All Things in Moderation

A week or so ago, the Cato Institute launched a new website Libertarianism.org. It’s an introduction to libertarian history and theory. There are videos, essays, white papers and more. I haven’t spent much time on it yet. However, one of the things I found most interesting is that included a section on “Critics of Liberty,” which is a list of books that are critical of libertarian theory.

The site notes: “It’s not enough to be familiar with the major libertarian thinkers and their arguments. A well-informed advocate of liberty must also understand and appreciate the positions of those thinkers who disagree with libertarianism. The works on this list offer a comprehensive introduction to many of the most intriguing, enduring, and forceful attacks on libertarianism—as well as positive arguments for visions incompatible with the philosophy of liberty.”

My plan is to work through the list on the “critics” page. There was one that seems to address the conversation lms was having with Scott (maybe QB?) on the individual versus the community: Liberalism and the Limits of Justice by Michael J. Sandel. According to the blurb, this discusses communitarianism, which holds that individuals can only be understood as members of a community and that the community, not the individual, should be the focus of political theory.

I’m posting this because I thought it was an interesting site and I’ve never seen one that so openly acknowledges dissenting viewpoints … other that ATiM of course.

And, because it’s Friday, here’s Ron

Update: Come on lms, you know you want to come to the dark side.

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Vital Statistics:

Markets are rallying due to Italy’s vote to adopt austerity plans and a better than expected University of Michigan Consumer confidence report. Italian government bonds are rallying again. That said, EURIBOR / OIS is wider, signalling all is not well in the banking system. The chart below explains why:

Chart: Comparison of Euro and US banks

(source: European Central Bank / US Federal Reserve)

This chart shows the nominal value (in local currency) of the banking system assets and equity of both the US and the Eurozone. It shows how much more levered the Euro banking system is than the US system – 19.2 in Europe vs 8.8 in the US. These are pre-crisis numbers, so the state of the Eurozone banking system is even worse.

The University of Michigan Consumer Confidence report showed an uptick in November, bouncing back from the summer lows. Retailers are outperforming the broader market on the news.

Chart: University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index:

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Just a quick note to McWing, Michi, Mark, Brent and any other ATiM veterans: Thank you.

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This one originally aired on CBS, the year I was born. They might air such a thing again. But I doubt it.

20 years after I was born, the Berlin Wall came down. Here’s a picture of Ronald Reagan urged Gorbachev to tear down the wall, and the next is a picture of Ronald Reagan, a year later, tearing down a few pieces of the Berlin Wall for himself.

Now, I like Ronald Reagan as much as the next guy. He remains my favorite 20th century president (my favorites being, boringly, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson). However, it’s the valor and the sacrifice of America’s fighting men and women that made sure there was an American president to demand such a thing (not mention a NATO to protect Europe from the ever-encroaching Iron Curtain). As a dedicated chicken-hawk and hypocrite in support of a strong American defense, I salute you prematurely, American veterans!

edit:

Crazy science that will one day coercively affect our lives:

http://www.reuters.com/resources_v2/flash/video_embed.swf?videoId=217093066&edition=BETAUS

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As a joking observation about the ‘Oops’ Heard Around The World, I suggested that Rick Perry’s incoherent fumbling was the result of there just being too many agencies that he wanted to ax.

In an odd piece of trying to make lemonade out of lemons, the Perry campaign is confirming my suspicion with a straw poll of what other agencies Perry should also pledge to ax. It includes the usual suspects, the Department of Labor, the IRS, the NEA, and so forth. A very odd inclusion at the very bottom is the Marine Mammal Commission.

Compared to the other big massive targets in his crosshairs, this seems like pretty small beer. Is Rick Perry really courting the Club The Seals crowd?

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No, seriously. if you make more than $34,000 per year, you’re in the top 1%.

In America, the top 1% earn more than $380,000 per year. In Australia, the top 3% of households earn more than $250,000 per week, according to the ABS. How much do you need to earn to be among the top 1% of the world?

$34,000.

That was the finding World Bank economist Branko Milanovic presented in his 2010 book The Haves and the Have-Nots. Going down the distribution ladder may be just as surprising. To be in the top half of the globe, you need to earn just $1,225 a year. For the top 20%, it’s $5,000 per year. Enter the top 10% with $12,000 a year. To be included in the top 0.1% requires an annual income of $70,000.

Not only am I in the top 1%, I’m just at the cusp of being in the top .1%, if I only look at gross income. I’m clearly wealthy beyond my wildest dreams, yet I still wince every time I fill up my gas tank.

The OWS who had her $5000 laptop stolen—that laptop represented half-a-year’s income to someone right at the nadir of the top 10% of earners in the world.

Not pointing fingers (well, except at our foreign aid, which clearly needs to be reserved for nations where contract law is enforced and it’s possible for citizens to own private property and build up equity), just sayin’ . . . it’s good to keep things in perspective.

How would you view someone making $350,000 per year who was out in the streets protesting those making $35 million per year, because those super rich folks could afford yachts and private jets and had the financial security that came with owning multiple houses in different countries, and the merely wealthy could only afford one vacation home—and could only lease time on a private jet, but could not own their own?

I doubt there’d be a lot of sympathy for the folks topping $350k or $500k a year, protesting those making tens-of-millions.

Yet to most of the world, that’s what the OWS people look like. Or would look like, if they could afford cable, television, internet, newspapers, or literacy.

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http://www.freep.com/assets/freep/pdf/C4181508116.PDF

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Vital Statistics:

Markets are rebounding after a successful Italian bond auction overnight. Italy sold 5 billion euros of government debt at 6.09%, which put a bid in the 10-year, which rallied to below 7%, nearly erasing yesterday’s losses. Essentially the Italian 10-year did a round trip from 86 1/2 to 82 1/4, which is a 5% move. For government bonds, that is nearly a year’s pay. It is a strange world we live in when normally staid government bonds exhibit the sort of volatility usually reserved for stocks and commodities.

The permanent rescue fund has hit a roadblock as French and German finance ministers clash over provisions to force haircuts on bondholders. As I mentioned before, it appears the French banks are holding the old maid and the government is resisting plans that impose losses on creditors because the last thing they want to do is to have to bail out the French banks (again). This could become an issue.

In the US, there has been a battle royale going on between Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (Nasdaq – GMCR) and hedge fund manager David Einhorn. For those who don’t know, Einhorn runs Greenlight Capital and has be very publicly short the coffee company. Einhorn has cited a number of accounting issues as well as concerns over market size and patents. GMCR announced lower than expected earnings last night, and the stock is down about 30%. These sorts of battles between value hedge-fund managers and growth mutual fund managers make for interesting stories. Usually, the mutual fund managers (by sheer size of dollars invested) steamroll the value guys who are shorting the high-flyers. Once in a while the value guys win one too.

In economic data, initial jobless claims came in at 390k, slightly below the street estimate of 400k. The trade deficit shrunk to 43 billion from 45 billion.

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Found this Rage Comic over at Ace of Spades HQ, and had to share:

— KW

It looks like Christmas spirit has prevailed and the tax will be sidelined. No lump of coal for Obama.
-Ashot-

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Thought I’d post this story from NPR on a start-up company trying to compete with the big boys (governments) in developing an economically viable fusion reactor.

The world would be a very different place if we could bottle up a bit of the sun here on Earth and tap that abundant and clean energy supply. Governments have spent many billions of dollars to develop that energy source, fusion energy, but it’s still a distant dream. Now a few upstart companies are trying to do it on the cheap. And the ideas are credible enough to attract serious private investment.

One such company is hidden away in a small business park in the suburbs of Vancouver, British Columbia. Nothing seems unusual here — there’s a food distributor, an engineering firm and small warehouses. But on one door there’s a sign suggesting that all is not normal.

NPR on General Fusion

This would be really cool if it pans out. FairlingtonBlade can explain the science behind magnetized target fusion better than I, but the basic idea that it’s kind of a hybrid between magnetic confinement (tokamak, ITER) and inertial confinement (laser, NIF) fusion. Heavy hydrogen is heated up to a plasma, injected into a spinning lead sphere (which creates a magnetic field to contain the plasma), then the sphere is compressed with a series of pneumatic pistons. This results, theoretically, in fusion and the production of large amounts of energy, heating up the lead, which is then piped out and used to produce steam. Electricity is then generated by a typical turbine system.

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