Words

This page is just a collection of links to words and ideas worth pondering.  In the future I hope for it to be a collection of books, articles, relevant back-story and sourcing for all of my major themes on this site. 

These three quotes, when acted upon, could guide anyone anywhere.  

If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas. -G. Bernard Shaw

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The sum of human wisdom is not contained in any one language, and no single language is capable of expressing all forms and degrees of human comprehension. -Ezra Pound

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The mark of a well educated person is not necessarily in knowing all the answers, but in knowing where to find them. -Douglas Everett

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Six Books Everyone Should Read

  • A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn
  • Rant: An Oral Biography of Buster Casey by Chuck Palahniuk
  • The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart
  • Teacher Man by Frank McCourt
  • Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis
  • Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan
  • ** But also read this, which offers some caveats.  Many free market trumpeteers, including a hero of mine stop short of actually allowing the market to cure its own ills.  The drug war is one example of where Charles Wheelan falls short of Milton Friedman status (see below for an example of economists using their balls and brains at the same time).

    • Insightful Articles (pdf)

    • Here’s a great article from Vanity Fair, The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush, by Joseph Stiglitz.
    • Read the entire Federalist Papers, the primary arguments of our primitive two-party convention which created our government.  Consider Federalist No. 51, where the argument for a system of checks and balances takes place before it becomes daily reality.

    My Random Documents (pdf)

    (Mostly) Trustworthy Sources

    The Economist

    Foreign Affairs

    CNN

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    A More Perfect Union

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    “For the people, of the people and by the people…”

    • Read about the initiative and referendum system created by William U’Ren of Oregon.  It is now used efficiently in 11 states to give the people more of a voice, and better control over the direction of legislators.  
    • Check out a possibility for America, the National Initiative for Democracy.  It would essentially extend the idea to the bulk of the American people.  One possibility, for example, would be that if 10% of those who voted in the 2004 election signed a petition, a national initiative to de-authorize the war in Iraq.  At that point the issue would truly go to the voters for decision.  Why not spend a few more minutes at the polls and actually decide something, rather than wait in line simply to pick the person who will decide some things.
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    My Favorite Economists

     

    Milton Friedman, President Reagan’s economist and Nobel laureate.

    Tyler Cowan, professor of economics at George Mason University and co-author of Marginal Revolution.

    More to come…