afford to stand by and do nothing,” but I would say that when government stands up to “do something” in the economic markets, there is hardly assurance that the cure will not be worse than the illness.

I know that CEO Andrew Liveris of Dow Chemical has come out for the bail-out on the basis that the short term credit market cannot afford to fail. His voice surely makes an impression on you. Yet, even now, many are beginning to worry that in an effort to save the short term credit market, the raising of such large sums of money via Treasury’s issuance of T-bills will in fact make the liquidity crisis worse by pulling money from those markets. It is the unintended consequences of hastily-taken policy moves like this one which will ultimately undo our financial system. (please see: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/10/more-discussion-of-why-bailout-bill.html )

The Great Depression of the 1930’s was not caused primarily by the stock market crash of ’29, but by a series of actions by government including excessive tarrifs, taxes, and social programs enacted in the subsequent years, which ultimately deepened what could have been a short recession. Congress at that time, was trying to help as well.

Please take this time to think hard that in passing this bill, your vote to “do something” may have unintended consequences that may very well make things worse.

Let the “something” we choose to do be to allow the free markets to work out this crisis, to lower capital gains and income taxes to fuel liquidity and spur growth, and to clear bureaucratic hurdles to allowing speedy recapitalizations of these distressed companies.

Vote NO on any “stimulus” package.

Best regards,

Kendall J

Objectivist Round Up - Financial Crisis Edition

2008-10-01T19:25:00.001-05:00

Welcome to the October 2, 2008 edition of Objectivist round up. This week we're focusing specifically on the Financial Crisis from an Objectivist perspective. This is a crucial point in our nation's history, and one which illustrates the value of good ideas, and the failure of bad ones. Your voice is necessary in this time of high anxiety. Hopefully, the Objectivists here help make things a little bit clearer. This issue is quite full so let's get right to the substance.

Also, the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has set up a web site dealing specifically with the Financial Crisis and offering insight and analysis on this crisis and capitalism in general. That site is located here.

Financial Crisis - Principles & Analysis

Rational Jenn presents Nine Years Ago posted at Rational Jenn, saying, "Even The New York Times saw this coming! Plus, bonus advice on making Government Interference work for you!"

PC presents Borrowed time - the anatomy of recession posted at ... not PC, saying, "Somebody has blundered, and we'll all be paying for it again, but who and how and why?"

Ari Armstrong presents Capitalism In Two Minutes posted at FreeColorado.com, saying, "While I've posted several other links to good articles against the bailout, I thought this short, pithy piece served as a decent summary of the virtues of capitalism -- and the evils of economic controls."

Edward Cline presents America vs. Congress et al. posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "There was nothing in the original Constitution that gave the government the power to "improve" the economy, except, implicitly, to let it alone."

Sascha Settegast presents "Market Failure" vs. Individualism posted at Heroic Dreams.

K. M. presents The financial crisis and pragmatism posted at Applying philosophy to life, saying, "A brief post about the role of pragmatism in the financial crisis"

Noah Stahl presents Blank-and-effect – The economics of pragmatism posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Stahl examines the current administration's "flexible” approach to the financial crisis, about which President Bush said, “There will be ample opportunity to discuss the origins of this problems[sic]. Now is the time to solve it.” Why do Bush and Paulson think they can solve the problem with no understanding of how it came about?"

Gus Van Horn presents Calhoun on the Bubble posted at Gus Van Horn, saying, "As the man says, "That is how capitalism works in case everyone has forgotten.""

Paul Hsieh presents Bush Vs. Ott On The Bailout posted at NoodleFood, saying, "It's too bad Bush didn't make this speech."

Financial Crisis - What's Next?

The Aesthetic Capitalist presents Proper Response to The Bailout posted at The Aesthetic Capitalist.

Diana Hsieh presents Correspondence on the Bailout posted at NoodleFood, saying, "Historian John Lewis eviscerates the typical arguments in favor of the bailout offered by his representative."

C. August presents RIP Bailout... Now What? posted at Titanic Deck Chairs, saying, "The House voted down the bailout. A sigh of relief was followed by dire predictions for what it would do next week. Now it seems that the Senate may beat them to it."

Nicholas Provenzo presents The Financial Panic and the Only Proper Answer to It posted at The Rule of Reason, saying, "We are told that the ruthless self-interest of Wall Street (rather than the "compassionate" gift-giving of the Congress) is the cause of the current financial crisis. Unfortunately, the truth is a little more complex. Perhaps we should examine this truth, that is, before we blithely allow our political leaders to add nearly a trillion dollars to the public debt and give new powers to those who helped bring the disaster along in the first place."

Eric Clayton presents To Defeat the Growth of Government it's Time to Win the War of Ideas posted at Atlantis.

Kendall Justiniano presents Why Paulson's Money is No Good posted here at The Crucible and Column, saying, "Why government can't do what the private economy should be allowed to."

More Objectivist Commentary

Burgess Laughlin presents What can historians study? posted at Making Progress, saying, "This is an ode to the enormous variety of objects--wide and narrow, great and small, abstract and concrete, exalted and mundane--that historians (and their readers) can study."

Kevin Morrill presents Steve Ballmer and the meaning of money posted at Net Profit Motive.

Paul McKeever presents Freedom and the Proper Regulation of Speech posted at Paul McKeever, saying, "did the title get your attention?"

Peter Cresswell presents Is the phenomenenal disconnected from the noumenal ... ?posted at Not PC, saying, "A little humour for Objectivists this week ... by all appearance the world's most destructive philosopher is alive and well and in business down in Fiji!"

John Drake presents China for a day posted at Try Reason!, saying, "Thomas Friedman, famed author of the book "The World is Flat", is out peddling his latest book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded". In it, he reveals to the world his disdain for individual rights. In my post, I discuss his speech for the Washtenaw Economic Club, delivered at Eastern Michigan University, and how his vision for tomorrow is fundamental wrong."

Ryan Puzycki presents A Stroke of Good Luck posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Instead of nervously worrying about the declining health of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il, the U.S. should view it as an opportunity to reevaluate our appeasement of his despotic regime."

The Editors at The Undercurrent presents The Environmentalist Attack on Outdoorsmanship posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "This essay examines the corruption of the conservationist movement, which once sought to conserve nature for human pleasure - not from human beings, as current environmentalists do."

Kristina Saraka presents Protesting Prices posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Kristina looks at the phenomena of protesting in order to bring about lower or higher prices, and examines what bad premises such protests are based on."

Eric Peltier presents Evaluating the War Effort posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Who are we really fighting, and what is our goal in the "War on Terror"?"

Noah Stahl presents The Bankruptcy of the Mixed Economy posted at The Undercurrent, saying, "Noah examines how the mixed economy became so uncontroversial."

Adam Reed presents Religion is the Marxism of the 21st Century posted at Born to Identify, saying, "The last economic crisis of comparable magnitude led to the Great Depression and the Age of Dictators. What can we learn from the history of ideas about the corresponding risks and threat levels from this one?"

Technorati tags: objectivist round up, blog carnival.

Why Paulson's Money is No Good

2008-09-30T22:00:00.001-05:00

Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
- Groucho Marx

As Diana points out, free-market economists and businessmen are starting to articulate the proper principles, causes and needed actions in this crisis. I fear however, that the prevailing philosophy in Washington will not respond to these voices and we will see a nominally similar bail-out pass through Congress. Coupled with a probable Obama presidency and a Democratic Congress, and the tax increases and "relief" measures sure to pass, I also fear a looming full-scale Depression. If capital should flee American shores as a result, we will see a severe loss of value as the Dollar slides and is no longer the bulwark of stability in a storm. Capital has options today. It's not like the Crash of '29.

Many of my Objectivist friends are blogging and articulating the proper philosophical principles by which to evaluate the crisis including The Rule of Reason, Galileo Blogs, Applying Philosophy, and the Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights.

In today's post I thought I'd attempt to discuss what the current crisis consists of, what a proper solution would accomplish, and why bail-out money cannot accomplish the same thing.

Most of the free-market solutions I'm seeing posted all involve the same sorts of actions: orderly liquidations, and/or recapitalizations, and some sort of write-down/containment of the distressed instruments (mortgage-backed securities and credit default swaps) to restore liquidity. But what the heck does that mean?

The primary issue here is one of confidence, and hence liquidity. A lack of liquidity is jargon for the inability of money to flow (hence the "liquid" reference) to where it needs to. Note that this does not mean that there isn't money out there ready to flow, but that it simply is frozen. Why? Well, the primary reason is that some banks are holding assets or liabilities that are changing in value at a rapid pace, and in some cases this is threatening to overwhelm a banks ability to pay its obligations. These banks can no longer loan out money. Banks to whom they owe money see that they may not get paid and as a result have stopped lending funds to conserve cash. Healthy banks that might loan them money do not wish to do so because it's unclear what their assets are worth and whether they can pay back the loans. Some banks are sick, some banks are really sick, and since the value of their potential liabilities are changing, it's difficult to decipher which banks could go under and which will survive. So money stops flowing. Uncertainty is high. Confidence is low.

Note, when a bank is close to going under, this does not mean that the healthy assets of a bank somehow vanish. What it means is that under the current capital structure, the bank has more liabilities than assets and has run out of cash, and can no longer raise cash to meet it's obligations.

The key is with the sick banks. In order to restore confidence to the system and hence liquidity, these banks have to be restructured or recapitalized. This can involve the purchase of a stake in the company, outright purchase and assumption of the obligations, and write downs of the asset value. It almost always means that some parties, most notably the owners or stockholders must take a loss. Sometimes certain of the banks obligations are defaulted upon, and even creditors may lose a portion of their assets. Usually the capital infusions result in new controlling interests and the management team is replaced. The new cash, coupled with the loss taken by the various interests, and the change in value of various assets or obligations restores the balance sheet of the company to health. At this point, the bank has the assets to be able to begin loaning again, and confidence in it's balance sheet and it's new management mean that other banks will loan to it. The banks that were owed have taken some loss and may or may not need recapitalization of their own, but eventually, they too can begin loaning again.

There is an orderly due process by which this occurs in the free market, up to and including the use of receivership/bankruptcy to liquidate assets. This process preserves the existing priorities of owners of the company, and it has been shown to work. In a phenomenal article in Monday's Wall Street Journal, "Calling J.P. Morgan" the mechanism by which Morgan recapitalized banks in the crisis of 1907 is wonderfully detailed.

In the fall of 1907, it took J.P. Morgan just eight weeks to resolve a credit crisis similar to ours. Several years of buoyant growth and too much risk-taking in poorly understood investments led to needs for capital that could not be met. Morgan, then 70, locked the nation's top bankers into the ornate library at his home for late-night confession sessions. He asked them to lay bare their balance sheets, keeping himself alert with endless Havana cigars.

The bankers reviewed one another's assets and liabilities. Morgan then decided which financial institutions had to go and which would live, getting commitments from the survivors and from the U.S. Treasury for infusions of capital. This Panic of 1907 had rattled the New York Stock Exchange and the markets for gold and municipal bonds, ruined several banks and trust companies, and nearly bankrupted New York City. Share prices fell by half. But once Morgan was done knocking banking heads together, markets swiftly recovered.

Ever heard of the Panic of 1907? There's a reason. "Markets swiftly recovered." The faster that this can happen today, the faster that we will recover. Yes, government intervention in our economy for the last 10 years means that a large amount of assets are far overpriced and these assets must be revalued, and losses will occur. It will mean that bankers that were foolish enough to overvalue these assets will lose their companies. However, these distressed assets are limited to two sectors of the economy (sub-prime mortgages, and credit default swaps) and in the case of sub-prime the underlying assets (homes) still have value, as do the remainder of assets in all the other sectors. The devaluation of the overvalued assets will mean a recession, but the quicker banks are restored to health, the quicker capital begins flowing and the economy revives.

The question is, aren't capital infusions from the government to recapitalize companies just as good? Here are some key differences to think about, and they are differences that are so fundamental that I counter that even an attempt by Hank Paulson to "look" like a free market will still fail. In a free market:

1. Capital is not used to prop up unhealthy balance sheets. Assets that are truly overvalued are written down quickly. Losses are taken quickly. Propping up bad decisions by pretending that they weren't bad only compounds the problem. Govt money most assuredly will mix it's aims, seeking to rescue those who do not deserve it, either out of altruism or the "too big to fail" doctrine. Government will buy assets before private investors would (since they claim that no one is stepping in, when really no one rationally would step in, at that price) and so guarantee the taxpayers a loss.

2. The people doing the recapitalization have proved themselves adept at managing these operations. In effect, the successful are taking over the unsuccessful. With a regulator making decision, who know if he is capable or not.

3. The people doing the recapitalization have a strong incentive to value assets properly - they put their own money on the line. Transparency of target balance sheets is demanded or no deal. I considered some sort of system where Paulson was required to put every last cent of his personal fortune against his restructuring decisions in direct proportion as a motivator. That certainly incentivizes him, but because of #2 it does nothing to assure that he's capable of making the proper decisions, only that he's motivated.

4. Prior management teams are almost always disposed of. The key here is less that we get rid of the old CEO's but that their replacements are proven to be capable. I don't worry for an instant that Paulson could depose a CEO, but I strongly doubt his decisions on a replacement.

5. The rule of law and sanctity of contract are preserved. In the seizure of WaMu, Treasury seized the company and by fiat destroyed all contractual priorities set forth in the capital structure. This act alone has exacerbated the liquidity problem because now any potential lender to a distressed bank risks losing his entire investment regardless of pre-negotiated terms, to arbitrary exercise of force. Henry Paulson's money comes paired with the potential for wholesale rights violations.

The use of government to attempt this function necessitates rights violations, spends money indiscriminately, and preserves the structures which created the panic at taxpayers expense. The proposed bail-out illustrates perfectly the concept of chasing bad money with good. Voluntary action by the free market instead "cleans house". It cannot be otherwise, no matter how well-intentioned the government.

What can the government do? Primarily, get out of the way, and preserve the rule of law. It needs to definitively state that it will not meddle in the function of the market. By implying that it will do so, government actually impedes the free market from functioning as it should since distressed bank management are hoping to preserve their operations through government action, rather than lose their banks in recapitalizations. It should reduce taxes; capital gains, corporate income, and personal income. In so doing it will encourage the influx of capital and stimulate liquidity and healthy economic functioning. It should clear bureaucratic barriers to bankruptcy and receivership so that these mechanisms can function as quickly as possible. In essence, government should proceed to leave the economy, not meddle in it.

There is one answer to this crisis: laissez-faire!

ARC Website on the Financial Crisis

2008-09-30T18:31:00.002-05:00

The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights has opened up a web site as a resource for ideas regarding the financial crisis. Your refueling stop for principled ideas!

Humor in a Crisis

2008-09-30T16:45:00.004-05:00

Two items struck me as ironically funny today:

1. I received a pre-approval for a WaMu Visa Card.

2. I was talking to a buddy of mine who used to work in fixed asset investing at my company. He was around when bankers tried to sell credit default swaps as an instrument that they claimed should be an integral part of our investment portfolio. From that experience he learned 3 key statements to always cause you to run, not walk, away from any new financial instrument:

a. What could possibly go wrong?
b. It's different this time.
c. You just don't get it.

A Rational Plan

2008-09-29T21:30:00.003-05:00

I saw this vid today, and I like his proposal to address the financial markets. His plan addresses the issue the same way that I've indicated, an orderly and speedy restructuring and/or liquidation of insolvent assets.

What the Treasury has been doing, in seizing companies such as WaMu is egregious. Hank Paulson is circumventing the law and property rights principles to use the force of government to do what he thinks is best. These asset sales could have happened speedily and with due process. Instead assets were seized and disposed of, and the capital structures of the companies decimated.

I have a longer post on the principles behind government's proper role coming, but this gentleman has it correct as well. His proposal is here.

Congress did not defeat this bill based on any rational principle. It was for various politically expedient reasons depending on which group a congressman belonged to. I suspect another plan that is materially no different than this one, and another vote will be eminent before week's end. You must keep up the pressure.

Another Banker Weighs In

2008-09-29T11:40:00.002-05:00

David Littman, former vice president and chief economist for Comerica Bank and Chief Economist for my home town free-market think tank, The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, has penned an op-ed in last week's Detroit News laying blame for the financial mess where it belongs, on government intervention in the economy.

Add that to the letter to Congress penned last week by John Allison, CEO of BB&T, stating the same thing.

Certainly if the risk of financial ruin that advocates of the current bail-out want us to believe necessitates it is so certain, it's odd to me that people who are intimate with the banking industry don't think so.

"How Your Government Can Wreck Your Economy and Get Away with It" in 6 Easy Steps

2008-09-28T14:38:00.001-05:00

1. Set up a Mechanism to Launder Risky Home Mortgage Debt. Create an agency whose sole purpose is to "offer liquidity to the secondary mortgage market." The agency will guarantee home loans for a small "insurance" fee, or it will buy them and repackage them as "mortgage-backed securities" also guaranteed to pay, regardless of default. Set low standards for the types of loans that will quality, and make sure your fees are low so lots of people will sign up for your insurance. Sell these new low risk securities into the financial markets. Viola! You make risky debt look good, and sell it to "suckers" thereby providing liquidity to the mortgage market. Oh, it's true that some of them won't fall for it, but all we need a few, the dumber ones, and the ones who know what's going on, but who are hoping to find a sucker of their own to pass the buck to. Oh, almost forgot. Make sure you set up this agency as a "private" company. Imply that you'll save it if it gets into trouble, but don't promise it explicitly. Give it a nifty, folksy name like Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae.They'll love that.

2. Force banks to offer Risky Debt. What? Not enough people are helping you issue risky debt? Well, that's easy. Just pass a law that forces banks to lend to high-risk prospects. Tell them you won't let them do things like merge with other banks unless they can prove they are issuing risky debt the way you want them too. Make sure the law states that they specifically shouldn't look at things like applicants' income, or current assets when making decisions about them. If it doesn't work so well at first we can just revise it, so our money laundering agency gets into the act too. Oh, name again. We certainly don't want something like the "Let's Issue More Risky Debt Act", so we need something that will tug at their heartstrings. Got it! the "Community Reinvestment Act"! They'll love that.

3. Hold interest rates down so anyone can afford Risky Debt. OK it's starting to work, but still not enough risky debt to clobber the economy. We need more time! A delaying tactic. Wait! We control interest rates right? Shoot let's just keep interest rates low for a while. We know low interest rates stimulate potential new risky debt holders to go ahead and get that house they can't afford. Do that for a couple of years and we'll have risky debt all over the place! Oh, once again, we don't want anyone to know. Let's wait until we have some sort of minor crisis and say we're doing it to help "stimulate" the economy. How about that "Dot com bubble" we just had? Oh, and we need some cover again. Let's get some free-market guy to advocate it. Some pragmatist who's advocated some pretty strong free-market principles but who'll sell them out at a hat drop, and whine about it afterward that he didn't know. What? Robert Stadler isn't available? How about that Greenspan guy? Yeah, they love him.

4. Make it a moral, noble action to take out Risky Debt. Proclaim that every citizen should indulge the noble dream of home ownership. That buying a home is good for the economy; that it's the government's duty to help you afford your new home purchase, and it's your duty to help out the economy. Use the full power of the largest public relations machine in the free world, the U.S. Government, to trumpet the notion. This is the key, of course. Now when Joe Citizen shows up at his local bank and wonders why his banker doesn't ask him about his income, he won't second guess it because he knows that what he's doing is good for the economy. When Joe Banker sells of his mortgage to Freddie, and wonders how it is that Freddie can afford to guarantee what he suspects is a risky debt, he won't think to ask, because it's the government's duty to see that everyone has a home. Oh, I just get warm and fuzzy thinking about it.

5. Wait. That's it. Just let the machinery work. After a few years, Risky Debt will be everywhere. Some people will be worried, but our PR will have worked on most. Even if they're worried, they'll think about how noble and selfless they're being and all that worry will just evaporate in a cloud of happy thoughts.

6. Blame the Free Market. The implosion will happen. What sets it off will be immaterial because the mechanism, the time bomb, will have long been in place. Everyone will be powerless to help it. We will be too, but think of the mileage we'll get by blaming the free market! We'll get to nationalize things, and give out tons of money. We'll call those Wall Streeters "greedy" bastards, call for their heads, take away their companies. Everyone will come to us for help, and we'll tell them we will, even though we can't really. We'll ask for broader powers. Say that we need to be left alone to handle things the way we see fit. And they'll give them to us, of course. Because they won't know any better.

Now I certainly don't want to imply some sort of conspiracy on the part of government here, but the cause and effect I've outlined is real. It is the cause of this financial mess we're in. And it has nothing to do with the free market. But after all the finger pointing at the greed of the businessman I've heard spewed in the last few days, this version pales in its sinister quality, and the actual actions line up better with the facts on the ground. Free-market intellectuals know this and they are saying so, Bank CEO's, the ones who weren't duped by this trickery, know this and they are saying so.

There is one action on this list however that was taken, consciously and consistently. #4 - making it a noble, moral action. You cannot go anywhere today and not hear the resounding chorus. Man is too selfish and greedy; it is his duty to help those less fortunate; we are our brothers' keepers; it is right for government to force this to happen; people rise to their highest when they pursue a "cause greater than self-interest". It doesn't matter if all the other actions above are mistakes. #4 is not, and from #4 all the others necessarily follow. #4 is known as altruism, and it has only one known antidote, rational self-interest as a moral code, and a politics based upon individual rights.

From his recent The Objective Standard article "The Resurgence of Big Government", ARI Executive Director Yaron Brook states it better than I can:

If selfishness and the profit motive are immoral, then no wonder they are blamed for any and all economic crises. Nor is it any wonder that the government—which we are assured is not self-interested—is posited as the solution to such greed-induced crises. Politicians and bureaucrats, we are told, are working not for their own benefit, but for the “common good” or “public interest.” Thus, economic disasters cannot be their fault; the blame must lie on the shoulders of greedy businessmen.

Because Americans accept the notion that self-interest is morally wrong, they have come to equate businessmen with crooks, on the grounds that both pursue self-interested goals. The argument goes, in effect, like this: Left to his own devices, free from the watchful eye of our public servants in Washington, a businessman will try to make a buck by raiding the cookie jar rather than by producing and selling cookies.

...

Americans must come to understand that appeals to the “common good” and the “public interest” are not moral claims but licenses to evil. Because the American public is just a number of separate individuals, whenever some group trumpets action in the name of the “public interest”—say, a new prescription drug benefit or Social Security scheme—it is declaring that the wishes of some individuals trump the rights and interests of other individuals. But everyone has a moral right to pursue his own happiness, free from coercive interference by others. If it is to have a legitimate meaning, the “public interest” can mean only this: The rights of each and every individual are equally protected by the government.

If Americans want to turn permanently toward a genuinely free market—and thus toward peak prosperity—they will have to reconsider their moral convictions. They will have to discover a new morality, one based on the requirements of human life and backed by detailed arguments and demonstrable facts. This is what Ayn Rand offers in her body of writings. She is the only champion of capitalism who would and could defend capitalism on moral grounds, as indicated by the radical titles of her books Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal andThe Virtue of Selfishness. Those who want to fight the trend toward statism—those who want to effect a real and lasting turn toward capitalism—would do well to study her thought.

The people who know what's going on are saying so. I'm saying so. It's time for you to do the same.

No friends of capitalism

2008-09-28T12:18:00.001-05:00

The following letter went to my congressmen at the end of last week. Should another "bailout" plan be proposed which, while smaller in total dollar figure, differ little in principle then subsequent follow-up letters will be sent.

I urge you if you have not done so yet, to do the same!

Dear Sir:

As Congress considers a bail-out provision totaling over $700B and which could run higher, please reconsider any decision to vote for this sort of proposal in any way.

What the country needs now is not the govt granting broad reaching, unchecked powers to the Department of Treasury so that it can spend taxpayers money to buy up bad paper and greater than market prices. Such a measure will not save the economy but plunge it further into crisis. It will not punish those executives who made poor decisions while saving those who were smart. It will treat all equally.

What the country needs now is for the govt to provide an orderly mechanism to allow banks to liquidate assets as needed to solve their liquidity problems. That mechanism exists under the rule of law already. It is known as Chapter 11 restructuring. The free market, a truly free market must be allowed to work to clean up the mess, which ultimately has government intervention in both monetary policy and the mortgage industry at the heart of its cause.

Today John Allison, CEO of BB&T, one of the largest commercial banks in the country articulated the principles by which government should behave in a letter to all of Congress. I agree wholeheartedly with his assessment and urge you not to vote for any sort of bail-out plan.

I have generally voted for you and the Republican party party in the past; however, your vote for such a plan now will irrevocably change my future vote. This action will be akin to the disastrous aftermath of the 1929 crash whereby government attempts to solve the financial problems they created only made them worse and caused a protracted Depression. The Democrats were no friend of capitalism in that time, and should this measure pass with Republican approval, then I will have to conclude on principle that the Republican party is no longer a friend of capitalism either.

Respectfully yours,

Kendall Justiniano

Provenzo's Tops in My Book

2008-09-22T21:04:00.003-05:00

Kudos to Rule of Reason's Nick Provenzo today for standing up to nationally-syndicated talk show host Laura Ingraham. His recent piece analyzing Sarah Palin's choice to give birth to a baby she knew had Down Syndrome and the broader implications that the glorification of her choice implies for abortion rights was picked up by pro-life media in a big way, culminating in his invitation to appear on Laura Ingraham's show. Misrepresented time and again, he published a follow-up piece as well.

Ingraham, a fervent religionist, is staunchly pro-life. While she deals with most of her "friendly" guests in a respectable manner, those who have views contrary to hers can be subjected to anything from berating to a downright railroad job, and Nick was no exception. His talking points for the show, and his response after the interview are here and here respectively.

Nick stuck to his guns, did not allow himself to be misrepresented, and eventually forced Ingraham to direct and blatant ad hominem. My respect goes out to Nick. Facing tough audiences like this is a tough job, and he handled himself well.

How NOT to Teach China a Lesson

2008-09-16T21:15:00.001-05:00

"It is the government's duty to intervene. Now we have a very good example that it is acceptable." -- former Chinese government advisor

What is this government official referring to? Could it be the Russian invasion of Georgia? The latest move by Venezuelan strong-man Hugo Chavez to nationalize more of his country's industry? Not at all. The official refers to Treasury Secretary Paulsen's decision last week to effectively nationalize the U.S. mortgage industry.

As fellow blogger, Gallileo articulated last week, this nationalization was simply making a long standing situation explicit. However, this very public act serves as a demonstration of how far away from the free market the US has actually strayed, and how badly we undercut our efforts to influence other nations' policies.

From a Wall Street Journal article, "U.S. Plan serves as Template For China to Bolster Its Markets"

Still, over the past 30 years, China has studied the U.S. economic model and cherry-picked elements to introduce little by little. It has adopted U.S.-style financial principles to build a market-based system for trading stock. It has invited U.S. financiers to help, with cash and advice, transform its banks into consumer-focused firms with mortgages and private lending. America-focused economic courses are popular at Chinese universities.

U.S. officials have often called on China to cease heavy-handed interventions and occasionally lectured Beijing on financial issues such as how it manages its currency. With the U.S. having to increase its own market intervention, foreign calls for liberalization are likely to be received more cynically in Beijing.

"I think the Chinese regulators will learn the wrong lesson from this," says Liu Jing, professor of accounting and finance at the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing. "Both systems have problems. The problem in China is too much government control, not too little. And they will end up thinking that they should control even more."

The Federal bail-outs, nationalizations and liquidity injections over this crisis are some of the largest interventions in the financial sector since the Great Depression. They are an example of statism, and statist moves. But as this example points out, the US is seen by others as trumpeting the free-market, as an example of how to run free markets, and it is the name of the free market that will be sullied instead of the true cause here, statism.

As Yaron Brook effectively points out in his recent Forbe's op-ed, "The Government Did It," the blame for this financial crisis is to be laid squarely at the doorstep of big government and statist policies. This not an example of the free market mismanagement, but of statism, using an altruist philosophy, run amok.

Again, the The Wall Street Journal article,

Overall, however, the U.S. housing crisis has raised questions about the wisdom of adopting too much American-style capitalism that aren't likely to dissipate soon. The U.S. mortgage crisis is "sobering" for Chinese, who are used to believing "that American financial markets are the best regulated and best managed," says Mr. Zhou [Zhou Dunren, deputy director of the Pudong Institute for the U.S. Economy].

What other nations get wrong when they see this example is that this is a case of American-style statism, not capitalism. True American-style capitalism takes one form, lasseiz-faire, and it would do America some good to once again start practicing it.

Woo Hoo! I'm In!!!

2008-09-02T15:38:00.001-05:00

Dear Kendall,

I am pleased to inform you that you have been accepted into the Objectivist Academic Center. After carefully reviewing your application for admission, we are confident that you will thoroughly enjoy and benefit from our unique undergraduate-level educational program for the study of Objectivism.

Classes will begin in October 2008. Congratulations, and I look forward to meeting you soon.

Sincerely,

Onkar Ghate
Dean, Objectivist Academic Center
Ayn Rand Institute