RDRutherford

Paul Krugman, Worst Economist in the World {WEITW} Businessmen edition

2012-01-10T08:25:00.000-08:00

Paul Krugman seems to have no bounds to creating straw men arguments and today was no exception in his latest piece entitled: Businessmen and Economics.

A brief thought on something I’ll try to expand on later. Leaving aside all the questions about what Mitt Romney did or didn’t do at Bain — and about his self-aggrandizing double standard — there’s an even broader question: why does anyone believe that success in business qualified someone to make economic policy?

For the fact is that running a business is nothing at all like making macro policy. The key point about macroeconomics is the pervasiveness of feedback loops due to the fact that workers are also consumers. No business sells a large fraction of its output to its own workers; even very small countries sell around two-thirds of their output to themselves, because that much is non-tradable services.

So are we to assume that a "community organizer" is somehow better to understand these macroeconomic concepts? The question is that when considering all other occupations, does a successful businessman or woman understand economics better than a community organizer or union leader or a school teacher or ...

It is just that all other things considered, a successful business person knows what has and does hinder his ability to create value to his/her customers. It is not likely that a community organizer understands such issues. We may not like it but what is good for free enterprises are generally good for the society at large.

A successful business person probably understands the negative feedback loop of uncertainty of economic conditions unlike other professions and possibly even ivory tower economists...

Paul Krugman, Worst Economist in the World {WEITW} August Winner already.

2011-08-01T13:46:00.000-07:00

The Truth About Federal Spending
So we’re still left with a bit, around 1 point of GDP. That’s the stimulus, more or less. And there are two things you need to know about it. First, it’s temporary, and already fading out fast. Second, a large part of the stimulus “spending” was actually aid to state and local governments, intended not to expand spending but to avert a fall — that is, it was about maintaining government, not expanding it.

He will never understand conservatives, they might as well be blowing dog whistles around him. Didn't he post recently about listening more to help him understand other points of view? Oh yes... Listening to Others

He clearly sees no difference in a bloated central government and local governments that must be {more} responsive over time. Just as the city council in Santa Barbara has now gotten more conservative. I am not sure it will last but it certainly has changed with some feel-good liberal policies. That was especially evident in the restrictive housing ordinances-but strangely conservatives are pushing for that also. But the bigger issue seemed to be homeless shelters and marijuana dispensers.

Anyway, I suspect that most Tea Party members have no problem with services being provided by local governments and may even support some centrist or liberal points of view.

Paul Krugman, Worst Economist in the World {WEITW}

2011-02-09T15:29:00.000-08:00

Maybe, Krugman's blog is way too easy of a target and even as he says it is not meant to be taken too serious.

In my case it’s writing for the broader public. The great thing about the column is that it more or less forces me to keep learning new tricks, to keep scoping out areas I’d never thought much about before. Then it forces me to find a way to talk about those areas in plain English.
The Joy of Research

So instead of being a thoughtful researcher with deep knowledge on each subject, he instead just throws out hypothesis that support his political bias.

What you need to know is that the blog is an unpaid gig, something I do for fun and to add some backup to the columns. My support staff consists of two housecats. So I’m not going to do anything that involves hard work on appearance.
Graph Meta

I tend to think that he takes the same shortcuts on his actual words and ideas also. Today his off-hand remarks are directed at bias representation of conservatives in academia. Krugman starts off real well even in the title with it being: Ideas Are Not The Same As Race. Well race is simply not the only form of discrimination. At Social Scientist Sees Bias Within By JOHN TIERNEY, he talks about the forms of discrimination.

Discrimination is always high on the agenda at the Society for Personality and Social Psychology’s conference, where psychologists discuss their research on racial prejudice, homophobia, sexism, stereotype threat and unconscious bias against minorities.

I would have tried to include minorities in religion also on the list but the point is still made that it is not race alone or even innate identifiers that can not be easily changed like sex, race, height, etc. Krugman starts off his piece by stating the following two paragraphs.

Every once in a while you get stories like this one, about the underrepresentation of conservatives in academics, that treat ideological divides as being somehow equivalent to racial differences. This is a really, really bad analogy.

And it’s not just the fact that you can choose your ideology, but not your race. Ideologies have a real effect on overall life outlook, which has a direct impact on job choices. Military officers are much more conservative than the population at large; so? (And funny how you don’t see opinion pieces screaming “bias” and demanding an effort to redress the imbalance.)

Pretty much correct that ideologies creates biased results and thus it would be natural that there would be some self selection process going on in choosing careers. But as stated above, race is not the only analogy considered in the article. Race can also dictate and direct ideologies, which of course can be for the good or bad. If as Tierney states, that biased results indicate discrimination a priori then this portion of the article is important to consider.

“Anywhere in the world that social psychologists see women or minorities underrepresented by a factor of two or three, our minds jump to discrimination as the explanation,” said Dr. Haidt, who called himself a longtime liberal turned centrist. “But when we find out that conservatives are underrepresented among us by a factor of more than 100, suddenly everyone finds it quite easy to generate alternate explanations.”

Instead of a priori reasoning regarding discrimination, Social Psychologists should look more broadly in the social factors that may cause a bias outcome instead of assuming discrimination as always the root of the problem. Of course, if there is a bias in one job category {military} then it would be natural that there would be an opposite bias in another. Instead of focusing on the biased outcomes consider the complete social contexts of the results. Back to Krugman:

It’s particularly troubling to apply some test of equal representation when you’re looking at academics who do research on the very subjects that define the political divide. Biologists, physicists, and chemists are all predominantly liberal; does this reflect discrimination, or the tendency of people who actually know science to reject a political tendency that denies climate change and is broadly hostile to the theory of evolution?

Anyway, Krugman's link to Is the Academy liberal? most definitely shows bias in political views in all categories. The closest in R and Ds was Business at parity but still more identify themselves as Liberal. One of the obvious reasons is that when workers are supported by the state then it is natural that you have a more fond demeanor towards government. They become part of the apparatus of the state and is influenced daily by those social arrangements. And lastly:

Now, I don’t mean to say that political bias in the academy is absent, although it’s not consistent: I can well imagine that it’s hard to be a conservative in some social sciences, but in economics, the obvious bias in things like acceptance of papers at major journals is towards, not against, a doctrinaire free-market view. But the point is that doing head counts is a terrible way to assess that bias.

All I can assume when he means "not consistent" is that Krugman sees what his bias is likely to allow him to see. He will work hard at being studiously ignorant to discrimination. Even in the economics departments according to the above link, the ratio is 3 to 1 Democrats to Republicans.

Hopefully, Krugman will use this same understanding when looking at other types of bias in our society, but don't hold your breath expecting it to happen soon. Ultimately this matters not because one job or another is biased, but that the creation of memes and ideologies is born, created and spread through the institutions of academia. Unlike the military, colleges and universities are expected to partake in discussing our society and the governing bodies {politics}. Those in the military are not suppose to have their political affiliations on their sleeves or to spread their ideologies around. Unlike Krugman, I see this is a problem if young people are to be exposed to a wide variety of views and opinions in our schools. So while I empathize with the following passage, I find no easy solution.

Dr. Haidt (pronounced height) told the audience that he had been corresponding with a couple of non-liberal graduate students in social psychology whose experiences reminded him of closeted gay students in the 1980s. He quoted — anonymously — from their e-mails describing how they hid their feelings when colleagues made political small talk and jokes predicated on the assumption that everyone was a liberal.

“I consider myself very middle-of-the-road politically: a social liberal but fiscal conservative. Nonetheless, I avoid the topic of politics around work,” one student wrote. “Given what I’ve read of the literature, I am certain any research I conducted in political psychology would provide contrary findings and, therefore, go unpublished. Although I think I could make a substantial contribution to the knowledge base, and would be excited to do so, I will not.”

Rachel Maddow just got Punked!!! Worst Dweeb in the World

2011-02-01T00:06:00.001-08:00

In the latest episode of idiocracy, she talked about "supporters of Sarah Palin at the web site of ChristWire. It clearly looked to me as just a complete joke. If they had spent more than two seconds they would have at least checked out Wiki at Christwire - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Christwire is a satirical[1] website that publishes blog style articles that highlight perceived excesses[2] of Christian conservatives.[3]

Also others have noted the Onion like commentary at like a couple of place: University of Nonsensical Happenings: Christwire: Real or Satire?; The Guys Behind Christwire, Creating Parody From ‘Glenn Beck on Steroids’ -- Daily Intel. The latter having this choice piece:

This is, of course, satire: Completely over-the-top, but mimicking some extreme religious-right talking points so well that several mainstream news sites have been hoaxed. In a competitive and superheated news climate, a religious site calling for a boycott of Bill Murray, "murderer of lambs," was, for NBC Los Angeles, too good to not be true. The advice column "Is My Husband Gay?" (Does he "travel frequently to big cities or Asia"?) was, as the Atlantic Wire's John Hudson discovered, taken at face value by the Huffington Post.

Christwire owners Bryan Butvidas and Kirwin Watson, after fielding press queries and book offers for months, have finally decided to go public. In an interview with New York, Butvidas said the site's basic concept is to "see what Glenn Beck is talking about and then make it ten times worse."

"We're not trying to promote hate, we want to show how fake the world really is," he said. "We write to see how far we can get people to believe our nonsense. People believe anything they read on the Internet." Do readers get the joke? Just like with the media, not always. Butyidas, who usually pens columns under the name Tyson Bowers III, said some of the people who leave vituperative comments don't get the irony.

The opinion that sparked her dweebishness is called As Egypt Descends in Chaos, Should Sarah Palin Support a US-Led Invasion? | ChristWire. And this is the link to her video, one was removed, rachel maddow video Christwire - Yahoo! Video Search {http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwK35y4kr_E&feature=player_embedded}. The Dweeb uses an edited portions of this passage:

Governor Palin needs to speak out publicly and forcibly for an American-led invasion to protect our interests in North Africa. As the largest recipient of foreign aid next to Israel, the United States has a tremendous investment in keeping Egypt stable and relatively terrorist-free. There are many sympathizers on the ground who have not been able to express their allegiance to democracy and freedom for fear of repression by the rioters. The Governor could become the center of their rallying cries. Upon her direction, other Western nations are sure to join us.

You can't help but laugh at dweebs when they so self righteously show their stupidity...

PS: Excuse any grammar errors above. I also found while Googling that Christwire already had Maddow in their cross hairs. Obviously maybe a reason she used her Libtarded brain instead of the God given one. Political Hot or Not | ChristWire

PSS: Another wingnut decided to regurgitate her bile at Rachel Maddow "Did You Know You Secretly Dream Of The Annihilation Of Israel?"

Also out in that way, way beyond region, the website christwire.org believes that "The escalating crisis in Egypt could become a defining moment for Sarah Palin...Governor Palin needs to speak out publicly and forcibly for an American-led invasion [emphasis mine]to protect our interests in North Africa. As the largest recipient of foreign aid next to Israel, the United States has a tremendous investment in keeping Egypt stable and relatively terrorist-free...Upon her direction, other Western nations are sure to join us."

Rachel points out that Palin is innocent, this time, as the invasion is not her idea but the suggestion of christwire.

-Diane

Well Diane, I can see another Libtard that found something that confirms her world view and runs with it.

Oh, Grow Up Keith Olbermann! | ChristWire

I had to look it over twice to make sure that it wasn't a parody: If You’re a Fantastic Pro-Family Republican, Does One or Two Same-Sex Encounters Really Make You Gay?

Later in the post the blogger seems to reverse his statement but funny that he believed it for a second.

Update: A lot more saw that clip and had fun with it also including RedEye on FoxNews.
Rachel Maddow/MSNBC report fake Christwire.org story to slam Sarah Palin, Christians and conservatives : Fire Andrea Mitchell! They also note that it looks like MSNBC has not included that clip on their website, as I noticed last night also.

Christwire is having fun with it also...

What the Liberal Media Can Learn From Rachel Maddow’s Christwire Scandal | ChristWire
Several of my fellow journalists have suggested to me privately that, at the very least, Maddow owes Christwire an apology. Frankly, I’d rather not lower myself to her level. Most conservatives do not even consider her worthy of consideration. Her self-serving browbeating of a hardcore socialist agenda is an anathema to faith and righteousness. It is easy to dismiss this newswoman as a second-rate disingenuous fringe zealot who would trade her cable news podium to fill in Mary Hart’s heels on Entertainment Tonight in a heartbeat. Yet maybe this is the perfect opportunity to finally reassess one of this country’s most notorious persecutors of our sacred freedoms.

Egg-on-face alert: Rachel Maddow gets had; treats satire as actual news. The tweet seems to be gone also which was suppose to say:

The bad news about a free and open internet? Sometimes you get had by brilliant satirists. Christwire: 1 TRMS: 0

At Rachel Maddow the Latest Journo to Be Bamboozled by Christwire they do link to a live Tweet with that message.

This has the transcript of RedEye's Gregologue: MSNBC’s Maddow Reports Internet Spoof Story as Fact

Rachel Maddow Again Bashes Conservatives In Non-Apology For Embarrassing Mistake | Bucks Right, shows that she has a pattern of not only just admitting "technical errors" but using that as a springboard for her partisanship rants. It links to: Maddow Blames Beck and Other Conservatives for Her Getting Duped by Satirical Website | NewsBusters.org with video of her confession.

Update 2/2/2011: I certainly expect to see a fair number of attacking the messenger and nitpicking on their analysis. This site sure tries to support her contentions that she has a tough time between real satire and fake satire: Greenlee Gazette: Maddow Hoaxed, NewsBusters Reports, But Doesn't Understand It. The suggestion still stands that maybe if she does not know what is fact, that she should spend the extra 5 minutes confirming the information or just not air it.

Cafe Hayek and Don's Letters...

2011-01-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

Don Boudreaux does it again at Applying the Principle.

Interpreting that code {US Constitutions} as a living document, it strikes me that the word “income” is best read as “bunny rabbits.” I will remit to Uncle Sam approximately 25 percent of all bunny rabbits that I acquire this year. And I will cite Mr. Dionne to defend my interpretation against persons who are so dull-witted as to insist on a wooden, literal interpretation of “income.”

He is too funny at times...

And now for something completely different...
OLEK AND THE CHARGING BULL ON WALL STREET

OLEK AND THE CHARGING BULL ON WALL STREET from olek on Vimeo.

Paul Krugman is a Dweeb about Snow Jobs.

2011-01-03T09:58:00.000-08:00

I. Paul Krugman has to show his partisanship on a daily basis, like take Snow Job.

It’s always important to realize that someone can disagree with you politically without being a bad person. But there are bad people in politics, too. Maybe it’s just my bias that gives me the impression that there are more mean, self-centered whiners on one side of the aisle than on the other; but anyway, a spectacular performance by my governor:
When asked about the hundreds of people trapped in their homes for days, Christie said unless they lived on state roads, it’s not something his administration would have been able to change.

“If someone is snowed into their house, that’s not our responsibility,” Christie said.

When asked about mayors who said they were forced to divert their resources to unplowed state roads instead of clearing local roads Christie said, “I know who these mayors are and they should buck up and take responsibility for the fact that they didn’t do their job.”
Just brimming with generosity, he is.

It is not generosity to give money and services to others with communal monies. I know that Libtards somehow think it is but it is not generosity it is just more than likely political pandering. Generosity is when giving by an individual willingly.

II. I am not sure I would be so proud of this factoid: Surprise Result – The most influential European Thinker is an American! from a place that calls itself: Social Europe Journal, debating progressive politics in Europe and beyond.

Nurse Ratched at Thomland! Hahaha...

2010-12-16T23:42:00.000-08:00

I am going to call you boys on it, because it is bordering on the absurd. I could go and delete all these threads right now, but I actually find them to be far more of a statement about the "mentality" of the authors of these posts than about Thom himself.

Sure, you can come here and disagree with Thom. This is a fairly free form message board, and far more is tolerated on this site than on 90% of progressive or conservative message boards. But when you continue to write thread after thread about what a terrible host Thom is and how its despicable that he defends our President, it just makes you look sad and desperate.

It doesn't stimulate debate. It's not productive. I have yet to read in ANY of these threads any real solutions. Or the reality of what will happen if the USA falls into 100% neo-conservative control again. (Because let's face it, that's the point).

So quit with the Thom bashing. If it continues I will just delete all the threads and become VERY free with the banning.

Class dismissed. Thom Hartmann bashing- the latest right wing tactic

All I can say is that is some funny stuff...

Paul Krugman and his Gang of Dweebs...

2010-12-16T11:56:00.000-08:00

Repeat A Lie Enough Times . . . and you just create another lie...

Even Gretchen Morgenson, of that liberal media outlet NYTimes, began her column on Sunday with this sentence: :”DECIDING what to do with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the taxpayer-owned mortgage giants that helped set the financial crisis in motion, will be a huge job for Congress next year. ”

That single sentence is a huge victory for the reality challenged.

Repeat a lie enough times . . .

The new lie is that the Fannie Freddie CRA had NOTHING to do with the financial crisis and the housing crisis. It seems that most people are caught up in shallow binary thinking. Gretchen said "HELPED" and I find no reason to not think that it helped in some way, although rightly not the only reason for the crisis. Just as the low interest rates promoted by the Fed did not directly cause the crisis, this loose money was trying to find a place that paid high rates of return.

This was not Paul Krugman's post but HT to him at: Decade of the Living Dead - NYTimes.com

Paul Krugman, Worst Economist of the World {WEOTW}

2010-12-15T12:00:00.000-08:00

Orwell and the Financial Crisis
As Brad DeLong says, I’ll stop calling these people Orwellian when they stop using Nineteen Eighty-Four as an operations manual.

Basically he is worst since he is no longer an Economist but just a political pundit. I only wish that Libs would use their same superhuman powers to expose their own rewriting of history. Does it really matter that they want to change a person's bio and change the web site?

And of course Krugman is so stupid as to repeat fiction for some truth. Only in a make believe world are those two confused.

Update: I wonder if Ezra Klein is serious when he asks whose interests are served by this. The right has always understood that the perceptions game is a long game, that you have to rewrite history on a sustained basis to shape the assumptions that govern politics. Work at it steadily, and you have even a liberal Democratic president believing that Social Security only covered widows and orphans at first, that Medicare started small, and that the Clinton-era productivity boom began under Reagan.

So of course they’re working hard, right now, to expunge deregulation and shadow banking from the story of the 2008 crisis.

Ohhh, and that never happens on the left? Maybe he should just open his eyes a little more and be a tad bit less of a partisan hack? Paul Kengor points out plenty of times history has been rewritten by and for liberals in the book "Dupes: How America's Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century".

A Confession: I Was Wrong About Not Being Disruptive to Thomland

2010-09-21T15:09:00.000-07:00

I often accuse Libs of not being very reflective of their ideas or even their own actions as in what they write on public message boards/forums. So in the spirit of self-reflective analysis, I wish to say that I was wrong about not being disruptive of discussions that happened on Thomland. I honestly did not want to address that issue before as I was always under the assumption that a discussion can only be disrupted if the participants so let it happen. My words or anybody's words can not take away from someone else's. For example, adding a book to the library in no way diminishes the value of any other individual book. In fact the more books {variety} in a library the more likely to be visited by readers. I tried in fact to show that no matter how many "troll" visited my threads, I was not the least bit distracted. Of course when you get banned for simply pointing out their failures in logic and sources of information, then yes, my ability to continue a conversation is greatly diminished.

This form of censorship creates "dead zones" in the free flow of information. After a while it is like being in a dysfunctional family. I often refer these dead zones in families as the collective "taboo" subjects. As a family creates more and more taboos, the family no longer is communicating but simply on non-personal levels. Their interactions become more like transactions in the market. "May I have the butter?" "Yes, here it is." "Thanks." As I even told .Ass, I personally identify people by the subjects that interest them. Clearly it was easy to spot him on other boards. He denied it but clearly he just lied.

I had the sneaky idea about this long before writing this, and not because they kept squeaking like a little mouse about it, but because when I took breaks then certain threads would pop up without a single conservative voice or any view of variance. The most recent example is "Republican Neoliberalism". Four pages and not a single contrary view-talk about group think. Any deviance was quickly squashed by the intellectual bullies.

Of course, my absence allows the intellectual shallow mice to come out of their woodwork and spout nonsense. Since their "leader" is just as shallow {i.e. Thom Hartmann} it is no wonder that they so easily fall under group think mentality. One of the most hilarious idiotic statements made on that thread was: "Glen Beck as spokesman for the neoliberal forces..." Obviously if you watch his interview with Ron Paul {Glenn Beck - Interviews - Congressman Ron Paul Interview} then you would not jump to such idiotic statements. I did include his full descriptor as he likes using "weasel words" to describe simple shit. I suppose he thinks it distances himself from his words but he either thinks Glenn Beck is an actual supporter of Neoliberalism or he is not and no amount of adjectives takes that away. For example what does it mean "spokesman for neoliberal forces"? Is that different from being a supporter? Is .Ass trying to say that he gets paid to say stuff whether he believes it or not? And if so then why "neoliberal forces" included? Is the forces different than the actual people?

Naturally, .Ass feels the need to put his ideological opposition in "ticky tacky little boxes" as this makes it so much easier to address the issues they bring up like Glenn Beck being a neoliberalist or not? At first he tried countless times to put me in the Neocon box. I honestly found things that I could agree with, according to the PNAC website {defunct?}. The issue that most of the neocons presidents over the past century were clearly Democrats. Even Obama is clearly a neocon with his stance on Afghanistan. This does not mean it is right or wrong but just a framework that fits the model. Then it was binary oppositional thinking, neoliberalist, authoritarian, conservative narrow minded cretin, intellectually shallow-based on writing, and of course all the various ad homs that Kate spewed out including rodeo clown, Eddie Haskal...

Now it seems that I am a "positivist". It seems that at least I should have been allowed to defend myself from personal attacks. Oh that is right, respect is what is demanded for people to speak to the mighty and great .Ass, all other intellectually inferior people get spoken down to. I really have not studied that much, but from what I have read, .Ass is clearly a positivist when it comes to matters of ecology. Strangely, he would play the "Only an expert can know" video, but it seems to only apply to "experts" that he disagreed with. Like he hates economists. I can only conclude that he clearly does not understand the concepts of economics and as such does not like those "experts" but when it comes to the ecology, they "know their stuff" and are experts we need to counter the right wing noise machine.

.Ass clearly showed his positivism when we discussed DDT. He insisted that for us to have a discussion I must in fact announce that DDT was a Persistent Organic Pollution (POP). Even recently with Chris he mentioned that he spent days trying to explain to "someone" about POP and DDT.

Even though I admit that maybe I was wrong about being disruptive, I in no way will change my behavior. I felt I was invited by Thom Hartmann, and as such he needs to be the one to address me or to the conservatives on his board. He needs to spell out that he plans to change policies. Otherwise, this is just an example of principle-agent problems. All the moderators are {including Sue and Louise} just agents of Thom and thus have no bearing on my decisions. They can have adverse effects on my encounters at Thomland, but what they say has no bearing on my actions.

As far as the moderators are concerned, they clearly are whores as they work for an organization that limits speech and censors people out of some distorted sense of justice. I have lost a lot of respect for liberals from these encounters. I am not sure that conservative groups are much better, but at least the pretenses are done away with. Thomland was suppose to be different as he invited all different points of view.

Cross post at JoeDan's also: A Confession: I Was Wrong.

MelBeotch

2010-09-09T09:17:00.001-07:00

[meljomur:] "This will be my one and only comment on this board. Against my better judgement I had to make a comment to all of you because clearly someone with a lot more sense (and a little less testosterone) should address you fellows.

Well, so be it, but bragging about it just makes you small and petty. If I were you, I would not commit to things you may in fact violate later on. Common Sense? You throwing stones again? At least you live up the liberal creed of racism and sexism. You should be proud of your sexism, makes you look really petty and small. As far as testosterone, I suppose you can not identify it even if in a men's locker room. Just read and see the way "your men" treat other points of view. A few on the list includes like .Ass, Fascist, PolyVomit, and Kerry. Matter of fact just read through Republican Neoliberalism and you should see the bravado and boasting. Dr. Buckley aptly pointed out their "intellectual bullying" and I had already noted their "intellectual dishonesty".

Thom Hartmann runs his MB the same way any talk show host does. He is far more tolerant of opposing views and opinions than the likes of boards such as Rush Limbaugh.

Well, Thom Hartmann was suppose to be different. He was and I believe still does take as guests from different political persuasions. Pretty weak defense pointing out how others behave anyway. Lately though, TH forum is becoming worse than even the supposed right-wingers are. I am doubtful that that is what he truly wants.

However, why do any of you care? And now you have created entire message boards to dissect and name call the regular posters at Thom's. What a sad bunch of twats you all are.

Why do you care that we care? Seems about as much sense to ask, and of course you as other libs are very limited in your ability to self reflect on your statements. Spewing illogical statements is SOP for libs. I know I care because of moral rights for one and secondly because Thom invited others to join and said, "all variety of opinions are welcome here". I took this as an invitation to join his group and discuss the topics of the day. If he wants to rescind this invitation, he will need to make it public and preferably personally to me. Otherwise, you and the minions are just examples of principle-agent problems in management, and I have no value in your opinion or actions. We have respect for Thom-although diminishing-and none for the moderators.
No, you are a sad bunch of twats, as I am sure I would never be a moderator of a board that did not allow a lot of leeway in what people say. Tolerance is what I would demand. Your group has been showing little of that lately.

Ask yourselves this. Why would you want to be on a MB which bans you? Not once but many times. So that you can have juvenille rants about it here?

Ask yourself this. Why would you be moderator in a board that limited speech in such fascist ways? Why would you be even a member of a place that banned people for simply having the wrong IP address? Considering how juvenile you are, are you throwing stones again?

But I must say thanks for the link to these sites. They will now become a useful tool for the moderators in keeping you lot away.

Hardly, but if you think this is the only place to rant, then go on believing that...

Have fun with your mental masturbation..."

As I suggested above, read {I mean understand} the thread on Republican Neoliberalism. You ever read history? It certainly does not show.

Go ahead and show how well you have your intellectual shallow diatribes.

Kashmir and Development Economics...on Facebook

2010-08-11T13:40:00.000-07:00

Recently a couple of friends asked about my opinions on Kashmir. I am sadly not as informed on these issues as I should be and, after looking at the issues briefly, I only have some loosely collected thoughts on the issues. Let me at least start off with the questions raised by my friends.

Aha. But didn't you once use a Jain swastika as your avatar at Thom's? That's what made me think she was. Our babysitter is a Jain. Don and I are talking about Kashmir, and Don has taken a Jainist approach on a facebook thread about the issue. Your and Dina's opinions on the subject are welcome if you feel so inclined.

I read through the whole thread and not sure about the "Jainist approach" as Don practiced. The Swastika as I had used is a general Hindu sign as in the sign I used:

I see that Jainism post uses the same symbol but then Portal:Jainism uses:

And the link to Jainism is slightly less elaborate and more like the Nazi symbol at the bottom of Portal:Hinduism. Anyway, my wife says the one I used is a general Hinduism symbol.

I think the threads referred to are private conversations but the that started the research was at Germaine Taylor via Suhail Paradise Burning. And this got me involved in a discussion on a Kashmir thread at Videos Posted by Koshur Mazloom.

There certainly was a lot of information covered so let me just briefly state my observations so far through a couple of my posts:

1. I suppose the question that has not been addressed {at least on this thread} is what happens after India leaves Kashmir? Does anyone seriously think it will spontaneously form a new nation state and everyone will respect its territorial int...egrity? If you do, I have a bridge to sell you.

Too many outside interests have stakes in the outcome. And if it dos fall to Pakistan or China, what then? Do you think it will be better off or... Burma and Afghanistan should provide clues on those two outcomes.

2. Viability is not the issue. Strong states will do what it wants on weaker states. Since all three powers in the region have stated an interest in Kashmir then it is foolish to think that just because of independence that it suddenly becomes... an autonomous state.

So Amar Diwakar, I am sure you are right about the economic viability of Kashmir, but it takes more than that. Although I would be curious as to how the poverty levels compare in Kashmir with the averages in India and then in the poorest states.

As one of my friends would say, you may have no purpose in war, but war may find purpose in you. {Or something like that...}

3. On one of my forums, I am studying Development Economics and one passage that might be of interest here is this from:
Paul Collier, "On Economic Causes of Civil War" {Page 7}:
Between them, these four variables {Per Capita Income, Share of... Primary Exports in GDP,Ethno-Linguistic Fractionalisation, Economic Inequality (Gini)} make a huge difference to the chances of civil war. Consider two societies, one ideally endowed in terms of the four variables and the other catastrophically endowed. The ideal society would have the maximum income found in our sample ($9895), the maximum natural resource endowment (67%), the maximum inequality (0.69), and the maximum ethno-linguistic fractionalisation (93). It would have a risk of civil war of under 0.000001 percent. The catastrophic society would have the lowest income found in the sample ($316), a slightly above average endowment of natural resources (0.18), the lowest level of inequality (0.30), and a slightly above-average degree of ethno-linguistic fractionalisation (46). It would have a risk of civil war of 0.97.

Just a couple more links I want to add. The first was presented on the initial thread above at Huffington Post titled Arundhati Roy: What Have We Done to Democracy?. The second one was for a search on "azadi" at What ails Kashmir? The Sunni idea of ‘azadi’. I looked it up as people were throwing that term around in a forceful manner.

Some of the issues with Kashmir have been studied by Paul Collier. Might add some more of what he wrote on conflicts and developing nation states.

Poly the disease...

2010-07-31T14:34:00.000-07:00

Starting with Thom's spam:

According to the New York Times, based on an analysis of four sets of political science data, now after five terms, Chief Justice John Roberts’ Supreme Court is “the most conservative one in living memory.” During this time, the Roberts court “issued conservative decisions 58 percent of the time" and, in the last year, that rate increased to 65 percent, the highest since 1953. As Jeffrey Toobin noted last year in an article for The New Yorker, "In every major case since he became the nation’s seventeenth Chief Justice, Roberts has sided with the prosecution over the defendant, the state over the condemned, the executive branch over the legislative, and the corporate defendant over the individual plaintiff. Even more than Scalia, who has embodied judicial conservatism during a generation of service on the Supreme Court, Roberts has served the interests, and reflected the values, of the contemporary Republican Party." And now with the additional appointment of Alito, Bush moved the Supreme Court so far to the right that some are wondering when they're going to repeal the minimum wage and child labor laws, as the last uber-conservative court did about 100 years ago. Given that the Supreme Court is the most powerful of the three branches of government - the result of their taking onto themselves a power not given them in the Constitution, the power to declare laws unconstitutional which they asserted in 1803 - it becomes ever more important that there be a Democrat in the White House over the next two terms when it becomes increasingly likely that one of the conservative members of the court will retire.

On to Poly's responses:

Probably, at some point when people come to their senses, the Supreme Court will have to be expanded to over-rule wacko far-right Justices.

The numbers on the Supreme Court are set by Congress....not the Constitution. The number of its members. has varied over the lifetime of the nation.

Retired Monk -is a disease"
....
At one time, the Supreme Court only had 5 Justices. Now it has nine. Membership can be increased....and it isn't easy. It would take a majority of Progresives in both Houses of Congress to do it. That isn't easy, either.

Retired Monk - is a disease"

When I got the spam from Thom, I was quite interested in how Poly would spin it. He always says there is no difference between the parties and both bow down to the corporatists. Here he had an opportunity to state that who is in the WH is immaterial as normal procedure. But true to his ideologies he suggests packing the court to drown out "wacko far-right Justices". I would hardly consider it far right as this court gave us the Kelo decision. Enough for me to say...

WARren Huntsinger at it again...

2010-04-15T13:30:00.000-07:00

Well WARren is at it again and tried to spread some of his normal diatribe posts at Znet including the post: Z Blogs | Do As I Say documentary. I find it funny that a man that was a drop out and could not get rhyzomes and naval right in English sentences would criticize my English so called "fumbling attempts". Just recently I was amazed at how many words he truly does not know how to spell when supposedly his spell checker was off. And this is from a man that hung out with an idiot that could not use an apostrophes correctly. If you are going to go all pedestrian on a blog then at least spell correctly is the first step. When has WARren ever criticized a Libtard with improper English including "Poly the ideologue"? Well let me get back to the blog post at Znet:

Another way to make a little money if you don't have any real skills to do something like build your own home, grow organic foods, help prepare your community for the post apocalyptic world where the grocery store shelves will be empty and the gas pumps won't work because there's no power to power the electric pumps and there's no gas to ship to the gas stations, where no matter how high we turn the thermostats in our homes when the temperature dives into the teens, the furnace doesn't turn on, is to make a cheap documentary about hypocrisy.

The documentary Do As I Say is one such documentary.

What moronic shit is that? You clearly are trying to identify two individuals. One is the virtuous man that is trying to save the world in some heroic manner that is more narcissistic than actual factual understanding. And another guy that just wants to points out the hypocrisies of those that are the "leaders" of various movements.

But unlike WARren, if I see a mistake, I am not hesitant to reveal it and not just say some shit like, "Indeed, why should one expect any continuity of thought? Let's just toss some word salads together and have some lunch." I would say you are missing another verb in the first part since the first man is doing something and before the comma and is there should be an or to signify that there are two ways and not just "Another way". Loganthor was right, conservatives are much more willing to give even if it the receiver likes looking into the mouths of a gifted horse.

Anyway, that paragraph describes WARren's gloom and doom scenario. I have attempted countless times to address his issues but just like the discussions about Kuznets curves, he just wants to bloviate instead of discuss issues. Part of our discussions are at: RDRutherford • View topic - 2010 Posts from Thomland.

Since we are pretty much all in this managed global system together, then, if we want the system to change and be truly different, we are all hypocrites, one way or another, by default. Those who want change are therefore more likely to be vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy than those who want to maintain the status quo. That's a working axiom I'm using for this piece, and my underlying criticism, whatever other flaws there might be in the substance of the documentary.

Strangely WARren never had a problem with whole threads of "Republican Hypocrisy" promoted by a fascist. Even if your adult son or daughter did something wrong it was to imply hypocrisy of any family member that was a Republican. Strange indeed that WARren never uses his principles in a balanced manner. Instead he uses them in a biased manner accepting some Libtarded talking points and accepting most stereotypical smears of conservatives.

Actaully, ren does do a good job in reducing his ecological footprint according to on-line questionnaires but he lives in a garden that is attended by and managed by an "evil corporation" {name is not a matter of concern} and thus he enjoys a lot of externalities that he does not pay for.

The only real possibility for change, if change is even wanted, would be if billions of people do billions of little things every single day that are truly different than what the system now makes easy for us to do, which is, of course, how it manages us through our willing, nearly blind participation.

That is clearly possible under our current system even if WARren thinks corporations rule the world. One way this is possible for his dreams to come true is through globlalization. Even Noam Chomsky understands that some versions of globalization is beneficial-he just hates corporations. I personally have no love or hate for them. They are what they are and studying east Asia has taught me that they have just as many domineering corporations {and even more so} than the USA.

I find it hard to get a good picture of the actual health of the planet. There are some areas that clearly need more attention and most of those areas deal with lack of properly defined property rights. Even government ownership is better than just free for all which of course results in tragedy of the commons. Which this discussion only points out WARren's lack of really wanting an open discussion as he had to sabotage any discussion of Dr. Olstrom's work. Instead of trying to understand her work and how it related to and contrasted with others that deal with property rights, WARren would rather create diatribes sprinkled with name call droppings. For example, I read most of one of Korten's books and found nothing of substance. It contained not one useful model, paradigm or knowledge set that could help understand the world and it was just a collection of self-aggrandizing Libtarded talking points.

Meanwhile, what makes life easy now, ultimately and systematically destroys a little more of the grid of living systems that we pretend to understand through our most advanced tools.

Yes indeed, those advanced human created tools, tools we can simultaneously use to tell ourselves we are destroying the living systems of the planet while also hypocritically creating the potential for destroying this grid of life which makes it possible for us to breathe each minute, something we tend to take completely for granted until that moment when a breath is not possible.

At least for me, ren nor any environmentalist has given me a complete scope of the problem. All I get are anecdotal pieces of information. Much of our news is disjointed and fragmented and even ren might agree with. Thus being more of a scientist I want to understand the aggregate not individual cases of measles. Much like our fruitless discussions about DDT, in which case you could never acknowledge that the way DDT is being used in Africa and other developing nations is much different than how the USA and industrialized countries used it before. In addition, ren has failed to show that how an increase in GDP actually "systematically destroys a little of the grid". It is not a simple more people equals more environmental pollution and it is one reason that Kuznets curves are useful for looking at explanatory variables. It was not meant that it was going to answer the meaning of "life, universe and everything".

Our science, translated through our system of cultural idea systems, like our philosophies, literatures, even religions, envisions human beings at the pinnacle of the planet, and the system of managed, programmed human beings as a whole agrees de facto, by their daily actions if nothing else, that they are that arrogant chosen species at the peak of their self conceived hierarchy that makes up the grid of linked living ecosystems and moving cycles of gaseous atmosphere and water we call the biosphere.

Here is where I find it strange the logic. If humans are arrogant, would any other animal be different? If the future is to go to ants, bees or roaches, then would they not enslave and use every last bit of resources of the planet? But beyond that, if humans are a virus like WARren says we are then what are we fighting it about since it is inevitable {predestined} that we consume every last corner of the petri dish and die out. If not a virus then we will change and adapt to the new surroundings and do just fine. Although I have not had a chance to read some of the work of "collapse" of civilization, the examples I have seen are derived from rigid societies without a democracy or capitalism to adapt to changing environments. While ren thinks that so called capitalism is like a disease, I see it as a functioning system that adapts well to changes especially if wrapped in what we would call a "liberal democracy". His ideas of Parecon is just as dangerous as Pol Pot's or Mao's visions of communism.

(Well, at least hypothetically that's the case, according to the hypocrites who don't live the life they preach, except for maybe a few really strange wackos, who probably didn't show up in the documentary about hypocrisy.)

Sounds like WARren did not watch it. I know he likes fiction stories to reveal all the truths about the world, but for me I like to watch or read it before making too grand of proclamations. I even plan on watching the fat man's latest propaganda piece on capitalism on DVD to see how he bend the truth and spreads his lies. Should be very educational as a piece of propaganda.

rén, let me just say that I feel your pain and empathize with the fact that that post got zero responses. Don't people know how smart you are? Do you feel lonely and an outsider at Znet? And here they already gave me membership.

Bill lost his moderatorship about two boards ago. I haven't seen much of him since. Bill hated Chris and he associated Chris with me, I guess. Bill and I never had much to say to each other. I finally found out how he really felt in that exchange, which has been "disappeared" as they were wont to do with such things at that time.
Next Justice to believe in "Unitary Executive" theory?

WARren, and you have the nerve to question my Engligh grammar skills? Are you just jealous that I have a MSc, and you are a loser drop-out???

Thom Hartmann is a Dweeb, "Real Threats" is a Joke...

2010-03-29T15:13:00.000-07:00

Just another day in the news – Real threats against Democrats – and lies from Eric Cantor…

gun imagesWhen House Minority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) announced yesterday that his Richmond, VA office was shot at, becoming one of the first Republicans to say he was a victim of anti-politican populist rage, it appears that he was lying to the press and the American people. Richmond police say the bullet that hit a window of Republican Virginia Congressman Eric Cantor’s office had been randomly fired skyward from some distance away, and by an odd coincidence fell to the ground – perhaps miles away – striking a window in the same office building where Cantor has an office. The bullet penetrated a window, but was stopped by the windowshade, where it was found. In somebody else’s office, just in the same building. Meanwhile, Democratic congressman Anthony Weiner’s office received an envelope filled with white powder. Real threats against Democrats, fueled by hate radio and hate TV, and lies from Eric Cantor. Just another day in the news.

1. What a hypocrite, Thom?
I listened enough to see that you have just as much hate speech as the next wingnut on radio. If you dropped this “con” or that ” con” wants to steal your money and make your children like “The Jungle” then you might have a point. Otherwise you are just like the rest Thom.

Just wondering Thom. Where were you when all the protests in Seattle happened? How about the violence perpetrated on Marine recruiting offices in San Fransisco??? You surely have selective attention!!!

godknows
you

2. Real threats against Democrats, fueled by hate radio and hate TV, and lies from Eric Cantor. Just another day in the news.

Haha. “Real threats”, going for the NLP techniques again and providing a good example of a pleonasm. Thom it is either a threat or not and Cantor felt it was a threat. We really do not know who fired the bullet and why. So to call it a lie only makes you look like a liar. But do not let truth stop you from bashing…

godknows

3. Hey Thom…
Let me hear you condemn this bit of trash talking from another “right winger”…
Real Time With Bill Maher 2010.03.26 New rules: BI-FURIOUS
Oh that is right, I am wrong, but I am sure you will condemn this hate filled rhetoric also…

godknows

4. Man Arrested for Death Threats Against Eric Cantor - - CBS News
Thom, you going to continue to call Cantor a liar??? Anyway, was it real enough for a "real threat in your book Thom? I just imagine that this little of news will not hit your Faux news reviews...

godknows
you

Misc. Dweebs

2010-03-19T10:31:00.000-07:00

HEY, RUTHERFORD! – you wanna sincerely exchange a viewpoint or two? Here’ are a couple to chew on …

1) I’m sure that even YOU can accept the notion that in a healthy economy, there is some kind of a balance between SUPPLY and DEMAND. For the past 30 years (since your namesake was President), the pendulum has been getting pushed exclusively towards the SUPPLY side. Now, for the most part, DEMAND is collapsing – GLOBALLY!, because the people who comprise the greatest global market for consumer goods are systematically being put out of their jobs and their homes.

2) The whole concept of the “Ownership” society is beginning to collapse, as the investor class (e. g., YOU!) sits by the pool waiting for your dividend checks. You demand GROWTH, above all, from your investments. THAT is why, for the past 30 years, productivity has increased annually while wages have flattened.

Ever hear of a guy named Henry Ford, Ron? I have some grudging respect for the racist bastard, because he knew something about how to SUSTAIN a business by taking the LONG view. Ford recognized that if he paid his workers enough that they could afford to buy the products produce in the factories they worked in, he’d CREATE a market for himself. Do you think the 9-year-olds in Singapore that BUILT your 48″ Plasma display & 3 GHz computer are making enough to buy those items? Do you think they can even DREAM of making that much?

Enjoy your private little “micro-economy” while it lasts, Ronny-boy. It’s all gonna come tumbling down around your ears, far sooner than you expect. Don’t be lookin’ in here for a soft place to land when it does.

Sure, why not a "sincere exchange of viewpoints"? But so far I have not seen any and your talking points don't help your cause.

1. Not sure what straw man argument you want to pursue but I am clearly a Keynesian and more specifically a "structuralist Neo-Keynsian".
2. You don't know me, so I understand the labeling is much easier than addressing issues. While I have shifted more of my equities to higher paying dividends, that was mostly to diversify my holdings and to pick some less volatile stocks in the mix.

2a. Fordism as described by Liberals is vacuous at best. He paid them an amount above the prevailing wage to ensure the highest quality workers in the industry. If he had been building Aircraft carriers would he have paid his workers each enough to afford one also. Just ridiculous to tie work output to consumption.

2b. You do understand that Singapore is a HIC and there are no 9 year olds in sweat shops??? Right? or did Thom say something today on that subject.

3. It may collapse but since I have been reading the same for decades then I will not hold my breath waiting for it to happen. As long as the Demos and Obama do not mess with the economy and create structural rigidities in our economy then our economy will adapt as it has always done before.

godknows
says carry on...
Highlights on the Show…March 15 – 19, 201

Well Ron if that’s how you feel about pass then read bills, join me in calling for the repeal of every piece of legislation that the Republicans passed in the middle of the night mere hours (or less) after putting their gregarious bills on the table.

BTW, how long do you have to sit and think before coming up with your (dubious) zingers… looks like at least a 1/2 hour to me. Do you have to call someone to get ideas?

O brother.
Do you have something in specific to point to or just vacuous innuendos? Anytime I missed that affected 1/7th of the economy? The one time that {I remember} the Republicans working so hard to get something passed "in the night" was ANWR and that never did pass even when using the same techniques Pelosi is using now.

Timing now. You really do not have a life. I actually thought the next 1/2 I would look for and read the bills...

godknows
all

mstaggerlee March 19th, 2010, 10:04 am

@wRONg Rutherford, re:”Just ridiculous to tie work output to consumption.”

I’ve been working on the bleeding edge of the electronics industry for the past 33 years, creating non-consumer products that make most people’s eyes glaze over when they ask me “What do you do?” You ARE correct that nobody here gets paid well enough to buy our products – then again, nobody who works here would WANT one … kinda like an Aircraft Carrier. However, pretty much everyone who works here IS paid well enough to buy a 3 GHz computer or a 48″ Plasma TV … if they do want one.

So – your statement, copied above, seems to indicate a belief that wages (consumption) should NOT be tied to productivity (work output). Enlighten us fools in here then, Professor, to what SHOULD wages be connected?

Most excellent, now resorting to juvenile name calling, right?
Great for you. Hardly the case in believing that wages should not be tied to productivity but it is beyond that also. Fordism does not in fact hold to the productivity to wages and wants to somehow include output as a factor {the tangible end product}. That I find ridiculous. Aircraft carriers was just a simple example but wide body aircraft or high rise buildings or any number of "products" that the average person could not afford even if they were a "bankster" {sic}. And those that support the Fordism of the worker should be able to afford his product produced like the concept that tiddly wink workers can only afford their output?

Bloviating Ren H at it again. Just give it up!!!

2010-03-15T11:41:00.000-07:00

Ren H wrote:
drc wrote:
Barefoot Gen and Dr. Buckley
Lol. Are you just trying to play within some constricted rules of the board, here drc, or are you really unaware that:

BarefootGen openly morphed (at Sue's permission) from Mazeppa early at the beginning of this version of Thom's board; that Mazeppa was a resurrection of a certain Dr. Buckley, who was banned a couple of boards back, nearly two summers ago, along with a few other possibly associated names (formally known as "socks") since, maybe too many to mention? That of course he was closely associated with Ronald Rutherford and a host of Rutherfordian socks, definitely far to many to mention?

While I heartily agree that whoever was behind those names brought a kind of "intellectualism" to the board, I don't think it's fair to equate that intellectualism with conservative intellectuals -- though Buckley himself and Rutherford may be a conservatives, I don't know. And I don't know how I could know.

What they did bring was a kind of systematic disinformationalist techniques which they used to disrupt serious discussions.

I think it's really important to separate the use of various "Neuro Linguistic Programming" (NLP) techniques from any political ideology, because not to do so clearly offers a potential for using those techniques to create even more confusion. After all, Thom himself is well versed in those techniques, has even taught on air classes in his radio shows on how they work, and it would not seem fair to say he is therefore a conservative.

As far as serious intellectual conservatives are concerned, I think they would have to identify themselves. I'm not sure if Dave M would call himself conservative, but he's surely an intellectual, and when he takes the trouble he can present some excellent and challenging arguments.

I guess I'm a bit uncomfortable with generalizing about conservatives as you have, drc, because I have a very different sense of what this board has become, and why, since it had a listing of some 16,653 accumulated (though certainly not active) members several boards and years back. I have no way of knowing what Norske's motivation for this thread was, not for sure, but I took it as a way of making a point about the current make up of board participants.

I, in my own personal vision, do see a correlation with what has transpired since I first joined a Thom Hartmann board six years ago and what Norske's asking for in his post. And from my limited view, I also see a correlation with what I know of as a consistent application of disinformationalist strategies by a very small group of constantly banned and re-emerging posters, who have as a result had a very significant and still continuing effect on the atmosphere of discussion on this board. There's no way to measure how much. I can only say that I am aware of the loss of a host of intellectual progressives who have gone elsewhere, who were once an important part of the atmosphere of the board. I don't think it's easy to see that unless someone has been here for a long period of time, long enough to have experienced the change and to have established a network of friends who have nearly all left for very pertinent reasons.

Damn, idiot!!! Is English your second language??? Like for example:

That of course he was closely associated with Ronald Rutherford and a host of Rutherfordian socks, definitely far to many to mention?

Putting a question mark at the end of a sentence only shows you do not know how to form a question and are too lazy to use the rules of English. It is also "too" as in too many. Are you an idiot???

I was talking to my wife the other day, and I was explaining that you are like many foreigners that learned "English" in such a formal setting that they find no difficulty in creating elaborate run on sentences but have no grasp of actual English. They can not even speak it. They do well on GRE tests but can not communicate simple conversations with people here. But in one sense the papers they present are such blather that professors {and real ones not made up in your make believe mind} are blinded by their "brilliance". Brilliant! You are like those people.

You criticize the simplest sentence I write as a response and wonder how you can decipher DRCs and Polycraps shit and not understand a simple sentence. It is just short hand for your ideological blinders and condescending BS. Just leave me the shit alone and you would get along better in life.

You show so little respect to others that you disagree with and you always wonder why people do not respect you.... If you ever get a mirror look into it deeply...

Take for example "closely associated with", I just find him much more of an intellect than you can ever muster to be. An honest and thus respectful participant in discussions unlike you and your NLP. Yes you and Thom studiously ignore your propaganda that you spew on a daily basis. That is why when you present a piece by Noam Chomsky that is just lies and innuendos you just lap it up like a little pussy cat. So my relationship was purely as a result of us both discussing issues that we thought were interesting. It was in fact you that destroyed so many fruitful conversations.

You are just an intellectual bully and a small intellectual.

Hey Ren, one more thing, I graduated with a MSc what did you graduate with???? Oh, that is right. You are a loser drop-out!!!

It's more like PeeWee gets all weak in the knees when I show him some attention, and this is the best he can do to express himself about it. I think he's maybe a little embarrassed. Or maybe its the unwanted guest syndrome. They want to be wanted, but can't be because they can't make conversation, so they stand around making sounds like they are going to say something, but never do. They can't leave without being wanted, but can't make themselves be wanted either. It's a horrible dilemma for them. So to cover that over, they sneer at everyone.

It never ceases to amaze me how you can manipulate the situation that you are the brave hero and intelligent but that all conservatives are bumbling idiots that do not match up to your intellect. You should have been banned long ago and repeatedly for such shit as that.

While you loved to run around and say that I was stalking you, you cleverly divert that to put it all on PeeWee that he is an inept fool that can not manage himself in group situations. You really are a fool and a tool. All I can say, is that I feel sorry for your psychotic mother that never instilled a sense of self ownership in yourself.

Ram Jaane...

Thom Hartmann is a hypocrite! #10034|Minimum Wages

2010-03-09T10:02:00.000-08:00

Pay Cuts for Congress? & “Big” Governments Republicans Mandating Marriage……

budget imagesRep. Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ) introduced a bill last week to slash pay for members of Congress 5% or $8,700 a year — and freeze their automatic cost-of-living increase. With Congress’ approval ratings “spiraling downward,” Kirkpatrick said, “Families across the country are getting by on lower wages…so why shouldn’t senators and representatives have to feel the same pinch?” The cut would be the first since the Great Depression. She said she’s already started handing over 5 percent of her pay every month. Hey, Congresswoman Kirkpatrick – how about instead of leading the entire country, including Congress, to ever-lower wages and bringing us all to Wal-Mart pay levels, how about instead increasing the minimum wage, change our trade and tax policies to bring jobs back to America, and break up the big vulture corporations that put out of business local companies and prevent entrepreneurs from even starting new companies? Stop promoting the Republican idea that we should all be paid less, and take us back to an era when worker pay increased along with corporate productivity.

Thom you are at it again. Too funny about your ideological support for minimum wages and "living wages", so I was surprised as to how you spun the latest.

Let's see people should get paid based on what Thom? Just because you want income to be high for all including our "elites" does not make it so. Why should the filthy "rich" in this case get more pay for obviously not performing their job? Do you think their approval rating means anything? If they were waiters, do you think they would get any tips? Of course you think they should get paid no matter how bad their "service" is? I am sure you tip the same for lousy service because you want them to have a so called living wage?

I know you think that productivity should dictate wage increases when the productivity goes up but are you then willing to concede that wages should in fact go down when productivity goes down??? Not likely as you want it both ways. You obviously have no understanding of labor markets.

This is obvious in the sense that on one hand you want more small business but unwilling to actually lower the barriers to their formation including but not limited to minimum wages. It is not large corporations {or as you call them: big vulture corporations} that fear rising minimum wages as they will just pass on costs. It is the small businesses that will have higher obstacles to formation of small businesses. Take a gander at a couple of points about minimum wages:
5 Things You Didn’t Know About the Minimum Wage
The Effect of Minimum Wage Increases on Retail and Small Business Employment | EPI Study

PS: 1. Hey Thom, I see your little minions are running around again censoring information contrary to your views. Very funny indeed and almost fascist in its applications. In case you missed them the first time, I will repeat them for your reading pleasure.,,

You could stop this Thom by first stop spamming all my email accounts. Sue is suppose to have a list that she so graciously decided to spread to the whole world. Yes personal information was spread around. Wonder if that is grounds for...

PS2: Uh, Craig. Are you a conservative or just playing one? As you have only shown yourself to be uncritical and to repeat other people’s words, I can only assume as much.
Which unjust and unnecessary war is he talking about? Probably the one started by Demos, no?

It’s time we turn that around and tell the conservatives – The nine most terrifying words in the English language are – I’m from the corporation and I’m here to help.

Now that is just funny shit. I am really scared that a corporation is going to come into my house uninvited and help me out. Until then, I will be more concerned about the Police State as Antifascist was always concerned about also.

Keep up the spamming, maybe one day I will read the whole thing…

PS3:Thom would be better actually creating a valid argument.

Why not present the information mst??? I am talking short term effects. Thom wants short term productivity gains to automatically go to “labor” no matter the level of unemployment but when productivity goes down as new hires are added to the payrolls then I am sure that Thom will not consider that “fair”.

Thom just has no idea how labor markets work and likes to cherry pick data to confirm his own biases.

LOL, Not my hero. I have no heroes and find no reason to go looking for them in my life also. Maybe Thom is your hero and you need to defend him? No?

PS4: We can complain about the deals afterwards all we want. My point was that if approval ratings is a gage of productivity and their productivity is so low, why would we pay them so much???

How you going to force them to be better educated? Re-education camps? And yes, Thom is in the education business, although disinformation is more likely the outcome…

PS5: Here Thom. This is a subject right up your ideological alley.
Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis: Moorestown New Jersey Unions Highlight Union Arrogance
I just suspect that your attitude toward the politicians (more than likely middle class) and “living wages” would change drastically from your lead piece.

PS6: Hey Thom. Since you already spammed me on the latest blog post then why not post it here?

Compassion for CEOs?
The International Brotherhood of Electric Workers has filed a lawsuit against Bankster Goldman Sachs for overpaying its top executives. The lawsuit “seeks to stop Goldman from allocating roughly 47 percent of 2009 net revenue as compensation, saying such allocations ‘vastly overcompensate management and constitute corporate waste.’” Apparently the IBEW and their electrician workers don’t realize how hard it is to find employees willing and able to buy and sell stocks and only be paid a few million dollars a year for this brutally hard work. After all, these guys have to buy suits and ties. They have to pay for limousines and thousand-dollar-a-bottle champagne. Being a Goldman Sachs executive is tough work, guys – cut them some slack! Have some compassion!

–Thom Same dribble as always.
What do you do that is “brutally hard work”??? How much do you get on a book sold?

What do you have to buy??? A computer? Notepad and pen??? See how illogical your positions are with regards to your own standings?

Carry on…

PS7: We have another wiener!!!

Thom’s blog
Thomas Jefferson on Student Lending….
Six Democrats have sided with banks, against the Landmark Student Lending Reform. Who are they? Bill Nelson (Fl.), Tom Carper (Del.), Blanche Lincoln (Ark.), Jim Webb (Va.), Mark Warner (Va.) and Ben Nelson (Neb.). The student lending industry has launched an “aggressive lobbying campaign” of senators representing states where big lenders are based, scaremongering about job losses resulting from passing SAFRA. Now, it appears that their lobbying is paying off. We’re a long way away from when Thomas Jefferson started the University of Virginia with the notion that part of building a middle class (necessary to a democracy, he said) would require people with some education, and advocated a national program of free education up to and including university levels, the last state to fall from that ideal was when Governor Ronald Reagan ended free enrollment in the University of California system. My question – how do these people sleep at night or look themselves in the mirror?

-Thom

Isn’t it so bad that your favorite bank along with your fascist promoter on your forum is against such propsals:

A Whole New World - US Banker Article
Bank of North Dakota makes about 70 percent of the student loans in its home state, but if the Obama Administration has its way, the $3.5 billion-asset bank would be out of the origination business by this time next year.

Thom Hartmann is a hypocrite!"Why are we the only stupid industrialized country in the world?"

2010-03-08T15:05:00.000-08:00

So Thom, You consider being stupid by not having a "socialist security" for health care also, no? Didn't your mother ever tell you that just because everyone else is going to jump in a lake does not mean that you should. If other industrialized countries also forced women to wear burkas would you also think we should follow that example.

The big question is why do you think just because government provides the services that it somehow is free then?

Your blog does not get too much traffic and your forum is losing interest. Why do you think that might be? I really want to know if you want lively dynamic conversations on your forum or is it meant only for "Libs". Considering that people get banned for the slightest while the "forum pets" get to insult all day, I have to wonder.

Maybe if you paid attention more to even your own words, you would in fact notice your hypocrisy as in http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/./viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3852
Thom Hartmann is a hypocrite!

Link: Why are we the only stupid industrialized country in the world?

Thom: You have another issue that I am sure you will get right on to responding to at:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/./viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3875
T.H. says Geo. Washington wanted Fed Gov Health Care
Probably just making the shit up again, hey Thom???

PS:

If you have some actual data to add to the discussion, bring it. I don’t think you do. You’re just another lazy right wing freeper (who clearly was not banned for his insulting tone), throwing grenades at the parade.

Why???? It is Thom’s blog and he never even provides a link to his "facts" in his comments. His books are even worse for not having footnotes or much of a bibliography.

PS2:

Ron: did Thom say it would be free? Standard attack mode: to put words in the mouths of those you attack that they did not say.

I am asking Thom, not one of his cheerleaders. I’m asking him where will he find the money. I have read and listened enough to know that he is just pushing that issue under the rug or has some “hope and change” mantra that he repeating.

Yes, and thanks for the vacuous link…

Thom: You have another issue that I am sure you will get right on to responding to at:
http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/./viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3875
T.H. says Geo. Washington wanted Fed Gov Health Care
Probably just making the shit up again, hey Thom???

PS3: Hey Thom, your NLP is quite blatant here as you somehow felt it important to add the adjective of “Mormon”. Well I suggest that if you want to add adjectives to people’s names then add “BLT believer” to Obama as in a counter argument: Barack Obama’s Black Liberation Theology

As far as “Faux news”, you certainly are one to throw rocks, right Thom?
Barack Obama's Black Liberation Theology

PS4:

Thom,
Your report is incomplete, misleading, and, therefore, a lie. Here’s what he actually said: “Leave your church” if it “starts to preach social and economic justice, especially through the structure of a giant government.” He said “Social justice and economic justice are code words.” He was “referring to Jeremiah right’s type church, a Black Liberation Theology or Marxism or church that’s turned into a political arm.” He agreed with the idea “that Christians should not merely give to the poor but also work to correct unjust conditions that keep people poor.” He said this is what Jesus taught. And he said “Go find another parish”, not another church, and “Go alert your bishop.”
You can read his complete remarks at http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/37852/ I marvel at the ability liberals have to be consistently wrong.

Exactly, and Thom just lives in his dream world devoid of reality as his minions scurry around to protect him from the truth. Just on Thom's there is a couple of lies pointed out and of course the usual suspects {rodeo clowns} had to pop out at: http://www.thomhartmann.com/board/./viewtopic.php?f=4&t=4000

Naomi Klein a Dweeb as Normal.

2010-01-15T13:58:00.000-08:00

As usual, liberals and progressives create these "deep thoughts" of understanding about how politics is manipulated to shape society but fail to use the same analytical tools to understand their own ideological manipulations and contortions. The usual suspects had pointed out a blog post by Naomi Klein entitled: Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.

Starting with the linked comment of "unpopular pro-corporate policies" which instead of linking to something "unpopular" she links to Pro-Free-Market Ideas for Responding to Hurricane Katrina and High Gas This list appeared in an email sent by Rep. Paul Teller on September 13, 2005. But she failed to tie Paul Teller's letter to the Heritage Foundation. Pretty sloppy. Secondly the document she is upset about was to Things to Remember While Helping Haiti. While providing no actual reason to oppose their ideas or to even a chance to elaborate on those ideas she quotes a portion that she feels epitomizes her feelings without a substantial commentary.

"In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region."

Yes, it does provide opportunities simply as the old structures are destroyed then new and hopefully better social as well as political and economic structures can form. Her meddling in their affairs are not likely to help them, but I do wonder why she would be against the US improving its image unless she really does hate the USA. A portion of their post is below:

The U.S. government response should be bold and decisive. It must mobilize U.S. civilian and military capabilities for short-term rescue and relief and long-term recovery and reform. President Obama should tap high-level, bipartisan leadership. Clearly former President Clinton, who was already named as the U.N. envoy on Haiti, is a logical choice. President Obama should also reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush, to lead the bipartisan effort for the Republicans.

Seems like reasonable suggestions but not for the Liberals that I guess have a problem with the Heritage Foundation as Thom Hartmann also has a problem in his blog post entitled Haiti & George W Bush

Yesterday, following the tragic earthquake in Haiti, the conservative Heritage Foundation suggested that “President Obama…reach out to a senior Republican figure, perhaps former President George W. Bush, to lead the bipartisan effort” to assist the beleaguered Caribbean country. Indeed, it is now being reported that Obama has asked the former Republican president to join with U.N. special envoy to Haiti Bill Clinton to raise funds for the nation. What a great idea. Maybe Bush will bring along with him Condi Rice, who was shopping for shoes in New York while people died in New Orleans, or Brownie, who did such a heck of a job, or John McCain, whose birthday party Bush attended while people were drowning in New Orleans? Isn’t this a bit like asking the underwear bomber to head up a fundraising program for airport security? Some people are speculating that Bush will turn down the offer specifically because he’s concerned his involvement will remind people of the thousands of people he let die in New Orleans and surrounding areas.

Obviously Thom is just a partisan hack as people also died in floods already during the Obama presidency also. I posted a comment on his blog also.

In addition to suggesting that we use US resources to the fullest possible and suggesting that George Bush help create bipartisanship efforts at the relief efforts the writer for Heritage Foundation also suggests for stopping illegal drug trafficking, counter negative publicity by socialist countries and lastly to insure that aid actually gets to those that need it most. Nothing really that controversial.

Let us look at the hypocrisy that Naomi shows so openly in her own blog, just using a couple from recent blog posts. Her most recent recent was also published at CommonDreams entitled Ten Things the US Can and Should Do for Haiti. Let me briefly respond to each point with my comments in bold:

One. Allow all Haitians in the US to work. The number one source of money for poor people in Haiti is the money sent from family and workers in the US back home. Haitians will continue to help themselves if given a chance. Haitians in the US will continue to help when the world community moves on to other problems.
I will agree with that including unlimited H1B applications from Haiti and I would suspect that Heritage Foundation might even agree with us on that matter.
Two. Do not allow US military in Haiti to point their guns at Haitians. Hungry Haitians are not the enemy. Decisions have already been made which will militarize the humanitarian relief - but do not allow the victims to be cast as criminals. Do not demonize the people.
OK. Well then who will maintain order? Do you think that people will all now act civilized? Did the writer ever experience when police and civil service units just collapse? Well it is not a pretty sight.
Three. Give Haiti grants as help, not loans. Haiti does not need any more debt. Make sure that the relief given helps Haiti rebuild its public sector so the country can provide its own citizens with basic public services.
I am sure that is in the plans but it could also use loans when long term development is important. Just reading the book "Dead Aid" and too much aid may actually hurt development for Haiti as it already has shown little benefit from aid to Haiti.
Four. Prioritize humanitarian aid to help women, children and the elderly. They are always moved to the back of the line. If they are moved to the back of the line, start at the back.
OK by me, but then how do you expect even a line to form let alone civil and organized humanitarian aid distribution without guns and men? Which violates guideline number 2.
Five. President Obama can enact Temporary Protected Status for Haitians with the stroke of a pen. Do it. The US has already done it for El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Sudan and Somalia. President Obama should do it on Martin Luther King Day.
NP, and Heritage Foundation might agree with that also.
Six. Respect Human Rights from Day One. The UN has enacted Guiding Principles for Internally Displaced People. Make them required reading for every official and non-governmental person and organization. Non governmental organizations like charities and international aid groups are extremely powerful in Haiti - they too must respect the human dignity and human rights of all people.
Sure respect but who will maintain that respect when the scorpions of society try to hoard or steal more than their share?
Seven. Apologize to the Haitian people everywhere for Pat Robertson and Rush Limbaugh.
Not hardly as those are two individual citizens of the USA. Silly idea even on the surface as I might expect all the world leaders to apologize to me for any transgressions by any member of their society.
Eight. Release all Haitians in US jails who are not accused of any crimes. Thirty thousand people are facing deportations. No one will be deported to Haiti for years to come. Release them on Martin Luther King day.
I believe that has been addressed and seems reasonable.
Nine. Require that all the non-governmental organizations which raise money in the US be transparent about what they raise, where the money goes, and insist that they be legally accountable to the people of Haiti.
Wrong again, it is a transfer from US citizens to Haiti and it must be legally accountable to US citizens. Haiti has no legal system now anyway. It is our responsibility to make sure that we have done everything to insure we are doing no harm not Haitians.
Ten. Treat all Haitians as we ourselves would want to be treated.
Doh! But in that case let them have complete and total access to our import markets. Let them immigrate more to the USA and encourage FDI in Haiti. That is all good neoliberal policies.

But the real kicker in their blog posts is one by Naomi Klein entitled For Obama, No Opportunity Too Big To Blow. Nothing in my opinion more easily shows "shock socialism" as reading her plans for how she would have "capitalized" on the situation.

Blown Opportunity Number 1: The Stimulus Package
When Obama came to office he had a free hand and a blank check to design a spending package to stimulate the economy. He could have used that power to fashion what many were calling a "Green New Deal"—to build the best public transit systems and smart grids in the world. Instead, he experimented disastrously with reaching across the aisle to Republicans, low-balling the size of the stimulus and blowing much of it on tax cuts. Sure, he spent some money on weatherization, but public transit was inexplicably short changed while highways that perpetuate car culture won big.

Most definitely using the financial crisis to not "stimulate" the economy but actually to transform society in how Naomi thinks would work. She may even have a point about a "Green New Deal" but sadly she will not address that she is a devoted member of the Shock Socialists. I will bypass point number two as it falls under this same category of shock socialism.

Blown Opportunity Number 3: The Bank Bailouts
Obama, it's worth remembering, also came to office with the big banks on their knees -- it took real effort not to nationalize them. Once again, if Obama had dared to use the power that was handed to him by history, he could have mandated the banks to provide the loans for factories to be retrofitted and new green infrastructure to be built. Instead he declared that the government shouldn't tell the failed banks how to run their businesses. Green businesses report that it's harder than ever to get a loan.

Imagine if these three huge economic engines—the banks, the auto companies, the stimulus bill—had been harnessed to a common green vision. If that had happened, demand for a complementary energy bill would have been part of a coherent transformative agenda.

Obviously a socialist is writing this and sadly it borders on Fascism in trying to force the mending of "classes" or industries to perform "social needs" above profits. Naomi thinks that "Man-Dating" actually creates jobs or can improve the economy.

As far as green businesses, I am sure they are like a lot of small businesses and find it harder to get financing. That was one reason the Fed has injected so much liquidity into the system, but making man-dates does not simply: "dramatically reengineer the failing industry so that its factories could build the infrastructure of the green economy the world desperately needs." It takes consumers that find your products of higher value than the alternatives.

Naomi Klein is a shock socialist!

A New Coservative Baby Girl!

2009-10-17T13:49:00.000-07:00

Sure enough, we had a little baby girl that we called her Elizabeth Pooja and here is her first picture taken:

It looks like she is already getting into the pose just right.

Oh Please, daddy, mommy hug me!!!

Mommy and baby at home.

Daddy and baby connecting.

Ohhhh. Just one of Elizabeth's many facial expressions.

And if you don't think I am a conservative then to you too!!!

Elizabeth must be smart to take after other great ones...

Tyranny and twitter pacifism

2009-10-07T19:08:00.000-07:00

Chris Blattman raises the question {at: Tyranny and twitter pacifism}.

That is George Orwell discussing Gandhi in 1949. I’ve been reading Orwell’s Collection of Essays. A few weeks ago, on a long flight home, I watched the 1982 Gandhi biography and shared the same thought. Would Gandhi have been as successful under true tyranny?

A question that I have wondered also. Gandhi had the advantages of being taught in a British system including Gandhi traveled to London, England, to study law at University College London and to train as a barrister. But the question is whether Gandhi knew enough about the German system in the 1930s to make the same recommendations. I always found the following short essays so enlightening with the first portion at the link The Scorpion.

Gandhi succeeded in his variation on the prisoner's dilemma because the British were not willing to resort to the ultimate defection. A player, like the Nazis, willing to stop at nothing, creates an illogical loop much like the one that results when two players play a series for a known number of moves. Since, on the last move, the future has no shadow, I might as well defect. Since the other player will certainly be smart enough to defect on that move as well, I may as well defect on the move before, when he may still be cooperating. But, since he is smart enough to reason this through the way I did, he will probably defect on that move too. So again I will consider defecting a move earlier. But so will he. The result: we both defect on the first move and each move afterwards.

The link then goes to a more detail about "The Gandhi Game" with some important excerpts below.

Mahatma Gandhi invented a unique variation on the prisoner's dilemma: a move that was neither cooperation or defection, but which fell in between (we will call it noncooperation).
...
It is a significant limitation of noncooperation that it can only succeed if one's adversary, no matter how harsh, unjust and imperialist, is also somewhat honorable and is reluctant to use or endorse violence. Gandhi was successful with the British who (with a few exceptions such as Amritsar) did not commit massacres; but he would have died on the first day of opposition against the amoral, treacherous and violent Nazis, who would have executed him and all his followers and thrown them in a pit. In other words, there must be something about the adversary that makes it clear that the grounds for cooperation already exist. If the adversary will not stop short of any act of cruelty or murder, noncooperation is not an option and the only available responses are violence or silence.
...
Gandhi said, "we must be the change we wish to see in the world." Following him, millions of people, at the same moment that they played the noncooperation card against the British, were playing "All Cooperate" in a game with each other.

Nonviolence is better when the preconditions for it exist.

Then what did Gandhi recommend to back then to the Jews concerning the Nazis and the Palestinians. For that I use the following article: 'THE JEWS', BY GANDHI - FROM HARIJAN, NOVEMBER 26, 1938

But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood?

Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct. The mandates have no sanction but that of the last war. Surely it would be a crime against humanity to reduce the proud Arabs so that Palestine can be restored to the Jews partly or wholly as their national home.

The nobler course would be to insist on a just treatment of the Jews wherever they are born and bred. The Jews born in France are French. If the Jews have no home but Palestine, will they relish the idea of being forced to leave the other parts of the world in which they are settled? Or do they want a double home where they can remain at will? This cry for the national home affords a colourable justification for the German expulsion of the Jews.
...
Can the Jews resist this organised and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is. No person who has faith in a living God need feel helpless or forlorn. Jehovah of the Jews is a God more personal than the God of the Christians, the Mussalmans or the Hindus, though as a matter of fact in essence, He is common to all and one without a second and beyond description. But as the Jews attribute personality to God and believe that He rules every action of theirs, they ought not to feel helpless. If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing, death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.
...
But the Jews of Germany can offer satyagraha under infinitely better auspices than the Indians of South Africa. The Jews are a compact, homogeneous community in Germany. They are far more gifted than the Indians of South Africa. And they have organised world opinion behind them. I am convinced that if someone with courage and vision can arise among them to lead them in non-violent action, the winter of their despair can in the twinkling of an eye be turned into the summer of hope. And what has today become a degrading man-hunt can be turned into a calm and determined stand offered by unarmed men and women possessing the strength of suffering given to them by Jehovah. It will be then a truly religious resistance offered against the godless fury of dehumanised man. The German Jews will score a lasting victory over the German gentiles in the sense that they will have converted the latter to an appreciation of human dignity. They will have rendered service to fellow-Germans and proved their title to be the real Germans as against those who are today dragging, however unknowingly, the German name into the mire.
...
And now a word to the Jews in Palestine. I have no doubt that they are going about it in the wrong way. The Palestine of the Biblical conception is not a geographical tract. It is in their hearts. But if they must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs. They should seek to convert the Arab heart. The same God rules the Arab heart who rules the Jewish heart. They can offer satyagraha in front of the Arabs and offer themselves to be shot or thrown into the Dead Sea without raising a little finger against them. They will find the world opinion in their favour in their religious aspiration. There are hundreds of ways of reasoning with the Arabs, if they will only discard the help of the British bayonet. As it is, they are co-shares with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them.

I bolded that one sentence because when I first read that it shocked me since no sane person would state that after seeing what the Jews did suffer as a result of being passive. If the opponent is a Scorpion then that will only lead to the genocide or democide of the peoples in question. And to define Satyagraha more distinctly from Wiki link:

Satyagraha (Sanskrit: सत्याग्रह satyāgraha) is a philosophy and practice of nonviolent resistance developed by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (also known as "Mahatma" Gandhi). Gandhi deployed satyagraha in campaigns for Indian independence and also during his earlier struggles in South Africa. Satyagraha theory also influenced Martin Luther King, Jr. during the campaigns he led during the civil rights movement in the United States, and many other social justice and similar movements.

Anyway, we can never turn back the clock and check out whether Gandhi's concepts would have worked but against a "scorpion" that does not think "rationally" the prospects are quite low of success. And finally back to Blattman's blog post:

But tyrannical control over mass media is slipping away. From Tehran to Harare, the opposition has used twitter, texts, and the web to bring mass movements into being. Is a new age of pacifism possible?

For certain states that is true even if China is trying to censor the internet for its citizens, that will only lead to being more creative. People are still more clever than machines now and just because you censor something like political freedom as in this case: China has previously altered the words of U.S. officials. A 2004 speech in Shanghai by former Vice President Dick Cheney was broadcast live on state-run television at the insistence of U.S. officials, but the Chinese transcript of the remarks deleted references to political freedom.
There are a million ways to talk about "political freedom" without using those key words.

True enough that the internet and technology does make pacifism more possible as the Gandhi Game helped explain how broad appeal is more likely under his ideals. But there is always the possibility that authoritarian regimes will see the internet as what it is and clamp down hard on its use. The two examples are Cuba and North Korea. If they had freedom of access to the internets and Twitter and the same technologies as the Iranians, I am sure they would be rapid changes for progress on freedoms.

Shoots of Recovery???

2009-08-26T09:44:00.000-07:00

Home prices up, first in 34 months, Case Shiller

Quote:

U.S. home prices rose on a monthly basis for the first time since July 2006, according to the national Case-Shiller home price index released Tuesday. On a month-to-month basis, prices in 20 selected cities rose 0.5% in May, with gains in 13 cities. "This could be an indication that home price declines are finally stabilizing," said David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee for Standard & Poor's, which compiles the Case-Shiller index. Sales slipped 0.9% in April. On a year-to-year basis, prices in 20 selected cities fell 17.1%. This is a slower pace of decline than the 18.1% drop in April.

Recession less severe in early summer, Beige Book

Quote:

The U.S. economic recession seems to becoming less severe as the summer progresses, according to the Federal Reserve's latest Beige Book report released Wednesday. While still weak, some regions reported that the pace of the downturn had moderated. Other regions said that activity had begun to stabilize. The Beige Book is designed to give Fed officials a "feel" for conditions on the ground. The report said retail sales remained sluggish, contacts in the factory sector saw a turnaround on the horizon and bank lending was flat or weakening. Perhaps the most significant development is that businesses across the country are finding creative ways to cut wages and benefits. Economists note that as long as wages are under pressure, the threat of deflation remains. Labor market conditions remain slack, the report said.

Q2 GDP falls 1.0%, shallower than past 6 months

Quote:

The U.S. economy contracted at a much smaller rate than in the past six months, the Commerce Department reported Friday. Real gross domestic product fell at a 1.0% annualized rate in the second quarter, compared with an average 5.9% drop over the past two quarters. However, this is the fourth straight quarter with a contraction in GDP. This has never happened before since records began in 1947. The big story for the second quarter was in the much smaller decrease in business investment, exports and inventories. There was also an upturn in federal and state government spending. The government also released comprehensive benchmark revisions to GDP data, but they did little to change the basic story of the economy.

U.S. July ISM factory index rises to 48.9%

Quote:

Conditions for the nation's manufacturers continued to get better in July, the Institute for Supply Management reported Monday. The ISM index rose to 48.9% in July from 44.8% in June. The July index is the strongest since September. The consensus forecast of estimates collected by MarketWatch was for the index to rise to 46.2%. Readings below 50 indicate contraction. Below the headline, the report was strong. The data is showing that the manufacturing downturn is coming to an end. Both production and new orders rose above 50%. The ISM index has been improving slowly since hitting a low of 32.9% in December. The index was last above 50% in January 2008.

Q2 GDP falls 1.0%, shallower than past 6 months

Quote:

U.S. June factory orders rise 0.4%

Quote:

Orders for U.S.-made factory goods rose 0.4% in June, outperforming expectations from Wall Street analysts, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Economists polled by MarketWatch had expected orders to fall 1%, following a gain of 1.1% in the prior month. Orders for durable goods fell 2.2%, an improvement from the government's prior estimate of a 2.5% drop. Orders for nondurable goods rose 2.7%. Excluding transportation equipment, new factory orders rose 2.3%. Orders for core capital goods, which are used by businesses to expand or update their productive capacity, rose for the second consecutive month, gaining 2.6% in June. Meanwhile, overall shipments rose 1.4%, following 10 consecutive months of declines. Shipments of durable goods fell 0.1% in June, and were down for 11 consecutive months, the longest streak of declines since comparable data were first published in 1992.

Job losses moderate in July Jobless rate dips to 9.4% as 247,000 nonfarm payrolls lost

Productivity rises 6.4%, fastest rate in six years

Quote:

U.S. companies slashed their workers' hours in the second quarter, boosting the productivity of the workplace at an annualized rate of 6.4%, the Labor Department reported Tuesday. It was the fastest increase in productivity in the nonfarm business sector in nearly six years. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were looking for a gain of 5.4%. Unit labor costs - a key indicator of inflationary pressures - plunged at a 5.8% rate, the largest decline in nine years and a slightly larger drop that the 5.3% decline expected by economists. Hourly compensation rose just 0.2% in the second quarter.

Economy leveling out, but rates to stay low a while Fed to stop buying Treasurys in October, FOMC says

Consumer prices unchanged in July

Quote:

U.S. consumer prices were unchanged in July, after seasonal adjustments, and were down 2.1% year-over-year in the sharpest annual decline since 1950, the Labor Department reported Friday. Analysts polled by MarketWatch had expected no change in the monthly consumer price index. For July, energy prices fell 0.4%, and food prices fell 0.3%, while prices rose for goods such as new vehicles, tobacco, medical care and apparel. The core CPI, which excludes often-volatile food and energy prices, rose 0.1% in July, matching analysts' expectations. Of note, shelter prices in July fell 0.2%, the largest decline since 1982, while prices for meat, poultry, fish and eggs fell 1.3%, the largest decline since 1979. In June the overall CPI rose 0.7%, while the core gained 0.2%.

Industrial production rises for first time since October Output rises 0.5% in July as auto production surges 20%

Builders' confidence inches higher in August Sentiment index rises to 18, highest in more than a year

New York factories expanding in August

Quote:

Business improved for manufacturers in New York in August, according to the Empire State index released Monday by the New York Federal Reserve Bank. The index rose to 12.1 from negative 0.6 in July. It's the first positive reading since April 2008, and the highest since November 2007. Readings over zero mean most firms said business was improving compared with the prior month. Two key components of the index -- new orders and shipments -- rose to their highest levels in more than a year

Global recession over, but will leave scars: IMF

Leading indicators rise; bottom of recession seen

Quote:

An economic recovery may begin soon, and the recession is bottoming out, the Conference Board said Thursday. For its fourth consecutive monthly gain, the index of leading economic indicators rose in 0.6% in July, following an upwardly revised increase of 0.8% in June. Economists polled by MarketWatch were looking for a gain of 0.7% in July. The interest rate spread was the largest positive contributor, while a reading on consumer expectations was the largest negative contributor. Overall, six of the 10 indicators were positive contributors, three were negative, and one was steady. The six-month growth rate for the overall index hit its highest level since mid-2004, according to the Conference Board.

Durable orders jump 4.9% on aircraft bookings

Quote:

A doubling in aircraft bookings in July drove orders for new U.S.-made durable goods up by 4.9%, the largest increase in two years, the Commerce Department reported Wednesday. Excluding the 18.4% increase in transportation goods, orders rose 0.8%, the third straight gain and the longest upward streak in four years. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch were looking for a 4% gain in durable-goods orders in July. Shipments for durable goods rose 2% in July after a 0.7% increase in June. Inventories fell 0.8% in July. Orders are down 26% in the first seven months of 2009 compared with the same period last year.

Consumer confidence index rises to 54.1

Quote:

U.S. consumers' mood brightened considerably in August, as their expectations about the near future were the most optimistic since the recession began, the Conference Board reported Tuesday. The consumer confidence index rose to 54.1 in August from 47.4 in July. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expected the index to rise to 48.0. Consumer confidence "appears to be back on the mend," said Lynn Franco, head of the consumer research center at the Conference Board. Consumers were a bit more upbeat than they were in July about current economic conditions, but were markedly sunnier about the economy and their own financial situation over the next six months.

Home prices rise for second month in a row, up 1.4% Case-Shiller index down 15.4% in the 12 months through June

Riot Act, reading of|by SueN

2009-08-14T10:41:00.000-07:00

When we moved to the new site in March, all the people who had previously been banned were allowed back in. It was a fresh start for everybody. Unfortunately, some people, whether out of misplaced ideology, because they are paid, because it amuses them, or because they have been swept up into a gang war mentality, in practice continue to disrupt the forum far more than they contribute to it. And no, I do not consider expressing alternative views about the issues disruptive. Attacking fellow members is disruptive. Deliberately derailing threads is disruptive. And no, I do not mean normal thread drift, which is natural, particularly in a forum that welcomes ADDers!

Since I am the administrator, it comes down to my judgement, and I have decided that the time has come to weed out some of the worst ones again. The ones I ban will all have had plenty of warnings, either on this board or a previous one, and will have been continuing to disrupt.

As for everyone else, thanks very much for sticking with us, and please take this opportunity to focus on the very important issues that we have facing us, or to relax in the lounge. Please ignore any disrupters who are left.

Actually Sue, you have a moderator that is disruptive to threads. You have a moderator that goes around with out any proof calling others ideological names including I was specifically called out as being a brown shirt. When he said he never called me a Chicago School of Economics ideologue, I showed him that he specifically did call me that.

If you want to run your kingdom like that, that is fine. I did nothing more than what your own administrator have done continually on a daily basis. And he was the one that went around with "If the shoe fits wear it."

I just have one question for you. When I used the alert button after being told to use it for years, why was it that you came down on me and told me to correct myself when your Libtarded friends were allowed all the leeway including your "Editor" of Monkville?

If you wanted a growing community, then just thank Thom for his ineptitude on managing the boards. Including changing software so many times and then picking stupid ideological constrained individuals that are more than happy to parade around as idiots. The height of Thom's followers was when I noticed he had 10,000 members. A thread I started and devolved into complete character assassinations. Now how many does Thom have?

Thom, Sue. Just get one thing straight. NO ONE, I MEAN NO ONE IS PAID TO BE THERE!!!
That truly was a sad day when Thom started accusing board members of that. Also the day that Mrs. Hartmann started talking about members penis size, but that is for another day.

NP with me, Thom. It only shows that the left is just as intolerant as what they portray the right as being-which is still in question.

Good luck, Sue, Thom and Monk with no brain.

Ron Rutherford
PS: I will be back!!!
PSS: What happened

It is based solely on marginal utility functions and when Thomland no longer provides the same or more utility than the next possible function then I will move along or change. Not sooner or later.
What utility does it provide?

I have answered this many times before. Basically it goes back to the posts about how I "win" every discussion because I learn more in the process. Recently, I was looking at some development theories including what Warren Huntsinger had presented on Jane Jacobs.

Open letter to Thom

2009-08-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

Dear Thom:

Basically your moderator Polycarp2 has gone off the ranch.

He first started to edit out disses in posts and that basically was one sided and still is. Personal attacks from the left are consistently left while even innocuous ones like "Dodge" are deleted. Also it does not even show that Poly has edited a post unless he states it as such and that is not every time. For example in the thread:
No Dissing here...Move along|Warren
He even is dissing again without recourse.But when some major "dissing" was pointed out, he was slow to respond and only did it after a new thread was started.
#1 No "Dissing" allowed
In which case he just deleted everything.
But even the fact of opening up new threads with posts out of context was his initiative. He decided to single out some conservative voices for public ridicule by quoting them out of context without even a link to the original conversations. And when people did include the link, he summarily edited it out without reason.

But when it was Poly's own prejudiced opinions, he insisted that the link be provided. He even edited the original post to make it look like the new poster had altered the original. Which of course was against any "TOS" that Thom has had. Grounds for people being banned. Are you going to ban Poly?
Brown Shirts|Stereo-Types|Poly
Is that acceptable to call others Nazis, Brown Shirts, etc?
Alter his own original posts to cover himself?

Thom, I know this will be hard to believe, but NOBODY gets paid to be on your forum. I know nearly all the "conservatives" there and none get paid to post on your BB. You have started rumors yourself and have no proof of it. Thus it becomes fodder for the Progressives to use that Dis at nearly every opportunity.

Sue has even allowed personal information about me to first be open to the public and then allow that same information to be freely published on your site. Is that acceptable? The ironic thing is that she never has acknowledged the transgressions. Even now she is busy going around locking threads that clearly show disses against me without opportunity to respond and making excuse after another for the transgressions of Poly.

Poly is a polarizing figure that has clearly gone off the ranch. What you need is moderators that are not so tied to their ideological beliefs as to censor some and allowed "favorites" to ride.

Sincerely,
Ron Rutherford
PS: This is my from work Email and you can contact me at ...

jeffbliss is a dweeb.

2009-08-12T12:12:00.000-07:00

However, contrary to such abominations, contraception/family planning is the only way that the earth's impoverished have even a remote chance of making it out of poverty. For example, China cannot feed itself and grow its economy. It must lease land in other countries to grow enough food. It must build the equivalent of one coal-fired power plant per week. China runs the Yellow River dry using the water for industry and water shortages have been reducing food yield. China is depleting the aquifer in the north, where it grows about 1/2 of its grain and 1/3 of its corn, by about 10 feet/year. The deep aquifer is a fossil aquifer, once it's depleted, it's depleted. The shallow aquifer is replenishable, once its depleted the pumping rate can only match the recharge rate.

Actually they need to be out of poverty before birth rates fall. As I said before development and then birth rates will correct themselves. As far as China cannot feed itself...

Overseas food not China's staple
China relies little on the global food market, despite its increasing openness and growing trade.

According to Cheng Guoqiang, deputy director with the institute of market economy under the Development and Research Center of the State Council, the country has witnessed an annual 11-percent increase in its food exports following its entry into the WTO in 2001, and an annual 22-percent increase in its food imports.

Between 1998 and 2001, imports grew at 3 percent a year and exports at 2 percent.

However, in recent years the value of food exports has been less than 10 percent of agriculture GDP while food imports accounted for about 10 percent of that figure, which demonstrates a low reliance on the global market.

"The percentage ratio shows that the growth in the agriculture sector is mainly driven by domestic need," Cheng said at the 11th Sino-French Seminar on Wheat held yesterday in Kunming.

The agricultural outputs and the land areas of the two countries are similar, but China has a much larger labor force employed in agriculture and most of its population lives in rural areas (table B-1). Productivity and income of agricultural laborers in China are accordingly much lower than in the United States. China’s food share of exports is 6 percent, surprisingly high (only 2 percentage points less than the land-abundant United States) for a country with limited land resources. Its food imports are just 4 percent of total imports.
Surprisingly Self-Sufficient in Food
For a country with nearly 1.3 billion consumers and limited natural resources, China’s level of food imports is surprisingly low. China is nearly self-sufficient in food and is a major net exporter of many food products, including manufactured food and beverages, animal products, vegetables, fish and seafood, tea, and fruits (table B-2). China’s agricultural exports go primarily to neighboring Asian countries, including Japan and South Korea, which are also among the top markets for U.S. agricultural products. {From the PDF at: http://www.ers.usda.gov/publications/aib775/aib775e.pdf}

And as far as grow its economy you might want to check out: GDP growth 1952-2008. Again continuing with the paper:

Poor, But Not Hungry
China has a rising urban middle class with world-class consumption standards, but it is still largely a poor country. Its per capita GDP is similar to those of developing countries, such as the Philippines and Sri Lanka.1 In 2000, China’s urban residents spent an average of $236 per person on food, and rural expenditures were even lower, at $56. Farm families, which still make up the bulk of China’s population, grow much of the food they consume.

Food insecurity, however, is not a problem for most of China’s population. China’s per capita food supply, measured by calories per person per day, was 8 percent above the world average in 1999 (fig. B-2). Famine and food insecurity were common in China’s past, but food consumption and food availability have soared since economic reforms began in the late 1970s.

Growth of the agricultural sector is important when we consider balanced growth strategies and makes development that much easier.

It is also worth noting that China is making a major push again to get more mechanization into the agricultural sector especially tractors as India has done in various stages also.
************************

You're saying that we must grow the population so that the pyramid has a wide base, with a lot of youth providing for a relatively smaller number of old, rather a some sort of ovoid or diamond, with fewer youth providing for a relatively larger number of old. That won't work because we are using scarce resources and degrading/changing the environment at too great a rate. This argument is from the know-nothing economists who don't understand natural systems and misapply economic theory to them.

I think you pretty well summed up your position in ideological terms. But seriously I am not advocating a pyramid since that is no longer possible anymore. It will be at best at column that has a slight decrease in width as you go up and then at the top a pyramid but shallow starting around 60 or so. Death rates among working age people is pretty low now.

Human capital is an economic concept and has no place in ecology or environmental sciences. Economics is defined as follows:
...
It is a subset of sociology, anthropology, and psychology. It is wholly incapable of discussing the carrying capacity of the earth.

So far this post is just you telling me what you believe not concrete proof or analysis of facts that are agreed upon. You are doing nothing more than making declarative statements.

The link I provided was from 2008 and most articles I read indicate that China is now struggling to maintain food production. I find it amazing that anyone would profess that just because basic needs may be met that that is acceptable for those people.

It is a far cry from 'struggling' than not being able to feed their citizens. I don't even need China to be able to feed itself 100% to prove that the world has enough resources only that if China and India can feed its citizens and USA can provide the necessary shortages then the world has plenty of resources. Well I would say it is more acceptable than being chosen to leave this world involuntarily.

It isn't only about agriculture. China cannot grow enough without huge amounts of fossil fuels to keep up with the demands of its increasing population without degrading our environment. Coal-fired plants are the backbone of its growth.

That is for industrialization. Do you think they use coal on their fields?

Your children are harmed by too many people. How do you propose any of the impoverished nations nurture their vast multitudes? I suggest you look carefully at the loads most developing nations are carrying in just meeting the basic needs of their people. Most of the world's population has no hope of getting any nurturing, only in making it day to day.

You can talk about your theoretical children but I know they will be harmed unless we avoid the demographic cliff. Again you saying tripe from the Neo-Malthusians will not convince me that all the propaganda I have been exposed to for 30 years is complete garbage. When was the last famine?

IR theory? You mean international relations? If so, it is just as incapable as economics in discussing real world systems. It/they is/are a subset of the social sciences and so is capable of dealing only with human behavior. A trillion people? We have been breaking the earth's systems as we grew to this point. If we do not change, we will collapse them. While the earth may be able to sustain greater than 3 billion people, human nature indicates that it won't happen. People would have to act to minimize the harm they do and evidence indicates that we don't do that for long. As proof, look at your attitude. You believe that there's nothing to worry about. Now multiply yourself by a few billion and you can see why there's no hope.

You say it but it does not make it so.

As far as attitude, you believe that there will be world wide famine and billions will die off and how that happens is immaterial but you insist it will happen. Now multiply yourself by a few billion of divergent thinkers constantly looking for this great die-off and sure enough we might just get it.

Those that have been praying for an economic calamity has gotten one right now. Just be careful what you wish for. By the way I never said there was nothing to worry about.

Poly's Stupid Quotes|He is the disease.

2009-08-11T10:31:00.000-07:00

We should be proud of our accomplishment

True. The 4% aren't "people"...just a statistic. How about changing the structures so that isn't required? Retired Monk "Ideology is a disease"

Economists are the same. They'll stick to their particular discipline whether or not the "patient" gets better or worse. If the patient doesn't get better, they'll develop a patch for the "patient" much as shock therapy is used as a patch in psychiatry. It cures nothing, and sometimes enables better functioning for awhile.

Loganthor wrote:
Actually Loganthor cut and paste an article.

We all know Europe still doesn't have basic x-ray machines

Responding to absurd data is foolish.

In the monastery, we didn't worry about excess production.

The money supply idea isn't mine. It belongs to Say, prod. cost/wages/money supply = aggregate. Money supply will equal returns to the cost of production and wages. Under our structures, that isn't the case.

Right. He thought human life was more important than the institutions human beings lived under....just like Hitler

As Posted: Right. He thought human life was more important than the institutions human beings lived under....just like Hitler :lol: Both were great defenders of human life and followed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (a liberal ideal) to the letter

That worked in pre-war Germany. We have some of those same elements in our own society. The far right is more dangerous than people realize....using free speech to kill it.

And you have to realize than Rutherford has been a promoter of trickle down economic theory for a long, long time. Anyone disagreeing with him, including Nobel Laureates, he gives no credence to.

Most of those those who consider themselves politically active Dems seek reform, not structural change.

More in the Box Thinking about Populations...

2009-04-21T14:36:00.000-07:00

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."

Recently I have had the opportunity to explore some issues involving population of the world questions and so called "stresses on our environment", with possibly more discussions in the near future. I included the quote above since the paradigm of the "Population Bomb" is so ingrained in our conscious mind that we {at least a good number of us have been raised under it} accept anything that comes from so called experts. We have in essence failed to see the underlying forces as to why we see bad news at nearly every turn. We are like the old widow that reads the paper every day and imagines the world outside as one scary place that is only good to hurry back and forth for life's daily needs.

While this is trite and trivial, maybe we have failed to learn for ourselves and to question the prevailing paradigms of our time {or at least to have the right teachers as the beginning quote would suggest}. Although Searching for the Right Passage from Childhood and School By Maurice Gibbons presents a lot of physical manifestations of a quest for young people before their adulthood, there is still the inner and outer "jihad" {struggle in the basic sense}. And each must choose their own path of what is the truth to them.

So instead of dealing with the hundreds of gloom and doom forecasts {e.g. Mega-droughts In Sub-Saharan Africa Normal For Region: Droughts Likely To Worsen With Climate Change or Ocean Dead Zones Likely To Expand: Increasing Carbon Dioxide And Decreasing Oxygen Make It Harder For Deep-sea Animals To Breath or Too many ’straws’ sucking water out of the Colorado River} let me start with the most headline grabbing article that has the "experts" tell us the most pressing problems in the world in the article entitled: Worst Environmental Problem? Overpopulation, Experts Say

Overpopulation is the world’s top environmental issue, followed closely by climate change and the need to develop renewable energy resources to replace fossil fuels, according to a survey of the faculty at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF).

Well this non-expert thinks that if you can solve the energy problem {to most people's satisfaction} then it would solve the carbon problem and thus the strain on the environment, thus on casual observation they have the order reversed and was similar to an analysis I came away with nearly 30 years ago.

Overpopulation came out on top, with several professors pointing out its ties to other problems that rank high on the list.

“Overpopulation is the only problem,” said Dr. Charles A. Hall, a systems ecologist. “If we had 100 million people on Earth — or better, 10 million — no others would be a problem.” (Current estimates put the planet’s population at more than six billion.)

Dr. Allan P. Drew, a forest ecologist, put it this way: “Overpopulation means that we are putting more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than we should, just because more people are doing it and this is related to overconsumption by people in general, especially in the ‘developed’ world.”

I have heard about wacko environmentalists talking about 1 billion or less but 100 or even 10 million starts to get really ridiculous. Even the Americas supported at least 40 million with the most primitive of cultivation methods. Unless the "experts" think the native Americans were ravaging the environment then at least that should provide a basis for what amount is allowed even in their criteria. Honestly I think the world can support 15-20 Billion humans especially if we think in concepts of what the minimum humans consume which is the carbon we expel in breathing and the carbon in the food we eat. Any other resource could be made from dirt.

What I mean by dirt is the fact that the basic chemicals are in the dirt like silica, nitrogen and carbon and everything else is just transformation of the basic building blocks into patterns that would suit human consumption. It is not like nature is really upset that humans have dug something out of the ground that no any other living thing needs.

In addition to what the Natives in North and South America obtained, we also have some other historical numbers to go by what was achievable with the given technologies. According the book by Gillis, the pre-agricultural era that ended about 12,000 years ago achieved less than 100 million world's population. Is he really thinking like Derrick Jensen as we should go back to hunter-gatherers? The transition for settled agriculture to the industrial revolution was around 1.7 billion in 1800. Again if they supported it with just traditional agricultural technology, then why can't man with such advances now do better?

But I do have advice for all people like this, which I affectionately call Pedantic Nihilists, is that they leave this world but be sure to leave all their assets including their chemicals to the government. In that list also includes any human capital that we have deem to be important like systems ecologists and forest ecologists. Of course if we ever do get to this level of numbers of humans then we definitely will have no need for these people and there would not even be a base to support that type of specialty. They would be superfluous.

Of course it would be quite a strange world if the dreams became reality since there is a large degree of synergy and linkages in our technologies we have now and this would push the population closer and closer together until I would imagine a one city world with some outlying "villages" that would be for farming, mining, fishing and other manual hands on work.

Rounding out the top 10 issues on the ESF list are overconsumption, the need for more sustainable practices worldwide, the growing need for energy conservation, the need for humans to see themselves as part of the global ecosystem, overall carbon dioxide emissions, the need to develop ways to produce consumer products from renewable resources, and dwindling fresh water resources.

While that is an interesting list a more practical list is provided by Bjorn Lomborg the Global prioritizer and with The outcome of Copenhagen Consensus 2008. Of course it is interesting that they place Global Warming at position 14th first since they break it down by category. Even that is just trying to increase technology to help low income countries, as Jeffery Sachs would also support. Other than that the other criteria is just mitigating the effects of global warming.

A fairly long article but a good read is: Bound to Burn Humanity will keep spewing carbon into the atmosphere, but good policy can help sink it back into the earth. I do not share the pessimism of the writer on many of the points but the conclusions are well worth the read to build his points on. Which I include a part here:

If we’re truly worried about carbon, we must instead approach it as if the emissions originated in an annual eruption of Mount Krakatoa. Don’t try to persuade the volcano to sign a treaty promising to stop. Focus instead on what might be done to protect and promote the planet’s carbon sinks—the systems that suck carbon back out of the air and bury it. Green plants currently pump 15 to 20 times as much carbon out of the atmosphere as humanity releases into it—that’s the pump that put all that carbon underground in the first place, millions of years ago. At present, almost all of that plant-captured carbon is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by animal consumers. North America, however, is currently sinking almost two-thirds of its carbon emissions back into prairies and forests that were originally leveled in the 1800s but are now recovering. For the next 50 years or so, we should focus on promoting better land use and reforestation worldwide. Beyond that, weather and the oceans naturally sink about one-fifth of total fossil-fuel emissions. We should also investigate large-scale options for accelerating the process of ocean sequestration.

Gillis, M., D.W. Perkins, M. Roemer and D.R. Snodgrass (1996) Economics of Development, New York and London: W.W. Norton; fourth edition, Chapter 8, Pages 191-219.

A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste even if it is Krugman's

2009-04-13T21:50:00.000-07:00

Tea Parties Forever
By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: April 12, 2009
This is a column about Republicans — and I’m not sure I should even be writing it.

Today’s G.O.P. is, after all, very much a minority party. It retains some limited ability to obstruct the Democrats, but has no ability to make or even significantly shape policy.

Beyond that, Republicans have become embarrassing to watch. And it doesn’t feel right to make fun of crazy people. Better, perhaps, to focus on the real policy debates, which are all among Democrats.

But here’s the thing: the G.O.P. looked as crazy 10 or 15 years ago as it does now. That didn’t stop Republicans from taking control of both Congress and the White House. And they could return to power if the Democrats stumble. So it behooves us to look closely at the state of what is, after all, one of our nation’s two great political parties.

One way to get a good sense of the current state of the G.O.P., and also to see how little has really changed, is to look at the “tea parties” that have been held in a number of places already, and will be held across the country on Wednesday. These parties — antitaxation demonstrations that are supposed to evoke the memory of the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution — have been the subject of considerable mockery, and rightly so.

Yes, Paul, you should have stopped at the first sentence instead of sticking both feet in your mouth. You may be a fairly good intellectual in the field of Economics but you clearly show yourself as a political hack. Are you not aware of the party of Dems that has Code Pink for one prime example? Have you been in a cave for the last 8 years and all the anti-war demonstrations as well as 9-11 truthers and the plot to invade Iraq and Afghanistan for oil? Lastly, you must not get any news about San Francisco where you are since you clearly are not aware of the phony outrages over the Marine Recruitment station there. The post {This one is truly prize winning for a Fascist.} is his and my response is below.

And most recently More Unintentionally Humorous Video From the Failed Liberal Tea Parties. But naturally he ignores the fruitcakes in his side of the aisle and concentrates on the Republicans. What a hack.

Thus, President Obama is being called a “socialist” who seeks to destroy capitalism. Why? Because he wants to raise the tax rate on the highest-income Americans back to, um, about 10 percentage points less than it was for most of the Reagan administration. Bizarre.

But the charge of socialism is being thrown around only because “liberal” doesn’t seem to carry the punch it used to. And if you go back just a few years, you find top Republican figures making equally bizarre claims about what liberals were up to. Remember when Karl Rove declared that liberals wanted to offer “therapy and understanding” to the 9/11 terrorists?

I can not speak for others but liberals want to take from the rich and give to the poor and socialist want to own everything like Banks and manufacturing and if they can do that bloodlessly then take from the rich and create a socialist state.

The question about rates is direction of the country and a portent to what really may happen. That is he will raise the taxes for all US taxpayers to fund all Obama's giveaways. Instead of class for itself, Americans understand fairness and once you tax to death the successful it is not too long before you tax all signs of success even if it is just marginally. The question you {Krugman} should answer and give econometric reasons why the rate higher 10% is good for society. And there may be plenty of theoretical as well as analysis in econometrics that should help answer this question.

Then there are the claims made at some recent tea-party events that Mr. Obama wasn’t born in America, which follow on earlier claims that he is a secret Muslim. Crazy stuff — but nowhere near as crazy as the claims, during the last Democratic administration, that the Clintons were murderers, claims that were supported by a campaign of innuendo on the part of big-league conservative media outlets and figures, especially Rush Limbaugh.

Made by whom? Pretty sloppy as no name. It could be a plant or misinterpretation or just some fool that showed up. You don't think there are plenty of fools in the Democratic party?

Going back to those tea parties, Mr. DeLay, a fierce opponent of the theory of evolution — he famously suggested that the teaching of evolution led to the Columbine school massacre — also foreshadowed the denunciations of evolution that have emerged at some of the parties.

I will defer to this post about that portion: We Farm Out The Krugman-Bashing (And Help Truth Get Its Boots On).

Last but not least: it turns out that the tea parties don’t represent a spontaneous outpouring of public sentiment. They’re AstroTurf (fake grass roots) events, manufactured by the usual suspects. In particular, a key role is being played by FreedomWorks, an organization run by Richard Armey, the former House majority leader, and supported by the usual group of right-wing billionaires. And the parties are, of course, being promoted heavily by Fox News.

But that’s nothing new, and AstroTurf has worked well for Republicans in the past. The most notable example was the “spontaneous” riot back in 2000 — actually orchestrated by G.O.P. strategists — that shut down the presidential vote recount in Florida’s Miami-Dade County.

It seems that Republicans are only taking a page out of the Left Wing Wacko Billionaires for Democrats. Have you ever heard of George Soros and ACORN, or do you live in a cave? Yes, a few people that stormed an office 8 years ago. You have anything more recently as I certainly do for the Left wing wackos.

For now, the Obama administration gains a substantial advantage from the fact that it has no credible opposition, especially on economic policy, where the Republicans seem particularly clueless.

But as I said, the G.O.P. remains one of America’s great parties, and events could still put that party back in power. We can only hope that Republicans have moved on by the time that happens.

Yes, the Democrats are in power so why don't you be creative instead of showing your "concerned Troll" impressions especially since you have no balanced analysis of anything in politics. Even most conservative economists give advice to both sides of the aisle and other ideologies like Milton Friedman visits to Chile and China.

Mark Thoma is a Dweeb-Still

2009-02-20T09:25:00.000-08:00

Judd Gregg Thinks Tax Cuts Pay for Themselves

Why have we gotten more revenues even though we reduced the tax burden on the American people? The answer is pretty simple. It is called human nature. When you set tax levels at a fair level ... people are willing to go out and invest. ... They are willing to work harder... That creates a stronger economy which puts more people to work, and..., of course, the more jobs you have the more tax revenues you end up getting. ...

Who in the administration thought Gregg would be the best person available "to foster, promote, and develop the foreign and domestic commerce" when he believes ideological nonsense like this?

So I tried to point out simply that first when people throw stones about "ideological nonsense" then you have to honestly look at oneself. I am sure there are things that Dr. Thoma spouts that is ideological nonsense. And secondly that incentives matter or the corollary disincentives matter. As in:

In fact, in the area of capital gains, we have seen a dramatic increase in revenues. ... It is a huge jump in revenues we didn't expect--or at least the Congressional Budget Office didn't expect--but which we received because human nature kicked in and people were willing to sell assets, take that money and reinvest it in things that are productive, create jobs, and as a result we got those revenues. That is why today the Federal Government is actually getting more in revenues than it got under the old tax law where the rates were a lot higher. ...

Thus he is saying that with too high of tax rates people are more likely to avoid paying the taxes or pick investments that are not taxed at such high rates.

Simply acknowledging that instead of his knee jerk reactions as well as deleting my posts, would be a lot less dweebish. I also see another interesting post there:

Sonic Charmer says...

As Alex Tolley points out (but amazingly none of the otherwise alert Straw-Man Police here saw fit to, despite not being shy about demanding quotes for the claim that multiplier fans believe spending pays for itself), Gregg did not actually say "tax cuts pay for themselves" or anything that amounts to that in the quote cited above by Mark Thoma. That may for all I know be what Gregg believes, but if so, the quotes above do not show it. What Gregg actually said above is that when tax rates were cut, revenues increased (citing 'economic expansion' as a cause for this).

Mark Thoma, if you dispute that tax revenues increased during the period Gregg refers to, feel free to advance your data.

More generally, although there are of course people who do say "tax cuts pay for themselves", the real version of the claim about tax cuts is not that they "pay for themselves" per se (whatever that means, exactly - the meaning and timeframe here is ambiguous) but simply that, in effect, taxes collected is a negatively-convex function of tax rates - there is a second-order effect, so when you cut taxes, you don't lose "as much" revenue as a first-order analysis would suggest.

Again, Mark Thoma, if you dispute that, feel free to explain why.

Posted by: Sonic Charmer | Link to comment | February 17, 2009 at 04:42 PM

Obama Backs Down, but Should he Have even if Others Scream Protectionism?

2009-02-03T20:02:00.000-08:00

Obama Will Review Buy American Provision in Stimulus
Jan. 30 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama’s administration will examine a "buy American" requirement in economic stimulus legislation that has raised concern among U.S. trading partners, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said.

The administration "will review that particular provision," Gibbs said today at his regular briefing. The president's advisers understand "all of the concerns that have been heard, not only in this room, but in newspapers produced both up north and down south."

Strangely, this incident of having "buy American" seems to have created a hysteria of the thoughts that this is protectionism. And followed down the usual split between those that support free trade no matter all and those that can not see any protectionism measures under any circumstances as bad. The story continues:

President Obama to water down 'Buy American' plan after EU trade war threat
Last night Mr Obama gave a strong signal that he would remove the most provocative passages from the Bill.
"I agree that we can't send a protectionist message," he said in an interview with Fox TV. "I want to see what kind of language we can work on this issue. I think it would be a mistake, though, at a time when worldwide trade is declining, for us to start sending a message that somehow we're just looking after ourselves and not concerned with world trade."

On the one hand, I am glad that Obama is paying attention to our trading partners. It seems to show that he is willing to consider the needs of other countries. Although besides the other trading partners {other rich countries}, I would doubt if the Bottom Billion will have much sway in Washington now.

On the other hand, I have no problem with any segment of society wishes to emphasize domestic productions including individuals like Sawdust and myself. I and I am sure a lot of Americans consider location as one of many aspects in making purchases. It does not mean that we solely buy US products but that if other things are equal we would choose US products first. And this seems that I would also include in this group any level of government decision making.

On the other hand if it is strictly prohibited by international treaty then that is not something to tamper with.

It seems obvious that consumers should be the deciders in what they purchase. Thus "The Government" when it makes purchases should be free within the confines of a representative democracy should be able to decide who it decides to purchase from and so be it if it is Johnny Lunchbox.

Thus my point was {and maybe not expressed well enough} was that if we have an open bidding process, the government can decide to give preferential bias towards US firms and that would be ok with me. Just as some government jobs give preference to Veterans. When I applied to become a rural mail carrier, Veterans were given either 5 or 10 additional percentage points to their raw scores. Is it fair? Probably not.

So other than taxes {marginally adjusted}, I do not ask others to subsidize Johnny. Just there could be externalities that are not captured by a simple open bidding process and thus the socially optimal solution would not be found.

I do see that you are willing to tax certain transactions to capture some of those externalities {taxes} which might be considered slightly similar to what my contentions are. We might even agree with certain Libertarian Paternalism {Soft paternalism}.
US-EU trade war looms as Barack Obama bill urges 'Buy American'

I remember that Bush also got into trouble with a similar provision, but why should US taxpayers promote other nation's export sectors? US taxpayers are going to pay this back not importers. So as I talked about above, if we want it to stimulate the economy then emphasis on domestic productions would provide more bang for the buck.

This is completely different than the laws enacted during the Great Depression where everything for every segment of the economy was affected.

As far as the Europeans, they understand the leakages of Fiscal Policies and Keynesian multipliers. In their case, the leakages is even greater for each individual country because of no trade restrictions between member states. You may remember when the EU nations were all enacting Fiscal Stimulus and Germany was reluctant to "chip in". I am sure there was some major arm twisting to make sure they enacted a similar fiscal stimulus package. And a couple of articles on their latest stimuli:
FACTBOX-Europe's fiscal stimulus plans to tackle crisis

Fiscal update: Stimulus plans around the world
A stimulus in one state has so many leakages that is nearly impossible to have any effect on the economy of that state. Something one of my first Economics Teachers talked about (her being a woman's studies professor and all).

The difference is that if we feel that we need a fiscal stimulus {and that honestly is still a question to some people} then it should be given the highest "bang for the buck". Much like Krugman and other Economists are saying. I am not sure why, with your knowledge, you can see and identify the basics of Keynesian economics.

I have thought a lot about mobility of labor, and I agree with the basic tenets of the analysis that free mobility of workers is desirable within the confines of a Liberal Democracy to decide who enters. But whatever is decided will need to be under a "gradualist" approach to your utopia. Also just because capital and labor is mobile between states and localities, does not mean that the Federal Government may not have a role in distributing wealth or creating incentives to bring about more socially optimal solutions, and again through soft paternalism.

Anyway, under this one situation, I think the Europeans and the critics are wrong. And the readers should know by now, I do not want any trade restrictions aside from those that a Liberal Democracy decides including punishing "bad countries". The Bottom Billion should have ZERO trade restrictions for imports to the USA.

If the consumer in this situation is the Government? Then the ultimate consumer is the Taxpayer as we seem to agree on. Thus through our representative bodies, "we" should decide how to spend our money.

But are we willing to subsidize the paycheck of steelworkers in China, Japan...???
OK, so let us look at the multiplier effect as we talked about earlier. Let us say we have a project and it requires a bid with a competent US firm bidding 1 million and a comparable foreign firm bidding 900 thousand. Under your analysis we should hire the foreign contractor. Right, V???

So what are the effects on the economy and the Federal Budget?
The economic effects on the Foreign purchase will not give provide any multiplier effect on the economy as the content we will assume is 100% foreign and the transportation revenue I will count as insignificant.

Now what are the effects from a "Buy America-First"?
First let me assume 80% content on the steel and 100% of that will be reflected in higher wages or retained earnings in our economy of the 80%. Thus we have a first round effect on the economy of $800,000 and with a 18% overall revenue from the economy we could see that the Fed could generate tax revenues of $154 thousand. Also if we look at the Keynesian multiplier of 1/(1-MPC) then this $800K would translate into 5 times this amount into the economy at $4 million. This is with the assumption of leakages are savings at around .1 and imports of around .1, we could change these numbers but we still get a significant multiplier effect. Thus the $4million in increased economic activity could translate to $720,000 of increased tax revenues.

Who is subsidizing whom?

Foreign contract: $900k
Domestic: $1 million-$720K

As far as the rules of the WTO, do you have some proof of the exact wording of such clauses. Does this limit the Pentagon from purchasing domestic products? And what about US States that have the same practice including state businesses? Do they violate WTO?

I seriously doubt that they would retaliate since they probably practiced the same thing with their fiscal stimuli and secondly they know the Keynesian multiplier effect as much as anyone so just jumping on the band wagon to prevent anything looking like protectionism. They just like us are not sure about the empty suit...

UNDERSTANDING THE WTO: THE AGREEMENTS Non-tariff barriers: red tape, etc

"Rules of origin" are the criteria used to define where a product was made. They are an essential part of trade rules because a number of policies discriminate between exporting countries: quotas, preferential tariffs, anti-dumping actions, countervailing duty (charged to counter export subsidies), and more. Rules of origin are also used to compile trade statistics, and for "made in ..." labels that are attached to products. This is complicated by globalization and the way a product can be processed in several countries before it is ready for the market.

The Rules of Origin Agreement requires WTO members to ensure that their rules of origin are transparent; that they do not have restricting, distorting or disruptive effects on international trade; that they are administered in a consistent, uniform, impartial and reasonable manner; and that they are based on a positive standard (in other words, they should state what does confer origin rather than what does not).

Still do not see any way that the USA is breaking this rule, anymore than any other country is as noted above.

Links:
AGREEMENT ON GOVERNMENT PROCUREMENT

FACTBOX-Europe's fiscal stimulus plans to tackle crisis

Environmental Externalities and Some Possible Solutions

2009-02-03T19:44:00.000-08:00

For this part of the assignment, I want to look at a variety of issues that may arise with a water supply in a rural region. I will do this by bringing up a variety of sources of pollution and some suggestions that may help solve the environmental externalities. Let me first mention that this hypothetical water supply comes from a river that runs through a variety of landscapes and thus land uses including woodland areas near the tributaries then through a variety of farmlands and rural and suburban built up areas.

The first source to discuss is a sluice mining operation that emits low levels of mercury into the river as part of their discharges. I assume that no other negative externality and those mercury emissions affect nearly all sectors of society and as such analyzing all possible externalities may be too difficult and costly to analyze. In this case using contingent valuation [good link to the theory] may be the most efficient way of finding what levels of mercury emissions are acceptable for the majority of citizens affected. The questionnaire would consist of levels of mercury and what the costs to the society would be. For example if people choose zero levels of emissions then some of the costs would be reduced government revenue from the tax base reduction and some compensation to the owners of the mill as well as the laid off workers. In essence after the people spoke then government would devise a regulatory regime that enforces and monitors levels of mercury emissions below that expected by the citizens. Along with this process, government officials may wish to implement “safe minimum standards” to mitigate against events that are highly uncertain with irreversibility. Accumulation of mercury in an environment may have long and persistent consequences that are not easily identified at first. (SG, 6.6.7) Ultimately we are trying to limit this heavy metal to tolerable levels for everyone with direct control measures (Kula, Section 6.3.7). Good point

The second source to discuss is excessive nitrogen runoff from a few large farming landowners into the river affecting a fish cooperative. Here Ronald Coase’s theories may help us get to an optimal level of nitrogen runoff given the property rights of both parties being well defined as well as the rights of who gets to pollute and to what degree. Choosing situations that had fewer numbers of parties to deal with allows transaction costs [excellent point] to be mitigated and to prevent holdouts as well as free-riders from blocking negotiations. Government still has a role to play by being available as arbiter/mediator as well as being able to provide relevant information about costs and benefits for both sets of parties through HPA possibly. Government must also be willing to let the parties negotiate and discourage rent seeking behaviors. If this fails to reach a compromise then government could always step in and use common law to internalize the environmental externalities and make a judgment based on facts discovered through the negotiation process. (Kula, Sections 6.3.1, 6.3.2)

A third source of environmental externalities is from used motor oil dumped into storm drains. Since the source is widespread and happens at random occurrences most methods of enforcement fines or taxes is of little prevention for events that can damage 250,000 gallons of drinking water or 1 million gallons of fresh water from one quart of used motor oil (Ref. 12). Perhaps this is rather too much detail for the assignment – put in a foot-note? Although the desired response tends to wane over time, a propaganda campaign can inform and instruct individuals as to what the consequences of their actions are and appeal to their community consciousness. This does negate having fines and penalties but those do little good when the chances of getting caught are very low but the damage can be so severe. Depending on how a CV is conducted it could provide opportunities for the interviewees to be informed about the problems. Boadu noted a problem with the field work was that village chiefs announced the purpose of the interviews but did provide opportunities for citizens to evaluate the opportunities. (Boadu, P. 465) (Kula, Section 6.3.8)

The fourth source to affect our water source is acid rain caused by industrial plants emitting SO2 into the atmosphere. I assume that the present levels of SO2 gas does not create problems but could if industry expands or emits more SO2 in the future. A good idea to maintain a capped level of emissions while leaving industry as a whole with opportunities to change and grow is through marketable permits. This scheme allows a great deal of flexibility by both the regulators and those companies regulated. Regulators can also get in and buy or sell permits as needed. Since the market is open then other interests could become involved in the transactions also. Any environmental group could purchase rights also and thus reduce pollution discharges. Polluters also have flexibility to either increase levels of emissions by purchasing from more efficient firms or reduce and sell those permits. (Kula, Section 6.3.9)

The fifth source of pollution spilling into our water source is raw sewage from a variety of types of septic tanks or gravity flow drainage systems. When heavy rains or flooding occurs, this raw sewage (along with all the bacteria) is carried downstream. The easiest way to solve this problem is to take over waste removal especially in areas that may leak into the water system. In effect this is expanding public ownership of existing services and incorporating more area in the water treatment district. (Kula, Section 6.3.10) Relate this more to the economic analysis rather than the description of the source material. See may comment on Pigou and Kaldor-Hicks below.

Sedimentation from logging is the sixth factor affecting our river water source. During the permitting process of public lands, the amount of sentiment can be given a weight based on techniques used, areas covered, time of year, and other factors that can be determined before logging begins. If plans are ignored or standards are not maintained then additional taxes could be reassessed. Sedimentation is bound to occur and will affect all the users of the water supply to various degrees so number of claimants could be quite large but taxing the logging for extent of damages done by each timber contract allows a fund to be built up for claims that may arise because of sedimentation. One of the easiest ways to calculate the costs would be to charge what it would be to clean up and put back to the original levels of sedimentation. Belli provides another technique of valuating the costs associated with the various timber projects with “Shadow Project”. It would calculate the costs of the externalities based on what it would cost to reproduce that good. In this case it would be clean water without sedimentation. (Belli, Page 70) Although these techniques would be on the high end of costs, it would try to internalize every aspect of this pollution onto the timber harvest. This example does not abide by Pareto Optimum solution but we at least get to the Kaldor-Hicks criterion since we have collected the Pigou tax to the socially optimal levels. The question becomes how we can distribute the tax receipts so that all people affected can be compensated to the correct amount? (Kula, Section 6.3.3) This is excellent – you need more on the economic principles involved and less on the minute detail of source sof pollution

The seventh and last contributing factor I wish to discuss is the fact that migratory Canadian Geese (or any bird congregation caused by human interaction) can also cause nitrogen runoff. As fascinating as this may be, is this related to the question i.e. developing country? In the process of development, settled areas can be very attractive to a variety of birds. I included this in the analysis because it did not fall into any of the techniques I know about internalizing environmental externalities as easily. I say this because the cause of the externality is not a direct cause of humans polluting but of the secondary effects of creating an environment conducive to certain species. To be more specific, the creation of a golf course will attract Canadian Geese since the well watered grass is constantly fresh and usually near bodies of water including hazard ponds that most likely will overflow to the water source we are concerned about. Since no person is directly responsible then who can be taxed or forced to behave in a certain manner? Even if the government decides to make it a public ownership will not solve the problem only shift which party is hosting the problem. And no amount of propaganda will change the behavior of the geese. While a variety of techniques can be done to reduce the attractiveness of the golf course habitat (Ref. 8, 9), there is still the question of who will pay for such remediation and whether they are acceptable to the public. The easy answer is to make the golf course owners pay for any remediation but then that is punishing those that did not directly create the problems especially if migratory patterns had changed. Ultimately, maybe government should pay for the remediation but that is political question. Does this issue nevertheless have an economics dimension of Cost-Benefit Analysis?

In conclusion, I used a variety of techniques to either internalize the environmental externalities on a river water source or to at least account for how society can deal with those problems. I started out with direct control of a heavy metal; and then used Coase theories to settle the externalities between parties and if that failed to use a common law solution; then how propaganda can influence individual decision makers to raise the level of concern for environmental issues; then created marketable permits to maintain a constant level of SO2 output that prevents acid rain from causing major problems; then take over of certain social services into new areas by expanding public ownership; then the use of pollution taxes on timber harvests to internalize the sediment externality for specific contracts with the government; and then the last one I concluded that based on fairness that the government may end up paying for whatever remediation is needed to overcome the geese problems. [A clear set of conclusions]

Meeting Medvedev Halfway|Pat Buchanan is a Dweeb!

2008-11-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

Meeting Medvedev Halfway by Patrick J. Buchanan 11/25/2008

Quote:

With these opening moves, how might Obama test the water for a better relationship with the Russia of Medvedev and Vladimir Putin?

First, Obama should restate his campaign position that no anti-missile system will be deployed in Poland until fully tested.

Second, he should declare that, as this system is designed to defend against an Iranian ICBM with a nuclear warhead, it will not be deployed until Iran has tested an ICBM and an atomic device.

So long as the Iranian threat remains potential, not actual, there is no need to deploy a U.S. missile defense in Poland against it.

Third, he should invite Medvedev to Camp David to discuss what more they might do together to ensure that no such Iranian threat, to either nation, ever materializes. For if Iran does not test an ICBM or atomic device, what is the need for a missile defense in East Europe?

Fourth, invoking the principle of self-determination, Obama might propose a plebiscite in Georgia and Abkhazia to determine if these people wish to return to Tbilisi's rule.

The second bone of contention between us is prospective NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine.

Silly Pat at it again. Fully tested-is just an excuse to not deploy. Iran has missiles, why not wait until yes they have ICBMs with MIRVs while we are at it. What a dweeb? And if they detonate an atomic device does that leave us any window in deploying the anti-missile defense shield in time? Iran may then be in a soft spot that launching them before defenses are up is an option. Would we really like to create a perverse incentive to bring about the Mahdi? Excellent idea to invite him without preconditions... Yes, I am all for self-determination and plebiscites, but I have to wonder about us (Russia and USA) forcing a sovereign nation to subject the whole to our random partitions. Why not have plebiscite in Alaska? Makes about as much sense. Anyway a plebiscite seems like a Neocon move...

Renou came by and visited...

You know who said...
Are you on drugs ?
Has the collapse of greed-driven Crapitalism sucked out your last remaining IQ points from your piggy-bank of intellectual reserve ?
What shrill fearorism you promote !
Iran has nukes like you have common sense, and they have as much of a probability of launching anything at anybody as your taxpayer money-pit of a "Start Wars" project has of shooting it down.
No wonder Crapitalism is dying on its expensively-shod feet if it has people like you propping up the crumbling ivory-colored clay walls.
Have a nice day, Ron.
Don't jump. Yet.
President Obama may make it better....

Funny as always and did not even respond to the post.

Warren Buffett is a Dweeb!

2008-11-24T10:51:00.000-08:00

Buffett says automakers need bailout or bankruptcy

Quote:

The government should insist top executives at Ford Motor Co., General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC invest a significant percentage of their own net worths in the Detroit-based companies, Buffett said, ensuring both executives and taxpayers would share in any profits or losses.

Buffett said the government should be able to drive a deal like one of the ones he makes when Berkshire buys businesses, because automakers appear on the brink of bankruptcy.

Buffett said he’d tell the auto executives, "’We’ll give you more upside (than bankruptcy), but you’re going to lose if we lose.’"

Great Idea! Why not expand this idea to all UAW workers so that we avoid the principle-client problems even more.
Ford {F} has market equity cap: $3.7 Billion {Price: $1.55}
GM {GM} has a market cap: $2 Billion {Price: $3.22}

Approximately there are about half a million UAW workers and thus each UAW worker merely has to pitch in $2,000 to buy GM and $3,700 to buy all of Ford. So why not make them invest in it also? Karl Marx would be surprised at the failure of workers to pay such a small amount to control the means of production. I am sure he is rolling over in his grave...

God help our souls...

2008-11-05T14:13:00.000-08:00

I feel like praying now.
I know that it was going to be an uphill battle for McCain but I have to wonder about some Republican talking heads as mindless zombies instead of people that desire to first learn the issues and then to espouse those views so that the common man can understand. I hear supposedly conservatives not even know why they voted for McCain and then give some excuse as to why they voted for him.

As far as myself, it was an easy decision not to vote for Hussein {yes that is his name to me, similar to the lefts use of McSame}. And not just because of him being a Democrat since I was willing to consider Hillary Clinton as a viable candidate for Presidency. At one time I had a near hate for her and wanted her to so badly lose her candidacy for the Senate seat but seeing that yes she did mellow out in her later period and away from the stupidity of the "vast right wing conspiracies" and her radical upbringing as even Bill Clinton did.

The first reason was his background and based on what information there is about that. Although just interesting, I did compile quite a few links that helped clarify the issues on this for myself: Obama. Along with just general information about Hussein, I also had a chance to lived and worked in and around Los Angeles including Carson, Torrence, Harbor City, Inglewood, Hollywood, and Baldwin Hills/Ladera Heights. From my experience, there is a "black culture" in the USA that can basically can be summed up as "Victocrats" first coined by Larry Elder of LA talk radio. Seeing how Michelle and Hussein seem to be proud of the USA only when they got power then I have to wonder if Yes the Marxist/Socialist/Black Liberation Theology did not fall too far from the Victocrat tree of Chicago. Of course even associating with a person like Bill Ayers is enough to consider that yes the Acorns are falling close to the tree. Weather Underground film even has Bill Ayers and Dorn doing the commentary after 9-11 with no regrets and clearly still supportive of their fellow Travelers that are still in prison.

Secondly, his economic plan really sucks. I wrote quite a bit of my views on this at ThomHartmann's forum and while some were just feel good policies and may be neutral to the economy many were downright dangerous in implementing them. The most ridiculous and disastrous plan that I remember is raising minimum wage and tying that to inflation. That is a certain way to entrench inflation to the economy and create unmoored inflation expectations.

Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way

2008-09-24T14:31:00.000-07:00

I often do not have time to research a complete post for publication but find articles that just go over the top in trying to portray things that just are make believe. The link above is one example {Stopping a Financial Crisis, the Swedish Way.

A banking system in crisis after the collapse of a housing bubble. An economy hemorrhaging jobs. A market-oriented government struggling to stem the panic. Sound familiar?

It does to Sweden. The country was so far in the hole in 1992 — after years of imprudent regulation, short-sighted economic policy and the end of its property boom — that its banking system was, for all practical purposes, insolvent.

But Sweden took a different course than the one now being proposed by the United States Treasury. And Swedish officials say there are lessons from their own nightmare that Washington may be missing.

At least they get one thing right, it is imprudent regulation not the phony Binary Opposition about more or less deregulations. But I have to wonder when people use insolvent, does the writer actually mean that the whole banking system had no more capital to work with, and more importantly that it had no possibility of making enough money to pay its debts? Seems to be a tall order for a developed nation to be in. But yes, tell us the wonderful things they did...

Sweden did not just bail out its financial institutions by having the government take over the bad debts. It extracted pounds of flesh from bank shareholders before writing checks. Banks had to write down losses and issue warrants to the government.

That strategy held banks responsible and turned the government into an owner. When distressed assets were sold, the profits flowed to taxpayers, and the government was able to recoup more money later by selling its shares in the companies as well.

“If I go into a bank,” said Bo Lundgren, who was Sweden’s finance minister at the time, “I’d rather get equity so that there is some upside for the taxpayer.”

And are we to think that the $400 billion write downs for banks this year was not any flesh they gave up. And how have the bank stocks done since the beginning of this crisis? Seems like shareholders have taken some hefty pounds of flesh extraction. Bear Sterns was at one time $2.00 down from like $180 a couple of years earlier.

Why equity in a company if it is mismanaged to begin with? There is nothing special about equity in this class of assets. If we the people {"the government"} are concerned about homeowners then owning the debt instruments makes more sense then "we" could negotiate the mortgage terms more easily.

What says there is not some upside now? I have heard that as low as 30 cents on the dollar may be the basement that the government may use as a backstop. Thus $700 billion is going to pay for 2 1/3 trillion dollars in assets. I imagine there should be some upside for the risks. Notice that some "bailouts" did manage to generate a "profit" for the government as in the case of Mexico bank failures.

Sweden spent 4 percent of its gross domestic product, or 65 billion kronor, the equivalent of $11.7 billion at the time, or $18.3 billion in today’s dollars, to rescue ailing banks. That is slightly less, proportionate to the national economy, than the $700 billion, or roughly 5 percent of gross domestic product, that the Bush administration estimates its own move will cost in the United States.

But the final cost to Sweden ended up being less than 2 percent of its G.D.P. Some officials say they believe it was closer to zero, depending on how certain rates of return are calculated.

Let me get the straight! The initial outlays were 4% of GDP and in the end they lost 2% of GDP thus they lost 50% of their seed money. And I just pointed out that sometimes like in the case of Chrysler the government made money or at least broke even. Chrysler was still a bad idea. That does not sound like prudent fiscal policies.

The tumultuous...

the global insurance giant.

Yes, we already are part owners of certain firms so what was all the other dribble for earlier?

Putting taxpayers on the hook without anything in return could be a mistake, said Urban Backstrom, a senior Swedish finance ministry official at the time. “The public will not support a plan if you leave the former shareholders with anything,” he said.

Yes, I just said above we get the title deeds to a bunch of real estate titles. We could easily set up all kinds of other social services with these assets or set up a trust to rent out repossessed properties. And why do we want shareholders value at zero? Isn't 90% lost on assets enough? I don't believe that to avoid moral hazards that people have to pay the full amount to prevent the pattern repeating, only that have to pay a SIGNIFICANT amount.

The Swedish crisis had strikingly similar origins to the American one, and its neighbors, Norway and Finland, were hobbled to the point of needing a government bailout to escape the morass as well.

Financial deregulation in the 1980s fed a frenzy of real estate lending by Sweden’s banks, which did not worry enough about whether the value of their collateral might evaporate in tougher times.

Property prices imploded. The bubble deflated fast in 1991 and 1992. A vain effort to defend Sweden’s currency, the krona, caused overnight interest rates to spike at one point to 500 percent. The Swedish economy contracted for two consecutive years after a long expansion, and unemployment, at 3 percent in 1990, quadrupled in three years.

After a series of bank failures and ad hoc solutions, the moment of truth arrived in September 1992, when the government of Prime Minister Carl Bildt decided it was time to clear the decks.

Standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the opposition center-left, Mr. Bildt’s conservative government announced that the Swedish state would guarantee all bank deposits and creditors of the nation’s 114 banks. Sweden formed a new agency to supervise institutions that needed recapitalization, and another that sold off the assets, mainly real estate, that the banks held as collateral.

Sweden told its banks to write down their losses promptly before coming to the state for recapitalization. Facing its own problem later in the decade, Japan made the mistake of dragging this process out, delaying a solution for years.

I agree that Japan messed up the process and delayed write-downs soon enough, but there has to be some flexibility in tough times. Also I find it ironic that if they did follow their advice then the banks then just are declaring themselves insolvent and must basically close up shop until recapitalization. Maybe they did this during the weekends.

Then came the imperative to bleed shareholders first. Mr. Lundgren recalls a conversation with Peter Wallenberg, at the time chairman of SEB, Sweden’s largest bank. Mr. Wallenberg, the scion of the country’s most famous family and steward of large chunks of its economy, heard that there would be no sacred cows.

The Wallenbergs turned around and arranged a recapitalization on their own, obviating the need for a bailout. SEB turned a profit the following year, 1993.

“For every krona we put into the bank, we wanted the same influence,” Mr. Lundgren said. “That ensured that we did not have to go into certain banks at all.”

By the end of the crisis, the Swedish government had seized a vast portion of the banking sector, and the agency had mostly fulfilled its hard-nosed mandate to drain share capital before injecting cash. When markets stabilized, the Swedish state then reaped the benefits by taking the banks public again.

More money may yet come into official coffers. The government still owns 19.9 percent of Nordea, a Stockholm bank that was fully nationalized and is now a highly regarded giant in Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea region.

The politics of Sweden’s crisis management were similarly tough-minded, though much quieter.

Soon after the plan was announced, the Swedish government found that international confidence returned more quickly than expected, easing pressure on its currency and bringing money back into the country. The center-left opposition, while wary that the government might yet let the banks off the hook, made its points about penalizing shareholders privately.

“The only thing that held back an avalanche was the hope that the system was holding,” said Leif Pagrotzky, a senior member of the opposition at the time. “In public we stuck together 100 percent, but we fought behind the scenes.”

Basically more fluff as the filler at the bottom. "No sacred cows" meaning as they say sacrifice equity holders, which I understand are the first to lose out but still an important part of the economy. I am just not sure how efficient the government is at managing companies. I have an idea that they would actually manage tangible assets a little better-assuming that not too many special interests get involved in managing the assets.

So I think it is just a matter of how much groveling we demand of the banks in trouble. We know that the assets {unless pure fraud} have value because they are based on actual assets {houses and condos} thus if we do provide the backstop for the market to prevent zero value of these assets then it is very likely that "we" can make money in the deal. Before I mentioned 30% based on last valuation, and if we say that even houses fall 50% in value in the aggregate that is a lot of value we could still extract. Some markets would hit that 50% but I see numbers overall being like 10-20%.

So the article really is just spin that others do it better than the USA and in which this case does not show the least especially since they lost 50% of their assets.

Dweebs of the Whole Left|Kossacks

2008-09-18T10:14:00.000-07:00

It started out with a blog at Daily Kos: There Are No Libertarians In Recessions.

Then Nutters at Thom's got it: http://www.thomhartmann.com/index.php?option=com_fireboard&Itemid=104&func=view&catid=11&id=257928

And even Dr Thoma got into posting a link to it with actual discussions from the wing-nuts. September 18, 2008 links for 2008-09-18

You would think at least someone would verify that Laurence D. Fink was actually a Libertarian before making a fool of themselves.

My first advice is to never believe Kos for a source of information.

But in case you are interested ... then they must not be talking about the Laurence Fink of BlackRock Inc {founder, CEO}.
Barack Obama (D) PresidentOBAMA VICTORY FUND - $30,800 primary

Notice that since 87 no Republican.

Newsmeat also notes that total contributions that they gathered information on that Fink spent the following amounts:
$2,000 Republican
$44,800 Democrat
$6,000 special interest
total: $52,800

Well, no Libertarian Party donation and no Ron Paul support but a big paycheck for Obama!!! I think he made his bed and it is not with any libertarian ideals.

John McCain's "Big" Economic Plans|Dr. Thoma is a Dweeb P2

2008-09-15T16:03:00.000-07:00

The post "John McCain's "Big" Economic Plans" seems to tell me more about a Liberal Economics Professor than about McCain's Economic Plans. I can see some of the points of the first part of his post about ear-marks, but let me address the drilling issue specifically.

First I go to his link with the picture and what do I see: Drill here, drill now A pipe dream, a post by grist without comment. Which is enough to question where Dr. Thoma gets his information. Then this leads me to another link of: Impacts of Increased Access to Oil and Natural Gas Resources in the Lower 48 Federal Outer Continental Shelf. The charts say January 2003. Are we to take this information as current and reflects the current reality of prices in the world market now? Let us see if it has some information that may be useful or just shallow analysis.

Although existing moratoria on leasing in the OCS will expire in 2012, the AEO2007 reference case assumes that they will be reinstated, as they have in the past. Current restrictions are therefore assumed to prevail for the remainder of the projection period, with no exploration or development allowed in areas currently unavailable to leasing. The OCS access case assumes that the current moratoria will not be reinstated, and that exploration and development of resources in those areas will begin in 2012.

Well no wonder that the yellow in the graph does not start until 2015. Let me put some of Dr. Thoma's words in here:

I can't even see the sliver of yellow until after 2015, and even after that it's not much of a contribution. That's supposed to lower gas prices?

With such a solid foundation for the polcy porposals - a couple of slivers of pie - I can't imagine why the McCain campaign would resort to lies, deceptions, misdirection, and misleading characterizations to sell these "big" plans.

But as noted above we are basing this on the moratorium until 2012 and if it was enacted now that makes the start as 4 years earlier and with prices higher then there is more urgency to get more supplies to market. To the larger issues, the paragraph above from EIA says that the present restrictions would continue. Back to EIA:

For AEO2007, an OCS access case was prepared to examine the potential impacts of the lifting of Federal restrictions on access to the OCS in the Pacific, the Atlantic, and the eastern Gulf of Mexico. Currently, except for a relatively small tract in the eastern Gulf, resources in those areas are legally off limits to exploration and development. Mean estimates from the MMS indicate that technically recoverable resources currently off limits in the lower 48 OCS total 18 billion barrels of crude oil and 77 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (Table 10).

Are we to conclude that 18 billion barrels of recoverable resources could only net .2 million more barrels per day when ANWR has predictions of 1 million barrels more per day? That seems to be quite a stretch to say so little will be produced from so much.

We still have not seen any indication that prices have any effect on production when in reality we know as economists that prices have effects on quantity supplied to the market. But lastly if Cuban oil renews embargo debate/Discovery of sizeable reserves means U.S. trade ban may finally have a cost, then I am sure we could increase our production of OCS oil to the market at least as well as the Cubans can do. The article does not mention any projections for oil production but we could easily see that 1 million per day is possible.

Seven months later, a report by the U.S. Geological Survey confirmed it: The North Cuba Basin held a substantial quantity of oil — 4.6 billion to 9.3 billion barrels of crude and 9.8 trillion to 21.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. Cuba wasted no time, dividing the 74,000 square mile (120,000 square kilometer) area into 59 exploration blocks, and then welcoming foreign oil conglomerates with offers of production-sharing agreements.

Lastly back to Dr Thoma in the comments section again:

You'll hear a lot of attempts to discredit these numbers, but nobody has really done so, and even if you increase or decrease the yellow area by, say, 50% it doesn't change the picture much, so it's all just a lot of noise about a very small contribution to satisfying our energy needs.

But what if the yellow areas is 4 years earlier and 5 times broader? Then what? What if Venezuela cuts off oil? What if another war breaks out in the ME? What is the value of having resources at home instead of getting oil from unsavory characters? What about the externalities of the above as well as causing a major trade imbalance?

Do we use the same standard in alternative fuels as we do with oil? No one talked about how much bio-fuels was going to reduce our costs for gas when in reality it raises our costs. When building our damns, did we say well this will only supply 3% of our energy needs? When all these windmill farms sprung up did we calculate how much energy it would produce as a percentage of the total energy needs?

P.S.: I guess 1 million is a little overly optimistic for Cuban production but I did find one report that claims:

In December 2004, the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro announced that it had
discovered a significant oil reserve off the northwest coast of the island.
More importantly, the potential of the oil finds could dramatically decrease
the island’s dependence on imported oil and could serve as boon to the Cuban
economy. There has been much conjecture of the size and scope of oil
reserves in the 59 offshore tracts in Cuban exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
The working estimates are that there is the potential for 120 thousand barrels
of oil per day, perhaps more, but the sea floor is over a mile deep and the oil
reserves perhaps an additional 3,000 feet beneath the sea floor. This lies
within the capacity of the existing oil drilling technology, but as previously
explained, the task of extracting the oil will have to be undertaken using second-
or third-generation technology because of U.S. export control regulations
against trading with Cuba. The challenge for Cuban oil development
policy makers is to simultaneously pursue frontier exploration in the Gulf of
Mexico, while continuing to produce from the existing mature oil reserves
with higher levels of efficiency and environmental integrity. Add to this challenge
the additional question of securing the appropriate technology for the
task. {Page 40|48PDF}
http://web.gc.cuny.edu/bildnercenter/cuba/documents/CITBookFMpdfbychapter_000.pdf

The point is still that 18 billion barrels to produce only 200,000 barrels per day compared to tiny Cuba producing 120,000 barrels per day.

The Marx Economist: Justin Yifu Lin and the World Bank

2008-06-11T15:09:00.000-07:00

Justin Yifu Lin's life seems unusual from my perspective. But anyone that is making and promoting theories in Determinants of Development (Developing Economics) I must take an interest in understanding their theories and analysis. First I was introduced to the following article from the normally Marxist on-line pseudo economics from "Portland Independent Media". So first I want to discuss this article for any points that seem salient, entitled: The Marx Economist: Justin Yifu Lin and the World Bank.

"In Chicago I learned the market has the best solutions in an ideal world without distortions. In reality there are a whole series of distortions, above all in developing countries. The quality of institutions and historical inheritance must be understood."

Yes, overall I can agree with that. The problem is that many times governments end up distorting the market more than actually solving the initial problem. Since Lin studied under Theodore Schultz even if in the Chicago School of Economics, I wonder if he "learned the market has the best solution". And yes there is even more distortions in smaller and developing countries, so structural analysis of the economy may need consideration.

DIE ZEIT: What a remarkable career! You studied in Marxist Peking and in liberal Chicago, advised the Chinese government and now are chief economist at the World Bank. What are you now, a free enterprise advocate or a Marxist?

Justin Yifu Lin: A combination. In Chicago I learned the market has the best solutions in an ideal world without distortions. In reality, however, there is a whole series of distortions, above all in developing countries. I am a Marxist insofar as I believe these factors, the quality of institutions and historical inheritance, must be considered. We must understand these things before we press for introducing the market economy.

At least it seems that he is honest about his ideologies, which from watching his speech, he shown his Marxist ideology by talking about "people" too much and in class distinctions aspects of the economy. I am sure he has some points but I reject most of those paradigms.

ZEIT: Is that a new development model for the World Bank?

Lin: I do not go to the World Bank with a model. Rather I believe in a diagnostic approach in development policy. Every country has its special development chances and obstacles that we must identify. As an international institution, we can help with our resources. It would be wrong to say: we have the solution for your problems.

ZEIT: But the World Bank did just that in the past. The World Bank aggressively enforced neoliberal economic reforms.

Lin: When I came to China from Taiwan in 1979, there was a great upheaval...

ZEIT: The policy of opening- and reform under Deng Xiaoping began in 1979.

Lin: Yes. I believe I now come to the World Bank in a similar phase. As you say, the World Bank oriented its earlier policy in a few basic convictions. Now more and more persons in Washington understand a diagnostic approach is necessary.

Yes, as I said above a more structuralist approach to each country is needed, but ultimately there is only so much resources that can be devoted to analysis. Luckily with better data gathering and more sophisticated models, the IMF and World Bank can get more country specific in its advice and analysis. But many anti-globalization freaks will not be happy even that Marxist doctrine is influencing the World Bank. They want to destroy the organization instead of seeing the good that can come from it. Although this same group seems to put faith in the United Nations. Go figure, all I can conclude is that they are afraid of Economists and the science of Economics. I guess one reason that so many try to claim that economics is not a science but Sociology and Psychology is.

ZEIT: Some things in the Chinese development model are hard to copy because of the gigantic costs for other countries. Your land violates intellectual property rights. It keeps its currency artificially low to stimulate exports.

Lin: First on the theme intellectual property. The Chinese government has already taken on the problem in its own interest. From a specific stage of development, investments in research and development are necessary. These investments would not pay without a certain protection of intellectual property. In industrial states, there are also cases where property rights are violated.

ZEIT: However violations of property rights are especially widespread and aggressive in China.

Lin: I don't see it that way.

Yes, well take the blinders off. Maybe it is the internet censorship that is blocking Jin from seeing. While I admit that he has presented some important points, this portion is nothing more that the CCPs (Communist Party of China) excuse for everything. We kill a million people and you kill a few-just call it even. We support the brutal dictators of Burma and you invaded Iraq-just call that even. Shouldn't the government of China do more than what is in its interest? I mean if they want to be a global player then violating the property rights of other countries citizens is not a way to ingratiate others.

ZEIT: What about the reproach of Chinese exchange rate dumping?

Lin: The matter is more complicated. When developing countries recover economically, they invest intensely in industries that are very important for modernization. More is produced than is needed in their own countries. The rest is exported. That was true in China and also in Korea, Japan and Germany after the Second World War. Promoting key industries was central. Export is a side-effect.

ZEIT: Doesn't the exchange rate play a role? Devaluing the currency stimulates export.

Lin: The role of exchange rates is exaggerated. If you have overcapacities, you will export.

The question I have, is how did China create overcapacities? While the issue is more complicated, just because others did it does not mean that this should be the same way to development. If we talk about capital utilization then I would be skeptical about his assertions. While it is true that a developing country promotes its export sectors, it is usual for the currency to be undervalued on purpose rather than the net result of development that the current account is positive.

ZEIT: China invests vast sums in Africa. The West looks upon this with suspicion.

Lin: There are two kinds of Chinese engagement in Africa. One is connected with mineral resources, e.g. oil. Business interests and assuring supply are paramount here. These engagements must be good businesses. Then there are projects financed by the Chinese development bank. Infrastructure and the like are primary here.

It is usually called imperialism when the West does it, when China does it it, it is glorious Marxist doctrine. Stuck in the Marxist paradigms.

ZEIT: China gives its money without insisting on minimum social, legal or ecological standards. Is it wrong to set these conditions?

Lin: When countries become richer, they also become more liberal. When we contribute to the growth of the economy with our projects, we enable governments to do what is right for their people and the nations.

ZEIT: A different understanding of state and society prevails in China compared to the West.

Lin: The more development advances, the more individual freedom rights people will have. They will be able to decide where they want to live and how they participate in the social, political and economic process. When I went to Chicago in 1982, it took six months until I received my passport. I had to fill out many forms. Today this is no longer a problem. People receive their passports in six days.

That would be nice if that was true. But often development assistance has been used by authoritarian regimes to subjugate their citizens and thus end up with less development. The question is how to promote development. I do not believe that supplying arms to Zimbabwe will help development or helicopters to Sudan or supporting the military dictators of Burma.

ZEIT: Will there be a democracy at the end according to the Western model?

Lin: There are different forms of democracy in the West. German democracy is different from the British or the American. I am sure we will have a democracy but it will be a democracy with Chinese features.

True, but liberal democracy is broadly enough defined to know that China does not have that now even if the CCP claims it is a "Peoples' Democracy".

ZEIT: At the end let us speak about the current world economy. Many in the US fear a recession. Will that endanger the boom in Asia?

Lin: It depends on the intensity of the decline. A deep and severe recession would impact China but I don't believe that will happen. Political instruments can avert this. Our exports do not depend so intensely on the ups and downs of the business cycle as the exports of other countries. Unlike cars, textiles are in demand even in bad times.

ZEIT: When will China replace the US as the greatest economic power?

Lin: In 20 to 30 years or 15 to 20 years if one considers the different purchasing power of the currencies.

Notice that he says on a PPP basis. Thus sure they could end up with a higher GDP on PPP basis since 1.3 billion Chinese getting haircuts might be a lot more than 300 million US citizens.

True on textiles, but even that market may be elastic and especially for finer quality products,that is Nike shoes for example.

From Lecture:

Deep, Fundamental Causes/Competing Hypothesis:
1. Luck
2. Geography
3. Institution
4. Culture
5. Openess
Most economists now agree that the institution is the key.

Has worked on Fiscal Decentralization, Enterprise Reform, Urban and Rural Modernization, and Agricultural Modernization and Reform.

Prebish-Singer thesis

Theories:
Conflicts of vested interest groups

Olson: duration of stability and distributional coalition

Grossman and Helpman: protection for sale

Acenioglu, Johnson and Robinsion: extractive institution vs. Neo-European Institutions

Engerman and Sokoloff: endowment, production pattern, and equal or unequal distribution of income, human capital and power

Lin: The Key is Ideas not the vested interests.
But, soon or late, it is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil.
John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, Chapter 24.

Links:
The Marx Economist: Justin Yifu Lin and the World Bank

Lin Yifu-Vitae

Theodore Schultz was his mentor from the infamous University of Chicago.

Microsoft and Search Engines...

2008-05-23T11:44:00.001-07:00

Microsoft unveils cash back search service

Quote:

'Radical idea'
Analyst Roger Kay of Endpoint Technologies Associates said the Microsoft strategy could help boost traffic through the company's sites.
"The cash-back idea is pretty radical, but also as old as the hills: buying the business," he said. "Still, it's likely to be the most effective mechanism yet for stimulating traffic through Microsoft's properties."

It may seem radical to the current selection of search engines, but there has been several attempts at this kind of rewards for searching. Iwon was one that I looked at. Also there was one before (forgot name) that supposedly gave money just for searching but I could never get it to work on any search I was interested in. I do not make many purchases on-line compared to the number of searches I do. When I do make purchases I use portals like https://lty.s.upromise.com/welcome.do?cx=l1 (Upromise) that gives cash back to online purchases.

Quote:

He added: "These oil-patch guys have tons of money, but it must be humiliating for the brilliant software types at Yahoo to be pushed around by dudes who don't know a procedure call from a cattle call."

That is funny!

The search-engine dilemma Commentary: What are really needed are new and better services
Much of his points I have already read John C. Dvorak state and I take exception to the idea that something really brilliant did not come to market because of some back room deals. If Google had the next mouse trap-would it not promote it?

Quote:

Search engines stink
What is really needed are new and better search engines. To be honest about it, Google, Yahoo and Microsoft all stink.
We all know this is true. Sure, you can find the major and obvious sites with any of them. But seriously try and find, for example, the best knitting site.
Go ahead: Type in the keywords "best knitting site" into Google and tell me which site, out of the 300,000-plus results Google returns, is really the best knitting site. It cannot be done, despite the fact that there must be a best one. A group of knitters might know, or maybe not.
It's getting more difficult to find anything with a narrow target using any of these search engines. Recently, I was searching for a Barack Obama citation for an article and could not find it on Google; there were too many results to be useful.

Yes, search engines suck since they are all based on "keywords". The engines can find words but it can not provide a human element to it by determining whether it is random words strewn together or a coherent text. It can't determine if the site is for or against an idea. Search Dick Cheney ,and with Google bombing, 8 out of 10 in the front page are criticisms of him. Anyway, something that does take some of my time in the day to explore these issues.

Microsoft obviously still needs an Internet play

The company needs to do something to get its Internet business profitable and growing faster. One cynical view is that its offer for Yahoo was a pure Machiavellian way to deflect attention from other acquisitions it could be plotting. Any other deals it may do will likely pale in comparison to the hefty price it was looking to pay for Yahoo.

Yes something I have thought about also, but their actions are speaking loudly they want Yahoo. As far as THERESE POLETTI'S view about the regulatory hurdles, I don't see much problems except for the EU which has shown over time a willingness to twist the nose of Mr. Softy.

With search overture, Microsoft gets to the point
I really do not think it is too late for anyone to get into the search engine market especially someone that already has an established name and much of the infrastructure. The issue is whether a better mouse trap can be developed and from above I think so.

"It does mean you don't get swallowed by Google, and Google doesn't effectively become 90% of the market," said Keith Hylton, a Boston University Law School professor. "The whole business of tying up with Google meant advertisers there would shift to Google over time."

I really doubt that Google could ever reach 90% of the market. I could see that happen in a market that has no possibility of innovation, but not in the search market and advertising market now.

Bush Plays the Hitler Card/Pat Buchanan is a Dweeb

2008-05-23T09:01:00.000-07:00

Bush Plays the Hitler Card

I consider Pat Buchanan as one of the best commentators and interviewers for conservative causes. But I do have some problems with his thoughts on that article.

Quote:

German tanks, however, did not roll into Poland until a year later, Sept. 1, 1939. Why did the tanks roll? Because Poland refused to negotiate over Danzig, a Baltic port of 350,000 that was 95 percent German and had been taken from Germany at the Paris peace conference of 1919, in violation of Wilson's 14 Points and his principle of self-determination.

So since the Poles did not appease to Hitler on a minor territory that they then deserved the invasion? But Buchanan has covered a lot of history without too much substance, so let us explore some more. Gdansk was a "Free City" as described by the treaty and through its history it was under a variety of hegemonic forces including Poland
Image:Border changes in history of Poland.
Now we can see from the maps that Danzig was not part of the continuous territory called Germany. So what did Germany want beyond just a sea port?

Quote:

The Nazis demanded the return of Danzig to Germany along with an exterritorial highway for land-based access to the Third Reich through the area of the Polish Corridor. However, when the German Nazi Government secured Soviet approval for aggression against Poland, a decision was made to launch a full-out offensive regardless of any Polish willingness to negotiate successions.

Some of the same issues that face Israel and Palestine over the decades. But the question is why did Poland not feel so much desire to give them their highway and the small territory? It could be because of the lost of their eastern territories as shown in the above map which also played out in the Curzon Line. We also need to put Danzig in some historical perspective by noting the various actions by Germany in the Silesian Uprisings. Since Buchanan brings up the 14 points, which I am not sure why, it should be noted that one point states:

Quote:

13. An independent Polish state should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

Which they considered their "free and secure access to the sea" even if it was a free city.

Quote:

Hitler had not wanted war with Poland. He had wanted an alliance with Poland in his anti-Comintern pact against Joseph Stalin.

Kind of silly to say Hitler did not want war. Everyone wants to avoid war, as long as they can get it for free. Why pay? And if Hitler's primary contention was his Anti-Comintern Pact pacts then why did it seem to have nearly everyone he could convince to join but then willing to sign pacts with Stalin? I guess since Britain was "invited" to join his pact, he could have used it to justify their invasion also.

Quote:

But the Poles refused to negotiate. Why? Because they were a proud, defiant, heroic people and because Neville Chamberlain had insanely given an unsolicited war guarantee to Poland. If Hitler invaded, Chamberlain told the Poles, Britain would declare war on Germany.

From March to August 1939, Hitler tried to negotiate Danzig. But the Poles, confident in their British war guarantee, refused. So, Hitler cut his deal with Stalin, and the two invaded and divided Poland.

Sure it is nice to blame Chamberlain for the Polish defeat but their are other pacts and treaties that were not fulfilled. Most of this history is spelled out in the Western Betrayal of Poland.

Quote:

The cost of the war that came of a refusal to negotiate Danzig was millions of Polish dead, the Katyn massacre, Treblinka, Sobibor, Auschwitz, the annihilation of the Home Army in the Warsaw uprising of 1944, and 50 years of Nazi and Stalinist occupation, barbarism and terror.

In that same speech to the Knesset, Bush dismissed the idea we could ever successfully negotiate with Hamas, Hezbollah or Iran:

What makes Buchanan think that if they had negotiated over Danzig that there would not have been a war? We have to see what their intentions were and the pattern that was being played out. As Poland already got to see what Chamberlain's proclamations resulted in the formation of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, they were naturally not willing to concede such territories on just the Nazis desires.

But beyond this negotiate or not negotiate questions, you must be assured that the opposing side will adhere to the agreements and whether they can or are willing to renege. Shirley Vian negotiated a deal and helped him out, did it help her? While my example was of evil perpetuated on a personal level, Buchanan also mixes between non-state actors and States. It seems obvious that Nation States and the other groups are going to take different types of negotiations.

Let me proceed to the Nazis and their ideology. What would have satisfied them based on their ideology? Well the first clue is provided in Statements by Hitler and Senior Nazis Concerning Jews and Judaism. Poland was the "killing fields" for Germany {German camps in occupied Poland during World War II}. Lastly, Hitler's Political Views:

Quote:

Hitler lived in Vienna for several years, working at odd jobs and absorbing the ideas of Austrian right-wing extremists. In 1913, he left Vienna and moved to Munich in southern Germany. He took with him the basic political ideas to which he would remain committed for the balance of his life. Central to Hitler's thought were his notions of race. He believed in the racial superiority of the Germanic peoples (the Aryan race) and in the inferiority of other races, especially Jews but also Slavs and blacks. Hitler also advocated the Pan-German ideology that was popular among many Austrian extremists. Pan-Germanism held the view that all Germans should be united in a single state. In addition, Hitler was hostile to the ideology of Marxism, which emphasized the unity of the international working class rather than racial solidarity.

So he was asking several states to give up their sovereignty to "all Germans". What makes us believe that other states were not also desired to be split up or dismantled? Heck the USA had a lot more German citizens than that and even a significant number of German born.

Does that last ideology remind us of another ideology?
How Would Iran Read Obama?
The New Appeasers

And for all those out there that do not get the post maybe this will help: Nazi

If We Could Talk to the Animals

P1|Antifascist hypocrisy and stupidity...

2008-04-04T16:01:00.000-07:00

Quote:

name='Antifascist' date='Thursday, 3 April 2008, 5:09 pm' post='129999'>
The Army and Veterans groups were the two key organizations that gave Hitler his chance. They provided him with an audience, money, training, and a network of hight level contacts that launched his political career. Otherwise, Hitler would have remained a bookish Vienna vagabond.

And so here we have the same pattern. The patriotic counter protesters are also a motorcycle gang and ex-military personnel--veterans. So they can provide the "muscle" if needed as sort of a quasi-security force if things get out of hand. Gangs are Okay if they show their "colors" and "roar" for the state. The gang theme is a psychops technique designed to intimidate political dissidents.

The press does its part by presenting the motorcycle gang as a just ordinary citizens expressing there political views. Most Americans total missing the similarity to the role veterans groups played in pre-Nazi Germany forming a spectrum of political groups of which Hilter's faction was only one.

The title link is to the full version to Antifascist post that is truly a masterful work of Machiavellian techniques.

First Anti, introduces the dreaded Hitler and how he rose his SOCIALIST party to power in Germany. So he is trying to set the framework and mindset that anything by Hitler must be bad a priori.

He uses some vague passage of Hitler gaining some recognition for "His anti-Semitic harangue" that his superior officers were pleased. Well ain't that special? So we only take the word of Hitler that even the event happened and no names or ranks to even try to tie his self boasting into an actual political gain.

Quote:

And so here we have the same pattern. The patriotic counter protesters are also a motorcycle gang and ex-military personnel--veterans. So they can provide the "muscle" if needed as sort of a quasi-security force if things get out of hand. Gangs are Okay if they show their "colors" and "roar" for the state. The gang theme is a psychops technique designed to intimidate political dissidents.

Yes some had some T-shirts of USMC and Marine Corps, but nothing in the article or the pictures indicated that any protesters were actually former Military. And what was the demands they asked for:

Quote:

The demonstrators said they plan to boycott Berkeley businesses until the council is recalled, apologizes or grants free permits to a pro-troop group.

The group that organized the protest, Eagles Up, had to pay for their permit.

The gathering outnumbered Wednesday's anti-war demonstration at the center, marking the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war.

So basically the counter protesters are asking for the same privileges that Code Pink have already received. But seriously where is the same pattern?

But know let us look at his most damning piece of information, as noted in the picture of the man appearing to shout at a code pink person and maybe already pushing the old man to the ground. First notice that it looks like the old man has his legs wrapped around the young man's one leg. Also note all the chains on the Code Pink protesters.

So after looking at the article and pictures this picture was not related to this article. I first found one related picture of this event at: Calls renewed to fix Berkeley's citizen boards.

Quote:

A donnybrook ensued over Berkeley's Marine Corps recruitment center - resulting in a scuffle with protesters on Feb. 1 - after a city commission declared it unwelcome. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn

The editor placed the picture in the article presumably because:

Quote:

Berkeley is finding that having its own foreign policy isn't cheap. The city's recent dustup with the U.S. Marine Corps has so far cost the city more than $200,000, while businesses say they've been slammed by related protests.

Doesn't sound like the city is being very careful with the publics financing. Must be liberal meme. Take from everyone so a few get to have their views crammed down the rest of the citizens.

Now we are getting closer to the truth but we need to see the original article about this orange jump suit wackos.

Quote:

BERKELEY Facing off over Marine Corps 3 war opponents chain selves to door of recruiting station, and right-wing blogosphere goes ballistic
As the right-wing blogosphere railed and a U.S. senator vowed financial retaliation against the Berkeley City Council for its effort to boot the Marine Corps out of town, three war protesters ratcheted up pressure from the left by chaining themselves Friday to the front door of the downtown Marine recruiting office.

The demonstrators snapped their locks shut at 7 a.m. and spent the next 7 1/2 hours blocking the door, waving and chanting as hundreds of cars driving by honked in support. Finally, at 2:30 p.m., police snipped the chains and arrested them.

Two of the three were cited for blocking a business and released, and the third was booked into jail on an unrelated traffic warrant, police said.

The demonstrators promptly said they will keep protesting outside the recruiting station at 64 Shattuck Square until the Marines leave Berkeley - which is what the City Council advised the service to do in a vote Tuesday night that called the Marines "unwelcome intruders."

The council also voted to allow members of Code Pink, the protest group that helped organize Friday's blockade, to park at a designated space in front of the recruiting office every Wednesday afternoon and operate a loudspeaker.

The council's action apparently made Berkeley the first city in the nation to call for the ouster of a military recruiting station from its borders.

"We made really great statements by blocking the door," said one of the three blockaders, 64-year-old Mary Ann Thomas of Oakland. "It's time we became more articulate about what we're doing."

Conservative bloggers and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., also believe more articulation is necessary - from the opposite side of the political spectrum.

DeMint began drafting legislation Friday to cut $2.1 million in federal funding to Berkeley in a current congressional budget bill and transfer the money to the Marine Corps. The funding would include $750,000 for prospective ferry service, $87,000 for the Berkeley Unified School District nutrition education fund and $243,000 for the Chez Panisse Foundation, which promotes nutritional awareness in school lunch programs.

"The First Amendment gives the city of Berkeley the right to be idiotic, but from now on they should do it with their own money," DeMint said in a statement.

He called the council's vote "a slap in the face to all brave servicemen and women and their families."

Conservative blogs blasted the council and Berkeley in general all day with comments such as one on "Gathering of Eagles": "These cretins disgust me."

Members of the council who voted to condemn the Marine Corps station were unbowed.

"I guess they've never heard of free speech," Councilwoman Dona Spring said. "I've had a lot of nasty phone messages today, threatening me with things like saying, 'I'll take you out.' But they can go ahead. I don't feel scared."

Code Pink said it has begun to circulate a petition calling for a Berkeley ballot measure that would make it more difficult to open and operate recruiting stations. The measure would be modeled after anti-pornography laws, organizers said, mandating that - like porn shops - new recruiting offices be subject to public hearings before they would be allowed to locate near homes or schools.

The Marines, meanwhile, were not ready to back down.

"It's just another protest," said Marine Corps Capt. Richard Lund, head of the recruiting office.

As he spoke in the early afternoon, with the protesters still chained to his door, a small band of demonstrators on the sidewalk shouted at passing cars and students at Shattuck Square: "Marines out of Berkeley! Marines out of Iraq!"

Heated words were exchanged whenever people tried to enter or leave the office, but the protest was peaceful.

"You guys are just cannon fodder!" the chained protesters shouted at three teenage boys who walked past the office and said they wanted to go inside. "They want to train you to kill babies!"

The teenagers turned around and left.

At one point, UC Berkeley student Kyrolos El Giheny walked up to the front door and tried to go inside to talk to Lund about a possible Marine career. He was unable to get past the chained protesters.

"They told me, 'No business as usual today,' " El Giheny said. "It's kind of nutty. It's really an infringement on my rights."

OK, so who are the fascist in this story (aside from Antifascist)? Yes we can really say this is the same pattern as Nazis used to intimidate political dissidents and true patriots that want to serve the USA. I guess Code Pink and orange suits are the gangs that are acceptable now days for Fascists-like Antifascist. Also note that Antifascist also did not link to the true story of the protests and the violence. Machiavellian!!!

I end with some real pictures of the "peaceful protesters"...

Quote:

The door is held open for Weston Hoover, who pushes his way past protesters trying to block the recruitment office at 64 Shattuck Square. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn

Quote:

Dressed in a suit, Weston Hoover tries to force his way through anti-war protesters who chained themselves together in an attempt to block the entrance to a Marine Corps. recruitment office in Berkeley. Chronicle photo by Paul Chinn

Yes sir, that was some peaceful demonstrators. Imagine what would happen if an abortion clinic had been blocked like that?

Liberal Democracy and Fiscal Rules

2008-03-28T15:26:00.000-07:00

Part of my paper on Fiscal Rules for the class Macroeconomic Policy and Financial Markets.
5. Liberal Democracy:
There seems to me to be some broader questions that I must raise in the context of the ideas and concepts we have learned in class. I first start with a “Key Point” from the book “Macroeconomics: Understanding the Wealth of Nations”.

“It may seem strange for governments to hand such an important policy instrument over to an unelected group of officials and ask them to target only inflation. However, our analysis shows that the fact the central bankers are unelected and do not have a policy goal of achieving low unemployment is crucial in achieving better outcome for society.” (Miles & Scott, Ch. 16, Page 428, Ref 2a)

While this passage directly talks about the monetary branch of government, it is conceivable that these same valid points could be used to justify Fiscal Rules as shown by Buiter in “Fiscal rules in a monetary union…” (Ref. 3, Page 2); The IMF in promoting coordination of Monetary and Fiscal Policies where if one arm is independent and it coordinates with the less independent then independence must be broken from the legislative/executive branches to at least some degree (Ref. 4); and lastly The HM Treasury paper on Fiscal Stabilization (Ref. 5).

So the question that arises for me is whether strict rules based application of monetary and then fiscal policies could undermine the Liberal Democracies (Ref. 11) that much of the world is based on including most of the developed countries. This unelected group of officials for better or worse have created and fostered an atmosphere of conspiracy about the Federal Reserve System being “owned by the banking system” from both the left and right on the political spectrum.

The IMF has learned that no matter how knowledgeable the staff is about the problems facing member states, that at some point more conditionalities only lead to less compliance rather than more. Buira poses two important questions:
1. “Can program ownership by a country be made compatible with externally imposed conditionality?”
2. “Is conditionality compatible with democracy?”
The East Asian Crisis marked the high mark of conditionality with Indonesia receiving 140. Since that time other policies have been implemented by the IMF including Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers where applying member countries must develop their own strategies for dealing with poverty and receive input from all parties (Ref. 9, page 57)

Kaipur and Naim also note the change in the IMF by emphasizing “ownership” in various lending facilities and tie in between good governance and development of democratic institutions that create good economic growth. They also make an important point in: “Of greatest concern, perhaps, is the inherent tension between conditions imposed by an outside lender and the cardinal democratic principle of consent. By their very nature, IMF conditions arise not from debate and discussion within a society, but come rather from unelected foreign experts.” (Ref. 10, page 91)

C225 Session One 2008
Assignment Two
by: Ronald Rutherford
References and Footnotes

References:
1. CeFiMS Course Book, Macroeconomic Policy & Financial Markets-C225, Product 4157
a.

2. Miles David and Andrew Scott (2005) Macroeconomics: Understanding the Wealth
of Nations, Second Edition New York: Wiley.
a. Chapter 16, Page 428

3. Willem Buiter (2003), ‘How to Reform the Stability and Growth Pact’, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

4. E Laurens & BG de la Piedra (1998) ‘Coordination Of Monetary & Fiscal Policies’, IMF Working Paper WP/98/25.

5. HM Treasury (2003), ‘Fiscal Stabilisation and EMU’.

6. Carl Emmerson, Chris Frayne and Sarah Love (2001, Updated 2006), “The government’s fiscal rules”, http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn16.pdf

7. Public Sector Finances first release (monthly), 20th February 2008 (January Data), provided by Sharone Karagach in class discussions.

8. G Sterne, ‘The use of explicit targets for monetary policy: practical experiences
of 91 economies in the 1990s’. Bank of England Quarterly Bulletin, August 1999, Vol 39, No 3. http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/qb/qb990302.pdf

9. Ariel Buira, (2005) “Challenges to the World Bank and IMF”, Chapter 3, “An Analysis of IMF Conditionality”, Anthem Press

10. Devesh Kapur and Moisés Naím, (2005), “The IMF and Democratic Governance”, Journal of Democracy, Volume 16, Number 1.

11. Liberal democracy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_democracy

12. Fiscal policy in the UK: Index; http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/documents/uk_economy/fiscal_policy/ukecon_fisc_index.cfm

13. UK's Government should scrap fiscal rules - NIESR; http://www.forbes.com/afxnewslimited/feeds/afx/2008/01/31/afx4601307.html
http://www.lse.co.uk/politicsNews.asp?shareprice=&ArticleCode=kzrhp9jsj49iq1i&ArticleHeadline=UKs_Government_should_scrap_fiscal_rules__NIESR

14. UK's Darling stands by budget GDP forecast despite renewed market turmoil UPDATE, http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=6612481&subject=economic&action=article

15. Robert Peston, Taxpayer's £100bn Rock exposure, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2008/02/taxpayers_75bn_rock_exposure.html

16. U.K. government to nationalize Northern Rock, http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/uk-government-nationalize-northern-rock/story.aspx?guid=%7BB54FB0C9%2DFD45%2D4796%2D9FB0%2DDD042DA18612%7D&siteid=bnb

17. UK govt at risk of breaching sustainable investment rule in 2010-2011 - IFS, http://www.iii.co.uk/news/?type=afxnews&articleid=6600822&subject=economic&action=article

18. Old Lady urged to loosen purse strings, http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/mar/22/bankofenglandgovernor.economics

19. JOELLEN PERRY (January 28, 2008), “Bank of England Chief
Changes Tack in Crisis”, Wall Street Journal.

20. Speech by the Chief secretary to the Treasury, Paul Boateng MP, PFI Congress, (10 June 2003), http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/speeches/chiefsecspeeches/speech_cst_100603.cfm

21. Future, http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Future

Notes on the Economy|Part 2|Melissa...

2008-01-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

I think it is always important to note that when looking at one day's performance we should take it with a grain of salt until we can confirm its biasness towards the overall direction of the economy. That being said let us look at some news today:
British shares in worst fall since Sept. 11 attacks FTSE 100 index drops 323 points as miners and banks weigh

The U.K. FTSE 100 index (UK:UKX: news, chart, profile) declined 5.5%, or 323.5 points, to 5,578.20, led by financials including the Royal Bank of Scotland (UK:RBS: news, chart, profile) , which dropped 8.2%, and mining giant BHP Billiton (UK:BLT) which fell 8.7%.

I do note it is interesting that their market took the biggest dive on what happened in the USA more than even their 7/7 and airline threats. It was also noted that other European Markets were down sharply with Economic fears cuff Asia; India, Hong Kong slide Recession fears spark heavy selling; Japan, China, South Korea also slump. And from the last link this interesting quote:

"The decoupling between the U.S. and Asian economies is still in progress. Though the U.S. growth rate has been declining, the growth of exports from Asia is steadily growing in double digits," said Yuihama.

I hear people talk about this supposed decoupling but we live in a global economy now and it is unlikely that any of the actors are going to suddenly be isolationist or enact autarkic policies as Jagdish explains how they fail miserably on all counts. If it worked then Cuba and North Korea would be the richest countries in the world. But I should still try to find out the exact way that some people are using this phrase and I am sure it is different than the common misperception of it is. Which brings me to a conversation that Loganthor and Melissa are having at Thom's.
Melissa:

Looks like the Europeans are NOT too impressed with Bush's tax package either.

Loganthor:

Not that I care what they think.

Just out of curiosity.... anybody in UK have any plan of their own on how to fix the US economy?

Melissa:

Why would they care about fixing the US economy in the UK, they have their own problems.

I believe what is happening in the UK, is that they are trying to remove themselves from US association, and move more towards stronger European unity. My own feeling is, is that they are not too far off from converting to the euro, of course that will be the kiss of death for the USD.

(Boy, I miss Ron, he could add so much to this conversation.)

If we are too stupid to figure it out ourselves, than I dare say we deserve the economic mess we are in.

Watch the US markets tomorrow, should be interesting (glad I don't have anything in this market at the moment).

Thanks Melissa for the kind words, but maybe this is for the better. I got tired of ren's BS and living under different set of rules. Now I no longer have to abide by rule 10 or any rule for that matter that the fascist Thom can devise.

As far as being impressed, we in the USA are not here to impress them. We have to do what is prudent in what we do. The US was just criticized for lowering interest rates that could lead to the exchange rate going against the US dollar and increasing inflation in the US. So like usual we will not be able to satisfy the naysayers or nihilists. But as I noted before in Random Notes on the Economy, I like the use of fiscal stimulus and monetary policy working together to avert a possible recession. It must be noted that Fiscal Policy has lost much of its ability to control the economy since of a more open economy now, but it would be good that both economic arms of the Government work in the same direction. But maybe this is not enough considering that we are probably constrained since we have gone to the well too many times and ran up too much of a bill to continue to only use Fiscal stimulus to an economy without also using the brakes when it is needed also. (Meaning raising taxes or revenues when the economy becomes overheated-especially with respect to sectors.)

But I can say without a doubt the EU and UK is concerned about the US economy and they have followed these goals for a long time. Including in 1987 when the US dollar fell by 40% (85-86), Europe quickly stepped in and with various nations prevented further declines.

Lastly, I am not sure why Melissa does not understand certain things that I have emphasized to her but she still holds some views about currencies that run against any knowledge of the subject. Even if the UK adopts the Euro it will really mean not much to the US Dollar. Maybe a slight reduction of reserves of dollars since they can rely more heavily on the central banks of Europe to overcome any shortfall in currencies. But this process of adopting the Euro is not just a flick of the switch and nothing has even hinted they are ready to have a hard peg to the Euro anytime soon. I already had linked to creation of monetary unions on my final exam.

Ultimately, yes Tuesday could be an interesting day in the market. But we do have another round of worldwide markets before the US opens up tomorrow morning. And another thread at Thom's is a link to the Canadian news talking about the Canadian market in: TSX plunges more than 600 points.

Weighing on the benchmark Canadian stock index on Monday was a big drop in the price of oil. The price for light sweet crude oil for February delivery was down $1.95 US a barrel at $88.62 US a barrel.

Gold prices also plunged $19.50 to $862.20 US an ounce.

Well what may be bad for Canadians may actually be good for the USA. And on a positive note, if the USA slows down growth then I guess we will be consuming less hydro-carbons.

Anyway, take care Melissa. I did want to ask if you are going to own a home in London or rent?
Misc:
U.S. jobless rate jumps to 5% as payrolls grow 18,000

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - The unemployment rate shot up to 5% in December as job growth stalled, a sign that the U.S. economic slump has spread to the labor market. U.S. seasonally adjusted nonfarm payrolls rose by 18,000 in December, the weakest job growth since August 2003, according to a survey of thousands of businesses. Job growth was revised up by a total of 10,000 in November and October. Economists were expecting payrolls to increase about 58,000 in December. Private-sector payrolls fell by 13,000, the biggest decline in more than four years. A separate survey of households showed employment plunging by 436,000, marking the biggest decline in five years. The number of unemployed adults rose by 474,000, pushing the unemployment rate up to 5.0% from 4.7%.

Jobless rate jumps to 5% as payroll growth stalls December nonfarm payrolls rise 18,000, weakest gain in more than four years

Flipped out Even as teens shun work force, job opportunities await

We're on the brink of apocalypse! Again!

2008-01-08T12:06:00.000-08:00

The title link starts out with:

The Puritanical roots of our fatalism and anxiety over American exceptionalism.

The sky is falling! The end is near!

Just in time for the Christmas season, Pat Buchanan has published yet another jeremiad warning that America is about to go belly up. You'd think that the American public would get tired of the unrelenting gloominess of the far right and left. But you'd be wrong. Already the book is climbing up the bestseller lists, giving us further proof that, despite our collective obsession with living the good life, we Americans love the sweet rush of anxiety. Maybe it's just the antidote for our apathy.

This is just to note that Pat Buchanan was mentioned in this article on the USA naval gazing and that it can occur on the right as easily as the left. I also wanted to note the following passage for thinking that American Exceptionalism is less to do with pride but with a deep sense of obligation to help others.

That meant they had a high standard to live up to. If they pleased the Lord, the Almighty would bless them. But if they did not, Winthrop cautioned, "We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of this good land." In other words, when Winthrop spoke of the new colony as "a city upon a hill," he saw its exceptionalism as less a boast than a warning.

And one more passage:

At its best, says Mckenna, the Puritan tradition of anxious providentialism has inspired the likes of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to improve the nation. King proclaimed that African Americans would win their freedom "because the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of God are embodied in our echoing demands." But anxious providentialism can also devolve into self-indulgent cynicism, the kind that not only does not inspire but kills the very impulse to make the world better.

The same is true for the jeremiad. From the Puritans on, it has been used to exhort Americans to step up and fulfill their "errand into the wilderness" (in the words of another Puritan preacher). As one scholar put it, we experience a process of "liberation through lamentation." But since the late 1960s and the demoralizing effects of the Vietnam War, too many jeremiads have held out too little hope, abandoning the promise inherent in the Puritans' covenant -- the possibility of redemption. In these works, a new "reverse exceptionalism" has emerged, with critics portraying the United States as exceptionally bad, not exceptionally blessed. Although it's easy to identify the origins of the post-modern jeremiad in the New Left, a generation later, plenty of disgruntled right-wingers employ the same grim, apocalyptic rhetoric.

For myself, I grew up in a strong Christian background that while saying we are all sinners we can get redemption and have an obligation to help others in need. I became interested in politics as the morass of the Carter Administration was winding down and that Ronald Reagan presented a new image of a USA that was fighting for the freedoms of others around the world. Around this time we also learned about the complete failures of the last two tries at the Marxist utopia in China and Cambodia. When you count the victims by millions, then when someone mentions Pinochet, I just laugh to myself. Pinochet was an authoritarian regime and may have caused the death of 10,000 in 17 years. As compared to S21 where 17,000 died in one "re-education" camp where about a dozen that went there lived.

Anyway back to my apocalyptic views by looking at what Pat Buchanan has written recently. As in Is World War III on Hold? While the title is noteworthy, he basically discusses the issues without to much gloom and doom scenarios. As noted earlier he did mention about the sinking currency as in: Sinking Currency, Sinking Country.

Have gold, silver, oil, the euro, the pound and the Canadian dollar all suddenly soared in value in just a few years?

Nope. The dollar has plummeted in value, more so in Bush's term than during any comparable period of U.S. history. Indeed, Bush is presiding over a worldwide abandonment of the American dollar.

Is it all Bush's fault? Nope.

Actually he is wrong, the Dollar fell 40% in two years from 1985-1987 and no one seems to even remember that time. Not abandonment but more of a rewinding of excess reserves by some countries. We let our currency freely float but other countries find it in their interest to 'hoard' US Dollars to stimulate exports to the USA. Who we should blame is them and not some self-flagellation exercise.

A sinking dollar means a poorer nation, and a sinking currency has historically been the mark of a sinking country. And a superpower with a sinking currency is a contradiction in terms.

How can "living with in our means" be such a bad thing? And how can the stimuli we need to balance our trade imbalance is so bad. This will encourage exports and discourage imports. Thus get closer to balancing the trade balance.

The Chinese, whose currency is tied to the dollar, and Japan will continue, as long as they can, to keep their currencies low against the dollar. For the Asians think long term, and their goals are strategic.

Exactly as I stated above, but what solution does Pat provide? The rest of Buchanan's article is along the line of apocalypse.

And what does Pat Buchanan think of Apocalypse Now?

The scaremongers are not always wrong. The Trojans should have listened to Cassandra. But history shows that the scaremongers are usually wrong.

Parson Malthus predicted mass starvation 250 years ago, as the population was growing geometrically, doubling each generation, while agricultural production was going arithmetically, by 2 percent or so a year. But today, with perhaps 1 percent of our population in full-time food production, we are the best-fed and fattest 300 million people on Earth.

Karl Marx was proven dead wrong about the immiseration of the masses under capitalism and the coming revolution in the industrial West, though they still have hopes at Harvard.

All true enough Pat, but then why do you preach the words of apocalypse too? Maybe us Americans can only understand (or even listen) when people talk in apocalyptic mannerisms. As far as myself, I agree with Pat Buchanan, that even when Pat is talking in apocalyptic terms to take him with a grain of salt. LOL...

Links:
We're on the brink of apocalypse! Again!

Cleverly Firing Back at Atheism

Thom Hartmann is a Dweeb-or in his words:Has the Rise of Conservatives in Media and Politics Over the Past 26 Years Led to a Police State in America?

2008-01-08T01:07:00.000-08:00

This has to be the most preposterous question ever:Has the Rise of Conservatives in Media and Politics Over the Past 26 Years Led to a Police State in America? Yes our pied piper of the left wing wackos is framing the USA as a Fascist/Police State without even a hint of irony that maybe more of his "facts" come from such liberal strongholds of the country. But we already know that his rose colored glasses only see that conservatives are the ones that want to promote Fascism when in fact Fascism is a theory deriving from and sustained on Socialist Principles. Anyway let us look at his proofs:

...And was Carol Anne Gotbaum a Victim of That? The daughter-in-law of one of New York's top officials yelled, "I'm not a terrorist!" and apparently fought with security and police in the Phoenix Airport before being wrestled to the floor and handcuffed. She was then shackled to a table in a holding tank and left alone. She died while seven police officers sat in their security office nearby.

Ok, so we have a lady screaming in a public place about terrorism, that could lead to panic and could be a diversion for a terrorist plot was subdued and held in detention. Nothing seems wrong with that. It looks like no one wanted to be her baby sitter after her public tantrum.

A student of color in LA had her wrist broke by a school security officer after not cleaning up dropped birthday cake to the his satisfaction. During the attack he called her a nappy head. This 16 year old girl was expelled and arrested for littering and battery. But wait.there's more -- when her mom went to the school to complain of the girls treatment and demand the security officer be arrested -- she was arrested and suspended from her job with the school district. The assault was caught on the cell phone of students nearby.

And Thom see no irony that he not only used the source InfoWars.net for his primary source from Alex Jones but the videos were taken from Fox News!!! PrisonPlanet and InforWars are extreme Libertarian wackos and for Thom to attack Libertarians that are actually reasonable and then to take to word of the wackos makes me wonder if he even considered his sources of information?

A UCLA student was tasered by police without cause for studying in the university library without having his ID. Following Police orders to leave, the police tasered him while he was walking towards the door.

So at a "Liberal College" in a liberal town we have security guards that used too much force to enforce the regulations. The UC system is already noted for any liberal cause being good to protest on campus already as we saw in More Crazies at UCSB.

Para-style raids on homes have a 1300 percent increase over the last 25 years. The total annual arrests jumped from 3.3 million in 1960 to 14 million in 2004.

I don't see the second sentence in the article but I guess if the technique is working then we would expect that yes more criminals are rounded up. I did think the following needed highlighted:

Cato has released Balko’s new paper, Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America, which tells some of the stories of the innocent people whose homes were raided, and who lost their lives, to this new form of terrorism. It also documents over 150 examples of botched police raids.

So 150 "botched" raids vs. 14 million arrests. While I agree that the "War on Drugs" is another war that was never won or can be won. But that none of this indicates a Police State only that the laws are being enforced by our police and some security guards. So if we are afraid of a Police State forming then Legalize drugs and allocate our Law enforcement resources in more productive uses.

Police officer and security officers should learn how to restrain people in non-violent ways and train for dealing with citizens as human beings? Are we all becoming potential terrorists in the eyes of security and the police? Is authority making this clear with warrant less wiretapping our email, mail and a militarized police department?

Yes, and that Thom is just silly since they are using less than deadly force when encountering potential troublemakers. I would also point out that must be liberal idea to make statements as questions to somehow suggest that they are only asking a question when the question was already answered in their head. Also note that the government does not wiretap emails or mail and even when it was wiretapping it was not recording whole conversations only select words and patterns of calling. Much of the information that the government is now using is readily available through the market so is it really a question of Privacy?

Meantime a local middle school in Oak Park, Illinois has banned hugging -- calling the school a hug-free zone. The Principal says rampant hugging in creating bottlenecks in the hallway and making kids late for class.

Well what type of community is Oak Park, Illinois:

Oak Park has a long history of encouraging and maintaining racial and ethnic diversity, much of which was started in conjunction with the 1966 Chicago Open Housing Movement. The village operates a Diversity Assurance Program within its housing programs department to ensure a stable, diverse, and integrated population. Years ago, Oak Park eliminated the use of "For Sale" signs in front of houses, widely considered one of the keys of success to maintaining the high diversity.

Yes a solid Blue Stater with police problems? Funny that. But the story gets more interesting (note that the link to Chicago Times is no longer valid and this comes from Hugging Banned in the Hallways of an Illinois Middle School):

Hugging is now off limits at an Oak Park middle school.

The new policy went into effect at Percy Julian Middle School last month because of administrators’ concerns that so-called “hug lines” in the hallways were making students late for class and causing bottlenecks in the halls, according to WBBM-Channel 2.

Percy Julian Principal Victoria Sharts told the station hugging is “more appropriate for airports or for family reunions than passing and seeing each other every few minutes in the halls.”

Sharts also said some hugs between students were “too long, too close and usually between boys and girls.”

The school’s 860 students are not allowed to hug anywhere inside the building.

OK, so they may be late for school but also note the innuendo on sexual harassment issues. Yes our Liberal doctrine of sexual harassment must be stopped everywhere except when it is a President that you like does it...

Lastly this link at Just say “no” to hugs? explains the issues fairly well.

Let's talk about being a "we" society again where all people are valued and get our police and security officers trained appropriately.

Sorry but this is six-sigma thinking and not reality. Thom Hartmann has not shown any systemic failure of the system or even a pattern to this "crisis" but just a group of random events to spell out a vacuous philosophy of "train" more of the people. I am sure the people that have these jobs already have enough diversity training to last a lifetime without Thom giving them more. What we have is just 3 simple events that got out of hand out of a population of 300 million. Seems like a spectacularly low incident rate that I feel extremely comfortable saying the USA is not a police state from that article. But there is still a question of whether Thom Hartmann is a fascist? All this talk about "we" and them cons then maybe he is promoting Fascism? (Yes I could not resist a couple of question marks.)
Links:
A New Yorker’s Puzzling Death in the Phoenix Airport

Community responds to Taser use in Powell

Police SWAT raids: The new domestic terrorism?

Yes, it is official. Ron Paul is a Dweeb.

2008-01-07T15:19:00.000-08:00

Just a note for all those out there that may think this is me at: My name is Ronald Rutherford. SR. But that is not me or any relation (as far as I know).

Ok now on to another Ron (i.e. Ron Paul). Maggie's Farm Blog always has some real interesting posts and

Hello Ron Paul! was no exception.

Now, young persons and people in rent-controlled apartments that work at fair trade coffee shops can afford the luxury of talking about whether the American Civil War was a good idea. If you just got out of college, Ron Paul! is right up your alley. Why talk about today's silly problems when Ron Paul! is arguing about whether we should abolish the Second Bank of The US? It's so much more lively to talk about history, because it's on the shelf and you can find any damn version of it you want to argue over. Real time isn't indexed yet.

What really amazes me is to somehow think our founding fathers could possibly have been geniuses at Economics. Political Science we could argue has not had a basic need to change since humans are basically the same. International Relations is different in the fact we now have so many different entities that of course IR should change with the times, and thus how we deal with the world must change also.

BUT, to think that any person let alone an "Economist" could possibly understand everything that is needed to know in the field of economics is silly at best and down right foolish in normal times. You would not expect to take the same advise from your doctor from the 1700s. Now economist have a lot more 'data' and knowledge of what works and what does not. One is having a central bank. Of course for some countries they almost are better without one (Zimbabwe), but it must tell you something when 184 nations of the world has decided to create Fiat Money and some gold standard that always ended in failure. And to show a little more taste of MF writing:

So Ron Paul! excites youth because they really don't think they have anything at stake yet in the affairs of the world. And he attracts the survivalist nuts who have already gone to the bunker, and desire someone to give the imprimatur of sanity to their decision to drink their own urine, hoard Kruggerands, and eat Spam underground already. The Pat Buchananites love anyone who says: Things used to be swell but now they suck. And conventional Conservatives, ashamed to call themselves that because the hip kids will photoshop them in Brownshirts or in a bathroom stall with Larry Craig, call themselves Libertarians for cover and adore Ron Paul! because he says over and over again that he's not interested in doing the one thing Libertarians hate: governing. So he's got the idealistic college kids, the country club anarchists, and the nuts. Who's that help?

Luckily I have not had any:Vote Spam for President in 2008 as of yet. But seeing how his supporters seem to be from the fringe of society, I suspect that what is said is correct.

Although the Ron Paul spam barrage does use a botnet, it makes no attempt to lure a clicker into downloading a file or viewing a malware-laced website. It has Ron Paul campaign leaders suspecting that the entire parade of emails were crafted by an "overzealous and well-intentioned Ron Paul supporter".

Powerline presents Better numbers for Ron Paul.

I have two responses. First, Paul has been a highly visible presence in this race for some time and does not do well in the polls. Even in New Hampshire (the "Live Free or Die" state), the Real Clear Politics average has him at 3.6 percent. In Rasmussen's poll, he's at 2 percent. One poll, by St. Anselm's college, shows him with 7 percent. That looks like an outlier, but let's assume instead that it's evidence of a trend others have missed -- 7 percent isn't going to get much done. In short, Ron Paul is not a serious force at this juncture, and there's no reason why the fact that 40,000 people saw fit to give him money should cause the rest of the population to give him a second (or a first) look.

Although this is a little old as far as campaigns, it still brought up some important facts. It looks like a fight between Giuliani and Ron Paul around the 10-11% polling according to GOP Outsider Ron Paul Dogs Giuliani in N.H. Race. I thought the following passage was funny also:

Speaking at the house party, he kept a positive message, although he did manage to get a dig in at Mr. Paul. Asked about his possible Cabinet, Mr. Giuliani cited President Lincoln, who named party rivals as his top advisers. He then joked that his Cabinet could comprise all of the Republicans on the debate stage Saturday night, "maybe with one exception." The crowd laughed, though it was initially unclear whether he was referring to Mr. Paul or Mr. Romney, who was roundly criticized at the debate. He later acknowledged it was Mr. Paul, citing his "isolationist" foreign policy views.

And one last comment from Powerline:

The only other seriously distinguishing feature of the campaign is that it's nutty. Being anti-war is respectable, but Paul's opposition to the war is founded on conspiracy theories, over-the-top isolationism, and an unhealthy dose of hostility to Israel. Paul's opposition to big government is not a distinguishing feature. There are plenty of other Republican candidates this cycle who embrace small government conservatism. Again, the only only distinguishing feature of Paul's small government platform is its nuttiness -- the gold standard, the Federal Reserve conspiracy stuff, etc.

One question that seems to be raised when talking about Ron Paul is whether he plans on becoming a spoiler in the race. As in:
Could Ron Paul Be the Ralph Nader of 2008?

At the same time, it seems to surprise many that Paul’s undeniable grassroots effectiveness hasn’t translated to a showing either in national or state polls. That’s surely due to the fact that many if not most of those who are sending money to Paul are not, in fact, Republicans. They are more plausibly among the 3 million or so who voted for Ralph Nader on the Green Party line in 2000, or even among those who rained money down on Howard Dean in the summer of 2003.

Which brings to mind an interesting scenario for 2008: Could Ron Paul run an independent candidacy for president in 2008 on a libertarian/anti-war/anti-monetarist platform? At this moment, it seems plausible, especially if the Democratic party nominates Hillary Clinton, who is bizarrely considered a neocon hawk by the Left netroots.

And despite Paul’s nominal standing as a Republican — and it is nominal — wouldn’t his candidacy draw more from disaffected Democrats, as liberal Republican John Anderson’s 1980 third-party candidacy pulled voters away from Jimmy Carter and not from Ronald Reagan?

I think the first paragraph is pure speculation, although the anti-war crowd is the most vocal group out there now. I also discussed this with my parents that Ron Paul could get more support from the left-depending on who the Dems nominate. So that scenario seems plausible but still low a low chance. But I suspect that Ron Paul's decisions will rest mostly with monetary considerations to run as an independent. If he still has money or can raise some good money from his net-roots campaigns then I see it as a good possibility. And what does Ron Paul say in Paul Won't Rule Out Run as Independent:

Paul said that while the chance of his running as an independent was slim, "I deserve one wiggle now and then." He ran for president as the Libertarian Party candidate in 1988.

Another interesting item from that article is:

Paul said he was convinced that Israel and many neoconservatives in the United States would like to commence bombing on Iran. He repeated his argument that a major reason for Islamic terrorism against the United States was the country's high-profile presence around the world, including in Saudi Arabia.

The exact quote is not mentioned in the article but how does he propose lowering our profile? Stop the export of our products and services that may offend them. I specifically mean our entertainment industry. Even if we were to stop our export of cultural products, it would not stop the spread of them just like it does not stop the Chinese from black marketing those same products. So I reject his idea that "they" are over here since "we" are over there. We will always be in every part of this globalized world. Just as most countries are co-mingled with most other countries.

It was mentioned in an earlier article about Paul Defends Asking for Special Projects.

"I put them in because I represent people who are asking for some of their money back," said Paul, who likened it to taking a tax credit. "I'm against the tax system, but I take all my tax credits. I want to get their money back for the people."

The 10-term congressman and longshot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination added that although he has requested special projects known as earmarks, he ultimately ends up voting against them in the House. Paul is known in Congress as "Dr. No" for his votes against some types of government spending, including a medal for Pope John Paul II and civil rights leader Rosa Parks because of the cost to taxpayers.

I understand his reasoning for such actions, but does it make it morally right his actions? I question those but can not say that it limits me from voting for such a candidate in this regard. But then this got me to thinking about how he promotes himself in his district. Like does he give up the campaigning of bringing the largesse of Government to his constituents? Looking at his RonPaulforCongress site at Dr. Ron Paul... Working For Us! gives me a clue to what type of policies he considers 'fair'. In nearly every policy stance he is some way or another giving tax credits or breaks. So in his world not taxing some groups is OK. Ultimately he seems to support the bathtub theory that if we collect less revenue then Government would shrink, but that seemed to never work as well as planned. So in essence he also is promoting deficit spending, unless he also proposes a counter proposal that has tax increases for someone else.

Of course the wacky left has to 'dig' up the dirt to discredit him since he is not "anointed" by them as in: Ron Paul, In His Own Words. I seriously take this with a grain of salt.

I did happen to see that MPAC-UK posted a video of Ron Paul from the Fox News Channel.[American Muslims Remain Non Political As Zionists Attack Ron Paul] This video has the above phrase of they are over here since we are over there. LOL, the irony. It was presented without comment so the comments was more interesting.

marc:
mpacuk could teach CAIR a thing or two..recent high profile trials involving CAIR in the US have shown them to be everything they claim to despise..america is as split racially today as ever and people have lost confidence in politics,,BTW CAIR doesnt have much respect in the US among non muslims..keep up the good work mpacuk
-----------------------
you muppet:
CAIR are the american version of the MCB, a high level top end organisation but no real vision of changing the situation at the grass roots.

And lastly I end with the article entitled: Ron Paul's "noninterventionism" fraud.

Dr. Paul's libertarian prescription? If only we'd stop meddling in the "internal affairs" of other nations and bring our troops home, the world would be a better, safer, healthier place. Al Qaeda and other terrorists, having no further reasons to hate us, would either become peaceful or aim their aggressions elsewhere.

Now, I'd like to point out an interesting parallel between this common libertarian view of America's foreign enemies, and the common liberal view of America's domestic criminals.

In his debate clip earlier he talked about the need to "talk to our enemies" to find out what they want-to understand them. Then what? Subject ourselves to Sharia Law.

The author gives a good and quick account of what happened with the Shah of Iran situation in 1953 and then goes on to say:

The manipulative use, by Paul and too many libertarians, of vague, undefined smear terms such as "interventionist" and "neocon" permits them to blame the U.S. government for virtually anything it does in our legitimate, long-term self-defense, anywhere in the world. Actions to thwart coercive threats, such as forging defensive alliances, are "interventionism." Helping other nations counter a growing peril from a declared U.S. enemy nation (Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Iran, etc.) is "interventionism." Sometimes, even trading with adversaries of dictatorial regimes (e.g., trading with Taiwan, an enemy of China) is "interventionism."

A point I have continually made, that is that what we simply consider trading or doing 'business' others could consider interventionism including some of our own citizens.

The only "moral" alternative they imply, therefore, is a de facto, hunkered-down pacifism: a steady retreat by the U.S. from any interactions in the world -- lest we diss some backwater bully, cross his arbitrarily declared boundary lines, offend him for his subjective notions of religious or cultural blasphemy, or thwart his laughable claims of "national sovereignty."

Part of the sloppy thinking at the root of "noninterventionist" lunacy is the tacit equation of individual rights with "national sovereignty" -- and also the equation of "economic interventionism" (against peaceful individuals) with "political interventionism" (against despotic regimes). Philosophically, these twin equations are completely bogus.

And the rest of the article is well worth a read...

To paraphrase an old joke, then:

Ron Paul is my second choice for President.

My first choice is anybody else.

P.S.: My favorite Libertarian Supporter of Ron Paul has gotten the urge to label a post: [url=http://republicanrenaissance.blogspot.com/2008/01/apocalypse-soon.html]Apocalypse Soon[/url]. Well not really soon but something that will affect our society in over 30 years. Which is the demographic shift our society is expected to go through unless we change something like our birth rate or death rate (increases) or we allow more immigration. Sure we could tinker with the system and ideally the tax burden for paying for the IOUs from the Social Security would come from the general funds. But that can only be stretched so far before young people balk at that and even immigrants will no longer desire to come to the USA.

But Ron Paul is still a dweeb...

PS (2-28-08): Ron Paul Confused About the Truth. Again. Once a person is consumed by paranoid logic then truths become fluid. Not to say I am perfect but sometimes you have to go back to the facts and re-evaluate the situation in an objective light.

Links:
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) Introduces the American Freedom Agenda Act of 2007!

Will Ron Paul Raise Most Money In Q4?

Paul Won't Rule Out Run as Independent

Paul Defends Asking for Special Projects

American Muslims Remain Non Political As Zionists Attack Ron Paul

Ron Paul, In His Own Words

Ron Paul's "noninterventionism" fraud

Ron Paul: The Racist, Sexist Homophobe 'Libertarian'?

Dr. No Apparently Says "No" to the Theory of Evolution-Video

Exclusive: Ron Paul Responds To New Republic Story

Not Anti-Americanism but American Nihilism

2008-01-04T13:22:00.000-08:00

Slab wrote:
QUOTE:
QUOTE:
Grandpa Charlie wrote:
Better yet, I'd like to see a roll-back (in political consciousness) to where we would have been if the voters had never abandoned Carter in 1980.

Was the Carter Presidency good for the country?
I never thought so.

As I read it, Grandpa Charlie said: I'd like to see a roll-back (in political consciousness) to where we would have been if the voters had never abandoned Carter in 1980.

I therefore read that as he's talking about political consciousness, not Carter himself.

The political consciousness involved concepts like growing awareness of integral needs for:

1. environmental protection, managed by "us," not by the neoliberal magic marketplace that we now call the "Reagan Revolution," which has put us up against the edge of a cliff now, with a long fall and tremendous potential for social disruption in the short term (what's happening in the Middle East is the tip of it), since we abandoned any semblance of long term thinking as fast as possible once that consciousness itself was replaced by the smiling mask of the magic marketplace.

2. A societal "us" investing in a long term project to develop energy self sufficiency with increasing investment in renewable technologies like solar power, tidal hydrological power and a variety of other options, with investment incentives implemented through government oversights that at least have a potential to look long term, where the magic market tends to be by nature reactive and competitively short term instead of proactive, investing for the good of society, which would of course be for the good of the market, but that's not built into the dynamics.

That consciousness would have involved some major transformations over the next couple of decades in the way our present infrastructure looks today, had it played out. The transformation would probably have begun to look much more like what will eventually come to be, as the energy prices continue to soar, and as the reality of Peak Oil that is beginning to emerge finally sets in. The US could have been decades ahead of the rest of the world.

Where, in my opinion, Carter failed both the country and the political consciousness of the time, was after he listened to his National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was obsessively focused on the Cold War then, and who managed to convince Carter that the Middle East was the most important geostrategic region for the future of the United States, because of the interest the Soviets who were also directing their foreign policies to the region. With the overthrow of the US friendly Shah of Iran in 1979, and the invasion of Afghanistan by the Soviets, in a years time an alarmed Carter went from an emphasis on the above progressive environmental and renewable energy oriented programs to a focus on the Middle East. The political disruption in the Democratic party itself came out when Kennedy challenged Carter for the nomination, and Brzezinski became a controversial figure.

I think political consciousness in the country was at a turning point during the Carter Administration. Carter failed in his last years to allow that consciousness develop to a fruition that could have taken the US to a very different energy independent place now, as I see it, and Brzezinski was a focal point for that failure. A major party rift developed over him during the primaries as I remember it.

I will concede that Brzezinski is a brilliant geostrategic political "realist" but his ideas are not compatible with mine.
...
Slab wrote:

QUOTE:
Ren,

I recall the consciousness after the early 70's oil fiasco resulting in gas shortages.
With that, I can understand the lure of easy supply from the middle east and our countries decisions to stop building oil refineries.
Not sure to what consciousness you are referring to. If it is the mandate of better fuel milage brought on by the oil shortage or any attempts to use alternate fuels.
I was reading about the auto industry and the new era cars (2000+) put out 97% less polutants than the cars from the 70's.
If that is part of the consciousness, it seems we are heading in the right direction.

I look at the mid 70's misery index and it's affect on our country.
Times are better now IMO.
We could free ourselves from mid eastern dependency by providing for ourselves and conservation.

I returned from Vietnam in 1970, and went back to college. I did what amounted to a second minor in ecology over an undergraduate career that I stretched out for five years, because I kept discovering nearly every day there was so much I wanted to study.

I don't think I could possibly recreate, especially here on this board, the level of awareness that those of us who were awakening to environmentalism in the early 70's were envisioning. The systemic implications we were seeing were mind boggling to us, and would still be so for many today, only now it's been marginalized and vilified with some of the most carefully designed and pernicious propaganda of the last century, and so the thinking has become entrenched, and codified in many ways that predetermines the directions of creativity. Maybe that was always inevitable. I look at the nature of this society and I'm inclined to believe that.

Better mileage and cleaner emmissions for cars was a triviality in comparison; We were seeing a decentralized energy grid that would have virtually redesigned the entire infrastructure of the US into smaller regional modules. Some of this is taking place in Europe now, Germany has been working hard to develop a secondary energy system that feeds from renewable locales back into their grid, where independent producers get paid for their energy production.

A centralized energy grid is possible and even necessary to maintain for the fossil fuel distribution network, simply because it will make it as efficient as possible, due to the resource extraction and refinement process itself, and its inevitable ontology of technological creation related to it. Fossil fuel efficiency, therefore, creates the the potential for the opposite type of network of the renewables, which are by the nature of the renewable source creation technologies, situations where the localities have control of energy production and remove their dependency on hierarchically organized, centralized systems.

It would have taken planning and some sort of financial incentive the market doesn't provide to make a long term transformation take place. We saw that back then, Carter listened to some of the top people in the field and was moving in that direction. That all ended so abruptly I almost thought one day when I woke up in early 1980 that I'd imagined it all.

We are light years from that now with our systemic commitments, and the consciousness that was budding then was commodified by what followed in the 80s. That consciousness can only be found in marginalized sectors at the moment. That will, of course, change as the budding catastrophe of this poorly designed, unsustainable system becomes suddenly apparent one day, perhaps sooner than anyone wants to really imagine now. We had time then so we felt free to imagine. People are less prone to imagine when they are terrified, and terrified people have less problems slaughtering others when they have the means to do so. I'm guessing that's probably our plight now.

The planning to change what needs to be changed will involve a lot of years and time now, time that was being recognized and being thought about in the mid to late seventies. We might have been ready now, if we had started then. It's hard to say.

That planning had nothing to do with being stimulated by the US peak oil gas shortage in the early seventies. That peak oil situation was already recognized because fossil fuel was already recognized as a finite source of energy. That stimulative connection is more to politics and to the Carter administration and what it recognized as a political pressure point it needed to react to.

What was going on in the sciences -- in the halls of academia where these issues were suddenly on the table and where none of the corporate interests had yet figured out the need to intervene -- was really something entirely different. It was a moment of timely possibility, and it was fragile. It passed.

Vote for Change? Atrocity-Linked U.S. Officials Advising Democratic, GOP Presidential Frontrunners

Nihilism

Moral nihilism

Allan Nairn

War Whisperers

Allan Nairn page

Declaring Forever War

Allan Nairn's Statement to his Arresting Officers and the Public

To Melissa, with Love.

2008-01-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

It looks like the next ice age started in the UK as in Freezing weather hits parts of UK. Be sure to bundle up like this young person:

In Hull, Lee Platts' daughter Rachel enjoys her first snow

I also advise you to be careful being in close contact with other people as in Stomach bug outbreak worst in UK for five years.

"My advice for those affected is to stay at home, take paracetamol and drink plenty of fluids. You should also wash your hands regularly so you don't infect anyone else and stay at home two days after the symptoms have gone."
Norovirus is highly contagious but not usually dangerous. However, young children and frail elderly people are at risk of complications from dehydration and may require hospital treatment.
...
Outbreaks are common in hospitals, care homes, schools and nurseries, as well as on cruise ships.

Oh, boy that sounds lovely.

And lastly, I was shocked but not necessarily surprised that this practice has a presence in Britain UK: 66,000 women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation.

Have fun in London. ;)

CAFE Standards|Part 3|What has happned to the station wagon?

2008-01-03T13:03:00.000-08:00

Let me start with some deep thoughts:

Who decided that SUV's were better than the station wagon anyhow?
Why did the words on our bumper stickers change?

From even the framing of the questions we can see what the thinking process is for Kate. 'Who' indicates a conscious decision by an individual or a group that thought as one. Nothing was considered about the incentives that influence decisions for the individuals or corporations. Instead of a framework about personalities, economics thinks about the incentives/disincentives that do not control outcomes but change behaviors of individuals on the margins to alter outcomes in the aggregate. This is one reason I tend to avoid the idea of the "invisible hand of the market". It is not like this invisible hand just moves things around in the chess board, but more like it creates incentives for individuals and businesses to move their individual assets around the giant board called the 'economy'. Just as me and my wife found jobs in Alaska when the markets in Los Angeles was a little soft, thus we moved our human capital around till it gained the most benefits. I hear that Melissa and her husband are planning the same thing.

As far as Kate's second question, it is the most silly question I have read in a long time. A better question is do societies change? Duh!
Originally posted by TrishaB:

Why do Americans insist on having 50 different types of toilet paper to choose when wiping their butt and flushing trees down the toilet? HMMMMMMMM

Again, this is how the market works. If there is a demand for variety then I guess you get it. How many different brands and styles of table salt (iodized or non-iodized) is there in the grocery stores? I personally am glad that we have toilet paper around, as opposed to having to wash xxxx off your hands. Since many people do not wash hands after using the facilities, then I at least want TP for them to use. LOL.
Kate:I'm okay with compartmentalizing our conversations about SUV's and station wagons into a dedicated thread. I'd like to talk about something that has a commonality theme in it. I'm working real hard at being fair minded. All roads lead to world view, but I'm okay with staying away from essential world view stuff for a bit.

And, my brain thinks in connections, and sometimes those connections develop in the process of the conversation.I have no idea what the first paragraph was suppose to covey in the message, but was funny for her fuzzy thinking. It is good to have cooperative dialogue to explore the issues, but Kate's uses of 'connections' is basic binary thinking. After finding a connection she then assumes 100% connection without looking at the degree in the connection or a more analytical view. So instead of connections being an either or they should be thought at as a probability factor or some other scale from 100% control to very weak correlations. And finally someone to answer the original question:
Originally posted by Rachel:

The real reason station wagons have been replaces with minivans and SUVs has to do with laws requiring auto manufacturers to reduce gas mileage. The rules for average gas mileage over a line of vehicles depends on whether the vehicle is classified as a car or a truck. SUVs at least are classified as trucks according to those laws. What happened is that car manufacturers needed to sell fewer large cars. The market for large cars stayed around, so they replaced it with trucks.

This shouts out CAFE Standards and CAFE Standards II! Earlier Kate brought up some facts about SUVs and safety and now she states:

Rachel, I read somewhere that you can get a huge tax break for a Chevy Suburban, because of how much it weighs, like it weighs as much as a truck. But I don't think that tax break applies to mini-vans and the "regular" sized SUV's. Are you familiar with this angle?

At least Kate does find a very good article about the tax break from an unlikely (IMHO) source:

Yup, I found it, tax break for Suburbans ... BUT looks like it only applies to small business owners, who are pretty savvy at doing their taxes.

The Suburban tax break urban legend lies here.[Loophole Gives SUV Buyers a Tax Break]

But Kate misses the Gorilla in the room (CAFE Standards and CAFE Standards II). Why did her phrase need the qualifier: "who are pretty savvy at doing their taxes"? Any good business tax adviser should know about such breaks.
Originally posted by dk:

The only wagons available today are the few models from Volvo, Mercedes, BMW and Audi.

Which is a good indirect point about the Cafe Standards and European Manufactures. They would rather pay the fines than try to adhere to our standards. Another example of these policies not actually promoting less consumption. He also points out:

The SUV is nothing more than a luxury pickup truck with a cap on it. Most SUV's and Pickups are built on the same frame.

And what does Kate do with this new information?

How does this analysis apply to the exploding Pintos and Vegas? (rear-end collisions caused the carnage in many of these cases; even the most alert and careful driver would not have avoided the disaster)

Stuck more on the safety issue, which was never really an issue for most station wagons and it is pointed out below that neither one of these poorly designed vehicles (but over-hyped on the problems) was the station wagon versions. Even for a short time my parents had a Pinto Station Wagon but it was awful since the back seats were hard plastic. In between bringing up more about SUV safety, Kate states:

cool, Maureen. ... still paying my sedan off, ... wonder what our Congress is driving

I would bet my SUV gets better overall MPG than her Sedan. And more deep thoughts:

I enjoyed this thread. It helped put a lot of the world in perspective for me.

But finally a voice of reason and yes CAFE Standards imposed by Government.

Originally posted by faredman:
Kate:
Long time no see.
The disappearance of the wagon has to do primarily with CAFE standards. Station wagons are cars, built on car frames and subject to the CAFE standards for cars. SUV's are built on truck frames, and are subject to the much lower mileage requirements for work vehicles.

Auto makers foreign and domestic needed to raise the average economy of "cars", and so dumped the lowest-milage cars from their fleets. However, families still needed to seat 3 + kids, bring big bulky itmes home from the store, pack for vacations, and live through minor accidents. The result was car companies finding a loophole they could drive a truck through.

I love this story because it shows just how ineffective social engineering our way out of problems can be.

And I would agree with the social engineering part but try to be softer about such proactive phrases. And he follows up on someone else's comments:

Originally posted by faredman:
QUOTE:
Social engineering? Weren’t the main reasons for enacting CAFE standards reducing pollution and dependency on the foreign oil?

Social engineering is social engineering whether one agrees with the intended result or not. In the name of a very noble cause, CAFE standards amount to an attempt by government to get people (manufacturers AND buyers) to do something they were not otherwise predisposed to do; an attempt to reorder the behavior of the masses by force of law. Consumers continued demanding a product with certain capabilities and producers found a way to deliver it. All that changed was the shape of the 7-passenger gas-hog in most drveways.

And the gerbil can not hear the words or even acknowledge that maybe yes extreme social engineering caused the extinction of the station wagon.

I first got interested in these issues when I went down to Saturn over 10 years ago and asked to see what models of Station Wagons they had. The sales man kept saying negative things about the one green display model he had. And always an astute observer of what incentives there are this made me wonder about these issues. Ultimately I did not get that vehicle and ended up with a Grand Am that replaced a variety of small cars including my first car I paid for-a Honda Civic Station Wagon.

Just during my lunch break I also took a note of how many station wagons I could spot. Using this non-scientific method, I saw 7 station wagons with one brand and all others spotted was one. The brand was Volvo. Obviously they market to a certain segment and as such did not abandon their market.

One of the articles by PBS, I feel that I should have covered more was: Why is the sport utility vehicle so popular?
I think the article brought up some important points but thinking that the station wagon was the transformation process into the mini-van is sloppy thinking. First and most importantly it is called a van for a reason. During the late 60s and early 70s the normal van (for work or hauling large number of people) was transformed by the 'custom vans'. So the mini-vans in my opinion is a transformation of the basic van design and not the station wagon.

Congress, remember, passed legislation [Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards (CAFE), in 1975] that downsized cars. After the downsizing of cars, you ended up with a minivan. But then minivans were like extensions of station wagons. And people had this sense that they didn't want to be soccer moms. Young families didn't want to move kids only in those vehicles. ... Kids go to college every year, and they wanted something that was a little more sporty, a little more aggressive. And it expressed a sense of individuality. I think sport utility vehicles were almost like John Wayne vehicles. It was the excitement of discovery, the excitement of America, the rugged individual. ...

Links (PBS):
Why is the sport utility vehicle so popular?

[In the wake of Ford-Firestone] we have been talking about tires. But is this the scandal we should be talking about?

NHTSA and the hidden history of the SUV

Frontline/Rollovers/The Hidden History of the SUV

From Miles with love, or how Miles is a DWEEB! Pearlless

2008-01-01T14:29:00.000-08:00

Yes, yes, yes. Miles gives me homage again. My responses are in brackets and bolded.

I think the case can be made that, although not as direct as waterboarding, deliberate deafness and the wearing of blinders, both of which result in terrible administrative behavior, constitute a form of torture. [LOL. Lots of hyperbole to start with.]

Lawrence quote:
... Thanks... I thought as much... I just wasn't sure...
... carry on... Big Grin
[I do love the fact that it seems everyone is using the "Carry on..." phrase lately.]
But rest assured, Lawrence: he’s already back as Slacker. Among other socks.[Sorry to disappoint all those devoured by Paranoid logic or any number of sock puppets but no I am not Slacker. That was someone from the old Thom's that has not posted in a long while.]
And he warned those in charge. Here’s what I wrote earlier, and since this falls under the above angle on torture (and is apparently not appropriate for the actually appropriate thread (see above)), I might as well re-post it here [More hyperbole.]:
As to your questions of “why”, o liberal administators, beyond the downpayments on new SUVs and whatnot, the answers you are looking for are of a clinical nature. [You have to love the slam on SUVs.]
Please note that the “victory” of which is spoken is precisely the type of “victory” Loganthor, too, is claiming on one thread in particular: a complete lack of actual response, no consideration whatsoever of anybody’s arguments, a faked absolutist adherence to law, irresponsibility, unsubstantiated “argumentation”, projection, projection, projection, and a loud mouth with a rotten-teeth smile proclaiming this very “victory”. [Yes, exactly. Miles is projecting again. Whether it is the same 'type' of victory is another question, but for me I am talking about results. I have the victory for lasting longer and defending my position on many issues.]
Do not say you have not been warned. [Yes, indeed. That when you let Trolls run wild with little consequences then you have to live with it!]
Indeed, it is this simple. Why? Because everybody can. And they do.
The result, or rather, the entire practice of it is the Projecting Psychopath, who is, as ever, omnipresent[Indeed, again. Miles is the epitome of what trollish behavior is.]:

quote:
Victory is mine! I am the winner!
[by nameless banned one]

[The link to my complete post is at: Victory is mine! I am the winner!]

If I am not the winner, I am at least a wiener!

You’ll realize that his little screw-up in the account-hacking department, of which activity you will, of course, not find a mention in this open epistolary gem, must be made to seem intended. [Again, hate to disappoint all the losers at Thom's Forums but I did not hack any account. It is more likely to be someone hacked into my computer.]
In reality, the last phrase is a nicely Freudian oyster, pearlless, in the light of which you’ll kindly consider the absence of the possessive verb.[LOL. Possessive Verbs? I love it when a non-English speaking person tells others their English is bad when they themselves just make up words. Yeah: pearlless. I think I will leave it since I when checking out Answers.com the first entry under Google was:
RDRutherford: From Miles with love, or how Miles is a DWEEB!
In reality, the last phrase is a nicely Freudian oyster, pearlless, in the light
of which you’ll kindly consider the absence of the possessive verb. ...
rdrutherford.blogspot.com/2008/01/ from-miles-with-love-or-how-miles-is.html]

Notice the giveaways. Do not say you have not been warned. [Yes, notice them all and be afraid, be very afraid. Paranoid Logic...]

...
Miles again as Monk:

Oo, nice one. Unexpected, too. “LOL!” “Big Grin”

And voilà: all in a row, with-the-crow-crow-crowing of the same old type of victory again.
Troll, concern troll (RR), LOLBOT and MS, you know, “Let’s make it a nice year and pretend it’ll nicely go away”.
Beautiful!
...
Rest assured, Lawrence: he’s already back as Slacker. Among other socks.

Nope, as noted above. But I am sure that anything will now look scary to Paranoid Logic Libs.

And now for something completely different...
Melissa:

Sorry, to hear about Ron, I will miss his constant attempts of trying to disuade my decision to move to Britain, silly man!

No, I am sorry that you miss my intentions or even the reason for discussing Great Britain. It is only that when someone states that country X is better than country Y, then there is plenty of things that are negative about all countries, even about countries that I consider "free nations". Even Brent had to back down recently about his praises of Bhutan.

I think that everyone should move to where they want to that makes them feel better. As a libertarian, I think that Melissa should move to Britain and Brent to Canada...

PS: Let me include the link to PARANOID LOGIC.

Ren, I fart in your general direction!!!

2007-12-23T21:15:00.000-08:00

Ok smart one, I challenge you to a debate over 655,000 excess deaths in Iraq due to illegal invasion occupation.

From the sources I've looked into in academia that are discussing this latest study, it was even more rigorous than the Lancet report, which had a greater margin of error, yet it has in effect, substantiated the findings of that earlier report. For those hysterics with a cynical view of the numbers, one must ask oneself if they know how to use a chi square. That's the level at which this study must be attacked and questioned. Those who have been following the violence in Iraq carefully and on a daily basis find the results plausible.
...
The infernally ignorant will continue to quibble about the irrelevant points they think, in their utter inner torment, they can ferret out of this study, in whatever way they can, given that it's also clear they lack the educational background to understand the relevent and relative validity in the most up to date social science methodology for assessing mortality in just these circumstances. But since few of them know a framing square from a chi square, all we can do is sit back and watch them flail away, just as their President does in his news conferences now.
...
The actual peer review efforts to analyze this second study haven't yet begun. For some nimrod who has never even heard of the Chi Square statistical method, let alone understand its validity, to dismiss what's being said about the methods by those who are the experts in this field, not them, is something to be dismissed itself, or at least appreciated for what it is: knee jerk fear.

Ok I just have one question for you: What degrees of freedom did they use?
Anytime anyplace you want to debate this, I will be there.

But for a primer on the Chi Square "lesson" then:
Chi-Square/Be sure to use logic in any statistic application.
Accidents at Irongate

Victory is mine! I am the winner!

2007-12-13T22:33:00.000-08:00

My little experiment started almost 2 1/2 years ago on Thom Hartmann's forum. While I learned a lot and enjoyed many conversations over the time, I have almost come full circle from my initial posts like: When playing with trolls be sure to wear your synthetic prophylactic! and Look there Children a Fascist Pig. In fact when listening to the latest blog entry by Thom Hartmann himself at Did the Cigna Insurance delay kill 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan? I came away with the feeling of his fascism leaking out. Basically by creating the we and us against them (creating scapegoats) and saying the rights of people that have resources should give up their resources to others. If they don't give it up then "we" should ask our government to take what "we" determine is fair. This is what I consider Fascism just as much as when Thom Hartmann throws that term around.

But back to my point about winning. I was told in no uncertain terms that I would leave before Sunrise does. He basically said that he had seen many conservatives come and go and none stayed. Well he has not been around for nearly a year and now that the old board is going the way of the dinosaur, then I outlasted him as well as the forum. Let me take my victory lap now...

Ultimately it was their Paranoid Logic that overtook their thoughts that broke up their Garden of Eden. Even when they started with an Utopian forum of their own without the nasty conservatives it still ended after a short and dramatic period.

I learned a plethora of useful and useless information and some valuable tools along the way. It is so funny that libs think that these tools they struggle so hard to develop can only be used on their ideas. Just like Thom somehow thinks his "Cracking the Code" is really a unique perspective. Along with this was a debate about conservative framing is shallow and libs are really deep thoughts. Shit what stupid thinking.

Ultimately their logic failed on so many levels that this upset the liberal trolls at Thom's. I also noticed recently that they would attack a persons strong point instead of their weaknesses. I somehow appeared to be an intellectual when I first got there, and I clearly do not say that or even try to imply such things. But they somehow felt that attacking my writing style was a good idea. Of course whenever they were held to the same standards, they failed so miserably that they looked like complete fools.

They showed how they could see the same words and completely give different results based on who wrote the post. When you start with a "us" vs. "them" as their leader states then it is easy to see any dialogue collapsing into a Paranoid Logic thought patterns.

Even recently the Gerbil A Lib (ren) must have had fun with Loganthor. He basically called something white as black. Instead of explaining his own actions as being a pure asshole, he would paint it as he was just trying to help others. A sort of help that Sunrise helped Howard with two pages of attacking him for even mentioning that Muslims believe in the 72 virgin myth. So instead of Sunrise explaining how the fable arose that the 72 virgins was not in the Quran specifically but is in the various other holy writings.

Let me just say:

What I mean is that the rules of Thom's no longer pertain to me. I no longer have to abide by rule #10. Yes ren that means good luck trying to maintain your Moral rights on the WWW. LOL. I no longer have to maintain your biased and arbitrary rules. The rules mean nothing to me, but this does not mean that Thom's is beyond my reach.

But they only have their self to blame for all the shit that has happened. If they had lived by their own messed up standards and morals then I am sure I would have stayed as myself. That is as compared to the real troll having at least a dozen sock puppets. If that was acceptable as well as all the other shit then...

And now for something completely different.
Parade of Victims...
On Saturday December 1st CSPAN covered the Democratic Presidential Candidates Forum from Des Moines, Iowa. Or subtitled "Community Leaders". I missed most of the organizations that were mentioned in it for each candidate, but it was summed up as nothing more than Parade of Victims and what will you do for me.

If I am not the winner, I am at least a wiener!

A New US Citizen...

2007-11-30T19:25:00.000-08:00

Dina:
Today at 8 Am. I was supposed to show up at Los Angeles Convention center for my US citizenship ceremony. According to map quest it is about 98 miles from Santa Barbara about 1hr and 40 minute drive. We started driving about 5:50 am. Unbelievably our drive started with extremely heavy rain and about 20miles away from the convention center, traffic was jammed up according to the radio news and we found out about multiple car crashes and the closing down of two connecting freeways. We arrived at the convention center almost an hour late and hoped everything will be fine. Freeway signs showed abut 50 min. delay.

I swore in and got my citizenship certificate.

I was worried but it was just fine because today about 6200 other foreigners were having their ceremony too at convention center.
I am from India but still was very surprised to see the crowed for becoming US citizen. Downtown Los Angeles is always chaotic but for me it was brain storming all of these future citizens and their families made convention center look very small. And all of these people looking for parking at convention center no wonder freeway was mess all these people trying to get at the same place and other usual commuters!

Finally my long journey with immigration is over.

Ron:
Yes, it was hectic and traffic was miserable. Even after we managed to get off on the right freeway exit we still got all messed up when the Mapquest told us to take a right and that was not possible. So we ended up going around the block and cutting both the extreme right and extreme left lanes but still not in the correct lane. Then after a few more misdirections and even people on the street pointing in the wrong direction we finally found a parking lot that was not jammed up with other cars. Got into the convention center and did not even know if it was east or west buildings. Well finally some people were out to direct us. We then got separated between new citizens and "guests". This is the best picture I have since my camera was new and did not know how to set the settings:
This is almost exactly half the room. Dina did happen to see me once since I was wearing a red shirt and waved at me before she was herded to her seats like the rest of the cattle. The little girl looking into the camera was running around like rabbits the whole time with her two brothers. After the hour waiting and the ceremony, they had the guest exit. Of course around the exit everyone was standing next to the door waiting for their relatives/friends to exit. I decided to hang out next to the Republican registration booth, thought maybe Dina would get the idea. But she said it was an hour before I finally found her as she was headed back to the car and I had just came from it. I finally changed my registration from Alaska to California and while looking for me she registered also.

Like most government things like this they never give complete directions as to what is going to happen and what are the procedures. It reminds me of the time that I got my Passport. I got an appointment over the phone. After getting there a little late, I waited in a long line to get into the door to wait in line to get a ticket to wait more for someone to call my name. Again no instructions on what the procedure was going to be or even that it was a group basis for waiting in line to wait in line to wait in another line to get a ticket to wait in another room for a random person to help me...

Yahoo! Another Republican voter!

Ronald Reagan Library

2007-11-06T14:32:00.000-08:00

We had a wonderful time exploring the Ronald Reagan Library a couple of weeks ago and so a couple of pictures are in order. The first is a view from inside the hanger for Air Force One looking out over Simi Valley. Notice all the housing and crowded conditions.
Next is of course of the conservative hero in larger than life size statue. This is in the front of the Museum doors.

Next is myself in front of a side view of Air Force One. I was most photogenic that day. LOL. We did not photograph anything in the main museum part although we could have.

And of course I made my wife pay homage to the great man himself...

Well I will take that back, here she is (my wife)...

I would love to explore his library more fully but anyway for more information About the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum.

Authoritarian Consciousness in American Democracy|ren

2007-11-04T22:43:00.000-08:00

Well this makes the third installment of our exploration of ren's posts. The final post of ren's has taken longer for me to get into the groove from our most recent deep discussions on the subject of: "can a free market be forward looking and thus proactive to crisis that could or will face humans in the future" as compared to how markets are reactive by changes in the economy and society. This definitely had me thinking on several different levels. But without further delay...

I see where in a Media Lens, on line article by David Edward, A Warning From Auschwitz, he cites references from the seventies, a period where consciousness about our societal authoritarianism had been raised. A consciousness that has been under severe attack since then, I would say. It's at the heart of the values battle that must be rejoined by those who have given in to the traditional values being crammed back down our throats. Part of my signature line at Thom's states: “The only right you don’t have in a democracy is the right not to be offended.”

This is definitely a pattern for ren. He somehow thinks that consciousness can somehow be under attack. How can thoughts be under attack if not by better ideas? This whole post of course shows his extreme fear of 'authoritarianism'. He even approaches complete strangers and either assumes they are authoritarian or comes right and asks them as such. While the last hypothesis may be questioned I still have to wonder how values be "crammed back down our throats"? As being part of our multi-cultural and diverse society we are constantly exposed to values that we may or may not agree with. I mean for those sensitive to pornography will see those values or lack of values shoved down their throats all the time. What are we to do? Eliminate some freedoms so that they can feel 'safe' from other value systems?

It is certainly dangerous for a state when its citizens have a conscience; what it needs is men without conscience, or, better still, men whose conscience is quite in conformity with reasons of state, men in whom the feeling of personal responsibility has been replaced by the automatic impulse to act in the interests of the state.

Well if the interest of the government as elected by our liberal democracy is aligned with my interests then why should I not also have conformity with reasons of the government? Of course I changed the nouns to reflect that yes governments can provide benefits to the citizens and that the power of the 'state' or police state as I often call it may have interests that are outside the interests of nearly all parties of the nation.

This is, in a nutshell, the return to "traditional family values" movement that makes up the bulk of the Christian fundamentalism on the right. But the critical thing to take note of is not that this is safely instituted with only the fundamentalists, but is institutionalized in the culture. Some have been breaking free and the result has been a home environment that tends more towards egalitarianism and nurturing, with engendered mutual respect for all in the family, males, females, adults, children, with a trend away from leadership mindsets towards a partnership sharing of responsibilities. This involves a deep cultural change in the values of work itself. A monster task in the face of existing cultural institutions. This type of home environment develops the physical and mental conditioning in individuals that becomes the basis for the "evil liberalism" that has been so successfully demonized in the past twenty years or so.

Well I guess we live in an open society, and it is not like people live in caves and not exposed to what many people consider pornography all around us and being forced on the innocents as well as the guilty.

Well if it is evil like Communism then yes we should identify it as such. And of course the writer does not recognize that demonizing of all political groups is done on others. Just look through rens posts to see the "evil neocons".

Eisler seems to have seen the need to drop the gender pointing term: "patriarchy" and has transformed it to "dominator", at least in part I suspect because she sees that the women have been as responsible for maintining the system as men, thus gender is irrelevent. It's also a subtle use of language to move away from the victimization that is cognitively imbedded in everyone who conforms to the system. And that includes many people who consider themselves liberal, democrats, communists, or any number of other left identifiers, in other words it's systemic, not political and the challenge is to raise the general consciousness again about it, terrifying as that will be for those who now have the bit between their teeth.

This passage just reminds me that those that are afraid of something, they tend to find it at every turn. They in addition tend to speak in those terms. Like Marxists also talk about inequality and thus they see it everywhere to justify their views.

But in our society exactly this self-surrender is promoted and affirmed by the fact that it is demanded of us by every corporation that 'employs' us

Eisler and many others (including George Lakoff's strict parent/nurturing parent paradigm) are saying now that the conditioning for this starts in the home, continues in the schools and prepares the population for this self surrender to the work life of being in an essentially rightless chain of command environment most of their lives, thus giving little time to the questioning of whether it can or even ought to be any other way.

Again we go back to the controller and the controlled in our society. Instead of recognizing the ability of people to pick their careers or to start their own business. Hell, we slaves only work 40 or so hours a week. If we don't have time to think of other possibilities then maybe we are truly slaves that have chosen our bonds.

The other day I was thinking about the fact that the UAW is such a strong and powerful union, I could not see why they could not with the help of union members buy out at least one auto company. For example the market cap of Ford (F) is around $15.3 billion and there is over 1/2 million active members of the UAW thus just over $30,000 for each member to come up with not counting their war chests UAW Dues at Work. I wonder what Marx would think of that. Thus the 'means of production' can be easily owned in our society if 'labor' so desired it. Their only chains are their own inability to invest and risk capital like capitalists do on a daily basis.

What I find fascinating is the way Eisler takes this common, traditional societal perspective, the strict parent, dominator perspective, and sees it as a form of legitimized abuse. She traces it back to neolithic times in many of her works, starting with the Chalice and the Blade, and shows how humans have developed dominator style societies in place of what once were far more egalitarian, even the early agriculture based ones, which I once believed were the root of hierarchical dominance. Fascinating and very scholarly, but approachable by anyone. Well worth the exploration.

As some of the other posts have pointed out, hierarchy reared its ugly head when man planted seeds. That was the root of all evil-evil capitalist that wanted to secure the lives of their children and ancestors. And to provide a home and comfort so that he could accumulate the pleasures of society and even have time to explore his mind.

She suggests that the result of this characteristic societal abuse (and many of us have not been abused in this way at home, thus we may at heart be the "evil liberals" no matter what our political affiliation) is a "social trance". It's similar to what's been found, clinically, to happen in the more extreme cases of child abuse, where :

"the psyche of the abused child is similar to what happens in a hypnotic trance. People in Hypnotic trances are so influenced by another's suggestions -- or more properly, commands -- of what they should think, feel, and do that they suppress their own perceptions, feelings, and even will. But in the case of a chronically abusive childhood, this substitution of another's view of reality for one's own becomes habitual. Even one's own abuse, one's own pain, and one's own outrage at such injustice gradually become unreal, repressed into the deepest recesses of one's unconscious mind, or -- as required to maintain a dominator system -- legitimized as the way things are supposed to be." Sacred Pleasure, Sex Myth and the Politics of the Body Riane Eisler, 1995, p. 186

Any of that sound familiar?

Nope none at all. If you see the world as class struggles you will see it as such. But I do have to love the 'societal abuse'. Don't you feel abused? If not we have the cure for not feeling that.

These symptoms remind me of the Southpark episode World Wide Recorder Concert.

Meanwhile, Mr. Garrison has confronted his father about the issues of sexual molestation, however, the issue was not that his dad had molested him, but rather that he felt neglected because his father had not touched him. When Mr. Mackey finds out about this, he fears Mr. Garrison Jr. is so distraught about the issue that he could actually die if Mr. Garrison Sr. doesn't molest him.

And now for another perspective on this nihilistic thoughts I close with the article (without comment):
Baby Boomers Owe Young People an Apology

One was, "Never trust anyone over 30." Our infantile attitude toward adult authority has inflicted great harm on you. Because of it, many baby boomers decided not to become adults, and this has had disastrous consequences in your lives. It deprived you of one of the greatest needs in your life -- adults. That in turn deprived you of something as important as love -- parental and other adult authority. With little parental authority, you were left with little personal security, few guardrails and a diminished sense of order in life. And we transferred this denial of authority to virtually all authority figures, from teachers to police.
...
We also made you weak. We did everything possible to ensure that you suffered no pain. Sometimes we changed game scores if a team was winning by too large a margin; we abolished dodgeball lest anyone suffer early removal from the game; and we gave trophies to all of you who played on baseball teams, no matter how awfully you or your team played so that none of you missed getting a trophy while members of another team did. Much of this was thanks to the self-esteem-without-having-to-earn-it movement, which in our generation's almost infinite lack of wisdom we inflicted upon you. Sorry for that, too.

We also apologize for coming close to ruining so many of your schools and universities. Despite the unprecedented sums of money we had America spend on education, most of you got an education quite inferior to the one we got at a fraction of the cost. But we thought of our teachers as fools (they were, after all, over 30) who just concentrated on reading, writing and arithmetic (and history, music and art). We were sure we knew better and we therefore concentrated on sexual issues, and teaching you about peace, global warming and the horrors of smoking. The fact that few high school graduates can identify Mozart, let alone were ever exposed to his music, is far less significant to many baby boomers than your knowledge of the alleged perils of secondhand smoke. Most of you cannot identify Stalin either, and we are sorry for that, too. But, hey, we did make sure you saw Al Gore's film.
...
And, young women, we apologize especially to you. Many of us baby boomers bought into the feminist idea that getting married and making a family with a man were far less fulfilling than career success and that marriage itself is "sexist" and "patriarchal." So, to those of you women who have career success and didn't get married, we sincerely apologize. Turns out that most careers aren't as fulfilling as we promised.

So we really blew it, and what's really amazing is that few of us have changed our minds. Most people get wiser as they get older. But not those of us baby boomers who still believe these things. Of course, many of us never bought into these awful ideas that have so hurt you and our country, and some of us have grown up. But many of us still talk, think, dress and curse the same as we did in the '60s and '70s. And we're still fighting what we consider the real Axis of Evil: American racism, sexism and imperialism.

But for those of us who know the damage baby boomers as a whole did to you, a heartfelt apology.

Links:
Authoritarian Consciousness in American Democracy

A Warning From Auschwitz

Riane Eisler

Partnership in Action/Riane Eisler

Happy [Belated] Birthday Miles!

2007-11-02T16:02:00.001-07:00

Hi Miles!

I forgot your birthday so this kiss should make it up...

Or maybe a bear hug?

Take care!
Ron

10/23/1971

A Critic Answers Some Questions|ren

2007-11-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

Some answers to common conservative questions, usually addressed to what they consider to be complaining liberals:

- tell me what is really wrong with the country
- tell my why it is wrong
- tell me what your ideas are
- tell me why those ideas are better than the present

Well ren starts off with a big task to answer all those questions, so let us see how that progresses (My comments in bold.)...

Let's start with point #1
I assume he means "what is really wrong with the country".
When George Bush decides to tell Syria to get out of Lebanon and half a million Lebanese show up with banners like: "America is the source of terrorism", and "All our disasters come from America", there's a clue.
Yes that is a clue, that they are brainwashed and are misplacing their aggression. But for an analysis of what Syria did in Lebanon this article entitled Lebanese Farmers and the Syrian Occupation is a good start and The Return of Hizbullah gives a real look at who the imperialists and terrorists are in the ME.
What is America doing there telling people how to run their lives?
They have been doing such a splendid job so far, why mess with a good thing, right? Well when it affects us then I guess we should be concerned. Like if they grow and train terrorists to fly into buildings then it becomes our business. Are we not our brothers keeper as the left has been saying since Kennedy? If their government is conflicting with us like Germany and Japan were doing during WWII then it became our business. And as usual ren acts like Marie Antoinette in "let them eat cake". What if they do want to live their lives differently and the police state like in Burma is preventing such freedoms?
Why do American's have to have a military that costs as much as the next twenty one countries on the list combined?Yes we can see that the USA in measurement of US dollars is much greater than other economies based on 2002-2003 period Military budget. But at least on one level that really only signifies that the USA is clearly a bigger economy as in List of countries by GDP. What is a better scale to evaluate this is Rank Order - Military expenditures - percent of GDP. This does seem to miss North Korea that I have read is close to 25% of GDP! There is also a very strong case that many of the nations are guilty of moral hazards and relying on the USA a little too much for their defense. Notice that the USA military budget was slightly over 4% GDP and historically is closer to 3.5% and that China is actually a fast growing economy with 4.3%.
Why do American's have to have more than 725 military bases around the planet?

Already covered that issue at: 737 U.S. Military Bases = Global Empire and The Sorrows of Empire.

Ever been in the military?

While your chicken hawk preppie president was getting drunk, snorting coke and playing hooky from his service requirements so he could practice politics and get to be president someday, a bunch of us were getting our asses shot off in another war that a decent, real democracy would never have been in. While he was unaccounted for as far as any records can show, one of my good friends from high school was being shot to pieces in a rice paddy in Vietnam.

In the military, you practice how to behave in a socialist dictatorship 24 hours a day, not how to be in a participatory democracy.

So why is America becoming the world's dominant, bullying empire? Why is a democracy doing such a thing? Well, maybe we should ask, are we a really a democracy? Is this how free and brave people behave or is this how frightened bullies behave?

Notice how ren makes it personal? I believe the President is the President of all US citizens even if not voted for him/her. I just wonder what "real democracies" would do with regard to other nations. Would they not help out other nation states that may be facing hostile ideologies or forces? I think it is kind of strange the reference to a "socialist dictatorship" and not the usual fascist state references diatribes. Maybe ren realizes that Socialism also failed. Even if the military was to become a democracy then why would it be assumed to become a participatory democracy?

To answers to the questions: That is how nihilists view it but if the USA actually became isolationist the world would actually not like this. Because other forces are bullying then free people need to fight for freedoms of others. Yes free and brave people to risk much for the gain of little but solely for the freedoms of others. Frightened bullies is what the remaining socialist states seem to be doing. Just look at Iran, Syria, North Korea, as well as these actions on their own people like Sudan, Zimbabwe etc...

When you walk in the doors of a corporation and grovel for that job, and then gratefully get it, you begin licking bootstraps from that point on until you become the one at the top, which doesn't happen for 99.9% of the population, but even then you are not practicing democracy, you are practicing the other part of autocracy, giving orders; so for most people in this country, participatory democracy isn't even a considered possibility during most of their waking hours of existence.

As I talked about in the last post, ren somehow thinks that being an independent contractor makes him above all that. But in reality I see him as licking more boots. Independent sales people are always having to lick someone's boots to get the next job. While I believe that ren has been skilled at his selling abilities of his skills, I wonder if he realizes that not everyone wishes to take on risks that not a steady job provides. I know that ren married but no children so in essence a bachelor nearly all his life and thus no need to have the security of a 'job'. But it is ironic that he so longs for some fantasy participatory democracy in the work place but has never done anything to promote that or to create a business based on those principles. He just does not work well with others. The last paragraph sums up how he views the masses as all zombies that live their lives in quiet desperation while he thinks he is above that. This is one of the reasons for his fascination with the film Century of the Self.

So we have a sham of democracy, not the real thing. We have a plutocracy, which is also better known here as fascism. The wealthy and their corporate management structures command the political scene. They inform Americans with information they have long since learned how to distort and filter in an infotainment corporate owned media, the information that Americans need to vote in that twenty minute session with democracy they get to have every couple of years or so when they vote, and now the question arises as to whether the corporately owned machines that tally the votes are rigged. That's basically what democracy has come to be in America. American's accept that concept at home now, it's the way it's always been hasn't it? how else could it be? So when their carefully pre selected political managers they've had the privilege of voting in tell them that sort of thing is "democracy" somewhere else, like Iraq, or Afghanistan, they don't even question it.

Do you ? Do you question it?

Well he can not even tell the difference between Plutocracy and Fascism. Like usual a jumble of polysyllable words strung together without tying them together in logical ways. While he is good at asking questions (some like these appear out of nowhere) he seldom likes to answer questions directly. I know that it is some basis with trying to be above the issues in a like macro view that no one else sees, but honestly it only glosses over his own inabilities to explain himself without a thousand word essays on issues like what is "is".

Corporations and their political cronies give Americans the choices of how their economy is going to work and what kind of jobs they need to train for, the roads in America are designed primarily for their economic system, the one they've developed for themselves over the past hundred and fifty years or so, once they had sufficiently chipped away at the democratic legal structure in the various states that were originally designed to keep them in line, not a participatory democratic economy that might have evolved if corporations had been kept in their place as planned. Public roads get the goods shipped all over the place and allow corporate workers to get to their jobs, making sure, of course, that they are always just a little inadequate at the conveniently timed period that everyone seems to have to conform to, of getting to and from their corporate jobs, so that everyone can be terrified about being late to work, thereby potentially fired and have to send out another two or three hundred resumes complete with carefully crafted cover letters, most of which go in the respective personnel officers' trash cans.

Yes the frustration of living in a modern world. Wouldn't it be nicer if corporations understood that the roads they should build because of good will and provide employees with limousine rides. That is his fantasy world where there is no problems. Dare I say nihilism again.

Corporations and the economy they create for themselves and operate for themselves, since it is their profits that set all the standards in society, therefore sets the stage for how people need to be trained to fit in the specialized niches in their now extremely well designed management hierarchies which have been refined for maximum efficiency; that's today's educational system instead of system designed for giving young Americans training in how to make a democracy work. What would be the point of that? We don't need democracy in the work place, it's a privately owned and well accepted management autocracy, a dominator system, not an egalitarian, you own your own work participatory environment.

Corporations do not create economies only markets can they create. Government and people (workers, voters, unions...) create economies and with some help of the total business sector. Ren keeps talking about how there needs to be more training in democracy but how much resources does a school devote to such endeavors. Is there not civic classes and history and sociology and etc... Why should workers necessarily own the means of production unless they risked the investments to start with. There is forum member named Jason that joined a cooperative and seems to enjoy it.

Basically if labor wanted to own the means of production they already have the tools to do so. Most work in a corporation and as such they could easily invest in the common stocks and if enough workers invested and risked their capital then they could own the corporation and change management. Simple as that. Much of the things that Marx didn't analyze was risk between the different segments of the economy.

If you've never given that much thought and assumed otherwise, then ask yourself: Why make children learn to sit in rows hour upon hour, passively, subserviently, as an authority figure speaks, telling them what is what and grading them on their ability to conform to what is what? Why not put them in a situation where they could explore what interests them and open themselves up? Why the competition for grades? This isn't fantasy on my part, we actually took my niece out of this harmful educational environment and home schooled her at eleven. She didn't even bother with a high school diploma. She went into UC Davis at 17 and graduated at 20, top of her class. Not that being top of her class is important, just that one doesn't need the programming of the existing system to do well. Doing well is actually pretty easy, doing different is what's a bit tougher. Discovering what different is after massive programming is tougher yet.

Of course I think most people realize that our present educational system may have symbolism of factory work places. And even I agree that should change but on the extreme of home schooling I do not see our society paying for that expenses. But maybe technology combined with different teaching methods may reduce the burden our schools are inflicting on our economy without producing the results that we should be getting. So I think I can agree with ren on many of his points that the new work force may need a new paradigm in learning. Since most jobs will require computer skills then it seems that teaching should be done more with computers that with teachers giving boring lectures in front of rowed students. But grades are important for a yard stick to check progress. Think of a track star that never timed himself, how would he know that he is improving or even has the ability to compete. If ren thinks that we will no longer have competition in our society or our economy then he is dreaming and should immediately leave for Cuba.

You need to ask all those kinds of questions. You seem to have all the answers for yourself right now, but I haven't heard you ask any relevant questions yet. That's where you really need to explore if you think everything's so great. You say you work every day out of creative discontent? No you don't.

You see, it looks to me like you've already been programmed, because I don't see that your answers have come from ever exploring these deeper issues.

Well, I for one answered his silly questions and fired some back. I came across the phrase "This is so, is it not?" that best describes how I see ren's analysis. He creates the scenario and then answers his own questions. Well if this is as deep as he looks at the issues then I would say I have surpassed him in leaps and bounds.

Let me ask you something. Do you like being told what to do?

I don't. I want an America where I'm not told what to do. Not ever. I want to participate in every part of my life, free of choice. If you don't, then you can't possibly know why that would be better than what we have at present.

This part almost shouts out PARANOID LOGIC. Of course we all do not like being told what to do and that is why I think we have so many homeless people. But if you want security without risk then you make choices in life. His fantasy world where no one tells others what to do is only on the island of Robinson Caruso. Since once you have more than one person then one person's rights overlaps another. Someone in the end will be telling the other what to do. Does ren have a sample in the animal kingdom that could enlighten us. I mean if nature has not solved that problem then why does he think that mankind can. Again nihilism in practice.

I don't know if that's what you wanted to hear when you said "this is exactly why you people aren't getting the message across", since I don't consider myself a liberal, or a libertarian (well, an American libertarian, European libertarians are different), or a conservative, or whatever else there is. I don't know if I'm one of "you people" you refered to. After all, I’m just a citizen.

That may be the case that he can not identify with a specific party or ideology, same with me in certain ways. But he sure hangs around one end of the pool and it is not the conservative end.
- tell me what is really wrong with the country
- tell my why it is wrong
- tell me what your ideas are
- tell me why those ideas are better than the present
Well we are at the end of this post and as far as the above questions, I think only point one was covered. Maybe if ren wrote another dozen pages we could have had answers for the other points.