Cowen on Current Ideological Struggles

In short, it’s not that ideas of government interventionism and free markets are fighting a titanic intellectual struggle. The reality is more mundane. The ascendancy of one view often creates the conditions for an economic counterreaction.

Let Us Keep Our Perspective

Don Boudreaux on the Gulf oil spill and perspective. His letter to The Washington Post editor is below:

Deborah Hahn writes: “Until the damaged BP well in the Gulf of Mexico is capped, please publish daily a front-page picture of wildlife covered in oil, in misery, dying, unable to be cleaned” (Letters, June 26). Ms. Hahn believes that “such pictures are needed to educate the public” about the “horrors of what oil accidents do to our fellow creatures.”

Oil accidents are indeed horrible. But they are the very visible downside of a product with an enormous upside – an upside so important and ubiquitous that, ironically, it has become invisible. It is to us as water is to fish.

So an even greater danger now is an economy polluted by a gusher of panic-driven crude legislation. To counter this danger, please also publish daily a picture of oil’s neglected benefits – such as people still alive because of pharmaceuticals and medical devices; men and women healthy because dangerous bacteria were killed by ammonia or kept contained by plastics; children and grandparents smiling because they’re able to visit each other having driven over roads made of asphalt or flown in airplanes powered by aviation fuel; your readers enjoying your paper (printed with ink!) because they wear eye’glasses’ made of plexiglass.

What really needs more media attention are the many marvels that, because they are so common, are taken for granted.

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux

The Evolution (or Mutation) of Modern Finance

Simple question. Is this good or bad?

No doubt the answer is extremely complex, not yet known and falls somewhere in between.

(HT: Seeking Alpha)

Smokescreens and Bailouts

Interesting thoughts from Arnold Kling on the Euro Crisis (which he believes is a misnomer). A snippet:

My view of the bailouts is that they are primarily to save French and German banks. All the talk about "saving the Euro" is a smokescreen.

I find it ironic to have an EU official warning about the collapse of democracy. The eurocracy is a very undemocratic organization, chronically in conflict with popular opinion. The bailouts are unpopular, and quite properly so. Any official who claims that that the bailouts should be undertaken in the name of democracy is a poseur.

In Defense of PEDs?

Last week I was discussing Armando Galarraga's near perfect game with a friend of mine and made the following point:

I didn't see the game live, but when I heard about it, it more or less ruined my night. I don't know why, I don't know how, but in the pit of my stomach I felt absolutely awful. Around the same time, during Game 2 of the NBA Finals, with about two minutes left in the game, the refs blew a call where a ball out of bounds should have gone to the Lakers (this was the play where Garnett and Gasol were fighting over and it was determined that the ball went off Gasol). The refs consulted instant replay, as there was under two minutes left to play, but let the call stand, and thus blew the call. Rajon Rondo then hit a jumper to put the Celtics up five, and that was the game. The refs thus had an adverse effect on the outcome of the game.

Now the following day I barely heard a peep about this blown call, which quite possibly determined the outcome of an NBA Finals game. Yet for forty-eight hours all the sports talked about was Jim Joyce's blown call, which ultimately had no determination over the outcome of the regular season game.

Why is this? Why do we as fans place such emphasis on records like this? And if we believe these records are so important, more important than wins and losses, should we not simply legalize the use of steroids and other PEDs in professional sports, but actually mandate their use, as they will help increase the probability that the "greatest" records will be achieved?

The Increasing Popularity of Hayek

Via Tyler Cowen, Hayek's most popular work, The Road to Serfdom, is now the number one non-fiction seller on Amazon. My first post on this blog (and albeit not a very good one as I look back) was on this book.

To See or Not to See...

Steve Landsburg on the Unseen and bias (or ignorance depending on your take).

(HT: Cafe Hayek)