Health Care

'Tis the season for health care pontification. Bowing to popular demand, I'll state my position, or, rather, reiterate Ron Paul's position. Paul's Comprehensive Health Care Reform Act:

A. Provides all Americans with a tax credit for 100 percent of health care expenses. The tax credit is fully refundable against both income and payroll taxes.

B. Allows individuals to roll over unused amounts in cafeteria plans and Flexible Savings Accounts (FSA).

C. Makes every American eligible for a Health Savings Account (HSA), removes the requirement that individuals must obtain a high-deductible insurance policy to open an HSA; allows individuals to use their HSA to make premiums payments for high-deductible policy; and allows senior citizens to use their HSA to purchase Medigap policies.

D. Repeals the 7.5 percent threshold for the deduction of medical expenses, thus making all medical expenses tax deductible.

Paul's Coercion is Not Health Care Act:


This legislation forbids the federal government from forcing any American to purchase health insurance, and from conditioning participation in any federal program, or receipt of any federal benefit, on the purchase of health insurance.

Patriarch Kyrill On Veliky Novgorod

Patriarch Kyrill celebrated the birth of Veliky Novgorod in 859 by speaking about its republican history. Russian political history isn't monolithically absolutist.

Memory Eternal!

You know how much we all miss you.

Charpentier's Prelude (Te Deum)

Arturo inspired this post.

The sound quality is muddled, but the tempo is appropriately snappy.




I've run across this more conventional rendition at Western weddings.

Multi-Tasking As A Divine Attribute

Do you ever become impatient with incompetent folks who swear that they can successfully multi-task? I do.

Let me go further by proposing that anyone who claims to be a successful multi-tasker is automatically incompetent. Scientists have concluded that we humans can focus only on one task at at time. Therefore, performing more than one task simultaneously consists in applying "continuous partial attention" to the tasks. (I got that phrase from today's Wall Street Journal.)

I'm going to add this to my list of interview questions: Can you successfully multi-task, and can you give me an example of your success at multi-tasking?

Just imagine how the interviewees, eager to make a good impression, would fall into my trap. Not only are they incapable of focusing, but also they're incapable of acquiring the introspective knowledge that would enable them to recognize what focusing entails and how they fall short.

Or, I could just dismiss them as blasphemers for claiming possession of what appears to be a divine attribute.

Empirical Economic Irony

Gabriel and I have been conversing about Austrian economics, and we've been particularly focused on the School's theoretical wertfreiheit as opposed to its identification with libertarian normative prescriptions. Gabriel noted that perhaps the Austrians have been so closely identified with libertarianism that any attempt to distinguish Austrianism from libertarianism would be futile.

That kind of concern has never favorably impressed me, and I remain convinced of the crucial distinctions between theory, application, and statecraft. For those who are new to the discussion, what I call application consists in applying economic theory to the empirical world of history, forecasting, and finance.

I spent a little time today listening to a presentation from a Chicago School economist about monetary policy. My takeaway was that he, Ben Bernanke, and I have roughly the same ideas about how the Fed should have conducted its business during Fall 2008's dire days and how the Fed should conduct its business presently.

Now, this correlation would be apostasy among the Austrian purists with whom I associate, and I'd have to defend my empirical applications as vehemently against those Austrians--and I know this from experience--as I'd have to defend Austrian theoretical apriorism and methodological individualism against the Chicagoans.

Let's just say that God's expansive sense of humor manifests itself by His throwing all sorts of cute ironies and paradoxes in my path.

Monetary Economics 101

The Russian Church Primate again called the crisis a consequence of 'sin that penetrated in modern economics,' and stated that today, 'people of honest labor pay for those who made millions and milliards [sic] out of air, pay for deception, for those who seeking easy profits lost human face in economic relations.' [Emphasis mine]


Alan Greenspan's easy monetary policy manufactured money out of thin air. The newly-created money stole value from previously-existing money. This is the shameful mechanism of monetary inflation. Patriarch Kyrill is right on the money.

Busybodies Want To Cheapen The Wedding Garments

Reporters criticized Patriarch Kyrill's expensive watch here. Maybe we're supposed to think that Christ stole from the poor by creating precious metals and other luxuries.

We Knew All Along That You Were Just A Pretty Face...

...and we wanted some real foreign policy expertise.

I can't stop laughing at this one.

If You Don't Like This One, You're Not Human

It speaks for itself. I'm the proud owner of the CD. Crank up the volume so you don't miss the beginning.

Liking It Is Sufficient Reason For Posting It

Wrong season, but I like this nonliturgical hymn. The first rendition is so beautiful it's scary.




The second rendition isn't the best, but I adore their enthusiasm. If you observe the conductor, you'll notice that the enthusiasm is being orchestrated.





Now you know how I spend my free time.

Stress Management Without Yoga

"Gentleness and humidity is the greatest power that not only helps manage the world according to God's law, but helps a person find peace and health."

Patriarch Kyrill

The Trusted Voice Has Died

Memory Eternal!