DISQUS

I thought the DC message was: "Where am I going to hide all of this cash?"

Clearly the author has never observed the narcissism of small differences.

Nor was he familiar with the history and structure of the Soviet Nomenklatura.

The reason I favor a society with multiple overlapping and uncoordinated institutions is that it provides scope for men to exercise their virtues. You may not be President of your company, but you might be a vestryman in your church or Capitan of your softball team.

There will always be silver backs in the primate band, the issue is what will be the scope for the nebbishes. In the Soviet system you are in the Nomenklatura or you are nothing. In a liberal pluralist society there are many bands and many roles.

Need to put the bottle in the dishwasher ever once in a while.

"This package deal has influenced people who think justice requires transfers to eschew free markets."

The crelationship between ideas is backwards. The socialist (n/k/a liberal) begins with the premise that the state, run by philosopher-kings, will have all of the wisdom, and that it will produce perfect justice (as if). tranfer payments are justified by the wisdom and magnanimity of the state. All your base are belong to us.

Mickey Kaus claims tranfer payments lead to social unrest, and I think he has the better argument.

The Andy Kauffman of philosophy strikes again.

Rawls wrote a 400 page book to prove that if the world were run by him and his buddies from the Harvard Faculty club, it would be like his dream image of Sweeden, but with better weather. Needless to say, that was before the income per capita of Mississippi passed Sweeden.

In the Soviet Union, they were called the Nomenklatura.

Peter Singer, the Andy Kaufman of philosophy.

Ithink the big spike on the west coast of the US is the san francisco bay. not LA. So its Stanford/Berkley/Santa Cruz, not Cal Tech.

"He awakes at 4 a.m. to come to work and often waits until after 7 p.m. to leave so he can miss the heaviest traffic."

Did they mean 7 a.m.? maybe he should sleep-in.

Now the substantive comment:

A recent study by the World Bank:

Where is the Wealth of Nations?:Measuring Capital for the 21st Century
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development/The World Bank
http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTEEI/21457...

found that:

... most of a country’s wealth is captured by what we term intangible capital. ... the intangible capital variable captures all those assets that are unaccounted for in the estimates of produced and natural capital. Intangible assets include the skills and know-how embodied in the labor force. The category also includes social capital, that is, the trust among people in a society and their ability to work together for a common purpose. The residual also accounts for all those governance elements that boost the productivity of labor. For example, if an economy has a very efficient judicial system, clear property rights, and an effective government, the effects will result in a higher total wealth and thus a higher intangible capital residual. The regression analysis in this chapter shows that human capital and rule of law account for the majority of the variation in the residual. Investments in education, the functioning of the justice system, and policies aimed at attracting remittances are the most important means of increasing the intangible components of total wealth."

Given the key role of laws and legal institutions, perhaps the nation is a good unit of analysis.

That would be Jane Jacobs, the author of The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961), not Joanne the author of Our School (2005) and a blog:
http://www.joannejacobs.com/

While I am snarking, the term "nation-state" does not have much meaning when you use the word nation in the sense of "A relatively large group of people organized under a single, usually independent government; a country." Am Heritage Dictionary 1.a. rather than th older meaning of "A people who share common customs, origins, history, and frequently language; a nationality".

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=nation

The term nation-state refers to a state that encompasses a single nation e.g. Finland as opposed to a multi-ethnic state, e.g. Great Britain.

On the theme of the ancients, is not Haybon simply identifying what Plato longed for 24 centuries ago?

"Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, --nor the human race, as I believe, --and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day. Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing."

The Ancients tackled this issue better. Herodotus, The Histories, Book I:

... Croesus broke in angrily, "What, stranger of Athens [Solon], is my happiness, then, so utterly set at nought by thee, that thou dost not even put me on a level with private men?"

"Oh! Croesus," replied Solon, "thou askedst a question concerning the condition of man, of one who knows that the power above us is full of jealousy, and fond of troubling our lot. A long life gives one to witness much, and experience much oneself, that one would not choose. Seventy years I regard as the limit of the life of man. ... The whole number of the days contained in the seventy years will thus be twenty-six thousand two hundred and fifty*, whereof not one but will produce events unlike the rest. Hence man is wholly accident.

For thyself, oh! Croesus, I see that thou art wonderfully rich, and art the lord of many nations; but with respect to that whereon thou questionest me, I have no answer to give, until I hear that thou hast closed thy life happily. For assuredly he who possesses great store of riches is no nearer happiness than he who has what suffices for his daily needs, unless it so hap that luck attend upon him, and so he continue in the enjoyment of all his good things to the end of life. For many of the wealthiest men have been unfavoured of fortune, and many whose means were moderate have had excellent luck. Men of the former class excel those of the latter but in two respects; these last excel the former in many. The wealthy man is better able to content his desires, and to bear up against a sudden buffet of calamity. The other has less ability to withstand these evils (from which, however, his good luck keeps him clear), but he enjoys all these following blessings: he is whole of limb, a stranger to disease, free from misfortune, happy in his children, and comely to look upon. If, in addition to all this, he end his life well, he is of a truth the man of whom thou art in search, the man who may rightly be termed happy. Call him, however, until he die, not happy but fortunate.

Scarcely, indeed, can any man unite all these advantages: as there is no country which contains within it all that it needs, but each, while it possesses some things, lacks others, and the best country is that which contains the most; so no single human being is complete in every respect- something is always lacking. He who unites the greatest number of advantages, and retaining them to the day of his death, then dies peaceably, that man alone, sire, is, in my judgment, entitled to bear the name of 'happy.' But in every matter it behoves us to mark well the end: for oftentimes God gives men a gleam of happiness, and then plunges them into ruin."

Such was the speech which Solon addressed to Croesus, a speech which brought him neither largess nor honour. The king saw him depart with much indifference, since he thought that a man must be an arrant fool who made no account of present good, but bade men always wait and mark the end.

After Solon had gone away a dreadful vengeance**, sent of God, came upon Croesus, to punish him, it is likely, for deeming himself the happiest of men.

*By modern count 25,568 assuming 18 leap years.
26,250 days is 71 years 317 days.

**His son dies in a hunting accident and his kingdom is taken away by the Persians.

What Are Philosophers Good For?

Absolutely Nothing!

That was way too easy.

Just curious didn't Apphia used to be a Post Modernist or something like that?

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy: Waste More, Want More, By Robert H. Frank, Published: December 22, 2005:

Then why do people buy the expensive mechanical watches? Edward Faber of the Aaron Faber Gallery in Manhattan recently described buyers of these watches as men from 30 to 50 who want "this 'power tool,' this instrument on their wrist that distinguishes them from the pack." The problem is that if a watch is to distinguish its owner, it must sell for more than the watches worn by members of the pack. So when the pack spends more, the price of distinguishing oneself also rises. And in the end, no one gains any more distinction than if all had spent less.

This is an argument that the "rich" whoever they might be, should be taxed more heavily.

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Here is what I think: The obsession of intellectuals and other members of the chattering classes with status envy, conspicuous consumption and income distribution is a reflection of their own insecurities and the tensions of their little world. Most of us out here in flyover country, just don't get it.


Are Journalists Underpaid?
Pity the sad, broke New York Times reporter. By Daniel Gross, Posted Tuesday, Dec. 20, 2005, at 6:23 AM ET

The New York real-estate boom is claiming a different kind of casualty, according to an article in Sunday's New York Times. Keying off a new report issued by the Center for an Urban Future, Jennifer Steinhauer noted that, thanks to high housing prices, many of the creative types who work in Manhattan-centered fields like advertising, publishing, and the arts are being priced out of the city. This, presumably, could damage New York in the long run, since it's an article of faith among nouveau-urban thinkers that the creative classes are a huge economic advantage, as the author Richard Florida has persuasively argued.

It could also damage journalism. The journalists who write these stories about people who can't afford to live in New York can't afford to live in New York, either. And that's a trend that may prove just as corrosive to establishment media as any disruptive technology.