This Week on the Web (January 20 – January 26)
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Quote of the Week:
Every time oil prices shoot up, there are cries of "greed" and demands by politicians for an investigation of collusion by Big Oil. There have been more than a dozen investigations of oil companies over the years, and none of them has turned up the collusion that is supposed to be responsible for high gas prices.
Now that oil prices have dropped big time, does that mean that oil companies have lost their "greed"? Or could it all be supply and demand -- a cause and effect explanation that seems to be harder for some people to understand than emotions like "greed"?
Editorial Cartoon of the Week:
Cox and Forkum
NEWS
Threat to New York as centre of finance
MSNBC.com
New York is facing a threat to its position as the world's leading financial centre, according to a report commissioned by Michael Bloomberg, the city's mayor, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer.
If current trends continue, New York could lose up to 7 per cent of its market share, equivalent to 60,000 jobs, over the next five years. But much of that loss would be prevented if the US implemented legal and regulatory reforms, says the report by McKinsey, the consultancy.
[…]
John Thain, chief executive of the New York Stock Exchange, warned last year that the competitiveness of New York was being undermined by the litigious US climate and Sarbanes-Oxley.
COMMENTARY
The Joy of Football: The Super Bowl Offers a Too-Rare Celebration of Goal-Achievement
Thomas Bowden, Capitalism Magazine
The essential value of spectator sports lies in their capacity to illustrate, in a dramatic way, the process of human goal-achievement. They do this by making the process shorter, simpler, and more visually exciting than it is in daily life--and by giving us heroes to admire.
A process of goal-achievement underlies everything that makes our lives richer, from discovering new medicines to learning about computers, from pursuing a career to enjoying friends and family. But success is not automatic--each such endeavor must be started and maintained, often in the face of great obstacles, by an individual's choices. To gather the moral courage to make their own difficult choices each day, people need inspiration--the spiritual fuel that flows from the sight of another's achievement.
[…]
Ultimately, sporting events like football's Super Bowl offer a microcosmic vision of what "real life" could, and should, be like.
In a society that increasingly rewards weakness and failure, sports fans appreciate that each athlete has to earn his way onto the field by proving his superior ability, and that physical and mental handicaps will be recognized for what they are -- obstacles to be overcome on the road to achievement, not values in their own right.
In a nation whose laws are increasingly arbitrary, sports fans look forward to spending time in a world where the rules are explicit, known in advance by all participants, and fair to everyone.
In a culture that preaches the deadening duty of self-sacrifice and service to others, sports fans love to turn on the TV and immerse themselves in an exciting, suspenseful contest for no purpose other than their own personal enjoyment.
Environmentalism vs Creativity
Wayne Dunn, Capitalism Magazine
For decades environmentalists have cried that man should adopt an "alternative" form of energy. But in this freest country on earth, exactly how have they exercised their liberty to try and make their dream come true?
Well, they support like-minded politicians¾ who've invented nothing but obstacles to innovation. They march in protests¾ that have created nothing but vandalism. And they rage against capitalism¾ the only system by which worthy creations can effectively be financed, marketed and widely distributed.
One woman is admired by her fellow environmentalists, not for pouring her time and energy into, say, inventing a new kind of generator or more fuel-efficient engine, but for spending two years perched atop a redwood tree!
Clearly, a viable, cleaner form of energy (if you buy into the faulty premise one is needed) will not be created by some snarling rock-hurler, nor some land-confiscating government official, nor some loafer who nests with squirrels. A material value isn't going to spring from those who tell us to renounce material things. Innovations stem from capitalists pursuing self-interest, not naturalists preaching self-sacrifice. True creative achievement requires a mental outlook more akin to that of a Thomas Alva Edison than a Julia "Butterfly" Hill.
Yet it's the profit-oriented, productive achiever-types that the "save the planet" crowd most despise and desire to shackle. The men and women who possess the ingenuity, personal ambition, and business acumen that a successful new energy venture would require, environmentalists lob eggs at.
Yet it's businesspeople, not "Friends of the Earth," who, by translating scientific discoveries into practical reality, actually advance human life and eliminate pollution.
For instance, when was the last time you fretted about scarlet fever polluting your child's body? Or polio? Or malaria? When have farmers in free countries been unable to control the pollutant of insects that, if not for such marvels as pesticides and genetic engineering, would devour their crops, in turn raising food prices or perhaps eventually even causing famine?
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Other links
Web Logs
Principles in Practice– Principled commentary on cultural matters and current events from “The Objective Standard”
Cox and Forkum – Political cartoons and commentary
The Conspiracy to Keep You Poor and Stupid – Donald Luskin
Dollars and Crosses – CapitalismMagazine.com
Rule of Reason – The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism
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