Of course this applies broadly, but as far as I’m concerned this is a really poignant point on children. Still on his opus magnus, The Muqaddimah:
“Severity to students does them harm. This comes about as follows. Severe punishment in the course of instruction does harm to the student, especially to little children, because it belongs among the things that make for a bad habit. Students, bondsmen, and servants who are raised with injustice and arbitrary force are overcome by it. It causes them to feel oppressed and results in inertia. It makes them indolent and induces them to lie and be insincere. That is, their outward behavior differs from what they are thinking or feeling. This is because they fear that if they tell the truth, they will be punished and will suffer tyrannical treatment. Thus, they learn deceit and trickery. This becomes habitual and part of their character.
“They lose that attribute that accompanies all social and political organizations and gives people their humanity, namely, the ability to protect and defend themselves and their homes, and they in turn become dependent on others for this. Indeed, their souls become lazy and lose the desire to acquire the virtues and qualities of good character. This, in turn causes them to fall short of their human potential and never realize their humanity. As a result, they revert to the ‘lowest of the low’. This is what has happened to every people who have come under the yoke of tyranny and learned through it the meaning of injustice. This can easily be proven by simply looking at anyone who is not in control of his own affairs and has no authority on his side to guarantee his personal well-being.”
Laffer himself says so. “It should be known that at the beginning of the dynasty, taxation yields a large revenue from small assessments. At the end of the dynasty, taxation yields a small revenue from large assessments.“
I’m writing this blog just to get away from doing other more important things.
John Perry: “Procrastinators seldom do absolutely nothing; they do marginally useful things, like gardening or sharpening pencils or making a diagram of how they will reorganize their files when they get around to it. Why does the procrastinator do these things? Because they are a way of not doing something more important. If all the procrastinator had left to do was to sharpen some pencils, no force on earth could get him do it. However, the procrastinator can be motivated to do difficult, timely and important tasks, as long as these tasks are a way of not doing something more important.
Read more, maybe you can become an effective and useful procrastinator.
Masuk milis SMA mengingatkan saya ke banyak hal. Banyak kenangan.
Saya tidak akan mengatakan bahwa kenangan itu berguna karena kita bisa menarik pelajaran darinya. Pelajaran apa? Bagaimana menariknya? Kapan kepakainya? Setiap titik di kehidupan ini punya latar, warna dan koordinat yang berbeda. Kenangan dulu kadang malah merusak garis kita sekarang.
Ah, tapi mengenang juga memberikan diri kita ini identitas. Masak sih? Bukannya identitas setiap orang selalu berubah setiap saat di setiap titik. Banyak orang yang sekarang ada di koordinat yang berdekatan dengan kita, tapi punya kenangan masa lalu yang jauh dengan kita. Dan orang-orang yang kita kenang, bukannya sekarang identitas mereka sudah berjauhan dengan kita? Buktinya? Mereka harus kita kenang untuk hadir.
Saya ingin bisa mengenang harapan masa lalu. Tapi apa ada, berapa panjang? Semua harapan lalu itu pendek, selalu berubah. Itu yang harus diubah.
Saya ingin mengenang masa depan. Biar juga ingat masa depanku bukan melulu masa laluku.
Biar aku melihat titik yang menunggu di depan, dan belajar mencapainya.
Biar aku merasakan, mengharapkan, bergidik melihat calon-calon identitasku di masa depan.
Biar anak-anakku punya harapan yang dikenang, dan kenangan yang penuh harap.
Biar aku selalu berkenang ke hari penantian.
Update: Not quite potato chips, but soybean has Argentina’s economy on rebound.
Tell me again, why did we decide to start airplane industry instead of fostering the relatively low-tech industry such as computer chips, car parts, etc. It would be difficult for us to follow India due to our comparatively low skill level, but we have a lot to learn from China and our neighbors of south-east Asia.
You have to know what your strengths are and how to best utilize them. Lacking the strengths, you play within your ability. If you want to prosper you don’t choose your job for the prestige, you don’t take up an industry because it means you make a quantum leap into high tech world.
Russel Roberts of Cafe Hayek explains that your standard of living does not depend on the title on your business card. It does not matter if you make computer chips or potato chips. You choose the job that you do best.
“[I]f a nation’s skill level is low, making computer chips makes you poorer, not richer. It’s like me at 5′ 6′ deciding to be a basketball player because basketball players have high salaries.“
This pretty much sums it all (the school part).
I have to remember this:
“[M]athematics can establish the logical validity of an argument, …, econometrics can establish the empirical validity of an argument.
“However, math and econometrics are neither necessary nor sufficient for establishing the validity of an economic argument.”
Don Boudreaux: “Because voting is a decision-making institution in which each voter gets to express his opinions costlessly (that is, without direct, personal consequence), voters likely are rationally irrational.“
Russell Roberts, still in Cafe Hayek explains that voting to elect people with similar office is irrational because your vote is very unlikely to be a decisive vote. So your vote almost never matters. Why then we vote? Read the link. We vote because it’s a moral obligation and to be associated with others with similar identity.
Irrational, moral obligations, identity association. Hmm, seems to me the only reason to vote is an ideological one.
Somewhat a side note, we need goverment to eliminate externalities. How about that for an economic reason to vote?
Sometimes you wonder if, having moral virtues, whether people can police themselves. Not directly related, but this article gives you a picture of the need to have institution/system to maintain and control the rule of law:
“International law and transparency, we are told, are unnecessary because, unlike all of the other countries in the world, we are Americans, and we naturally believe in human rights and the rule of law. We need no special incentives to be good. But if history teaches us anything, it is that when governments, no matter how well they think of themselves, decide to free themselves from constraints, they become unconstrained, and when they refuse to make themselves accountable, they abuse their power. The only thing that has been lacking until now has been the proof of what everyone should already have known: that unchecked power leads to hubris, hubris leads to corruption, and corruption leads to violations of human rights.
Americans are proud of their devotion to democracy, human rights, and the rule of law. But these cannot exist without institutional preconditions: they cannot exist if government officials insist on complete secrecy, mock international covenants, and refuse to allow their actions to be tested and constrained by law.”
I honestly don’t know why there hasn’t been an outrage in the US. Do people really have such low expectations of their leaders? “The soft bigotry of low expectations means you can be seen to outperform by merely getting by.”
This cartoon really captures the nuances.