Green Police

Am I the only one who finds this a little too close to reality to be funny? That I can see this being a not too distant future is pretty frightening. Why not? It’s pretty much the way the state approaches everything for the “greater good.”

Of course, the message doesn’t seem to involve any question about the legitimacy of such an approach. Just buy an Audi and you will have nothing to fear! The rest of you deserve what you get.

Underdog Daze

Tom Naughton can’t decide between cheering for the Colt or the Saints today. I completely understand because I’m in the same position. I’m a regular fan of neither but they are both likable, talented teams. While I love pro football, it’s not quite as fun to watch when you don’t have a side to cheer.

I’m originally from Louisiana and have always thought the Saints were cool. But I also appreciate the Colts more from a pure football perspective. Peyton Manning is a great example of intelligence in the game. On the other hand, Reggie Bush is pure excitement. Or I could let my wife’s favorite criteria decide: the Saints have better uniforms. I’m torn.

But Naughton thinks there is at least one good reason not to pick the Saints:

Klinging to the State

Arnold Kling writes,

Does the state have necessary functions?

I believe that it does, but I am not sure. I am strongly inclined to believe that unless we agree to have an ultimate arbiter of disputes, the equilibrium is what North, Weingast, and Wallis call “the natural state,” in which a coalition of violent gangs extorts from the general public and shares the loot.

So, Arnold, you would describe our current situation as one in which there is not a coalition of violent gangs that extorts from the general public and shares the loot? I’m not so sure that it can be described as anything but that.

Our imperfect democracy, or “open-access order” in NWW’s terminology, is far from perfect, but it allows more people to have more opportunity to hold onto more of the wealth that they create.

Compared to what? Anarchy? Why?

But I want to return to the larger point Kling is making: that despite all of the other things we can somehow manage to accomplish without the state (Kling lists “education, income security, police and fire protection, etc.”), we’re likely to hit a wall when it comes to arbitration. We need a final arbiter.

IP Freely

Geo-Mutualist Jock Coats has produced an audiobook version of Stephan Kinsella’s Against Intellectual Property.

Please Pass the Verstehen

HT Stephen Landsburg.

Generic Reasons

Taking this with the appropriate grain of salt (the author has an obvious incentive to make the claims he does), this is a wonderful analysis of exactly why any “health care reform” that doesn’t include the abolition of the FDA and other regulatory monopolies in favor of a competitive system of regulation and tort is not serious about health care reform. It also makes clear the difference between “free market” and “freed market.” When opponents of free markets talk about the free market, what they work with are things like the current generic prices (what could be more free market then manufacturers competing over an off-patent molecule?) because things like the FDA are just taken for granted. It’s time we had a real discussion about the costs of health care instead of the same old generic talk.

Who Dat Say Who Dat?

Any unauthorized use of the Saints colors and other [marks] designed to create the illusion of an affiliation with the Saints is equally a violation of the Saints trademark rights because it allows a third party to ‘free ride’ by profiting from confusion of the team’s fans, who want to show support for the Saints.

NFL spokesman Dan Masonson

If ‘who dat’ is used in a manner to refer to Saints football, then the Saints own the rights.

NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy

The basic idea of trademark as it developed in the common law is that someone cannot use the mark of another if it is confusingly similar to the mark of that other party. Now as I noted in the linked pieces above, the primary right should be the right of the consumer, not the trademark holder, and it should be more explicitly anchored in the notion of fraud–but you can see that the idea of “confusingly similar” is more or less related to the idea of fraud: if the competitor’s mark is so similar that it will confuse the consumer, it’s arguable the competitor is defrauding the consumer. But this has nothing to do with “dilution.” It’s focused on misleading the consumer (note that a clearer focus on this, and making it clear that the consumer, not the trademark holder, is the plaintiff, would not prohibit knockoffs such as cheap Rolex watches or Louis Vuitton purses, since in these cases the consumer is not defrauded or misled at all).

Stephan Kinsella, author of Against Intellectual Property.

Because it is already so anchored, there is no need for anyone – the NFL or the fans – to claim ownership¹.

Intellectual Trespassing as a Way of Life

David Ellerman, a major source of inspiration for this blog, has started his own blog. I hope my few readers will wander over there and subscribe. The first post on associational speech is an absolute home run.

PS – There are two Ellerman blogs. The one above is his current events and social science blog. This one is his logic and mathematics edition.

Flowers for the Sick

Margaret Flowers, M.D. responds to the SOTU in an open letter to Barack Obama:

There was an opportunity this past year to create universal and financially-sustainable health care reform rather than expensive health insurance reform.

Flowers is talking about single-payer or as she likes to call it (in a move I suppose she intends to be an argument in its favor) “Medicare-for-All.” This was followed closely by:

This poor value for our health care dollar is due to the waste of having so many insurance companies.

So on the one hand, Flowers gets that health care and health insurance are two different things. But then she thinks that health care value is bad because of health insurance competition.

Smashmouth

Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created.

President Barack Obama, State of the Union speech, 01/27/2010

Many people (I imagine) will be quick to accuse the Prez of hiding the truth beneath layers and layers of rhetoric in his speech. I think they are being unfair. Who else commits the Broken Window Fallacy by actually talking about broken windows? Say what you will, but he’s no obscurantist.