Skip to main content

European Economics in One Lesson


Henry Hazlitt's book, Economics in One Lesson, begins by saying that "Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man." European economics is based on perhaps the simplest of those fallacies to avoid: "Bite the hand that feeds you."

There are a lot of electronic music players in the world. One of them is the IPod. I don't own an IPod because it is too expensive and its music will not play on any other player. The Europeans have gotten around to noticing this lately, and rather than buying something else, they want to force Apple Computer's ITunes store to provide their music in other formats. Yes, by all means! I have just created the FSMF (Frank Staheli Music Format) and I am appealing to the European Union to including me in their list of supported formats.

I think it's the same stupid economics that made the Macintosh a second player to the PC market. But the Europeans think it is illegal. And knowing their laws, it probably is.

"When you buy a music CD it doesn't play only on players made by Panasonic. People who download a song from iTunes shouldn't be bound to an iPod for the rest of their lives."

Well, if you don't buy one of the other players from the electronic music playing plethora, I think you should be bound to your IPod. Why should the government rescue you from an obviously stupid decision?

As soon as Europe gets into deciding what kind of music a music provider should provide, they can start deciding a lot of other things for you.

The story from International Herald Tribune goes on to say

In August, France passed a law that giving regulators power to force Apple to license its software or hardware to rivals so they can make compatible music players and stores.

I wish God had loved me enough to make me one of the smartest and elite-est in the world so that I could make everyone's decisions for them.

The only problem for you non-thinking bureaucrats is, what happens when, after you've forced everyone to share their trade secrets that they spent millions or billions researching, and they decide not to create anything anymore. Then there will be nothing left for you to force anyone to share with everyone else.

Atlas continues to shrug. He can't hold up the world for much longer. It's frustrating to me that leading lights in America say that we have a lot to learn from Europe.
Labels:

Comments

  1. Unknown1/26/2007 11:40:00 AM

    Sounds like Socialism to me. That has always worked for other countris hasn't it? Sounds to me like eventually, maybe not in my life time, but maybe my kids, we will be over there in another war in Europe, freeing the people from a government that thier grandfathers created. They are upset and against the war in Iraq and didnt support us. Yet, they are creating the same style of goverment that we disassembled. That kind of shows to me that they like it.
    It sure makes me proud to live in the US of A, and makes me damn glad I served her.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Frank Staheli1/26/2007 12:43:00 PM

    What's sad is that they mean well, but they don't think through the consequences of their actions.

    Statistics work on everything except people, because people have the ability to think and choose. Government often fails to take this into account.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Thank you for commenting. If you have a Google/Blogger account, to be apprised of ongoing comment activity on this article, please click the "Subscribe" link below.

Popular posts from this blog

Red Clothing and Resurrection: Jesus Christ's Second Coming

The scriptures teach that when Christ comes again to the earth, that he will be wearing red apparel. Why red ? They also teach that at Christ's coming, many of the dead will become resurrected. Will this only include members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Not by a long shot, no matter what some Mormon might tell you.
2 comments
Read more

School Vouchers: "The Bramble Memo"

$429 million? What? Where? The legislative fiscal analyst for the State of Utah calculated the costs to the public schools over the next 13 years if school vouchers are implemented. It said the costs would be $5.5M in the first year, and $71M in the 13th year. Suddenly, the number I have started seeing thrown around was $429 million, the total costs for vouchers over 13 years. Where did that number come from? Enter the mysterious "Bramble Memo". In the past few days several of us (Jeremy, Utah Taxpayer, Craig, Sara, Urban Koda, Jesse, and me) have (sometimes?) enjoyed a lively discussion about school vouchers in Utah . Jeremy clarified to me the costs of the venture by linking to a copy of the Utah Legislative Fiscal Analyst's Impartial Analysis (LFA) of the costs of Vouchers , found on "The Senate Site". In my previous voucher article, I quoted some of Lavar Webb's article from last Sunday's Deseret News, wherein he stated that those total costs ...
66 comments
Read more

What's Your Reaction to California's Decision on Same-Sex Marriage?

Yesterday a "Republican-dominated" California Supreme Court struck down state laws against same-sex marriages. The LDS Church issued a press release, calling the decision "unfortunate". I agree, but not for reasons you might think. Did the California Court make the right decision? Update 5/17/2008 : California decision does not affect prohibitions against polygamy and marriage of close relatives. Why not? Government should not sanction same-sex marriages for the same reason that it should not sanction heterosexual adultery--such activities tend to be destructive to the family as the fundamental unit of society. Before you get too far into reading into my words, let me echo and agree with something that Madeleine Albright wrote in her recent book, The Mighty & The Almighty (one of the better books that I have read in a long time): I oppose discrimination against gays and lesbians and am convinced that heterosexual adultery is a greater danger to the institu...
67 comments
Read more