The Government bubble.
On a recent post, I received a comment from Jack McHugh that caught my attention stating:
”The grievance is chronic fiscal irresponsibility, now become acute fiscal extremism.
The target is an inbred, self-serving, self-perpetuating and bipartisan political class that no longer represents the will of the people.
The goal is to send that political class packing and restore genuine representative government, with whatever policy implications that entails. (I wish I’d said that no. 45,648.)
In following up I arrived at The Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which in their own words “is a nonpartisan research and educational institution devoted to improving the quality of life for all Michigan citizens. The Center assists policy makers, business people, the media and the public by providing objective analysis of Michigan issues and by promoting sound solutions to state and local policy questions from a free market perspective.”
In their Blog I found an article; “The Government Bubble” by Joseph G. Lehman which reminded me of a post “Do you believe in bubbles,” by Terje, and another, “Herd instinct and Crowds,” by Ron Kitching, which is about a different book but a similar theme, (crowd mentality.) For this reason I thought it might be of interest.
The Government Bubble
(Note: The following commentary appears as the President’s Message in the Spring 2009 issue of “Impact,” the Mackinac Center’s newsletter.) . Read more »
Afghanistan legalises rape
I can’t see this being a vote winner but then I’m not an Afghan. I would have thought that at least half the nations voters would be mildly pissed off by this change to the law.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03/31/karzai-accused-of-bid-to_n_181153.html
Article 132 requires women to obey their husband’s sexual demands and stipulates that a man can expect to have sex with his wife at least “once every four nights” when travelling, unless they are ill.
I wonder if illness will now be on the rise in Afghan bedrooms. This law is pathatic in so many ways. It is appalling in what it tries to mandate. Policing such a decree would be madness. Are husbands meant to enact citizens arrests for non compliant wives? Or is the point simply to let raped wives know that the justice system has no interest in their plight.
The right to secede
I’ve often thought that NSW should secede from Australia. In terms of fascilitating a freeing up of domestic trade, federation has essentially been a failure. The intention was to remove domestic trade barriers but the Federal income tax now represents a larger barrier to inter-household trade than a few excise duties on border crossings ever did. The only sense in which federation can really be considered a success is in forging a common cultural identity, and even that is over rated. If NSW did secede then we could do the rest of the country a big favour by land locking Canberra.
Of course talk of NSW seceding isn’t likely to go mainstream any time soon. However the Texans are not afraid to talk about the idea. Their state governor recently suggested it was an option;
“There’s a lot of different scenarios,” Perry said. “We’ve got a great union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it. But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, you know, who knows what might come out of that. But Texas is a very unique place, and we’re a pretty independent lot to boot.” #
Here is the governor talking to the point.
Any half decent system of federalism should codify reasonably means for an orderly secession of states. However few seem to. Historically the USA has been quite aggressive towards states that attempt to secede.
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