Paul M. Jones

Suppose a 15-year-old from a poor family in the First World asked you an earnest question: "What can I do to escape poverty?"  How would you answer?

Responses from progressives, liberals, moderates, and left-libertarians are especially welcome.

All the comments are great. Given that the natural state of Man is poor, cold, and hungry, the answers are all ways to become richer than Nature would otherwise allow you. Via Escaping Poverty: Your Friendly Advice, Bryan Caplan | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty.

Have you noticed the enormous increase in greedy speculation in the northeast over the past two days?  It’s quite something!  In advance of hurricane Sandy, consumers are now artificially increasing the scarcity today of the likes of bottled water, canned goods, batteries, and medicines by stocking up on these goods.

And all of this self-interested speculation – done merely in anticipation of staple goods being much more scarce after Sandy strikes than they are today – is applauded and even encouraged by the news media and government leaders!

What gives?  Many of the same people who today publicly encourage us to speculate (“Make sure your family has ample supplies of batteries!”) are among the loudest critics of speculation at other times and in other markets.

But in fact the oil speculator who, say, buys oil today in anticipation of oil becoming more scarce tomorrow does just what a consumer does today in a supermarket in anticipation of a disruptive storm: both persons usefully transfer resources across time.  They both stock up on resources that are today relatively abundant in order to preserve these resources for consumption at a time when they are relatively more scarce (and, hence, more precious).  Both persons transfer resources from today – when the consumption of any one bottle of water or gallon of gasoline provides relatively less benefit – to tomorrow when the consumption of that same bottle of water or gallon of gasoline will provide relatively more benefit.

Anticipating the future and taking actions to allocate goods and services from times of relative abundance to times of relatively greater scarcity is an immensely useful activity.  And we all perform such speculation whether or not we are popularly identified as “speculators.”

Quoted in its entirety; it was just too good. Via Speculators Storm Safeway!.

While GED holders are as smart as graduates, in terms of future outcomes (annual income, unemployment, divorce, drug use) they look exactly like dropouts.

The study made clear that “non-cognitive skills” like persistence, planning and self-control can be more important than intelligence in the long run.

File under "Talent only gets you so far; hard work gets you everywhere." Via Are people with GED’s more like high-school graduates or high-school dropouts? | Barking Up The Wrong Tree.

Kendra, a sixth-grader at Calera Elementary, called her mother about 9:30 a.m. Wednesday to say a man was ringing the doorbell and banging on the door, St. Clair said.

“She said he was continuously ringing the doorbell and when no one answered he opened the screen door and started banging on the door,” St. Clair said. “She told me she didn't know where he had gone after that.”

St. Clair told her daughter to get her .40-caliber Glock pistol and go into the bathroom closet, which has reinforced locks on the door.

“She heard him break into the back door,” St. Clair said. “He knew someone was in there because she was watching TV and had paused it.”

According to the 911 recording, the intruder was inside the house for about six minutes while Kendra was told by the dispatcher to stay on the phone and keep it on speaker.

“The bathroom light switch makes a noise when you turn it on and Kendra heard it,” St. Clair said.

As Kendra saw the door knob turn slowly, she fired the gun, her mother said.

Jones was hit in the chest, Undersheriff Ken Golden said.

Jones ran out of the house and was chased down by Bryan County officers, he said.

He was taken by helicopter to a Plano, Texas, hospital to be treated before he was taken into custody, Golden said.

A 12 year old girl *with a pistol* can knock down a big aggressive man. Without the pistol, she's a victim. Via Durant girl, 12, talks about shooting home intruder | NewsOK.com.

The study randomly assigned 5,145 overweight or obese people with Type 2 diabetes to either a rigorous diet and exercise regimen or to sessions in which they got general health information. The diet involved 1,200 to 1,500 calories a day for those weighing less than 250 pounds and 1,500 to 1,800 calories a day for those weighing more. The exercise program was at least 175 minutes a week of moderate exercise.

But 11 years after the study began, researchers concluded it was futile to continue -- the two groups had nearly identical rates of heart attacks, strokes and cardiovascular deaths.

Looks like it was caloric-restriction diet. Maybe the next study should put them on a high-fat high-protein low-carb diet and see what happens. Via Diabetes Study Ends Early With a Surprising Result - NYTimes.com.

Neither Jim nor any conservative blogger, in person, in text, in e-mail or any other form of communication, has ever called me a “faggot.”  In fact, the only people who seem to be directing that slur at gay conservatives sit on the political left.

via GayPatriot » Only people who call gay Republicans “faggots” sit on political left.

Almost thirty years after [Free To Be You And Me], we can measure its results, and those results are mixed at best.  While it's true that you have empowered, intelligent, highly-motivated young women willing to devote a decade and a half of their best reproductive years to climbing the corporate ladder, at the end of that climb they discover that their reproductive options (what we use to call "husbands") don't want a thing to do with them.  Feminists may make decent bosses and great co-workers, but they make cruddy wives and mediocre mothers, with a few notable exceptions.

via The Red Pill Room: Free To Be . . . A Man..

If you think about emergency preparedness even though there is no emergency, you just might be a downsider. If you think it’s rather uncivilized to be rolling around in a luxury sedan while the country is in recession, you just might be a downsider.  If you don’t trust  Iran with nuclear weapons. If you think public bailouts of private failures are a bad idea. If you are on the lookout for Black Swans, you just might be a downsider. If you have solar panels on your house. If you have fresh water stored in your garage. If you own a gasoline powered generator. If you have no fond memories of inflation, you just might be a downsider. If FEMA’s performance after Katrina made you distrustful. If you’d rather learn CPR than wait for help to come. If you have ever been a floor warden at your place of business, you just might be a downsider. If you don’t trust McDonald’s to cook for you. If it bothers you that you can’t fix things that break. If you like watching the Discovery Channel. If you don’t want to be an addict to modern convenience,  you just might be a downsider.

Downsiders are not paranoid. Downsiders simply refuse to be bewildered, helpless or clueless. Downsiders are not excited about the downside, they just want to be cleareyed if such things happen. Downsiders are not hedging against  civilization to cash in on misery. Downsiders are not obsessed with zombies, the Mayan Calendar or the Book of Revelations. Downsiders are not Eloi or Morlocks, but we want to know what the future holds.  Downsiders are interested in being civil under all conditions, of keeping their heads when all about them are losing theirs. Downsiders have intellectual insurance. Downsiders are about figuring out how to live indifferent to fashion. Downsiders are about maintaing personal integrity tested in the worst of times. Downsiders are the enemy of panic.

And here I thought it was just "a reaistic awareness that unlikely negative events might occur at an inconvenient time." Via You Might Just Be A Downsider | The Downside.

Electric car battery-maker A123 Systems has filed for bankruptcy, according to Bloomberg News.

The company was promoted heavily by President Barack Obama and Michigan politicians and received hundreds of millions of dollars through federal “stimulus” and Michigan Economic Development Corp. programs. Earlier this year, Michigan Capitol Confidential uncovered a video of these politicians promising “hundreds” and “thousands” of jobs – the video was eventually taken down by the MEDC but saved by CapCon.

Despite known financial trouble, just a few months ago A123 awarded sweetened severance packages to its top executives.

via A123 Files for Bankruptcy [Michigan Capitol Confidential].

The agents finally gathered my belongings and led me away from the populated security lines to a more secluded area near the private rooms. I asked twice for a public screening and was denied.

They performed the regular pat-down and then the agent informed me that she would be using the front of her hands to “sweep” my groin. She pressed and swept across my crotch three times horizontally and three times vertically. In any other circumstance this would be sexual assault.

The agents themselves were friendly and smiled, yet I was still denied a public screening and no witness of my own present for the screening itself (a second agent was in the room at the time).

via The TSA Molestation Files: Dana Loesch | Wizbang.