Bruce Guenter's Thoughts

Random musings about stuff that crosses my path.

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Monday, January 29th

CSIS says "Too much secrecy is bad"


It's rather refreshing to hear that CSIS (Canada's intelligence agency) has seen the light (or at least a glimmer of it) on the issue of excessive secrecy. A notable quote: "Over-reaction to terrorism, it should be remembered, is a fundamental objective of most terrorists in history. We should not accommodate their goals in this regard."

Exactly!

Update: I emailed this story to Bruce Schneier, and apparently he agrees.
Bruce on 01.29.07 @ 05:18 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Friday, January 5th

Hitler and the need for war


When discussing the necessity of war, many have pointed to the atrocities of Hitler as the ultimate example. If Hitler had not been stopped by war, what would have happened to the world as we know it?

This line of reasoning completely ignores the factors that propelled Hitler into a place of influence in the first place. Hitler took power at the head of the National Socialist German Workers Party in 1933 after the collapse of the Weimar Republic in Germany caused at least in part by the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I. Without this treaty, it is unlikely that the necessary conditions (popular resentment against outside nations, etc) would have existed.

That treaty, in turn, was punishment for another war that Germany got involved in as a result of a combination of factors, most notably its agressive arms race against Great Britain and the imperial nature of the governments involved. Although the factors that led to WWI were more complex than just these two, without them the war would likely not have happened.

So to summarize, imperial agression led to war led to resentment figureheaded by Hitler led to another war. And this is used as an example of why we should preemptively start more wars and cause more resentment? It just doesn't work that way.
Bruce on 01.05.07 @ 06:27 PM CST [link] [No Comments]

Thursday, January 4th

More thoughts on debt reduction


Following up my own post involving debt reduction, I've had another thought to add. Well, actually I've had several more thoughts, this is just the only one I've remembered to write down so far.

In his letter, Alex Thumm said:

Parents don't cut piano lessons or quality of food for their children so they can pay off their line of credit.


This too shows a significant difference between how debt impacts individuals and how it impacts governed citizens. As a result of dealing with some financial issues with a parent, we have determined that debt dies with the estate. That is, if you screw up bad enough so that you die with more debt outstanding than assets, at least your inheritors don't have to pay for your excesses. On the other hand government lives as long as its collective citizenship does, which will leave our children to pay for the excesses of our government.

Updated: My sincere apologies to Alex Thumm. I have no idea where I got the idea (ahem) that he was a she. Mea culpa!
Bruce on 01.04.07 @ 12:49 PM CST [link] [1 Comment]

Wednesday, January 3rd

An Introduction to Value Theory


The Mises Institute ran a short essay from the writings of F.A. Harper recently entitled An Introduction to Value Theory. This is a concise and readable introduction to the history, current state, and political impact of economic value theory, which is the framework used to evaluate what things have value and how much value they have.

The most critical parts of this theory are that things (and services) only have value where there is a scarcity, that things have no intrinsic value, and that the value of a thing can only be evaluated by individuals in comparison with other things. Each of these parts are critical to understanding economics, and have large impacts on many issues. The article briefly notes on some of these implications, and also describes previous theories, why they were inadequate, and how they came to form the current theory.
Bruce on 01.03.07 @ 10:50 PM CST [link] [No Comments]