Windows crashed on me for no apparent reason, so my blog was whiped out.
Anyways, here are a few links I found interesting throughout the day.
First off, some organization change with Mozilla. For those unfamiliar with Mozilla, it is the organization that Netscape help create to maintain the open-sourced browser/mail client (and a bunch of other things now). It was started 5 years ago (just had its birthday on March 31) and they released a new roadmap for projects (they do a pretty good job hitting the milestones).
My friend Jeremy Sapienza over at Antiwar.com (he maintains the external links) appears to be uber busy, this cache of links is just growing and growing and most of them are pretty good (stuff you’ll never see on FOX). He also maintains a list of links dealing with Afghanistan, the land everyone has forgotten (except the Afghanistanians).
More geek news. The 64-bit version of Windows for the AMD Opteron is going by the codename – Anvil. When will it come out? Well… at CeBIT, the COMDEX of Europe, Mike Magee and his crew along with other journalists said there was a version of Anvil running on the Opterons.
In addition, because of Microsoft’s stance (favorable towards AMD), Intel might now have to unleash their ‘Yamhill‘ core that resides within their next mainstream CPU – Prescott.
Note: I do not plan on purchasing any next-gen chip for sometime, at the earliest maybe next summer. Also, I am still using IE 6 as most websites are designed for it — despite the great lengths Mozilla has strived to be standards compliant, I won’t jump onto that bandwagon for an equally ‘to be determined’ period of time.
Alright, let me explain a little bit more as to how standardized syndication works. If you look down the list of links I have (which will probably move), but it is currently on the right, look for ‘Syndicate this site (XML).’ Now if you open that those of you familiar with web-based mark-up languages (like HTML) will see the structure and recognize a pattern for structure within the file.
Let me explain XML really quick. It stands for Extensible Markup Langauge and the first work on defining a set of rules defining it came about in 1996 with the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium – ‘the’ web standardizers) asking for a new SGML-like language with the simplicity of HTML. When talking to people online, I usually refer to this introduction of XML, I think it gets the job done nicely.
Anyways, the long and the short of XML is that it is data defining data — whereas HTML is data saying how data is displayed. So XML itself cannot really do anything, it just acts as a universal standard that defines… data.
So what does this have to do with anything, especially blogs?
Well, because of the creation of XML, both organizations and individuals alike, can now create documents, files, data and other types of meta objects knowing that if they use XML as the underlying ‘code base’ easy transferability, exchangeability and most importantly universalality (coined by moi) are the end results. Well, something like that at least.
So now that you have a way of defining data, you can now create readers to read this data and transporters to transport it. This is where RSS comes in.
And now you’re wondering what RSS is, right? Well, there are multiple definitions flying around including: Rich Site Summary & RDF Site Summary. But what I’ve seen more often than not: Really Simple (Simplified) Syndication. There are several tutorials that explain what RSS can do, let me give you the two-second lecture, RSS is an application, a use of XML commonly used for showing recent updates and changes. This introduction probably does the job the best, because it also explains the multiple versions of RSS feeds you find online. Put simply, there are seven different versions, and they all have different features. And to complicate things even more, I’ll throw in one more acronym: RDF.
OK. So you’ve now read through or skimmed through each of those links and have some sort of rough idea of what I’m talking about. We have XML that defines data, then you have RSS which helps syndicate this data.
Now that we have all this data, it’d be nice to read and view it. So that is where RSS readers come into place. The first RSS reader I knew by that name was the SatireSearch feed. How they operated is through the following real-world scenario:
Whenever Movementarian.comwould publish a new article, the XML file would be updated and send a ‘ping’ to SatireSearch. Bob Pferd (the editor of theSchmews) and Danny (I suppose he works at theSchmews too) are the guys that run SatireSearch and they would collect the various feeds from satire sites. Now because our site generated a RSS file that was compliant with the original Netscape .91 standard, all they had to do is get an aggregator or reader that would grab it. Now this next part I’m guessing with, but it is how Google News works. Basically, Bob would have to create a bot program that would visit the sites of those that did not have an RSS outputer. So once an hour or so, a little bot would appear on their site to see if anything changed (like headlines). It would then grab whatever was changed and bring it back to Bob (like a boomerang, only digitized and uhh not banana shaped). Now Bob would then have a program parse out the information provided to sift through changes and then output this data into an RSS file. other sites that did not produce a file had to achieve
Now, you understand a little bit about XML, RSS and a little about readers. Next is Syndication.
One of the greatest aspects of the Internet is the ability for anyone to voice their thoughts to others. Sure, they might not be able to find much of an audience or ones that care about what they are saying, however, thanks to blog portals (or as I called them: blortals) and other organization techniques, their weblog can now be categorized and readibly accesible to thousands (millions) of netizens.
Quickly now, RSS readers and RSS Syndicators.
One popular instant-messaging (IM) client is Trillian. Briefly, one of the cool features this program does is allow the end-user to move ICQ, AIM, YIM, MSN and IRC into one, easy-to-manage interface. The Professional version of Trillian allows the user to add an RSS reader so they can see their favorite blogs, websites and journals updated real-time throughout the day. News aggregators, use a similar technique but tend to discuss just one particular topic or meme. A good example of this is the Harry Potter Automatic News Aggregator. As you can see, the webmaster has created a conglomerate of news relating to one particular topic and he utilizes RSS feeds to do so (and outputs his own so you can keep up with the latest information throughout the day). Another more established news aggregator is Radio by Userland. Yes, that is the same Userland that picked up where Netscape stopped and created the .92 RSS standard. They also make a couple of well-designed content-management systems (like Manila and Radio) which enable users to publish and manage material online (like blogs). They also provide the Weblogs.com service which has become a de facto standard for syndicating (other sites will read the output that Weblogs.com sends out) blogs.
There are dozens of websites that cull blogs based on geography, interests, sex and what not. And because of how easy it is to syndicate your site (if you can generate an RSS/XML feed), the easier it is to draw more and more people to your site. So don’t forget to update on a regular basis or you might lose your chance to influence and educate others. Oh, and you can finally pick up chicks and seek revenge on unsuspecting hapless foes from highschool — chicks dig guys that post all day on blogs.
There is much much more information on all of these topics and I recommend that you just Google the following topics for more: XML, RSS, RDF, rss aggregator, rss reader, rss syndicator, blogs, blog tools, etc.
Be sure to also check out Collectrix.com for other useful topics relating to this (I’m the guy that writes 99% of the stuff on the site along with mining relevant links).
One of the many myths surrounding war (and the State) is the erroneous belief that somehow prosperity and growth are achieved with mass destruction. The argument (one of them) goes like this:
“Building and businesses are destroyed and the resulting aftermath creates jobs, creates capital and creates conditions for economic growth. At the same time, in order to destroy those buildings, workers are hired to build bombs. Defense contractors are employed to create and design these bombs. Keynesian economists are syndicated en masse to explain why hiring workers and contracting defense companies to build bombs is conducive to economic growth. Unemployment is lowered and capital is being consumed, thus setting in motion a cycle of prosperity.”
Alright, well I doubt Paul Krugman or John Kenneth Galbraith have actually said that, but the statement is something one could find in your typical Introduction to American Economics (in all of my economic classes something similar to the above was taught).
Where to begin.
I doubt most people have read the works of the 19th-Century French Economist, Frederic Bastiat. I first came across his name when a friend sent me an email 3-4 years ago with a prescient quote that I’m unable to locate at the moment. It basically states that: “Storms wreck ships and help equalize the unequal balance of trade between Peoples. However, because storms are unpredictable we should just push the cargo overboard in the harbor” — something to that effect.
Anyways, in my first semester at Texas A&M I took French History from 1815 to the Present Day, by librarian/professor Stephen Atkins. Quick story about him. He’s from Missouri and was finishing up his PhD when he was drafted into the Army. After 6 months he was relieved from his post and ended up working in the archives reviewing Classified, Secret & Top Secret documents (which he said had no need to be classified as such – a big critic of ‘military intelligence‘) — two weeks later his replacement was killed in action.
Anyways, in this class one of the requirements was a 15-20 page Term Paper (hehe, a sign of things to come) over a topic he OK’ed. About a month into the semester I was introduced to the libertarian e-zine/commentary site: LewRockwell.com by an old Ag that taught Spanish at my highschool, Mark Brown.
Throughout the rest of the semester I visited the site daily and even corresponded with several of its writers including Lew himself. Some of you may remember the bugaboo in April of 2001 where an American spy plane was forced to land in China and members of the crew held as prisoners. Lew wrote a piece, that I referred to in my paper, discussing free-trade and the geo-political debacle in China, and why among other things, businesses, investors & capitalists on both sides of the Ocean would prevent a war from occurring.
Prior to his essay, I had submitted my topic to Dr. Atkins: Frederic Bastiat, His Life & Times. Actually, the submission just involved me coming up to him after class and handing him a 50-word statement stating my topic clearly. I remember the look on my professor�s face, disappointment. Needlesstosay (that’s why I’m saying it), he wasn’t a fan of libertarian philosophy.
In April I made my way to the Evans Library (the main library on campus that has bats on several floors because during construction they failed to seal off certain sections that the mammals soon found) to scope out the selection on Bastiat. There I found a dozen books written by him and a handful of others written about him. One of his books that I used was his Selected Essays in Political Economy and found what is arguably his most famous quote:
The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.
I don’t think I actually used that line in my paper, but I have many times in both forums and essays since then.
Anyways, one of his essays that I did discuss in the paper was the Broken Window Fallacy — which is what this entire post is about.
In it he describes a story of a shopkeeper, whose son breaks a window and the resulting comments from onlookers, with his narrative voice extrapolating various points-of-view, stating:
“Suppose it cost six francs to repair the damage, and you say that the accident brings six francs to the glazier’s trade – that it encourages that trade to the amount of six francs – I grant it; I have not a word to say against it; you reason justly. The glazier comes, performs his task, receives his six francs, rubs his hands, and, in his heart, blesses the careless child. All this is that which is seen.
But if, on the other hand, you come to the conclusion, as is too often the case, that it is a good thing to break windows, that it causes money to circulate, and that the encouragement of industry in general will be the result of it, you will oblige me to call out, “Stop there! your theory is confined to that which is seen; it takes no account of that which is not seen.”
And this my friends, is the state of thinking by both today’s politician and mercantilist ‘economist.’ I remember reading a news post at JC-News.com in which he stated something similar to: “Because of the events of 9/11, AMD will be able to sell many of its chips to firms needing to replace destroyed equipment. That tragedy has and will continue to benefit companies economically for many years to come.” That is a belief many individuals currently have.
What is flawed about this Broken Window?
Firstly, capital goods that increase wealth/capital were destroyed. So firms have to use capital they would have otherwise spent on something else (like research and development) to replace these goods, thus hampering growth.
Next, it is an inefficient use of resources as already scarce capital is being diverted from one market to another. So you have a smaller supply pool which results in higher costs for consumers (and producers have to find additional venues for their supplies to create their goods and/or go through their reserves). This causes a bubble, that if left alone (laissez faire style) would fix itself (there is no predetermined time).
So, you have the original firms having to replace their goods, services, stores and businesses. They burn through the capital they were saving for reinvestment and are essentially hit by a double whammy — they lose what they had and have to lose more to gain what they already had.
The glazier’s in this instance are all the suppliers and producers that must now deplete already scarce resources, distributing them to a market most were probably not planning on having to, throwing everyone off equilibrium.
Still don’t get it? Use this micro-example. You get the flu and have to stay home from work. First, you must now spend money on medicine that you would have spent on other goods. Those medicines now become scarcer and more expensive for everyone. Plus you have to make up all that work which chews into your schedule and you have to forgo other activities in order to do so (which can be a 2nd job, a basketball game, a concert your children were playing in, sex and much more).
Who benefits from the Broken Window? No one in the long-run, everyone (but politicians) loses.
What prompted this entire discussion in the first place was this story at the BBC which describes how the American economy is already feeling the effects of War.
However, despite all the resources and literature available, both the talking heads on TV and the Ivory Tower continue to promote a flawed belief system, that war brings prosperity. It indeed consumes vast amounts of goods and lowers unemployment, but it does not create anything other than destruction.
And now with $75 billion USD being sucked out of productive markets and placed into instruments that are not used for growing, but to just go splat, this fallacy continues (when they drop bombs, instead of saying a ‘2,000 lb. bomb’ they should say “We dropped 2 million dollars on a building” because that is what happens). In addition to just blowing up your own wealth (you’re the one funding the defense contractors), you also destroy someone else’s property which then must be replaced causing shortages that would not have otherwise occurred and making them waste their money rebuilding.
In addition to sucking wealth into a blackhole, the actions of destroying property has a tendency to upset those whose property was just destroyed (not to mention the lives of family members and friends). So these actions will probably cause some sort of retaliation on this fiefdom.
Remember, the State provides the service and the media provides the Vaseline. Oh, remind me to explain the Fourth Estate sometime, always a good topic.
Several books I came across while doing research on Bastiat were translated by Dean Russell. He was at the Foundation for Economic Education (FEE), a free-market organization in New York, similar to the Mises Institute.
I attended a FEE student seminar at the end of Spring Break that first semester at A&M (March ‘01) and met several interesting students, none however that I still keep in contact with. Don Boudreaux was the President at the time (he was only there for a couple of years, quit and then Mark Skousen showed up, and then he was sacked for various reasons that Stephan Kinsella and others have discussed).
FEE also has a monthly publication entitled “Ideas on Liberty” which a friend of mine, Adam Young writes for. Be sure to check past issues of IoL sometime.
An additional article worth your time, is by Sheldon Richman, the editor of Ideas on Liberty entitled: ‘War is the Health of the State.’ An excellent read. And while I’m recommending articles and writers, Lawrence Reed, President of the Mackinac Center in Michigan, wrote this piece regarding trade, Bastiat and Keynes — notice what year he wrote it. Mr. Reed was also Chairman of the board of Trustee’s at FEE throughout the ’90s and wrote this memorable piece: Who Owes What To Whom, an article I have referred colleagues and associates to many times. Be sure to also check out Bastiat’s other essay’s particularly ‘A Petition From the Manufactures of Candles.’
