If College Football Were "Rasslin'"

From Tigernet comes the pointer that this week is a big one in the ACC: the National Football Belt is up for grabs in a big game on Saturday--Clemson Plays Florida State with the Belt on the line.

As the web site Collegefootballbelt.com explains (follow the link and click on Belt Description), since college football doesn't have an actual championship game decided on the field, it needs a Championship Belt, like professional wrestling. When the belt-holder plays and wins, they keep the belt; if they lose, it passes to the winner.

Starting with the first college game between Princeton and Rutgers in 1869 to the present day, the belt is now worn by Clemson by virtue of their defeat of Auburn last week-end. The Belt is thus on the line again this week when Clemson plays FSU. Will the Tigers retain this mythical National Championship symbol?

I hope so. Go Tigers!

Things Seen and Unseen

I am familiar with the Broken Windows fallacy, but until this morning I had not read the essay from which comes, an 1850 essay by Frenchman Frédéric Bastiat. Wikipedia prints the full essay here, but a perhaps more readable version is here. It begins:

In the economic sphere an act, a habit, an institution, a law produces not only one effect, but a series of effects. Of these effects, the first alone is immediate; it appears simultaneously with its cause; it is seen. The other effects emerge only subsequently; they are not seen; we are fortunate if we foresee them.

There is only one difference between a bad economist and a good one: the bad economist confines himself to the visible effect; the good economist takes into account both the effect that can be seen and those effects that must be foreseen.

Yet this difference is tremendous; for it almost always happens that when the immediate consequence is favorable, the later consequences are disastrous, and vice versa. Whence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good that will be followed by a great evil to come, while the good economist pursues a great good to come, at the risk of a small present evil.

The essay has a number of subsections: the Broken Window; the Disbanding of Troops; Taxes; Theatres, Fine Arts; Public Works; the Intermediates; Restrictions; Machinery; Credit; Algeria; Frugality and Luxury; and He Who Has a Right to Work Has a Right to Profit.

I'm not an economist, but this sounds like good argument as to why many government economic measures don't work, particularly public works spending and tariffs.

I found the essay very interesting and worth the time it took to read. I'd be interested in looking at articles debunking Bastiat's thoughts.