Alchemy: The medieval chemical science, whose great object was the transmutation of baser metals into gold. – Webster’s New International Dictionary of the English Language, 1914 edition
The debate over possible military intervention in Syria has put on display, for all who can see, the perverse alchemy that has been taking place in this country for at least the past 75 years or more. Unlike medieval alchemy, which sought to convert base metals into valuable gold, the modern, perverse
I had intended to start in on costs for food, but I realized that a better place to begin this time is on food quality. It does not matter much if your food is cheaper if it is poor quality as well.
As I mentioned in part 1, no one would argue that if you pick your own produce or get it from a nearby neighbor, farm stand, or farmers market you will in general get better quality, in terms of taste and nutrition, food than what you can generally find in the local supermarket. This is almost entirely
I was asked on Twitter the other day to explain the difference between Objectivism and raw greed. Twitter is not really a good platform to answer such a question, but my attempt was two tweets:
short and incomplete answer: time frame. Objectivism=long range, lifetime view; “pure greed”=short range, spur of the moment
And rationality (Objectivism) vs irrationality (raw greed).
I thought I would make an attempt here to provide a more complete answer given my current state of knowledge.
I am getting close to finishing “The Locavore’s Dilemma: In Praise of the 10,000 Mile Diet” which is a really fascinating look at the modern food system, at least in developed parts of the world. While the book is focused on food, much of what he says can apply to trade in general. Today’s quote, from the beginning of chapter 7, is a good example.
In the name of greater food security and economic benefits, countless political rulers have historically sought to increase
Buffet at Excalibur Hotel and Casino, Las Vegas, NV
We were sitting at the buffet in the Excalibur Hotel and Casino and I had to marvel at the wide variety of food available in the middle of the desert. It is virtually guaranteed that none of the food we ate came from within several hundred miles of Las Vegas. And the price was reasonable as well at about $70 for the two of us for the entire day, as many times as we wanted to go in. Granted, this was not the highest quality food we could have found, but it was tasty and there were lots of
In the essay “Antitrust,” which is contained in Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,” Alan Greenspan, long before he became chairman of the Federal Reserve, discussed the emergence of antitrust legislation at the end of the 19th century.
In the early 19th century, railroads developed in the East among stiff competition, between different railroads as well as with older forms of transportation. By the 1860’s a political movement developed demanding that
Monday I shared a link on my Facebook page to an article titled “Yes, the middle class has been disappearing, but they haven’t fallen into the lower class, they’ve risen into the upper class.” This received the following response:
75k is not “Upper class”. To reach the top 20% household income needs to be about 250k/yr. To reach the 1%, household income needs to be about 1.6m/yr. This article is meant to quell the masses. If this article were true, the population would
It is nice when current events allow you to hammer home a philosophical lesson, in this case, it is the danger of package deals. By package deals I mean the phrase as Ayn Rand meant it:
[Package-dealing employs] the shabby old gimmick of equating opposites by substituting nonessentials for their essential characteristics, obliterating differences. – “How to Read (and Not to Write), The Ayn Rand Letter, I, 26, 3
I received this short and to the point comment on a post I made on Google+ recently regarding the difference between subsidies and tax breaks:
Ah, it’s the same old ‘taxes are theft’ horseshit. Your kind never gets tired of that malarkey.
This caused me to stop and think. Is the idea that “taxes are theft” malarkey or is there some basis for it in reality?