HAPPY NEW YEAR

Have an amazing 2009!

btw Old Fashioned Liberal, how are plans coming for the M4L???

Applied Distributism: The Music Industry

This is probably preaching to the choir, but here goes. Distributism is rather difficult to practice on many of the basic levels, simply because EVERYTHING is a chain now a days. Food is the easiest one I can think of (clothing is nigh impossible), but even that can be very difficult. One industry which is rather easy to challenge the instutition is music. Now supposing that any of you actually listen to modern music (say, after 1600, just kidding), in my opinion, independent artists are the way to go. Over all popular music is generally mediocre and rather prepackaged (though there are some jewels, and [especially in my case] many people who I would like to save from their current course [Rihanna for one, she's going to waste and it's driving me insane]). Indenpendent music can be hard to get two, but it is generally rewarding. Furthermore, given the Godsend sometimes referred to as youtube, if you can just get one foot into an obscure genre, suddenly you have a variety of artists/albums/songs to get you started.

My personal example was my discovery of the virtually non-existant genre known as Christian Reggaeton. I absolutely love the sound of reggaeton, but I had given up on finding an artist, actually, even one song, that didn't degrade women, praise alcohol and/or drug abuse (not that I mind the substances, but I do mind the abuse), and violence. However, I somehow providentially stumbled on a Christian Reggaeton song on youtube. That song had links to a whole variety of similar songs, and before you know it I was inducted into that genre. (I should say here that I have no problem whatsoever with secular music; however, I do draw the line when lyrics turn to fragments of antisocial personality disorder.) Anyways, this genre is so small that amazon.com has a whopping 2 cds to offer. Yes, 2. This, of course, promps another interesting discussion. Is Amazon.com considered an enemy of Distributism? At first it does seem to be a large corporation, but perhaps it's just a way of conventiently locating a whole variety of producers into an easy to find format (now I have a feeling that Amazon is somehow different from Walmart and chain stores, but I haven't been able to isolate why.) Would it be more Distributist to buy directly from the little known record companies, or are we overreacting to Amazon's sheer size. The true answer to this question most likely needs someone with a knowledge of Amazon's inner workings to truly decide yes or no. But in the mean time, any opinions/information would be most appreciated.

Plato Unintentionally Satirizing the Absence of Subsidiarity

Go to this website to see some errors of Plato. All the errors could have been avoided if he had recognized that the government is incapable of knowing subtleties of psychology and morality that parents and individuals know naturally. For the complete text of the Republic, go to Project Gutenberg.

Que se vaya a este sitio de web a ver unos errores de Platón. Todos los errores se podría haber evitado si Platón hubiera conocido que es impossible que el gobierno conociera los asuntos bien pequeños de la psichología y la moralidad. Los padres y la gente común ya saben esas cosas naturalmemte. Para ver el texto entero de La República de Platón, Vaya al Project Gutenberg.

The Benefit of Big Business

Consider a large business. The larger they are, the better they will be at canvassing the globe for good, rare, impossibly unlocal products, services, ideas, employees, techniques, entrepreneurs, et cetera. Whe? Because the small business can't afford it. They are also better at employing large numbers of people and doing large things that may need to be done. Why? Because the small business can't afford it. And as far as I know, they have no other benefits over small business. Is this grounds for forbidding their existence?

Saludos de tu centrista medio zurdo medio liberal

Acabo de rendir el examen de perspectiva política más cortito del mundo. Me salió que soy centrista, justo en la frontera entre libertariano y zurdo. Me parece que me pega bien, ya que no rechazo ni acepto completamente al papel del gobierno en los asuntos sociales tantos como los económicos. Claro que había muchos errores cometidos por el gobierno (mira el lío que es la política latinoaméricana) pero también puede ser muy buena la influencia gubermental (por ejemplo, la ilegalización del aborto).

The Austrian School Declares War Upon Distributism

Acá hay un enlace a un artículo que me da bastante rabia.

¡Qué lo leas y después te rías conmigo! ¿Por cuál razón será que les cuesta tanto enterder la perspective nuestra?????

What's Wrong With Distributism?

A summary presentation of why I'm a monetarist

The current head of the Federal Reserve, Benjamin Bernanke, is definitively an activist when it comes to monetary policy just like his predecessor Alan Greenspan. Now both of them were into countercycical policy, which I think they both are doing/ have done a good job with it, but I believe that we should follow monetarist non-activist policy.

While cycical policy sounds nice (we're going to get rid of recessions!) in the end I think it only aggravates the business cycle. My main criticism are time lag and overexaggeration. First of all, as noted in the previous post, there is such lag in the changing of monetary (and even more so fiscal) policy that frequently the policy ends up being procyclical instead of countercyclical. I'd do a graph if I knew how, but I don't. Procylclical is just as stupid. Granted that you'd hope the time lags would turn it into countercyclical, aiming to lose is never a good way to go. My theory is that is we adopt the monetarist policy, the recessions and inflationary gaps might be just as bad for a while, but if we stop cosntantly jumping from on side to antoher, the business cycle which behave much like the law of large numbers in statistics, and the swings will slow down because of the central tendency of the policy.

When Providence Intervenes in Bad Economics

Now I'm not sure how the readers of this blog (the few of them that there are) feel about President Bush, particularly his economic policies, anyways...

When President Bush came into office, he brought with him a policy of tax cuts. At the time the economy was booming, and I'm really not sure what the argument was behind it, but it went through. Anyways, tax cuts would have the effect of pumping up aggregate demand when it was already rising along with GDP and price level, so inflation could have easily resulted. However, by the time it was actually implemented, we were in a recession, so the tax cuts worked wonderfully in expanding the economy as it was shrinking. Anyways, is Bush a good economist? no, but Providence seems to have intervened. =)

An Alliteration Aptitude test.

Here is what causes recessions after inflation:

Inflation=An unfunded increase in the money supply.

An unfunded increase in the money supply in America=Unfounded (not unfunded) Creation of Credit by Creditors.

Unfounded Creation of Credit by Creditors=Inordinate Increase in Insolvency because of debt + spending.

Inordinate Increase In Insolvency because of debt + spending = Stopping of spending out of fear of insolvency.

Stopping of spending = Recession (Rah Rah Rah! Recessions Ruin the Ruinous Reprecussions of inflation before they become unmanagable!)

As all the Bailouts and Bank Buyings are an increase in government spending (read: inflation), they will Help, not hurt, the Heave in the Health of the economy known as a recession. And a recession is made to be hurt. This is why Bush's Bank Buying Binge Be'th Bad Business. Even if it didn't increase the Socialist Status of the States.

Two Tail notes: I am not Sounding Sarcastic So Some people won't believe me; I just do it because it is fun to make Alliterations Ad nauseam. No Way Will We Want this Worthy post Translated To The Tounge of Illustrious Iberia.