links for 2010-02-08

1. Body in Mind | Capitalism saves beautiful women

   There was probably some misrepresentation of the collectivist position in there somewhere. I wasn't really paying attention. (NSFW!-nudity)

2. World Socialist Web Site | Rio Tinto Borax locks out 570 California mine workers

   Socialists have a love/hate relationship with management. When they are working under management, management is the villain because it exploits the workers. When management does not allow them to work because they refuse to sign an exploitive contract, management is again the villain for declining to exploit the workers. The attitude is summed up well in this statement: "Merrilees added, '[Mgmt] want[s] to be able to pick and choose who works, who doesn’t, who gets promoted, who gets raises and who gets what jobs,' He said, 'To their credit, people are standing up and saying, 'Enough is enough….'" What seems to be a fairly fundamental and necessary managerial task is unacceptable to Merilees. Merilees apparently believes that management should be prohibited from paying and retaining workers on the basis of individual worker productivity. To me, this is unfair. More productive workers should be paid more and have greater opportunity for promotion than less productive workers.

links for 2010-02-07

1. Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) | Obama's Drug War Budget Destroys the Myth of Change

   Strong rebuke for the White House's 2010 drug war budget.

2. Mises Economics Blog | "Who dat" owns the term "Super Bowl"? – Douglas French

   Commenting on the trademark infringement involving the term "Super Bowl".

3. Mises Institute | Wage Earners and Employers – Ludwig von Mises

   More reason not to fear the Citizens United case: "It is a myth that there prevails a conflict between the interests of the corporations and firms and those of the people employed by them. In fact, good profits and high real wages go hand in hand." —Still, though, I'm hearing from many different sources that the court brought up the First Amendment issue "sua sponte". If this is true, as it is looking more likely to be, I would consider that to be 'judicial activism'. I will have to update my prior posts where I denied the claim….

links for 2010-02-06

1. TrueMajority.org | Aggressive Progressive: Fix the Budget, Fix America

   I agree here with Drew Hudson that we should cut the defense budget, as we should cut the budget everywhere else. By "restarting the economy", I hope he means returning that money to the American taxpayers.

2. Link TV | Dean's Beans Blog: Lords of the Ring: Who Determines the Price of Coffee?

   If nobody is willing to pay the farmers their production costs, then what does that say about the market's need for coffee? What will happen—what should happen—is that is that farmers will and should give up making coffee and find something else to do to provide for themselves. It's not easy to say to a large swath of South Americans: "Well, look, your coffee culture is obsolete. International traders are no longer willing to pay for what you do." But if that's the reality, then so be it. Part of the equation is: who is selling coffee at below the cost of production, and why? If big international coffee corporations are making a killing selling coffee, and if they actually want to survive, then they will do well not to bankrupt their suppliers. They should consider offering the farmers enough for the crop so that the farmers can keep their businesses going. The farmers should consider another line of work if nobody is willing to offer them enough to keep their business going.