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TP Top 20 Libertarian Blogs

2008-09-08 16:52:17

As well as surging into the Total Politics Top 200 UK Political Blogs this blog has made it into the Top 20 UK Libertarian Blogs.

I achieved a more than respectable 11th place, amidst distinguished company.

Since the libertarian trend in all its many varieties is the shape of the future, this is a great result.

Many thanks to all readers who kindly took the trouble to vote for this blog in this category. If you have not yet done so, have a read of my Well-Armed Red Riding Hood story.

Its (and, on a good day, my) philosophy: Strong, Thoughtful and Generous.

Sarah Palin - Nuclear Explosion!

2008-09-08 09:57:54

Here is one eloquent US feminist's analysis of the Palin phenomenon:

Make no mistake - the Democratic Party and its nominee have created the powerhouse that is Sarah Palin, and the party's increased attacks on her (and even on her daughter) reflect that panic.

The party has moved from taking the female vote for granted to outright contempt for women. That's why Palin represents the most serious conservative threat ever to the modern liberal claim on issues of cultural and social superiority. Why? Because men and women who never before would have considered voting for a Republican have either decided, or are seriously considering, doing so.

They are deciding women's rights must be more than a slogan and actually belong to every woman, not just the sort approved of by left-wing special interest groups.

Palin's candidacy brings both figurative and literal feminist change. The simple act of thinking outside the liberal box, which has insisted for generations that only liberals and Democrats can be trusted on issues of import to women, is the political equivalent of a nuclear explosion.

MSNBC's openly biased presenters are reeling.

Not everyone is happy.

Fascinating for the planet as all this is, behind the massive new noise McCain/Palin need to win key states.

And that will not be easy.

Down With The Rouble

2008-09-08 08:21:25

If you want to read online the FT's distinguished Lex column, you have to pay for it.

But at least Lex shares with us for free a nifty graph on the rouble's fortunes up to and following the Kremlin's Georgia intervention:

Russia’s 1998 financial crisis, after which one foreign banker observed he would rather “eat nuclear waste” than invest in Russian securities, is still alive in the market’s collective consciousness. Billions of dollars flowing out of Russia and the central bank being forced to intervene last week to prop up the rouble inevitably put traders in a cold sweat.

Grabbing Russian Oil Reserves

2008-09-07 15:54:59

This piece at the excellent Knowledge Problem neatly looks at differences between Chinese and Russian oil reserve management styles:

There are few assets more specific than an oil well. If you invest wisely today to maximize the present value of the well's future output, that does you no good if you're not around to claim those future flows (because, for instance, you're rotting in a jail in Chita.) So, to hell with the future-maximize what you can produce today, even though that impairs the well's long run value....

Transactive Competition

2008-09-07 15:49:10

Katherine Whitehorn's ramblings against competition as somehow juxtaposed against 'action for the common good' miss one other vital effect of competition, namely its tendency to incentivise frugal use of resources.

We hear all the time sundry collectivists urging the idea that capitalism and competition are uniquely wasteful of resources and environmentally destructive.

They tend not to mention the most ambitious attempt in human history to run a society via state-imposed socialistic 'cooperation' for the common good, and the remarkable environmental impact that had.

Because it is not easy regularly to bring about major cost-reduction strategies, businesses (and governments, and consumers) focus on making 'marginal' efficiency and other cost savings wherever they can be identified.

And the brilliance of competition is that it endlessly encourages this process through innovation.

Take shops.

You want to buy a new lawn-mower. In your town there are four shops selling them.

Once upon a time you would have had to telephone round to check the rival costs and availability of the model you wanted.

Now you can do much of that via the Internet.

But what if you could just type the make/model into your car computer which then guided you directly to the shop offering the best deal?

What if your car was transactive?

Come on, Katherine, tell us.

Would not smart kit like that created by competition itself give rise to wonderful new forms of cooperation - for the common good?