Dr. Bruce Cordell writes an excellent overview of space exploration and technological trends in 2014. Dr. Cordell makes a number of wonderful observations and predictions about space exploration in terms of what he calls the Maslow window, the appearance out of every five or six decades of an optimistic, technologically expansive one that appears because of exuberant public opinion.
From a policy standpoint, the gist of Dr. Cordell's essay is that the force of technology is so substantial that it can even overcome government's restriction, suppression, and misallocation of economic resources. I don't tend to be so optimistic, but Dr. Cordell may have a point.
As an investor in natural gas pipelines and infrastructure (in firms and Master Limited Partnerships like Chicago Bridge and Iron, Kinder Morgan, Vanguard Natural Resources, Oneok, and Dominion Resources) I am betting on a natural gas boom. The implications of America as an energy exporter are that the costs of misallocation of resources through regulation, monetary expansion, a subsidized banking system, and government mismanagement can be overcome by significant energy revenues that open up because of shale oil, fracking, and other new energy technologies.
Back in 2009, when I last taught an evening course at NYU's Stern School of Business, I got into a friendly argument with a student who was obtaining his MBA to further his career as an energy trader. The student insisted that, based on Matthew Simmons's thesis in his Twilight in the Desert, oil production had peaked. I countered that rising prices will stimulate new technologies.
At the time, I knew of a firm that had invented technology to extract the remaining oil in existing oil wells. The current technology depends on water, but that fails to get at the large amount of oil still in depleted wells. Since then, fracking and shale oil technologies have exploded the potential for energy production in the US. Investors in energy stocks are speculating that America will become the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. If so, the American economy may turn out to be resilient despite Washington's insane economic policies.
Tuesday, March 18, 2014
Monday, February 24, 2014
When the Ignorant Opine: the Case of EJ Dionne
Writing in Forbes, George Leef has analyzed EJ Dionne's Washington Post article about Austrian economics. I logged on to Dionne's article out of morbid curiosity. I was surprised that many people still read the Washington Post. Given how wrong the pro-bailout media has been on so many subjects, from Viet Nam to the tech bubble of '99 to Obama's healthcare reform (no, it didn't reduce costs), the readers must be true believers who, like Dionne, voice opinions about authors they've never read and maintain religious faith in government. No matter how badly or how often the government fails, Dionne and The Washington Post will stand ready to generate lies to defend it.
Anyone who questions the "state activist liberal" religion is subject to angered attack. Hence, Dionne concocts a series of lies: Ron Paul's ideas have been adopted throughout the Republican Party, those ideas are associated with the Republican Congress, and Austrian economics is influential within the Republican Party. Dionne seems to be unaware that Paul lost the primary election to a Progressive, Mitt Romney. I very much doubt that more than five or six Republican congressmen can explain or have even read about Austrian ideas. Since Dionne can't explain them and hasn't read about them either, his explanations fit the crime. An idiot Democrat attacking idiot Republicans about a subject he doesn't understand. How characteristic of Obama's dumbed-down America.
Dionne accuses the Austrians of not understanding history, but in doing so he reveals a lack of understanding of, for example, the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, which was led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who repeatedly said that he was influenced by von Mises and the Austrians and so adopted a market-based economy for Germany rather than the socialistic one that Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party had created. (See Guenter Reimann's firsthand account of the socialistic Nazi economy, much like the American economy of the Obama years, in his book The Vampire Economy.)
The reason for Dionne's and his fellow "state activist liberals'" religious fanaticism about big government goes back to Richard T. Ely, the economist who brought the ideas of the German historical school, which contested the Austrian viewpoint of von Mises's predecessor, Carl Menger, to America. Followers of "state activist liberalism" like Dionne are, from an historical perspective, heirs to Ely and Ely's predecessors in Germany. American liberals are mouthpieces of the German historical school economists, whose ideas were transmitted here via Ely, John R. Commons, and the Hegelian John Dewey.
The last proponent of the German historical school, Werner Sombart, became increasingly nationalistic in his socialism; his last important work was about "German socialism." He collaborated with the Nazis and signed the letter than evicted Ludwig von Mises, a Jew, from the German Sociological Association. Thus, there is a direct link between American state-activist liberalism and Nazism; the link affected von Mises personally. It is not surprising that von Mises, a victim of Nazism who was forced to flee Europe, might see in his opponents' followers in America similar tendencies.
Moreover, von Mises was right. I see little difference between the totalitarianism that evolved in Germany between 1880 and 1930 and the evolution of Progressivism toward totalitarianism here. The willingness of propagandists like EJ Dionne to concoct lies about Austrian economists whom he has not read is very much like the propaganda that appeared in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
The great public choice theorist Mancur Olson outlines in his Rise and Decline of Nations how the destruction of economic special interest groups, the destruction of the infrastructure of big government, led to the economic growth in postwar Germany and Japan. The public choice debate does not trouble Dionne, who is unread on many subjects, so he blithely and ignorantly attributes the recovery in Europe to government spending. Such explanations fly when a totalitarian state is supported by a collaborative media that serves as a mouthpiece to gangsters like Obama.
Anyone who questions the "state activist liberal" religion is subject to angered attack. Hence, Dionne concocts a series of lies: Ron Paul's ideas have been adopted throughout the Republican Party, those ideas are associated with the Republican Congress, and Austrian economics is influential within the Republican Party. Dionne seems to be unaware that Paul lost the primary election to a Progressive, Mitt Romney. I very much doubt that more than five or six Republican congressmen can explain or have even read about Austrian ideas. Since Dionne can't explain them and hasn't read about them either, his explanations fit the crime. An idiot Democrat attacking idiot Republicans about a subject he doesn't understand. How characteristic of Obama's dumbed-down America.
Dionne accuses the Austrians of not understanding history, but in doing so he reveals a lack of understanding of, for example, the reconstruction of Europe after World War II, which was led by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, who repeatedly said that he was influenced by von Mises and the Austrians and so adopted a market-based economy for Germany rather than the socialistic one that Hitler and his National Socialist (Nazi) Party had created. (See Guenter Reimann's firsthand account of the socialistic Nazi economy, much like the American economy of the Obama years, in his book The Vampire Economy.)
The reason for Dionne's and his fellow "state activist liberals'" religious fanaticism about big government goes back to Richard T. Ely, the economist who brought the ideas of the German historical school, which contested the Austrian viewpoint of von Mises's predecessor, Carl Menger, to America. Followers of "state activist liberalism" like Dionne are, from an historical perspective, heirs to Ely and Ely's predecessors in Germany. American liberals are mouthpieces of the German historical school economists, whose ideas were transmitted here via Ely, John R. Commons, and the Hegelian John Dewey.
The last proponent of the German historical school, Werner Sombart, became increasingly nationalistic in his socialism; his last important work was about "German socialism." He collaborated with the Nazis and signed the letter than evicted Ludwig von Mises, a Jew, from the German Sociological Association. Thus, there is a direct link between American state-activist liberalism and Nazism; the link affected von Mises personally. It is not surprising that von Mises, a victim of Nazism who was forced to flee Europe, might see in his opponents' followers in America similar tendencies.
Moreover, von Mises was right. I see little difference between the totalitarianism that evolved in Germany between 1880 and 1930 and the evolution of Progressivism toward totalitarianism here. The willingness of propagandists like EJ Dionne to concoct lies about Austrian economists whom he has not read is very much like the propaganda that appeared in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
The great public choice theorist Mancur Olson outlines in his Rise and Decline of Nations how the destruction of economic special interest groups, the destruction of the infrastructure of big government, led to the economic growth in postwar Germany and Japan. The public choice debate does not trouble Dionne, who is unread on many subjects, so he blithely and ignorantly attributes the recovery in Europe to government spending. Such explanations fly when a totalitarian state is supported by a collaborative media that serves as a mouthpiece to gangsters like Obama.
Thursday, February 20, 2014
The Social Register: An Artifact of Progressivism's Failure
I last heard of the Social Register in the 1970s when I had a college friend named William Golightly who was interested in that sort of thing. Since then American society has become increasingly fragmented, and the idea that anyone would care to call themselves the upper class of an idiot-led nation is a puzzle. I have been doing some research on the Forbes 400, and it seems likely that there is scant overlap between the 400 wealthiest and New York's Finest--or were New York's Finest the police force?--the 400 New York families whom the Social Register deems upper class. I've requested a subscription to the Social Register to find out whether there's much overlap. It seems evident to me that the American power elite does not coincide with either the Forbes 400 or the Social Register, but I suspect if you beat down enough hedges you'll start to find a few hedge hogs.
The bottom line is that the nation is in decline. If the social elite has any power, then they are at fault. It turns out that the Social Register's publication coincided with the Progressive era: It began in New York and Boston in 1890. Of course, there was interest in distinguishing the social upper class from mere parvenus a century earlier, by 1800 or so according to C. Wright Mills in his Power Elite, but American society may not have been concrete and stable enough until the printing of the greenbacks during the Civil War and the advent of Progressivism to permit a rigid listing that, from the 1920s to the 1950s, varied only a few percent (10-20 members) a year. The idea of a firm American aristocracy goes into print at the beginning of Progressivism, and it intensifies a century later.
If the Social Register has any meaning at all, any meaning beyond that of a mutual admiration society or an academic learned society, for I am dubious that it does, then its members must take responsibility for the great American devolution of 1950 to 2014. If so, then I feel no qualms in calling the Social Register a listing of mental retards who have allowed a once-great nation to decline. Of course, and this is more likely, social status is in the mind, and most Americans don't have the Social Register in their minds, so it doesn't have much meaning either way. In either case, it is an artifact of Progressivism's failure.
The bottom line is that the nation is in decline. If the social elite has any power, then they are at fault. It turns out that the Social Register's publication coincided with the Progressive era: It began in New York and Boston in 1890. Of course, there was interest in distinguishing the social upper class from mere parvenus a century earlier, by 1800 or so according to C. Wright Mills in his Power Elite, but American society may not have been concrete and stable enough until the printing of the greenbacks during the Civil War and the advent of Progressivism to permit a rigid listing that, from the 1920s to the 1950s, varied only a few percent (10-20 members) a year. The idea of a firm American aristocracy goes into print at the beginning of Progressivism, and it intensifies a century later.
If the Social Register has any meaning at all, any meaning beyond that of a mutual admiration society or an academic learned society, for I am dubious that it does, then its members must take responsibility for the great American devolution of 1950 to 2014. If so, then I feel no qualms in calling the Social Register a listing of mental retards who have allowed a once-great nation to decline. Of course, and this is more likely, social status is in the mind, and most Americans don't have the Social Register in their minds, so it doesn't have much meaning either way. In either case, it is an artifact of Progressivism's failure.
Obama and the Jay Leno Firing: Will Comcast Comment?
Dear Comcast Media Department:
I write for a newspaper in Kingston, NY, The Lincoln Eagle, and the publisher is interested in a story about the link between Comcast’s contribution to the Obama campaign and the firm’s decision to fire Jay Leno following his Obama jokes. I would be interested in a comment from Comcast. There has been coverage of this claim in several blogs ( http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/02/jay-leno-dumped-political-reasons-kind-regime-live/ , http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2014/02/17/tonight-show-writer-hosts-obama , and http://www.infowars.com/was-jay-leno-canned-by-nbc-for-criticizing-obama/ ).
My day job is that of a college professor, but I am a libertarian. I
haven’t watched television news or commercial television outside of the premium
channels on demand since 2008. I have been intending to terminate my cable
service, but my wife has deterred me until now. However, her brother, a physics
professor, has terminated his. In my case my motivation for wanting to
terminate cable service is a combination of cost and politics. I watch on
demand because I can screen out the Progressive programming and the
propaganda-cum-news. I consider American news to have the same content value
that Pravda and Izvestia had in the Soviet Union. I haven’t
watched television news, including NBC, since 2008.
Amazon.com and Netflix have sizable on-demand portfolios, yet there is
little reason for me to catch the latest episodes of the premium stations’
videos, so your business model and my $350-per-month bill to Time Warner are
likely ephemeral. I would rather watch Hitler’s Nuremburg rally than NBC news,
and I don’t see a distinction between Obama and Hitler or between the Soviet
news service and NBC.
I would appreciate your comments on the stories about the Jay Leno firing
and any other points that may address my concerns about persistent bias and the
laughable responsiveness of NBC to Washington's totalitarians.
Thanks,
Mitchell Langbert, Ph.D.
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