August 2011
4 posts
My latest obsession →
Occasionally I will develop peculiar obsessions with things that will cause me to spend sleepless nights trolling the Internetgathering as much information as I can on the subject. Why I do this I have no idea. But anyways the latest episode of my datalogical wanderlust is with the infamous 1981 Keddie CabinMurders, a baffling triple homicide and kidnapping.
In brief a mother, her teenage son,...
http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/274695/paul... →
Kevin WIlliamson offers a great takedown of P. Krugman’s premeptive strike against Rock Perry’s record as governor of Texas. If anything read it so you can learn how easy it is to distort facts and statistics.
Dare I say “Double dip”?
July 2011
12 posts
From Mises Daily →
I read this little essay on Austrian business cycle theory about a week ago and it set my mind a-turnin’. The authors seem to imply that there is a role for the government in mitigating recessions and that that role is cutting taxes to allow firms to reach their break-even-points faster. Once they are at the break-even-point they can then begin making new plans and reallocating the capital...
Urban Renewal, Civic Distruction
I hate old people, I admit it. Well, let me rephrase. I hate the people who are old now for the things they did when they were young. I have long suspected that the baby boomer generation was a plague visited upon Western Civilization (and that their parents, the Greatest Generation weren’t all that great either.) Case in point: The so-called “urban renewal” projects undertaken...
Ah, socialized medicine . . . . is there isn't... →
In Personal News....
Keynes was Drunk might have finally weaseled or way back in to college. Currently we are registered as a non-degree seeking student and, if all proceeds according to plan will be applying for an M.A. in Economics come fall. Let’s hope that graduate school isn’t as absurdly easy to bullshit your way through as undergrad level classes are. This time around I’m actually looking...
WatchRobert Barro giving the Hayek Lecture at the IEA in the UK. Watch this (hour long) lecture and give the IEA a visit.
Raising The Default Roof
As GMU economist Veronique de Rugy has repeatedly pointed out, the debt ceiling debate is largely irrelevant. The United States will not default on it’s debt. In fact the 14th Amendment essential requires the United States to honour all it’s debts:
“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, …. shall not be questioned…”
If...
Providing Some Legal (In)expertise
So this post is a little late in coming, with the Casey Anthony Media Event having died down considerably, and I’m sure most everyone is already sick of hearing/talking about it. But I’ve been wanting to give my take on the trial for about a week now and just haven’t had the time.
I usually hate these Criminal Trial Extravaganzas put on by the the national media. I had my fill...
Newsflash: Congressman Dines At Expensive D.C.... →
Talking Points Memo breathlessly reports that Paul Ryan and two other men ordered a couple really expensive bottles of Pinot Noir at dinner the other night. But the real story here is how shockingly rude leftist economists are.
Today's Jobs Report
Obama is droning on right now, in that stuffy, textbook, professorial tone he’s so good at. Is he offering anything thoughtful, helpful, or new? Not really.
So let’s see. Since September 2008 unemployment has been hovering between 8.5 and 9.5 percent despite the Federal government basically shooting it’s entire wad worth of “Stimulus”, both monetary in the form of...
"You Can't Fix Stupid"
The following story is perfectly true. I leave it to the reader to decide what conclusions about human nature and public policy to draw, if any. Also, I preface this by pointing out that a frequent criticism employed against foes of the welfare state are that they are morally corrupt, uncaring, and vicious when it comes to the sufferings of their fellow man and I hope those criticisms will be...
June 2011
5 posts
Jon Stewart, Fox News, And The Media.
So the other day I caught most of Jon Stewart’s interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday and thought I’d give my take on the appearance and Stewart in general. Interestingly, watching the show I thought Stewart demolished and outclassed Wallace, a tough and thorough interviewer, but as I went back and read the transcript before writing this post I found that Stewart’s...
It's been a while....
We here at Keynes was Drunk are notably erratic in our posting. It has been a challenging month for us here personally, a lot of bad news, and stress and hecticness. Hopefully this public announcement that we’ll be posting more often again will serve as sufficient motivation to shame me and my crack staff into generating more half-assed content.
On a related subject, we here at KwD have...
jonathan-cunningham asked: "Um, are you implying that it is unreasonable to expect people to live their lives as people have for millenia?"
I'm implying that social Darwinism in the year 2011 is morally indefensible. Are you of the impression that no one died of preventable illnesses in those millennia? Or that we should ignore those lives as an acceptable loss? Obviously, as has been...
I'm implying that social Darwinism in the year 2011 is morally indefensible. Are you of the impression that no one died of preventable illnesses in those millennia? Or that we should ignore those lives as an acceptable loss? Obviously, as has been...
jonathan-cunningham asked: "Somehow my parents and I managed to muddle on through without government help."
Ah, so because you did, the rest of the world should (or die trying) right? Unbelievable.
Ah, so because you did, the rest of the world should (or die trying) right? Unbelievable.
jonathan-cunningham asked: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21068421
Another Health Care Link →
Courtesy of National Review Online and Reason Magazine’s Veronique de Rugy.
May 2011
8 posts
Great Article On Health Care Costs →
Tacking on to my health care rant(s) check out this great article from Mises daily I just saw
Tumble DC 25: Keynescare →
keyneswasdrunk:
So the talking point for the past several weeks, and probably for the next several months is Paul Ryan’s budget proposal and his evil, vicious, grandma-killing plan to end medicare, send the poor to concentration camps, spike the punch, and tie little Billy’s shoestring’s…
The author goes on to suggest eliminating “medicare, medicaid, [sic] S-Chip and every other...
Keynescare
So the talking point for the past several weeks, and probably for the next several months is Paul Ryan’s budget proposal and his evil, vicious, grandma-killing plan to end medicare, send the poor to concentration camps, spike the punch, and tie little Billy’s shoestring’s together, etc. etc. etc..
Ryan’s plan isn’t bad, at least compared to what we have going on...
Hold At All Costs
I caught a very good documentary on PBS the other day about one of the forgotten battles of the Forgotten War, the Battle of Outpost Harry called “Hold At All Costs”.
War had raged up and down the Korean Peninsula for three years by June of 1953. First North Korean, then UN, then Communist Chinese, then again UN forces swept across the 684 mile Peninsula only to be halted again. Both...
“It’s always good news to see a scoundrel in handcuffs”
– Jean Marie Le Pen on DSK. Oh, Jean Marie, while you may be a fascist (or “right-wing extremist” as the press mislabels you) and your comments on economics, the holocaust, and political philosophy may be ign’ant, at least you can be counted on for the occasional spark of brilliance...
Jawbreaking Deliciousness
Leon Trotsky once wrote in a communist party newsletter about the visceral dread he experienced riding in a subway while he lived in New York City. Particularly horrifying to Mr. Poofy-hair was having to stare at his fellow passengers as they stood there, reading the paper, smoking cigarettes, or making small talk. Worst of all for Lev was the young kid who relentlessly chomped away at a gob of...
Osama's dead ..... hey, who got voted off American...
Well Bin Ladin is dead and I, for one, am pleased. Sure it cost gobs and gobs of money and thousands of American lives. But I’m still pleased. And leave us not forget, it did not cost gobs of money and thousands of lives in and of itself, but rather because we decided to go after Bin Ladin “the right way”. Finding and killing someone is easy. Finding and killing someone without...
April 2011
14 posts
This is what happens when you google titles to... →
This is a really interesting blog post dealing \with the history of racism as an ideology and psuedoscientific theory. While I didn’t really learn anything new here it is a very well written piece that is quite worthyof being read just because it is so well done.
Token post of the day
Consider the following two statements:
The government exists to serve the needs of the rich and powerful.
The government exists to serve the needs of the poor and weak.
I contend that these two statements, even though they appear completely opposite, mean exactly the same thing. And, phrased either way, I’m not to keen on it.
Rudyard Kipling's Burden
I picked up a collection of Rudyard Kipling’s short stories to add to the two foot high pile of books I don’t have the time to read that is sitting on my coffee table the other day. Today is my only day off and I hope to get knock off a few stories. But for some reason, as I sit and look at the mustached, bespectacled, Anglo-Saxon profile on the cover of the book, a strange sadness has...
Jesus Christ Libertarian Superstar?
I’m not what I would consider a terribly religious man. I neither go to Church nor pray. But I respect those that do because I think there is a subtle but persuasive philosophical case to be made for a God. Even if a God doesn’t exist I certainly won’t hold it against Him.
But I do rather like Christianity. Of course I rather like a lot of aspects about many religions. If...
The Joys of Regulation →
Can anyone please tell me why there are federal guidlines regulating what I shave my face with? Seriously? Why would anyone even think to set government guidlines for making razor blades?
whoisjohngalt- asked: I actually am friends on facebook with the guy who played Keynes and the guy who played Hayek in the boom and bust cycles, there's a part 2 coming out soon.
Lest Anyone Think Me Wealthy ...
… I actually qualified for the Earned Income Tax Credit, otherwise known as a big sweaty handout. Yet I’d trade my lovely EIC away for a better job market because, you see, if I had a better job I wouldn’t need a big sweaty hand out. But I do. So I’ll take the tax credit anyway and put it to good use on Pabst Blue Ribbon and a Spanish Carraca fighting knife.
http://www.nationalreview.com/exchequer/265018/enro... →
Obama's Deficit Speech
Politicians, in general, are despicable people, much like gangsters, televangelists, and entertainment industry agents. Which is why I do my best to avoid watching them on television as much as possible. Sadly, I happened to catch a bit of President Obama’s yawn-inducing, staid, brain-dead speech on his “plan” for deficit reduction and was pretty annoyed at how hypocritically...
Book Recommendation
If anyone is looking for an highly entertaining read I totally recommend they pick up a copy of Wendy Burden’s “Dead End Gene Pool”. More than just a darkly comic family memoir (Burden’s mother was an over-tanned anorexic alcoholic nymphomaniac, one of her uncles a not-so-crypto-nazi, and a flatulent grandmother who thought nothing of having her butler hold her panties for...
Donald Trump Is A Fool
I really wish Donald Trump would go away. He may be a real estate guru and a cunning businessman but he doesn’t know a goddamn about policy. His unhealthy obsession with China (“they took our jobs!”) is truly idiotic. The Fascists in China can be reliably counted on to screw their own economy well before they do any permanent harm to ours.
And while his blunt outspokenness has a...
Book Report: There Is No Alternative
So about a month ago I hit up Borders’s Going out Of Business Sale (rest in peace all four of my area Borders-es). Picked up some pretty good books. Got a collection of papers by Uncle Miltie, Nicole Galinas’s After The Fall (which I’m reading right now and am so far a bit disappointed with), as well as several other neat little books that I have no time to read, much less blog...
Random Thought
It seems to me that all of Western Civilization can be boiled down to just a few very basic ideas. To wit:
Right and Wrong (or Correct and Incorrect) exist as objective, absolute elements of the universe. E.g. the statement that 2+2=4 is RIGHT or CORRECT and the statement 2+2=5 is WRONG or INCORRECT
Human beings, through a variety of means, have the ability to gain insight into the nature of...
March 2011
5 posts
D.C. Trip: Final Thoughts
So my little trip to Our Nation’s Capitol concluded without any of those pesky arrests or getting put on any watch lists. That’s officially the furthest North I have ever been in my life.
Stopped by to walk around the Chancellorsville Battlefield for a couple hours which was very interesting, saw the spot where Stonewall Jackson was mortally wounded. Pretty amazing how small an area...
D.C. So Far
So I’ve established a few things.
The Geo. Washington Parkway is beautiful and I wish I had time to stop and take it in, maybe hop over the safety rail and slide down one of the steep gullies.
Traffic is horrid in this town. It doesn’t help when traffic gets held up for 20 minutes so the presidential motorcade can go through. I wasn’t near enough to give them the finger.
...
Robert Reich: Safety on the Cheap →
correlationstonone:
robertreich:
Can we please agree that in the real world corporations exist for one purpose, and one purpose only — to make as much money as possible, which means cutting costs as much as possible?
You’ve read the rest of this article before. Bob Reich is one of my least favorite progressives, because he has zero credibility after a disastrous term as Secretary of Labor....
Moon Over The Capital
So I have the next 10 hours to spend walking around Downtown D.C.. Who should I moon first?
Bleg
Dreadfully sorry I haven’t been around much. Been quite busy lately. Have a bit of a bleg to put out, in two parts:
Firstly, I’ll be heading to the Northern Virginia/ D.C. area this week, so if you happen to be driving down I95 and see a sleep deprived motorist chugging red bulls and doing 105 mph with cigar smoke billowing out the window and the complete score of Porgy and Bess...
February 2011
11 posts
I apologize for confusing Wisconsin with Washington State. Being a southerner I am geographically challenged above the Mason-Dixon line.
Washington State: Senior Moment
Wow, they must be really pulling out all the stops in Washington State. My dad, a former Marxist, SDS member, president of the local chapter of College Democrats, and all around lefty who has, under my influence, converted to the Neo-Conservative faith (I’m working on getting him to start reading some libertarian-type stuff) just got a call from one of his old commie pals from 40 years ago,...