Max Borders

The pundit class has spilled a lot of pixels about the so-called rich-poor “gap.” They spilled even more when the pup-tents started popping up in Zuccotti Park. But almost all of these gap-minders have failed to address the fact that there are two kinds of inequality. One kind matters and one doesn’t.  (more)

One of the cleverest things Justin Timberlake ever did was bring sexy back. After all, sexy never really went away. But once the song came out, it didn't matter. People welcomed sexy back with open arms. (more)

How do you explain the gap between rich and poor? The social scientists and Wall Street occupiers have taken their crack at the question. Now it’s the physicists’ turn. (more)

Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are sitting at a diner drinking malted milkshakes. This is not the first line of a joke. In 2010, someone snapped a picture of this scene in Omaha, Nebraska. The image appeared with a Forbes article about a plan the two were hatching. Two of the world’s richest men were discussing an idea that came to be known as the $600 Billion Philanthropy Challenge. (more)

Would you let your mother, daughter, friends and neighbors continue to suffer unwarranted indignities at the hands of government agents if you had the power to stop them? (more)

It is the greatest good to the greatest number of people which is the measure of right and wrong.
-- Jeremy Bentham (more)

The theocrats are angry. No, I’m not talking about Qaddafi or Mubarak. I’m talking about the Southern Baptists. (more)

A few days after September 11, 2001, people started making fun of Francis Fukuyama. They claimed his book -- The End of History and the Last Man -- was wrong. The book’s thesis had been toppled with the towers, they said. But have recent events in Egypt, Tunisia and Iran partially vindicated Fukuyama? (more)

I have to give props to my Jewish friends. Judaism seems to be the only belief system whose adherents aren’t out actively recruiting people. The Tribe doesn’t feel the need to have me as a member. And I appreciate that. Their lack of zeal is nice. I used to be able to say that about my fellow atheists. But not anymore. If they ever start coming to my door, I’ll tell them -- figuratively, of course -- to go to hell. (more)

What if I told you that a single one of your genes and your high school popularity could predict your political persuasion? Faster than you can say, “liberalism is a birth-defect,” people are reading what they want into a new study. (more)

Christians. Jews. All faithful of the right. I’d like to continue to extend my hand in brotherhood. We made our November 2010 pilgrimage together. We can do it again in 2012. I am an atheist. Yes, we may quibble about certain things, but we have much in common. Our patriotism binds us. (more)

Dear Mr. Williams, (more)

The essence of the superior man is that he is free of ... envy. Conscious of his capacity to survive and prosper within his own field, he has no desire to change places with anyone else, and hence he is incapable of envying anyone else. Thus he is inevitably a bad democrat, for democracy is a practical matter is based mainly and perhaps almost wholly on envy. -- H. L. Mencken (more)

College kids have an excuse for being indignant about free trade. They’re largely ignorant--young idealists who’re still learning about the real world. They don’t realize, for example, that most “sweatshop” jobs in Central America pay more than prevailing wages in those countries. And, while these jobs are tough, they are less horrible than subsistence agriculture. In other words, third-worlders actually want sweatshop jobs. The alternatives may be prostitution, starvation or crime. (more)