February 15, 2008
McCain the Free Trader
According to an extremely informative interactive website set up by the Cato Institute, John McCain is unequivocal free trader who has consistently opposed trade barriers and subsidies, based on his voting record over his entire career in Congress. Not surprisingly, Hillary Clinton is rated as an interventionist, generally voting in favor of subsidies and trade barriers. Judging by an extremely limited voting record, Barack Obama's record on trade and subsidies isn't much different than that of Clinton.
Posted by John at 6:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackFebruary 10, 2008
As We Press for Change with a New President, A Point to Remember
Stephen Boyle writes that our presidential candidates, with much talk of "change", are ballooning expectations to levels which cannot possibly be met. Further, Boyle notes, we the people are guilty:
This myth of the all-powerful president persists. The electorate believes that the president can alone right all the wrongs that afflict the nation. Americans view their former presidents through a nostalgic haze in which the merely adequate appear to have been great while the great appear to have been superhuman. The slate of candidates is anxiously assessed to see if any of them could be the next FDR or Kennedy or Reagan, presidents whose myth has substantially overtaken their record. Nostalgia for Reagan is particularly acute this year, even among Democrats.
Yet the fact is that no one can live up to these expectations. Both the candidates and the electorate are guilty of a loss of constitutional perspective. In reality, the president of the US has a distinctly constrained constitutional authority. He cannot make laws, at least not in the all-encompassing way that congress can. He cannot raise taxes, nor declare wars (Iraq was authorised and continues to be funded by congress). He cannot make treaties with other nations. Unlike the British prime minister, he cannot even appoint his own cabinet without approval. The US constitution offers little more than an outline of the presidency, saying more about how the president should be appointed, paid and impeached than about the extent of his powers. On the election of General Dwight Eisenhower as president in 1952, his immediate predecessor, Harry S Truman, laughed. "He’ll sit there all day saying, ‘do this, do that’ and nothing will happen," he said. "Poor Ike—it won’t be a bit like the army." . . . [Complete Prospect article here.]
Contrast Truman's remarks, infused with the wisdom of actual experience, with Hillary Clinton's promises to "manage" the economy better than George W. Bush. As Boyle writes, the President of the U.S. doesn't even manage Congress, a body of 535 individuals, which in the private sector would be a fairly small business. The notion that one person "manages" a $13 trillion economy is laughable.
The power of the President, Boyle writes, is actually the power to persuade. The President may propose legislation to Congress, but has no ability to enact or even introduce such proposals. The President must persuade the people of his views so that they will pressure their Congressional representatives to support him. He must even persuade the bureaucracy of the executive branch to enforce the laws he supports.
Presidents are like coaches in sports: they receive way too much credit when things are going well, and are tagged with too much of the blame when they aren't. We the people invest a tremendous amount of energy for change and reform behind individuals. Individuals can only do so much; they cannot simply do their own will. After the heat generated by enthusiastic campaigns, they must persuade us of the rightness of their actions.
For this, we owe gratitude to the wisdom of our Founding Fathers and the system they created. Thank goodness for such foresight. It's probably saved us more than we'll ever know.
Posted by John at 8:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJanuary 20, 2008
A Peek Inside a Nevada Democratic Caucus Room
My pal John Daly was on the ground at a Nevada Democratic caucus.
Posted by John at 8:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJanuary 15, 2008
Rules for Pundits
As you watch cable news talking heads shows, you should remember the "10 Commandments of Punditry" offered by the Foreign Policy Passport blog. Read them all; they'll provide immediate help and guidance as you listen to the "experts"; here's a few I particularly enjoyed:
Posted by John at 5:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackThou shalt not waste “time in the field.” Your 10 minutes chatting with the taxi driver on the way from your four-star hotel to the first-class lounge at the airport is enough to provide unique insight into what “the street is thinking.” The same goes for that night you spent in a hotel inside the Green Zone. You are Dr. Livingston back from the wilds, Achilles back from the front lines of war. Upon your return, write an op-ed, hold a press conference, and go on the talk-show circuit. These are far more worthwhile activities.
Thou shalt not commit the sin of Footnotes. If you want to go primetime, you must wisely invest your energies in writing 700-word op-eds and jetting between press appearances, not the humdrum of actual book research. However, you need not waste the opportunity to make manna out of all that public exposure. Slap those op-eds together into a book, so that you have something to flog in your bio line.
Thou shalt not misuse the title of “former.” The three months that you were principal deputy under assistant secretary in the waning days of the Harding administration give you a knowledge that is supreme. It must be cited upon all occasions. Your data may be years outdated and your title may start with “former” because you were fired for incompetence and indicted for corruption, but this matters not to a Pundit; the TV host will never introduce that part of your resume to the audience.
January 13, 2008
Why Explore Space?
The New York Times has a Freakonomics quorum on whether manned space exploration is worth the cost; it's an extended discussion but worth your time. [Thanks to Slashdot.org for the heads up.] Here are a few samples to whet your appetite:
Joan Vernikos, former Director of NASA's Life Sciences Division, offers an extended answer to the question which reads in part:
. . . Economic, scientific and technological returns of space exploration have far exceeded the investment. Globally, 43 countries now have their own observing or communication satellites in Earth orbit. Observing Earth has provided G.P.S., meteorological forecasts, predictions and management of hurricanes and other natural disasters, and global monitoring of the environment, as well as surveillance and intelligence. Satellite communications have changed life and business practices with computer operations, cell phones, global banking, and TV. Studying humans living in the microgravity of space has expanded our understanding of osteoporosis and balance disorders, and has led to new treatments. Wealth-generating medical devices and instrumentation such as digital mammography and outpatient breast biopsy procedures and the application of telemedicine to emergency care are but a few of the social and economic benefits of manned exploration that we take for granted.
Space exploration is not a drain on the economy; it generates infinitely more than wealth than it spends. Royalties on NASA patents and licenses currently go directly to the U.S. Treasury, not back to NASA. I firmly believe that the Life Sciences Research Program would be self-supporting if permitted to receive the return on its investment. NASA has done so much with so little that it has generally been assumed to have had a huge budget. In fact, the 2007 NASA budget of $16.3 billion is a minute fraction of the $13 trillion total G.D.P.
Keith Cowing, editor of NASAWatch.com, comments in part:
Posted by John at 8:45 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack. . . Asking if space exploration — with humans or robots or both — is worth the effort is like questioning the value of Columbus’s voyages to the New World in the late 1490s. The promise at the time was obvious to some, but not to others. Is manned space exploration worth the cost? If we Americans do not think so, then why is it that nations such as China and India — nations with far greater social welfare issues to address with their limited budgets — are speeding up their space exploration programs? What is it about human space exploration that they see? Could it be what we once saw, and have now forgotten?
As such, my response is another question: for the U.S. in the twenty-first century, is not sending humans into space worth the cost?
January 6, 2008
Happy 2008
We're back after a little time off from Tidbits. Happy New Year; hope 2008 is a peaceful and prosperous one for you and yours.
Posted by John at 7:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackDecember 1, 2007
Bureaucracy Fuels the Immigration Problem
Steve Conover at the Skeptical Optimist delves into one of the most overlooked aspects of the immigration debate, particularly by many nativists who otherwise claim to be lovers of small government:
Is it possible that our immigration law, and our ability to process would-be immigrants under that law, is way too ineffective and time-consuming, and therefore causes a portion of our "illegal immigration" problem? Is it possible that, under current law and staffing, we cannot process desirable immigrants efficiently enough (including teachers, scientists, engineers, managers, and entrepreneurs)? The US Citizenship and Immigration Service is all but admitting to that at their website. Is it possible that some "illegal immigrants" achieved their illegal status by deciding not to wait for the red light to change?
Most lovers of small, more efficient government argue, and rightly so, I think, that tax simplification will help improve compliance. They argue that we need to "get the government off the back of small business", so these enterprises can be more efficient, presumably more profitable, and therefore prosper and hire more workers.
Why is it, at the same time, they don't understand that a cumbersome bureaucratic process for processing immigrants to this country fosters the very problem they're worried about?
I'm asking a rhetorical question, of course; I know the answer: creating scapegoats is easier than coming up with solutions to complex problems.
Posted by John at 9:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackCreating Scapegoats to Appeal to Mobs of Voters
In a few deft lines, Thomas P.M. Barnett explains the blowhard rhetoric you're seeing in a most presidential campaigning in both parties these days:
Posted by John at 9:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackScapegoating is the lowest form of analysis, appealing to our basest emotions.
But mobs love it, and so it remains an attractive product.
And no, complexity is not simply an outcome of technology, although technology often reveals it and can help tame it.
. . .Complex answers are harder to sell, because solutions nowadays often come in clusters.
Still, whenever the going gets tough, count on the scapegoating. . . .
November 30, 2007
Aspirants to Lead The Country Stand Weak Kneed and Trembling
Daniel Weintraub, columnist for Sacramento Bee, perfectly captured my sentiments after watching bits and pieces of the CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate; thanks to Virginia Postrel for the pointer:
. . . I thought the GOP was supposed to be the "daddy" party -- all strong and manly. But these guys were quaking in their loafers about any number of threats to our safety and livelihoods. From Islamic terrorism to Chinese manufacturers, European farmers, Mexican laborers and even Canadians (yes, Canadians!), the Republicans seem to think the world is about to take us down. Their solutions vary. Some want to curl up in a little American ball to shield ourselves from attack. Others want to "stay on the offense" with the military to keep the bad guys at bay. Nobody really conveyed a sense of confidence in the future, or in the American people's ability to prosper peacefully in a more competitive world.
Of course, the Democrats are not much better. They deny that the Islamists are a threat but see even bigger monsters in the economic closet and are even more eager than the Republicans to protect us from competition and change.
The sad thing is that these candidates must know that a lot of voters share their insecurities, or they wouldn't try so hard to feed them. But doesn't anybody on the campaign trail speak for dynamism, the creative spirit, innovation, and the potential of individuals to do great things? Doesn't anybody running for president think that Americans can compete -- even thrive -- by participating in, not fleeing, a growing global economy? This is the dawn of the Information Age. The world is changing fast. Yet these folks all sound as if they think it's 1955. The Cold War and the Red scare all over again.
I work in what's commonly thought to be the 21st Century equivalent of the buggy whip industry, yet even I have a far cheerier outlook about the future than any of these guys exhibited last night. It was almost as if they were trying to channel Lou Dobbs, or they were hypnotized by that great CNN fearmonger on their way into the studio. . . .
Weintraub's complete comments can be found here. [requires registration]
Posted by John at 7:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackNovember 26, 2007
The King of Spain Becomes a Ringtone Star
King Juan Carlos's outburst directed at Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has become a ringtone smash in Spain. Half a million people have downloaded the insult, generating roughly $2 million in revenue to date. [Source: BBC]
Posted by John at 6:12 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackNovember 24, 2007
Barbershop Creativity
Richard Florida found out his Toronto hairstylist was formerly a mechical engineer in GM product design, and finds this circumstance a metaphor for an important principle of creativity and economies: creativity is not the province of some elite class:
One of the great fallacies of modern times is the idea that creativity is limited to a small group. Most people, the belief goes, don't want to be creative, couldn't do it if asked and would be uncomfortable in an environment where creativity was expected of them.
This is false. Creativity is a virtually limitless resource that defies social status. I saw this in the 1980s in my studies of high-performance Japanese manufacturers such as Toyota and Honda.
Years ago, Konosuke Matsushita, founder of the great electronics company, laid down the real competitive challenge facing the world. Western factories had started out with better technology, better-trained engineers and managers and more aggressive chief executives. The key to Japan's success, he said, lay in mobilizing the knowledge and intelligence of its factory workers. The rest is history.
Yet our society continues to encourage the creative talents of a privileged minority. We systematically neglect the creative potential of the 60 to 70 per cent of the population that lies outside a narrow view of the creative class. There are fewer and fewer rewarding jobs for people without college degrees. This amounts to a huge inefficiency in our system for harnessing creative energy and turning it into wealth and productivity capacity.
The great challenge of society is to tap the creativity of much larger segments of the work force. It's here that openness, diversity and self-expression play their greatest role. For creativity is the great leveller — it defies gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and outward appearance. We cannot know in advance where the next Steve Jobs, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Balsillie or Leslie Feist will come from. . . .
You can read Florida's complete commentary here; he goes on to note that the ultimate success of cities and countries will be their ability to use all of their creative resources to transform the city or country itself.
Posted by John at 8:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackNovember 23, 2007
As With A Lot of of Things, Technology Races Past Government
Fred Wilson comments on the news that scientists have developed a process to generate patient- and disease-specific stem cells without the use of human eggs or embryos:
Posted by John at 12:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack. . . once again, technology is the solution to a problem that government can't seem to figure out how to solve. I am not particularly optimistic about our government in this country, or frankly in in our world. Politics is subject to corruption, short term thinking over long term planning, and the will of vocal and powerful minorities over the silent majorities.
But technology on the other hand is solving problems right and left. It's creating problems too (like the stem cell debate). But the great thing about technology is it always tries to solve the problems it creates. And has a track record of doing so.
Next up - our reliance on carbon-based energy and the pollution, climate change, and wealth and power effects it creates.
November 22, 2007
The Pilgrims and the Power of Incentives
Bloomberg's Caroline Baum, quoting from Plymouth Colony leader William Bradford's journal, explains the change in mindset it took for the Pilgrims to survive:
One of the traditions the Pilgrims had brought with them from England was a practice known as "farming in common." Everything they produced was put into a common pool; the harvest was rationed according to need.
They had thought "that the taking away of property, and bringing in community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing," Bradford recounts.
They were wrong. "For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much imployment that would have been to their benefite and comforte," Bradford writes.
Young, able-bodied men resented working for others without compensation. They thought it an "injuestice" to receive the same allotment of food and clothing as those who didn't pull their weight. What they lacked were appropriate incentives.
After the Pilgrims had endured near-starvation for three winters, Bradford decided to experiment when it came time to plant in the spring of 1623. He set aside a plot of land for each family, that "they should set corne every man for his owne perticuler, and in that regard trust to themselves."
The results were nothing short of miraculous.
Bradford writes: "This had very good success; for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corne was planted than other waise would have bene by any means the Govr or any other could use, and saved him a great deall of trouble, and gave far better content."
The women now went willingly into the field, carrying their young children on their backs. Those who previously claimed they were too old or ill to work embraced the idea of private property and enjoyed the fruits of their labor, eventually producing enough to trade their excess corn for furs and other desired commodities. . . .
You can find Baum's complete essay here; have a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends!
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October 17, 2007
Cheap Gas
From a Financial Times review of Zoom: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future:
Posted by John at 7:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack. . . gasoline remains the cheapest liquid on sale at most American filling stations, costing less per gallon than milk, coffee or mouthwash.
October 9, 2007
Teaching the iPod Generation with a Blackboard
That's what we're doing in our schools, says Jim Goodnight, co-founder and chief executive officer of SAS, and it's a huge mistake:
. . . Lacking a clear and present danger, the American education system is not mobilizing to support science, technology, engineering and math. Today’s generation of kids is the most technology savvy group that this country has ever produced. They are born with an iPod in one hand and a cell phone in another. They’re text messaging, e-mailing, instant messaging. They’re on MySpace, YouTube & Google. They’ve got Nintendo Wiis, Game Boys, Play Stations.
Posted by John at 6:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackTheir world is one of total interactivity. They’re in constant communication with each other, but when they go to school, they are told to leave those “toys” at home. They’re not to be used in school. Instead, the system continues teaching as if these kids belong to the last century, by standing in front of a blackboard.
Education has not changed, and that’s a problem. It was a good system when I came through, but today’s kids have changed, and that’s the part that educators are not realizing. It’s the kids that have changed, and our education system needs to change along with them.
Again, they are the most technologically savvy group of kids we’ve ever had; we’ve got to take advantage of that.
October 8, 2007
Chicken Little and the Lap of the Gods
Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President and CEO Richard Fisher, in remarks at the Greater Dallas Chamber Annual State of Technology Luncheon, offers a reminder of how robust--yet unpredictable--the pace of innovation is in the U.S. economy:
. . . We live in a time when it is fashionable to look at all glasses as half full. Chicken Little rules the roost of economic prognostication. The innovators in this room know differently. Heirs to Eli Whitney, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell and the Wright brothers, American entrepreneurs are accustomed to operating in an economy that is the crucible of innovation. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce, Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg and, of course, Bill Gates sprang from the American landscape, not from Germany or France or China or India or anyplace else. Inventiveness is part of the American DNA, nurtured in an economic system that encourages innovation and rewards it handsomely. New products and new technologies find fertile soil here in Texas and throughout the United States, where they can be funded and brought to market, only to be challenged in due course by the next round of new products and new technologies.
A free enterprise system recognizes that innovation cannot be predicted or controlled. No part of the computer was invented with the computer in mind. The keyboard came from the typewriter, invented in the 1860s by Christopher Latham Sholes. The first program was written for Joseph Marie Jacquard's loom in 1801, a technology to avoid mistakes made by the weavers. Vacuum tubes and transistors were first associated with radio and then television. The microchip was invented for handheld calculators, not for computers per se. And the electricity that powers it all started out as a better way to light up dark rooms. Mix them all together and—voila—you have a computer, the unintended consequence of a series of separate inventions.
American technology will continue to march forward, as it has for generations. Skeptics have always been proved wrong. Charles Duell once ran the U.S. Patent Office. He would probably be forgotten by now if not for a few words he is purported to have uttered in 1899—after the introduction of telephones, electric lights and automobiles, but before the next wave of innovation that brought us airplanes, refrigeration, radios and my favorite great invention, the pop-up toaster. In 1899, amid the great burst of innovation, one that rivaled what we see today, Duell infamously proclaimed: "Everything that can be invented has been invented." If Duell had been right, the job of econometricians and monetary policymakers would have been made so much easier. They could have put everything on autopilot. And, as a nation, we would have gone into decline, deprived of the fresh energy of new technology. I'll return to my best buddy—Schumpeter. He knew better. He wrote that "we cannot reason about the future possibilities of technological advance, those [technologies] that are still in the lap of the gods may be more or less productive than any that have thus far come within our range of observation. ... There is no reason to expect slackening of the rate of output through exhaustion of technological possibilities."
We know not what marvels still sit in the "lap of the gods." But history tells us it is a fool's game to expect a slackening of the rate of technological accomplishment. Some of you may even play starring roles developing the future waves of technology. Your efforts and the fruits of your labor will fuel the incessant revolution of our economic system, making the work of central bankers more confusing and challenging. As sure as I am standing here, I know that your success will make my job harder. I ask only one thing of you:
Keep it up.
Fisher's complete remarks can be found here.
Posted by John at 5:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackAugust 11, 2007
The Ideal Capital Gains Tax Rate
Don Luskin, in a Wall Street Journal editorial, explains why the ideal policy for maximizing government revenue from capital gains is a tax rate on such gains of zero. He does it, mind you, actually using numbers and economic reasoning, which is probably why it will never happen:
The cap-gains tax is a poor revenue raiser, because any given capital gain is a one-time event that can only be taxed once, and in many cases, ends up not being taxed at all. Consider Microsoft. Since the company went public 20 years ago, its market value has increased by about $275 billion. A generous estimate of the cap-gains tax revenues we could expect from this increase is about $40 billion.
Actual collections will surely be less. Many shares will never be sold -- held by founders who wish to retain control, or by people who wish to avoid paying taxes. Many shares will be gifted to charitable foundations, as Bill Gates has done for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, out of the tax collector's reach. Even for those shares that will eventually be sold, from today's perspective the resulting tax revenues have to be discounted, as they won't be collected for years.
This point is reason enough to eliminate this tax, as most politicians apparently don't understand how revenue from a capital gains tax is actually derived, and mismanage the finances they are entrusted with accordingly. One of the most notable examples in recent years is the state of California, which passed a budget in 2000-2001 which increased expenditures by 17%. Realized revenues, however, fell by 1%, as revenues from capital gains taxes, inflated by the surge of stock options and IPOs from the tech bubble, plummeted. According to this analysis from the East Bay Economic Development Alliance, California appears poised to repeat the same mistake, only a few years distant from that experience. Luskin continues:
At the same time, Microsoft has been a fountain of other tax revenues. Since the company went public, I estimate that, in cumulative present-value terms, corporate taxes already paid total roughly $60 billion; sales taxes paid by Microsoft's customers total roughly $11 billion; income taxes paid by Microsoft's employees total roughly $12 billion, and dividend taxes paid by Microsoft's shareholders total about $3 billion. These four sources of tax revenues over the last 20 years total $86 billion -- more than twice our generous estimate of the notional cap-gains tax revenues ($40 billion) for the same period.
Moreover, unless Microsoft's stock price increases -- which it's had a hard time doing the last couple years -- the estimated $40 billion in cap-gains tax revenues will never grow to a larger number. But corporate taxes, sales taxes, income taxes and dividend taxes will continue to be generated year after year. Even if assuming Microsoft's business stops growing (it has been reliably growing at better than 10% per year), the present value of the tax revenues from these other sources is roughly $182 billion. Added to the revenues already collected, the total is $268 billion.
There is also all the new taxable economic activity enabled by Microsoft's products. It's impossible to estimate a dollar value for it, but we can be sure it is a multiple of the value created within Microsoft. In this context, there is nothing unique about Microsoft. Anytime capital is invested, the small, deferred and non-recurring revenues that can be expected from the cap-gains tax are a tiny fraction of the perpetual revenues from other economic activities, generated directly and indirectly.
Luskin goes on to make another important point: that eliminating the capital gains tax would not only spur additional taxable activity from companies like Microsoft, but it would incent the country's capital base to invest in the creation of more innovators like Microsoft. For each new Microsoft which emerges from this activity, the government would implicitly be foregoing $40 billion in capital gains tax revenue in order to collect $268 billion in revenue from other taxable activity. While Microsoft is an out-sized example, the same principle would hold for the thousands of other companies which would emerge under this policy.
Further, what a way to encourage innovation, entrepreneurship, and growth in small business, the three things all politicians, regardless of their party affiliation, seem to pay lip service to during election season. If you really want innovative companies to emerge which, for example, help reduce our dependent on fossil fuels through development of new technologies, then giving entrepreneurs and investors in those technologies an overwhelming incentive to make a go for it is the ideal way to achieve such a goal the fastest. It sure won't happen through some Department of Energy boondoggle.
Finally, if you really want to curb the "excess profits" of companies like Exxon, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi desires, then create the optimal conditions for emerging enterprises which offer alternatives to Exxon's fossil fuels. Such competition will do more to give Exxon and its industry peers a run for their money than any "excess profits" tax.
That's why a zero capital gains tax is unlikely to ever happen: it's too threatening to big corporations in this country. Big companies like Microsoft and Exxon don't like innovation they don't control; it threatens the status quo too much. (In Microsoft's case, for example, think Google.) They will fight anything which creates the conditions for competition and innovation which threatens their position. Corporate America is obviously a big source of revenue for politicians, in the form of campaign contributions, so, like Pelosi's proposal on energy companies (which she's having trouble getting support for even though her party controls the House), a zero capital gains tax would likely be opposed, albeit quietly, by lobbyists from large companies. It's just too destabilizing.
Posted by John at 10:14 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJuly 17, 2007
We Can't Legislate Happiness . . . and Shouldn't Try
Helen Johns and Paul Ormerod, writing in the Financial Times, argue that governments should quit trying to legislate happiness:
Posted by John at 4:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackGovernment attempts to increase measured happiness, rather than making life better for us, may well do the opposite: create arbitrary objectives that divert civil service energies from core responsibilities; give many people the message that happiness emanates from national policy rather than our own efforts; and create pressure for government to appear to increase an indicator that has never before shifted systematically in response to any policy or socioeconomic change. These are exactly the mistakes of the target-driven mentality that now pervades the British public sector. We should learn from these rather than replicate them.
More sinisterly, the happiness view of the world has tendencies that are inherently anti-democratic. The expert with his or her clipboard and regressions knows better than ordinary people themselves what makes them happy. So local democratic or individual decisions can be overridden with a clean conscience. Because, at face value, promoting happiness is an incontestable aim, it would be ideal for steamrolling opposition to policies that, on closer inspection, pose the same very real tough choices that are a continual presence in politics.
July 4, 2007
"The Times That Try Men's Souls"
Let’s all have a great Fourth of July today, enjoying our families, barbecues, and fireworks (where allowed—drought conditions are still terrible in Georgia). At the same time, let’s reflect on the sacrifices and heroism which brought our country into being.
One of my own personal favorites among the leaders of the American Revolution is Thomas Paine. Thomas Jefferson once wrote to Thomas Paine: “Go on doing with your pen what in other times was done with the sword." Paine’s writings were among the best selling works both in the Colonies and in Europe during the American Revolution.
One of his most famous works was The American Crisis, a series of pamphlets written to inspire both the troops of the Continental Army and the citizens who supported them. The first, published on December 23, 1776, is probably one of Paine’s most well known; it was written after the British, returned in force after their token force had been defeated earlier in the year. They retook New York City and New Jersey, nearly capturing Commander-in-Chief Gen. George Washington in the process. The situation was bleak indeed.
Paine’s first essay was written in response to these events, and it reportedly inspired General George Washington so much that he had it read to his soldiers at Valley Forge. The first line is the most familiar to most of us, but read the rest:
THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER," and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God. . . .
Posted by John at 9:48 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackI have as little superstition in me as any man living, but my secret opinion has ever been, and still is, that God Almighty will not give up a people to military destruction, or leave them unsupportedly to perish, who have so earnestly and so repeatedly sought to avoid the calamities of war, by every decent method which wisdom could invent. Neither have I so much of the infidel in me, as to suppose that He has relinquished the government of the world, and given us up to the care of devils; and as I do not, I cannot see on what grounds the king of Britain can look up to heaven for help against us: a common murderer, a highwayman, or a house-breaker, has as good a pretence as he. . . .
I once felt all that kind of anger, which a man ought to feel, against the mean principles that are held by the Tories: a noted one, who kept a tavern at Amboy, was standing at his door, with as pretty a child in his hand, about eight or nine years old, as I ever saw, and after speaking his mind as freely as he thought was prudent, finished with this unfatherly expression, "Well! give me peace in my day." Not a man lives on the continent but fully believes that a separation must some time or other finally take place, and a generous parent should have said, "If there must be trouble, let it be in my day, that my child may have peace;" and this single reflection, well applied, is sufficient to awaken every man to duty. Not a place upon earth might be so happy as America. Her situation is remote from all the wrangling world, and she has nothing to do but to trade with them. A man can distinguish himself between temper and principle, and I am as confident, as I am that God governs the world, that America will never be happy till she gets clear of foreign dominion. Wars, without ceasing, will break out till that period arrives, and the continent must in the end be conqueror; for though the flame of liberty may sometimes cease to shine, the coal can never expire. . . .
. . . I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little, when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world, that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country, alarmed at one common danger, came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but "show your faith by your works," that God may bless you. It matters not where you live, or what rank of life you hold, the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice, who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole, and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war, for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils, were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being, who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him, and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.
There are cases which cannot be overdone by language, and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly, to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf, and we ought to guard equally against both. . . .
I thank God, that I fear not. I see no real cause for fear. I know our situation well, and can see the way out of it. While our army was collected, Howe dared not risk a battle; and it is no credit to him that he decamped from the White Plains, and waited a mean opportunity to ravage the defenceless Jerseys; but it is great credit to us, that, with a handful of men, we sustained an orderly retreat for near an hundred miles, brought off our ammunition, all our field pieces, the greatest part of our stores, and had four rivers to pass. None can say that our retreat was precipitate, for we were near three weeks in performing it, that the country might have time to come in. Twice we marched back to meet the enemy, and remained out till dark. The sign of fear was not seen in our camp, and had not some of the cowardly and disaffected inhabitants spread false alarms through the country, the Jerseys had never been ravaged. Once more we are again collected and collecting; our new army at both ends of the continent is recruiting fast, and we shall be able to open the next campaign with sixty thousand men, well armed and clothed. This is our situation, and who will may know it. By perseverance and fortitude we have the prospect of a glorious issue; by cowardice and submission, the sad choice of a variety of evils- a ravaged country- a depopulated city- habitations without safety, and slavery without hope- our homes turned into barracks and bawdy-houses for Hessians, and a future race to provide for, whose fathers we shall doubt of. Look on this picture and weep over it! and if there yet remains one thoughtless wretch who believes it not, let him suffer it unlamented.
June 22, 2007
Now Here's a Good Place to Build a Wall
Let's put one around Washington, DC, suggests the president of the McAllen, Texas Chamber of Commerce, Steve Ahlenius:
"We feel the need to protect ourselves from bad legislation, bad ideas and a waste of tax money," Ahlenius wrote.
"A wall around their homes and businesses will give the legislators and Washington bureaucrats a better understanding of what kind of message this action will send.
"Let’s see if they decide to climb over it, tunnel under it, or walk over it." . . .
Posted by John at 4:02 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackAhlenius, who has been vocal about the negative impact the fence could have on McAllen’s burgeoning retail sector, said he wrote the e-mail to try to garner more attention for the issue.
"It’s really a tongue-in-cheek thing to bring some focus in on how silly their proposal is," he said.
"In Washington (D.C.) they don’t speak the language and understand the culture down here." . . .
June 21, 2007
(Dis)Approval Ratings
The current percentages of the American people who have confidence in the Congress (14%) and President Bush (25%) added together come no where near the numbers who have confidence in small business (59%). (See this story.) Maybe that's because Americans understand that small business actually creates jobs and prosperity in this country.
Posted by John at 9:58 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJune 12, 2007
Happy Birthday, Junior Brown
Happy Birthday to Junior Brown, one of the best guitarists--of any genre--extant. If there's a guitarist in better control of his instrument, then I'd love to hear them. If you're unconvinced or have never heard of Junior, then you owe to your ears to listen to his verson of Jimmy Martin's "Free Born Man":
June 10, 2007
On the Virtues of a Economics-English Major
Jane Galt extols the virtues of majors in English and economics; naturally, I agree.
Posted by John at 11:43 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackJune 4, 2007
Politicians and "Puffs of Smoke"
In a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review commentary, Don Boudreaux, Chairman of the Economics Department at George Mason University, offers one of the best metaphors for the way the political process works I've ever read. Politicians are like bomber pilots: all they see are puffs of smoke, not the real damage and unintended consequences the policies they enact cause. You must read Boudreaux's entire commentary--it's outstanding--but here's a tidbit:
Consider agricultural subsidies. They harm millions of people. Consumers pay unnecessarily higher prices for food while taxpayers dole out more wealth to support these programs. The higher prices and taxes, in turn, leave fewer resources available to produce other goods and services.
Subsidies make us poorer.
Most politicians know that subsidies harm the public. Yet there's no end in sight to such wasteful programs.
. . . politicians do many harmful things. The reason is that the ill effects of most political acts are revealed to politicians only in the form of statistics, charts and graphs. But such figures are faceless, bloodless. They are to politicians what little puffs of smoke are to bombers: Bombers know that tremendous human suffering occurs just beneath the puffs of smoke but because the bombers don't encounter this suffering up close, they are largely unaffected by it.
It's just not real to the officials who cause it. Likewise, statistics, charts and graphs seldom produce remorse or regret for politicians. It's relatively easy to harm others when you never see your victims' faces.
The problem of faceless victims is compounded by the fact that there is a class of people that politicians do see face to face on a regular basis: members of organized interest groups. Interest groups persistently seek special favors from government. And such persistence pays off, partly because politicians are not diabolical miscreants. . .
It's human nature to favor friends over strangers, especially when those strangers are encountered merely as data points in bureaucratic reports. The longer a politician holds office, the more his or her circle of friends and acquaintances consists of interest-group representatives and other politicians, all of whom are forever seeking political favors. . . .
Read Boudreaux's entire commentary here.
Posted by John at 4:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackMay 28, 2007
A Memorial Day Recollection from Charles Durning
Most of us recognize Charles Durning as an accomplished Hollywood character actor, but as a 21 year old Army draftee, he was one of the first soldiers to land on Omaha Beach during the Battle of Normandy, commonly known as D-Day. He offers a stirring recollection of his wartime experiences during the National Memorial Day Concert aired on PBS:
As we enjoy the day with our families and friends, let's remember the reason for this day.
Posted by John at 4:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackMay 4, 2007
Helping Workers Displaced by Global Trade
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, in a recent speech, addresses an issue we've discussed here previously: aid for displaced workers:
The better approach to mitigating the disruptive effects of trade [rather than isolationism and protectionism] is to adopt policies and programs aimed at easing the transition of displaced workers into new jobs and increasing the adaptability and skills of the labor force more generally. Many suggestions for such policies have been made. Currently, the government's principal program for helping workers displaced by trade is the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, which is up for renewal before the Congress this year. As now structured, the program offers up to two and a half years of job training, allowances for job search and relocation, income support for eligible workers, and health insurance assistance for some. Elements of other proposals being discussed . . . include job-training tax credits and wage insurance, which would help offset pay cuts that often occur when displaced workers change jobs. Another approach is to focus on establishing policies that reduce the cost to workers of changing jobs, for example, by increasing the portability of pensions or health insurance between employers. As new technologies expand the range of occupations that may be subject to international competition, measures to assist affected workers become all the more important. It would not be appropriate for me to endorse specific programs; that is the prerogative of the Congress. However, I can safely predict that these and other policy proposals to address concerns about worker displacement will be the subject of active debate in coming years.
More generally, investing in education and training would help young people entering the labor force as well as those already in mid-career to better manage the ever-changing demands of the workforce . . . A substantial body of research demonstrates that investments in education and training pay high rates of return to individuals and to society as a whole . . . workforce skills can be improved not only through K‑12 education, college, and graduate work but also through a variety of expeditious, market-based channels such as on-the-job training, coursework at community colleges and vocational schools, extension courses, and online training. An eclectic, market-responsive approach to increasing workforce skills is the most likely to be successful.
Whatever the specific approaches chosen, helping workers who have lost jobs--whether because of trade or other causes--to find new productive work is good for the economy as well as for the affected workers and their families. Moreover, if workers and their families are less fearful of change, political pressure in favor of trade barriers or other measures that would reduce the flexibility and dynamism of the U.S. economy would be reduced . . .
The problem with all this, of course, is that too many politicians--of both parties--have made fear of change a rallying point around getting themselves elected or reelected.
Posted by John at 7:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackApril 21, 2007
Needed Perspective on the Aftermath of the Virginia Tech Tragedy
I admire Peggy Noonan's writing abilities immensely, and I've pointed to her work previously. Ms. Noonan, as I would expect, put eloquence to some of the thoughts I know many of us have had on the senseless tragedy at Virginia Tech and its aftermath; please read her commentary in full:
The anxiety of our politicians that there may be an issue that goes unexploited was almost -- almost -- comic. They mean to seem sensitive, and yet wind up only stroking their supporters. I believe Rep. Jim Moran was first out of the gate with the charge that what Cho did was President Bush's fault. I believe Sen. Barack Obama was second, equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness. Wednesday there was Sen. Barbara Boxer equating the violence of the shootings with the "global warming challenge" and "today's Supreme Court decision" upholding a ban on partial-birth abortion.
One watches all of this and wonders: Where are the grown-ups? . . .
Posted by John at 9:09 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackThe last testament Cho sent to NBC seemed more clear evidence of mental illness -- posing with his pistols, big tough gangsta gonna take you out. What is it evidence of when NBC News, a great pillar of the mainstream media, runs the videos and pictures on the nightly news? Brian Williams introduced the Cho collection as "what can only be described as a multi-media manifesto." But it can be described in other ways. "The self-serving meanderings of a crazy, self-indulgent narcissist" is one. But if you called it that, you couldn't lead with it. You couldn't rationalize the decision.
Such pictures are inspiring to the unstable. The minute you saw them, you probably thought what I did: We'll be seeing more of that. . . .
April 19, 2007
Aiming High at UAW
IndustryWeek reports on UAW President Ron Gettelfinger's recent remarks that Chrysler needs to remain a part of DaimlerChrysler:
Gettelfinger described the equity firms hovering around Chrysler as "strip and flip artists" and said he had "some concerns about these equity companies coming into the industry." . . .
"There is a lot of support on the supervisory board for keeping Chrysler," he added. Gettelfinger said frustrated shareholders ought to remember that Chrysler is still doing much better than General Motors and Ford and that Chrysler has made significant contributions to the broader DaimlerChrysler group.
What does it say about the UAW that its President's standard for Chrysler is just bettering the records of General Motors and Ford?
Posted by John at 4:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackApril 3, 2007
Who Really Wants to Live in the "Good Old Days"?
While we are seemingly nostalgic for the “good old days”, not too many people, based on their actions, really want to go back in time. Kevin Kelly believes that’s a sign that today is better than yesterday, tomorrow will be better, and that as a society we will affirmatively embrace progress:
Moving back into the past has never been easier. Citizens in developing countries can merely walk back to their villages, where they can live with age-old traditions, and limited choices. If they are eager enough, they can live without modern technology at all. Citizens in the developed world can buy a plane ticket and in less than one day can be settled in a hamlet in Nepal or Mali. If you care to relinquish the options of the present and adopt the limited choices of the past you can live there the rest of your life. Indeed you can choose your time period. If you believe the peak of existence was reached in Neolithic times you can camp out in a clearing in the Amazon; if you suspect the golden age was in the 1890s, you can find a farm among the Amish. We have the incredible opportunity to head into the past, but it is amazing how few people really want to live there. Except for a few rare individuals, no one does. Rather, everywhere in the world, at all historical periods, in all cultures, people have stampeded by the billions into the future of "of slightly more options" as fast as they can.
Why? Because the future is slightly better than the past. And tomorrow will be slightly better than today. And while everyone's actions confirm the essential reality of progress, progress is not something we have been willing to admit to in public. I am optimistic that in the coming years we'll embrace the reality of progress.
Thanks to Russ Roberts’ EconTalk podcast interview with Kelly for the pointer. EconTalk, by the way, is one of my favorite podcasts.
Posted by John at 11:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackApril 2, 2007
Happy Birthday, Emmylou
Happy Birthday to Emmylou Harris, whose angelic harmonies we'll hopefully be able to enjoy for many more years. In this video she's paired with the late and also truly great Johnny Cash:
April 1, 2007
The All-Time April Fool's Day Hoaxes
Compiled by the Museum of Hoaxes (yes, we’ve had enough notable hoaxes in our time to have a museum for them), they include news of the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland (#1), Taco Bell’s deal to buy the Liberty Bell (#4), and Nixon’s decision to run for President in 1992 (#6).
One of my favorites on the list is number 26, when two Connecticut weekly newspapers announced in 1982 they had been purchased by Tass, the official Soviet news agency. Among the phone calls from readers they received, one angry caller offered that he had suspected for some time the papers had communist tendencies, and that it was only a matter of time before all U.S. newspapers were communist-controlled. When informed the story was a hoax, the caller responded, “You expect me to believe a bunch of Commies?”
See the entire list here, and be careful out there today.
Posted by John at 8:26 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 29, 2007
How They Do It Better Elsewhere
I was chatting with my pal John Daly on the phone the other day, and he alerted me to an article in U.S. News & World Report on how some other countries “do it better”. It is a very good article. As John pointed out to me, it’s not anti-American at all, but it is a reminder that we have a lot we can learn from the world, and implement here in our own way. At the same token, it’s not the same old hyperbole on Chindia, either. China and India are barely mentioned.
Afganistan’s hospitality is probably the best in the world. I was struck by one particular anecdote from the story:
I have been in 110 countries in the world, but the people who really touched me deep in my heart were the Afghans," says Iranian-born photojournalist Reza Deghati, a veteran of more than 50 trips to Afghanistan. On his first, in 1983, he was traveling along narrow mountain passes with mujahideen who were fighting the Soviets. They had to walk single file, or risk falling over cliffs. Yet occasionally the men would crowd near Reza despite the peril. When he asked why, they told him they knew when they were near hidden pockets of Soviets and wanted to protect him from gunfire. "The commander told me that from the moment he took responsibility for me, I was his guest," Reza says. "If I had been killed, all his tribe's and family's honor would be gone.
In Bogotá, Colombia, the city’s bus system is privately-owned, turns a profit, and is utlized by all classes of society. (Atlanta, take note) The Domincan Republic produces a lot of top notch baseball players, in part because the fun and joy of the game are young kid’s focal points, not baseball averages calculated by the parents. This love of the game, for those that continue to play, morphs into a zeal for practice. The United Kingdom encourages its high school graduates to take a “gap year” before entering college, so they can see some part of the world beyond where they’ve grown up. “Gap year” students have a lower dropout rate in college, on average.
Read all thirty lessons; you’ll get an insight into quite a variety of countries, including a few I’ll bet you thought you knew quite well.
Posted by John at 8:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackMarch 28, 2007
Don't Mess with Uncle Joseph
One Ukrainian company employs a unique way to collect its receivables:
A heating company in Ukraine has cleared thousands of unpaid bills by using the image of Stalin to demand settlement.
Posters of the Soviet dictator have gone up all around the city of Donetsk with the words: "Comrades! This not the cinema, this is real life. Anyone who does not pay their heating bill will be punished."
Bosses from the state-owned Donetsk Heating Company said: "It was the nearest we could get to intimidating people without sending round the heavy mob, and it has worked."
Deputy-director Alexandra Semchenko added: "Most people associate Stalin with order and discipline. This campaign will force them to think about the consequences of being behind with their payments.” . . .
Are you surprised it’s a state-owned company resorting to such tactics?
[Thanks to the Club for Growth for the pointer.]
Posted by John at 4:22 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackMarch 25, 2007
Southerners in New York and the "Stockdale Syndrome"
In the latest Oxford American, Roy Blount Jr. captures something every Southerner—I mean those of us with South in our mouth—have felt at some point while in New York:
. . . Years ago at a New York cocktail party I was chatting with George “Jerry” Goodman, who wrote and spoke trenchantly about money matters under the name of Adam Smith. Nice guy. Evidently I said something that struck him as halfway cogent (so it couldn’t have been about money), because he gave me a sincerely startled look and said, “You’re not so dumb.” I have to admit, I was surprised. Not so much by his surprise as by how unselfconsciously he expressed it. He seemed to have been caught more off guard than I was, so I was able to think to myself, “You’re not so broad-minded.” . . .
One way to respond to such snobbery, Blount suggests, to to use the “Stockdale syndrome”:
. . . named not for Vice Admiral James Stockdale, the heroic Vietnam POW, but for the character Will Stockdale, an Army draftee from backwoods Georgia in the ’50s novel and movie No Time for Sergeants. Andy Griffith played him in the movie, but Will is younger and goofier than Sheriff Andy of Mayberry. An Army psychiatrist says to Will, “I don’t think I would ever want to live in your rotten state. How about that?”
Stockdale replies, “Well, I guess you know where you want to live. Besides that, things is getting right crowded around home anyhow. Some folks moved in not long ago about two miles down the road from us and land ain’t as cheap as it once was. So it really don’t make no difference to me whether you live there or not, not that we wouldn’t be mighty glad to have you.” When the psychiatrist can’t understand why he won’t rise in defense of Georgia, Will says, “I don’t live all over it. I just live in one little place in it.”
That is Will’s way, and it drives the psychiatrist nuts. When Will’s only buddy demands to know why he doesn’t get mad at the Northern GI’s who rag on him nastily, Will says, “They don’t mean nothin’ by it,” which is a nice piece of de-signifying. . . .
One of my own Will Stockdale moments involved getting into a cab in New York City, years ago when cab drivers in the City were much more likely to have a Brooklyn accent. I jumped into the cab and gave him my destination. He wordlessly drove down the block, rounded the corner, and then looked in the rear view mirror and asked, “So, what part of the South are you from?”
I looked up and gave him my best Will Stockdale grin, coupled with an accent I didn’t really need to exaggerate that much: “How’d you know I’ze from da South?” (Making sure, of course, that the two syllables I use to pronounce “South” were quite drawn out.)
For an instant, his face briefly rippled as if an alien had just flown through the window. He then chortled heartily, and we swapped jokes and barbs, laughing the whole way to my destination. It was if he thought, but unlike Goodman had the manners to keep to himself, “Hey, you’re not so dumb . . . you’re ok!”
Blount’s entire essay is worth your consumption; he has some thoughtful points in his commentary while making you chuckle. Blount is one of the country’s finest writers; he can be hilarious and serious in close proximity—something difficult for most writers—and he invariably delivers turns of phrase I wish I’d written.
Posted by John at 8:33 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBackMarch 9, 2007
Progress Through Individual Choice and "Well-Governed Flexibility"
After reading a recent speech by Australian Prime Minister John Howard, I wish he’d throw his hat into our 2008 Presidential race. We need his brand of optimism thrown into the middle of our group of candidates, many of whom seem dedicated to see how much fear and apprehension about our future they can whip up for their own benefit.
In a speech delivered to the Global Foundation Howard spoke on how to capitalize on Australia's current economic strength and engage globally with confidence:
. . . we possess a rare moment of opportunity to forge an even greater era of national development, an era of greater prosperity and greater opportunity. And inevitably I ask myself, what are the things that we need to do in order to translate that opportunity into reality? They're simple yet they're profound. Firstly, we need to keep our economy strong because however many speeches we may make that contain phrases saying life is about more than the economy, the reality is that a strong economy gives us a capacity to do so many things. The second thing is that we need to engage both globally and regionally. It's inevitable we have an emphasis on our region and I'll say more about that a little later, but we should never lose sight of the fact that historically and culturally, we are very much a citizen of the world and the shaping of this nation owes much to our inheritance of western civilisation and the impact and the enlightenment and the Judaeo/Christian ethic on the formation of our country. And thirdly I think we need to maintain and reinforce our social cohesion at home; and each of these three objectives is bound up with the other two. They are self-reinforcing goals, part of a potentially virtuous circle of national progress.
In a speech last week to the Menzies Research Centre I talked about Australia becoming the best country in the world to live, to work, to start a business and to raise a family, and this relies on unlocking the talent and the potential in every home, in every neighbourhood, every place of learning and every workplace. It does require bold and energetic government. But it also requires a measure of humility because getting this balance right is the essential art of modern government. Why do I say this you might ask? I say it because our future is open-ended, rather than a fixed, pre-determined destination. It relies as much on the local and the particular as it does on the bold, grand design.
The American writer Virginia Postrel makes this point in her stimulating book, The Future and its Ene