Friday Hodgepodge

Notable Commentary

"[I]f you had a great product that you had to protect from copying, how would you like it if some random politician who deems her repair bills too high gutted your contract?" -- Gus Van Horn, in "Laws Don't Make America Great, It's Freedom From Them" (Working title was, "Fair Repair Is Unfair".) at RealClear Markets.

"The environmentalists' standard of value is pristine nature without any human footprint, and therefore no sacrifice of human well-being and prosperity is ever enough." -- Jaana Woiceshyn, in "Green Groups Won't Ever Give Our Oil 'Social Licence,' So Let's Stop Trying to Please Them" at Financial Post (2016).

"The investor must stop using the Fed's credit paper to tell him what's up and what's down." -- Keith Weiner, in "Slaves to Government Debt Paper" at SNB & CHF.

"Despite his pragmatic lack of concern with principles, he consistently acts against a very important one: he sanctions evil." -- Bob Stubblefield, in "Letter: Trump Policies Similar to Chamberlain's" at The Aiken Standard.

From the Blogs

Over at Roots of Progress, which proprietor Jason Crawford advises is "more of a personal research project happening in public" than a blog, is a very interesting annotated bibliography pertaining to his interest in human progress. Here are his notes on A Brief History of How the Industrial Revolution Changed the World, by Thomas Crump:

Image via Wikipedia.

A general history of the Industrial Revolution. Surprisingly, it's hard to find good histories of this period; in particular, it's hard to find concise, one-volume summaries from the beginning of the period to the modern era, that cover the main developments in the whole world (while keeping most of the focus on where the action was, in the UK and then the US). This is the closest one I found.

Each entry also points to other posts at Roots of Progress in which the work is mentioned. The list currently has fourteen entries, but you might be glad to know Crawford will add to it (at the top of the page) from time to time.

-- CAV

Updates

Today: Corrected working title above from "Free" to "Fair."