Cato's CHIEF's Wisdom: || Globalization # || Apple Clobbers Dell?
BuzzMachine: "Nya, nya, nya http://www.buzzmachine.com/
January 13th, 2006
Read More: Apple, Dell
Apple is now worth more than Dell.
Dell makes a lot more computers. But they are worth a lot less.
Apple makes better computers. And that is worth much more. Even Wall Street figured that out. MacDailyNews reports [via my son]:
On October 6, 1997, in response to the question of what he’d do if he was in charge of Apple Computer, Dell founder and then CEO Michael Dell stood before a crowd of several thousand IT executives and answered flippantly, “What would I do? I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
A little more than a month later, on November 10, 1997, new Apple iCEO Steve Jobs responded, speaking in front of an image of Michael Dell’s bulls-eye covered face, “We’re coming after you, you’re in our sights.”
Today, after a little more than eight years of hard work, Apple Computer, Inc. passed Dell, Inc. in market value. That’s right, at market close Apple Computer ($72,132,428,843) is now worth more than Dell ($71,970,702,760).
I told you to sell."
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http://www.tomgpalmer.com/
I'm presently a Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute and director of Cato University. In addition to my work at the Cato Institute, I'm on the board of trustees of the Foundation for Economic Education and work with a number of other organizations. I frequently lecture in America and Europe on the history of liberty and constitutionalism, globalization and free trade, individualism, public choice, and the moral and legal foundations of individual rights
Bienvenue à la Franceland!
BBC Correspondent Allan Little has an excellent report on affairs in France, “France’s ‘pursuit of harmony’.” I’m a big fan of virtually everything French — language, poetry, food, ambience (even the word), geography, architecture, etc., etc., but not of French statism, which is strangling a great nation. (I got some rather tart emails from French diplomats after I remarked, in an interview on the ABC News Special “Is America No. 1?,” that France was turning into a giant theme park: “Franceland.”) A good comparison of French economic policy and its effects (as well as the policies of Germany and Italy) with those of the U.S. can be found in Olaf Gersemann’s truly eye-opening book, Cowboy Capitalism: European Myths, American Reality.
Update: Some people who are trying to change France have organized together as Liberté Chérie.
Posted by Tom Palmer=================
Jonathan Rauch rings the warning bell about civil liberties and the rule of law in his latest column in the National Journal, “Bush’s Battle Endangers The War.” After a brief review of the effects of past wars on civil liberties, Rauch notes,
Bush, in contrast, seems determined to treat the war on terror as a permanent emergency. The administration says the 2001 use-of-force resolution allowed the government to collect battlefield intelligence here at home, superseding FISA. Invoked immediately after an enemy attack, that argument makes legal and strategic sense. Warrantless domestic surveillance and legal improvisation seem fine for four days, four weeks, or even four months.Posted by Tom PalmerBut four years — with no end in sight? Bush seems to have had no intention of regularizing his surveillance program by building a legal framework for it. Instead, his plan apparently was to run a secret domestic spying program outside the boundaries of conventional law for, well, how long? Decades? Forever?
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Mayan Glyphs
My eye was caught by the announcement of the discovery of the earliest known Mayan glyphs in San Bartolo, Guatemala. The story of the Mayan glyphic writing system is told quite brilliantly in Michael D. Coe’s Breaking the Maya Code. Coe not only tells the story of the deciphering of Mayan, but he has a lot to say about the problem of deciphering ancient scripts generally. (For example, for an ancient text to be read, one needs not only a key — such as the Rosetta Stone, but also a living spoken descendant of the language being deciphered, as Coptic is for the Egyptian hieroglyphs and contemporary Mayan is for the Mayan glyphs.)
Posted by Tom Palmer============
For the Financially Inclined
A friend has forwarded a presentation from Patrick Byrne, the Founder and CEO of Overstock.com (and of the rather cool Worldstock.com), on allegations of shenanigans in the way that stocks are traded in the U.S. The presentation takes two parts: Party I and Part II. (They’re both high-tech-but-user-friendly slide shows.) I don’t know that much about stocks (my investing is through mutual funds, since I don’t have the kind of specialized knowledge that would give me the courage to invest in particular stocks), but I pass them on to all the more sophisticated economists, market mavens, and others out there I know.
Posted by Tom Palmer===============
The New York Times takes a swipe at President Bush in its Sunday editorial, Our Imperial Presidency at Work. First he gamed McCain over the Torture Amendment with his signing statement. Then he tried divest the Supreme Court of jurisdiction in the detainee cases.
The Times astutely observes:
Both of the offensive theories at work here - that a president's intent in signing a bill trumps the intent of Congress in writing it, and that a president can claim power without restriction or supervision by the courts or Congress - are pet theories of Judge Samuel Alito, the man Mr. Bush chose to tilt the Supreme Court to the right.
The administration's behavior shows how high and immediate the stakes are in the Alito nomination, and how urgent it is for Congress to curtail Mr. Bush's expansion of power. Nothing in the national consensus to combat terrorism after 9/11 envisioned the unilateral rewriting of more than 200 years of tradition and law by one president embarked on an ideological crusade.
[graphic created exclusively for TalkLeft by CL.]
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"Kids Helping Kids": A Bizarre Drug "Treatment" Program
What is it about Milford, Ohio? That's where an outrageous, $60,000 undercover sting operation was pulled off in a high school by the District Superintendent. Now we find that it is the home of Kids Helping Kids, an odd, and troubling, drug treatment program for kids.
I highly recommend that you watch the video available at this local TV news webpage. The sound starts a few seconds before the video, and it has some unfortunate local TV elements, but it is also quite informative.
One parent offers a sentiment that sounds about right to me: "No one should be abused emotionally or physically in the name of treatment." Incidentally, there don't seem to be any doctors involved in this "treatment".
Kids Helping Kids doesn't seem to be the worst treatment program out there.
Update: Radley Balko has more, a whole lot more, first here and then here. It's worse than I thought.
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James W. Fogal
H&R Block has a link for a free download of their software DeductionPro. While this is last year's version, it supports 2005 taxes - once installed, an update is available. Hopefully it will help you find tax deductions you didn't know about.
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Government Debt Has No Upside
Robert Murphy
In order to consume in the present, resources must be used in the present. When the government runs a deficit, politicians don't use a time machine to literally steal TVs and pizzas from people in the year 2050 and bring them back for our own consumption. Government deficits siphon savings from the private sector and thus divert real resources from potential investment and waste them on unproductive lines. This means that the structure of physical capital goods that the next generation inherits will be less developed than if the government had refrained from deficit spending. FULL ARTICLE
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Why Johnny Can't Read
Tim SwansonStupid in America: How We Are Cheating Our Kids:
Education reformers like Kevin Chavous have a message for these parents: If you only knew.John Stossel, the effervescent investigative journalist, put together yet another one of his trademark exposés -- this time on public schools. Reminiscent to Penn & Teller's exploits on their hit Showtime show, Stossel peppers his findings with interviews from all the players involved in the schooling industry, including teacher's unions, administrators and both foreign and domestic students. Have a question regarding international test scores? Well, his uncanny "as-a-matter-of-fact" approach not only provides various metrics comparing scores, but also the often overlooked monetary aspects involved in operating schools and financing teachers. Readers of Mises.org will never guess what he discovered. (Video clips: 1 2 3 - ABC's message board)Even though people in the suburbs might think their schools are great, Chavous says, "They're not. That's the thing and the test scores show that."
Chavous and many other education professionals say Americans don't know that their public schools, on the whole, just aren't that good. Because without competition, parents don't know what their kids might have had.
And while many people say, "We need to spend more money on our schools," there actually isn't a link between spending and student achievement.
Addendum: a number of the comments have mentioned that Stossel did in fact promote "vouchers." Unfortunately behind the smoke-and-mirrors, behind the rhetoric of independence and of choice - vouchers are yet another welfare entitlement scheme shrouded behind a rubric of free-market principles. For more on this tomfoolery: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
===================The Real Reason Why M3 is Abolished
Stefan KarlssonI have so far not commented on one of the strangest developments in the world of statistics-how the Federal Reserve have decided that the M3 measure of money supply will be "discontinued" without saying why . Since they came with no explanation there have been lots of speculation as to why they did it.
It certainly wasn't because the Fed Governors on aprioristic essentialist grounds decided M2 better reflected true money supply. Nor was it because M3 correlates less with GDP and financial market activities than M2, in fact it usually correlates more.
So why did they do it ? Hard money writers have offered a variety of possible reasons, but I think it all comes down to one thing: M3 have during the last few years increased more than M2. Just like the Fed and pro-administration pundits makes sure to focus on whatever consumer price measure increases the least (currently the "core" PCE deflator), the Fed wants people to focus on a money supply measure which increases less.
We can see that during the latest year, M3 increased 8.4% versus only 4.8% for M2. This discrepancy is not new, as during the last 10 years, M3 increased at a average annual rate of 8.2% versus 6.3% for M2. These numbers really say everything we need to know about the Fed's motive.
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January 12, 2006
The Adam Smith Myth
Mises.org Updates
In an essay that made his masterpiece on the history of thought famous, Murray Rothbard argues that Adam Smith's should not be called the founder of economics, nor a theorist who improved on economic science, nor even a consistent defender of the market economy. Rothbard sees him as unoriginal, confused, opportunistic, vastly overrated, and even dishonest. Yet this except is only a tiny bit of what you will find in this 2-volume wonder ($45). FULL ARTICLE
The Economist quotes Mises
Mises.org UpdatesHere: "Part of America's current prosperity is based not on genuine gains in income, nor on high productivity growth, but on borrowing from the future. The words of Ludwig von Mises, an Austrian economist of the early 20th century, nicely sum up the illusion: “It may sometimes be expedient for a man to heat the stove with his furniture. But he should not delude himself by believing that he has discovered a wonderful new method of heating his premises.”
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vice and virtue without a soul
Gil GuilloryWhile I have not read Hidden Order by David Friedman, he offers up this selection today on hawk-dove equilibria. I regard it as an error for such analysis to be silent on internal motives for behavior. In particular, lots of people wish to be virtuous, and work at it; and lots of people struggle against their vices. A great number of people are religious, and regard it as a duty to God to be virtuous. There are also many non-religious people that regard virtue as end in itself -- goodness is a good, go figure. The equilibrium suggested by Friedman, I think, is more of an internal struggle than an external one. This internal/external dichotomy has problems, but there is certainly a role for ideology, broadly considered -- and this is what Friedman is not considering. While there is an external, non-ideological struggle that takes place, and the incentives one faces are important in molding character and specific choices, it is more appropriate to use the hawk-dove equilibrium as a rough hypothesis or starting point in further inquiry, not a deduction from economic theory.
So, while his conclusions seem strong, I think they follow from weak premises.
What a minute! Did I, an Austrian, just criticize Friedman, a neoclassical, for being too a priori / not empirical enough? I think I did.
Link post | 07:49 AM===================
http://www.globalizationinstitute.org/blog/
The intellectual revolution in international development
By Alex Singleton | 11 January 2006 | Comments (0)
For too long the Left has held a monopoly over people's hearts and minds when its comes to international development. It is true that the Make Poverty History campaign is a worthy campaign. It has done a great deal of good by putting Africa at the top of the agenda But the fact it is wedded to outdated trade ideas about protecting infant industries and top-down approaches to aid shows how free marketeers have failed to influence the public debate.
One reason for the Left's monopoly on international development is that we have allowed ourselves to be portrayed as entirely negative, as against everything. Free-marketeers have, on the whole, failed to express in practical terms how free-market ideas can actually help people. There have been too many green ink letters to the editor (correctly) pointing out the problems of poor governance and corruption in Africa, but written without also putting forward a positive and practical way forward. If your younger brother does something foolish and gets into serious trouble, do you just harangue him for his foolishness, or do you help him get back on his feet?
A lesson from 1980s Britain is that free markets are good but it is better to be in favour of practical ways that free markets can help people. Helping people living in council homes to own their own home actually meant something to people - it helped people climb the economic ladder. And similarly, an enterprise-based scheme like microcredit has an important part to play in helping create an thriving economy in Africa and in encouraging the governmental reforms and recognition of property rights that are so desperately needed. Although four billion people live on less than $1,400, only a fraction have access to basic financial services. Microcredit enables an African, for example, to buy a mobile phone and then set up a business renting it to his village. The phone can then be used to call other towns and villages to find out prices and demand for crops that have been grown, enabling growers to get the best prices. Another enterprise-based scheme, Technoserve, helps identify and encourage entrepreneurs in developing countries. Technoserve helps them find gaps in the market, develop business plans, raise investment, run a small-scale pilot and then expand their businesses. These enterprise-based approaches to development are vastly more effective than the top-down help of which the government, unfortunately, is still far too fond.
The work of the Centre for Social Justice has shown just how effectively a think tank can transform the debate on an issue. Three years ago, social justice was a left-wing term, about redistributing income and socialism. Now it means things like welfare reform and community entrepreneurs. That is quite an achievement. And that sort of achievement is what is needed now in the area of international development. The Department for International Development needs an intellectual revolution. We need to turn development policies upside down: we need to change to helping Africa from the bottom up.
Owen Barder, Tony Blair's former Economic Affairs Private Secretary, replies here.
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Corruption getting worse
By Alex Singleton | 3 January 2006 | Comments (0)
The BBC's Patrick Smith is scathing about corruption:
Corruption deals in Africa are getting bigger. The crooks are getting smarter and doing ever greater damage to Africa's economies - sucking out resources meant for health, education and clean water.Unlike their Asian counterparts, Africa's robber-barons prefer to take their booty to Europe or the United States, far from prying eyes.
It's a system run by an international network of criminals, involving corrupt bankers laundering money, lawyers and accountants setting up "front companies" and trusts to collect bribes, contract-hungry company directors, local middlemen in Africa and the corrupt officials in African governments.
After announcing in 2002 that Africa was losing $150bn a year to corruption, the African Union drew up a convention to outlaw bribe-taking and bribe-giving. So is corruption a big concern for governments? Well, no.
No wonder people like Bob Geldof are saying things like this:
How do we stop the pornography of poverty that is paraded across our television screens every night? How much can we do to stop that and how much can be achieved while there is such egregious corruption in many African governments? The success or failure of our efforts depends heavily on the willingness and ability of African governments to govern effectively and tackle corruption.
=================China now richer than Britain
By Alex Singleton | 21 December 2005 | Comments (0)
The British government is unlikey to underestimate economic growth any time soon, but thanks to difficulties in collecting data, that's exactly what China has been doing. In 2004, it overlooked $285 billion in output. As the Times of London explains: "its economy overtook Italy's two years ago, has cruised past France and, with the new figures, has also surpassed Britain. That puts China in fourth place, behind the US, Japan and Germany." Goldman Sachs estimates that China will leapfrog the US to become the world's biggest economy by 2035.
Pessimists view the rise of China as deeply worrying. They complain that everything now seems to be made in China. In the United States, Wal-Mart is getting attacked for the crime of selling too many Chinese goods. Such pessimists frown at the knowledge that, symbolically, IBM's personal computer business is now owned by the Chinese firm Lenovo. The worrying is needless: IBM is being profit-maximising: it realised that its capital would be more profitably invested in other business areas, rather than cut-throat PC manufacturing. This is good for America. The truth is that there is no conflict between American prosperity and Chinese prosperity: increases the GDP in one country will tend to lead to GDP increases in the other.
Some people are worried that the rise of China will lead to war. But surely people can't really think that putting China in an economic cage, leaving 160 million people living on less than one dollar a day, is a good way of promoting peace? As both Richard Cobden and Thomas Friedman have argued, economic linkage tends to bind countries together in bonds of peace. The economic linkage of America and Europe with China should thus be seen as a vital foreign policy objective.
posted by USSSlavebation @ 1/16/2006 11:35:00 pm
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