An intriquing passage from On Art and Life, which nicely explains the aethetic rut that modern art has fallen into: …that great art, whether expressing itself in words, colours, or stones, does not say the same thing over and over again; that the merit of architectural, as of every other art, consists in saying new… Read More Notes on Ruskin: Modern Art is Anti-Art
Megan McArdle: Bubbles are not fundamentally about evil people doing evil things. They are not even about stupid people doing stupid things. No, the problem with bubbles is worse: It’s quite ordinary people, doing stupid things that a trick of the light has made appear very smart. Every time you hear that the markets or… Read More Quote of the Day – Housing Crisis Edition
Let us assume they are serious, and this “holacracy” is their real intent as opposed to the kind of window dressing that small companies use to mask their transition to big companies. It’s still hogwash. Labor is conditional upon employment: one works because one is paid. People whose work is unsatisfactory are thus a… Read More Zappos is Going to Have No Bosses, Say the Bosses
I’m hearing a lot of this from the sudden victims of Obamacare. Most young, middle-class Americans I know are happy that millions of previously uninsured people will receive free or heavily subsidized insurance under the Affordable Care Act. We just didn’t realize that, unless we had health insurance at work, we’d be the ones paying… Read More Who the &#^% Did You Think Was Going to Be Paying For It?
French President “shocked.” They always are.
If you ever needed a definition for “spin”, this is it. In response to the news today that the economy contracted -.1 percent in the final quarter of last year, Democrats are touting the claim that this is “the best-looking contraction in U.S. GDP you’ll ever see.” The claim was originally made by chief U.S. economist for Capital… Read More A Few More Contractions, and the Economy Will Really Be Rolling!
In Der Spiegel, a Kenyan economist named James Shikwati attempts the Herculean task of explaining economics to a journalist. Shikwati: … for God’s sake, please just stop. SPIEGEL: Stop? The industrialized nations of the West want to eliminate hunger and poverty. Shikwati: Such intentions have been damaging our continent for the past 40 years. If… Read More African Official: Please Stop With the Aid Already, You’re Killing Us…
Which is to say, “There are too many metaphors here applicable to the Senate’s 89-8 passage of a “fiscal cliff” bill in the middle of the night (around 2 a.m. this morning).” Read the Whole Thing, because it’s kind of bracing to realize just how well and truly screwed we are. Via Other McCain.
Via Protein Wisdom. I seem to recall a saying that “the poor need nothing but the spur of their poverty.” That’s not precisely true, but the poor know what they need better than anyone else trying to help them. Collective responses to poverty create massive instituions but do not give the poor what they truly… Read More “Planning is the Kiss of Death to Entrepreneurship”
ZeroHedge: And so it’s official: Pop goes the student loan bubble, as just confirmed by the Fed. Luckily student debt is dischargeable in bankruptcy. Oh wait. It isn’t. Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy decade.
Content Blues 