fcheblog  -

2012-01-22 10:30 | fche blog politics disease with no name

The current kerfuffle about the US feds forcing private health insurance plans to include free contraception as “preventive medicine” should not have arisen. This has all been predictable, not just from the point of view of christian groups feeling under attack. This current administration is after all the one whose leaders say a baby can be a punishment, or that abortion … reduces the cost [of citizens] to states and to the federal government.

It’s not as though these were isolated statements or outlier attitudes. These folks seem to consider new life a costly disease.

2012-01-08 09:00 | fche blog politics unexpected pride

Having escaped communist Hungary in the early 1980s (thanks, mom & dad), and having heard from afar that country’s tortured state since, I never expected to express any particular pride in it. However, it sounds like there is glimmer of hope, starting with a new constitution, controversially adopted in the last year. From what I gather, bravo.

2011-12-27 12:59 | fche blog politics capitalism manufactures stuff

It manufactures unemployment, or so says an old friend. The argument is not much more than what he describes as the agreeable Luddite one: that there is a perpetual pressure to cut costs and raise profits. “Unregulated capitalism”, whatever that is, races to eliminate employees. (How much more there is to the argument is hard to say, since the posting has become non-public.)

One response to such profundity is to match it with the observation that this looks at only one side of the coin. Capitalist economies also manufacture employment. (Few people hire others out of altruism. Few people can build lots of stuff without others’ help.) They also manufacture stuff. Lots and lots of stuff, which people want to buy. (Few people give others tons of stuff out of altruism.) When unnecessary costs are cut, customers and shareholders benefit.

The system is obviously in constant change, only roughly stable, and is unlikely to ever converge to a steady state some might idolize, where some economic status quo simply persists. In order to force a utopian order, it would require a level of control and force that would be familiar to those who studied totalitarian states. And there is no other endpoint possible. At any intermediate state, there will be some perceived “social injustice” that requires more force to “solve”. People who promote just a little more regulation should be expected to state their ultimate end-point: what is the maximum power for the state beyond which they would not advocate.

(The dual situation exists with us laissez-faire types. I would like a smaller state, less control, less competition with the private sector. How much less? A good first step would be balancing the darned government budgets.)

2011-12-13 10:18 | fche blog politics continuity

Spengler thinks about why societies are failing.
A few choice paragraphs are excerpted below.

UPDATE: Mark Steyn’s christmas column covers similar ground.
UPDATE2: Wretchard recaps.

2011-11-05 08:06 | fche blog politics outrageous democracy

How telling of the modern state of EU leadership, that such quotes can be given with a straight face.

On Monday, Papandreou had announced plans to hold a national referendum on the EU bailout package for his country and the concurrent austerity measures imposed by his government. The announcement sent global markets plunging and outraged both Merkel and Sarkozy.

2011-09-27 19:39 | fche blog politics learn to love the bomb

I did not know this:

According to senior SVR officer Sergei Tretyakov, the KGB was responsible for creating the entire nuclear winter story to stop the Pershing missiles. Tretyakov says that from 1979 the KGB wanted to prevent the United States from deploying the missiles in Western Europe and that, directed by Yuri Andropov, they distributed disinformation, based on a faked “doomsday report” by the Soviet Academy of Sciences about the effect of nuclear war on climate, to peace groups, the environmental movement and the journal AMBIO.

Wikipedia is of two minds about this. Knowing of other nasty stuff accomplished by the KGB, it’s entirely easy to believe the latter.

2011-08-05 15:00 | fche blog politics like a stopped clock II

The chinese state-run newspaper is absolutely right for once.

2011-08-02 15:50 | fche blog politics baseline confusion

In recent memory, at least two western nations have produced emergency government budget changes that are said to produce many $$$ in “savings”. Well, savings certainly sound wonderful, don’t they? What wise chaps we have voted into charge!