Grantcoulson's Blog

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:       

    A socialist believes in complete personal freedom and doesn’t care what you do as long as what is not forbidden  is compulsory, you don’t make a profit, hire a diverse workforce independent of ability, pay your employees much more than they’re worth and provide employee benefits that are the same as those of government workers. In other words, the only enterprise that can possibly support these notions is government where cost and efficiency matter not.

    Although socialism starts with noble goals, it always ends with government apparatchiks scrambling to better their position on the playing field bought with other people’s money. Socialism, and government in general, is the largest, sustained, INTEND, pretend to IS, producing a DOES, farce in human activity.

    The INTEND-IS-DOES distinction and the love affair many have with the INTEND-IS side explains why socialism is as noble in intent as it is brutal and terrifying in application. If socialism did work, all cows would give chocolate milk and no one would ever want for anything non-frivolous, because socialism is very Puritanical. Since socialism does not work, it must ignore at least one fundamental law. If the effects of incentives are ignored, one ignores the effect of Human Nature. Theories of Society are presumably directed towards humans, making the lack of understanding incentives all the more remarkable, but understanding is unneeded when one can command.   

    “I am not privy to these academicians’ inner thoughts, motives, or feelings but I have spent more than 40 years teaching in higher education and, before that, studying there, and I can say without any hesitation that the bulk of those working in the groves love to rook the taxpayer for their pay. They do not want to enter the market place where their income would have to be obtained solely from willing customers. That kind of dealing — such commercialization — offends them, makes them think they are no better sorts than, say, people who sell shoes, cars, life insurance, mutual funds, or kitchen utensils. No. Let these other blokes cope with the burden of having to convince customers of the value of what they have to offer them. Higher education merchants and professionals must be protected from such burdens. They must have their income expropriated from many unwilling taxpayers; their scholarship and research, unlike that of many in the private sector, must be funded with the loot the government gets to extort from us with complete impunity. They need not sweat the possibility of their customers’ choosing to go elsewhere for their higher educational services.” Tibor R. Machan.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

Academics and School Teachers Love Marx      

    “Years ago, I used the one textbook that consisted of primarily Great Books authors for my research paper course and saw that in the edition I started using contained selections from Adam Smith and Karl Marx but when the next edition came out Adam Smith had been removed and Karl Marx retained. I wrote the textbook author and asked him why he removed the author who has proven historically true and retained the one that has been historically discredited. He wrote back that he had to consider sales and that meant considering what his market wanted and since his market was academics and school teachers he had to omit Adam Smith and keep Karl Marx.” Bruce Gans.

     Central Planning is like the bumblebee: Theoretically it can’t work, but, unlike the bumblebee, it never does.

     “…that which is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it.", Aristotle.

      Socialism uses coercion to make only one thing possible and then justifies the outcome as necessary. For example, Ontario, Canada was once served by private suppliers of electricity until Adam Beck, a socialist with government backing, used every coercive trick to put them out of business. While this was being accomplished, he proceeded to create a “public utility” which did what all public utilities do. It hid costs, incurred huge debt and become a model of inefficiency. This public utility had many consultant engineers in spite of having hundreds of engineers on payroll. One engineer of my acquaintance got many consulting contracts which gave him several chances to visit “The Sea of Elbows”.  He would go to a large room with dozens of cubicles separated by partitions which were three feet high, each cubicle with an engineer. There he would observe the “Sea of Elbows” as the high priced help leaned back in their comfortable office chairs and contemplated their situation with their hands clasped behind their heads. Apparently the creation of this ridiculous and expensive enterprise met with royal approval because the ruthless pursuer of public good became Sir Adam Beck.

    The bill from this utility is more than passing strange. It has charges as “debt retirement”, “regulation charges”, and “delivery charges”, all of which are much more than “electricity charges”. With any government utility, the amusement is unintended, but it ain’t free.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     Huge snowstorm hits Washington, D.C.–government workers sent home early. Those working on carbon trading and cap and trade legislation had to stay (I made up the last part).  Those working on the effects of global warming get to go home early because of a winter storm. They must be proud. On a related note, electric cars don’t work as well in colder temperatures. They don’t work very well anywhere.

    Without a hint of irony, the New York Times reports on the demolition of dozens of high-rise public housing towers around the U.S., some of them fairly new. Once again, public officials spending OPM (other people’s money) spent billions on something which didn’t work, destroyed it and then spent more OPM on an attempt to “Get it right for sure this time based on our new understanding.”

    This is too easy, but here goes. Toronto has a public organization called the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) which runs public transit in Toronto. This organization runs on billions of dollars of government money and has a union which does what all public employee unions do. Recently, pictures of employees sleeping on the job and taking  breaks with waiting passengers have surfaced. According to a TTC official, “Publishing photos of select TTC employees in compromising situations is becoming a never-ending game of ‘gotcha’ that only serves to embarrass the TTC and erode public confidence.” Well I never. Lack of efficiency is a systemic condition of all public organizations and is caused, you’ll never guess, by lack of incentives for efficiency. While the organization are “working to turn this around”, ain’t gonna happen until Human Nature gets turned around. To wit, never.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

Socialism–The Academic Context of the Social Sciences–OR–Socialism–The Dead Paradigm That Refuses to Lie Down–OR–When you can’t do it yourself, and you’re a good rhetorician, you have all the credentials necessary to tell others how to do it.

    Politics and psychotropic drugs are similar in that the marketing is more important than the product and endless messages about the undeniable necessity of the product are part of the marketing.

The following explains how socialism would work in class.

     * Written By: Jimmy Kilpatrick Editor and Chief EducationNews.org
    * 27-9-09
    * Categorized in: Education

Professor is a Genius (This is so true)

If somebody is unable to understand THIS explanation, I have serious doubts about their ability to even function in society, much less run our country!

As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

I wonder if he’d consider running for president next time.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Jimmy Kilpatrick
retrieved on October 2, 2009.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

     Huge snowstorm hits Washington, D.C.–government workers sent home early. Those working on carbon trading and cap and trade legislation had to stay (I made up the last part).  Those working on the effects of global warming get to go home early because of a winter storm. They must be proud. On a related note, electric cars don’t work as well in colder temperatures. They don’t work very well anywhere.

    Without a hint of irony, the New York Times reports on the demolition of dozens of high-rise public housing towers around the U.S., some of them fairly new. Once again, public officials spending OPM (other people’s money) spent billions on something which didn’t work, destroyed it and then spent more OPM on an attempt to “Get it right for sure this time based on our new understanding.”

    This is too easy, but here goes. Toronto has a public organization called the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) which runs public transit in Toronto. This organization runs on billions of dollars of government money and has a union which does what all public employee unions do. Recently, pictures of employees sleeping on the job and taking  breaks with waiting passengers have recently surfaced. According to a TTC official, “Publishing photos of select TTC employees in compromising situations is becoming a never-ending game of ‘gotcha’ that only serves to embarrass the TTC and erode public confidence.” Well I never. Lack of efficiency is a systemic condition of all public organizations and is caused, you’ll never guess, by lack of incentives for efficiency. While the organization are “working to turn this around”, ain’t gonna happen until Human Nature gets turned around. To wit, never.

from the book: Shadow Dancing on the Grave of Hope:

Socialism–The Academic Context of the Social Sciences–OR–Socialism–The Dead Paradigm That Refuses to Lie Down–OR–When you can’t do it yourself, and you’re a good rhetorician, you have all the credentials necessary to tell others how to do it.

    Politics and psychotropic drugs are similar in that the marketing is more important than the product and endless messages about the undeniable necessity of the product are part of the marketing.

The following explains how socialism would work in class.

     * Written By: Jimmy Kilpatrick Editor and Chief EducationNews.org
    * 27-9-09
    * Categorized in: Education

Professor is a Genius (This is so true)

If somebody is unable to understand THIS explanation, I have serious doubts about their ability to even function in society, much less run our country!

As the late Adrian Rogers said, "you cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

I wonder if he’d consider running for president next time.

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had once failed an entire class.

That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.

The professor then said, "OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan".

All grades would be averaged and everyone would receive the same grade so no one would fail and no one would receive an A.

After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B.

The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy.

As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little.

The second test average was a D!

No one was happy.

When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F.

The scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else.

All failed, to their great surprise, and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed.

Could not be any simpler than that.

Jimmy Kilpatrick
retrieved on October 2, 2009.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

   This link is to an article about incentives in education in the Harvard Educational Review of 1996. At first I thought it was relevant, but it’s not. The one important point that does hold up is that there are good programs but no demand for them. The author’s definition of “good programs” is suspect because the good programs are merely different, not better, but his point about lack of demand is, wait for it, linked to no incentives for effectiveness.

    To politicians everywhere, “Thanks for helping us. Now, please stop.” For confirmation, see yesterday’s post.

    The priorities of the Obama-socialist government remain health care, education and energy, none of which the government should touch. Health care will become more of a government bureaucracy with much of the costs going to administration, regulation and keeping favored groups in a favorable position. Education hasn’t worked yet, but making it more centralized will fix that. Energy will be based on the mercantilist notion of “energy independence”. A notion which is silly and will never be achieved, in spite of the rhetoric which really doesn’t add anything to energy or trade. In addition, the “green” energy foolishness about Global Warming will need massive subsidies going to favoured groups. Cap-and-trade is so useless only those benefitting from vapourware can possibly support it. Socialism always works until it’s tried.

    In Canada, the prime minister kept Parliament out longer than he “should have”. There are those of us who believe with Will Rogers that, “Having congress in session is like watching a baby play with a hammer. You only hope you can get it away from him before he does too much damage.” (Not an exact quote).

Cheerio and ttfn,

Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies

    This is a graph showing the money value (in inflated currency) of the Dow Jones as opposed to the “real value” corrected for inflation.  The first thing of note is my favorite depression, the one in 1921, the last in which the government was smart enough to do nothing—a sharp dip followed by improvement until 1929. Then government policies made the Great Depression great and kept real value from increasing until 1950 when it rose again. Then came Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon and Carter and the dismals until Reagan’s policies.This upturn lasted until almost 2000 and may be heading down but certainly has not been up since then. This is not a Democrat-Republican divide, but a policy divide.

People are divided into tax consumers and tax producers. All government agencies are devoted to demonstrating to us that we’re all tax consumers. Any money that goes somewhere must come from somewhere.

Cheerio and ttfn,

Grant Coulson

Cui Bono-Cherchez les Contingencies

     The U.S. and Canada both recently announced “greenhouse gas emission targets”. Since there is no greenhouse effect, there can be no greenhouse gases. Nonetheless, they will be reduced and everyone will be happy, especially the leprechauns, who are getting named in record numbers.

    The S.E.C., the same outfit that said Bernie Madoff was an honest investor,  has taken Climate Change into its purview. No matter how often regulation fails, someone continues to have faith in it.

    And now, a case study in “planning” with a reply from one of the elite who maintains that, without people like him, everything would be horrible. “Smart” planning is an oxymoron, but, as Thomas Sowell points out, failure neither discredits of discourages those who think they have special talent in “planning”. My comments in bold.

By John Cotter, The Canadian Press

A new report says urban land-use policies are making homes almost unaffordable in markets around the world, including Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal.

The Demographia International report released Monday looked at 272 metropolitan markets in Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Ireland and calls on governments to allow more housing to be built on the fringes of urban areas to help keep costs down.

The report says Vancouver was the most unaffordable market in the world last year when median housing sale values are compared to median household incomes. Toronto is in the severely unaffordable category. Montreal is classified as being seriously unaffordable.

"There is a view among urban planners that we have got to stop the expanse of the city," said American Wendell Cox, who wrote the report with Hugh Pavletich of New Zealand. "They have a pejorative term – sprawl. It is a synonym, as far as they’re concerned, for sin.

    Only the planners have the key to the universe, so if they don’t OK it, it’s wrong.

"It is very difficult to develop new housing on the fringe. Fringe housing on cheap land has been the secret of the expansion of home ownership."

The authors made their rankings by taking the median residential house values from the third quarter of 2009 and dividing it by median annual gross household incomes. The four categories include severely unaffordable, seriously unaffordable, moderately unaffordable and affordable.

The report suggests that homes in Edmonton and Calgary are also considered to be in the seriously unaffordable category, but Cox noted that prices there are getting somewhat cheaper because of the economic downturn.

Winnipeg creeped (sic)  from affordable to moderately unaffordable. Communities such as Moncton, Thunder Bay and Windsor remain affordable.

But Brent Gilmour, acting CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, said the report oversimplifies other factors that affect housing affordability, such as regional real estate markets and economic conditions.

    Only the professionals understand the complexity of the situation. The problem with complexity is that, the more complex the situation, the more difficult planning becomes.

The report also fails to include the financial, social and environmental benefits of "smart" urban planning. They include lower infrastructure costs, reducing the need for long commutes and cities designed for people who don’t or can’t drive cars, he said.

"You have to look at the quality of life in a neighbourhood. The ability to walk, to bicycle. Are there parks and recreational facilities that are nearby?" Gilmour said from Toronto.

    Only we can look at the “quality of life”, everyone else just looks at the economics.  Smart planning is ours, everyone else is stupid.

"This study doesn’t take into consideration any of those things."

    Complexity can only be understood by experts in urban planning.

Gilmour said major Canadian cities look at the return on investment when planning new residential areas. Conventional planning based on large subdivisional blocks that require more roads, more sewers and more lighting have long-term costs that may not be reflected in the price of a house.

Municipalities must also plan for the need to look after the growing number of seniors with mobility issues who tend to become isolated in cities with urban sprawl, he said.

    And a little tugging at the heart strings.

Cox said the cost of building new roads and transit services to new housing developments is a pittance compared to how urban consolidation policies boost housing prices and rents.

"You need to begin allowing land to be developed by the free market," he said from St. Louis.

    Mentioning the “free market” will give the planners conniptions like nothing else.

"You need to be allowing the land on the fringe to be opened up to development without the planners telling where the development must occur."

    No studies of the negative effects of “planning” will loosen their grip because there are too many vested interests and too much belief in the sanctity of the INTENT  in planning.

Cheerio and ttfn,
Grant Coulson
Cui Bono–Cherchez les Contingencies