Comments (20)

• Marco Saba

  The Onion
  WWE: Illegal Mexican Wrestlers Taking Smackdowns American Wrestlers Don't Want
  March 29, 2006 | Issue 42•13 | Onion Sports
  http://www.theonion.com/content/node/46687

  STAMFORD, CT—In response to criticism over World Wrestling Entertainment hiring policies, World Wrestling Entertainment Chairman Vince McMahon defended the league's reliance on Mexican wrestlers as "the only way fans can witness the grueling, bone-crunching maneuvers that American wrestlers want nothing to do with."

  Mexican wrestler Rey Mysterio Jr. absorbs a brutal hit during a non-televised WWE event.
  McMahon made the remarks after the Border Patrol, an unaffiliated Texas-based tag team known for wrestling masked Mexicans and then reporting them to Immigration and Naturalization Service officials, revealed that dozens of illegal Mexican wrestlers join the WWE each year.

  The wrestlers, also known as "jobbers," come in search of greater title opportunities and more interesting storylines than those available in their small, unorganized Lucha Libre leagues.

  "These masked luchadores are hard-working, energetic, and always willing to learn new skills that Americans consider beneath them—such as being power-bombed from the top turnbuckle or chokeslammed through the announcer's booth," said McMahon on this week's WWE Raw.

  "The idea that these Mexicans are somehow stealing jobs from American wrestlers is ridiculous,"McMahon said.

  "After all, someone's got to take these folding chairs to the face." McMahon then picked up a folding chair and whacked Rey Mysterio Jr. in the face.

  It is not known exactly how many Mexican wrestlers are on the WWE payroll, since many lack Social Security numbers, or even clear and verifiable identities, as McMahon himself admitted Monday. "I know as much about these masked wrestlers as the fans do," McMahon said. "What's certain is, they often seem marvelous and mysterious, saintly, and even rude."

  Yet some American-born wrestlers say they see the influx of Mexicans as a threat to current titleholders, with some going so far as to start on-camera feuds and challenge the Mexicans to special "Retirement Matches."

  "Juventud Guerrera, you're headed for your own personal Day of the Dead," said Triple H, a noted opponent of Mexican wrestlers. "If I see you creeping down the aisle one more time, I'm going to notify the Big Boss Man, and you'll be sorry you ever crossed over into my storyline's territory."

  WWE hopefuls seek better opportunities at the U.S.-Mexican border.
  Pro Wrestling Illustrated investigative reporter Bart Sweet said that McMahon is hiding cynical motives. "The WWE just wants these men for cheap labor they can use at non-televised house shows," Sweet said. "They believe luchadores lack the looks, personality, or basic speaking skills to headline main events. Even if one did successfully climb to the top of the company ladder, he would immediately be suplexed off of it and through a table."

  Legendary Lucha Libre wrestlers Mil Mascaras and The Son of Santo, who say they always longed to cross over to the U.S. in search of the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes, claimed that the WWE is exploiting its Mexican wrestlers.

  "Match after match, the world can see that the Americans hit our brethren with foreign objects like brass knuckles or barbed-wire baseball bats, but U.S. officials turn a blind eye to the abuse," Mascaras said. "When they turn around, the Mexicans are passed out in sleeper-holds, which only perpetuates the untrue stereotype that Mexican wrestlers are lazy."

  According to The Son Of Santo, the brutal smackdowns that Mexican wrestlers suffer through just to earn a living have begun to take their toll.

  "One of our country's greatest stars, Eddie Guerrero, has already been worked to death," The Son Of Santo said. "If the WWE continues to allow them to perform this risky, high-flying labor, many more will end up in casket matches well before their time."
  

  Published: April 1, 2006 10:00 AM

• tokyo-tom

  Dear Professor Reisman:

  Maybe we need to go back to basics to make sure we don`t continue this fruitless exercise where I discuss science and economics, and you counter with ideology and hyperventilate about "collectivists" and "environmentalist witch-doctors". Into what category do you put your professional colleagues who study property rights and market failures, included but not limited to natural resource and environmental economists? The libertarian and conservative environmental economists at AEI, CEI and PERC?

  I`ll agree with you that free markets and capitalism are what have driven the wealth of the nations, and together constitute a dynamic and exremely flexible and self-adpating engine. But what do free markets require? Effective and enforceable property rights. It is precisely the absence of those property rights in certain situations, particularly in the case of cerain natural resources/common goods, that markets don`t work correctly - they don`t reflect the true costs of goods, either because a unit of production or pollution resulting from it is "free".

  If you can`t agree with me on this, then you should really be arguing with the rest of your profession, not me. In any case, given the free rider aspects of solving environmental problems where there is no single government involved, we cannot expect meaningful action on climate change anytime soon - unless George Bush decides he needs revenues to fill his huge budget deficit hole (which I would say would be a good thing, in shifting from income taxes to consumption taxes).

  Given the state of the debate in the US, why waste your breath on climate change, but turn your crystal-clear vision to those very costly environmental laws that were foisted on us in the `70s by collectivists like Nixon? They impose real, actual, costs on industry (and have totally shattered our finely tuned econmy?). Or is there some reason why those laws are acceptable, but any laws or treaties that relate to international problems are not? And on that topic, what internation treaties should we abolish? The WTO, GATT, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty - all creating international bureacracies? I appreciate your further thoughts.

  Sincerely,

  Tom

  PS: I hope you will choose to address the economic issues - including the flaws I have noted in your other posts - rather than attacking strawmen that are not mine, or my anonymity (my name of course has no bearing on the logic of my arguments, or the validity of the science).
  

  Published: April 1, 2006 10:46 AM

• Graeme Bird

  Tom. The problem here is that the scientists can't predict what's in store for us at the regional level. You don't say that YOU can predict what's coming at the regional level. I don't know what's coming at the regional level.........

  But what we do know is that at the GLOBAL level the balance of risks is with cooling not warming. So until we know better why oh why must we take measures pushing things in the wrong direction?

  The facts go in the direction opposite to the conclusion.

  The other thing is this. Even if there was thought to be about an even balance of risks or slightly in favour of warming it would be a most unfortunate time to do anything that gets in the way of coal or nuclear use right now. Because substitution rates away from the primary energy source are always very low or have been in the past. So it is the worst time imagineable for a generalised carbon tax since that sits on top of the substitution from oil to coal.

  So we should wait for 30 years or until the scientists can at least tell us that they believe they know what's going on. Whichever comes last. And so that we have time to substitute away from our dependence on oil especially for transport.

  Only when we know for an absolute fact that CO2 release will overmatch the natural tendency for glaciation could we countenance a generalised carbon tax. That conclusion ought to be so obvious. so clear. so unrefutable that I'm surprised that you haven't just conceded it. And even then it ought to be only a tax substitution and not a tax increase on general grounds of liberty.

  But what is worse is all these spending programs that environmentalists seem to want. Because all good strategies to deal with any problem ought to start with 'ruthless financial triage' (thankyou Mr Corrigan for this great phrase) of non-defense spending (at least) to shore up the power of the free market.

  So we have a problem here. Everyone concedes that they can't predict things on the regional level. The balance of risks globally points one way. And you and the others for totally mysterious reasons are advocating policies in the other direction.

  Its a mass case of millions of lemming-like wrong-way (Douglas not Sean) Corrigan's.

  Now suppose the environmentalists get what they want. They will of course impose costs on all of us. But they stand to destroy Russia, Norway, Finland and on and on. It could not be more irresponsible what they are doing.

  Also historically the glaciation affects North America very many decades ahead of China. Do we really want to shift the balance so much in favour of the Chinese versus the USA quite this early in the game? I mean hopefully one day we'll all be brothers but right now would you be happy with this scenario?

  Geographer Harm De Blij worries precisely about this scenario.

  And there is the other problem of crop productivity. Extra CO2 improves it. So this is a positive 'externality' probably dwarfing all gross negatives in one hit. For this and other reasons if the environmentalists get their way they may be killing off literally millions and millions of people.

  It is no small thing that they are up to here. Turn back wrong-way Corrigan. Turn back.

  Published: April 1, 2006 1:27 PM

• Jarod VerBerkmoes

  Global climate change is simply another example of the failure of the market to account for social and environmental costs in the final price of goods. Unless I missed some radical upheaval in the modus operandi of capitalism, the purpose of a business is to make money for its owners. One should therefore not expect a business to needlessly fritter away money in an effort to minimize its environmental impact. One need only look at the numerous Superfund sites scattered accross the United States to confirm that many companies do not act in an environmentally responsible way unless forced to by government or their customers.

  Of course the market does indeed function in response to environmental damage. Lawsuits are filed by private citizens and corporations against the offending parties in an attempt to recover damages. It is not uncommon for the offending parties to lack the means to pay full restitution, leaving the victims to cope the best that they can. In other words, many companies have had an environmental liability not shown on any balance sheet and when it came time to pay they defaulted.

  Individuals and firms move away from the effected area, property values drop, water is shipped in, farmland is abondandoned, the taxpayer funded cleanup begins, etc. All of these are costs that have directly resulted from production, but have failed to be accounted for in the product price. When the firm defaults these costs are shifted to those impacted by the environmental damage and to the tax payers.

  I have no desire to continue subsidizing environmental destruction, particularly in light of how expensive global warming is likely to be.

  Published: April 1, 2006 3:31 PM

• Graeme Bird

  "I have no desire to continue subsidizing environmental destruction, particularly in light of how expensive global warming is likely to be."

  How expensive is it likely to be? Surely the evidence is that CO2 release will lead to net positive externalities.

  Anyone who reads up on our climate hisory will know that the colder times tend to be also drier and nastier. And that when the planet is warmer the climate tends to be less arid and more benign and hospitable.

  Now I'm not saying that we should be paying people money specifically to release CO2. Or giving CO2 releasers the freedom medal. I wouldn't go that far.

  But under the above circumstances this is a more plausible course of action then what is being considered in some circles.

  Published: April 1, 2006 4:10 PM

• Sione

  Previously I issued a challenge to TokyoTom to prove his assertions. He failed to make the grade. Utterly and completely failed to provide anything at all (OK he did supply me with a little humour when he demanded that I develop the proofs for HIS assertions, that was funny- in an idiotic sort of way). Not one proof was forthcoming. Not even a single one did he provide.

  It is most important to understand what TokyoTom is attempting to achieve.

  TokyoTom is promoting coercive collectivism enforced by threat and violence against all individuals (and especially directed against those who disagree with his ideas for world economic and environmental order).

  TokyoTom's argument comes down to some simple strategies. Once you know what they are you can see through the smoke screen and the intellectual bankruptcy of his position is laid bare. Let's examine each in turn and see where he fails.

  1/. He uses ad hominem to smear those people who dare to disagree with him. Playing the Man instead of dealing with the topic to hand is intellectually dishonest. In doing this he fails to provide any support for his assertions.

  2/. He frequently appeals to authority. This is a form of social metaphysics. What he attempts to rely on is the notion that since there are some people or organisations that appear to, or actually do, support his assertions, then those assertions must be correct. This is not a proof at all. All he accomplishes is to tell us that he has located some other people who happen to share some ideas. So what. There are likely thousands of people who agree with bin Laden. Does that make bin Laden correct?

  3/. He demands other people alter their views to match his. To fail to so do is "inflexible". After all, he is an expert himself and is here to "discuss science and economics." Actually this last claim of his is a lie. TokyoTom is here to promote his personal ideology and to hell with the dissenters. They are all "hyperventilating." What conceit.

  4/. He quotes a little environmental theory and mixes in some general knowledge. Once again these are not proof. Far from it. Following his rules of thought one could conclude manned flight should be banished since scientists declared that the local value for gravity is changing (too bad for newly unemployed flight crew).

  5/. He fails to address the substantive issues and questions presented to him for serious consideration. When I asked TokyoTom to provide proofs for what he asserts I was really after two things. First I requested proof that global warming is happening, that it is solely a Man made phenomenon, that it is necessarily bad and that it necessarily will harm people. The second group of proofs I wanted him to provide, included the requirement to demonstrate that coerced collectivism (which is what he is indeed promoting) is necessary and good for Man. I was civil enough to warm him of the magnitude of that task.

  That last issue is his central disagreement with Austrian School; his opposition to freedom. Putting the global warming stuff aside for a moment, this is what he needs to be challenged on:-
  Do individuals need to be forcibly collectivised?
  Why?
  Prove it.

  Now Professor Riesman (who as TokyoTom well knows is an eminent economist, researcher and social scientist) answers in the negative. He is being consistent in doing this. He even kindly and patiently explained his reasoning. TokyoTom does not like this as it directly opposes his faith in collectivism.

  I asked TokyoTom for supporting proofs for his assertions. He does not like this as it exposes that he does not have anything to contribute beyond support for collectivism. He really has not thought this particular topic through at all.

  Need we continue to worry about this guy's fixations?

  Sione

  Published: April 1, 2006 8:39 PM

• Graeme Bird

  "1/. He uses ad hominem to smear those people who dare to disagree with him."

  Yeah he was consistently rude to the Professor wasn't he. I over-reacted to and I apologise to the forum for my excess.

  But its not clear to me that Tom is a collectivist. The BS momentum is just so strong in this area we can give him the benefit of the doubt as being basically pro-free-enterprise but being swept along by the sheer weight of claims in this area.

  What would be superb is some authoritative clarity in this area. But the world of science workers is failing us here. Post-Popperian science seems to have lost its ability to make calculated guesses. To assess risks. To take an area too complex to model directly right now and to apply thinking praexology-style to build simpler working models and to explain them clearly.

  Now I think most of the scientists involved here are pretty appalling. But even some very good scientists seemed to have been swept along in all of this.

  We have a gentleman in Australia called Tim Flannery. Now I think he's a very good scientist. Not a climatologist or a radical pro-free enterprise Joe, but generally a pretty reasonable fellow.

  And I read his work. And I follow it all. And then all of a sudden he seems to panic and go to the opposite conclusion of what you would expect from the rest of the material.

  Its as if the these people (even the more reasonable ones) can see the rapidity of the changes. Then they, having only barely managed to get to, some vague grasp on historical weather events........ its as if they just panic.

  My proposal would be for the Austrians to take the front foot on this. There must be Proffesors here who are aquainted in their faculties with serious Geographers and Climatologists. We would want Misean-style thinking applied to this problem. When you don't have a definitive model then a priori is the better part of all you have. And its a priori thinking that the Austrians are the Masters of. You would want the full mises.org treatment. The historical summary of the evolution of ideas to do with climate and so forth.

  Its such a serious issue given the restrictions on localised coal use (direct in industry and coal-to-electricity) both in existence now and proposed, that I think it requires more then a dismissive approach (though 99% of this hysterical frenzy really does deserve to be sent to he fires right away).

  I'll give a slightly tangential example to explain what I have in mind:

  When it comes to man's encroachment on nature clearly statist initiation of force has played a very great role. Height restrictions on building, currency debauch leading to land as the main store of wealth, and non-user-pays provision of so-called public goods...... has expanded our use of land far beyond what liberty in economics would have done. And squeezed out nature far more then what would otherwise have occurred.

  So were the libertarians/anarcho-capitalists taking the front foot on this we could be making a powerful case that the opposite moves in favour of economic liberty ought be expidited.

  So likewise when it comes to this climate change issue. There's a gap in the cognitive abilities of our modern scientists that needs to be filled.

  Science is far far easier work then what the likes of Mises set his mind too. There is a maths barrier but apart from that its a comparative breeze. And most of the data one would need for a crossover project would be available for free.

  It would be neat to see a high-quality crossover presentation on ones iPod on climate change conducted by the institute.

  Real neat. And I think it would have a great deal of influence.

  Proffessor Higgs was talking about crises bringing ideologies to the fore. But there is a lot of spade-work that is done prior to the crisis event that sets up the ideology for the upandup when the crisis hits.

  When oil goes to $120 a barell as it may well do in the near future we might find a lot of lunatics who have been setting up the hysteria suddenly becoming media darlings and every objection to them swept away.

  Smaller government types, if this view of ideological change is right, should put in the groudwork in advance to leverage such future potential 'crisis' to push to prominence a portfolio of pro-liberty measures, to expidite through the political system, when extraordinary changes occur.

  Well that's my proposal anyway. Too bad I'm too poor to contribute more then a couple of hundred to it if the decision was made to go ahead.

  Published: April 1, 2006 10:02 PM

• tokyo-tom

  Graeme:

  Thank you for your more level-headed post. You state that:

  Only when we know for an absolute fact that CO2 release will overmatch the natural tendency for glaciation could we countenance a generalised carbon tax. That conclusion ought to be so obvious. so clear. so unrefutable that I'm surprised that you haven't just conceded it. And even then it ought to be only a tax substitution and not a tax increase on general grounds of liberty."

  It sounds like you are much much of a "collectivist" as me in principle when it comes to dealing with environmental issues, but we just have a different view as to when the state of the science in the case of climate change and GHGs warrants action. Would you agree?

  I think the scientific case is sufficiently convincing for action now, but I respect your disagreement.

  Sione, on the other hand, I understand to be an anarchist who believes that all environmental problems have been CREATED by the government, so that, a fortiori, no governental action is justifiable in the face of any environmental problem (other than to dissolve the government)(Sione, apologies if I have misinterpreted you). It seems that there is a huge difference in economic philosophy between yourself and Sione. Do you agree that Professor Reisman`s position is much closer to Sione`s than to yours (you collectivist, you!)?

  Your apologies to the forum for your previous over-reaction to me is duly noted.

  Sincerely,

  Tom
  

  Published: April 1, 2006 11:17 PM

• Graeme Bird

  "It sounds like you are much much of a "collectivist" as me in principle when it comes to dealing with environmental issues, but we just have a different view as to when the state of the science in the case of climate change and GHGs warrants action. Would you agree?"

  No to both. Look. I cannot find where you disagree with me as to the State of the science? You won't say where the disagreement is. You just mysteriously go with a conclusion other then what the science tells us. Now this would seem to be abnormal. But its not. It amounts to what the science community is doing en masse.

  Where is the killer factoid that turns things around 180 degrees? I have not been able to find it. You have not said it. The links, websites and forums don't have it.

  What am I not taking into account?

  There is nothing is there? There really isn't? The emperor has no clothes.

  You know I thought the first time that I read Atlas Shrugged that Rand was going too far when it came to Galt, God of Zen, who seldom showed anger, but had seemed to save most of his fury for the scientist. The fellow had let Galt down the most of all. By going with State financing for science. Now to me as a kid science was IT. The alpha and the omega. And I thought that this was bluff on her part.

  And its really only been in the last year or two, a quarter century on, that I have been mugged by reality and have had to acknowledge that, she was right and I was wrong. No matter what initial net benefits might have accrued right at the beginning of the socialisation process, the cold dead hand of looter-finance has corrupted the world of science.

  Or I could be wrong and you are holding back on the crucial factoid that turns the whole deal around.

  Lets have it. Or we should have it that on paper I'm right.

  Published: April 2, 2006 2:06 AM

• Yancey Ward

  Whether global warming will occur, whether the effects are benign, beneficial, or detrimental are completely irrelevant- carbon dioxide will continue to increase in the atmosphere for at least the next century unless the modern world collapses. There simply are no real alternatives to replace fossil fuels. What people fail to understand is that it isn't just the case of replacing the energy use of today, but that energy use will continue to grow in the future- you are trying to hit a moving target. All that can be accomplished with the proposed actions by the environmentalists is to moderate the rate of CO2 increase, and that at great cost.

  Published: April 2, 2006 10:21 AM

• tokyo-tom

  Graeme, it`s too late; you`ve already acknowledge in principle there ARE environmental problems where markets don`t work - maybe even climate change, but you`re not ready to agree on that for another 30 years or so.

  In which case, we agree in principle - and just as I and others who are aware of the property right failures behind serious environmental issues are not "collectivists" for understanding when markets need help, then neither are you a collectivist. That makes Professor Reisman wrong to sweep so broadly.

  Published: April 2, 2006 10:29 AM

• Graeme Bird

  Tom.

  Where is the science that says that CO2 production will overmatch the natural tendency toward glaciation. You are persistent in your evasiveness. I'll give you that.

  Published: April 2, 2006 4:57 PM

• Graeme Bird

  "Graeme, it`s too late; you`ve already acknowledge in principle there ARE environmental problems where markets don`t work - maybe even climate change, but you`re not ready to agree on that for another 30 years or so."

  You give folks a millimetre and they take a light-year. Its funny how in the millions humans can act as if there must be some conspiracy going on. If one were a conspirationist one might think that this was what the campaign against a CO2 induced increase in natures bounty was all about:

  A gigantic bait and switch. A huge hypothetical, to provide an extreme example of when one might (under severe time pressure) acquiese to tax-substitution (not tax increases).

  But nowhere is the evidence that CO2 is anything but natures life-giver. Free fertiliser. The saviour against the White Death. The bringer of warmer winters to the historically unlucky Siberians........... (and I could go on).

  CO2 is good.
  

  Published: April 2, 2006 6:50 PM

• Sione

  Graeme

  I'm giving up on Tom. I'm pretty certain he is a collectivist or, at least, that's the premise he's operating from. But it's just not worth engaging him to get to the bottom of his thinking. For example, his latest evasion is to try and cast my position (which he gets wrong) and make that the topic at contention. It's not and never was the point at issue. He was challenged to, and needs to, provide his proofs. Without them no further progress is possible.

  What was that quote about the burden of proof? "On he who asserts the positive..."

  You mentioned the post-Popperian approach to science. Karl Popper was an interesting thinker. I am uncomfortable with his famous approach of falsifiable statements (due to incompleteness and uncertainty) but there is a lot to be said for him; an honest and rational attempt to understand the philosophy of science surely. I don't entirely agree with him but I'll be reading some more of his work I think.

  I am interested in your comment about post-Popperian science. Do you mean that the philosophy of scientists has altered? If so, please can you tell me more about what the new philosophy is. That could indeed be an important source for many of the troubles of global warming and climate science referred to previously. Why did scientists abandon Popper?

  I am familiar with the state of science and research in Australia as I worked with some of these people. I do not have a very high regard for many of them (having said that, there are some brilliant scientists I've been lucky to meet up with- pity they are in the minority).

  Australian science is heavily funded by the Commonwealth (the state). I do notice that the bulk of the funds the Aust govt directs towards scientific research in Australia gets consumed for unproductive result. Much is squandered. Much is rorted and it is very sad to see how up and coming researchers get screwed over by established old ruars.

  It'd be good to banish all this and return the money to those who paid for it in the first place; the productive taxpayers. Then they can decide what to support.

  I'd be keen to know more about your ideas for reworking the scientific establishment by way of careful education and training. Can you elaborate?

  Thanks

  Sione

  
  

  Published: April 2, 2006 7:28 PM

• Graeme Bird

  Sure. Thanks Sione. And I can take this opportunity to state that of course I read you completely wrong in that first post of yours.

  Yes well we gave Tom the benefit of the doubt didn't we. But my best guess is you were right the first time.

  I thought that Popper was our guy. He was a correspondent of Hayek, was in favour of limited government and so forth.

  If the falsification requirement is thought of as just a rule of thumb to sort out science from pseudo-science then well and good. Its a welcome addition to the scientific process. But it seems at some stage he wanted to deep-six inductive reasoning and replace it with falsification.

  The rubbishing of inductive reasoning might also seem to take down a priori thinking with it. The skepticism towards inductive reasoning goes back to Hume. And since Popper, unintended consequence or not, it seems to have taken on a new lease of life.

  So whereas Popper may have been a great guy and something of a twentieth century hero his ideas enabled others to shout down the sort of thinking that enabled Mises to do his work. Managed to tar what amounts to the fullness of human reason as being unscientific.

  Now in the scientific process inductive reasoning has to be there at every stage. And falsification is just one new little helpful step that one might include near the end of the cycle.

  And the attack on inductive reasoning makes no sense at all. Rather it only makes sense for ONE-STEP inductive reasoning, for inductive reasoning wherein that IS THE ONLY TOOL whereas the extended processes of science and human reason have many arrows to their quiver. As well inductive reasoning is to be faulted only when PERFECT CERTAINTY is required.

  But we don't seek perfect certainty with a one-step inductive process. We build a case. We build many hypotheses in parallel and develop each of these hypotheses as the new data rolls in. We develop these hypotheses or 'small models' AND alter their ranking as the new information comes to light.

  But talk to many scientists these days and you find them to be bully-boy advocates of the intellectual status quo. Since without Misean-style reasoning they don't all go through this process. In practice with inductive reasoning branded 'unscientific' they must cling to the status quo and rubbish dissenters. And there is the idea that you make a blind conjecture and then try and refute it. So in practice what that means is pure science (as opposed to technology) has almost ground to a halt. The mathematicians have taken over physics and are posing as natural philosophers and so forth.

  Now clearly I'm painting with a pretty broad brush here and some great scientists can presumably still be found. But I consider the bulk of them 'public tit science workers'.

  As to improving the situation what you want to do is to cut off the funds. But you want rapid capital turnover. Captial turnover will keep the suppliers of capital on the leading edge. And you want your country to be full of such suppliers.

  Which means that you want higher savings rates. And in the interim, while we still have an income tax, you want the ability to expense depreciation in the year of your choosing. Research out-sourced to third parties should also have this ability.

  If we get rid of the income tax and we are trying to get rid of the other taxes there will still be opportunities to do something similiar to keep the rapid updating of capital equipment going. You want to reform money. That's most important. In the meantime you want to have interest earnings tax-free and maybe dividends a tax-deductible expense.

  As to pure research we need to bring in natural philosophy. You don't need public funding for it. If we can find a few Mises-like geniuses and team them up with computer modellers and mathematicians great progress should be possible on the cheap since there is just reams and reams of data out there virtually for free. So whole sets of best-fit simple models can be developed in parallel.

  You need capitalism. An end to height restrictions on buildings would allow a small group of renaisance men to work at this sort of thing in their own homes which would now be more spacious for less money.

  Austrians may object that I'm falling back on tax deductions since it might imply that taxes are necessary to set up the incentive to avoid them. But I'm not so smart that I can see that far ahead. So I tend to think in transition. When we get to a minarchist or anarcho-capitalist situation presumably we would have worked creatively through all sorts of problems.

  But I will say that if we get the tax deductions and monetary reform through we can deep-six the public spending and sell off all the public research institutions with relish and with a clear conscience.

  For a comprehensive breakdown and refutation of the criticisms of inductive reasoning track down the Australian Philosopher David Stove. He also makes scathing criticisms of Popper (perhaps over-critical assessments) and well deserved criticisms of some of the fellows who have used Poppers philosophey to ill-effect.

  Did I mention we have to sell off all the schools at every level? Of course some sensitivity is required here. When you pull all the school funding you want to be pulling also any taxes (like payroll tax) that poor folks are having to pay.

  Published: April 2, 2006 8:36 PM

• tokyo-tom

  Yancey (if I may jump in), CMB is exactly right. The modern world will not collapse as we "run out" of fossil fuels - rather the market will continue to price them higher to reflect both scarcity and demand, which will lead to greater efficiency in use and call forth new, alternative supplies that are quite abundant but more expensive, such as coal and biogas, and nuclear power (which requires political will to solve the repository issue).

  Sincerely,

  Tom

  Published: April 2, 2006 9:33 PM

• Yancey Ward

  CMB,

  Yes, withdrawing fossil fuels today will collapse civilization. You and others seemingly have no clue about the scale of the challenge of replacing such fuels. There are no alternatives that even come close to supplying the energy content for a given cost.

  I am completely amenable to a tax substitutionthat slowly raises the cost of such fuels over the period of a century in order to spur the development of alternatives for the day when such fossil fuels are depleted. However, it is a complete fantasy to suppose these fuels will not be used until they are depleted.

  Published: April 3, 2006 8:42 AM

• Graeme Bird

  "Yancey (if I may jump in), CMB is exactly right. The modern world will not collapse as we "run out" of fossil fuels - rather the market will continue to price them higher to reflect both scarcity and demand, which will lead to greater efficiency in use and call forth new, alternative supplies that are quite abundant but more expensive, such as coal and biogas, and nuclear power (which requires political will to solve the repository issue)."

  Dangerous talk Tom. If to pull 'fossil' (or perhaps abiotic) fuels out from under was the one and only policy blunder then I suppose you are right. But we cannot rely on the perfect rationality of populations and policies to cover for such a terrible fate.

  And energy economics is a bit special in this way. THE SUBSTITUTION AWAY FROM THE PRIMARY SOURCE IS ALWAYS NOTORIOUSLY SLOW.

  From wood to coal, from coal to oil we are talking substitution rates of only 1% or so. Very stable over many decades. But yes if all other cylinders were firing perhaps we would make it.

  But the society crazy enough to restrict CO2 release is also likely to do other things less then perfectly. It will be a disaster if anything gets in the way of new exploration or in the way of coal or nuclear power. It will be a disaster in the REAL world.

  But why would we contemplate withdrawing fossil fuels? Since CO2 is the ultimate life-giving gas.

  Published: April 3, 2006 3:18 PM

• tokyo-tom

  Graeme:

  I'm rather happy to leave energy supply and demand to the market, which works quite well - except for certain market failure issues that we could handle less expensively and more comprehensively. You and I know there's plenty of oil sands, natural gas and coal, and we're not likely to seriously tax these supplies for a few more centuries. There's also bound to be more oil up in under the Arctic Ocean that is becoming more accessible as the ice pack melts.

  The only disasters that a free market cannot handle well are those the market causes by itself through improper property rights regimes concerning public goods, commons and the like - use is underpriced, so we overconsume and undersupply, until we destroy the resource or are close enough to it that government finally steps in. I prefer to recognize and discuss these issues through the lens of economics, and clear away the fog of ideology, whether from the greens or from the libertarians.

  Published: April 3, 2006 10:03 PM

• Graeme Bird

  I don't know about the Arctic. But there's bound to be tons of it in the Antarctic. I want to get there and homestead the place first.

  The reason comes from Geographer Harm De Blig. He tracks back to Gondwanaland. And when you see how the Continents fit together then it turns out that what looks like several famous oil fields is really one gigantic Gondwanaland Oil field.......

  Which if you think about it for awhile turns out to be very good evidence for abiotic fuel.

  Unless of course the dinosaurs all took their lawn clippings and sewage to that one place and it just happened to break up the way it did.

  There has to be a connection there. The vast majority of small areas that you could be hanging out in in Gandwanaland didn't rip into pieces and all end up in different parts of the globe. It looks like the fact that this place did so may have been why the oil could rise up.

  Published: April 5, 2006 2:08 PM