The blog of a North Country Swede!

Saturday, November 29, 2008

We are whom we tell ourselves we are ... if we believe it

We are whom we tell ourselves we are ... if we believe it.

There are simple realities that some try to make complex so they can interpret them to us and advance their status in whatever pecking order they are operating. Of course, if they control the game we are playing, then it's their rules we play by.

Simple reality No. 1: On the basis of what we have learned to this point about physics, chemistry, and biology, we are animals. That explains a lot all in itself.

Simple reality No. 2: Our life-form as an animal existed both genealogically and personally before/prior to our becoming aware/conscious of existence.

Simple reality No. 3: We have evolved over the millennia of human existence a narrative of our existence that is general to whatever culture in which we exist and specific to our particular group or tribe. For most of us on planet earth our religion is our narrative.

Simple reality No. 4: We are taught that narrative as we become aware of our existence and have no reason to doubt it in our childhood.

Now those simple realities should go a long way in explaining things. And if we believe what we have learned, we order our own lives according to the narrative we have been taught.

Next thought ... if you are with me to this point.

We can re-order our lives by changing the narrative of our existence.

This is the power of Nietzsche's idea, "Self-configuration through language became a passion for Nietzsche." -pg 55, Nietzsche: A Philosophical Biography by RĂ¼diger Safranski, translated by Shelley Frisch.

Simple reality No. 5: We are different from other animals in the multidimensional character of our imaginations that lets us wander mentally forward and backward in time, and spatially in 3-dimensions. We can create — bring into existence — both objects and narratives from our thoughts and — what is even more — plant them anywhere in our minds, let alone on the planet.

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Leaders get the followers they deserve

What is this bullshit about people getting the leaders they deserve as if it is somehow the troops in the trenches fault when the battle is lost?

Why aren't we saying leaders get the followers they deserve? That's reality.

If you go around saying, "We'll make it easy for you. All you have to do is go shopping. Trust us." What do you expect?

The question becomes, Can a real leader ever be popular? or When can a real leader be popular?

When we are staring into the abyss? Perhaps that is when a people, a culture is tested.

And maybe it is a rhythm of gaining strength in the struggle in the face of a crisis, followed by the weakening from good times, easily maintained.

In any case, leaders who do not want the responsibility of leadership, shouldn't opt to lead.

They're joking, aren't they? 800 Billion?

Secretary Paulson announced yesterday — Tuesday, November 25 — a new plan to pump billions into the consumer credit and home mortgage markets. What he didn't announce was how the consumer and home owner would pay back the money he wanted them to borrow. This is the umpteenth iteration of the same-old, same-old ... or am I missing something?

First off, I keep reading that this credit bubble was in the neighborhood of $50 trillion ... and that we have now thrown around $8 trillion at it. Seems like we have a ways to go. And, just to be up front, I happen to believe the first step in getting there is an honest appraisal of these numbers ... and who is holding what ... or at least receipts for who is getting the money ... all the way down the chain ... or is it going to be like taking those pallets of Benjamins — 100 dollar bills USD, for the slower folks — into the Iraq desert and leaving 'em for the camels or whatever?

It's like the stories that these guys didn't allow for falling home values in their economic models ... before home values started to fall ... because — apparently — home values had never fallen before ... dah! what WERE they thinking?! Guess these New York bankers never heard of "redlining" ... maybe it was too Chicago or something. Chicago bankers had a business model based on failing neighborhoods where home values would deteriorate over time.

Real estate agents used the concepts surrounding redlining to invent their own model of profiting from churning property sales: blockbusting. This is where they would get whites fearful of the influx of blacks into their neighborhoods, to sell at a reduced price. The real estate agents would then resale at a greatly inflated price to the black families who otherwise could not buy a home.

But back to the $800 billion ... Paulson's kidding if he thinks this is going to turn things around. Let's see, we are at $8 trillion +/- and counting on the $50 trillion +/- bubble that is deflating ... we have another $42 trillion +/- to go.

Lots of luck, folks.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Corporate capitalism is still a young puppy ...

Folks, corporate capitalism is still a young puppy as far as these things go, kind of running around and knocking things over.

Remember Ike and the Federal Highway Program? He learned from the things FDR tried and pretty much got it right. Our streets and highways ignited the auto industry out of the industrial base grown in WWII. (Weren't those muscle cars something else?) Then Kennedy came along and gave us the Man on the Moon project which became the ground out of which grew so many new products and industries that it still boggles the mind. (Start thinking of what our global financial gurus have sent offshore ... and somebody wants to continue enabling the neocons in the GOP? Are you kidding me?)

Out of 50's amd 60's we began to learn how government and business could work together to produce a free middle class.

(No, I haven't forgotten the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and they have to be dealt with economically speaking at some point.)

Trouble is ... there is a fly in the ointment ... which we are just now beginning to realize as "Dr." Greenspan said, "a flaw" in his thinking.

And it is so simple it is mind-boggling.

Because the corporation is treated in law as a separate entity, the individual corporate officers can pump all of the corporation's profits into their private pockets without penalty ... except in regulated businesses.

And with the MBA mantra of the pursuit of self-interest as the highest free market value, individuals have been conspiring to keep certain high short-term profit businesses unregulated as long as possible in order to enrich themselves ... individually. Long-term consequences be damned ... they are the corporation as a separate entity's problem.

By 2006 Depfa was the largest buyer of last resort in the world, standing behind $2.9 billion of bonds issued that year alone. It backed a $200 million bond issued by the M.T.A.

But as Depfa grew, it became more reliant on enormous short-term loans to finance its operations. Those loans cost less, and thus helped the bank achieve higher profits, but only when times were good. Indeed, some employees were worried about that debt.

But Mr. Bruckermann plowed ahead, and it paid off. In 2007, even as the global economy was softening, Mr. Bruckermann persuaded one of Germany’s biggest lenders, Hypo Real Estate, to purchase Depfa for $7.8 billion. Mr. Bruckermann’s cut was more than $150 million. He left the company to grow oranges on his Spanish estate.
From Midwest to M.T.A., Pain From Global Gamble
By CHARLES DUHIGG and CARTER DOUGHERTY
Published: November 1, 2008
Print edition: November 2, 2008
NY Times
It's greed ... pure and simple greed.

Who would have ever thought? Certainly not an Ayn Rand disciple like "Dr." Greenspan.

We'd better start training that puppy. And the current GOP is not likely to do it.