The new economics - Post X

Well ... some folks are thinking right now, maybe we should rethink some of these economic things ...

Kind of like, maybe gravity isn't all there is to Physics ... even though gravity is part of it. Kind of like Adam Smith is soooooooooooooo Newtonian.

I mean after Katrina shouldn't we have realized that we didn't have the concept of what we can expect from each other nailed down? Is national security (our military) the only thing we socialize adequately? (No, I am not saying we should run everything like the military, but can't we stop and think a little ... stuff ain't going so good, y'know?)

And yes, there is a real problem with the type of collectivizing that leads to the gulag ... but there is also the real problem of a so-called freedom that let's the rich get richer until we wind up on banana republic plantations. Folks used to understand the concept of "the butcher's thumb on the scales".

The old economics led the global financial gurus to believe they were modern alchemists who had actually discovered how to transmute lead into gold ... printing pieces of paper with complex functions that gave them real value ... aka instruments of debt and their derivatives ...

Anything could be "borrowed against" and then the document of the loan had the value of the amount borrowed. The more you could get other folks to borrow, the more value was created.

You mean, you didn't have to worry about the value of whatever it was that was borrowed against? Hell no! Just buy another piece of paper called a credit default swap (CDS) that was insurance that the other piece of paper, the instrument of debt, would have value no matter what.

But I digress ...

Back to the new economics ...

A house retains its real value if it is maintained in a neighborhood of maintained houses ... (staggers the imagination, doesn't it?)

If I let my house deteriorate, my house is not the only one that loses value.

Who then pays for the loss of value in my neighbors houses?

What if the "bank" repossesses my house for whatever reason AND the abandoned house starts to deteriorate AND the cumulative loss to the houses in the neighborhood is always greater than the loss in value of the abandoned house ...

And what if maintaining the now abandoned house would have cost far less than the either the loss in value of an abandoned house OR the cumulative loss in value in the neighborhood ...

Now, it seems rational to me that there should be some form of REAL VALUE insurance to kick in to protect the neighborhood homeowners ... so, would their forming a cooperative to provide themselves that kind of insurance be "socialism"?, or only if they did it through their government? And what if it is done after the fact, after the neighborhood homeowners realize it is cheaper to maintain the abandoned house? Is it socialism for them to cooperate on reducing their losses?

Farmers in the midwest formed cooperatives to bring electricity to areas not served by the "private" sector ... was/is that socialism?

Just asking.

From NPQ, the New Perspectives Quarterly:

Free Markets and the End of History

NPQ | In the end, your ideas have triumphed over Marx and Keynes. Is this, then, the end of the road for economic thought? Is there anything more to say than free markets are the most efficient way to organize a society? Is it the “end of history,” as Francis Fukuyama put it?

Milton Friedman | ... "Free markets" is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn't the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.

http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2006_winter/friedman.html

Interpretation: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term. The reason for this is the clear fact that all costs incurred in the production and distribution of goods and services are not paid for out of the monetary selling price of the goods and services ... only the reimbursement of "ownership" costs ... so what is "free" about free markets is their being free of the costs they incur to others than the legally defined owners of the goods and services for sale--sellers and buyers.

We are entering a new age of economics

The world has already entered a new age of economics ... and simply hasn't brought the "science" of it up to date.

We need to rethink a few things ... for instance does leveraged asset ownership simply keep extending the asset owners out over the cliff until they fall? ... because the strength of an asset being held up by an instrument of debt as an anti-gravity device is reverse to the leverage involved?

In rethinking economics, the first concept we need to nail down, is the "I, thou" relationship, don't you think? What is our responsibility to others, and theirs to us? Like, when is it every person for him or herself? And when is it that we watch each other's backs? I mean, Katrina and New Orleans and now the global economic meltdown with

First, we need a market where goods and services of real value (others want or need them) are produced and then exchanged or consumed as efficiently as possilbe.

Second, we need to pay ALL the costs of producing these goods and services out of the profits earned by selling/exchanging the goods in services in the market.

Third, we need to sustain our communities as renewable resources for our future,

The current economic meltdown under the warping of the old economics will demand a review of what when wrong ... and I dare say some new concepts will emerge.

Put the Invisible Hand behind us

Let's put this "Invisible Hand" to rest once and for all.

What some call the Invisible Hand is the creative imagination of the human being that invents ... everything from the spear, fire, the wheel, stories, medicine, math ... a narrative of our existence ... to steam engines, electricity, wireless, space stations, the internet, books, plays, movies, heart transplants, ... biology, chemistry, physics ... psychology, sociology ... beyond my ordering of the jumble of "products" pouring forth from the minds of humans.

The "spirit" of America -- the collective energy of individual motivation -- is providing each and every individual human being the opportunity to get a fair share of his or her inventiveness in applying his or her effort -- their being able to direct their own effort, mental and physical -- to "earning" a living, providing the needs of living. Unleashing this spirit produced the greatest country for the common man AND the greatest country itself, that the world has ever known.

The radical change of moving away from slavery and indentured servitude -- where the benefits of individual effort accrue to someone else -- to individual autonomy in our economic lives -- and to all areas of our lives (did it start with the Protestant belief of the individual's direct connection with God?) -- has transformed the nature of government and all other forms of human endeavor.

In one sense, the human narrative of existence can be described as an expanding balloon. The interior is our history, the exterior is our future, and our experience of now is the skin ... it's elasticity, our inventiveness.

I would suggest that a primary role of government is to foster the creative imagination of the individual human being, thereby blowing into and expanding the balloon of human experience.

Credit bailout: Adding quicksand to the quicksand pool

It is incredible that intelligent people think that extending credit is going to pull us out of the "credit quicksand" in which we are sinking. "Hell yes, dump another load of quicksand in that pool of quicksand, big guy."

In a market economy, wealth is being able to produce goods and services that have real value ... goods and services that OTHER folks want so they will exchange THEIR goods and services for ours. That's what gives these goods and services value.

In a "free" nation (you know, "liberty and justice for all", "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness") labor is paid a fair share of the wealth it helps create, building a strong middle class and the strongest of all possible nations -- this I believe, and I also believed we proved it in and following WWII.

Credit and money have no intrinsic value EXCEPT the value of adding efficiency to the transactions of exchanging goods and services that do have intrinsic/real value. AND that is based on trust between the parties to the transactions that they will honor the value of the instruments of debt (credit) and money used in the transaction.

Even an idiot can see where this is leading.

When we failed to hold our leaders feet to the fire -- even though the American people tried mightily by deluging Congress with emails and phone calls -- and get them to enact a jobs stimulus program building infrastructure that adds real value to a mature economy like ours (and HAS to be produced collectively either as a private consortium or government program), thereby keeping us from sinking deeper into the credit quicksand.

And to have the Republicans who have the awesome example of President Eisenhower and his federal highway program as a gigantic monument to prosperity looming in the background, come up with a $700 Billion blank check extension of credit as a solution ... was so absurd it, it was unfathomable by we the people.

Notes:

First, I do not believe in a "free market" (as a macro concept). There is no such thing, not even hypothetically.

Second, markets emerged out of a world filled with natural resources already here and religious beliefs, hence the "Invisible Hand' bs. As these natural resources have been wedded to the creative imagination/inventiveness of the human mind, a whole new world has emerged ... a world that now requires the human creative imagination to take it to each new level.

It used to be the opening of new trade routes to new cultures and war that give us new products. Now it is programs like going to the moon and the internet -- which are extensions of military/national security initiatives -- which open new "resource" horizons for creating new goods and services that others want ... and therefore add real value in a market economy.

It is our faith in our creative imagination when given the opportunity for inventiveness that should guide us ... ESPECIALLY us, a nation born out of the creative courage of a man sailing west into the unknown ... looking for new trade routes ...

Finally, it is only in an unfettered market that you learn what people want ... but that is a different concept then this "Invisible Hand" crap that is so outdated that we should be laughing. Yes, Newton described why an apple falls from a tree ... but we are a ways beyond that these days in understanding the dynamics of our universe. Likewise should we be beyond Adam Smith.

In my opinion ...

Posted by hglindquist on 10/05/08 at 8:38PM

Ah, folks ... I have a little egg on my face right about now. Just found out from 60 Minutes that the math for slicing and dicing the subpirmes was done by Physicists ...

Well ... my guess is that some economist most likely told 'em that home prices had never decreased in value since the recovery from the Great Depression.

You can see how that would screw up a function, can't you? ;-)

The meltdown: Thelma & Louise, Part II

Nobody put a gun to the heads of these global financial gurus to invent virtually unfunded credit default swaps (CDS, aka default insurance), sell them ($60 Trillion+ dollars worth?) to foreign investors along with the sliced and diced instruments of debt, and take their humongous fees and bonuses upfront ... fees that fed the campaigns of the politicians of both major parties who would rewrite the laws and regulations to accelerate the greed frenzy ... while steering the whole shebang so far out over the ledge that it was Thelma & Louise, Part II.

All the while telling some poor dumb bastard, "You can be part of nirvana by buying a house and having it go up in value." (Which the "brilliant" gurus actually believed as shown by their failure to adequately fund the CDS's.)

You know, economics is the only "discipline" (it ain't no science yet) that uses antiquated principles ... well, besides religion ... Thomas Hobbes and Adam Smith are soooooooo Newtonian ...

But things are a-changing ... this meltdown is getting folks to say, "What WERE we thinking?!"

Did you happen to read This Economy Does Not Compute By Mark Buchanan, on the October 1, 2008, OpEd page of the NY Times?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/opinion/01buchanan.html

From the column:

"For example, an agent model being developed by the Yale economist John Geanakoplos, along with two physicists, Doyne Farmer and Stephan Thurner, looks at how the level of credit in a market can influence its overall stability."

Notes:

Nobody around here is blaming Bush 43 personally ... that I know of. We -- in the general sense -- acknowledge he's too dumb to be culpable.

Here's some wisdom that HAS stood the test of time:

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. - 1 Timothy 6:10, New Testament, KJV, blueletterbible.org

http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/1Ti/1Ti006.html#10

And regarding the fair share for labor:

For it is written in the law of Moses, Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn. Doth God take care for oxen? - 1 Corinthians 9:9, New Testament, KJV, blueletterbible.org

http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/1Cr/1Cr009.html#9

Keeping the Paulson-Bernanke bailout plan simple ...

A couple of things ... to help keep things simple on the $700 Billion Paulson-Bernanke bailout plan:

The bailout is the Wall Street/Beltway Gang holding a gun to the head of average hard-working citizens and saying give me your money or else. The gun and the "or else", of course, are all the calamity that will befall the average person if we don't turn over the money ... loss of jobs; loss of home, student, car loans; etc.

Well ... guess what? ... us folks were holding a gun on them ... "You're going with us, you bastards. And we'll see who can work their way out of this. 'Cuz if you think you can just keep robbing us blind, you got another think coming. We're ALREADY losing our jobs, our homes ... "

Hoo boy!, Americans still have grit!!! God, I love my country!

Next ... these so-called economic geniuses keep saying what they did to get us here is too complicated for common folks to understand. Well, it ain't. It's really quite simple. In fact it so simple that once you realize how simple it is, you (if you haven't understood it before) are going to be really, really pi$$ed off.

It's a concept called "leverage". And it's called that because it can be described as a pry-bar or teeter-totter ... using force on one end of a lever or plank to match the force on the other.

OK, let's think of the back-yard teeter-totter where you place a long plank over a drum or something in the "center" as the "fulcrum". If you have done this in the past with your kids, you know an adult can teeter with a child by giving the child "more plank" on his/her side of the fulcrum. That adds to their "leverage" to lift you easily. It also means the adult can hold them up when they are far out on their end of the plank ... and the more plank the adult gives the child, the lighter the child has to be to hold up a particular adult.

Now, say there was a rule that you the maximum multiply of plank you could put on the child's side was "adult side times 12". This was a safety rule, because if the adult had a heart attack and fell off, the child wouldn't be injured or even killed by their fall at their end.

Now, say the teeter-totter manufacturer came up with an anti-gravity braking device that countered gravity on the child's side so -- the manufacturer said -- no matter what happened on the adult's side, the child was safe ... even to a multiple of say, "adult side times 35". (And that put the child pretty damn high ... as they say ... What a feeling!)

Wow! Joy and celebration all around ... even little, little kids could teeter-totter with the adults! And even sickly adults could now teeter-totter with the little kids. So what if anyone they fell off? ... on either side? ... the system would NEVER crash! (So read the anit-gravity braking device manufacturer's sales brochure.)

And if you combined healthy adults with sickly adults on the adult side ... the system worked even better for sickly adults. (Now we were really rolling!)

That is until too many sickly adults started losing weight at the SAME time, then the system got overloaded in a hurry ... BECAUSE there WAS a flaw in the anti-gravity braking device system: each individual teeter-totter was hooked up to a central playground machine that could only handle a limited number of teeter-totters at a time ... and anybody with half a brain would have see the overload starting from the edge of the playground. Shouldn't they have screamed immediately: "STOP TEETER-TOTTERING!" ... BEFORE everyone crashed? (Just asking ... but I digress ... as is my wont)

The basic question in the design of this anit-gravity braking device system was (should have been?) "What would happen if the sickly adults started losing more weight than the anti-gravity braking device system could handle at any given time?" BECAUSE the plan was to allow sickly adults to teeter-totter, so the question SHOULD have been obvious ... don't you think?

Don't you think any playground supervisor would have asked that question? AND asked for proof from the anti-gravity braking device system manufacturer? Unless of course, the supervisor was being paid off.

The average American citizen can smell a pay-off (a rat?) from a mile off. Even if the Wall Street/Beltway Gang kept saying it was too complicated for us ordinary folks to understand. (Yeah, and I have a bridge to sell you ... [That bridge thinger takes on a whole new level of meaning ... don't you think?])

OK, the "adult side" of the teeter-totter is the bundled loan package of healthy and sickly instruments of debt. The "child side" is a combination of the "child" -- the investment bank or whatever -- and the "extended blank" -- the money borrowed by the "child" to help hold up the adult side.

In the Balance Sheet equation of Assets = Liabilites + Capital (aka Owner Equity), or also expressed as Capital = Assets - Liabilities, equation, the "adult side" is the Assets, the "child" is the Capital, and the "extended plank" is the Liabilities.

The "anti-gravity braking device" is the credit default swap designed to pay for the instrument of debt in case of default ... cover any loss.

No one had to know what is inside the "anti-gravity braking device" ... they just had to have proof that it would work. Kind of like any other brake ...

Unless ... like I said ... someone was being paid off to look the other way ...

Also like I say, doesn't take a genius to figure THAT out.

What's wrong with this picture?

Another thing ... what is this about having to do something, anything before Congress goes on vacation? What's wrong with their staying in session until they get it right this time ... like the rest of have to when a crisis hits us.

This whole scenario is so absurd ... we are facing the equivalent of an economic Pearl Harbor -- according to a number of credible authorities -- and the US Senate passes a pork laden Paulson-Bernanke bailout plan so they can go home as early as possible?

What's wrong with this picture?!

On reversing the meltdown ...

There is only one strategy that will reverse the meltdown ... in my opinion ... and the sooner we get there, the better.

It is following Ireland's lead (as I understand it anecdotally) and put the full faith and credit of the United States behind our banks and their issuing of debt -- at least home mortgages. Something like the way the FDIC works ... with adequate regulation ... and having ENOUGH fees to pay for any losses ... AND an experience rating system so banks that make faulty loans are charged higher fees.

Our home mortgages are the strength of our communities, hence an underlying pillar of our nation. And the combined economic strength is more than enough to recover from the greed of Wall Street ... without paying those criminals one more penny in bailout money.

Now the caveats/disclaimers: I do not think it will be as simple as that ... but I am writing in the bloggosphere trying to provoke thought ... to encourage tossing anything related to Secretary Paulson's bailout plan on the dung heap and then working something out around the Ireland plan.

I will be emailing my Congressperson, the Honorable Donald Payne, and asking him to vote "NO" on this bailout bill, noting that I have strong opinions on it.

It is un-American to cave with a gun to our heads.

Let's see if we have the grit to get this right.

A Napolean-like retreat out of the Middle East?

It is becoming obvious that the problem with the economic meltdown is the foreign investors who were told their investments in these instruments were safe because they were backed up by credit default swaps types of debt insurance ... which is now a huge "oops!"

If there is a run on that stuff ... by those people ...

Whew! Americans would have to start growing their own vegetables, darning their socks, walking to the store ...

We would not be able to drive to the mall and go shopping like before!

That might be seen as funny ... but a collapse of our economy might also leave our military forces stranded in the Middle East ... anybody remember reading about Napoleon's retreat out of Russia?

No wonder Secretary Paulson went on bended knee in front of House Speaker Pelosi ...

The $700 Billion bailout - Part II

I don't think we know yet whether this is a bailout or a blip on the slide into banana republicanism ... there is a lot more we should be finding out ... like ...

According to Time Magazine the world economy is annualized around $54 Trillion ...

According to Bloomberg News the credit default swap (CDS) industry is around $62 Trillion ...

And the way I am beginning to understand is that a CDS is what allows a financial institution to carry a questionable instrument of debt -- such as subprime mortgages and bundled credit card debt -- on its books at full asset value ... (even when that instrument of debt is about to go in the tank ... because the CDS is supposed to pay off on default)

So ... if CDS's start going south ... as in what happened to AIG ... then the world has to revalue the instruments of debt they carry on their books as assets ...

So ... the perfect example is Lehman Bros. ... as I understand it ... it was leveraged at 35 times its capital ... see, assets = liabilities + capital ... so say you have $36 Billion in assets then you have $35 Billion in liabilities (what you have borrowed -- from creditors -- to combine with you put in as capital to buy the assets) plus the $1 Billion in capital -- your own money -- (this is an example, of course, the amounts are representative)

So ... the value of the assets goes south by 5% or .5 X $36 Billion = $1.8 Billion ... this means you now owe your creditors $ 800 Million ... which is a manageable amount in terms of getting new capital ...

But what if the assets start going south by 10-20-25% ... or like what is happening now: 50-75-100%? and everybody's assets are going south at the same time?

And what if this then also triggers a collapse of the CDS industry?

Don't we have to have some idea of what the CDS industry is insuring if we are going to figure out whether the $700 Billion is a bailout or a blip?

These geniuses keep saying these are "derivatives" that are too complicated to understand ... I don't think so, IF they are forms of insurance for questionable instruments of debt.

I think the gurus don't want to explain them to us because it would scare the bejabbers out of the rest of us and they wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of getting the money they think they need to escape the collapse.

But I could be wrong ...

Upon reflection ...

Let me tell you when I realized the size of the $62 Trillion credit default swap industry relative to the $54 Trillion annualized world economy ... I took a deep breath.

I believe Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke are playing Col. Jessup: "You can't handle the truth!"

We need a whole lot more honest information.

The $700 billion bailout ... are they kidding us?

With this proposal, Paulson has abandoned hope of holding financial-sector players responsible for their mortgage disaster and is instead intent on distributing those losses to taxpayers. The problem is, it's not clear what the government is buying or what the ultimate price tag will be. -JRacioppi, NJVoices

Right on target, Joe!

And not only that ... we have yet to find out what is hidden in the $62 Trillion credit default swaps (amount per Bloomberg news today) ... up from $900 Billion in 2001 (can you BELIEVE it?!)

Repeating myself, you have hit the nail on the head ... this is a scheme for taxpayers to bail out the global financial sector players who got us into this mess ... and I would add: apparently before the $62 Trillion credit default swaps debacle hits the skids ...

Listening to Paulson and Bernanke this morning ... I could feel a chill creep over me. These two are dissembling (the kindest thing I can say) ... and to me it seems obvious.

I sent the following email to the Senator Dodd's Senate Banking (...) Committee:

Two things:

1. It seems to me that Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke are using people's fears over their retirement funds and mortgages to hide the problems in the $62 Trillion credit default swap industry (amount per Bloomberg news today).

2. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard Chairman Bernanke say we couldn't limit executive pay because they then might not participate in the bailout, letting their companies fail instead.

These two are the problem ... looking to them for a solution is leting the fox guard the hen house.

Let me see if I understand these credit default swaps (CDS) ...

They are a form of insurance ... highly profitable to the issuers up to now ... depending how the rate of default ... which was calculated as relatively manageable ... up to now ... when the sub-prime mortgages went in the tank ... meaning that sub-prime default's could bring down the whole $62 Trillion CDS thing ...

See ... the brilliant global financial sector mathematicians calculated the default risk as manageable with big payouts to the "insurance" salespersons ... so they took their fees upfront ...

oops!

So ... the REAL problem seems to be that if the mortgages go south ... they exceed the CDS inndustry rate of default and the $62 Trillion CDS industry goes south right behind it ... now THAT is going to be exciting!

Will the $700 Billion stem the southward flow? I don't think anyone knows for sure.

Anyhow that's how I would look at it ...

What's more ...

It seems obvious that the reason that Secretary Paulson and Chairman Bernanke want unrestricted flexibility in the use of the $700 Billion is that they do not KNOW where the money needs to go to stave off the collapse of the $62 Trillion CDS industry ...

Now THAT would explain their urgency and fear ...

The problem then becomes of their not being up front with us or Congress ... apparently because "they know what is best for us" and "we can't handle the truth."

And without transparency we don't know if this will work.

So what they are really telling us -- in my opinion -- is that if the plan is not approved, the $62 Trilllion CDS industry will in all likelihood fail ... and if it is approved, we don't know whether it will fail or not.

And Paulson and Bernanke want us to trust them?!

OK, that being said ... let's take another look at the credit default swaps (CDS) ... because from my pov, unless we get a handle on the risk involved in these things we don't know whether the the $700 Billion bailout will work or not ...

See, apparently CDS's were sold as insurance without the "experience" analyses of rates of disability, morbidity, mortality, fertility and other contingencies as in the forms of insurance with which we are more familiar. The actuaries (specialized mathematicians) used SOMETHING to calculate the rates for selling CDS's. The Senate banking committee looking into this mess should be asking for the THAT information ... to determine just how big a scam has been perped by the global financial sector gurus.

I would suggest that they based the rates on a guess with an eye toward how much they could generate in fees and bonuses, and NOT on anything real ... and if that can be proved, isn't it fraud? or shouldn't it be?

I mean, if you paid life insurance to an insurance company only to find out the company was going bankrupt because it had not set aside enough to pay off your policy ... but had paid its salespersons and executives high salaries, fees, and bonuses ... and then asked your heirs to take out a loan to pay off your policy?

And somebody actually thought this was a good idea? ANY kind of idea except bad?!

I hear America singing ...

Once again the elites controlling the two parties as factions of one political system have found issues that divide we the people ... and these issues divide us BECAUSE they are major issues ... life and death issues ... what could be more major than that?

In the meantime our elite ruling class -- the global financial services sector gurus -- ship our labor enriching jobs offshore and offer us instruments of debt on inflating assets in return.

When are we going to wake up? We're being suckered in a Three Shell Monte game of distraction ...

Think of it ... China's architects, engineers, ironworkers, tool and die machinists, operating engineers, welders, mechanics, maintenance mechanics, etc., etc. etc. are building their experience ... raising their foundation of skills ... while ours atrophy.

The global financial services sector gurus are so far removed from experiencing the existential fact of earning one's living by the sweat of one's brow ... in both physical and mental labor ... that they cannot value its worth ... and have given our storehouse of labor wealth away as if it was worth nothing ... a storehouse stocked with experience and skills acquired in the industrialization of WWII in defense of our nation and the '50's under Eisenhower and his federal highway program ...

Take one example ... creating a workforce able to creatively handle work with exotic metals ... necessary to build with them ... requires a long, active apprenticeship with those metals. We've GIVEN those jobs away.

Our global financial services sector gurus are really "brilliant idiots" on the economy ... but they have mastered Karl Rove politics to keep themselves in power, enriching themselves ... by dividing us.

By the way, Senator (Common Man) Joe Biden is in the pocket of the Delaware credit and banking corporations -- in my opinion. But I wouldn't vote for McCain and an extension of Bush world if my life depended on it.

I Hear America Singing
Walt Whitman (1819–1892). Leaves of Grass. 1900.

I HEAR America singing, the varied carols I hear;
Those of mechanics—each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong;

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,
The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat—the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench—the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter’s song—the ploughboy’s, on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother—or of the young wife at work—or of the girl sewing or washing—Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else;
The day what belongs to the day—At night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.


http://www.bartleby.com/142/91.html

Y'know ... a few months from now ...

Y'know ... a few months from now (not even years, let alone decades or centuries) the new wizards will be 'splaining to us how "we" allowed "that" bunch of brilliant idiots (the global financial services sector) to transfer our productive wealth (which is the real source of modern wealth -- the historical sources being property, natural resources, and SLAVE labor) to China ... and thereby giving their workers the opportunity to learn the skills our workers perfected in establishing our extraordinary manufacturing base in WWII and the Eisenhower years ... while our workforce was allowed to atrophy.

I have nothing against Chinese workers becoming skilled, but not by the direct transfer of the production capability that our workforce had as much a hand in creating as anyone else including the financial gurus ... without so much as a fare-thee-well to our workforce.

(Doesn't anyone stop and think about what the free workforce and citizen military of these United States accomplished in WWII? ... that our current leadership is pi$$ing away?!!! Turning us into a banana republic.)

I think it's this obsession with money as if "money" were a commodity.

For the middle and working classes our strength has never been "money". It is skill in the production or distribution of goods and services that have value (others want in exchange for what they have to offer us) in the marketplace ... a marketplace that has sensible rules, by the way, like standard weights and measures.

If government -- as one of its legitimate functions -- safeguards an orderly market for its citizens, free citizens will do the rest. (Like, why are so many businesses and citizens leaving New Jersey, Governor Corzine?)

We are selling (giving away?) the seed corn ... labor skills that are a huge part of what makes ordinary people free ... because they are valuable to employ. Of course, we need a nation that protects the rights of free labor as much as it protects the rights of property ... which does NOT necessarily mean unions (or what unions have become, rather).

The current crop of brilliant idiots ... 3rd and 4th generation removed from labor ... have no appreciation of the stored wealth in labor's skills ... so they blithely give it away. They are so dumb I would laugh, but they are so weakening our nation by their ignorance that it makes me want to cry.

Housing, housing, housing ... wages, wages, wages

Housing, housing, housing ... wages, wages, wages

And with the middle class no longer earning enough to pay the mortgage ... or the heating bill ... or the fuel cost of the commute ... the handwriting is on the wall ... banks and GSE's (government sponsored enterprises such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) involved in mortgages are going to continue failing until the economy adjusts to what people CAN afford.

Which is a whole lot less than before because the chickens are coming home to roost in high oil prices exchanged for shipping our jobs offshore.

While the cost of everything has been escalating, the wages paid labor are stagnant or falling. We the people can no longer afford our previous lifestyle. And we don't know yet how low we are going to sink in this recession/depression.

And because there is no end in sight (or even imagined) to the real decline in wages ... this IS GOING TO GET UGLY before it is over.

We are not getting out of this one by printing more greenbacks or extending credit ... creating more instruments of debt aka instruments of death to an economy overburdened with them.

We need the production of goods and services having real value in global trade ... out of which labor earns a fair share to pay for a middle class life.

Anything else is smoke and mirrors.

The fact is that many new homebuyers have lost whatever equity they had even if they made reasonable downpayments with what were at the time reasonable terms ... and then have just been laid off by General Motors or whatever. The chaos being caused by the loss of the purchasing power of home equity PLUS the drop in wages -- both in the aggregate (to say nothing of the pain for the individual family) -- is a double-whammy body blow to the US economy.

And what is so disheartening to me at least, is that our fearless leaders have not yet begun to talk about solutions that come close to doing the job of turning the situation around. They are still acting as if all we have to do is take a deep breath, print more money, and issue more instruments of debt to the very enterprises that created this mess ... and the US economy will correct itself on its own ... after they gutted it totally in their globalization schemes.

Kevin Phillips has been giving us chapter and verse on what's been going on ... so we can't say we weren't warned.

We've been squanderng our kids future

Kevin Phillips has a new book out titled Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Kind of punctuates the greedy insanity of our global financial sector brilliant idiots.

How in heaven's name (anyone else's?) did we get sold a bill of goods that if borrowed to buy stuff we would be building a strong economy? Essentially that we could borrow our way to prosperity. It's nuts.

And on top of that we are participating in one of the greatest transfers of wealth in the history of the human race ... due to the speculative frenzy in oil futures ... which in turn is due to the FACT that the globe is awash in US dollars that have to find a "hedge" against inflation ... which in turn is due to the fact that the government cronies (Treasury Department, Federal Reserve Board, ... U.S. Senate ... ) of our global financial services sector wizards are "printing" money faster than we ever thought possible ... because the whole house of cards they are trying to hold up is too big to allow to fail ... even though we all know it is going to.

And when you think of where our dollars are going for the petroleum products we use ... such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, Venezuela ... even if not directly ... and their sovereign accounts which can then be used to buy up our national assets ... this is not only crazy, it is traitorous -- in my opinion ( ... which is why I agree with blarneyboy about hanging our speculators from streetlights.)

We are being lied to on so many fronts ... the Consumer Price Index (inflation) has been "adjusted" ... the rate of unemployment is not a true measure of the unemployed ... and talk about our federal deficit:

What's the real federal deficit?
By Dennis Cauchon, USA TODAY,Updated 8/4/2006 9:55 AM ET

The federal government keeps two sets of books.

The set the government promotes to the public has a healthier bottom line: a $318 billion deficit in 2005.

The set the government doesn't talk about is the audited financial statement produced by the government's accountants following standard accounting rules. It reports a more ominous financial picture: a $760 billion deficit for 2005. If Social Security and Medicare were included -- as the board that sets accounting rules is considering -- the federal deficit would have been $3.5 trillion.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-08-02-deficit-usat_x.htm

Our kids are already shaking their heads at how shortsighted we've been ... squandering their future ... selling our birthright of liberty for another shopping trip to the mall ... and now money we spend on the gas we use to get to the mall goes to sovereign accounts so they can buy the malls where we shop ... brilliant!

It's time to lay the Grand Old Party to rest

It's pretty damn obvious that the Republican Party has knowingly participated in the deliberate shredding of our Constitution.

The president swears to the following oath "in accordance with Article II, Section I of the U.S. Constitution:"

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/pihtml/pioaths.html

We all know there has been a deliberate attempt by the Bush 43 adminsitration to subvert the Constitution of the United States ... and those in the Republican Party who were not leading in the subversion, were acquiescing ... except for a few like Senator Chuck Hagel.

If we could get the Libertarian Party to focus more on those things we hold in common — like a functional government we can afford — and less on the peripheries — like legalizing marijuana — I think we could properly bury the GOP.

Save Bear Stearns and starve the world's poor

When Bernanke (the Federal Reserve Chairman) decreed that we would no longer be getting figures on the M3 money supply as he opened the floodgates on money ... where did we expect all the dollars to go when we weren't watching?

Is there any wonder why the price of oil, rice, etc. is going through the roof?

"Bernake's" money has found a home in commodities futures ... dah!

The Federal Reserve has "saved" Bear Stearns and given the U.S. economy a brief respite ... but at what cost to the world's poor?

Time to End "Bernanke Panky?"
By Kevin Phillips
Posted June 2, 2008 | 05:24 PM (EST)
The Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-phillips/time-to-end-bernanke-pank_b_104769.html

Republicans have a lot to answer for ...

So how did the Republican Party leadership allow George W. to call himself a conservative and then ...

• Entangle us in the occupation of Iraq for five long years with no end in sight

• Run up the national debt by not even trying to balance the budget with no end in sight

• Continue the selling of America to foreigners with no end in sight

and so on and so forth ...

Let me put it to you straight ... if you vote for a Republican then you need to have your head examined.

If you don't like the Democrat ... then get involved with another political party. But Republicans? You're kidding, right?

Scott McClellan's epiphany ... is What Happened

Scott McClellan is the alter boy who finally realizes he's been sexually abused by his beloved priest.

He is the person raised as a true believer who discovers his guru was lying to him all along ... and using him ... and then mocking him.

He's the kid in junior high who gets suckered by the smart kids into carrying their water and then made fun of ... the humiliation is deep and lasting.

Scott was dumb enough to believe in George W. Bush ... well past the time when there was enough evidence to discredit the president ... but rose colored glasses are not easily removed from someone like Scott. It took a brutal act of betrayal ... on the part of people Scott looked up to and trusted ... Rove, Libby, and Cheney.

It takes time to assimilate this profound betrayal within one's psyche. Then there is the act of catharsis ... Scott wrote a book. Others go out and shoot somebody.

There is nothing puzzling about this. It fits the facts on the ground.

We need a new word for somethings we call taxes

"Tax" covers a lot of mischief, but it also is supposed to work when we talk about sharing in a common endeavor. It actually has too much negative baggage (rightfully so) to cover that wide a spectrum of meaning. But we have to use the word, whether it carries unintended connotations in our minds or not. For now, let's try to think past the negatives.

A gas tax to cover the cost of maintaining the streets and roads we the people drive on makes sense. If we drive a lot we'll need to keep up the streets and roads more than if we drive less. It also makes sense when it becomes obvious that we have to wean ourselves from petroleum-based vehicular energy. (Peak oil, anyone?) Do we prepare for the future or forget about it?

Again, a carbon "tax" carries the negative connotations of the "tax" word. My view is that we should think about the carbon tax as a reasonable attempt by reasonable people (anyone else been reading The Age of Reason by Thomas Paine?) to assign a cost to an externality (look it up) when the so-called "free" market is not very good at recovering the costs of externalities ... which is why they are called externalities, because the free market doesn't pay for them ... which is why we joke that the free market is great a capitalizing profits and socializing costs.

Just to dismiss a concept out of hand because it carries the omni-negativeness of the "tax" word ... well, it's not too smart. We have to move into the future ... and figure out how to pay for it ... as well as the wreckage of our past. We can't immigrate to another planet ... at least not yet.

Maybe we should come up with a new word for those taxes that actually work by paying the costs of a better life.

If we are being lied to ...

Does anyone not believe we are being lied to by our leaders public and private?

The Consumer Price Index as "the"inflation measure has been "adjusted". Unemployment stats are so far off the mark as to be laughable.

Our political candidates openly pander to us.

And maybe the worst lie of all is that all we have to do to turn the economy around is buy more stuff. Go shopping!

Is that crazy or what? How are we going to pay for it?

Oh right, the global financial wizards/gurus will invent new instruments of debt so we can borrow what we need to be able to buy what we want.

Need I tell you, this is crazy.

Acquittal!?

"A Queens judge on Friday acquitted three detectives charged in the shooting of Sean Bell, who died on his wedding day in a hail of 50 police bullets."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/26/nyregion/26bell.html

Sean Bell is shot to death
in New York City
outside a strip bar
at four A M.

By the police
firing fifty shots

Sean Bell wasn't the one
the police thought had the gun.

Only the police had guns.

Fifty shots!

One police officer emptying, reloading, emptying ...

blam
blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam
reload
blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam-blam

Thirty-0ne shots among fifty shots!

Only the police had guns.

Sean Bell wasn't even the one
they thought had the gun.

Acquittal?!

Are you kidding me?

Note: I will research the testimony on the sequencing of the 31 shots by the police officer who emptied his gun then reloaded to be able to keep firing. It is the dramatic heart of this poem ... -hgl

An Easter Update: Thoughts on religion

Religion is our encoding of our tribal identity in ritual, liturgy, and dress allowing us to recognize friend from foe, particularly among strangers. A particular religion involves both the concept of perfection — or God — and the concepts of how best to meet the challenges we have identified as replicable in the human experience of existence, as well as what they mean and why they occur.

Note: I am most familiar with the Christian religion, and I have been reading in Buddhism off and on for most of my adult life. (But I am certainly no authority on Buddhism, and merely claiming personal -- rather than scholarly -- familiarity with the Protestant Baptist version of Christianity.)

The leading "thinkers" in human history have realized that there is a "standard instruction set" encoded in our biochemical processes that guide the organization of our perceptions and thoughts as well as the responses to them. Religious thinkers identify this "standard instruction set" as ordained/given by God.

For example, we have learned that we treat those we recognize as friends different than we treat those we recognize as foes, and that we automatically are wary of a stranger until we determine the stranger's status, and we know from experience that a tactic of an enemy is to get their foe to let their guard down by considering the enemy a benevolent party to the engagement ... a la the Trojan Horse.

What I find most appealing about theoretical Christianity is that it invites all human beings to explore friendship through a commitment to the concept of Jesus as perfection. And I find the concept of Jesus as perfection to be an ideal that offers the most hope for humanity to live in peace. The traditions of the Judaic-Christian religion heritage provide the admonition to progress from our "isness" to our "oughtness", ever mindful of the dynamic tension in the struggle. Although I must say, the evolving interpretation of Christianity by many politically dominant religious leaders has not proven to provide the best path toward peace, nor was King David of the Old Testament a particularly peaceful leader. (Note: I do not believe that a "God" exists in the meaning of "God" expressed in the Christian Bible.)

I accept the challenge of the struggle to become what I believe I ought to be. And that it is my commitment to my concept of human perfection, to my "God" ... which in itself is dynamic ... that identifies me as a "religious" person, and my "religion" is the path I have identified to follow in my commitment.

This all melds back into my understanding that my existence -- coming out of the evolution of human existence -- preceded my awareness of my existence, and that -- therefor -- my awareness is organized by my existence folding back upon itself ... so that I am capable of choice ... which is an essential characteristic of the an intelligent life-form. I can, in fact, choose to learn how to choose based on reason.

I would even suggest as worth examining, the idea that it is the concept of an ideal of human perfection in the form of God that initiates choice because as reality unfolds/evolves, whatever God was defined to be carries with it the limitations of past experience, never able to anticipate all that we will learn about ourselves and our world in the cosmos. The cosmos continues to surprise us. Even adding "omni" to our God's attributes does not drown out the call to our renewal of choice in the face of new experience, as Joshua challenged the Israelites in the Old Testament, "Choose you this day whom ye will serve." - Joshua 24:15, KJV Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2008. 24 Mar 2008. http://www.blueletterbible.org/kjv/Jos/Jos024.html#15

Confronted with the dialect of "isness" vs. "oughtness" -- individually within each of us -- we are thrust out on the unfathomable (we do not know were we go with any certainty) depths of the awareness of our individual existence to choose, and through our actions express our faith in a path ahead. Even choosing to do nothing is a choice.

For example, I can decide whether a stranger is a friend or foe or nothing of note ... and then what to do about it, or not. I can decide to learn how to make friends of foes, or not, and then decide to go about doing that, or not.

And because I can imagine a better world, I can choose to try to bring that better world into existence, or not.

I believe the most fundamental choice is whether I act to benefit myself irrespective of the effect on my community/tribe, or I act to benefit my community/tribe irrespective of the effect upon myself.

Christianity teaches that the first option, or greed, is the root of all evil, and that the second option, or the giving up of one's own life for others, is the greatest love we can have. And in framing our options it circumscribes our choices as Christians.

The vaunted MBA mantra that acting to benefit myself provides the greatest benefit to my community goes tilt upon any reflection beyond the statement on the surface.

Christianity also proposes that all humans God's children, are destined to become friends.

That addresses my Christianity, my existentialism, and my atheism. What is left is to consider my transcendentalism ... which to me is simply that my awareness transcends my concept of God ... because God is the product of my past awareness and present reality unfolds in the present into the future as a dynamic process of adaptation based on the past correctly anticipating possibility emerging in the present but never "knowing" exactly what is in store.

Ah yes, deregulation ...

"Deregulation" was the buzz-word ... the group identifying slogan aka tribal dress of the moment ... right up until the sub-prime mortgages started falling apart. We are now re-examining the meaning and worth of "regulation" ... surprising how many times we can re-invent the wheel, don't you think?

What is "regulation"?

As the noun "regulation":

1. a law, rule, or other order prescribed by authority, esp. to regulate conduct.
2. the act of regulating or the state of being regulated.

"regulation." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 14 Mar. 2008.

As the verb "to regulate":

1. to control or direct by a rule, principle, method, etc.: to regulate household expenses.
2. to adjust to some standard or requirement, as amount, degree, etc.: to regulate the temperature.
3. to adjust so as to ensure accuracy of operation: to regulate a watch.
4. to put in good order: to regulate the digestion.

"regulate." Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Random House, Inc. 14 Mar. 2008.

Starting with the basics, we regulate weights and measures, minimum-maximum limits such as highway speed, minimum qualifications such as education plus experience plus licensing exams. These forms of regulations most of us would recognize as positive "influences" on the our communities, and we quickly can imagine negative outcomes if they were removed.

The common denominator for positive regulatory outcomes is that each can trust the other to perform as expected in a given transaction ... which dramatically increases the efficiency of transactions, thereby adding measurable to the value of the regulation. If one can process a thousand transactions in the time it would otherwise take to -- let's say -- process ten, the savings per transaction is huge ... adding tremendous value to the use of the regulation.

Take for instance if we now have to examine every child's toy coming into the USA from China for lead, the increase in cost for those toys will become staggeringly high.

When the customer doesn't have to bring their own measuring cups and tapes to the store to assure the accuracy of the amount of goods being purchased; when the driver doesn't have to play bumper cars on the freeway in order to travel; ... and when the borrower doesn't have to wonder if the lender is disclosing the real terms of the loan to the borrower's level of understanding -- in other words, can once again trust his/her local banker without the help of a lawyer.

Yes, the more complex the transaction, then it is conceivable that the regulations should reflect the level of impact the failure of trust will have on the community. It is one thing to have a three shells and a pea game of chance to be taking place in a back alley, and quite another for homes to bought and sold based on a similar shell game.

However, regulations can also interfere with the efficiency of transactions. Some of the most egregious of these negative impacts stem from politically based bureaucracies imposing fees and restrictions with the clear intent to reward a political party/entity ... especially the party/entity that historically benefits most from an increase in government employees, paid for by the increase in fees.

The speed traps along highways that interrupt the smooth flow of traffic to generate the local town's revenue through tickets to non-local drivers.

Here in New Jersey we recently defeated a strong effort by the Governor to pay the costs of a State government engorged with new employees beholden to the Democratic Party with a turnpike asset monetization scheme euphemistically titled "Governor Corzine's Financial Restructuring and Debt Reduction" plan.

One more thought ... for the deregulation tribe ... the most efficient safeguards of the public interest are the rights of the whistleblower to be protected in his/her job combined with an actively vigilant and independent press.

Note: This post was written in response to a discussion I had yesterday evening with a brilliant young college student over free market concepts. I continue to think about the relevancy of the cogent arguments she made. I respect her point of view enough to explain my own in response.

The day the debt came due

Joseph Racioppi posted this in a column of his titled Subprime mortgage mess just a symptom of what ails us on NJ Voices yesterday, Monday, January 21 — Martin Luther King Jr. Day — when Wall Street was closed:

Our entire economy is debt based. The Federal Government is in debt $10 trillion. New Jersey is in debt billions and billions and many Americans are "maxed out" on credit cards. Rather than addressing the problem of a debt based economy, our leaders try to find more ways of continuing the spending that runs the economy. When our leaders, after September 11th, tell us to "go shopping", that says a lot.

This was my response for today, Tuesday, January 22:

How prescient of you, Joe. This may be the day the debt comes due.

The above the fold main story on the front page of the NY Times this morning was headlined: Awaiting Wall Street's Open, Asia Market Plunge.

The lead paragraph read:

"Stock markets across Asia plummeted again on Tuesday, and European markets saw volatile trading, as anxious sellers worried about the global ramifications of a slowdown in the United States."

Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/22/business/worldbusiness/23cnd-asiastox.html

It's going to be an "interesting" day: "The Day the Debt Came Due"?

Do you think we the people will finally get it ... as Pogo told us: "We have met the enemy and he is us" ... or will we in more typical fashion start looking for scapegoats?

Personally? I'm rereading Thomas Paine's Common Sense ... and it is making a lot of sense.

Need I add, "Duh!"?

Hoo boy!

The New Jersey Star-Ledger poses this Q&A in its editorial, Foreign money to the rescue, January 19:

"Is foreign investment a bad thing? It is not."

This was my comment in response:

That's like asking if drinking water is a bad thing. Depends on how much you drink. Too much water and you upset your electrolytic balance, the brain swells, and you die ... or something like that.

Let's start with some economic basics that the common person can understand. (I have to do that because I am not an economist and I have never read one who has ever gotten economics right over time outside of tightly controlled models ... which is kind of like pouring sand through a funnel into neat little cone-shaped mounds on a beach on a windless, sunny day below the high-tide mark and thinking they are going to last ... but I digress.)

First, if you don't produce something of real value, you are not creating wealth. Money has no "real" value, it has "virtual" value relative to its ability to help exchange things of real value between strangers ... close and far. Money has value if the two parties to a transaction using money BELIEVE the pieces of paper they are using has the exchange value (translatable into real things of real use value -- like food that actually keeps us from starving to death) printed on it ... or something like that.

Now if you take something of real value and you auction it off to people who want it (think it desirable and worthwhile to own, like a house -- hint, hint) with an excess of money to spend (either their own or what they can borrow ... 'cuz that's the job of the Fed to insure we have enough liquidity to get the things we want 'cuz we're a nation of consumers), they will in all likelihood pay more for it than they would have otherwise. If they then turn around and get even MORE money for it than what they paid because others in turn bid higher with the extra money they have or can get ... well, the PRICE of that something will go up. Do I have to say, "DUH!"?

Let's not get too complicated here ... if a nation reduces the amount of real things of value that it produces ... and starts a bidding war on the things of value it does produce ... while the Fed keeps printing money so we can all bid as high as we want for something ('cuz -- you guessed it -- we're consumers now!) what do you think the outcome will be?

And you have economists with mathematical models who tell us this imbalance of real production to virtual wealth is what is real? and can continue indefinitely? and folks fall all over themselves BELIEVING it when they see with their own eyes that the real wealth of our nation has been deteriorating ... while the dollar amount (virtual wealth) of the money supply has been growing?

And now that our money has been siphoned off to the oil producing nations and the goods producing nations because our vaunted economic leaders thought it better to pass along windfall profits in a "free" market rather than "tax" ourselves for our own rational benefit ... you say there is nothing wrong here because this is the way the "free" market is supposed to work?

And I'm not supposed be laughing until I start crying?

From my notes about Milton Friedman and the so-called "free" market:

Milton Friedman, the guru of profoundly influential monetarist and laissez-faire ideas of the past few decades has pulled the plug on free markets ... maybe without realizing it.

From NPQ, the New Perspectives Quarterly:

Free Markets and the End of History

Friedman | ... "Free markets" is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn't the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.

Intrepretation: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term. The reason for this is the clear fact that all costs incurred in the production and distribution of goods and services are not paid for out of the monetary selling price of the goods and services ... only the reimbursement of "ownership" costs ... so what is "free" about free markets is their being free of the costs they incur to others than the legally defined owners of the goods and services for sale--sellers and buyers.

http://www.digitalnpq.org/archive/2006_winter/friedman.html

Read that again: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term.

Need I add, "Duh!"?

Y'know, if something is too complicated for us common folks to understand ... when it affects our daily lives ... then we probably should figure something else out ... because the brilliant idiots are gonna screw things up trying to get more than their fair share of the real wealth ... which as the Good Book laid out: greed ... aka the love of money ... is the root of all evil.

All us working folks are asking is to give us the opportunity to go to work and create real wealth, and then be paid our fair share of what we have helped create. That's pretty darn simple. You'd think these geniuses could figure that out. Or ... could have figured out how not to screw it up.

Got a lot of "Duhs!" in this piece.*wink*

Too late for Hillary to go authentic on us

Apparently Hillary Clinton teared up yesterday in her bid to seek the nomination of the Democratic Party for president.

Hillary Rodham Clinton's eyes welled up and her voice broke repeatedly Monday as she talked with voters in a restaurant about her campaign for the presidency.

The former first lady was making a last-minute pitch for support as she spoke on the eve of the state's primary, with polls showing her trailing Democratic rival Barack Obama.

Asked by a sympathetic voter how she keeps going in the grueling campaign, she replied, "It's not easy. It's not easy."

"And I couldn't do it if I just didn't, you know, passionately believe it was the right thing to do," she said, her voice catching.

-http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/01/07/hillary-tears-up-on-the-c_n_80254.html

I can try to understand her feelings. I have witnessed them in others all too frequently now that I am in my 70th year. Here she is having lived her whole life in pursuit of a goal ... clawed, scratched her way to the top of the heap, done everything she thought she had to do to earn the prize ... remnants of opponents strewn left and right ... and it begins to dawn on her that it's been in vain. In fact, the very life she lived is now her biggest obstacle.

It's not fair!

I think she is really saying, "It's not fair, Bill!"

Sibel Edmonds on YouTube

References:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3137695.ece

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=12166

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_mike_mej_080107_times_of_london_blow.htm

A Political Tsunami: Obama's win in Iowa

For those of us who remember Bobby Kennedy's win in California before he was assassinated, Barack Obama's win yesterday in Iowa is a similar earthquake. The energy generated by the audacity of hope in our youth will again transform an epoch.

The youth turnout in support of Obama was huge. It represents an opportunity for we the people to alter the course of our nation in a historic manner. This is a politcal tsunami.

It will be interesting to watch the old guard politicians try to plug the breached dikes.

Note 1: Originally posted as a comment on the Star-Ledger's NJ Voices website in response to the John Farmer's column, For two also-rans, it's crunch time.

Note 2: According to the results of the entrance polls for the Iowa caucuses posted on CNN's website, Obama was supported by 57% of the 17-29 age group, and 42% of the 30-44 year olds.
(See http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/primaries/results/state/#IA )

New Jersey MUST apologize for slavery

Out of our reflections on our past, our history ... we create a narrative of existence that we then teach ourselves ... to guide us into the future.

We as a people write our bibles, our stories ...

It takes time and distance to put things in perspective ... and correct the lies we previously told ourselves out of false understanding, a false narrative ...

False in the sense that our beliefs were wrong because we had been taught a false narrative of our past ... and these beliefs were proven wrong when we finally had the courage to examine them in the light of new evidence, new revelation.

An apology for slavery is not just important, it is necessary. We need to plant that marker in our collective consciousness, our narrative of our existence ... reminding ourselves how wrong we can be at times.

Note: Originally posted as a comment on the Star-Ledger's NJ Voices website in response to the editorial, Apologize for slavery:

The evil that men do: trial by jury

Trial by jury ... or the threat of trial by jury has too often become the denial of justice to the accused ... for reasons worth exploring in our nation.

From Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish religious leader:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, then when?

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

If the last quotation seems familiar, this is how it is attributed to Jesus in KJV of the New Testament:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

- Matthew 7:12

Please read the following:

Juror in Long Island Killing Says He Was Pressured Into a Guilty Verdict
Article By
By COREY KILGANNON and NATE SCHWEBER
Published: December 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/nyregion/25jury.html

Colorado Hearings Re-examine ’87 Murder Case
By KIRK JOHNSON and DAN FROSCH
Published: December 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/us/27fortcollins.html

Their are many -- too many -- stories being accumulated in the annals of injustice. Some of the most egregious cases are chronicled in the:

Innoncence Project

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

If ever there was a stench of evil in a land ... have we become so used to it that we do not smell it? Or are our slogans for our type of justice such tribal marks that we dare not question them individually for fear of being turned upon ourselves? When will we question the evil we do to others?

"If not now, then when?"

Putting Ayn Rand to rest ... finally!

Please read Paul Krugman's column in today's (Friday, Dec 21) NY Times:

Blindly Into the Bubble
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html

Alan Greenspan was/(is) a brilliant idiot who wrapped old fashioned greed in the false Ayn Rand ideology of free market Capitalism ... destroying the safeguards that are needed to protect ANY market from thieves and charlatans. Even the ancients knew you had to have things like uniform weights, that some things cannot be left to the goodwill of the transient carnival vendors with no stake in the village.

I am tired of the "us vs. them" around here ...

Whites vs. blacks, GBLT's vs. straights, one religion against another, and on and on and on .... while it's really rich vs. poor.

America, the rich folks have got us laboring folks fighting among ourselves ... jumping up and down. Are we trying to get the attention of the rich folks so they will invite us to join them?

Here we are squabbling over a Democrat US Senator from New York running for President, Hillary Clinton, who shouldn't even be running on a Democratic ticket anywhere in Yankee territory -- and I ain't talking baseball.

Hell, they are making the street-hole covers for New York City in India under sweatshop/slave labor conditions, for chrissakes! We all know what has happened to fair labor practices under the Clintons ... they kiss up to the global corporationists to advance their personal political careers and leave the working families groveling for crumbs from the rich folks feast.

The United States of America is sliding down a Democrat greased slope to banana republic status ... with nothing left to break its slide ... while we the people are totally distracted by fighting over the dwindling scraps falling from the platters we deliver to the table.

And there are so many of us who believe this is a "God thing" based on our devotion to religious belief ... and who are so far removed from practicing what they preach, using their doctrines as tribal identifiers rather than guides to life ... that it's pretty damn obvious that we are going to need the kind of upheaval brought about by the depression of the 30's to actually get this nation back on track ... if it can get back on track and not descend into fascism.

Hope? What's hope got to do with it? We need practical solutions. We need jobs that pay a living wage ... that also don't destroy our health as we work.

That's not socialism or communism ... that is "fair is fair"-ism in a nation as wealthy as ours.

Note (January 5, 2008): Barack Obama has won a transforming political victory in the Iowa caucuses. "Hope" may have a lot to do with it! -NCS

Concerning organized labor and Hillary ...

From posts to HuffingtonPost.com ... where I post as hglindquist ...

Hoo boy ... did you see the picture on the front page of the NY Times recently of the New York City street-hole covers being cast in India under slave-like wages and conditions? Where was labor when THAT was printed? American organized labor has been contemplating its navel for so long that there are no jobs left to worry about fair treatment over.

Been to Pittsburgh lately? I guess working retail on the river is supposed to compensate for steel-mill jobs?

Unions got suckered into hanging onto their turf as it got smaller and smaller ... when they should have been looking out for all workers. There is no freedom to do anything if you are a worker and you don't have a job that pays enough to meet your needs let alone your wants.

When we gave up on requiring everything sold in this country to be produced under fair labor practices, we gave up on the America our labor had built ... and decided we should become a banana republic.

The horse is already out of the barn on what our old unions should have/could have done. We need a new revitalized labor movement for all workers.

And that is NOT socialism or communism. It is "fair is fair" ism.

And that sure ain't gonna come with Hillary!!!

New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India

NY Times
By HEATHER TIMMONS and J. ADAM HUGGINS
Published: November 26, 2007

Photo caption: "Workers in Haora, India, have few protections while making manhole covers for Con Edison and some cities" utilities."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html

Now tell me again about Hillary's support for fair treatment for workers!!! I know she lived in Arkansas for awhile, but isn't she the U.S. Senator from New York? And isn't New York City in New York?

Concerning vouchers ...

Concerning vouchers ... and being a member of the working class ... with bono fides extending from my parents and their parents to my children and their children ...

Most of us from the small towns and communities that spawned the public education system were part of mostly homogeneous communities ... at least I was in most of my years in public education. My family's values were the values taught in public school ... yes, religious, ethical, and social values were pretty much common ones ... at least publicly ... including prejudices (all one has to do is read the text books).

And I think the majority of folks still believe their particular public school is teaching the values they want taught. (Which is why they are against vouchers. They think vouchers will be net resource losers for their schools.)

But it is appears to be equally obvious that a (growing?) number of families -- particularly the working poor in large urban centers -- are discovering that their children come back from public school in worse condition than when first enrolled ... with the strong arm of the state forcing them to keep sending their children to these schools even though the parents know it is harming their children's value system. They would like vouchers ... but they are a minority.

Gunfight at the DC Corral

The Baker Boys are shooting it out at the DC Corral with the Cheney Gang ...

A fictionalized scenario ...

Poppy Bush was keeping his hands off the Shrub presidency ... as Poppy watched his son once again slide into ignominy ...

Decision time for the senior Bush evolved through the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003 followed by the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, on December 14, 2004 to L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet.

Privately grousing about the situation with his wife, Barbara Bush, Poppy Bush realized "It's like déjà vu all over again". Shrub was screwing up again.

Moma Bush (Barbara) cried, "You have to do something, Poppy! Look what that Cheney Gang is DOING to our boy."

"I know, I know," Poppy replied. "And I will. Those Baker Boys -- our boys -- can shoot straighter than the Cheney Gang." (To be proved later when Dickie -- leader of the Cheney Gang -- shot his hunting companion on Feb 13, 2006.)

The Baker Boys first attempt to extricate Shrub from the clutches of the Cheney Gang failed. Shrub disregards the Baker-Hamilton Report and the cowardly Democrats inexplicably fail to act on it -- even though they had just won majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the U.S. Congress and could hold Shrub's feet to the fire by withholding funding unless he went along with the bipartisan report. The cowardly Democrats were so focused on winning the 2008 election that they stumbled over what was placed in front of them on an oil-slick platter.

Whew, who would have thought THAT was going to happen?!

But the Baker Boys were undeterred. They knew the intelligence had been cooked on Iraq and was being cooked on Iran. With Shrub refusing to be extricated from the manure piling up in the DC Corral because the cowardly Democrats weren't hauling it away -- even though they now had the manure hauling contract for the place -- the Baker Boys realized THEY would have to pump it out -- like NOW -- meaning they would have to shoot it out with the Cheney Gang.

The Baker Boys fire a shot that hits the target. In August, 2007 the new NIE report was issued.

Shrub still doesn't surrender or fall.

Blam-blam, in quick succession the Baker Boys "commence firing at will" ... the NIE report is released and the CIA Director is forced to acknowledge the destruction of the interogation tapes ...

Shrub staggers ... but will he fall? Will the DC Corral be saved? The manure drained or carried away?

Stay tuned, folks ... this is getting interesting.

Fear and fairness in determining the collective good

Author's note: My post from September, 2005, Katrina and the collective good is my "most read" post. This post expands on the concept of the collective good by examining the essence or essential nature of fear and being fair in an industrial/technological society. Also, two recent books make this an appropriate time to revisit these issues:

The Squandering of America,
by Robert Kuttner

and

The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy,
by William Greider

Plus, this article in the December, 2007 issue of Vanity Fair:

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush,
by Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz

To live in fear is the essence of slavery, or the essential characteristic of liberty is to live without fear. Freedom is having no fear.

As FDR -- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- said in his first inaugural address, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that theAnd only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
First inaugural address

And fairness? What is fairness in our individual lives interacting with each other? What is fairness in the commons, the public arena? How does what we do privately affect others publicly, and what is fair about it? How does what is done publicly affect us privately, and what is fair about it?

In political history we have specific interpretations attached to fairness such as President Harry S. Truman and his Fair Deal, and the Fairness Doctrine as an FCC regulation.

Here I want to strip away this historical baggage and get to the core meanings of fear and fair as we live our daily lives ... starting as children on the playground where we learn to handle bullies, and we go by the rule, "fair is fair".

Here I will explore the premise that my country, the United states of America, is faltering because our leaders are bullies who have abandoned fairness.

Economic smoke and mirrors ... or the love of money is the root of all evil

Fact: The cost of oil and food are not counted when measuring "core inflation".

Fact: The unemployment rate does not include workers who have given up looking for a job.

And our vaunted leaders have kept telling us the US economy was doing great ... right up until now when the plummeting value of the dollar has pulled back the curtain ... a la Wizard of Oz.

And we no longer have the industrial base to take advantage of a weaker dollar. We don't have anything to sell except Manhattan real estate. (That's metaphorical, folks ... just in case you didn't catch the sarcasm.)

And we the people have our brilliant idiots — our leading economists — conspiring with our greedy elite ruling class of global corporationists to thank for the mess we are in, and the coming catastrophe ... which they will sell to us via the religion of True Believers as the moral decline of the people ... when they should be reminding us of the age-old wisdom of "the love of money is root of all evil."

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

- 1 Timothy 6:10 KJV

"The flimflammery of official statistics ... "

The country has been in denial for years about the economic reality facing American families. That grim reality has been masked by the flimflammery of official statistics (job growth good, inflation low) and the muscular magic of the American way of debt: mortgages on top of mortgages, pyramiding student loans and an opiatelike addiction to credit cards at rates that used to get people locked up for loan-sharking.

The big story out of Mr. Bernanke’s appearance before the Joint Economic Committee was his prediction that the economy was likely to worsen. Only the people still trapped in denial could have believed otherwise.

This is what Representative Maurice Hinchey of upstate New York told the chairman:

“This economy is not doing well. And the example of the mortgage closures on 2 million people — and maybe a lot more than that as time goes on — is really not the cause of the economic problem we’re facing, but it’s just a factor of it. It’s a factor of the weakness of this economy.”

In an interview after the hearing, Representative Hinchey discussed the disconnect between official government reports and the reality facing working families. He noted that the unemployment rate does not include workers who have become so discouraged that they’ve given up looking for a job.

And the most popular measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, does not include the cost of energy or food, “the two most significant aspects of the increased cost of living for the American people.”

The elite honchos in Washington and their courtiers in the news media are all but completely out of touch with the daily struggle of working families. Thirty-seven million Americans live in poverty and close to 60 million others are just a notch above the official poverty line.

- Bob Herbert
Recession? What Recession?
OpEd - NYTimes
Saturday, November 10, 2007

When the labor movement in the United States failed to fight for the right of every person willing and able to work to be able to work at a job that at least paid a living wage for a worker's family, the labor movement failed the worker and his/her family.

The principle of having a job that pays a living wage for a worker's family for everyone willing and able to work is NOT socialism, communism or even unionism. It is the cornerstone of a free society.

Variations on the human theme ...

We all know that people have different eye colors ... and that there are major differences like brown and blue ... and that there are tint and pattern variations of the main differences.

Most of us know that traits like response to certain stimuli also vary, like sexual arousal to specific visual images ... and that individuals are aroused differently, to different levels of arousal, by different images.

What we may not have thought about is how that translates to different levels of group identification. I would suggest a spectrum of emotional commitment to one's "identity groups" -- family, and other forms of "tribe" such as religion, alma mater, company, etc. --from intense embedding to casual acceptance like, "Oh yes, I belong to the local bowling league."

I would speculate further that the ability of the symbols of any one of our identity groups to trigger an emotional response is a key indicator of "embeddedness" within that group. In examining the relationships of symbols to their emotional responses, the variations of individual emotional response need to be factored into the analysis.

"Symbols" in this context mean any "identifying" signs, sounds, rituals, etc. For instance our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner" is a symbol of our national identity.

Taking a leap ahead, we can envision a political party that unites the "religious identity" with "national identity" as creating a strong pull on its members. And those individuals with the strongest positive emotional response to religious symbols are -- hypothetically at least -- the ones who would develop the strongest positive emotional connection to the political party and its symbols.

We should keep in mind that slogans and phrases can become symbolic elements of group identity as opposed to rational elements of public discourse.

And if the political leaders merge the religious and national identities of the people by using symbols of the religious identity to interweave the emotional connection rather than overt statements which would be rationally rejected out of hand ... and if they do this consciously ... don't we have what is actually going on today in the United States? And what went on in Hitler's Third Reich within the lifetime of some of our citizens?

And isn't this the whole thrust of the neocon a la Leo Strauss political movement?

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

"They" are trying to hold back worldwide panic over the dollar ...

Just before Christmas in 2005 I advised my friends that they should either sell their home in the coming year or plan on staying in it for awhile.

Their children were going to college and it was obvious from all the key indicators that the housing bubble was getting ready to pop. Mostly I had been reading Paul Krugman's column on the OpEd page of the NY Times and putting two and two together.

Currently it is obvious that the economy of the United States is tanking. And if the US Dollar becomes funny money, the Chinese are going to be pissed. Like 1.5 trillion dollars is a lot of swag anywhere ... and there is only so much Manhattan real estate ... and as the dollar plummets ... the amount you can get for any given million or so is less and less.

What will our brilliant financial idiots do then? Like, when the dollar tanks? Right now they are trying desperately to hold back the panic that a real run on the dollar would cause.

And you see, folks ... there isn't any vast industrial base to pick up the slack ... in like churning out something the world wants at the lower prices the falling dollar would bring ... so we are caught in the economic vise of our own making ... not the making of we the people, but of the making of our great greedy leaders ...

The only question left is who are "they" going to blame.

Oh ... and my friends didn't sell their home. They enjoy living in it, their neighborhood, and their community. And they will not retire for another ten years or so. They love what they do and how they live.

Well, we're in for it now ...

How I see things as an American citizen ... now that General Musharraf of Pakistan has declared a state of emergency and suspended that country's constitution.

Our military's ground forces are almost totally decimated by the protracted military occupation of Iraq since our victory there in the Second Iraq War ended by mid-2003 with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (But we still have our nukes.)

Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are earning gajillions off the "risk tax" added to the price of oil by our participation in destabilizing the Middle East.

China is buying up the world's resources with our U.S. dollars as fast as it can, ahead of the falling value of the U.S. dollar.

What else? There is so much more going on ... like the resurgence of Hezbollah in Lebonon and the Taliban in Afghanistan ... and we haven't even begun to decipher the deterioration of our moral authority with the all but concrete revelation that we tortured human beings in our custody.

The Cheney/neocon/Bush 43 administration's foreign policy has been a disaster in so many ways that it is hard to keep track of them all ... and the large number of problems cannot be hid by the relatively small fig leaf of General Petraeus's tactical surge with its principle outcome being the balkanization of Iraq ... which, by the way, benefits Iran to a great degree.

My God, it is a mess, isn't it?

What is more ... our enemies know all this.

Wages for labor is the primal discussion ...

Wages for labor is the primal discussion ... how do we divide the rewards of the hunt ...

If we view "labor" as a cost like any other material than we actually/literally make those who labor into commodities, something other than primary participants. But we all know this ... and we console ourselves by becoming consumers.

The narratives we pass onto our children and our children's children is "be good and we will buy you something" ... the emotional expectation of becoming an adult gets wrapped in the opportunity to buy ... not in the ability to do ... for too many of us.

We who labor have all to often accepted the role of gun-bearer and guide to the Great White Hunter as if he were some kind of god-man when it is our labor and skills that allow him to hunt.

The problem from the labor side is that too often labor has been organized to exclude, and organized labor becomes viewed as an obstacle to many -- if not most -- who want to work ... an obstacle to those who want to, but are not allowed to join the hunt.

As long as organized labor colludes with the man to limit access to work, labor in general will lose.

That is not to say that specific skill sets/individual parameters cannot be defined or selected for specific jobs/assignments, or that pay rates can't vary. It is to say that labor solidarity must be for the principle that everyone willing and able to work must be given work at a living wage (in the context of a working family's needs).

I don't really give a rat's butt how many rich folks there are, as long as all who want to work can earn a living wage.