Recently at the annual California Libertarian Convention, a friend of mine gave me a copy of The Haiku Economist, which she had helped to edit. In this work, author Jim Cox gives us 101 poems he wrote in the Haiku form that discuss economic principles. Of course, Haiku is an ancient form of Japanese poetry that uses three lines, with five syllables in the first and third lines, and seven syllables in the second. As most people would agree, it is certainly unusual to summarize economic principles at all, much less in 17 syllables. But, amazingly enough, Cox is successful. So, regretfully if not tragically, since economics is understood by few people, much less our younger generations, I hereby impart the existence of this book to our “2 Paragraphs” family, along with the continuing request that we all share it with others, particularly students.
On the left side of the page, the book sets forth an economic situation, and then on the right side it provides the Haiku poem’s description. For example, at page 58 it says: “The comedian denounced communism for its lack of consumer choices among suppliers.” And on the right:
“Lenny Bruce said it:
Communism, just like one big
phone company, man.”
So the book educates in a fun but still meaningful way. Other examples are poems about Karl Marx, government intervention in the economy, comparing government housing with government healthcare, two economic approaches tried by the Pilgrims, “Too big to fail” companies, rent control, “opportunity costs,” licensing, profits, government regulation, “stimulus spending,” economic “scarcity,” economic “markets,” the banking system’s “fractional reserves,” and inflation. In many ways, people can only truly understand the workings of the world if they understand at least simple economics, and that has big connotations for Liberty! Jim Cox’s book helps in that effort – and I highly recommend it. So please discuss it and pass it on.
Judge Jim Gray (Ret.)
2012 Libertarian candidate for Vice President,
along with Governor Gary Johnson as the candidate for President
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According to the Prison Policy Initiative, on any given day there are about 630,000 people confined in local jails around our country and, of those, 443,000 are in pre-trial confinement. That is 70 percent! And why are they in custody before trial? Yes, because some are considered either to be dangerous to others or a flight risk, but the strong majority stay confined because they don’t have access to enough money to make bail. What difference does that make? Tragically, many of them will unnecessarily lose their jobs, which means that their families will not be able to make their rent payments which, in turn, frequently contributes to the break-up of families. The law says that there are only two factors in determining whether people should be held in custody before trial. The first is whether they likely will appear at court for their trial, and the second is whether, in the meantime, they are a threat to other people. Straightforwardly, and speaking from first-hand experience, judges live in fear of releasing someone who then goes on to harm witnesses or other people. So is the answer never to release anyone? Well no, not only is that not Constitutional or even fair, it is also impractical because we don’t have the jail space. So this puts us into a situation in which risks must be assessed. So is money a good indicator of either of these two issues? Not really. The main indicators instead are the type of charges that people are facing, and whether they have close ties to the community, such as a job, a family with children in school, and the person’s past history of convictions and/or failures to appear in court.
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