I can only see fragments of what is happening (that is a part of the human condition), but what I see is very discouraging. It seems that chaos and hatred are being magnified on many fronts. In other cases, I see a development of pinched souls in many friends and acquaintances. Chaos and hatred Humanity has long had mob violence as an aspect of mob psychology. This may have ancient roots far preceding our species (witness shark feeding frenzies, massed…
There are thousands of articles and books written about monopolies – almost all of them about private monopolies. Here I am going to consider state-owned monopolies as well as privately owned ones. As a matter of definition, when I say “state-owned”, I am referring to government ownership at any level (local through national government) and any legal structure. Similarly, when I say “private”, this is usually a corporation, but it includes all other legal structures as well. Natural Monopolies Many…
I understand that there is an election and that this pandemic has become, in some senses, more political than medical. That being said, we could be a little more realistic. Most of the evidence says that the USA has done neither remarkably badly nor remarkably well in the handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. If we must compare ourselves with other countries, we should compare ourselves with non-autocratic countries with a reasonably well-developed economy (I eliminated countries with less than $10,000…
I and my family have had the unusual opportunity to live for a long period (nearly 36 years, we are not just tourists) in a socialist country. By this, I do not mean one of the socialist totalitarian countries (such as Cuba), but rather a democratic country with a more mixed economy. It is of a type which I think that most of our liberals have in mind when they endorse socialism (our radical left is a different thing). We…