Great Essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates

It's in the Atlantic and it's called "Why do so few blacks study the civil war?"

It rejects the idea that the war was a tragedy; that is was a result of a failure to compromise, or of misunderstandings, the romanticizing of the gentlemanly southern generals.

Money quote:

For African Americans, war commenced not in 1861, but in 1661, when the Virginia Colony began passing America’s first black codes, the charter documents of a slave society that rendered blacks a permanent servile class and whites a mass aristocracy. They were also a declaration of war.

The final part of Charles Mann's excellent 1493 gives a good overview of the war between Europeans and slaves fought across the Americas.

The answer to the question is "nothing"

Tyler asks, What happens in the Super Committee Fails?

I answer, Nothing of any significance.

Less than $1 trillion in actual cumulative total spending cuts ($167 billion is "interest savings") starting in Fiscal 2013 and going on for the next 8 years after that.

Pretty much nothing happens to entitlements. Defense is cut an average of $50 billion per year (from a base level of around $900 billion +).

Look, we are spending $3.6 trillion + every year! Knocking $95 billion/year off for 9 years is really less than chump change.

Of course the Super Committee will fail; failure is basically costless.

If at first you don't succeed....

bail, bail again!

Looks like some "soft" haircuts will be included in "Grease II", the amazingly cheesy codename for the second round of EU bailouts for Greece.

They won't call it a default, and they'll probably try to make sure that whatever happens doesn't trigger default events in outstanding CDS contracts, but (a) it's a default, and (b) it won't be enough this time either.

I don't understand why the PIG countries just don't flat out default and be done with it. They are destroying their economies for the sake of German and French bankers.

Public Choice readings revisited

Recently, LeBron gave his reading list for Public Choice

I'd like to chip in with a Public Choice reading list for people who don't want to be bored to death!!

These three will teach you everything you need to know and keep you entertained and turning the pages. You'll learn PC by accident!

1. "Catch-22", Joseph Heller

2. "Parliament of Whores", P.J. O'Roarke

3. "Misadventures of the Most Favored Nations", Paul Blustein

On a more academic note, Olson's "Rise and Decline" just gets too much wrong to recommend it; I'd pick "Logic of Collective Action" instead, along with "An Economic Theory of Democracy", "An Economic Interpretation of the Constitution of the United States", "The Calculus of Consent" (though this book is *very* uneven), and "The Theory of Committees & Elections" (Scots wha hae and all that).

When it comes to textbooks, Mungo and the late Mel Hinich cooked up a great one with "Analytical Politics".

I think the way for people to learn about a subject is to read entertaining works that illustrate the subject in action rather than to bang their heads on encyclopedic reference works.

I learned a lot about the sub-prime crisis from reading "The Big Short" just by accident while being absorbed in a terrific story.

Why Bruce Bartlett is hopeless

I'm not sure what to make of this post from Bruce Bartlett, called "Why fixing the budget is hopeless"

He cites a survey where 848 Americans think 25% of the Federal budget is spent on foreign aid and 10% is given as the ideal amount.

He then points out that official bilateral foreign aid in 2009 was less than 1% of the Federal budget.

First, taking everything at face value, I am not sure why this means fixing the budget is hopeless.

Second, there is a hell of a lot more to foreign aid that "bilateral foreign aid". There's US contributions to multilateral aid agencies, then there's NATO, there's our military presence in Japan, South Korea, etc., there's whatever the heck we're still doing in Iraq after a second president has said "mission accomplished". I'm not saying it's 25%, but it's way way way more than 0.6%.

Why take a question where the definition of aid is not given and could easily be construed broadly and match the answer to a very distinct, narrow definition of aid?

Unless of course, you're hopeless!

Homeless

After his second round match against the previously invincible Peter Polansky, James Blake thumped his chest and proclaimed that the US Open was "his house".

I guess he forgot the facts that (a) he has never actually won the US Open (or even gotten past the quarters in this, or any other Slam), (b) he only got into his house in the first place by virtue of the USTA giving him a wild card, and (c) his next opponent would be Novak Djokovic.

After the slinky Serb routinely dispatched Blake in straight sets last night, I told Mrs. Angus that poor James was now homeless and probably would be sleeping in the bus station.

What do you call a lawyer wearing a bow tie?

Let's just say it's something that Pablo Picasso was never called (at least not in New York):

Raymond E. Stauffer was shopping at a New Jersey mall when he noticed something peculiar about the bow ties on display at Brooks Brothers: They were labeled with old patent numbers.

Mr. Stauffer, who calls himself a "sharp-dressed man," also happens to be a patent lawyer. He sued Brooks Brothers Inc. in federal court, claiming it broke the law by marking its adjustable bow ties with patents that expired in the 1950s.

And of course we are off to the races:

Marking a tube of toothpaste or paper cup with a patent that is out of date or doesn't exist has been against the law for years. It is considered anticompetitive. Until late last year, the most a violator had to worry about was paying a $500 penalty for misleading the public.

But in December, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington ruled that defendants could be held responsible for up to $500 per offense.

Lawyers for product manufacturers now fear clients are liable for up to $500 for every tube of mascara or box of garbage bags marked with an expired patent—an error that turns out to be quite common.

In recent months, would-be plaintiffs have been fanning out across retail stores and the Internet searching for expired patent numbers on everything from toothpaste to toilet plungers.

I have to admit that to me the most baffling part of this story is that there once were patents on bow ties and toilet plungers!

Someone's in the kitchen with China

People, I am so tired of hearing about how China's fixed exchange rate is ruining America. We don't need any help ruining America, we are doing it just fine all by ourselves.

I wouldn't even put China's exchange rate policy in the top 10 list of bad things about China.

Lets see....

1. Their support for regimes like North Korea

2. Their throwing of a spanner into possibly helpful international agreements

3. The massive censorship of information they attempt to impose on their citizens

4. Their incredible pollution problem

5. The fact that their citizens cannot move freely around the country

6. The fact that their citizens cannot freely practice any religion they might choose

7. The degree of command and control that the party imposes on the economy

8. The fact that their citizens cannot freely choose the number of children to have

9. The level of infanticide caused by the previous item

10. Their actions and attitudes toward Tibet and Taiwan

YIKES!!