1930 WSJ Blog
A daily update is more detailed than I'd have liked. If he would do a summary paragraph or two each week, that would work well for me.
The blog is called "News from 1930"
A typical disclosure from a Fannie Mae prospectus states, "The Certificates, together with interest thereon, are not guaranteed by the United States. The obligations of Fannie Mae are obligations solely of the corporation and do not constitute an obligation of the United States or any agency or any instrumentality thereof other than the corporation."However, when push came to shove and the U.S. government (ex Treasury Secretary Paulson) did not dare insist on the explicit provision in the prospectus. Instead, late in 2008, the government decided to make the guarantee of Fannie/Freddie debt explicit. Later, the government also guaranteed debt of certain banks.
20 April 1653
It is high time for me to put an end to your sitting in this place, which you have dishonored by your contempt of all virtue, and defiled by your practice of every vice; ye are a factious crew, and enemies to all good government; ye are a pack of mercenary wretches, and would like Esau sell your country for a mess of pottage, and like Judas betray your God for a few pieces of money.
Is there a single virtue now remaining amongst you? Is there one vice you do not possess? Ye have no more religion than my horse; gold is your God; which of you have not barter'd your conscience for bribes? Is there a man amongst you that has the least care for the good of the Commonwealth?
Ye sordid prostitutes have you not defil'd this sacred place, and turn'd the Lord's temple into a den of thieves, by your immoral principles and wicked practices? Ye are grown intolerably odious to the whole nation; you were deputed here by the people to get grievances redress'd, are yourselves gone! So! Take away that shining bauble there, and lock up the doors. In the name of God, go!
It was he who had invested in Rearden Steel at its start, thus helping Rearden to complete the purchase of the abandoned steel mills in Pennsylvania. When an economist referred to him once as an audacious gambler, Mulligan said, "The reason why you'll never get rich is because you think that what I do is gambling." [Atlas Shrugged]I was reminded of Mulligan, when I read the following description of James Stillman, a prosperous banker from the late 1800's:
"A caller would enter Stillman's office, assured, perhaps a little enthusiastic. Without a word the dark, elegant little man at the big clean desk would motion him to a chair upon which the light fell full. He would look at him, quite impassively, through veiled, impersonal eyes. The man would begin stating his case.
Minutes would pass. The caller would make assertions that seemed to require response. Not a sound from the grave, composed Buddha at the desk, whose eyes seemed to have penetrated through the other to some distant spot in the room. The visitor would fidget, cough, and finally finish what he had come to say.
Invariably would follow a long, cruel pause.
Then, as if from far away, [Stillman] would begin to speak. In low, impressive tones he would rip the proposal to shreds". (Source: John Wrinkler, quoted in Money of the Mind, James Grant, 1992 page 67)
In a previous post, I described Blackstone's approach: the laws of nature determine how inanimate objects act; the laws of nature determine what animals must do to subsist. Animals have no choice but to obey nature if they are to subsist.
Next, Blackstone turns to human beings. Unlike the lower animals, he notes, we have the faculty of reason, and must use our reason to understand the natural laws. Reason, he says, leads us to three fundamental principles of human action:
Notice the absence of altruism and patriotism. None of those laws says "help your neighbor" or "serve your country". Blackstone may agree that altruism is a virtue, but he does not list it as fundamental. (He notes that Justinian jurisprudence laid down the three fundamentals noted above.)
Next, Blackstone notes that man requires motivation to apply his reason. Man needs something to push him to use his reason, and discover the laws of nature. What is that universal human motivation? His answer: self-love. He calls self-love, "the universal principle of action". Blackstone says that we can reduce the laws of human action (i.e. ethics) to a single precept: "that man should pursue his own happiness." Notice that this is not a statement of Politics; Blackstone is not saying that the government ought to allow people to pursue their own happiness. He makes it clear that this is what people ought to be doing. He says: "This is the foundation of what we call ethics".
(After this, the text goes downhill as Blackstone tries to fit revelation into his epistemological framework. I won't comment on that. )
Here is the text described above:
Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he ascribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle therefore has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently, as man depends absolutely on his maker for everything, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will.
This will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws.
Considering the Creator only as a being of infinite power, he was able unquestionably to have prescribed whatever laws he pleased to his creature, man, however unjust or severe. But, as he is also a being of infinite wisdom, he has laid down only such laws as were founded in those relations of justice, that existed in the nature of things antecedent to any positive precept. These are eternal, immutable laws of good and evil, to which the creator himself, in all his dispensations conforms; and which he has enabled human reason to discover, so far as they are necessary for the conduct of human actions. Such among others are these principles: that we should live honestly, should hurt nobody, and should render to every one his due; to which three general precepts Justinian has reduced the whole of the law.
But if the discovery of these first principles of the law of nature depended only upon the due exertion of right reason, and could not otherwise be attained that by a chain of metaphysical disquisitions, mankind would have wanted some inducement to have quickened their inquiries, and the greater part of the world would have rested content in mental indolence, and ignorance its inseparable companion. As therefore the creator is a being, not only of infinite power, and wisdom, but also of infinite goodness, he has been pleased so to contrive the constitution and frame of humanity, that we should want no other prompter to enquire after and pursue the rule of right, but only our self-love, that universal principle of action. For he has so intimately connected, so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal justice with the happiness of each individual, that the latter cannot be attained but by observing the former; and, if the former be punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In consequence of which mutual connection of justice and human felicity, he has not perplexed the law of nature with a multitude of abstracted rules and precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as some have vainly surmised; but has graciously reduced the rule of obedience to this one paternal precept, "that man should pursue his own happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or natural law. For several articles into which it is branched in our systems, amount to no more than demonstrating, that this or that action tends to man's happiness, and therefore very justly concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature; or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.
Original text via Posner Memorial Collection (CMU). Audio-recording at Librivox.
Labels: LAW
Introduction: Section 2Original text via Posner Memorial Collection (CMU). Audio-recording at Librivox.
… when the Supreme being formed the universe, and created matter out of nothing, he impressed certain principles upon that matter, from which it can never depart, and without which it would cease to be. When he put that matter into motion, he established certain laws of motion, to which all movable bodies must conform, And, to descend from the greatest operation to the smallest, when a workman forms a clock, or other piece of mechanism, he establishes at his own pleasure certain arbitrary laws for its direction; as that the hand shall describe a certain space in a given time; to which law as long as the work conforms, so long it continues in perfection, and answers the end of its formation,
If we farther advance, from mere inactive matter to vegetable and animal life, we shall find them still governed by laws; more numerous indeed, but equally fixed and invariable. The whole progress of plants, from feed to the root, and from thence to the feed again; --- the method of animal nutrition, digestion, secretion, and other branches of vital economy; --- are not left to chance, or the will of the creature itself, but are performed in a wondrous involuntary manner, and guided by unerring rules laid down by the great author.
This then is the general signification of law, a rule of action dictated by some superior being; and in those creatures that have neither the power to think, nor the will, such laws must be invariably obeyed, so long as the creature itself subsists, for its existence depends on that obedience. But, laws, in their more confined sense, and in which it is our present business to consider them, denote the rules, not of action in general, but of human action of conduct: that is, the precepts by which man, the noblest of all sublunary beings, a creature endowed with both reason and freewill, is commanded to make use of those faculties in the general regulation of behavior.
Labels: LAW
Labels: ECONOMY