Comments for Inertia Wins!

Comment on Another Dubious TSA Trifecta by Alexandra

Alexandra — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:42:24 +0000

His name is ‘Kip’. Give the guy a break.

Comment on In Which Penguins Earn My Admiration and Respect by Alexandra

Alexandra — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 15:37:26 +0000

I have to ask. Which finger? Better yet, don’t tell me. Just let me dream.

Comment on Regulation of the Day 218: Bagpipes by Alexandra

Alexandra — Mon, 16 Apr 2012 16:16:30 +0000

Bagpipes, played well,can make you smile or make you weep with emotion. Bagpipes played badly can make you homicidal. Risky business, those pipes.

Comment on Justice Department Should Drop Apple Lawsuit by Paul Jackson

Paul Jackson — Wed, 11 Apr 2012 19:21:48 +0000

“Given Amazon’s much larger share of the e-book market, Apple is hardly in a position to price its products uncompetitively. If consumers feel overcharged, they can easily give their business to Amazon or Barnes & Noble instead – possibly by using Apple’s own products!”

This misses the point of the issue … consumers cannot easily give their business elsewhere if they feel they’re overcharged, because the pricing model was changed by those five publishers to set the price, not the reseller. Amazon or anyone else is prohibited from selling the book at any other price, even if they want to.

With a hardcover book, Amazon buys it for $x and can sell it for any price they wish, even at a loss. With eBooks now, they must charge the price set by the publisher and there is NO competition whatsoever on price between the resellers.

Comment on Sources of Economic Error by K. Hansen

K. Hansen — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 14:32:01 +0000

Thanks for sharing, Ryan!

It is refreshing to see the public discourse trend away from Keynes and more toward the Austrian school.

Comment on Adam Smith on Lotteries by The Surest Way to Win Is Not to Play | Inertia Wins!

The Surest Way to Win Is Not to Play | Inertia Wins! — Sat, 31 Mar 2012 23:30:46 +0000

[...] is not a new insight. As Adam Smith put it back in 1776 (previously posted here): There is not, however, a more certain proposition in mathematics, than that the more tickets you [...]

Comment on The Arts: Voltaire vs. Rousseau by Alexandra

Alexandra — Thu, 15 Mar 2012 02:32:41 +0000

Though it has nothing to do with Voltaire, if you haven’t already read it, you might enjoy “The Philosophers’ Quarrel, Rousseau, Hume, and the Limits of Human understanding” by Robert Zaretsky and John T. Scott. It presents very human and sometimes small minded portrait of Rousseau more than Hume, It goes deeper than just their amazing lack of insight regarding each other as well as themselves, but discusses the various Enlightenments, i.e. High and Low, French, German, British and Scottish, distinguished, as the book says, from one another by various political, social and cultural traits.

Comment on Back to Work by Alexandra

Alexandra — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 16:58:35 +0000

I can’t resist. “It Takes a Village.”

Comment on Regulation of the Day 212: Locating Your Newsstand by Alexandra

Alexandra — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:37:14 +0000

This sounds like a case for The Institute for Justice – er – Superman!

Comment on Regulation of the Day 92: Camping at the Beach by Regulation of the Day 209: Playing on the Beach

Regulation of the Day 209: Playing on the Beach — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 21:03:00 +0000

[...] shall not camp on or use for overnight sleeping purposes any beach[.]” (p. 20; Oregon has a similar law)“No person shall operate any model airplane, boat, helicopter, or similar craft… except in an [...]