"Imagine a horse race between Smith, Schumpeter, and Stupidity," begins economist Peter Boettke. Who wins?

The horse "Smith" is Adam Smith. He represents the gains from trade and division of labour about which Adam Smith spoke so well.

"Schumpeter" is the horse representing gains from invention, from new technology, from all the gains that innovation brings.

Together they drive the race forwards.

But "Stupidity" is the horse sponsored by the government, and trained by big-government worshipping economists. He bumps into the others, bites at their heels, and generally gets in their fucking way. 'Stupidity' represents every stupid idea, every stupid regulation—and all that insane tinkering with counterfeit credit as if it were the way to economic nirvana. 

He takes it all backwards.

We can see Leg One of that race below: Mark Perry's famous “Chart of the Century,” tracking the price of 14 items over the last quarter-century. 

It's pretty clear that when 'Smith' and 'Schumpeter' can run largely unhindered, then nearly everyone gets better off. Even if the change in average hourly wages is taken into account, all but five of the items tracked above give those two horses (and every wage-earner) a win.

It's only when 'Stupidity' is allowed a free rein that he starts to come out ahead. (And I'm fairly sure that an analysis using NZ data would show something very similar.)

Let's hope the lesson is clear?

Which is the greater threat—illegal aliens or ICE agents?

Crime is a problem. Crime by foreigners in the U.S. is a part of that problem. Crime by foreigners illegally in the U.S. is a part of that part.

Criminals, whether illegals or citizens, have guns and confederates. ICE agents have assault weapons, SWAT gear, and an organization of tens of thousands.

Criminals are condemned by everyone. They are outlaws, operating in the shadows. ICE agents have a moral sanction. ICE was set up by the U.S. Congress. It is funded by Congress. Half the country think ICE agents are doing God’s work. Or they did until the recent killings.

When an illegal alien shoots and kills someone, he is hunted down, arrested, tried, and given capital punishment if found guilty. He can claim he acted in self-defense, but he must prove it in court.

When ICE agent Jonathan Ross shot Renee Good three times in the face, killing her, and the whole world sees it on video, he is left at liberty. The claim of self-defense seems to require no proof in court.

Remember, we have the police to protect us from criminals. The police go after criminals without regard to their citizenship status or immigration status. And the police are part of an objective legal system, with constitutional safeguards against the abuse of power.

But ICE agents “just know” who is a criminal. Or who is a potential criminal. Or who has not proved he won’t become a criminal. ICE and its parent agency, Homeland Security, are the judge and jury.

Which, then, is the greater threat to public safety: the crimes of illegal aliens or the unaccountable paramilitary troops created to deport them?

I have my answer. What is yours?

Listen to Scott Holleran review the new Amazon MGM Studios movie, Melania:

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It's about a 20 minute read, but I highly recommend Richard Hanania's thought-provoking essay titled "Kakistocracy as a Natural Result of Populism" for its exploration of what populist means, and of what we can learn by looking at the track records of successful populist movements across the globe.

I am impressed with Hanania's successful navigation of both the vagueness of the term populist and the problem of finding concrete data to make his point about the adverse outcomes of populism.

A notable reason populism leads to poor government is that the blanket skepticism of institutions and "elites" that puts a populist into power comes from a kind of poor thinking that will insulate the populist leader from scrutiny:

The problem with a less educated support base is that it simply has a less accurate understanding of the world. In fact, I think the problem is much worse than a simple analysis of voting patterns by educational attainment would suggest. Populists not only often fail to appeal to college graduates as a broad class, but they do particularly poorly among the small slice of the public that is the most informed about policy and current events, like journalists and academics.

...

Politicians that have a less educated base can make bad decisions and suffer fewer consequences for them. The fact that Trump is personally responsible through his tariffs policy for current economic woes is obvious to any informed observer, but might not be to an uninformed one. Trump's base has lower cognitive ability and less interest in politics anyway, so they are probably less likely to be shaken out of their partisan stupor by empirical reality. No one can deny that leftists are also often partisan in their thinking. But that partisanship is tempered by access to and a willingness to accept accurate sources of information. The New York Times is simply more likely to challenge the biases of its audience than Catturd, Elon Musk, or Fox News, and liberals are more likely to trust and accept real news than conservatives are.

A bit later in the essay, Hanania describes a fundamental error I see MAGA types make all the time:

We often focus on instances where elites reject ideas that turn out to be at least arguably correct. It is common to see discussions of universities or media outlets excluding or disparaging positions like opposition to DEI, skepticism over the claims of trans activists, or belief that covid leaked from a Chinese lab. In those instances, elite institutions can reasonably be criticized for having dismissed ideas they should have taken more seriously. That said, we must not lose sight of the fact that most of the time gatekeepers push people or ideas away, the establishment is right and the rebels are wrong.

Here's a partial list of ideas that are rejected by mainstream academics and journalists, but have been promoted or gotten respectable hearings on the Joe Rogan Experience, the most popular podcast in the country, over the last few years: there is an ancient city beneath the Giza pyramids; HIV does not cause AIDS; there were advanced ancient human civilizations during the Ice Age; 9/11 may have been a government operation; mind reading is real; covid vaccines are more dangerous than the disease itself; and humans became more susceptible to polio due to vaccination. If you are mad at academia because you think it is too woke on issues related to race and gender, note that it also excludes believers in telepathy, ghosts, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, flat Earth theory, reptilian overlords, chemtrails, Bigfoot, astrology as science, Holocaust denial, moon landing hoax theories, homeopathy, and spirit channeling of the dead. Of course, the most common reason institutions reject people is lack of intelligence and work ethic. [bold added]

Hanania's further observation that populists, especially on the right, appeal to identity politics are on point.

Hanania ends by arguing that populism should be seen as another political axis. I'm not sure I agree with him about that, but I do think his term Dale Gribble voter captures something important about the type of voter that supoorts Trump, and has supported similar politicians in the past.

-- CAV