Sorry, but we are not all “Keynesians.”

It is a well-known quote commenting economic policies:”We are all Keynesians right now.” It is true, at least in political arena, and even for free-market economists becoming careered politicians. Stimulus plans, aimed to substitute the lost purchasing power due to the financial crisis, are setup just within such a short time and are so roughly planned and enormously empowered comparing to their sizes and authority. However, majority public opinions overwhelming support these government expansions since “this crisis is not measurable and never had happened before.”

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Arguments for Legalizing Insider Trading

You may feel like saying, “Hey, you libertarians want to legalize everything!!" Unfortunately, that is the case. We try to counter-argue every unnecessary restriction and look forward to a world with the least government intervention.

This post comes from a brief discussion with neouto. We try to reinvent the wheels by restating arguments that you can easily find in Wiki.

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Standards, for what and for whose interests?

After the JCEE this year, the “minimum” score requiring for entering a college fall from 18 to 7.69. The Premier of Taiwan demanded there shall be another “education reform” that we shall not tolerate the declining “quality” of high school. It is argued that the old system shall be restored. It means the original credit system shall be abolished since it results in the declining of high school education quality, for example, one may flunk his mathematics or English all three years and granted his senior high school diploma by enough credit from P.E. or music lesson. The old system, demanding one shall pass all major subjects to enter the next year of one’s study, is recognized as a better instrument to secure the basic standard of senior high school graduates.

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Ignorance, Fear and Perceived Authority

Fear, God, and State

A stunning hypothesis from the latest Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

High levels of support often observed for governmental and religious systems can be explained, in part, as a means of coping with the threat posed by chronically or situationally fluctuating levels of perceived personal control. Three experiments demonstrated a causal relation between lowered perceptions of personal control and … increased beliefs in the existence of a controlling God and defense of the overarching socio-political system. A 4th experiment showed … a challenge to the usefulness of external systems of control led to increased illusory perceptions of personal control. … A cross-national data set demonstrated that lower levels of personal control are associated with higher support for governmental control.

It seems we hope a stronger and more benevolent God or State will protect us when feel less able to protect ourselves. I’d guess similar effects hold for medicine and media – we believe in doc effectiveness more when we fear out of control of our health, and we believe in media accuracy more when we rely more on their info to protect us. Can we find data on which beliefs tend to be more biased: confidence in authorities when we feel out of control, or less confidence in authorities when we feel more in control?

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讀聖賢書所為何事？

馬政府上任至今唯二對社會的貢獻：1.證明笨蛋病會傳染，2.證明什麼屁股決定什麼腦袋。

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Military Draft is an Externality

In “Toward a theory of Property Rights", Harold Demsetz wrote,

Perhaps one of the most significant cases of externalities is the extensive use of the military draft. The taxpayer benefits by not paying the full cost of staffing the armed services. The costs which he escapes are the additional sums that would be needed to acquire men voluntarily for the services or those sums that would be offered as payment by draftees to taxpayers in order to be exempted. With either voluntary recruitment, the “buy-him-in" system, or with a “let-him-buy-his-way-out" system, the full cost of recruitment would be brought to bear on taxpayers.

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