Thank you, Congressman Frank

Congressman Barney Frank--in the odd position of trying to sound reasonable compared to Ralph Nadar--admits what he and the Obama Admininistration are trying to achieve as a result of the economic crisis.

Barney Frank's Fingernails

Update: One of the commenters points out correctly that Frank ostensibly is referring to financial regulation in his comment. But can anyone seriously doubt that his statement doesn't apply equally to economic and social policy as well?

The Logic of Collective Action

The Value of Everything returns to blogging with two posts--one on an old topic and one on a recent one.

This post is titled with all due respect to Mancur Olson. The attached video (as old as it is) does as much, if not more to delineate the force that collectivism holds over the human psyche as any I have seen. In case your time allocation doesn't permit spending eight minutes watching this video, below is a summary.

• A pride of young lions attacks and appears to subdue a calf that is part of a water buffalo herd and in the process drag the calf into a river in Kruger National Park.
• As the lions attempt to finish off their kill, a pair of alligators try to take the calf from the lions.
• The lions--collectively--save their prey from their rival predators.
• In the meantime, the water buffalo return to confront the lions with the apparent intention of rescuing--collectively--the calf.
• The water buffalo succeed in rescuing the calf and driving off the lions.