임대료까지 정부가 정하는 한국, '대네수엘라' 되나 2000년대 이후 베네수엘라 집값·임대시장 강압적 통제 임대주택 사라지고 집값↑ 부동산업계와 인터넷 사이트에선 정부 부동산 정책이 2000년대 이후 베네수엘라 정부의 강압적 통제와 비슷하다며 한국이 ‘대네수엘라(대한민국+베네수엘라)’가 돼간다는 말까지 퍼지고 있다. / 한국경제 --->지금으로선 한국이 베네수엘라나 또는 그보다 더 나쁜 상황으로 내몰릴 수도 있다. 그런데 이념에 미쳐있는 좌파들은 아랑곳하지 않고, 우파라는 인간들은 식견도 없는데다 겁을 먹고 한쪽에 찌그러져 있다. 지옥행 기차는 가속도를 붙이며 나아가고 있다. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [단독] 이재명 재난소득, 결국 경기도민 빚…14년간 갚는다 [재난기본소득 분석②] 상환계획 집중분석 경기도가 이른바 ‘비상금 통장’까지 총동원해 마련한 1·2차 재난기본소득 재원 총액 2조7000억원의 상당부분은 경기도민들이 결국 앞으로 고스란히 갚아야 할 돈이다. 경기도는 이를 갚기 위해 또 다시 빚을 내서 갚는 ‘차환(借換)’ 개념을 도입하고 상환 종료 시점을 당초 계획했던 2029년에서 2035년으로 6년 더 늘렸다. / 국민일보 ----->저런 놈이 유력한 차기 대통령 후보라니? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 탈원전 손실, 태양광 풍비박산… 文, 선거 앞두고 "호남해상풍력단지에 48조원" 전남 신안에 2030년까지 대규모 풍력단지 조성 계획… 탈원전으로 이미 1조4450억원 손실 / 뉴데일리 --->경기도 지사와 대통령이 누가 더 미친 놈인지 시합하는 것 같다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 블룸버그 “한국, 최장기 공매도 금지로 주가 떠받쳐, 폭락 위험” 경고 한국이 전세계 최장 기간 공매도를 금지하면서 주식시장 랠리를 인위적으로 지지해 폭락할 우려가 있다고 블룸버그통신이 4일(현지 시각) 보도했다. 조선일보 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 코로나 백신, 대성공!!! (이스라엘) : 변종 바이러스에도 잘 먹히는 것으로 확인됨 / 일베 ● 임상실험을 통해 추정했던 "실제 효과"와 거의 정확히 일치. ● Pfizer, Moderna 전부, 2차 접종까지 마쳐야 완전한 예방효과가 생긴다지만, 이스라엘 경우, 아직 2차 접종은 완료하지 못한 상태인데도 감염율/입원률이 30%~41% 폭감. 환상적인 효과임. ● 이론적으로나 실험적으로 예상됐던, "변종 바이러스"에게도 효과가 있을 것이라는 게 확인됨. 이스라엘에서도 영국에서 발생한 변종이 많이 발견되고 있는데, 변종 바이러스에도 효과가 있다는 게 확인됨. ● 나는 Pfizer 로 1차 접종 받았음. (아무런 부작용 없음) 주변에서는 Moderna 를 맞은 사람이 많은 편. 모더나는 100mg 을 맞고, 화이저는 30mg 을 맞는데.... 내 경우는, 독감 백신 맞을 때도 전혀 부작용이라든지 맞았는지 안 맞았는지 모를 정도라서, 이번에도 비슷할 걸로 봤었음. ● 다만, 화이자/모더나 전부, 2차 접종 후에는 "건강한 사람일수록" 약간의 부작용을 느꼈다고 하더라. 근육통, 설사, 미열 등을 느낀 친구가 몇 명 있음. 근데 걔네들 특징이 평소 운동도 많이 하고, 굉장히 건강하다는 점. (그래서 내 생각에는 이 백신이 "너무나 효과가 좋아서", 아마, 평소 너무 건강한 사람의 몸에서는 약간 과잉 반응을 일으키는 게 아닐까...하는 생각이 듬. 젊고 건강한 청년, 좀처럼 감기에 안 걸리는 건장한 청년에게는 용량을 좀 줄여서 접종하는 게 어떨까 싶지만...뭐 나는 의알못이라서...) ● 전 세계 225개국 중, 백신 접종에 관한 한, 가장 후진국 유형에 들어가는 한국. 거기다, 돌대가리-개대가리들도 너무 많아서, 벌써부터 "백신 맞지 말아라~ 독약이다~ 빌 게이츠의 음모다"~~ 이러는 미친놈들이 인구 대비, OECD 나라중 최고 비율. 이러니 광우병-천안함이었구나~~ 하고 깨닫게 된 건 좋지만... 내가 보기엔, 이건 직무유기 정도가 아니다. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Biden Signals Break With Trump Foreign Policy in a Wide-Ranging State Dept. Speech The president said that he would end support for Saudi Arabia in its intervention in Yemen and that the U.S. would no longer be “rolling over in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions.”/ 뉴욕타임즈 ---->바이든이 트럼프 외교 정책과 단절하겠다는 선언을 하다. 지금 미국에 가장 중요한 문제는 중국 패권의 제어인데, 사우디와 러시아에 집중하고 있다. 정말 팥소가 없는 찐빵같은 외교 정책이다. 중국에 강경 자세라 해도, 중국과 디커플링을 하지 않고 중국의 경제를 계속 키워주면, 미국은 점점 쇠락하고 중국이 세계의 패권국이 되는 건 명약관화하다. 바이든이 그런 길로 가는 듯하다. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ 헬레나 로젠블랏이 쓴 자유주의의 역사 그녀의 목적은 사익(私益) 및 개인의 권리와 동일시 되던 자유주의의 개념을 부정하기 위한 것이다. 그녀에 따르면 자유주의는 개인이 다른 사람들과의 그물망 속에 연결되어 있음을 이해하고, 공동의 선에 이르는 행동을 하는 것이다. 그녀는 미제스의 자유주의가 사람들의 물질적 복지를 증진하는 데에만 관심을 두고 있다고 주장한다. 하지만 이는 사실과 다르다. 미제스는 이렇게 말했다: 모든 사상은 보편적인 인간의 행복을 목표로 하고 있다. 그런데 그들의 방법은 제각각이다. 자유주의는 그 행복에 이르기 위해서는 생산 수단의 사유화가 반드시 있어야 한다는 것이다. A Caricature of Classical Liberalism: It's All about Individualism and Materialism David Gordon The Lost History of Liberalism: From Ancient Rome to the Twenty-First Century by Helena Rosenblatt Princeton University Press, 2018 xii + 348 pages Helena Rosenblatt, a historian who teaches at the Graduate Center, City University of New York, has written a valuable history of liberalism that is disfigured by her bias against the free market and its advocates. She aims to provide a word history of liberalism. I feel certain that if we don’t pay attention to the actual use of the word, the histories we tell will inevitably be different and even conflicting….My approach leads to some surprising discoveries. One is the centrality of France to the history of liberalism….Another discovery is the importance of Germany, whose contributions to the history of liberalism are usually underplayed, if not completely ignored. (p. 3, emphasis in original) She is an authority on French political thought and has written well-received books on Benjamin Constant and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, but this book ranges widely from Cicero to the present. She is particularly anxious to combat the view that equates liberalism with self-interest and individual rights, which is a very recent development in the history of liberalism. It is the product of the wars of the twentieth century and especially the fear of totalitarianism during the Cold War. For centuries before this, being liberal meant. . .being a giving and civic-minded citizen; it meant understanding one’s connectedness to other citizens and acting in ways conducive to the common good. (p. 4) In what follows, I shall give examples of the insights of this erudite author but also of her many mistakes, by no means limited to the bias mentioned above. An example of both insight and error occurs in the first chapter of the book. She tells us that liberalitas (liberality) meant to Seneca and Cicero the magnanimous behavior appropriate to a free citizen. This was an aristocratic notion, but by the time of the Enlightenment its meaning had broadened. “Its scope was expanded and, in some sense, democratized. It now became possible to speak not only of liberal individuals, but of liberal sentiments, ideas, and ways of thinking” (p. 26, emphasis in original). One of these extensions of liberality was “fostering religious toleration” (p. 27). Rosenblatt rightly mentions in this connection John Locke, but she ignores Pierre Bayle, with Locke the key defender of religious toleration in the seventeenth century. The omission is ironic in view of her complaint that accounts of liberalism downplay the importance of French and German authors. She gives an excellent account of Constant. Constant had learned the lessons of the Terror and Napoleon’s authoritarian rule. He had seen how easily popular sovereignty could ally itself with dictatorship. One of his main goals, therefore, was to prevent a dictatorship based on popular sovereignty from masquerading as a liberal regime. It was less the form of government that mattered…than the amount. (pp. 65–66, emphasis in original) Later, she notes that Constant was a “laissez-faire liberal,” although he did not rule out all government intervention in the economy. She complains that after World War II, “Constant’s defense of individual rights was emphasized above all his other concerns. His efforts at state building and constant worries about morals, religion, and ‘perfectibility’ were downplayed or completely ignored” (p. 273). Constant was not a “radical individualist,” as some of his twentieth-century interpreters take him to be. So far, so good; but in a lecture on Constant given shortly before her book appeared, Rosenblatt attacked Ralph Raico as among those who wrongly viewed Constant as an antisocial “individualist” (the discussion of Raico occurs around 24:00). Had she read Raico’s article on Constant rather than the title of the journal in which the article first appeared, the New Individualist Review, she would have seen that his account of Constant is similar to her own. He too stresses “the development and enrichment of personality” and in fact quotes Constant as saying, “it is not for happiness alone, it is for self-perfectioning that destiny calls us.” The process of self-perfectioning, Raico emphasizes, takes place through various social institutions. Perhaps, though, I am unfair to Rosenblatt. There is nothing about Raico in the book, though the surrounding material in the lecture makes it to the text; maybe she actually read his article and decided to omit him from her list of miscreants. The curious pattern of insight and omission continues. She mentions the “history of liberalism written by the Prussian professor of philosophy Wilhelm Traugott Krug in 1823,” (p. 78), but nowhere in the book does she discuss Wilhelm von Humboldt, perhaps the greatest of all German classical liberals. His The Limits of State Action is far more important than Krug’s book. (Krug, by the way, is best known for his challenge to Schelling to deduce the existence of his pen.) In her account of the new versus the old liberals, she deserves great credit for pointing out that some of those who wished to unshackle the state from the limits of laissez-faire defended forced sterilization. [John A.] Hobson, one of the most respected liberal theorists of his time, supported the prevention of “anti-social procreation.”…In America too, progressives from Richard Ely and Herbert Croly to Woodrow Wilson were enthusiastic advocates of eugenics…in 1911, then New Jersey governor Wilson signed the state’s forcible sterilization legislation, which targeted “the hopelessly defective and criminal classes.” (p. 237) Rosenblatt devotes considerable attention to the battles over education and other matters between various liberals and the Catholic Church. In the course of her discussion, she says, “In 1854, Pius [IX] announced the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, by which the Virgin Mary was declared free of sin” (p. 140). That is not correct. The Immaculate Conception is the doctrine that Mary was, from the moment of her conception, free from the stain of original sin. This is not the same doctrine as the sinlessness of Mary. When she reaches the twentieth century, things worsen. Rosenblatt says about Mises, In his book Liberalism, published in 1927, the influential Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises lamented the disputes over the meaning of the word. True liberalism, he insisted, was not about any humanitarian objectives, however noble they might be. Liberalism had nothing else in mind than the advancement of a people’s material welfare. Its central concepts were private property, freedom and peace. Anything beyond that was “socialism,” for which Mises had only disdain. Those who thought that liberalism had something to do with spreading humanity and magnanimity were “pseudo liberals.” (p. 260) This is a misleading summary of what Mises says. Rosenblatt makes it seem as if Mises had no concerns beyond material well-being. But he in fact says, Every ideology—aside from a few cynical schools of thought—believes that it is championing humanity, magnanimity, real freedom, etc. What distinguishes one social doctrine from another is not the ultimate goal of universal human happiness, which they all aim at, but the way by which they seek to attain this end. The characteristic feature of liberalism is that it proposes to reach it by way of private ownership of the means of production. Further, contrary to Rosenblatt, one doesn’t for Mises become a pseudoliberal just by thinking liberalism has to do with spreading humanity and magnanimity. What makes one a pseudoliberal is that one favors socialism or interventionism. “Almost all who call themselves ‘liberals’ today decline to profess themselves in favor of private ownership of the means of production and advocate measures partly socialist and partly interventionist.” In her relentless pursuit of the “individualists” who exalt self-interest, John Rawls, of all people, becomes a target. She says, For the sake of argument, Rawls posited a group of self-interested but also rational individuals and showed that such persons—endeavoring to maximize their advantages in conditions of uncertainty—would choose not a laissez-faire society but the welfare state. In so arguing, he was, in a sense, turning a conservative and rights-based argument around against itself. In the process, however, he suggested that there was little need for any deliberate promotion of the common good for a liberal society to work. There was no need to worry about overcoming man’s selfish impulses. It had become okay to be selfish. (p. 273) That is a travesty. Rawls’s original position is a thought experiment, and the motives ascribed to people within it are not intended as guides to conduct in the actual world. Rawls, for better or worse, was as “public spirited” as they come. It is of less importance that she also misrepresents the aims of those in the original position. She is also grievously in error about Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom. A reader of her account of the book (p. 263) would never guess that Hayek supports a modest welfare state. Eric Voegelin was not a Catholic (p. 271). She is also wrong to say of Herbert Hoover that “Despite the economic catastrophe, he continued to defend the laissez-faire version of liberalism well into the 1940s.” This confuses Hoover’s free market rhetoric with the reality of his policies, which in many respects prefigured Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. Rosenblatt would benefit from reading Murray Rothbard’s America’s Great Depression, if she were willing to study its central argument in addition to consigning its author to the circle of hell where individualists reside. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------