OWS as Tantrum

I enjoyed this commentary from Canada's National Post. An excerpt:

The lawns on which they park, the buildings in front of which they demonstrate, the mass media that gives them attention, the universities many of them attended – the very luxury that allows whole swathes of people to take two or three months, squat in a downtown park, and apparently live quite satisfactorily – all came from, or was enabled by, the system they thoughtlessly despise. Not to mention that all those iPhones and laptops, the backpacks and sneakers, the espresso machines and digital cameras didn’t manufacture themselves. The Occupiers are only too comfortable using the products and the largesse of capitalism while railing against it.

Some people try to make the movement’s incoherence, its refusal to declare what its goals are, as something approaching a strategy in itself. Ah, yes – the old “we have no strategy” strategy. Apparently, not knowing what you’re doing or where you wish to go is now something of a mystic state. Declining to nominate a spokesman, decrying the very idea of leaders and leadership, working to “consense” all your scattered issues is the new way of building a movement.

Thanking the 1%

Thanking the productive: Alex Epstein has a good piece on giving thanks to the 1% (though somehow a few typo's crept in).

Setting the Historical Record Straight

Brook and Watkins do a nice job showing what life was like for the minority of the poor before the rise of the Entitlement State.

Downsize Government by Selling Assets

Even without invoking the principle of individual rights or the question of the proper role of government, I think that articles such as this one can help return government to its proper scope and role.

California's Woes

This is a good story outlining how California's politics have negatively impacted business and employment in the state. And judging by this quote, things aren't likely to improve in the short term:

Similarly, though an older Jerry Brown—returned to the governor’s office in 2010—has acknowledged that California’s approach to retaining businesses may need some work, his administration considers worry about the business environment overblown. “Rhetoric aside, there are many indications that California is outperforming most of the country from an economic and productivity standpoint,” Joel Ayala, director of the governor’s Office of Economic Development, said earlier this year.

Ann Barnhardt Quits

Scary stuff:

Dear Clients, Industry Colleagues and Friends of Barnhardt Capital Management,

It is with regret and unflinching moral certainty that I announce that Barnhardt Capital Management has ceased operations. After six years of operating as an independent introducing brokerage, and eight years of employment as a broker before that, I found myself, this morning, for the first time since I was 20 years old, watching the futures and options markets open not as a participant, but as a mere spectator.

The reason for my decision to pull the plug was excruciatingly simple: I could no longer tell my clients that their monies and positions were safe in the futures and options markets – because they are not. And this goes not just for my clients, but for every futures and options account in the United States. The entire system has been utterly destroyed by the MF Global collapse. Given this sad reality, I could not in good conscience take one more step as a commodity broker, soliciting trades that I knew were unsafe or holding funds that I knew to be in jeopardy.

CIP

Congrats to Alex Epstein for getting much deserved publicity for his Center for Industrial progress: PJMedia, Objective Standard Blog.

John MacKay Wants Increased Economic Freedom

Not principled enough, but the proposals outlined in this WSJ editorial would definitely buy us time.

Ayn Rand on NPR

It's encouraging to see this kind of exposure at NPR of all places: 1, 2.

The Market is Selfishness

I enjoyed Dr. Brook's recent talk at FEE on Ayn Rand's Moral Defense of Capitalism:

Motivation by Love

Steve Job's sister eulogy. (The eulogy reminded me of Ayn Rand's deep insight into the nature of joy and happiness, i.e. that they come from the achievement of values; they can't be equated with the absence of pain.)