Worth Reading for February 2009

2/6 Some slipperiness in using “altruism” here (“benevolence” is more accurate for most of the cases she mentions), but Sally Satel’s heart and mind are in the right place about our semi-functional organ-donation system and When Altruism Isn’t Moral. (Thanks to Bob H. for the link.) And speaking of morality, Don Boudreaux quotes F. A. Hayek: When Keynesianism Isn’t Moral.

2/5 Following the InstaPundit’s lead: In this era of pork worship, let us kneel before St. Anthony, patron saint of pigs and bacon. This Catholic site puts it deliciously: “people who worked with swine took him as their patron.” The parallels are perfect.

2/4 William Easterly on an entrepreneurial education success story: Ashesi University in Ghana. Back home, poor educational achievement is not a money problem — somewhat exasperatedly, Neal McCluskey explains for the umpteenth time that schools have plenty of money. Meanwhile: Life at Wal-Mart: a former senior writer at Wired magazine gets a new job and ponders upward mobility for low-pay employees. (Thanks to Chris for the link.)

2/3 This little piglet went to Washington. And was joined by thousands more snuffling for a place at the trough. Meanwhile, good advice from the true north strong and free about how to fix the economy: more entrepreneurship education. (Via Jeff Cornwall.)

2/2 How many environmental scares have proved to be groundless or grossly exaggerated? John Coleman, founder of The Weather Channel, on global-warming-as-doomsday’s history. And former senior NASA atmospheric scientist Dr. John S. Theon comments on NASA’s James Hanson’s contribution to the hysteria. Of course, for many decades we market advocates have also been in the business of making economic scare predictions — and how well has that worked? There’s a lot of truth in this John Hasnas post. And one can almost sense David Boaz’s frustration as he explains, once again, the Keynes-versus-Bastiat choice: creating jobs or creating wealth? Meanwhile, Atlas shrugs in Florida and Victor Davis Hanson asks a good question about bankrupt California: “How does one explain how California is broke, tens of billions of dollars in aggregate debt, despite having among the highest sales and income taxes in the nation? We are naturally rich beyond belief — timber, oil, agriculture, a long sea-coast, wonderful weather, mountains, sea, and valleys — and inherited lucrative industries in tourism, computers and software, defense and great universities.”