The Easter Island Effect

The son of a blogster I frequently quote, The Diplomad, has written an interesting and thought-provoking article on the economic malaise that is currently eating at Japan. His name is Yonathan Amselem and he is at the Mises Institute, a libertarian think tank in Alabama .. see How Central Planners Crippled Japan's Economy. This man has obviously studied this Japanese issue thoroughly and is much more versed on its pluses and minuses than I. But he has provoked a thought in me ... suggested by his reference to the Japanese demographics which brought to mind Easter Island and what I will call the Easter Island Effect.

He points out that more adult diapers are sold in Japan than baby diapers. This is a clear indication that the population there is aging and in decline ... losing its youthful vigor.

Japan is a densely populated island with few natural resources which early-on resulted in its foray into brutal colonialism and even greater territorial ambitions in the mid twentieth century ... which was eventually slapped back by Harry Truman's A-bomb. As a release, after rebuilding its war-ravaged infrastructure, this nation's industrious population embraced the management and quality-control teachings of W. Edwards Deming (see: Wikipedia Entry) and went on a manufacturing and trading blitzcreig that lasted for forty years ... until the meddlesome government as described by Mr. Amselem started botching things up.

Back to the Easter Island Effect. Easter Island once had a very industrious population which created huge stone statues to its gods called moais. However, at Easter Island, being extremely remote and unable to expand geographically, demographics eventually took over and its civilization collapsed ... see: Wikipedia Entry. An analogy can be drawn between Easter Island and Japan in that demographics may be the bigger culprit in Japan's economic malaise than its meddlesome government.

Just a provoked thought ...

Turd in the Punch Bowl

Paul Mirengoff of the Powerline blog has pointed out how the Libertarian candidate in Virginia, Robert Sarvis, is personally responsible for getting Democrat Terry McAuliffe elected governor last year and possibly causing Democrat Mark Warner to be re-elected senator from that state yesterday … see: Oh Those Libertarians. In each case the number of votes that Sarvis received would have been more than sufficient to tip the election results back to the Republicans ... Ken Cuccinelli and Ed Gillespie respectively..

Is this Libertarian dude on the Democrat’s payroll?

The Bear Trap

Let me start by saying that I am not a Libertarian. Libertarians too often take stands that are so pure and theoretical that they appear loopy ... and thus fall into rhetorical traps. But, without agreeing, I do think I halfway understand Libertarians. Yesterday Rand Paul, the newly selected Republican candidate for the Senate from Kentucky, fell into one of these bear traps set by Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. Ms. Maddow asked Rand Paul whether the civil-rights decisions of the 1960's were right in removing the then-prevalent Southern exclusion of blacks from sitting at lunch counters (a clever semantic twist recalling Selma, Alabama sit-ins ... can we call this Rachel-profiling?). Mr. Paul, with typical Libertarian naïveté did not directly answer this question by first vigorously decrying such segregation (as do I) but, instead, replied with some twisted logic about whether restaurant owners had the right to exclude gun-toting patrons from their "private" premises.

I think I know what Rand Paul meant to be saying (but didn't). To whit: although it was proper for the federal government to force the integration of public accommodations, now governments of all ilks have taken this prerogative to increasing anti-Libertarian extremes ... first smoking was banned in restaurants, then trans-fats, now some localities are even trying to exclude the use of salt. Even the EPA has recently decreed that carbon dioxide, which all of us exhale and which is essential for plant survival, is an air pollutant ... of all things. I do think Libertarians justly rankle at such extreme governmental intrusion into our private lives and thus lumber into such semantic pitfalls as Rachael Maddow set for Rand Paul yesterday. Unfortunately, our knee-jerk video media does not allow for explanations that take more than two sentences ... and thus, politicians, who take principled positions, are continually snared.

It will be interesting to see whether Rand Paul today is given the time and leeway to better make his Libertarian case by the media talking heads, particularly those on MSNBC.