Everyone takes the limits of his own vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
HABEMUS PAPAM
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| Pope Francis I First photo courtesy of L'Osservatore Romano via Washington Times Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, Argentina Photograph: Marco Longari/AFP/Getty Images |
"I announce to you a great joy: We have a pope! The most eminent and most reverend lord, Lord Jorge, Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church, Bergoglio, who has taken for himself the name Francis."Our first Latino Pope: I was watching CNN; to be honest, I was embarrassed and angry to hear predicable, strident, intellectually vapid morally self-superior progressive feminist nonsense from the likes of young American Catholic women and Christiane Amanpour (it took me about 5 seconds for me to remember how much I loathed her hosting ABC This Week). I really have zero patience with elitists whom stereotype the Church in terms of a few rogue priests whom sexually abused minors, its "irrelevant" stands on abortion, "gay marriage", and related cultural warrior issues, griping about women not having a vote in the conclave, etc.
These people subordinate Catholicism to the politically correct culture. Jesus Christ was not an insurrectionist, a social worker; He was prayerful, a masterful teacher and storyteller--but uncompromising in doctrine: some disciples deserted him. Judas rebuked Mary for anointing Jesus with expensive oil rather than giving the money to the poor, but Jesus corrected him. Whereas Jesus' teachings about the poor and the rich are well-known, the Pharisees, often the target of Jesus' charges of hypocrisy, made their own charges, noting He supped and associated with the rich and/or wrong (e.g., tax collectors) people. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that almost any progressive would have problems with the 'real' Jesus today--a classic example was when the Pharisees quizzed Him on marriage and divorce, and He made it clear He did not accept divorce; any progressive who believes that Jesus would cave to the moral relativism of the 1960's onward is in a state of denial.
There are a number of things I like about this man, starting with the fact he is a Jesuit. Familiar readers know I initially went to OLL with the idea of becoming a teacher and a priest. The Jesuits are a leading order with an educational mission; I was actually interviewed by a Jesuit while I lived in the men's dorm. (To be honest, I don't recall a follow-up from the Jesuits; maybe I didn't pass the audition.) There are ways I really identify with this man; he's a humble man whom often prepares his own meals, takes the subway versus a limo or car. As a scholar I'm both impressed and intimidated by the breadth of canon law; to take a simple example, I never understood how the Church annulled Ted Kennedy's marriage to Joan. My reaction is that somehow the Church had morphed into the very sort of thing Jesus had protested against (see above). Francis I reminds me of Julia Roberts' great line from Notting Hill: "After all... I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her." Francis of Assisi is perhaps the most beloved of the Church's saints; how ironic a Jesuit (not a Franciscan) should take his name. This new Pope is, at heart, a simple priest of God, despite all the Pomp and Circumstance.
I have been a persistent critic of Argentina's inept President, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has been the key opponent of her socially experimental policies, e.g., gay-friendly agenda, free birth control, etc. I'm sure I'll have my differences with the new pope on so-called social justice policies; I don't think the hierarchy is particularly competent in matters of business and economics. I have no problems with the goals but with statist means, which are often counterproductive, self-serving and morally corrosive.
Viva il Papa!
Cafe Hayek's Quotation of the Day
It is commonly held that the Whig Party of Clay and Webster and its successor Republican Party of Abraham Lincoln and William McKinley were “pro-business” parties, and that the Jacksonian Democrats were anti-business. What comes through here is something quite different. The Whigs and Republicans engaged in a great deal of pro-business rhetoric and in talk of economic development, but the policies they advocated, such as subsidies, grants of special privileges, protective tariffs, and the like, actually worked to retard development and to stifle innovation. The Jacksonian Democrats engaged in a great deal of anti-business rhetoric, but the results of their policies were to remove or reduce governmental interferences into private economic activity, and thus to free market entrepreneurs [as opposed to political entrepreneurs] to go about their creative work. The entire nation grew wealthy as a consequence. - Forrest McDonald, 1987 Foreword to Burton W. Folsom’s The Myth of the Robber BaronsLibertarians like Don Boudreaux make an important distinction between 'business' and 'market'. Probably in the earlier days of the blog I called myself pro-business when I really meant pro-market. Basically ask yourself--what benefits consumers? More choices, lower prices, greater convenience, etc. No doubt some competitors fear competition--from foreign competitors, young, growing industry participants, etc.. So the competitor demands protection from competitive threats--subsidies, price floors, tariffs, quotas, licensing, high-scale regulations (e.g., Sarbanes-Oxley), not to mention "too big to fail", etc. Legitimate market leaders do not need government intervention or protection--if anything, they want to grow sales of their goods and services beyond their borders (where statist policies don't reach); they are constantly adapting to the market, identifying unfulfilled market needs, streamlining their costs and/or lowering prices. Companies with obsolete cost structures (say, older production technologies) simply defer their day of reckoning at the expense of consumers.
The (Expletive Deleted) New Senate Budget: Thumbs DOWN!
When The Hill's email floated by my inbox yesterday and I read the first attempt of the Democrats in 4 years to pass a budget which, unlike the House, calls for a trillion in (no doubt class warfare) tax hikes while reducing the deficit just $800B over 10 years by CBO estimate (vs. $5.7T for the same time frame Ryan budget) I wanted to throw something, anything in my apartment. Then I decided to take Meat Loaf's sage advice:
Boy:But I still woke up thinking these economic illiterates are guilty of high crimes against future generations. The federal budget is full of waste, inefficiency, substandard business practices, and fraud. We have failed to fund future liabilities. The idea that these corrupt lawmakers want to counterproductively steal yet more money from the ever-diminishing class of economically successful is anathema: they are basically talking about stealing the seed corn of our economic future (savings and investment) and throwing it down the rathole of once-spent, forever-gone government expenditures, where the only winners are self-serving toll-collecting bureaucrats.
Let me sleep on it
Baby, baby let me sleep on it
Let me sleep on it
And I'll give you my answer in the morning
No, you boneheads! Over my dead body! You should be treating every vote, every new dollar you spend as your granddaughter having to take on a second job to pay it off.
The Best Quote I've Seen On Tenure
I'm sure that tenured professors reading this would argue it's sour grapes on my part, but I've seen too many senior professors obsessed with academic politics rather than innovation in scholarship and education. The longest contract I've ever had in academia or my post-academic career is 3 years (it's not wanderlust; it reflects more on the opportunities available to me at the time); I've always had to compete for my next gig. I have had to battle with bureaucratic inertia, not by fiat but persuasion. Quality academics and practitioners do not need protection from the marketplace. Gary North does a great job of succinctly capturing my feelings on the subject:
A college teacher who is granted tenure need not publish anything ever again. He will be paid for merely showing up to class. The number of classes that he teaches declines. He is immune from dismissal. This is the bureaucrat's dream come true.
The quest for tenure emasculates people. It turns them into intellectual geldings. They must please the tenured bureaucrats who hand out The Prize. The goal of every academic department is mediocrity within the department. The screeners do not want to hire anyone who will show them up, making them look second-rate at best. They also do not want to bring in anyone so incompetent that the university's administration may intervene to investigate. The requirement for tenure is clear: Don't rock the boat. He who succeeds in not rocking the boat long enough is more likely to be granted tenure, although these days, hardly anyone is. The good old days are fading.
Tenure-seekers look for a risk-free career, in which they will receive far above-market wages, yet be immune from market forces. Tenure is the dream of every bureaucrat. The offer of tenure lures intelligent people into lives of high-salaried irrelevance. They write narrow, useless papers for publication in journals that no one reads, except in a quest for footnotes to steal.
It also creates envy on a massive scale: envy that is directed against those who have achieved relevance outside the cocoon of the halls of ivy.Guess Who's Not Getting Invited to the Fed's Centennial Birthday Party This Year?
Picture of the Day
Obama's Implementation of the KISS Principle: 20,000 pages--and counting. And if you like our federal tax short form, you'll be delighted with the ObamaCare application:
The AP got its hands on a draft of the application for people who aren’t already covered by an employer’s plan, Medicare or Medicaid. For a family of three, it runs 15 pages. Once submitted, it will be scrutinized by the IRS (to verify income), the Social Security Administration (to verify identity) and Homeland Security (to verify citizenship).
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| Courtesy of Agora Financial |
Political Cartoon
My favorite cartoonist, IBD's Michael Ramirez, hits a home run--probably hits the most principal theme through the history of this blog, the burden of this President's profligate spending enslaving future generations of taxpayers.
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| Courtesy of Michael Ramirez and IBD |
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| Courtesy of Lisa Benson and Townhall |
Journey, "Send Her My Love". Not one of their biggest hits, but pure pop magic and Steve Perry's great pipes.
