They should sell it to me for less because we live close to each other !!!

Don Boudreaux teaches economics at George Mason University, the place where I'm going to get a Doctorate in Economics if I ever win the lottery and can afford the tuition.  Boudreaux has written a beautiful letter to Bill O'Reilly of Fox News. 

This letter should be studied by schoolchildren everywhere. 
Boudreaux and Russ Roberts are the proprietors of the Cafe Hayek blog. 
Here goes: 

Mr. Bill O’Reilly
The O’Reilly Factor
Fox News
New York, NY

Dear Mr. O’Reilly:

You’re all lathered up because U.S. oil companies are exporting much of their refined gasoline and heating oil to other countries and thereby putting upward pressure on fuel prices here in America. You conclude that these companies have a moral obligation not to export so much.

Your economics is wrong and your ethics convenient.

First some economics. Selling in the global market encourages firms to build larger factories and refineries that, in turn, enable outputs to be produced at lower costs per unit. So while in the short-run rising exports of oil products can cause fuel prices here to spike, the long-run effect might well be lower prices because of larger, more-efficient scales of operation. Also, more exports of fuel products means more imports of other goods and services. The result is lower prices in America for consumer goods such as clothing and furniture, as well as lower prices of inputs such as steel and industrial machinery used by American factories.

I was amused, by the way, that in your Feb. 17th discussion with Lou Dobbs, Mr. Dobbs shared your anger at rising U.S. oil exports. This is the same Mr. Dobbs who repeatedly complains that the problem with America’s involvement in the global economy is that foreigners stubbornly refuse to buy sufficient amounts of American exports. Go figure.

Now about your ethics. You’re paid so handsomely because there’s a large nation-wide demand for your commentary and bombast. In your career you’ve worked for broadcasters in Boston, Dallas, Denver, Hartford, and elsewhere. And before moving to Fox you were a correspondent for ABC News. You apparently never hesitated to sell your product to the highest bidder; you never hesitated to export yourself from one market to another in search of higher pay; you never resisted the bidding for your services by buyers (i.e., employers) far and wide which put upward pressure on the amounts of money that you are paid, both to appear on television and to deliver lunch and dinnertime speeches.

Get ready!!   Here comes the Don Boudreaux Karate Kid Crane kick !!!!!!!

So I ask: are you guilty of an offense against those many Americans who – as a result of your responding to market signals regarding the value of your services – must now pay higher prices for the privilege of hearing your commentary? Should you return to your long-ago job at a local Scranton television station, at your long-ago lower salary, and apologize to the good people of Lackawanna County for your greedy and evil habit of exporting yourself to wherever and whoever offers to pay you more money?

Sincerely,
Donald J. Boudreaux
Professor of Economics
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA 22030

Don Boudreaux.  Often imitated, never duplicated. 

The coffee mug shown above was a gift from Dr. Ralph.  His son goes to GMU. 
The picture of Don Boudreaux morphed with Dr. Ralph came from Dr.Ralph.  It's one of the most bizarre things I've ever seen, despite serious competition from some incidents in my Mississippi childhood. 
At 2:00 this afternoon at The Corporate Image 5418 Brentwood Stair in East Fort Worth, I'll be playing guitar and singing with Dr. Ralph. 

Saturday Morning Links

We live in such a Target-Rich environment, it's hard for me to focus sometimes. Here's what some of my favorite typists are sounding off on:

Harper explains why our employment numbers are a mess, and she rips into The Teleprompter Jesus for giving unions a free pass on the "cadillac" insurance tax (because unions are so much more wholesome than the rest of us).

I don't like racism, or racist language. It does nothing to make things better. Never. Ever. Race, like eye color, left-handedness, or hair color, can't be helped. Now that I've thrown all those politically correct caveats in there, let me just say that my friend Paul is working through some issues. Yeah. I started it. My bad. It was like throwing gasoline and napalm on hot ashes.

The Humble Libertarian continues to explain Freddy Bastiat's "Broken Windows" concept. This time it's about the false benefits attributed to Food Stamps.

Francis over at Food and Fort Worth has a hapless, overwhelming post about "feckless". Francis does have hap, and he often whelms with his feck.

Dr. Ralph got to go hear Matt Weiner, creator of Mad Men, last night at Casa Manana. The Good Doctor's insights on the nature of people who ask questions at public Q&A's are worth a look. (Typical preface to a question at these events: "Mr. Doe, I've read all your work on the subject of mayonnaise packaging, and referenced some of your magazine articles while working on my masters degree in retail marketing, and as a mother of two, and the wife of a food transport specialist, and the owner of two collies who can tell the difference between Mayo and Miracle Whip, I wanted to ask you a question that came up during our last weekend on our 40 acre spread in Aledo, where we often use mayonnaise while entertaining all the public officials and movie stars that we've met as a part of our Aid To Haiti relief initiative....and it goes on and on before they get over themselves and get to the point.) Mad Men is GREAT, by the way.

William Grigg, over at Pro Libertate, has the best thing I've ever read on American Fascism. Mr. Grigg makes me look downright minimalist. Be warned. But it's worth it. Go there.

End The War On Freedom wonders about the life expectancy of politicians.

Uncle Fester adds to John Stossel's discussion of Ayn Rand.

NickM at Counting Cats beat me to the punch on Danny Glover, Global Warming, Earthquakes and Religion.

Two Year Blogoversary

I almost let the two year Blogoversary of this thing pass by without comment.

The first post on this site went up on 9-28-07, and I had no real idea what the main focus was going to be.
Since then, I've made it into the Star-Telegram a couple of times. Once with an editorial and once in a feature piece on political bloggers.
I've made some great friends through the Camp Blownstar Blogger meetups.
Big Daddy John Spivey found the site, and got me involved in the Tarrant County Libertarian Party.
That got me involved in End The Fed rallies, a Gay/Lesbian Rights parade, and staffing pro-2nd amendment booths at gun shows.
I've been to more Tea Parties than Lady Astor.
Then people started linking the site on Reddit. Then Facebook. Then it got Twittered. (And Twixted. Whatever that is.)
See that little world map on the right side of your screen, under the incredibly pretentious "A Thousand Points Of Light" header? Click on it, or click here. Depending on the topic of the day, I'll get more hits from Europe and Australia than from the U.S.
Fun stuff, this internet.
Before I started blogging, Dr. Ralph and I knew each other, but didn't hang out together. We recently spent a couple of hours at his place, playing guitars, not talking about politics, and looking at his artwork. (He's got a show in Fort Worth this weekend, BTW. Hit the link. Dr. Ralph can paint.)

When I can get my A-game going, this thing is good for 700-800 hits a day. Whenever I post sub-standard stuff for three days in a row, it drops into the 300-400 range so quickly that it's depressing. You people have the loyalty of tomcats.

If you've ever considered doing something like this, I hope you'll give it a try. Use the right key words in your headlines, and you'll meet plenty of people who love what you love, care about your concerns, and who are fascinating to correspond with. Plus, I don't know how people can claim they know what they think, until they read what they've written for public consumption.

Your voice counts. Unless, of course, you are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG ! !

We knew him waaaaay back when....

Cheers and high praise are in order for my friend, agent provocateur, and co-hymnologist Dr. Ralph.

Just one year ago, he was content to sound off on a few technical and political opinions every month.

But his comments on these pages in praise of truly gawdawful government-funded art are now so well known, British bloggers are now name-dropping him in posts about Czech "Art" on Australian websites.

Dr. Ralph is now a worldwide phenomenon.

And we knew Dr. Ralph when he was just an intern.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Dr. Ralph has been the editorial conscience, B.S. detector, and token Democrat on these pages from sometime around day one.
We're both members of Broadway Baptist Church.

When I was asking various people to fill in for my during my vacation this week, one of the topics I sent out was about the challenges faced by libertarians in this dark age of Buddy Bailouts, Crony Capitalism, and Troubled Asset Relief Programs.

I immediately thought of this post that Dr. Ralph did shortly after the election, entitled "To My Libertarian Friends". I've copied it in its entirety, along with a follow up. You can see my (rushed and hurried) reply in the comment field at his blog. I hope this one generates some discussion. Here's Dr. Ralph, winner of the Trotsky Lookalike Contest:

To My Libertarian Friends,

This is probably going to be my last political screed for a while, which affects only the 2 or 3 people who actually read this drivel. But before I drift into discussing things like technology and the folly of everyday life, I wanted to offer up a few final thoughts on the 2008 election.

Amongst my friends and associates of various political persuasions are several Libertarians: all extremely bright, intellectually curious people who are passionately interested in politics. I have a lot of respect for them. I don't necessarily agree with them.

Here's why.

There is a broad range of political beliefs that fall under the designation of "Libertarianism," all of which (to perhaps over-simplify) focus on the elevation of individual liberties and negate the power of the state. To restate: they believe in social freedom and economic freedom without interference and regulation from the government.

Sounds good, no?

The problem is, this ignores the reason all that regulation and interference is there in the first place. Not to put too fine a point on it, but people are jerks. Maybe not individually, but certainly collectively. And there are certainly outstanding examples of individual jerkiness to be found in the wild.

To what extent are we talking about removing "interference," anyway? And by whose definition?

Reforming drug laws and not interfering with people's personal medical and reproductive decisions (read: abortion rights)? I'm good with that. Permitting anyone, regardless of gender, to get married? I'm cool with that, too. The right to own as many assault weapons as I can scrape the money together for? ...You're starting to loose me. And there are a world of people out there for whom the latter example is fine but have major discomfort for the former.

And let's get a little more mundane -- what about something like zoning? Care to have your neighbor set up a rat breeding factory? Don't laugh -- this battle is going on right now in Fort Worth. What about civil rights laws? One could certainly argue they are interfering with someone's property rights.

This may be a reductio ad absurdum argument, but at what point does the absurdum kick in? It's one thing to be for less regulation. The devil is in the details.

Removing "barriers" to free trade is the other major talking point I hear much about: economic deregulation. Much is made of the "Invisible Hand" that is supposed to insure that free and unregulated markets benefit society as a whole.

Excuse me?

This make about as much sense to me as Intelligent Design.

Again, this may sound good in the abstract, but I have little faith in real world application, especially in light of recent events in the financial world. Allen Greenspan, patron saint of deregulation, admitted after after the general market collapse earlier this year that maybe he was wrong in opposing all regulation and stated, "Those of us who have looked to the self-interest of lending institutions to protect shareholder's equity -- myself especially -- are in a state of shocked disbelief."

The Invisible Hand bitch-slapped us.

And the idea that an unregulated John D. Rockefeller type monopoly serves the public interest seems naive at best. People forget that things get regulated for a reason, and the chief reason is to correct past abusive behavior.

After the November election the Libertarians would seem well-positioned to swell their ranks with thinking conservatives disgusted by the mean-spirited, intolerant, xenophobic anti-intellectualism that seemed to have taken over the GOP. So why don't I think the Libertarians will ever move beyond fringe status?

I'm not sure they want to.

As Otto von Bismarck once said, "Politics is the art of the possible." Compromise has come to be a word delivered in a sneer, but in a land as diverse as ours, the ability to work out deals with competing interests is key to being able to govern.

Can the Libertarians compromise their guiding principles? Should they?

It may be they best serve the nation like yeast leavening the loaf, as a source of ideas to be co-opted and co-joined by the majority parties.

Parting shot: here's Stephen Colbert discussing a topic near and dear to my Libertarian friends.

Enjoy.

Click here for the video. This particular format makes my site go nuts when I direcly embed it.
Here's a follow up that he wrote just a few days ago:

To My Libertarian Friends, (part 2)

This is a follow up to my previous post, To my Libertarian friends, in which I laid out some of my thoughts and criticisms of the Libertarian Party, which includes amongst its numbers several friends and associates.
To sum up (so you don't have to be bored twice) I have a lot of respect for Libertarians (they tend to be extremely bright, intellectually curious people) but I don't necessarily agree with all of their positions. On economic issues, their faith in the Invisible Hand of the Free Market strikes me as a bit like believing in Intelligent Design. Their take on civil rights, workplace regulations, and some other areas strike me as naive at best.

Where they have my full agreement is in the area of personal freedoms. God bless 'em.To pull a few quotes from the 2008 National Libertarian Party platform:
*We favor the repeal of all laws creating "crimes" without victims, such as the use of drugs for medicinal or recreational purposes.
*Recognizing that abortion is a sensitive issue and that people can hold good-faith views on all sides, we believe that government should be kept out of the matter, leaving the question to each person for their conscientious consideration.
*Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships.

While the Democrats have cautiously embraced the pro-choice issue, they act like someone who farts in the elevator on the issue of gay marriage rights: they conspicuously avoid acknowledging the obvious and hope people forget the whole unpleasant business by the time they arrive at their floor.
Shame on them.
I'd venture to say the Libertarians will continue to see considerable growth in the decade ahead as gay conservatives see them as an alternative to the rabidly fundamentalist anti-intellectual nuthouse the Republican party is becoming.
And I hope they drag the Democrats along, kicking and screaming, for the ride.

Because it's about bloody time.

That's they joy of knowing Dr. Ralph, who posts at his blog, The Journal of Post-Ralphaelite Thought.