Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

North Korea has been lobbing missiles in the direction of Japan, as a deliberate act of provocation and bravado. Commentators on television can't mention this fact without at once saying "Japan is the country's former colonial overlord." And so it is, but I don't think the pertinent history has anything to do with the choice of missile-test target, or whatever 'this' is. Just so no one will say I ignored it, though, let's say a few words about that history, even though we're just taking this stuff from wikipedia. Korea was never colonized by one of the usual suspects, one of the western European powers one thinks of when the subject comes up. The Russo-Japanese War was fought at the start of the 20th century largely over the issue of in whose sphere of influence did Korea fall. The Japanese won. Not long thereafter, in 1910, the Japanese forced on the Koreans a Treaty of Annexation. This begins the period referenced when the news talkin...

Sloppy thinking is still sloppy, even if the sloppy individual's heart is in the right place. Example: a fake Wilson quote. By way of introduction, please understand that I have become a more and more committed hard-money guy over the last four years. I have come to believe that prices are only going to be rational, that economies are only going to work efficiently, if the money supply is disassociated from the decisions of central bankers, such as members of the board of the US Federal Reserve.  I also have come to believe that a link to gold might be one good way of disassociating money from policy, or rather of subordinating policy to money, as is right and proper. So count me among the world's goldbugs if you like. I find, nonetheless, that within this company there is a lot of sloppy thinking, and part of that is the profligate use of willful unchecked quotations. For example, Woodrow Wilson, the president who signed the banking reform act that created the F...