Government – Page 140 – artdiamondblog.com

Private Money Can Top Government Money in Space, as in IT

Lots of people are building new IT companies. You can start a company and sell it to Yahoo! or Google in a couple of years. But so can anyone else. Aerospace is different. To paraphrase John F. Kennedy in 1962: We choose to go to the moon not because it’s easy, but because it’s hard.

That’s why, as a long-time investor in IT and Internet start-ups, I’m now spending more and more time on private aviation and commercial space start-ups. I’m trailing an illustrius crew of IT pioneers: Elon Musk (Space-X, rockets, formerly with PayPal), Vern Raburn (Eclipse Aviation, very light jets, formerly at Microsoft, Symantec and Lotus), Jeff Bezos (Blue Origin, rockets, and still at Amazon, too!), Jeff Greason (XCOR, rockets and formerly with Intel) and Ed Iacobucci (DayJet, air taxi operator, and founder of Citrix).

. . .

On the space side, there’s a . . . strong parallel with the world of IT. The establishment in "space" is the government and especially the military, just as it once was (along with academia) for the Internet. I remember the days when commerce on the Internet was considered sleazy—but look at the innovations and productivity it unleashed.

In the same way, the current priests of space are dismayed by the privately funded space start-ups—unsafe, sleazy, frivolous. Imagine: Ads on the side of a rocket ship! Well, why not, if it helps pay for the fuel… and the R&D that designed the thing?

For the full commentary, see:

ESTHER DYSON "New Horizons for the Intrepid VC." The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 20, 2007): A19.

(Note: ellipses added, except for the ellipsis following the word "fuel" which was in the original.)

Internet Transmits and Applies Libertarian Ideas

Source of book image: http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1586483501.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

Today the Internet has become, Mr. Doherty notes, an efficient way to transmit libertarian ideas and show their practical application. (With its decentralized, free-wheeling ethos, the Internet is itself libertarian without even trying to be.) Jimmy Wales, the man who started the interactive online encyclopedia Wikipedia, believes that "facts can help set the world free." The largest retail market in the world is eBay, which allows anyone to buy and sell without a government license.

Louis Rosetto, the "radical capitalist" who founded Wired magazine, notes that, even if libertarian ideas must now push against a statist status quo, "contrarians end up being the drivers of change." Among the most ornery contrarians, he says, are the libertarians "laboring in obscurity, if not in derision." They have managed "to keep a pretty pure idea going, adapting it to circumstances and watching it be validated by the march of history." Mr. Doherty has rescued libertarianism from its own obscurity, eloquently capturing the appeal of the "pure idea," its origins in great minds and the feistiness of its many current champions.

For the full review, see:

JOHN H. FUND. "BOOKSHELF; Free to Choose, and a Good Thing, Too." The Wall Street Journal (Thurs., February 15, 2007): D7.

The Best Case for Supporting a Tariff

I doubt the veracity of George Pendle’s humorous, but unkind, comment about Millard Fillmore’s views:

“His firm support for tariffs, . . . , seems to have been based on a misapprehension that a tariff was a long-legged marsh bird.”

Pendle is quoted in:

THOMAS VINCIGUERRA. "Why He Gets the Laughs." The New York Times, Section 4 (Sun., March 18, 2007): 5.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Pendle’s forthcoming book, is:

Pendle, George. The Remarkable Millard Fillmore: The Unbelievable Life of a Forgotten President. Three Rivers Press, 2007.

Somaliland Works, Without Foreign Aid or Recognition: More on Why Much of Africa is Poor

In Hargeysa, the capital of Somaliland, there is sufficient public safety (in contrast to southern Somalia) for a money exchange to operate with large amounts of money on display. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

HARGEYSA, Somalia, March 1 — When the sun rises over the craggy hills of Hargeysa, it sheds light on a different kind of Somalia.

Ice cream trucks selling bona fide soft serve hit the streets. Money changers, unarmed and unguarded, push cash through the market in wheelbarrows. Politicians from three distinct parties get ready for another day of debate, which recently included an animated discussion on registering nomadic voters.

It’s all part of a Somali puzzle: how one area of the country, the northwest, also known as Somaliland, can seem so peaceful and functional — so normal, in fact — while the rest continues to be such a violent, chaotic mess.

This tale of two Somalias is especially striking now, as thousands of African Union peacekeepers prepare to rescue Mogadishu, the nation’s bloodstained capital, from itself. The internationally backed transitional government that seized Mogadishu in late December with Ethiopia’s help says it cannot survive without foreign aid and foreign peacekeepers to quell clan fighting and an escalating insurgency.

Somalilanders, who have wrestled with their own clan conflicts, find this ridiculous.

“You can’t be donated power,” said Dahir Rayale Kahin, the president of the Republic of Somaliland, which has long declared itself independent from the rest of Somalia. “We built this state because we saw the problems here as our problems. Our brothers in the south are still waiting — till now — for others.”

But Somalilanders are waiting, too: waiting to be recognized. In 1991, as Somalia’s government disintegrated and clan fighting in the south spun out of control, Somaliland, traditionally one of the poorest parts of Somalia, claimed its independence. But no country acknowledges it as a separate state and very few even contribute aid — which makes Somaliland’s success all the more intriguing.

. . .

“It all goes back to the Brits,” according to Hajji Abdi Waraabe, an 89-year-old member of Somaliland’s upper house of Parliament.

When the colonial powers sliced up the Horn of Africa in the 19th century, the British got Somaliland and the Italians got Somalia. While the British relied mostly on clan chiefs to govern, the Italians created an entire Italian-speaking administration and imported thousands of people from Italy to farm bananas, build cathedrals and teach the people how to pour espresso.

One result was that Mogadishu, along the southern coast, became a major commercial hub and one of the most beautiful cities in Africa, but its traditional systems of authority were weakened. That is partly why, many Somalia analysts say, warlords were able to outmuscle clan elders and dominate Mogadishu in the vacuum that formed after the central government fell.

The British, on the other hand, never invested much in Somaliland, leaving it poor and dusty but with its traditions more or less intact. . . .

. . .

But the one issue that unites most Somalilanders is recognition. Somaliland has its own money, its own flag, its own national anthem and even its own passport.

“And we have peace, a peace owned by the community,” said Zamzam Adan, a women’s rights activist. “You’d think in this part of the world, that would count for something.”

For the full story, see:

JEFFREY GETTLEMAN. "The Other Somalia: An Island of Stability in a Sea of Armed Chaos." The New York Times (Weds., March 7, 2007): A11.

(Note: ellipses added.)

Top photo shows women selling jewelry. Middle photo shows a traffic cop performing a defensible function of government. At bottom, the map shows Somaliland relative to the rest of Somalia. Source of photos and map: online version of the NYT article cited above.

“Under the Spell of a Theory”

Johnson’s wonderful book is part mystery, part history, part philosophy of science, and part musing on political philosophy. The passage below warms the heart (and stimulates the brain) of the libertarian. Against great odds, Dr. Snow persisted in presenting ever-more convincing evidence for his correct water-borne theory of cholera. Meanwhile Chadwick, the main advocate of government public health activities, continued to direct policy on the basis of the mistaken theory that cholera was spread by foul vapors in the air.

(p. 120) Herein lies the dominant irony of the state of British public health in the late 1840s. Just as Snow was concocting his theory of cholera as a waterborne agent that had to be ingested to do harm, Chadwick was building an elaborate scheme that would deliver the cholera bacteria directly to the mouths of Londoners. (A modern bioterrorist couldn’t have come up with a more ingenious and far-reaching scheme.) Sure enough, the cholera returned with a vengeance in 1848-1849, the rising death toll neatly following the Sewer Commission’s cheerful data on the growing supply of waste deposited in the river. By the end of the outbreak, nearly 15,000 Londoners would be dead. The first defining act of a modern, centralized public-health authority was to poison an entire urban population. (There is some precedent to Chadwick’s folly, however. During the plague years of 1665-1666, popular lore had it that the disease was being spread by dogs and cats. The Lord Mayor promptly called for a mass extermination of the city’s entire population of pets and strays, which was dutifully carried out by his minions. Of course, the plague turned out to be (p. 121) transmitted via the rats, whose numbers grew exponentially after the sudden, state-sponsored demise of their only predators.)

Why would the authorities go to such lengths to destroy the Thames? All the members of these various commissions were fully aware that the waste being flushed into the river was having disastrous effects on the quality of the water. And they were equally aware that a significant percentage of the population was drinking the water. Even without a waterborne theory of cholera’s origin, it seems like madness to celebrate the ever-increasing tonnage of human excrement being flushed into the water supply. And, indeed, it was a kind of madness, the madness that comes from being under the spell of a Theory. If all smell was disease, if London’s health crisis was entirely attributable to contaminated air, then any effort to rid the houses and streets of miasmatic vapors was worth the cost, even if it meant turning the Thames into a river of sewage.

Source:

Johnson, Steven. The Ghost Map: The Story of London’s Most Terrifying Epidemic – and How It Changed Science, Cities, and the Modern World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2006.

Aaron Brown Asks UNL Tough Questions on Students’ Right to Defend Themselves

Source of image is screen capture from KETV web page: http://www.ketv.com/news/13120432/detail.html

Aaron Brown was an excellent student in my micro-principles course several years ago, and now he is a law student at UNL. You may also remember him as a frequent contributor of comments to entries on this blog.

He’s gotten some attention today (4/26/07) by speaking out for the right of college students to defend themselves by bearing arms.

For the KETV (Omaha ABC channel 7) story, see: http://www.ketv.com/news/13120432/detail.html

For the KOLN (Omaha Fox channel 10) story, see: http://www.kolnkgin.com/news/headlines/7209236.html

Self-Proclaimed Advocate for Poor, Gets Two $400 Haircuts: Looking Good in Council Bluffs

"John Edwards appearing at a public forum in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on March 9, two days after one of his $400 haircuts." Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article cited below.

John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat, announced on Thursday that he was reimbursing his campaign $800 to cover what his aides said was the cost of two haircuts — yes, you read that correctly — by a Beverly Hills barber, though, perhaps, the word stylist is more applicable.

. . .

Mr. Edwards has presented himself in the Democratic field as an advocate of working-class Americans, lamenting the nation’s growing economic disparity.

Mr. Edwards was disparaged as “the Breck Girl” by Republicans when he ran for president in 2004. More recently, he was captured on camera, waiting for an interview to begin and presumably unaware that he was being taped, fussing with his hair for nearly two minutes.

That clip found its way to You Tube, with the song “I Feel Pretty” playing in the background. Posted on Nov. 8, 2006, it was viewed 289,288 times as of Thursday evening.

For the full story, see:

ADAM NAGOURNEY. "In the Beverly Hills Style: Candidate’s $400 Coiffure." The New York Times (Fri., April 20, 2007): A19.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

As of 4/21/07, the "John Edwards Feeling Pretty" video clip, can be found on YouTube at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AE847UXu3Q

The Case Against Gun Control

Venus Ramey shows how she balanced her pistol on her walker to shoot out the tires of an intruder on her farm. Source of photo: screen capture from CNN clip "Granny’s Packing Heat" as viewed on 4/23/07.

In the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, there have been some renewed calls for more gun control (see the WSJ and NYT articles cited way below). But we should not forget that a gun can also be a leveler; it gives the ordinary citizen a fighting chance against the thief and the murderer.

There was a great scene in the first Indiana Jones movie (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, 1984) where Indy is being chased by a huge bad guy armed with swords. The crowd clears, and the the huge man confidently and ominously twirls his swords. Indy looks at him quizzically for a couple of seconds, pulls out a pistol, and shoots him.

When I first saw that scene, the theater erupted in laughter and applause.

Laughter and applause are also appropriate responses to the story of 82 year old, former Miss America, Venus Ramey:

Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle’s tires and stop an intruder. Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.

Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, ‘Oh, no you won’t,’ and I shot their tires so they couldn’t leave," Ramey said.

She had to balance on her walker as she pulled out a snub-nosed .38-caliber handgun.

"I didn’t even think twice. I just went and did it," she said. "If they’d even dared come close to me, they’d be 6 feet under by now."

For the full story, see:

Associated Press. "Armed Miss America 1944 Stops Intruder." Forbes.com Posted 04.21.07, 5:00 AM ET Downloaded on 4/23/07 from http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/04/21/ap3637737.html

CNN has a great clip on this story, under the heading "Granny’s Packing Heat."

The WSJ article mentioned above, is:

VANESSA O’CONNELL, GARY FIELDS and DEAN TREFTZ. "Next Debate: Should Colleges Ban Firearms? The Wall Street Journal (Weds., April 18, 2007): B1 & B10.

The NYT article mentioned above, is:

LESLIE EATON and MICHAEL LUO. "Shooting Rekindles Issues of Gun Rights and Restrictions." The New York Times (Weds., April 18, 2007): A19.

Leutze Got Right, What Was Important About Washington Crossing the Delaware

Emmanuel Gottlieb Leutze’s 1851 "George Washington Crossing the Delaware." Source of the photo: http://www.metmuseum.org/explore/gw/art_gw/ap97.341.jpg

Besides Fischer’s book, there was a modest, but quite good, movie made by the History Channel a few years ago called "The Crossing" and starring Jeff Daniels as George Washington. From Daniels’ comedy roles, I was surprised that he could portray Washington with such understated intelligence and humanity.

(p. B5) The painting, with its life-size figures, “is one of the most frequently reproduced images in American culture,” said David Hackett Fischer, Warren professor of history at Brandeis University and author of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Washington’s Crossing.” Leutze’s highly romanticized rendition captures a desperate effort, a turning point in American history, when on Christmas night in 1776 George Washington crossed the Delaware River with 2,500 troops in a surprise attack on Hessian soldiers.

“The crossing was a pivot point in a crucial campaign that rescued the revolution from failure,” Professor Fischer said, adding that it burnished not only Washington’s reputation as a leader, but also brought foreign support for the rebels’ cause.

Through the centuries the painting has been criticized aesthetically and for historical shortcomings. (The design of the fluttering American flag, for example, was not yet in use.) “You can add one inaccuracy to another, but Leutze understood the air of desperation, the small scale of the event and the very large meaning,” Professor Fischer said. “He got all of that right.”

For the full story, see:

GLENN COLLINS. "What Surrounds a Legend? A 3,000-Pound Gilt Frame." The New York Times (Mon., February 19, 2007): B1 & B5.

The reference for the Fischer book is:

Fischer, David Hackett. Washington’s Crossing, Pivotal Moments in American History. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

Source of book image: http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/10670000/10672110.jpg

Morales Slaughters Snow-White Llama to Celebrate Nationalization of Tin Smelter

A snow-white llama that has not yet been symbolically sacrificed by Bolivian President Evo Morales. Source of the photo: http://www.staff.stir.ac.uk/f.r.wheater/images/25%20Llama%205_8_04.JPG

Picture it, in President Evo Morales’ Bolivia: a peaceful, innocent-looking, snow-white llama slaughtered in homage to a barbaric mystical ritual, and in celebration of the slaughter, through nationalization, of private property and economic growth. And afterwards, one imagines the visitng French brass band played on.

VINTO, Bolivia: The ritual sacrifice of a snow-white llama provided a symbolic completion Friday to President Evo Morales’ nationalization of Bolivia’s lone operating tin smelter.

Swiss mining giant Glencore International AG owned the plant until last week and has threatened to seek compensation through international arbitration. Morales still says his government will not compensate Glencore for the Feb. 9 nationalization of the Vinto plant, located on a high Andean plain 180 kilometers (110 miles) southeast of the capital of La Paz.

. . .

After the ceremony, Morales hosted plant workers, a troupe of Andean pipers and a visiting French brass band to an outdoor supper of fried chicken and chuno, a traditional Bolivian dish of dehydrated potatoes.

While the nationalization retained all but a handful of smelter employees, workers remained divided over the change in management. Some rushed to greet "Companero Evo" as he toured the plant; others hung back and wondered about the future.

"Anywhere in the world they’ll tell you the government can’t be a good administrator," said plant employee Oscar Leyton. "But we’ll just have to wait and see how they do it. If they screw up here, they’ll screw up the whole country."

For the full story, see:

"In Bolivia, llama sacrifice completes Morales’ tin smelter nationalization." International Herald Tribune February 16, 2007.

(Note: ellipsis added.)

Better than Socialism, but Not Free Market Enough: More on Why Africa is Poor

Voters in line to vote for President in Senegal on 2/25/07. Source of photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

My old Wabash professor Ben Rogge used to say that rulers liked to build pyramids to proclaim their glory. He mentioned the Egyptian pyramids, and he mentioned the whole government-created capital city of "Brasilia" in Brazil.

When rulers in a poor country invest a lot of tax money in infrastructure, such as roads, how much of that is due to their belief in mistaken economic theories, and how much to their wanting to build their own version of the pyramids?

In either case, at least it can be said that the people probably benefit more from their taxes being used to build roads, than from their taxes being used to build pyramids. At least the roads can be complementary to transporting goods, and to the mobility of labor.

But the people would benefit even more if they could keep the tax money to use for their own purposes.

(p. A3) DAKAR, Senegal, Feb. 25 — Moudou Gueye was confident that Senegal’s presidential election on Sunday would turn around his fortunes, at least in the short term.

Seven years ago he voted for Abdoulaye Wade, a rabble-rousing professor who, after decades in opposition to Socialist Party rule, sailed into office buoyed by the votes of frustrated young people like Mr. Gueye, who is now 32. They hoped that Mr. Wade, a free-market liberal, would transform this impoverished nation’s economy, which had been stunted by generations of ineffective central planning.

. . .

. . . Senegal has had relatively robust economic growth that has hovered at around 5 percent over several years (it was lower last year, owing in part to high fuel prices, according to government officials), compared with the 1 percent achieved during much of the Socialist era, and dozens of huge public works projects.

While in some ways the country is better off, economic growth and a building binge have not produced large numbers of jobs in a country struggling to make the transition from an agrarian society based largely on peanut farming to one that harnesses the wealth of a global economy.

. . .

Countering criticism that Mr. Wade is too old to serve another term — his official age is given as 80, but many people suspect he is older — his daughter, Sindiély, who has worked as a special assistant to the president, said he was as sharp and agile as ever.

“It is not a question of age,” Ms. Wade said as she waited to cast her vote in downtown Dakar. “It is a question of dynamism and ideas and what you have planned for your country.”

Along Dakar’s seaside roadway, young men marveled at the cars whizzing below a brand-new overpass, one of Mr. Wade’s long-anticipated public works projects.

Pap Ndiaye, an 18-year-old street vendor who sells baby clothes to people stalled in traffic, said the newly completed road was a sign that the country was moving in the right direction.

“Wade has done a lot for this country,” Mr. Ndiaye said. “Our hope is that he will stay and finish his work.”

Less than a mile away, the road abruptly ends with a bright yellow sign that says “déviation,” or detour. With a hard turn to the right, drivers pour off the broad new highway, and back into the tangled, chaotic streets of one of Dakar’s oldest and poorest neighborhoods.

For the full story, see:

LYDIA POLGREEN. "Senegalese Vote Hinges on Views of Economic Growth." The New York Times (Mon., February 26, 2007): A3.

(Note: ellipses added.)