From: hallam@Etna.ai.mit.edu
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 1996 14:29:23 +0800
To: perry@piermont.com
Subject: Re: [NOISE] Buying whales with digicash Re: Anonymous stock trades.
In-Reply-To: <199606082240.SAA21523@jekyll.piermont.com>
Message-ID: <9606090229.AA06296@Etna.ai.mit.edu>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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>>Since you were so certain that Hess was not a staff member of the
>>Cato institute despite being listed as such on their home page

>He isn't. My whole point about P.J. O'Rourke should have made that
>point,

Perry, one last time:

The POINT is that you CORRECTED me in saying Hess was a Cato Institute staff 
member when the Cato Institute THEMSELVES list him as a staff member.

Your correction was ILL INFORMED and WRONG to continue to present this as an 
example of my being in error is somewhat stupid.

It wouldn't be so bad Perry but you can't resist calling someone an imbecile 
when they say something you disagree with. I may occasionaly post without 
checking my facts but I don't call someone a fool without checking my facts. 
When Perry mentioned Hess I did a search on Alta-Vista, found his work at the 
Cato Institute and read it. Unfortunately that search produced hits for the 
father as well as the son but the papers were all by the son. 

P.J. O' Rourke is also listed as a Cato staff member. So to describe him as such 
would NOT be inaccurate. It might not be the best way to describe O'Rourke but 
it would not be an incorrect way.

If you happen to know that the Cato institute is lying then thats another 
matter. Its not unknown for lobby groups to fill out their staff lists with 
bogus placemen but if O'Rourke isn't happy about being called a Staff member of 
Cato presumably his lawyers would be issuing letters. Certainly I would not call 
someone a fool for believing the Insititute of Historical Review when they 
falsely claim that A.J.P.Taylor was a supporter of their position. I might 
correct them and point out that the IHR was lying but I would not 


>>I have heard numerous claims that monopolies cannot ever exist under
>>any circumstances unless they are created by government.
>
>I've never heard that, but I myself have made the argument that they
>are very rare without government intervention. 

Its not a debate that I think its worth having with you and its a pointless 
debate in any case. There is no large company in the world which does not 
interact with government agencies and is not affected by government regulations. 
It is impossible to attribute cause and effect and say what would have been the 
case had government not been involved. The deBeers Diamond cartel was formed by 
Rhodes because he had the only steam pump in South Africa, not because of any 
governmental favours. It has continued because it is in the interests of all 
suppliers to maintain the false price. Granted that the current state of the 
diamond market may not last another twenty years it has already survived a 
century.

Of course monopolies will be rare, by their nature there can only be one in any 
particular industrial sector.


>Of course, thank goodness the U.K. has some of the strictest gun
>control in the world, since it stops these sorts of
>incidents. (I'll point out for Dr. Hallam-Baker's benefit that this
>sentence was "sarcasm".)

Actually it turns out that they are not all that tight after all. But don't 
worry, this is being fixed. 


>And yes, if she'd been carrying not a Kalashnikov rifle but just a
>simple pistol in her pocket she might indeed have been able to shoot
>the guy. I realize this may come as a shock to you, but in a fire
>fight the winner is the guy who fires accurately first, not the guy
>with the longer gun.

Is it just me or is the idea that teachers should be armed with lethal weapons 
somewhat a silly one. For a start the number of teachers who crack and plug a 
youngster being a pain would probably be higher than the current number of 
schools masacres. Secondly it may be just me but I suspect that Hamilton would 
have been the person to shoot first in the Dunblane trajedy.



>Since you are either misreporting or inventing the comments you
>attribute to Friedman and can neither cite the actual article nor
>produce quotes from it, I don't think its entirely fair for you to
>make claims about his position.

Perry, I do not carry a full archive of press clippings arround with me! I gave 
you the reference, you have the opportunity to look it up if you have access to 
an online service with archives from English papers. 


>Amazing how time after time even weak Adam Smithian analysis works
>just fine. Impose price controls on gasoline, and watch shortages form
>when supplies change, as in 1973. 

Perry, you are entirely neglecting the effect of a little cartel in the middle 
east that got together to deliberately force up the price of oil called OPEC. 
While nobody in the west is likely to support their action its a bit rich for 
you to claim that shortages resulted from domestic policy when the oil producing 
countries enacted a deliberate policy to force the price of oil up. From the 
supplier country point of view its hard to argue that the OPEC move was a bad 
one, it allowed them to drastically increase the value of their oil stocks. Its 
a pity that little of that reached the people in those countries but that is 
capitalism for you.


>Ask all the people defecting from Cuba if they think your way is
>better some time. Be prepared to wipe the spit off your face.


Perry you are worse than a fool. I have never been an appologist for Castro or 
his self serving ideology. It is ideologues like Castro and yourself who do the 
real damage. By idealogue I mean someone who tries to pretend that society can 
be organised according to a single overarching principle which is believed in as 
an article of faith. 


		Phill