The Punctuated Progress Of Free Markets

In the Domestic Encyclopedia, or a Dictionary of Facts, and Useful Knowledge, Volume III, Murray and Highle, published in 1882 and available as a Google ebook, we see the following entry under the title LEAD:

[...]

Lead, when taken or inhaled into the human body, is productive of various fatal disorders, to which miners, potters, and all other persons concerned in its manufacture are peculiarly subject. Hence culinary vessels, or other domestic utensils made of this metal, are highly objectionable, especially if they are intended to contain cyder or other acid liquor. 

In whatever form lead may be introduced into the human body, it is equally deleterious and fatal, whether its vapours be inhaled through the lungs, absorbed through the pores of the skin, or particles of the metal betaken into the stomach. The only effectual antidotes to this Insidious poison are, antimonial emetics; and, after them, die internal use of liver of sulphur, together with vegetable oils, both externally and internally, should be liberally continued...

 The article was published in 1882, yet we still have paints recently used that have contained lead. Recently it has been a gasoline additive , ethyl, that was combusted into the air.

Compare this history to that of asbestos.... or tobacco.

History is repealed when there is profit to be made. The science of the past is forgotten, and what are we but rich and wealthy troglodytes? We think we are progressing, but we are enriching ourselves in one step, while taking four steps backwards in the other important areas of life.,

I hope Climate Science does not eventuate in a similar idiocy.

--

Egypt's Elections: The Full Haircut

Egypt has had elections and we are hearing about it:
http://www.thenation.com/blog/164900/catastrophe-egypt-islamists-win-military-rules

Catastrophe in Egypt: Islamists Win, Military Rules

Robert Dreyfuss on December 1, 2011 - 8:55am ET

There’s no spinning this one: the parliamentary elections in Egypt are an unmitigated disaster. The right-wing, reactionary Muslim Brotherhood is on its way to claiming 40 percent of the vote, and the even more reactionary, violence-prone Koran-thumpers of the Salafist movement Nour are winning 25 percent.
Imagine if the Bible-thumping partisans of Rev. Pat Robertson ilk won the presidency for their deranged preacher-god, and you get the picture.
It’s a disaster not for the United States, which will probably end up doing business fine with the Brotherhood. Nor is it a real disaster for Israel, although the Israelis will use the Brotherhood victory as yet another excuse not to make a deal on Palestine. Who’ll suffer most from the vote now is the people of Egypt themselves, as a two-thirds majority in parliament steers the country toward separate-sex education, veil-wearing women, corrupt Islamic banking empires backed by Qatar and Saudi Arabia and various forms of ersatz-sharia laws that propel Egypt backwards.

I do not wish to dispute with Mr. Dreyfuss. This is his opinion, and maybe he will be correct... for a while.
His language is that of the man with an agenda, and his logic is intricately interwoven with metaphors and images which are designed to create fear and repulsion in our minds. That is the way such things are done.

However, I believe that everything that Mankind does comes from our God-given intelligence, and - therefore - all human phenomena are closely related. I think of it as "One Thing is Everything", by which I force myself to remember that not only "nothing human [is] remote from me", but also that nothing human is remote from any other human thing.
Life created by human behavior is a mixture and medley, sometimes well-mixed and impossible to disentangle - like cream into coffee; sometimes things settle out and the mixture becomes layered and defined - like drops of vinegar in the oil... but everything is very "Cousin, Cousine"... meaning - to my mind - a family affair.
(Personally, I have always had the highest regard for the people of Egypt and I think they will be a beacon to the world in time.)

Therefore, I see the parallels between Sociology and Economics. If a country democratically wishes to be dysfunctional, let the sequence of events play out, just as some economists have cautioned us to let the bankruptcy of nations play out: after the pain, things will get better.

And I believe this. I am no friends of Salafists, whether they are "Koran-thumpers" (it should be "Quran"... I dislike sloppiness) or not. However, if a nation wishes to plunge itself into the 12th century or the 21st, that is its prerogative.
Even though many radicals are violent, their violence is mostly directed at their friends and neighbors; very few seek the route of international terrorism. (Of course, international terrorism was born within two long-term events: the Arab-Israeli conflict starting in 1948 and continuing to this day, and the radicalization of Arab youths caught up in that conflict. In a sense, we made hatred international by our inability to solve the issue.)
There may be burkas and fatwas flying, but the painful results are all to the Egyptians, not to anyone else. If they wish to inflict injury - or blessings - upon themselves, they are a free people. I no longer wish to be in the midst of armed conflicts part of whose justification is the fact that the indigenous enemy in the land in which we fight "oppresses their own women" or "stones adulterers". As repugnant as those practices are, to claim them as justifications for our interventions is an insult to our serious mindedness and those who are dying for our ill-defined aims.

My opinion is let the "Market of Society" be free to find its own level. Some regulation is necessary, but for the most part, things will work out the way Markets dictate - for what are Markets but the emergent behavior of our own habitual behaviors?

If Egyptians want to issue bonds of spiritual corruption, they are the only buyers and they will get the full "haircut" when the time of possible default comes.
--

note
A haircut, in the financial industry, is a percentage discount that's applied informally to the market value of a stock or the face value of a bond in an attempt to account for the risk of loss that the investment poses.
 http://financial-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Haircut

Market Failure

There were about 42 million Americans without Health insurance whne George Bush took office. At present, there are about 49 million. From this I conclude that the so-called "free market" ( since Bear Stearns we call them the "free BS markets") for health provision has failed, and cannot provide health care to the Americans who require it. If so-called free markets fail, then they must be replaced. Some may say that the markets did not fail, rather they find no profit in delivering health care to those who cannot afford it at present. Free markets are supposed to fill those needs, to supply the demand, not to carve the nations up into the haves and the have-nots. A free market does not ignore, it finds ways through the genius of the interplay of market forces. Right now, American free markets for health care are BS. What about commodities markets? What about the prices of staple commodities being driven up by speculation in commodities markets? The hedge funds and the speculators making a good deal of money warn against any kind of intervention. The commissioners of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission do so also. (http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,549187,00.html) Do not get me wrong. I am not necessarily in favor of government intervention, but I know a bubble - or a quasi-bubble - when I see one. If government had done some well-timed and fairly intelligent ( ha! ) intervention on past bubbles...who knows? When people riot for food that is so scarce, markets have failed. Period. There is no hedge fund operator, no speculator, no grand panjandrum of the Commission On Bunkum that can change that reality. When Bear Stearns suffers, we are moved to pity. When the people of America suffer, we muse about future palliatives. When the peoples of the entire world starve, we urge restraint on our pity and caution against an over-the-week-end bail-out of hungry stomachs! What absolute trash!