Many Economists Are Bankrupt

Posted: 7/4/2018

Introduction

I have previously posted several critical blogs here about economics and several prominent economists here.

Summary

Here is an attempt to summarize:

1. Many are not dispassionate scientists, but active advocates for big government, central planning, and mercantilism. They are the mouthpieces for government programs
2. Rarely do economists criticize government for economic recessions although governments are often heavily responsible for their cause and/or their severity and/or their prolongation
3. Many are socialists in what they do and in what they present in public
4. Humanity does not really benefit from many economists

A Supreme Example

Government mandated minimum wages:

1. How many economists openly protest the introduction of any new minimum wages or any hikes?
2. How many economists have ever advocated to lower minimum wages?
3. Why is it not taught in public (government) schools that minimum wages are a form of government price controls? That it is one of many grave government interventions in economic affairs that severely interfere with the working of free markets and the choices of free individuals

The Two Sides Of Individual Liberty

Posted: 7/2/2018  Updated: 9/10/2018, 7/4/2018, 7/3/2018

Individual Rights & Duties

Individual liberty does not exist by itself, it comes with certain requirements. The two sides presented below are strictly complementary. You can not have one without the other. In particular the Other Side requires a lifelong and dedicated effort. Too many contemporary individuals expect to exercise their rights, but without the concomitant duties.

One Side	Other Side
Individual Liberty	Individual Responsibility
	Individual Self Reliance
	Individual Self Government (Discipline/Self Restraint)
	Individual Humility
	Individual Trust & Optimism
	Individual, Independent Thinking, Learning & Self Improvement

Many humans claim individual liberty for themselves, but ignore or even violate the Other Side. I call this the great conundrum of individual liberty. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.

Unfortunately, the ever bigger and growing government in Western democracies has increasingly destroyed the Other Side and thereby significantly reducing or maintaining little individual liberty. This is particularly and sadly true for the U.S.

Immanuel Kant On Individual Liberty

Immanuel Kant wrote a famous, short essay (published 1784): "Enlightenment is man's emergence from his self-incurred immaturity." (German: Der Ausgang des Menschen aus seiner selbstverschuldeten Unmündigkeit). To this day, many humans have not yet emerged as Kant had wished for! The customary english translation of Kant’s famous essay title is incorrect, but I cannot come up with a better translation at the moment. But Kant surely referred e.g. to individual responsibility and individual, independent learning and thinking.

Great Individual Responsibility

With individual liberty comes great individual responsibility for oneself, others, and nature. If you make a mistake don’t blame anyone else, but admit it and correct it.

Too many contemporaries do not accept the attendant individual responsibility or they apply individual responsibility only very inconsistently.

Unfortunately, Western democracies have greatly ruined this aspect of individual liberty by e.g. way too lenient criminal or civil punishment! In other words, the elected representatives have chosen to rather absolve acts of individual irresponsibility.

Just a brief (hypothetical) example: Imagine for a moment, there were no speed limits, but only speed guidances for motor vehicle drivers. Then if someone drove say 30% over the speed guidance and injures fellow human beings what should his/her punishment be?

Individual Self Reliance

Individual self reliance does not mean that individuals do not voluntarily form or become members of associations to help each other. Individual self reliance does not deny or prevent charity towards others in need. Au contraire, individual liberty and responsibility strongly suggest to help where you can.

E.g. the modern welfare state is the opposite and a subversion of individual self reliance. It has greatly contributed to the destruction of individual liberty.

Individual Self Government

If you cannot e.g. control your passions and prejudices, then individual liberty is not for you!

Immodesty, self righteousness, overconfidence, and excessive pride are all enemies of individual liberty and run afoul of self government.

Living At Artificial Intelligence Speed

Posted: 7/1/2018  Updated: 8/6/2018

Update Of 8/6/2018

If you want to get an idea how fast AI is moving here is a blog post for you published on the BLAIR (Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research) website: When Recurrent Models Don't Need to be Recurrent. Essentially, this post describes that celebrated AI approaches (e.g. recurrent neural networks) that were considered top of the line until just a few years if not a few a month ago are seriously questioned and about to be substituted with new AI approaches (Google’s Wavenet, Google’s Transformer).

Absolutely breathtaking!

Original Post

The Immediate Past Is Prologue

Some of the readers may remember such popular expressions as living at Internet speed.

However, since about 2005/2006 we are living at AI speeds. The speed at which AI is proliferating and evolving is absolutely incredible.

Just follow a talk like this one by Yann LeCun (here, Chief AI Scientist at Facebook) and you get an idea how fast and far AI has come within a span of a few years.

A Revolution For Everyone

Most amazing is the the general attitude to make AI open source and open publish and learnable by everyone who cares on the Internet. There probably never was a technological revolution before in history, where the leaders of the revolution want to make sure that everyone interested in this revolution can instantly participate, grow with it, and learn and practice all about it at any time.

No Hype

You better believe the hype! If you don’t it is at your own peril. AI will be so transformative like few other technologies ever before in human history.

Why Is Human Progress So Slow?

Posted: 6/29/2018 Updated: 7/1/2018

A Very Focused Reflection On My Life

I am now living in my fifth decade on this planet, but in hindsight it is my impression and experience that human progress is extremely slow. Why? Have you ever wondered?

A Very Brief Look Back In History

The great Renaissance and its humanism is now more than 600 years behind us.

The Age of Enlightenment is now about 250 years old, but human progress is still extremely slow.
The truly amazing Golden Age of Philosophy in Greece, India, and China (Aristotle, Plato, Socrates and others; Buddhism, Ashoka, Chandragupta and others; Confucius, Mencius, Laozi, Mozi and others) happened about about 300-500 years BC and human progress is still extremely slow!

Western countries are doing particularly worse compared to other countries. My focus here will be mainly on Western countries.

Human Progress Defined

Ideals of human progress:

1. More individual liberty
2. More individual self reliance
3. More individual responsibility for oneself and other humans, animals, plants, and nature
4. To Live By The Golden Rule
5. Charity and tolerance towards other living creatures

Reality Shock

We still live in an age where:
Collectivism largely dominates or even represses human progress
Central governments dominate local and regional governments
Considerable ignorance, prejudice, and superstition are bliss for way too many contemporary humans
Too many individuals are unwilling to learn from history or reduce their ignorance
Too many individuals have way too much faith in the salvation by big government
Physical violence and grossly uncivilized behavior (incivility) is still a major influence on our daily lives. Mob violence or intimidation is still encouraged instead of universally condemned and punished

Is civilization indeed still only a thin veneer?
To what extent is Thomas Hobbes Leviathan still relevant in our time?
Why is the Pretense of Knowledge (Friedrich Hayek) still so widely prevalent among our contemporaries?
Why is it still so difficult to correct or check the arrogance of power?

Major Causes

1. Misguided and presumptuous elites rule
2. Big government usurped, standardized, and monopolized the education of our children about 160 years ago
3. Big government usurped and monopolized money
4. Big government grows and expands incessantly without necessary and sufficient checks and balances
5. Incompetent, elitist career politicians impose an ever larger welfare state and ever more laws and regulations on the rest of the common man and woman

One Important Lesson Of History

“Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it” (George Santayana)

It is very long past high time to privatize the education of our children so that they may finally have a better chance to learn a much less distorted history of humanity!

Our elected representatives (often incompetent, lifelong career politicians) would not get away with many of their absurd policies if the citizens were better educated and willing to assume responsibility in public office!

Diversity Demagoguery

Posted: 6/21/2018  Revised: 12/28/2018

Modern Racism

The diversity and inclusion ideology is an enormous oxymoron. It is dangerous Orwellian newspeak! It represents the opposite of its declared intentions, i.e. people are actually identified by their religion, skin color, gender or sexual preferences etc. although its proponents claim the opposite is true. Conspicuously, plurality of opinion is not part of the diversity ideology.

Proponents of diversity do discriminate quite obviously, e.g. against white colored people or males or Asians etc. in contravention to their claims of tolerance or inclusion etc.

An Appalling Ideology

Like many other totalitarian ideologies or doctrines, their proponents also assert moral superiority. It forces people to accept diversity as the ultimate truth or goal. Non believers are ostracized or intimidated.

Worst of all, too many institutions of higher education (academia) in the West are complicit in this demagoguery corrupting the minds of young people.

It is very regrettable that in the 18th year of the 21st century, humanity still has to suffer from such medieval, crude, and primitive ideologies!

Frederick Douglas, George Washington Carver, Booker T Washington, Martin Luther King Jr. and others sure would be very disappointed were they still alive.

On Lark Ascending

Posted: 6/20/2018

In my endeavors into classical music, I have come across the beautiful The Lark Ascending by composer Ralph Vaughan Williams.

Not long ago, I saw a documentary about Francis of Assisi and I was stunned to learn that it was reported that larks gathered and ascended at Francis of Assisi’s death. It appears that this saint, during his lifetime, was very fond of larks and other birds.

Then I learnt that the author of the eponymous poem, i.e. George Meredith, attended a very special school, i.e. a Moravian School in Neuwied, Germany, where he remained for two years. One may speculate that Meredith could have learnt about the larks attending to Francis of Assisi’s final hours at the Moravian school.

Sources:

1. https://www.franciscanmedia.org/7-key-moments-in-the-life-of-saint-francis/
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lark_Ascending
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Meredith
4. https://catholicsaints.info/the-life-and-legends-of-saint-francis-of-assisi-conclusion/

On Scheherazade Or Feminism Is Largely Distortion Of History

Posted: 6/18/2018

Some time ago, I first became aware of this lady referred to as Scheherazade, because Rimsky-Korsakov composed a symphonic suite by the same name (eponymous). Then, I also knew of Sergei Prokofiev’s Fantasia on Scheherazade. Always wondered who is this mysterious woman by the name of Scheherazade … I probably had totally forgotten that the famous story of 1001 Arabian Nights was told from the perspective of this woman.

Very recently, I watched this documentary video: Great Myths and Legends: The Arabian Nights: Medieval Fantasy and Modern Forgery (A Penn Museum lecture series talk). Recommendable, but Prof. Cobb is way too glib. His open disdain for Richard Francis Burton goes way too far.

How is it possible that a woman (Sherazade, the protagonist, in this case of 1,001 Arabian Nights fame, which was possibly created in the 10th or 11th century and whose oral story possibly goes back much further) was able to fool a male king for 1,000 nights by telling him incredible, fascinating stories of mostly everyday life to prevent him from killing/beheading her the next morning as was the king’s law (the king would kill a virgin the next morning)? Not only that, she was actively helped by her sister (not by a male), i.e. Dunyazade.

Kim Jong Un: Courage Or Deception?

Posted: 6/12/2018  Revised/Updated: 5/31/2019

Update Of 5/31/2019

Today, following article appeared in the The Korean Times: 'Kim Jong-un carried out purge after Hanoi summit collapse': report. (5/31/19) Here is the related Reuters News article: North Korea executes envoy to failed U.S. summit -media; White House monitoring (5/30/19)

“North Korea executed Kim Hyok Chol, its special envoy to the United States, and foreign ministry officials who carried out working-level negotiations for the second U.S.-North Korea summit in February, holding them responsible for its collapse …

The North Korean leader is believed to be carrying out a massive purge to divert attention away from internal turmoil and discontent, the newspaper said. …

It is the first time since the December 2013 execution of Jang Song Thaek, Kim Jong Un's uncle ...” (emphasis added)

It still remains an open question whether the dictator of North Korea evolves more like Stalin or like Gorbachev.

We  know from experience with the history of e.g. USSR and People’s Republic of China that purges in totalitarian communist regimes have to be taken quite seriously. They may portend e.g. significant changes or a power consolidation.

Original Post

Now that the historic meeting between the Korean dictator and a U.S. president has taken place, many wonder what will be the outcome of this in the following days, weeks, months, or years? If President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev are any guide, we should remain optimistic.

If Kim Jong Un is sincere in his efforts to finally to end the Stalinist totalitarian dictatorship in North Korea, he truly is a courageous leader and deserves to be remembered in history despite all his guilt. There are probably many vested interests in North Korea (and probably in Russia and China) that prefer the status quo as it is and these vested interest would do anything in their power not to lose their privileges they have enjoyed for some time. Thus, Kim Jong Un’s life is in jeopardy.

If Kim Jong Un is insincere and/or his allies Russia and China are scheming to upset the West than we wish or will see if President Trump has the clairvoyance to counter that!

From my previous blog posts, the reader will gather that I have supported a reunited Korean peninsula and have speculated over why it has not happened a long time ago (see e.g. here).

The Relation Of The Declaration Of Independence And The Constitution

Posted: 6/9/2018

Today, I was truly shocked at work to find out that two of my bright and brilliant American born and raised colleagues of mostly conservative disposition would argue that these two basic documents of the United States are not closely linked or that one is unrelated of the other.

Was this one of the results of the appalling public education suffered by students of public schooling in the U.S. I seriously fear so!

If an American citizen fails to recognize that the Declaration of Independence contains foundational principles (such as “... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed ….”) that substantially guided the drafting and ratification of the U.S. Constitution then something is terribly wrong!

President Trump And Free Trade

Posted: 6/9/2018

The whole world is wondering aghast what President Trump is up to when he threatens to imposes new or even imposes higher tariffs on the imports from major trading partners or when he attacks or dismisses trade agreements as bad deal like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) or TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership).

From a free trader’s perspective, like I consider myself to be one, these tariffs threaten to:

1. Harm consumers and businesses in the U.S. and abroad
2. Trigger a spiral of tariff and counter tariff impositions or, worse, even a trade war the like we have not seen in decades

For a long time President Trump has puzzled me with this approach. However, I begin to see some method in this, what appears to many as, madness:

1. A diversionary tactic to e.g. get the Europeans to focus more on economic prosperity and trade instead of radical environmentalism and identity politics
2. To initiate a more honest discussion about managed trade versus free trade, the former of which actually predominated the post World War II era. Perhaps, Trump is intentionally upsetting a much beloved world order of managed trade. But one should not be fooled, some countries took advantage in their own best interest of the likes of GATT (General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade) or its successor WTO (World Trade Organisation), e.g. China.
3. To get the U.S. Congress to finally limit the powers of the president to make unilateral changes to U.S. tariffs. Long overdue perhaps

I keep my fingers crossed that my above speculation is not entirely without warrant!

A Bridge Builder

Posted: 6/9/2018

Today, I learnt from this excellent documentary video on YouTube The Bridges That Built London (History Of London Documentary) | Timeline (Presented by Dan Cruickshank, 2012; IMDb) that the latin word pontifex (maximus, pope) translates into bridge builder. I was stunned for a moment. I do not recall ever having learnt this.

What a great title and program for the leader of the Roman catholic church.

Kimberley Strassel Be The Next Woodward & Bernstein!

Posted: 5/19/2018 Updated: 5/8/2019; 12/15/2018

Update Of 5/19/2019

Just watched this stunning, recent talk by Kimberley Strassel: The Left will Silence You. She spoke on 4/30/2019 at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. Among many other things, she raised the right question whether and when the FISA court will finally stand up to its abuse by FBI and DOJ (I blogged about this here)!

I wish, I had only a fraction of her courage! I am a little concerned now that this lady is going to suffer a burn out over this issue.

She acknowledged the support by her Wall Street Journal colleague Paul Gigot! Two thumbs up for this man!

We also learn why this investigative reporter is living in Alaska of all places! Enjoy!

Update Of 12/15/2018

Recently (12/13/2018), the Walls Street Journal published this opinion piece by Kimberley Strassel:
Checking Robert Mueller The sentencing judge brings to light dodgy FBI conduct in the Mike Flynn case

More amazing/disturbing things become known about the witch hunt against President Trump. Here some salient quotes (emphasis added):

1. “It was arranged by then-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, who personally called Mr. Flynn on other business, then suggested he sit down with two agents to clear up the Russia question. Mr. McCabe urged Mr. Flynn to conduct the interview with no lawyer present—to make things easier.
2. The agents (including the infamous Peter Strzok) showed up within two hours. They had already decided not to inform Mr. Flynn that they had transcripts of his conversations or give him the standard warning against lying to the FBI. They wanted him “relaxed” and “unguarded.” Former Director James Comey this weekend bragged on MSNBC that he would never have “gotten away” with such a move in a more “organized” administration. The whole thing stinks of entrapment … ”
3. “... the curious question was how the Flynn defense team got the details. The court filing refers to a McCabe memo written the day of the 2017 meeting, as well as an FBI summary—known as a 302 … These are among documents congressional Republicans have been fighting to obtain for more than a year, only to be stonewalled by the Justice Department. Now we know why the department didn’t want them public.
4. … Judge Sullivan. He sits on the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia, and as he wrote for the Journal last year, he got a “wake-up call” in 2008 while overseeing the trial of then-Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska. Judge Sullivan ultimately assigned a lawyer to investigate Justice Department misconduct. The investigator’s report found prosecutors had engaged in deliberate and repeated ethical violations, withholding key evidence from the defense. It also excoriated the FBI for failing to write up 302s and for omitting key facts from those it did write. The head of the FBI was Mr. Mueller. ...”

Keep digging Kimberley! Watergate II is yours!

Original Post

Was Trump’s Campaign ‘Set Up’? At some point, the Russia investigation became political. How early was it? Opinion piece by Kimberley A. Strassel (Unfortunately, behind paywall)

It looks like this highly regarded journalist of the Wall Street Journal is pursuing a story to uncover what could well turn out to be Watergate II, but much more sophisticated and stealthy than the dumb break in into the Democratic Party headquarters located in the Watergate building in Washington DC in 1972.

Kimberley A. Strassel might just become the next Bob Woodward & Carl Bernstein (both then Washington Post) of Watergate fame.

Go after it, Kimberley Strassel! Find Deep Throat!

Is China A Major Crypto Currency Player?

Posted: 5/16/2018

It seems so.

To my surprise, I just learnt from this article Chinese bitcoin mining gear makers set sights on world's largest bitcoin IPOs that two of the largest crypto currency mining gear makers (i.e. Canaan Creative & ZheJiang Ebang Communication Co) are from China.

Another article reports that in China “individuals are free to trade as they wish – Chinese yuan to Bitcoin is the most traded daily fiat to Bitcoin pair.” (source).

Why Is Stormy Daniels Still Not Indicted For Extortion?

Posted: 5/4/2018

As far as I understand the case between former porn star Stormy Daniels (Stephanie A. Gregory Clifford) and President Trump is:

1. Stormy Daniels did not uphold her obligations under the non disclosure agreement
2. Stormy Daniels tried to extort a political candidate for money

My advice:

1. She should be indicted for extortion
2. A civil suit should be filed against her for violating the non disclosure agreement

Somebody needs to teach a lesson to such greedy extortionists! President Trump would do all of us a big favor following my advice!