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… is from page 131 of Richard Dawkins’s wonderful 1998 book, Unweaving the Rainbow:
Dogmatic disbelief of anything that seems unfamiliar or unexplained is not a virtue.
The post Quotation of the Day… appeared first on Cafe Hayek.
Selgin mines a mountain of scholarship to prove this: New Deal measures failed to achieve, and often impeded, recovery from the Depression. Roosevelt’s most constructive achievement, executed on his second day in office, was the national bank holiday, a measure incubated by his predecessor, Herbert Hoover. This week-long banking shutdown in 1933 largely arrested the economy’s contraction. Recovery, however, required a decade, and World War II.
The Depression was, Selgin says, the first economic crisis the federal government tried to end by using all its resources. But the economy did not recover: It did not reach production consistent with full employment of the workforce until 1943.
…..
The 1940s began as 1939 had: Seventeen percent of the labor force was completely unemployed or on work relief, adults were working 20 percent fewer hours than in 1929, industrial production was still 10 percent below the 1929 peak. FDR’s incessant regulatory fidgets, and vocal hostility toward business, produced a climate of uncertainty that paralyzed investing, until war came.
One of Democrats’ stated reasons for refusing their consent is that they want Congress to extend Obamacare credits that Democrats passed in 2021 and are set to expire on December 31. Former Obama administration economist Steven Rattner posted on X that if these credits are not extended, “a 55-year-old couple making $85K would see their premiums more than triple to $24,535,” a rate that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer called “OBSCENE.” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries posted that Congress must, “Cancel the cuts. Lower the cost. Save Healthcare.”
In so doing, Democrats are effectively conceding that Obamacare as originally designed has failed, and the only way to keep the program functional is to dump more taxpayer dollars into it forever.
Who knew that Ikea sofas were a national security threat? That’s what President Trump claimed as he unleashed another tariff barrage. Consider this a pre-emptive strike against a possible Supreme Court decision that nixes his worldwide “emergency” tariffs.
The President on Monday announced 10% tariffs on lumber as well as 25% on upholstered wooden furniture, bathroom vanities and kitchen cabinets. This follows last week’s announcement of tariffs on heavy-duty trucks (25%). All of these tariffs are being imposed under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act to—get this—protect national security.
The President said the tariffs are in response to countries “FLOODING” products into the U.S. “We must protect, for National Security and other reasons, our Manufacturing process,” he wrote on Truth Social. Note that most of these products are already covered by the border taxes he’s imposed using the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
The Supreme Court recently said it will hear a challenge in November to the President’s unprecedented use of the emergency law to tax imports. Two lower courts have ruled that the tariffs exceed his powers. This explains why he is expanding his use of Section 232, which he first used in 2018 to slap tariffs on steel and aluminum.
The trouble is that his metal tariffs, which he made even more punitive this year, are hurting U.S. manufacturers of hundreds of products. Furniture manufacturers are having to pay more for imported steel, aluminum, timber and upholstery. Trucking companies are placing fewer orders for new big rigs because of the slowdown in trade. Building permits for new housing units have fallen 11% over the last year, which home builders attribute to tariff uncertainty. That means less demand for kitchen cabinets.
Jason Sorens wisely warns against cancel culture.
Jacob Sullum decries Trump’s war-making. A slice:
This week, President Donald Trump sought to justify his new policy of summarily executing suspected drug smugglers by declaring that his targets are “unlawful combatants” in an “armed conflict” with the United States. But that terminology, which Trump deployed in a notice to Congress, does not change the reality that he has authorized the military murder of criminal suspects who pose no immediate threat of violence.
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MEDITERRANEAN SEA — Greta Thunberg and other members of the latest humanitarian flotilla sailing to Gaza were subjected to unspeakable cruelty by the Israeli Defense Forces, who kidnapped them and then gave them dry sub sandwiches with no mayo to eat.
CANTON, MA — Dunkin' Donuts announced Friday that its esteemed culinary team had made a major breakthrough and somehow found a way to make their donuts even worse.
MANCHESTER, U.K. — Police in Great Britain are working to determine the motive of a man named Jihad Jewkiller who attacked a synagogue earlier this week.
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