EclectEcon

Salim Mansur, writing in the Trono Sun, has a careful statement of why western cultures are in danger of being swamped if they continue to pursue multi-culturalism without regard for the ethics and culture of individual freedom:

The most pressing issue in the West at the present time relates to culture and not the economy....

At the core of this culture is the affirmation that an individual irrespective of gender and colour represents the centre of the liberal world's ethical foundation. This was a radically altered vision of humanity rejecting the view that an individual is an appendage of the collective -- tribe, caste or class -- into which he or she is born.

The triumph of the West as the second millennium ended was a confirmation of this liberal idea, however incomplete and with distance still to go, of freedom and democracy. ...

But the worm inside the multicultural apple was the mistaken view that the West could extend equal treatment to other cultures based on group identity without concomitant erosion of its own cultural value of individual freedom.

Multiculturalism weakened the argument that newcomers should adjust to the cultural values of the West by adopting the guilt-ridden notion that any such demand smacks of imperialism....

It became a one-way concession in which the West did the conceding and non-Westerners made rising demands....

The West is now exposed to the paradox of how self-generated loss of cultural identity is politically weakening in a global village, and the task ahead is for its recovery from multicultural delusion by reasserting once again values that made it strong and appealing to the rest.

48%

I wonder if that means there is a 52% chance I would be the main course....

Just remember, folks: old meat is tough and not very tasty.

[h/t to Brian Ferguson; I'm not sure I want to learn what his score was. Maybe the optimal strategy when planning a trip is to make sure you travel with at least some people who have lower scores than your own.]

Update: Be sure to read the comments! Also, Ms. Eclectic informs me that she scored 31%. Rondi scored 20% -- down in the "great travel partner" range!

Nouriel Roubini writes about the sub-prime mortgage market meltdown and, with considerable justification, points out that he was warning about this problem long ago.

On my modest side last August, when I started to forecast a recession in the US in 2007 by Q2 that would be triggered by the housing bust, I also argued that this housing bust would soon also lead to serious risks and distress in the financial system. I pointed out that such stress and vulnerabilities would first be noticed in the subprime segment of the mortgage market as many (but not all of) of the excesses of the last few years in mortgage finance were concentrated in this market. I pointed out that the housing bubble and the credit bubble associated with it reckless lending practices and with regulator being asleep at the wheel while this unregulated gambling was taking place. I argued that the result would be financial distress and bankruptcy for many lenders and a systemic banking crisis similar to - or most likely worse than - the S&L crisis.

Here is what I wrote on this topic last August. And a year before that, I linked to a statement by Ed Leamer that a recession would follow the bursting of the housing bubble sometime this year.

And here was my own dismal forecast from last October.

I can readily imagine US GDP growth rates of less than an annualized rate of 1% a year from now, and I just hope the Fed has enough foresight and control to keep them from turning negative.

Update:Dave Altig has much more, with some illuminating graphs, about the mortgage markets.

Jack sent me the link to this YouTube video, showing a guy snowboarding down an amazingly steep mountain face after having been heli-lifted to the peak.

Terje's First Descent



I can't believe the guy actually made it down that slope without severely injuring himself. After watching the video, I began to wonder what would have happened if the snowboarder had needed to be rescued.

• How much would a rescue of an injured snowboarder cost?
• Are rescued heli-skiers/snowboarders required to indemnify their rescuers for all the costs?
• How are these costs determined?
• Are just direct/marginal costs calculated, or are rescuees expect to contribute toward the overhead costs as well?

Are heli-skiers and snowboarders required to purchase rescue insurance or post a rescue bond? They should be. As members of a caring society, we would not likely leave an injured skier/snowboarder on the slopes because s/he didn't have enough money to pay for a rescue, so it makes sense to require that they buy insurance in advance; otherwise they have an incentive to externalize the rescue costs onto the rest of society.

Christopher Hitchens has a new book, God Is Not Great, in which he argues that all three of the major religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) have been and are responsible for tonnes of evil. In many respects, I fear, he is correct. Here are some quotes from a recent item in The National Post [sorry, no link]:

In the Harry Potteresque Great Hall at the University of Toronto this week, two security men were poised for a confrontation, and with good reason.

Christopher Hitchens was explaining why he hates religion: Islam, because it exhibits a “horrible trio of self-hatred, self-righteousness and self-pity” while making a “cult of death, suicide and murder,” and Judaism, because it leads to Christianity. “I am absolutely convinced that the main source of hatred in the world is religion,” the famously contrarian journalist and author told an appreciative crowd of undergraduates gathered to hear him explain why freedom of speech should include the freedom to hate.

“Look anywhere you like, to slavery, to the subjugation of women as chattel, to the burning and flogging of homosexuals, to ethnic cleansing, to anti-Semitism, for all of this look no further than a famous book that is on every pulpit in this city, and in every synagogue and every mosque. And then you’ll see whether you can square this circle: that the force that is the main source of hatred is also the main caller for censorship,” he said.

These views seem to be a logical of extension of Hitchens' criticism of Mother Teresa for being ineffective in reducing poverty, The Missionary Position.

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[h/t to Jack and to Dave Friedman]

From JH:
Katrinitis, definition: Severe inflammation; cause is ceaseless media coverage and brainless analysis of people who have chosen to live below sea level in a hurricane zone and believe they are entitled to lay off the risk thereof onto all taxpayers and become enraged when the tax dollars don't flow fast enough.

What is the cure?

Update: Rondi Adamson says Katrinitis is related to JonBenetitis, another disease afflicting the media.

What is the best way to amplify the damaging effects of a natural disaster? From The Emirates Economist:

Use the strong arm of the government to prevent foreign suppliers from rushing in when domestic supplies are disrupted.

Who loses? The consumer.

Of course, if foreign suppliers rush in, domestic suppliers will scream about "carpet-baggers" and "foreigners" ripping them off and exploiting them. But these complaints will be smoke to disguise their attempts to protect their local market power.

It is sad, but politicians will tend to respond to the arguments of domestic suppliers, not consumers, and the effects of the disaster are made all that much worse as a result.

As an example, EmEc links to this item, which points out that hurricanes Katrina and Rita severely damaged the U.S. sugar crop, thus shifting its supply curve to the left and nearly doubling the price of sugar. Opening the borders to imported sugar could help reduce the size of this effect...