Career Leverage and the Structure of Production

I’m a big fan of the Austrian School of Economics, which focuses a lot on the structure of production, which is a fancy way of saying the long process of how stuff gets made. It’s the process of going from products (Here’s an apple), to tools (Here’s a ladder to reach more apples), to tools for making tools (Here’s a saw to cut wood for ladders), and on and on.  The deepening of the structure of production requires insight and foresight, since it adds ’roundaboutness’ to a straightforward task like apple picking. But it also adds massive leverage.

We Need a Substitute for the Word ‘Support’

When people say they support something, it usually means they want governments to make laws that will advance that thing. Legislation is not like business, or family, or society. Those institutions require persuasion and value creation to get the thing you support to win. Legislation is a different beast. The single feature that distinguishes governments from every other institution is that they initiate violence to back everything they do.

The Real Emergency Isn’t About the Wall; It’s About the Separation of Powers.

If Congress has any desire to save what’s left of the Constitution — and any political will to act on that desire — the obvious, immediate, and absolutely necessary next step is the impeachment of Donald Trump and his removal from the office of President of the United States. Nothing less will suffice, and the case against him is airtight.

Swamp Gold

I read yesterday where Ted Cruz thinks we can pay for The Wall by redistributing El Chapo’s ill-gotten gains — just when I thought that politicians couldn’t get any stupider.  Now today I am slapped upside the head with the idea that we can get money from the dissolution of DEA.

The First Rule of AIPAC Is: You Do Not Talk about AIPAC

For decades, howling “antisemitism” any time the matter came up proved an effective tactic for shutting down public discussion of the “special relationship” under which Israel receives lavish foreign aid subsidies, effective control of US foreign policy in the Middle East, and lately even state (and pending federal) legislation requiring government contractors to sign loyalty oaths to Israel’s government. The Israeli lobby’s power to prevent that discussion seems to be slipping, however. Why?