Economics links

[erudito]

Microsoft™ can’t get their physical packaging right either.

Israeli porn sites are popular in Arab countries. Via _53.

The US Federal government massively subsidises building in flood-prone places.

What does most wealth consist of? human capital and the value of institutions (as measured by rule of law) constitute the largest share of wealth in

Comments

[sacred_chao]

I'm tempted to suggest that there may well be a middle ground between reverting entirely to pre-industrial every-bloody-thing (which is undeniably daft and a blatant strawman) and importing oranges from Israel. Similarly Completely dismantling industry (another strawman) is also enormously removed from regulating the degree to which industry may pollute to a level that means the price of televisions goes up somewhat (or possibly simply fails to go down). And finally, there's surely some middle ground between reverting to a completely pre-18thC lifestyle (because we'd discard any knowledge that we've acquired along the way, of course, purely for verysillymy'tude) and more or less utter deprivation and absolutely refusing to accept any position that might result in even the slightest inconvenience. I know perfectly well that there's no such thing as the "good old days". Just remember, that's going to hold true in the future as well.

Yes but

[erudito]

I think the author is more concerned to point out that terms which are bandied about are compatible with very unpleasant situations.

Personally, I don't see what is wrong per se with importing oranges from Israel. (Normal caveats about unpriced externalities applying.)