The Yellow Submarine
Alex Tabarrok writes about how and why returning products is easier in America than Europe.#
It's much easier to return a purchase in the United States than in Europe. An old joke has it that Germans are very nice people until you try to buy something from them. Imagine then how difficult it is to return something in Germany. The no questions asked, easy return is not common in most of Europe.
In a later post there are some explanations. I'm fond of Mark Garbowski's demand-side development based on the size of the United States.
Good idea, Tyler Cowen!#
Dienekes: "Italian men attract more women to their nation than its museums, a new survey claims."#
Moxie's latest idea: the liberal petting zoo.#
The much wiser idea would be to place all the unwashed liberals in a petting zoo, where they belong.
Conservatives from far and wide could come by and marvel at the freaks of nature. "What do you mean they don't eat meat?"
And "Is it true those people will only bathe in certified organic, pesticide-free mud?"
It's hard to imagine that when viewing the odiferous environmentalist many wouldn't utter, "That beast used to roam free, had no appreciation for oil and RECYCLED. It's hard to imagine a world like that."
It would be a beautiful sight to behold. Folks to your left you can see and pet the hairy back of a woman who froths at the mouth when someone within a 10 mile radius indirectly refers to Halliburton in a positive light.
Betsy Devine reminds me of the sad, dangerous world of the homeless.#
Richard on public displays of intent.#
On the bus, many interesting-looking people are listening to music, cutting themselves off from the interesting strangers around them. I'm not suggesting we should ban listening to music on the bus or at the gym: I like doing it too. But it's probably the most effective way to signal that you don't want to talk to anybody. I'm assured by a friend that these people are not worth my time anyway and I've decided his argument is correct.
But for those that don't have earphones, they are, from this point forward, required to expect me and others to talk to them about what they're reading, what they're wearing, or hell, since the local sports team won't be playing for a few months now, how great the weather is.
Don Boudreaux on people who want to "change the world", rather than be part of the many small pushes.#
Many people want the prosperity level raised noticeably, by one gigantic infusion. Because each of us individually, even large corporations, are small compared to the whole, no one of us can ever really hope to raise the prosperity level noticeably. As a result, too many of us believe that we don't "change the world" by contributing little drops; we arrogantly want to make a big splash — a move that noticeably raises the prosperity level.
So what do those with a passion to "change the world" do? They naturally call upon government, the one institution that can make a big splash.
Peter Lindberg posts his notes from a book about city planning.#
Surely I will have to write more thoughtfully about it in the future, but I have some reservations about the idea of city-planning. It seems like a way for governments and other organizations to impose on individuals lives and force them to live in a particular way that they believe is best, rather than let each person be free to change their property in anyway they like.
Of course, if people genuinely did want to live as these authors suggest then someone could form a private city, like a private community ("gated community"), that had adherence to these rules in its contract.
Maybe I am being unfair and assuming that these designs are meant for government imposition rather than proposals for a private community to take up. Like an advice book for a city-planner, not a way of saying "This is the only way to live, assimilate or else."
Even so, I find it hard to believe that something that doesn't exist could possibly be the best way to live. (I don't think that all theoretics are useless. When they are borne of a study of the world--physics, economics, mathematics--they are merely abstractions of reality.) Doesn't it make sense that people build cities the way that is best for them? At least in the long-run?
This site is about Mormonism.#
This site is prepared with the intention of providing a first impression of the Mormon religion to non-Mormons, which would otherwise be difficult to obtain, even if they were to ask the Mormons themselves. The intention is not to prevent Mormons from believing, speaking, or missionizing as they please, but only to show the more important parts of Mormon doctrine — which the devotees advocate as "true Christianity." Anyone seriously interested in Mormonism is entitled to require full knowledge of this religion so that he is rendered able to consider what his evaluation is to be.
Carly posts some rad quotes. Thanks!#
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. writes about what economics is and why some find it boring.#
And yet there is a certain valid point they are making here about how economics diminishes the role of would-be philosopher kings, just as gravity reduces the ability of magicians to make things float. Economics is part of the ungoverned structure of reality that even the smartest people cannot change. Economics hems in the state even as it illuminates the nearly unlimited possibilities for the use of the creative imagination within a framework of property protection and free exchange.
Economics tells us how enterprise creates seeming miracles all around us. But it also tells us that real resources don't grow on trees, that all government spending must take a bite out of the private sector in some way. Economics tells us that all attempts to control prices and wages will lead to shortages and surpluses, and that any intervention causes trouble. It tells us that you can't expand the money supply without creating distortions—among a thousand other points that contradict government wishes.
Richard Eriksson interviews Joel Bakan, the author of The Corporation, at Urban Vancouver, the number one Vancouver site on the Internet.#
Related to that, how would you charactize using the Internet for positive activism?
I think the Internet becomes a very, very important tool for activists in terms of revealing the kinds of things what corporations are getting up to that citizens should know about, whether it be environmental harms or worker harm. It's a fabulous mechanism for that. And it's a fabulous mechanism for organizing non-governmental organizations, demonstrations, for creating communities both virtual and real.
However, I don't believe in the end that it's a substitute for effective governmental control. The whole difficulty I think that that we're facing now is the question of who is going to ensure that corporations are accountable. The problem with leaving it to activists and non-governmental organizations—even with the tool of the Internet at their disposal—is that those organizations and those people don't have the legal right to compel corporations to disclose information, and that is something that governments can do. Governments can can send inspectors to companies. Governments can put legal requirements in place to disclose information that consumers and workers and other interested people need. Non-governmental organizations don't have that legal power and to me, that's what imposes substantial limitiations on how far we can go with trying to keep corporations accountable though non-governmental measures.
(My emphasis above.)
As is obvious from this, Joel does not believe that individuals should be allowed to act together with the freedom they have on their own. (He doesn't comment on whether this freedom should be present at the individual level.) Instead, the only way the people may act together is through a monolithic State that can be hijacked and used against its components. He values slavery over freedom.
Additionally, he doesn't understand the corporations are responsible and accountable in the absence of government--they are accountable to their customers. If I decide that I don't like the practices of Company X and I stop buying their products, then they lose money. If enough people do it, they will change their tune. Notice how many companies are introducing "Low Carb" versions of their products because the consumers have sent market signals that they value "Low Carb" products.
The market is the most effective means of influencing a company's practices, because it works with the company's goal--to make money--rather than against it.
I think the real problem is that many 'environmentalists' and other '-ists' believe people want something they don't want. If Joel Bakan really thought people wanted environmentally friendly oil products, then why doesn't he open up a chain of gas stations that sell gas at a high price, but that only comes from sources that he decides are environmentally friendly? The reason: He knows people wouldn't buy it, because they don't value that, so he decides the best way to get what he wants is to hire a strong henchman, the government, to coerce everyone into line.
I still think it's cool that Richard got him on Urban Vancouver though. =)
I listened to Mark Thornton's lecture, Inflation During the Civil War. Interesting.#