[Loud Mime]

It may be a post-hoc fallacy, but after covering Federalist 62, Mr. Rush did the same on his show. Perhaps he reads our thread as well.... ;^)

Current politics advises us to return to one of the writings of Mr. Bastiat.

Enjoy!

If you would like to be on the Quotes ping list, please ping me!

[nothingnew]

Thus, in order to make plunder appear just and sacred to many consciences, it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it.

Indeed!

Excellent post LM...Please add me to your ping-list. TIA

FMCDH(BITS)

[sourcery]

The Right to Liberty

[TurtleUp]

philosophy - at its best

[mick]

Thanks for the post....ping for later

[YHAOS]

1.1 In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

1.2 There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

1.3 Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

1.4 The same thing, of course, is true of health and morals. Often, the sweeter the first fruit of a habit, the more bitter are its later fruits: for example, debauchery, sloth, prodigality. When a man is impressed by the effect that is seen and has not yet learned to discern the effects that are not seen, he indulges in deplorable habits, not only through natural inclination, but deliberately.

1.5 This explains man's necessarily painful evolution. Ignorance surrounds him at his cradle; therefore, he regulates his acts according to their first consequences, the only ones that, in his infancy, he can see. It is only after a long time that he learns to take account of the others. Two very different masters teach him this lesson: experience and foresight. Experience teaches efficaciously but brutally. It instructs us in all the effects of an act by making us feel them, and we cannot fail to learn eventually, from having been burned ourselves, that fire burns. I should prefer, in so far as possible, to replace this rude teacher with one more gentle: foresight. For that reason I shall investigate the consequences of several economic phenomena, contrasting those that are seen with those that are not seen.

. . . . . Frédéric Bastiat, What Is Seen and What Is Not Seen

Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae. Anyone?

Chris Dodd & Bawney Fwank. Still in their diapers?

Thanks, Loud Mime, for the beep.

[Billthedrill]

Bastiat BTT. This is an economist who - gasp! - actually ran a business before he started to write. Brilliant stuff, and thanks for posting.

[LearsFool]

Thanks for the ping.

I particularly like Bastiat’s description of welfare as “organized beggary”.

[jla]

fyi