Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Brilliant, absolutely brilliant. And I’m lucky to have found it again. Thanks, Google Books:
Pretend Congress appointed you U.S. Supermarket Czar charged with making all the arrangements for Americans to have…bananas. How will you get people in Costa Rica, some of whom may not like Americans, to work hard to grow, harvest, and ship bananas? What are all the arrangements necessary for the shipping crates? Do you know how to make a chain saw or axe to chop down trees for the wood to build crates? What’s necessary to mine iron ore so as to make nails and wires for the crate? Then we have to keep in mind that the bananas have to get from Costa Rica to the supermarket. That means ships and trucks are needed. What do you know about truck and ship building and navigation?
There are literally millions upon milloins of inputs and people cooperating with one another to get just one of those twenty thousand items to your supermarket. Somehow these inputs show up to do their job at the right time and right place, as if, to use Adam Smith’s phrase, they are “guided by an invisible hand.” All that good effort occurs without lovve and caring. The Costa Rican farmer, the crate manufacturer, and the ship captain don’t give a hoot about you but you have the bananas as if they did.
The coordination that makes all those other items available at your supermarket is nothing short of a miracle. To think that one human being, or group of humans, can possess the knowledge and information to accomplish the task is the height of human arrogance and conceit. That knowledge and information is widely dispersed across society in bits and pieces. That’s why top-down central planning always produces disappointments, shortages, and bottlenecks. The banana czar might have remembered everything except a compass and the banana boat is lost at sea. Think back to the 70s during our government-sponsored energy crisis. Our energy czar had some parts of our country awash with gasoline and home heating oil while other parts were dry. Better yet, how would we like our groceries to be delivered by the same people who deliver our mail?
That’s from More Liberty Means Less Government: Our Founders Knew This Well, Volume 0, pp. 218-219, by Walter E. Williams.
Same point, when you think about it, that Milton Friedman was making.
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- House of Eratosthenes | 07/25/2012 @ 13:26In Coming into the Country , John McPhee’s brilliant work on Alaska (IIRC), he tells the story of one of the Arctic exploratory expeditions gone awry, and stuck in the ice. One member of the party was selected to ski out, to the south, to try to get help. Crossing central Alaska in the early part of the 20th century, in the winter, this lone messenger 200 miles from any hint of civilization ran into a guy going the other way, a guy who gave him good directions to where to find help.
It was the mailman, the U.S. Postal Service, delivering mail to Nome.
Do I want the same people delivering my bananas as those who deliver my mail? Every banana will get through, which is not the case with our grocery system.
Walter Williams has lost sight of what makes business work. Among other things, we pick the tool that is appropriate for the job. Can we afford a lot of waste? Don’t use the mails. Is it important that the stuff get there, delivered right to your door, regardless how remote your door is? Use the U.S. Mail.
But don’t slam the U.S. Mail because it’s not your supermarket. You’ve obviously erred in your expectations, and that’s not the fault of government, and it’s not the fault of the mailman. It’s your fault, and the government should not take the blame for your error.
- edarrell | 07/26/2012 @ 10:55Quite right. Government does everything right, as long as the expectations are low.
Is there some other thought I was supposed to have gleaned from the above? There isn’t much else that is evident.
- mkfreeberg | 07/26/2012 @ 12:29