Our great friend and fellow blogger/commenter, Mustang, has been saying much this same thing for a few years now….he has little faith in Americans anymore, and many of them deserve his low opinion.  When I saw Mencken’s quote, I thought of him.   This is a homage to Mustang, whose blogs are HERE and HERE and whose brains and wit are undeniable, enjoyable, and should be read by a LOT more people than actually are…

Isn’t this a great quote?  Do you agree?  And tell us why you believe this happened?  Could be a good in-depth discussion.  And an important one.

 (and thanks to SilverLady for emailing it to me)

FYI:  H.L. Mencken

Z

A review of Elster and Moene (eds.), Alternatives to Capitalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), $31.99.

(Originally posted on Amazon.com, 8/29/2012.)

“Alternatives”? Yes. “To Capitalism”? Not Quite…

Despite its rather controversial reputation among the more orthodox elements of the contemporary Left, there are aspects of the analytical Marxist tradition which I consider to have been valuable contributions to Marxist theory. G. A. Cohen’s political philosophy, for instance, is immensely useful for challenging the ethical dimensions of bourgeois ideology, as well as for envisioning how a just society might be organized.[1] And although I found John Roemer’s “coupon socialism” proposal utterly ridiculous upon learning of it years ago,[2] I had heard that other members of the September Group were proponents of worker controlled variants of market socialism, and even democratic economic planning. So I had anticipated Alternatives to Capitalism to consist of concrete proposals for transitioning away from…

Moulay Omar Benhammad, 63, and Fatima Nejjar, 62, have long been figures in the Islamic community calling for chastity and advocating Islamic justice. The two Islamic politicians are now under fire after being found allegedly having sex on a Moroccan beach.

An interesting interview of Geoff Boycott who never minces words. He is asked about the new England coach and son.

The last q is on cricket commentary and its quality (f there is any). And as he mostly does, answers it with a straight bat. Such comparisons to cricket are useful as we see similar kind of  commentary on economics and markets as well- stating the obvious:

The just concluded weekend was full of cricket. It makes sense to start the week by posting something on cricket.

This is a wonderful article by Amit Varma. He moved from being a cricket writer to a poker player (wow, though wonder how I managed). Now he is trying to link cricket decisions on the field using lenses from game of Poker:

This chart has had a bit of coverage in the last few days.  It was produced by Statistics New Zealand, and was included in a useful release last week bringing together dwelling consent and population data over the last 50 years or so.

As SNZ noted, there is a bit in the chart for everyone.

The number of new homes consented per capita has doubled over the past five years, but is only half the level seen at the peak of the 1970s building boom, Statistics New Zealand said today.

One sees these sorts of per capita charts from time to time, but I’ve never been sure they were very enlightening.  After all, the existing population typically doesn’t need many new houses built –  it is already housed, and the modest associated flow of new building permits will result mostly from changes in tastes, changes in occupancy patterns (eg more marriage breakups…