As Thomas Paine wrote in The Rights of Man, “War is the common harvest of all those who participate in the division and expenditure of public money, in all countries. It is the art of conquering at home: the object of it is an increase of revenue; and as revenue cannot be increased without taxes, a pretence must be made for expenditures. In reviewing the history of the English government, its wars and its taxes, a by-stander, not blinded by prejudice, nor warped by interest, would declare, that taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.”

We are all familiar with ideas said to be ahead of their time, Babbage’s analytical engine and da Vinci’s helicopter are classic examples. We are also familiar with ideas “of their time,” ideas that were “in the air” and thus were often simultaneously discovered such as the telephone, calculus, evolution, and color photography. What is less commented on is the third possibility, ideas that could have been discovered much earlier but which were not, ideas behind their time.

How you construct your rhetoric tells volumes about the underlying strength of your argument. Abusing data, appealing to emotions, ignoring facts, shifting the debate to secondary or tertiary issues is a sign of weak position, or a poorly reasoned thesis. Learn to recognize the difference between powerful arguments and clever, weak ones.

Risks to the Downside

China is overheating.
India is overheating.
Philippines, Thailand and Singapore are all in contraction.
Growth in South Korea, Taiwan and Indonesia has slowed markedly.
Contagion threatens Spain.
The property bubble in Australia is busting.
Ireland cannot possibly pay back its debts.
Greece needs an extension.
US corporate bond sales have collapsed.
There are significant tax cut and unemployment insurance issues in the US.

When I teach a segment on Canada’s extreme price controls on health care–set typically at zero for the patient–I ask my students what they think would result. What I’m expecting them to say, and they often do say, is that there will be queues for health care. But the common answer they often give is that there will be a black market with side payments to doctors. My usual response is that I have not seen evidence of this. Well, now there is evidence.

ANY Ireland bailout terms are onerous given that it is not Ireland that is bailed out but rather banks in the UK, Germany, US, and France (in that order). Moreover and unfortunately, the exact deal foolishly agreed to by Irish Prime Minister Brian Cowen is not only amazingly bad for Ireland, but one of the provisions violates EU and Irish law.