Thursday
Need the Book Roadmap?
You know what's kinda hard? Starting a non-fiction book when you don't know what it's about. I recently tried it for the first time, inadvertently. I read an off-hand positive remark on a site I enjoy about The God of the Machine. I looked it up on Amazon and saw it cost $21.00, so I didn't look into it further. But then I saw a Kindle link for a mere $3.95, so I quickly downloaded it . . . and forgot to find out what the book is about. I started reading and am really enjoying it, but it's mildly jarring on the mind, not knowing what to expect. I know it's a free market tract of some sort, but that's it. The reading experience--reading a book and not knowing what it's about ahead of time--is kind of disorientating, but enjoyable in its novelty. * * * * * * * Wanna smoke dope? Go to California and enjoy its medical marijuana law. This is one of the more humorous articles of the season: How to Get a Pot Card (Without Really Trying). Three excerpts:
It didn't take me long to find a pot-friendly MD. When I Googled “medical marijuana card,” the top hit was Marijuana Medicine Evaluation Centers, a chain with 10 California locations. According to its website, marijuana can treat 198 different maladies, including four types of arthritis, cancer, and AIDS, not to mention herpes, tobacco addiction, stuttering, and color blindness. Pot can even treat disparate conditions such as anorexia and obesity, fatigue and insomnia, diarrhea and constipation. And if your affliction isn't on the list, never fear: While most states' medical marijuana laws restrict its use to a narrow list of ailments, California's gives doctors sole discretion over the decision whether their patients ought to smoke up.
The receptionist led me back into a hallway, where I saw a stooped, white-haired man in a rumpled pullover–the doctor. “Come on in,” he mumbled. I stepped into an office and sat down at the edge of his desk. “So, can cannabis help you in some ways?” he asked, pen poised over a recommendation form. “I think so, yeah,” I replied, trying to sound confident. “So how does it help you?” he asked as the ink dried. “Well,” I offered, “I have periodic pain from typing a lot, and in my lower back, and it could help me with that.” He smiled. “Good. It's signed right there.” The entire conversation had taken less than 90 seconds.
That weekend, I headed to the International Cannabis and Hemp Expo. My medical marijuana card got me into a “patient consumption area” staffed by busty women in tight-fitting nurse outfits. A DJ was trying to recruit people to play “420 football”; participants advanced towards a goal line by taking bong hits. As the refrain of “We Gonna Get High” hit the speakers, an employee of a San-Jose-based pot dispensary wearing a nametag that said “Dr. Herb Smoker, MD” offered me a hit of Chocalope, his most popular variety.
Remember that the post last week that mentioned that James Grant might be the most-important econ writer in America? Well, that writer think the death of the Federal Reserve is a possibility. Link. Excerpt:
Why would the Fed ever have to go out of business? Highly leveraged financial institutions forever wobble on the cusp of disaster, and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, the largest of the Fed's 12 satellite banks, is leveraged 71:1. Maybe its management will zig when it ought to zag, and financial problems will overwhelm the parent.
More likely is that the Fed will encounter insurmountable political difficulties. What might Congress do if the gospel of H. Parker Willis (Grant's, Sept. 17) took root? Or if the people rose up to protest against the unanticipated consequences of zero-percent interest rates, quantitative easing and improvisational central planning? The Fed came into the world on a wave of Progressive Era reform. Maybe it will leave the world on a wave of modernist, free-market reform.
