The Nigerian jackpot has suddenly grown much bigger. No more chump change like 18 or 21 million dollars; today’s offers are for $55M and $75M.

“Occasional Discourse on the Negro Question“, source of the phrase ‘dismal science’.

. . . with regard to the West Indies, it may be laid down as a principle, which no eloquence . . . can invalidate or hide, except for a short time only, that no black man, who will not work according to what ability the gods have given him for working, has the smallest right to eat pumpkin, or to any fraction of land that will grow pumpkin, however plentiful such land may be, but has an indisputable and perpetual right to be compelled, by the real proprietors of said land, to do competent work for his living. This is the everlasting duty of all men, black or white, who are born into this world. To do competent work, to labor honestly according to the ability given them; for that, and for no other purpose, was each one of us sent into this world; and woe is to every man who by friend or by foe, is prevented from fulfilling this, the end of his being. That is the “unhappy” lot – lot equally unhappy cannot otherwise be provided for man. Whatsoever prohibits or prevents a man from this, his sacred appointment, to labor while he lives on earth – that, I say, is the man’s deadliest enemy; and all men are called upon to do what is in their power, or opportunity, toward delivering him from it. If it be his own indolence that prevents and prohibits him, then his own indolence is the enemy he must be delivered from; and the first “right” he has – poor indolent blockhead, black or white – is, that every unprohibited man, whatsoever wiser, more industrious person may be passing that way, shall endeavor to “emancipate” him from his indolence, and, by some wise means, as I said, compel him to do the work he is fit for. This is the eternal law of nature for a man, my beneficient Exeter Hall friends; this, that he shall be permitted, encouraged, and, if need be, compelled, to do what work the Maker of him has intended, by the making of him for this world.

Government and the godawful greatest generation: Bob Smith traces a cluster of social ills to veterans’ benefits post 1945. (Link updated 2006.)

Vanessa Layne observes (in mail):

One of the significant problems in the marketplace for office automation software is that the person who uses it is almost never the person who decides to buy it. The feedback loop is never closed, the market never reacts.

A couple of weeks ago I happened to meet Jeff Hummel on Market Street. My eye was caught not by his face but by his t-shirt, which bore several crossed-out misspellings of Laissez Faire.

Jacob Sullum: Reefer gladness / Drug users in the next office and atop the corporate ladder

Lewis, the man who accomplished all this, remains Progressive’s chairman and owns more than a tenth of the company’s shares, making him a billionaire. Observers call him a perfectionist, “an extraordinary businessman,” and “an absolutist about untiring effort.” They also call him “a functioning pothead.”

(cited by Billy Beck)

Why Jews Don’t Farm. Link from Matthew Yglesias, whose commentors don’t think much of the essay.