Friday Morning Ramble: From the childish to the ridiculous

Morning readers.  Here’s a few things that interested me. They might grab you too.  But first, a message from our sponsor:

To take ideas seriously means that you intend to live by, to
practice, any idea you accept as true.
- Ayn Rand

• Labour’s David Parker explains how government turns $150 million into $33 million.
  Reserve Generation – O F F S E T T I N G   B E H A V I O U R
• Dim Post rewrites classic Kiwi literature as if written by celebrated Herald columnist Shelley Bridgeman.
  Shelley writes the classics -  D I M   P O S T
• “With the demise of ACT and the disappearance from Parliament of oddballs and eccentrics like John Boscawen and Hillary Calvert, NZ First is stepping up and filling the void.” Thank goodness.
  "You talkin' to me?" – I M P E R A T O R   F I S H
• Despite their party’s relative electoral success, not all Greens were happy campaigning on holidays swimming in rivers, pink batts for children, and jobs constructing windmills.
  Back of the brain niggles – G    B L O G
• Surprise, surprise. Christchurch’s council did everything they could to stop Christchurch’s volunteer hero.
  Civil society and earthquake recovery – O F F S E T T I N G     B E H A V I O U R 
• Letter of the week in The Press: “Remember every time you enjoy a latte … you are lucky to have the benefits of capitalism,” begins The Press’s letter writer of the week…
  In praise of capitalism – H O M E   P A D D O C K 
• How Occupy Wall Street reduced the unemployment rate.
  http://ht.ly/7NbwU
• The British Industrial Revolution: A Tribute to Freedom and Human Potential.
  http://bit.ly/uIy2Pn
• 5 Reasons Money Can Buy Happiness. [Hat tip Stephen Hicks]
  5 Reasons Money Can Buy Happiness -  C R A C K E D
  http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-reasons-money-can-buy-happiness/. A
• Why stimulus fails. A case study.

• Germany's finance minister, Wolfgang Schäuble  admits the Euro bail-out fund won't halt the Euro crisis—but sees this as too good a crisis to waste: he’s talking political union. "We can only achieve a political union if we have a crisis," Mr. Schäuble said.
  Wolfgang Schäuble admits euro bail-out fund won't halt crisis  - T E L E G R A P H
  Wolfgang Schäuble seeing opportunity in Europe's crisis -  N E W   Y O R K   T I M E S
• “I watched the ECB announcement press conference last night. You can find it below. I recommend you watch it in full. The Q&A session at the end contains the most important parts. After watching it,  I am still in shock.”
  Europe’s last hope collapses -  Z E R O   H E D G E
• It had to happen…
  Hitler Hears About The Collapse Of The Eurozone … Z E R O   H E D G E
• Government debt, aka sovereign debt, used to be thought of as a risk-free investment.  That’s one theory that’s now been thoroughly exploded by reality.
   The Risk of Sovereign Debt – David Howden,  M I S E S   E C O N O M I C S   B L O G
• Keynes vs Hayek was the economic “Fight of the Century.” Yet it is said Hayek abandoned the fight after Keynes published his General Theory. Or did he?
  Hayek’s Critique of The General Theory: A New View of the Debate between Hayek and Keynes
  -  David Sanz Bas, Q U A R T E R L Y   J O U R N A L   O F   E C O N O M I C S
• Detlev Schlicter’s well-reasoned warnings about the coming collapse of paper money have made the pages of The Guardian! Paul Mason, BBC Newsnight's economics editor (and the guy who fronted the recent LSE/BBC4 Keynes v Hayek radio show), picks Detlev Schlichter's Paper Money Collapse as one of his five economics books to give people for Christmas. [Hat tip Samizdata]
  Books for giving: economics – T H E   G U A R D I A N
• Want to understand Detlev’s argument without buying his book? Then try this:
  
  
  
• Peter Schiff dismantles the many economic fallacies in Obama's latest speech, ending with this important point:
  "The reason the middle class is getting squeezed [and] the reason [it] is disappearing is because those freedoms that created it are also disappearing. It's because the 'simple theory' [of capitalism] has been abandoned by so many people and replaced with this nonsense that President Obama believes in, and of course the more we pursue these policies, the more people are going to leave the middle class and the more people will be impoverished." [Hat tip Objective Standard]

• Here’s a link to Ross England’s winning entry in the U.S. Atlas Shrugged Essay Contest. Note to local Objectivists: Time to start organising for the local competition next year, right?
   I Won!/Read Atlas Shrugged!  -  T H I N K   T W I C E 
• "Who says Public Goods can't be financed without taxes? Here's 15 ways to fund roads and healthcare without forced coercion from the State. Let's be more imaginative.”
  Financing of Public Goods in a Free Market Society –  B L A Z I N G    T R U T H
• Pirate radio stations were free-market heroes, bashing down ridiculous government restrictions on radio broadcasting by taking their signal out into international waters to escape the grey ones. But what if you could do the same thing to get around ridiculous immigration restrictions?
  New Startup Hopes to House Immigrants in International Waters –  M O T H E R   O F   E X I L E S
• A scientist explains in layman terms “why rather than being a refutation of factual knowledge, quantum physics is a testament to the fact that knowledge is possible, and can be obtained with certainty."
  The Certainty in Quantum Physics – W I T   L A B
• When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Except no-one puts them away entirely. Nor should they. Here’s The Damned, and they’re playing Auckland in January.

• And so are the Dresden Dolls…

• And to close with something completely different, from the finale of Wagner’s opera Siegfried ( on screen around the country this weekend) here’s the dawn. And if you’re wondering why she’s sleepy, well, you would be too if you’d been awakened after an eighteen-year sleep. “Hail the Sun!”

Thanks for reading
Have a good weekend
PC.