A funny article that has me thinking from the Financial Times
I was just thinking the same thing last week and so I laughed a little when I read Francesco Guerrera's Op-Ed here. He points out the Biblical and WeatherChannel cliche's, the one that keeps interrupting my reading these days is the word "outsized."
I've seen it referred to the massive amount of debt investment banks were carrying, but I've also seen it used recently when discussing the Presidential candidates. I don't like the word so far.
But that's neither here nor there.
Reading Guerrera's article got me thinking about something, here's the quote:
The panicky state of capital markets and investors' visceral desire to cut their losses means companies are being thrust into a crisis faster than you can say "collaterised debt obligation".
Many in the market media are saying that the reason we're going into this depression (since we've been in a tacit recession for about a year now) is because investors have been getting panicky. Note that it's not because these businesses were being poorly managed or that their wheelings and dealings were untenable globally. There is this push to shift the conversation away from the investment banks and Wall Street, discussing where these robberbarons went wrong, and instead put it squarely on the shoulders of the masses of subprime loan holders.
But here's the problem with doing so:
The people that "invested in real estate" usually through subprime lending were being encouraged to do so by the investment banks on Wall St. In fact, Wall Street could not make their money unless the masses were using the investment vehicles that the people on Wall Street had created. Think about the process a bit:
Those on top of the financial world, the power elite, make significant deregulations to how loans can be originated and to whom those loans can be sold.
The investment banks start telling those beneath them in the food chain about these great, new investment vehicles. They sweeten the sales pitch by saying, "look, it's a win-win: people who couldn't afford housing now can, and those that were just able to own one house can now own several and capitalize!"
The loan officers at banks are told to keep pumping out loans because they will not only get commissions but since these loans are being guaranteed by Really Big Names (those that pushed for the deregulation) the loans are more safe than previously we would have thought. This line of thinking was promulgated because the general message was that America, always the leader in innovation, no longer needed to focus on innovating materials, really, America can innovate financial technologies.
These technologies couldn't fail, not only because Really Big Names were insuring them, but also because entities like hedgefunds were using people's pensions to invest in these loans. So, even if these subprime loans as a class of loans went somewhat sour, no worries because the risk of this happening was minimized by both the Really Big Names insuring them but also because hedgefunds were investing in them. The whole thing had to work, you know?
So why is there this sudden anti-populist sentiment that's being leaked onto the people of the United States?
Because the elite always harbor a very real disdain for the masses. Think of There Will Be Blood and you get the drift.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Food Procectionism in the U.S. and Japan
The Intersection of BioEthics and Market Regulations - from The Volokh Conspiracy and Food Law Prof. Blog
So, Japan and Korea both have limited beef imports from the United States for fear of bringing BSE (mad cow disease) into their food supply. Both countries argue that the U.S. does not adequately guarantee the safety of their foods (they made the case after mad cow disease was found to have been imported from the U.S. to them a few years ago). The three links do a great job of introducing the recent decision by the D.C. Appellate Court, I also recommend this link from the Iowa State University Bio-Ethics folks. But why don't I also summarize?
Creekstone Farms wants to be able to purchase the BSE testing kit that the USDA has exclusive license to. The ranchers at Creekstone claim to have lost 30% of their sales because of these bans in place by Japan and Korea. Creekstone paid to have a lab built on site (which probably wasn't cheap) and now would like to buy the testing kits so that they can assure the Japanese and Koreans that they have safe beef. There will be many in the U.S. that will see this court case as simply a case of the Fed (and liberals, always the lib'rals) imposing harmful regulations on what should simply be laissez-faire capitalism. What these people will fail to see is that this is more properly understood as protectionism on the part of both the U.S. and Japan.
The Japanese cannot fail to have egg on their face this month because of the recent tainted rice scandal. Japan's Agriculture Ministry has been selling rice that they deem unfit for human consumption (but could be used for making glue, say) at auctions for years now. Mikasa, a major food supplier, has been buying this rice at ridiculously low prices (their bids were always much, much lower than the competitors), and claiming that they would be selling this moldy, toxic rice to glue manufacturers. The Ministry looked the other way, even when they could have seen that Mikasa, had they actually sold this rice to the glue makers as they said, would be doing so at a very steep loss. Mikasa was, yup, selling the toxic rice to others (like rice ball makers, candy makers, school lunch makers) and claiming it was regular-ol' rice, and so making quite a handsome profit.
So, the idea that American food is somehow more unsafe is likely a ruse on the part of the Japanese food safety folks (I mean, the Japanese don't even have a USDA or FDA type regulatory agency). Making it difficult for the Americans to send their beef here means that Kobe beef is cheaper, though. It means that Japanese beef (and New Zealand or Australian beef) is more readily available and ensures that these players have less competition. Now, it seems that the USDA is a bit concerned that if Creekstone tests its beef, they will have a competitive advantage in foreign markets over the rest of the American Ranchers. Or, as Jonathan Adler put it, the USDA is afraid that if one Rancher insists its beef is more safe than the rest of the beef in the U.S., then the domestic beef market will shrink as American consumers are afraid of eating tainted beef.
So, Japan and Korea both have limited beef imports from the United States for fear of bringing BSE (mad cow disease) into their food supply. Both countries argue that the U.S. does not adequately guarantee the safety of their foods (they made the case after mad cow disease was found to have been imported from the U.S. to them a few years ago). The three links do a great job of introducing the recent decision by the D.C. Appellate Court, I also recommend this link from the Iowa State University Bio-Ethics folks. But why don't I also summarize?
Creekstone Farms wants to be able to purchase the BSE testing kit that the USDA has exclusive license to. The ranchers at Creekstone claim to have lost 30% of their sales because of these bans in place by Japan and Korea. Creekstone paid to have a lab built on site (which probably wasn't cheap) and now would like to buy the testing kits so that they can assure the Japanese and Koreans that they have safe beef. There will be many in the U.S. that will see this court case as simply a case of the Fed (and liberals, always the lib'rals) imposing harmful regulations on what should simply be laissez-faire capitalism. What these people will fail to see is that this is more properly understood as protectionism on the part of both the U.S. and Japan.
The Japanese cannot fail to have egg on their face this month because of the recent tainted rice scandal. Japan's Agriculture Ministry has been selling rice that they deem unfit for human consumption (but could be used for making glue, say) at auctions for years now. Mikasa, a major food supplier, has been buying this rice at ridiculously low prices (their bids were always much, much lower than the competitors), and claiming that they would be selling this moldy, toxic rice to glue manufacturers. The Ministry looked the other way, even when they could have seen that Mikasa, had they actually sold this rice to the glue makers as they said, would be doing so at a very steep loss. Mikasa was, yup, selling the toxic rice to others (like rice ball makers, candy makers, school lunch makers) and claiming it was regular-ol' rice, and so making quite a handsome profit.
So, the idea that American food is somehow more unsafe is likely a ruse on the part of the Japanese food safety folks (I mean, the Japanese don't even have a USDA or FDA type regulatory agency). Making it difficult for the Americans to send their beef here means that Kobe beef is cheaper, though. It means that Japanese beef (and New Zealand or Australian beef) is more readily available and ensures that these players have less competition. Now, it seems that the USDA is a bit concerned that if Creekstone tests its beef, they will have a competitive advantage in foreign markets over the rest of the American Ranchers. Or, as Jonathan Adler put it, the USDA is afraid that if one Rancher insists its beef is more safe than the rest of the beef in the U.S., then the domestic beef market will shrink as American consumers are afraid of eating tainted beef.
Friday, October 3, 2008
Readings for October 3, 2008
- The Future of the Music Industry? from The Economist.
- McCain's (campaign?) Supporters Involved in Domestic Psychological Warfare from The Guardian.
- The Value of Value is Still Not Established from the Wall Street Journal
- But I Thought That Japan-America Relations Were Never Better? from The Japan Times
This is really important for America to understand: Japan is likely going to ask that the U.S. leave in the next decade. The Japanese people are increasingly distrustful that the U.S. can protect them from enemies like North Korea (because North Korea has successfully launched missiles across Japan without response from the U.S.) Furthermore, the U.S., with the largest military force in the world, has become unwieldy - like an overweight American. All you have to do is run for more than two minutes and the guy gets too winded to keep up; you don't even have to punch him. Increasingly the battles that America is going to engage in (and potentially lose) are going to be without bullets, that is they will be fought over access to information, as well as simple sabotage of complex machinery (like when China accidentally destroyed that satelite and it scattered debris all over space thereby making it unsafe to operate satelites in the area). Moving over half the soldiers off Okinawa and to Guam is going to make it really problematic to keep the other half here.
But what about the economic implications to Okinawa, Paul? Don't worry, Koizumi's economics policies have probably destabilized confidence in his party enough that the Japanese are likely to pursue a very different economic approach. The fall out from the Great Depression coming in the next few years will damage Japan in such a way that a greater interdepence with China and Korea is more likely to be the solution to Okinawa than the continued presence of the U.S. military.
Beer from Space also from The Japan Times
It's Friday here, loosen up. Sapporo asked that barley be cultivated at the International Space Station the other year. Now they are ready to see what happens when you make beer from the stuff. Take that Korea! They brought kimchi up to the space station the other month ago.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
Shame on You, Calomiris & Wallison
I was forwarded a copy of their Op-Ed piece this morning and was given the caveat, "this will get [my] blood going." The caveat is appreciated, and I think it's true: I am stirred-up by what passes for quality argumentation by two (seemingly) accomplished research fellows. I now have a lower opinion of the work being conducted by the American Enterprise Institute, thanks to Messrs Calomiris and Wallison.
If I may I will briefly quote the problematic text:
Many monumental errors ... contributed to the ... financial turmoil in which we ... find ourselves.... the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt ... was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.... these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ...are largely to blame for our current mess.
The role of government in this situation is to ensure that mortgages are backed and to relieve the pressure that banks (who make these terrible loans in the first place) experience when they have loan portfolios that are tanking.
To suggest that it was government ineptitude that created these loans that needed to be backed is putting the cart before the horse.
After tracing out an alternative history where Freddie and Fannie are the originators of subprime and Alt-A loans (they weren't), the authors then try to rewrite the history of deregulation. They out-right-lie that it wasn't deregulation that created the ability to invest in these subprime and Alt-A loans (Special Investment Vehicles, gentlemen, please). They even claim that it's because investment banks were able to engage in this madness that these banks are safe today(!!!!), the very banks that are melting down and are begging for hundreds of billions of your money!
As a result, U.S. commercial banks have been able to attract more than $100 billion of new capital in the past year to replace most of their subprime-related write-downs. Deregulation of branching restrictions and limitations on bank product offerings also made possible bank acquisition of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, saving billions in likely resolution costs for taxpayers.
This is ridiculous. One, $100bn attracted to all U.S. banks over one year is a drop in the bucket. It's like me saying that I saved $50 in one year.
We, the people, are not saving money in this situation: Bear Sterns and Merrill Lynch went caput because they owed more money than they could afford. Why did they owe all this money? Because the deregulation of banks allowed them to say that debts owed to them in the form of subprime mortgages (another doozy created in deregulation) were deemed to be assets and so treated like money.
The authors then say that if legislation (and here they even say it, Democrats) had been passed in 2005 there would not have been this subprime mess today. But this too is obsenely untrue because adjustable rate mortgages work like this:
For the first 5 years you pay this little bit of interest, then more interest rates go up for the next 15-25 years. If you got a loan like this in 2005, that means 5 years from then you will be paying (a lot) more interest:
2005 + 5 years = 2010
The subprime mortgages began to really tank in 2007, by the way.
And besides, this is still only the year 2008, so by the authors' own reasoning we shouldn't experience this "credit mess" for another 2 years!
Thus simple, elementary school mathematics shows you that the growth in subprime loans that the authors blame for all this mess have actually yet to come due.
Ultimately this argument doesn't stand up for the same reason that people today don't think that gun makers should be held responsible for the deaths caused by their products.
If investment banks had not been allowed to invest in in these loans in the first place, we would not be in this situation. They wouldn't have invested in these loans if the dot.com bubble hadn't burst. The dot.com bubble wouldn't have "burst" if those viewed as leading our economy (the Treasury, the Fed, the Senate committees, etc.) had not so aggressively pushed for the deregulation that neoliberal economists had been fever-preaching ("NAFTA's gonna create all the jobs, Capital is gonna rise, like Lazarus, and we will all be awash in the holy fire that is the power of Capital as it circles the globe"). We wouldn't have pushed for globalization in this manner if... the list goes on.
Shame on you, Calomiris and Wallison. The end times is nigh, chumps; why don't you spend time offering solutions rather than creating schism on this sinking ship?
The problem we are in now is the same problem we've had during all the financial scandals of the past 20 years: accountability is not being insisted upon. No one wants to be the adult here.
Instead we have a bailout plan in excess of $700bn and the full knowledge that this is not only NOT going to correct the problem, but no one in a position to effect change has a pair and willing to midwife the solution.
Their shame-fest can be found here, hold your nose.
If I may I will briefly quote the problematic text:
Many monumental errors ... contributed to the ... financial turmoil in which we ... find ourselves.... the vast accumulation of toxic mortgage debt ... was driven by the aggressive buying of subprime and Alt-A mortgages, and mortgage-backed securities, by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.... these two government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) ...are largely to blame for our current mess.
The role of government in this situation is to ensure that mortgages are backed and to relieve the pressure that banks (who make these terrible loans in the first place) experience when they have loan portfolios that are tanking.
To suggest that it was government ineptitude that created these loans that needed to be backed is putting the cart before the horse.
After tracing out an alternative history where Freddie and Fannie are the originators of subprime and Alt-A loans (they weren't), the authors then try to rewrite the history of deregulation. They out-right-lie that it wasn't deregulation that created the ability to invest in these subprime and Alt-A loans (Special Investment Vehicles, gentlemen, please). They even claim that it's because investment banks were able to engage in this madness that these banks are safe today(!!!!), the very banks that are melting down and are begging for hundreds of billions of your money!
As a result, U.S. commercial banks have been able to attract more than $100 billion of new capital in the past year to replace most of their subprime-related write-downs. Deregulation of branching restrictions and limitations on bank product offerings also made possible bank acquisition of Bear Stearns and Merrill Lynch, saving billions in likely resolution costs for taxpayers.
This is ridiculous. One, $100bn attracted to all U.S. banks over one year is a drop in the bucket. It's like me saying that I saved $50 in one year.
We, the people, are not saving money in this situation: Bear Sterns and Merrill Lynch went caput because they owed more money than they could afford. Why did they owe all this money? Because the deregulation of banks allowed them to say that debts owed to them in the form of subprime mortgages (another doozy created in deregulation) were deemed to be assets and so treated like money.
The authors then say that if legislation (and here they even say it, Democrats) had been passed in 2005 there would not have been this subprime mess today. But this too is obsenely untrue because adjustable rate mortgages work like this:
For the first 5 years you pay this little bit of interest, then more interest rates go up for the next 15-25 years. If you got a loan like this in 2005, that means 5 years from then you will be paying (a lot) more interest:
2005 + 5 years = 2010
The subprime mortgages began to really tank in 2007, by the way.
And besides, this is still only the year 2008, so by the authors' own reasoning we shouldn't experience this "credit mess" for another 2 years!
Thus simple, elementary school mathematics shows you that the growth in subprime loans that the authors blame for all this mess have actually yet to come due.
Ultimately this argument doesn't stand up for the same reason that people today don't think that gun makers should be held responsible for the deaths caused by their products.
If investment banks had not been allowed to invest in in these loans in the first place, we would not be in this situation. They wouldn't have invested in these loans if the dot.com bubble hadn't burst. The dot.com bubble wouldn't have "burst" if those viewed as leading our economy (the Treasury, the Fed, the Senate committees, etc.) had not so aggressively pushed for the deregulation that neoliberal economists had been fever-preaching ("NAFTA's gonna create all the jobs, Capital is gonna rise, like Lazarus, and we will all be awash in the holy fire that is the power of Capital as it circles the globe"). We wouldn't have pushed for globalization in this manner if... the list goes on.
Shame on you, Calomiris and Wallison. The end times is nigh, chumps; why don't you spend time offering solutions rather than creating schism on this sinking ship?
The problem we are in now is the same problem we've had during all the financial scandals of the past 20 years: accountability is not being insisted upon. No one wants to be the adult here.
Instead we have a bailout plan in excess of $700bn and the full knowledge that this is not only NOT going to correct the problem, but no one in a position to effect change has a pair and willing to midwife the solution.
Their shame-fest can be found here, hold your nose.
Thoughts On Globalization and Terrorism, & Adbusters
Below are two longer quotes from Christopher Hayes' article in The New Republic Free Traitors:
Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, agrees, saying that the proper response to the anxieties about globalization "lies in changes in our domestic policy: universal portable health insurance, portable pensions, much better unemployment insurance. ... We just have to do a better job of dealing with the downsides, and the costs, and the losers."
....
Lawrence Summers, who served as President Clinton's treasury secretary during the headiest days of free-trade enthusiasm, is now having some very public second thoughts. Writing in the Financial Times, he noted that globalization "encourages the development of stateless elites whose allegiance is to global economic success and their own prosperity rather than the interests of the nation where they are headquartered." In a subsequent column, he concluded that the "domestic component of a strategy to promote healthy globalisation must rely on strengthening efforts to reduce inequality and insecurity. The international component must focus on the interests of working people in all countries, in addition to the current emphasis on the priorities of global corporations."
Globalization was sold in the spirit of reciprocal benefit, that is at the heart of all contracts, really. But what the neoliberals have come to realize is that the benefits must be to people and the places those people live in. This article is great in some ways, but it does so little to point out who has been saying this for years: the very people who are now considered terrorists in many parts of the world. Prime example being the Zapatistas in Chiapa, Mexico. Why did they rise in arms nearly 15 years ago? Because that was the day NAFTA went into effect and exacerbated the destruction of their local community by taking away their land and then bringing the northerners and multinational corporations into their homes, and not offering the indigenous anything but prostitution and squalor.
Why is piracy so rampant off the coast of Somalia? Because in the wake of the collapse of Somalia's government, tuna boats from all over the world came to pillage their resources. Initially these were simply fisherman scaring away these looters, but the world's governments continued to ignore this raping and so those fisherman became reinforced in their vigilante groups. Now they have the world's attention. They may be called pirates here, but they would simply be terrorists in Israel or Afghanistan.
Adam Smith stated blunty that the Invisible Hand is not the mechanism which ensures that all benefit in the free market, it is the constant pursuit of Justice in the marketplace that ensures that free market capitalism is a boon to humanity. Absent Justice, capitalism seeks to destroy humanity. There was a great Adbusters campaign ten years ago that pointed this out:
"everytime someone gets cancer, the American GDP increases, everytime a tree is cut down the GDP goes up... perhaps economists need to learn how to subtract."
I just went looking for the video and found this really great page. Not a site, just one page that points out that Adbusters promised a lot and simply sucks. It really does. I really wanted it to work, too; but they get the simply worst writers and then publish their screed in these really cool looking design rags. Don't you see, Adbusters, you've become a design rag, not a political intervention. Check out Rtmark, I feel they're keeping it real-er.
Fred Bergsten, director of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, agrees, saying that the proper response to the anxieties about globalization "lies in changes in our domestic policy: universal portable health insurance, portable pensions, much better unemployment insurance. ... We just have to do a better job of dealing with the downsides, and the costs, and the losers."
....
Lawrence Summers, who served as President Clinton's treasury secretary during the headiest days of free-trade enthusiasm, is now having some very public second thoughts. Writing in the Financial Times, he noted that globalization "encourages the development of stateless elites whose allegiance is to global economic success and their own prosperity rather than the interests of the nation where they are headquartered." In a subsequent column, he concluded that the "domestic component of a strategy to promote healthy globalisation must rely on strengthening efforts to reduce inequality and insecurity. The international component must focus on the interests of working people in all countries, in addition to the current emphasis on the priorities of global corporations."
Globalization was sold in the spirit of reciprocal benefit, that is at the heart of all contracts, really. But what the neoliberals have come to realize is that the benefits must be to people and the places those people live in. This article is great in some ways, but it does so little to point out who has been saying this for years: the very people who are now considered terrorists in many parts of the world. Prime example being the Zapatistas in Chiapa, Mexico. Why did they rise in arms nearly 15 years ago? Because that was the day NAFTA went into effect and exacerbated the destruction of their local community by taking away their land and then bringing the northerners and multinational corporations into their homes, and not offering the indigenous anything but prostitution and squalor.
Why is piracy so rampant off the coast of Somalia? Because in the wake of the collapse of Somalia's government, tuna boats from all over the world came to pillage their resources. Initially these were simply fisherman scaring away these looters, but the world's governments continued to ignore this raping and so those fisherman became reinforced in their vigilante groups. Now they have the world's attention. They may be called pirates here, but they would simply be terrorists in Israel or Afghanistan.
Adam Smith stated blunty that the Invisible Hand is not the mechanism which ensures that all benefit in the free market, it is the constant pursuit of Justice in the marketplace that ensures that free market capitalism is a boon to humanity. Absent Justice, capitalism seeks to destroy humanity. There was a great Adbusters campaign ten years ago that pointed this out:
"everytime someone gets cancer, the American GDP increases, everytime a tree is cut down the GDP goes up... perhaps economists need to learn how to subtract."
I just went looking for the video and found this really great page. Not a site, just one page that points out that Adbusters promised a lot and simply sucks. It really does. I really wanted it to work, too; but they get the simply worst writers and then publish their screed in these really cool looking design rags. Don't you see, Adbusters, you've become a design rag, not a political intervention. Check out Rtmark, I feel they're keeping it real-er.
Readings for October 2, 2008
- The Seven Habits of Highly-Ineffective Terrorists from Wired's Security Matters
- Averting Asian Water Wars in The Japan Times
- A Quick Peak into Japan's Homeless Population in the Mainichi Daily News
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
To bsetser
bsetser: thanks for reading, and I apologize for my tone in commenting - I've not really expected anyone to read this but myself and possibly family, and so I will strive in the future to be less caustic. Many thanks, also, for not only reading but commenting. Not many are willing to both read and discuss.
If we blame China for freeing up money for Americans to then go and buy mortgages and invest in Ponze Schemes (as they were told to by those in positions of influence and authority), then we have to blame gun makers for all the people killed by their products.
The interest rates were kept artificially low because those who could have adjusted the rates (Greenspan, et al.) chose not to raise them. Full stop.
Why did they decide to maintain these interest rates?
Because America seems to have a terminal lack of vision at its executive levels, and I am afraid it will continue to be a myopic nation for years to come.
Because they are invested in the United States playing the same kind of brinkmanship game learned during the Cold War's Arms Race* but now played openly in the economy over the past 15 years. If America goes down, everyone goes down.
We cannot find fault with China for investing in the U.S. during this time because the U.S. has been very keen to bring China closer to the United States - the U.S. wants China invested in America.
Having China invest in the United States has been a great first step in the reciprocity that is needed between the two if the world as we know it is to continue in the way we know it. What America should be focusing on with these investments made by China are not finance technologies like these toxic loans, but green technologies.
China simply cannot maintain its development at this rate, there just aren't enough natural resources in the world for the U.S. to consume as it does and have China develop at this rate. What the U.S. should have been doing with those investment dollars that the Chinese "freed up" was (and is) to invest in technologies that would reduce the resource limitations placed on China. Then, the U.S. would be manufacturing real goods, meaning China could continue to be manufacturer to the world, and in so doing we create a more sustainable consumption pattern.
Instead, funding for the sciences (infrastructure innovation for the 21st century) by the Federal government over the past 8 years has been drastically cut, and the American economy has been running on the nutritional equivalent of protein bars.
Now the economy's got diabetes: it's not fatal if managed properly.
*I would argue (and I suppose now I will write a post here) that the Cold War was simply an economic war and what we see today is the logical outcome of that same war game.
If we blame China for freeing up money for Americans to then go and buy mortgages and invest in Ponze Schemes (as they were told to by those in positions of influence and authority), then we have to blame gun makers for all the people killed by their products.
The interest rates were kept artificially low because those who could have adjusted the rates (Greenspan, et al.) chose not to raise them. Full stop.
Why did they decide to maintain these interest rates?
Because America seems to have a terminal lack of vision at its executive levels, and I am afraid it will continue to be a myopic nation for years to come.
Because they are invested in the United States playing the same kind of brinkmanship game learned during the Cold War's Arms Race* but now played openly in the economy over the past 15 years. If America goes down, everyone goes down.
We cannot find fault with China for investing in the U.S. during this time because the U.S. has been very keen to bring China closer to the United States - the U.S. wants China invested in America.
Having China invest in the United States has been a great first step in the reciprocity that is needed between the two if the world as we know it is to continue in the way we know it. What America should be focusing on with these investments made by China are not finance technologies like these toxic loans, but green technologies.
China simply cannot maintain its development at this rate, there just aren't enough natural resources in the world for the U.S. to consume as it does and have China develop at this rate. What the U.S. should have been doing with those investment dollars that the Chinese "freed up" was (and is) to invest in technologies that would reduce the resource limitations placed on China. Then, the U.S. would be manufacturing real goods, meaning China could continue to be manufacturer to the world, and in so doing we create a more sustainable consumption pattern.
Instead, funding for the sciences (infrastructure innovation for the 21st century) by the Federal government over the past 8 years has been drastically cut, and the American economy has been running on the nutritional equivalent of protein bars.
Now the economy's got diabetes: it's not fatal if managed properly.
*I would argue (and I suppose now I will write a post here) that the Cold War was simply an economic war and what we see today is the logical outcome of that same war game.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Links I Think You Should Follow
There are a number of articles that I read and some I think should be discussed more broadly; toward that, I submit the following headline links:
If I've got Setser right, we should blame China for the mess we're in because they were buying lots of agnency bonds during what we now call the housing boom and so interest rates were made lower than they should have been.
But that's absurd: it's because deregulation in how American investment banks that individuals were told to sell more loans to more potential consumers. Why were there so many potential consumers? Not because we experienced some kind of population boom of people in need of houses, but because wages in the U.S. have continued to sag during the last ten years.
We've had an unsustainable economy operating for nearly 15 years and I'd say it's probably more like 20 years. Works like NAFTA created this situation, where what is important about America in the world economy is not the strength of its innovation nor its production, but its good name. The recently rejected bailout was intended to restore America's good name, and so get lending occurring again, not to actually address the problem: that America has too much debt at every level, micro and macro.
- 'Orphan Works' Copyright Law Dies Quiet Death from Wired's "Threat Level"
- Know-alls from The Economist
- What Does This Novel Tell Us About Japan's Labor Force Today? from The Mainichi Daily News
- Speaking of food security, Japan's Environment Ministry Deep-Freezing Seeds also from The Mainichi Daily News
- Time for Geoengineering? from The Japan Times
- Blame China for Our Economic Problems? from the Council on Foreign Relations
If I've got Setser right, we should blame China for the mess we're in because they were buying lots of agnency bonds during what we now call the housing boom and so interest rates were made lower than they should have been.
But that's absurd: it's because deregulation in how American investment banks that individuals were told to sell more loans to more potential consumers. Why were there so many potential consumers? Not because we experienced some kind of population boom of people in need of houses, but because wages in the U.S. have continued to sag during the last ten years.
We've had an unsustainable economy operating for nearly 15 years and I'd say it's probably more like 20 years. Works like NAFTA created this situation, where what is important about America in the world economy is not the strength of its innovation nor its production, but its good name. The recently rejected bailout was intended to restore America's good name, and so get lending occurring again, not to actually address the problem: that America has too much debt at every level, micro and macro.
Can Sarah Palin Really See Alaska From Her House?
This is a pretty hilarious blog posting about hyperbole
The Peterson Institute's History Lesson
The Peterson Institute, in their new "blog" sketch out a brief history for how we got into this mess and then go on to discuss what is coming next.
Read it all here
"....
This is much more than a housing crisis……….
In this context, there are two critical questions. First, what happens next? And second, what can we do about it?"
Read it all here
"....
This is much more than a housing crisis……….
Problems in the US housing market triggered a global crisis of confidence in global financial institutions, but the housing problems themselves were not big enough to generate the current financial collapse....
…and it is not about too much leverageBut, conventional wisdom continues, this fall in housing prices was magnified by leverage, causing financial institutions to collapse. But this is also not a compelling argument. First, what does it mean to be too leveraged? Economic theory provides no concrete answer, because it depends on the way you use leverage, and on the other tools available to mitigate risk...."
The authors then see the events leading to our imminent economic collapse unfolding in several stages:
1) Investors no longer believing that subprime mortgages were safe investment vehicles (that is, ways to make good money with little risk of losing money)
2) Bear Sterns' Fails: "As investment banks evolved into proprietary trading houses with large blocks of illiquid securities on their books, they became dependent on the ability to roll over their short-term loans, regardless of the quality of their assets. In other words, they became like emerging market economies in 1997.... However, while the Federal Reserve and Treasury made sure that Bear Stearns equity holders were penalized, they also made sure that creditors were made whole—a pattern they would follow with Fannie and Freddie. In effect, the government sent the message that creditors could safely keep their counterparty risk with large financial institutions—implicitly encouraging banks to continue lending to each other."
3) Policy Change: "The third stage, beginning two weeks ago with the failure of Lehman and the "rescue" of AIG, marked a dramatic and damaging reversal of policy—something which is underappreciated in Washington today....This decisive change in policy probably reflects a growing political movement in Washington to protect taxpayer funds after the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac actions and the headlines that US taxpayers were now taking on $6 trillion of debt. In any case, though, the implications for creditors and bond investors are clear: RUN from all entities that might fail. Even organizations that are too big to fail, even if they appear solvent apart from the liquidity crisis, are no longer safe. As in the emerging markets crisis of a decade ago, anyone who needs access to the credit markets to survive might lose access at any time, and hence might fail....
There is no doubt the genie is now out of the bottle. There is general fear around the world that any leveraged institution might fail....There is a second ominous aspect of these collapses. When companies fall, the survivors benefit....While the conventional wisdom views this as healthy, in reality this is a cost of extreme lack of trust in credit markets. The acquirers have an incentive to wait, let a company fall, and then scoop up the assets. Treasury and the Fed are each time relieved that someone can "come to the rescue." America's financial system is quickly becoming dominated by a few players who will naturally strategize to get assets as cheaply as they can. This is standard market behavior, without any collusion or conspiracy, but quite far from generating efficient market pricing.In this context, there are two critical questions. First, what happens next? And second, what can we do about it?"
Krugman: The 3 A.M. Call
I think Krugman has done a fine job of pointing out what needs to be heard: McCain's people are woefully underprepared to help us next year when the economy tanks:
"It’s 3 a.m., a few months into 2009, and the phone in the White House rings. Several big hedge funds are about to fail, says the voice on the line, and there’s likely to be chaos when the market opens. Whom do you trust to take that call?
"It’s 3 a.m., a few months into 2009, and the phone in the White House rings. Several big hedge funds are about to fail, says the voice on the line, and there’s likely to be chaos when the market opens. Whom do you trust to take that call?
I’m not being melodramatic. The bailout plan released yesterday is a lot better than the proposal Henry Paulson first put out — sufficiently so to be worth passing. But it’s not what you’d actually call a good plan, and it won’t end the crisis. The odds are that the next president will have to deal with some major financial emergencies.
So what do we know about the readiness of the two men most likely to end up taking that call? Well, Barack Obama seems well informed and sensible about matters economic and financial. John McCain, on the other hand, scares me.
About Mr. Obama: it’s a shame that he didn’t show more leadership in the debate over the bailout bill, choosing instead to leave the issue in the hands of Congressional Democrats, especially Chris Dodd and Barney Frank. But both Mr. Obama and the Congressional Democrats are surrounded by very knowledgeable, clear-headed advisers, with experienced crisis managers like Paul Volcker and Robert Rubin always close at hand.
Then there’s the frightening Mr. McCain — more frightening now than he was a few weeks ago.
We’ve known for a long time, of course, that Mr. McCain doesn’t know much about economics — he’s said so himself, although he’s also denied having said it. That wouldn’t matter too much if he had good taste in advisers — but he doesn’t.
Remember, his chief mentor on economics is Phil Gramm, the arch-deregulator, who took special care in his Senate days to prevent oversight of financial derivatives — the very instruments that sank Lehman and A.I.G., and brought the credit markets to the edge of collapse. Mr. Gramm hasn’t had an official role in the McCain campaign since he pronounced America a “nation of whiners,” but he’s still considered a likely choice as Treasury secretary.
And last year, when the McCain campaign announced that the candidate had assembled “an impressive collection of economists, professors, and prominent conservative policy leaders” to advise him on economic policy, who was prominently featured? Kevin Hassett, the co-author of “Dow 36,000.” Enough said.
Now, to a large extent the poor quality of Mr. McCain’s advisers reflects the tattered intellectual state of his party. Has there ever been a more pathetic economic proposal than the suggestion of House Republicans that we try to solve the financial crisis by eliminating capital gains taxes? (Troubled financial institutions, by definition, don’t have capital gains to tax.)
But even President Bush has, in the twilight of his administration, turned to relatively sensible people to make economic decisions: I’m not a fan of Mr. Paulson, but he’s a vast improvement over his predecessor. At this point, one has the suspicion that a McCain administration would have us longing for Bush-era competence.
The real revelation of the last few weeks, however, has been just how erratic Mr. McCain’s views on economics are. At any given moment, he seems to have very strong opinions — but a few days later, he goes off in a completely different direction.
Thus on Sept. 15 he declared — for at least the 18th time this year — that “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” This was the day after Lehman failed and Merrill Lynch was taken over, and the financial crisis entered a new, even more dangerous stage.
But three days later he declared that America’s financial markets have become a “casino,” and said that he’d fire the head of the Securities and Exchange Commission — which, by the way, isn’t in the president’s power.
And then he found a new set of villains — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored lenders. (Despite some real scandals at Fannie and Freddie, they played little role in causing the crisis: most of the really bad lending came from private loan originators.) And he moralistically accused other politicians, including Mr. Obama, of being under Fannie’s and Freddie’s financial influence; it turns out that a firm owned by his own campaign manager was being paid by Freddie until just last month.
Then Mr. Paulson released his plan, and Mr. McCain weighed vehemently into the debate. But he admitted, several days after the Paulson plan was released, that he hadn’t actually read the plan, which was only three pages long.
O.K., I think you get the picture.
The modern economy, it turns out, is a dangerous place — and it’s not the kind of danger you can deal with by talking tough and denouncing evildoers. Does Mr. McCain have the judgment and temperament to deal with that part of the job he seeks"
Friday, September 26, 2008
In Response to Joe’s Question
Joe asked,
To the first question, "what the hell happened to get us here?" I would refer y'all to Barry Ritholtz's recent post on The Big Picture. Basically, what got us here is that banks were allowed to deregulate (because a certain "free market's always good"-kind of Ayn Rand-loving faction of those in power began working overtime during the past decade) in such a way that banks were allowed to lend and sell credit as an asset.
Now, credit is simply a promise to be repaid. An asset is something of value that can stand in the place of credit that is not repaid; it's also known as collateral. Many, many, many a loan officer was encouraged to make loans to people that simply should not have been considered for mortgage loans.
Why were they so encouraged? Because of the new deregulation one firm could bundle up a bunch of these loans and sell them to investment groups (like hedge funds) and say that these were assets. Why was it considered an asset? Because there was real property backing up the loan (the physical house). But here's the thing. With this deregulation it was possible to sell shares in these mortgages. So it wasn't the case that you had one bad loan that went into foreclosure, and one investment firm. It was more like, this investment firm is entitled to the windows on this foreclosed house.
The problem with the foreclosure is that you gotta pay all these people to do all the paper work to get the house back, for one. But then, when the bank that forecloses tries to sell that property, everyone wants a deal. No one wants to pay what the newly-foreclosed paid. Why? 'Cause they know that the bank is taking a loss already, now they want to know how much of a loss the bank is willing to take.
This is the fundamental assumption of our economic theory, right? People will always try to maximize profit rationally.
So, let's use the old mantra, "as above, so below," and discuss what's happening at the macro level.
Imagine that you're an investment bank, or a regular bank like WaMu. You, like your peers at firms that have been mythologized over the past 30 years as "too big to fail." Given that mindset, during the housing boom of the past 10 years or so (fueled by the deregulation because now people weren't buying one house, they were buying two or three and "flipping" them), your bank became exposed (that is, took ownership) of a lot of these kinds of loans where people put little money down because they were borrowing on the anticipated value of their home in the future. Everyone's been telling each other for years (hell, it's the American dream) that owning a home is always the way to go because homes always increase in value (and they do, but it takes generations, not tens of months).
So your this exposed bank, with loans that no one wants to buy for the amount the banks originally said they were worth. Say you had a loan for $1.00 and had been doing all your accounting assuming that the loan would either be paid on time or that you could sell that loan to someone else for at least $1.00 if not $1.30.
Problem is now everyone knows that these hot potato loans are no good, so now people are making offers to buy what the bank thought was worth $1.00 for maybe $0.30. That's called current value.
The bailout that's been proposed until today, when McCain came in and screwed the pooch by insisting he had answers to the problem (this is the same man who a week ago said the American economy is fundamentally strong and we had nothing to worry about; his economic adviser even had the chutzpah to say that all this economic recession/meltdown talk was due to America being a country of whiners).... Anyways, the problem with the bailout is two fold:
I think the bailout as it's structured now will lead to at least a recession and probably won't allow us to avoid a global depression anyways. I think a depression is a given. I think the further problem with the bailout as it's set up, though, is that it creates a system that in the future is going to do more to harm the American people than help them.
I think not offering a bailout that emphasizes that the tax payers become the primary beneficiary of whatever "assets" they acquire by purchasing all these loans will not only lead to recession at least but also is a $700bn slap in the American face.
"I feel like this is a bad time to know as little as I do about economics, credit, and Wall Street. One expert I heard (not that I trust experts) believes that the problem necessitating a bailout is that with all the bad debt out there losing money, lenders will be less likely to loan to even solvent businesses and citizens, thus slowing progress to a halt.
What are your thoughts on the bailout? I can't quite tell if you're entirely against it or not."
What are your thoughts on the bailout? I can't quite tell if you're entirely against it or not."
To the first question, "what the hell happened to get us here?" I would refer y'all to Barry Ritholtz's recent post on The Big Picture. Basically, what got us here is that banks were allowed to deregulate (because a certain "free market's always good"-kind of Ayn Rand-loving faction of those in power began working overtime during the past decade) in such a way that banks were allowed to lend and sell credit as an asset.
Now, credit is simply a promise to be repaid. An asset is something of value that can stand in the place of credit that is not repaid; it's also known as collateral. Many, many, many a loan officer was encouraged to make loans to people that simply should not have been considered for mortgage loans.
Why were they so encouraged? Because of the new deregulation one firm could bundle up a bunch of these loans and sell them to investment groups (like hedge funds) and say that these were assets. Why was it considered an asset? Because there was real property backing up the loan (the physical house). But here's the thing. With this deregulation it was possible to sell shares in these mortgages. So it wasn't the case that you had one bad loan that went into foreclosure, and one investment firm. It was more like, this investment firm is entitled to the windows on this foreclosed house.
The problem with the foreclosure is that you gotta pay all these people to do all the paper work to get the house back, for one. But then, when the bank that forecloses tries to sell that property, everyone wants a deal. No one wants to pay what the newly-foreclosed paid. Why? 'Cause they know that the bank is taking a loss already, now they want to know how much of a loss the bank is willing to take.
This is the fundamental assumption of our economic theory, right? People will always try to maximize profit rationally.
So, let's use the old mantra, "as above, so below," and discuss what's happening at the macro level.
Imagine that you're an investment bank, or a regular bank like WaMu. You, like your peers at firms that have been mythologized over the past 30 years as "too big to fail." Given that mindset, during the housing boom of the past 10 years or so (fueled by the deregulation because now people weren't buying one house, they were buying two or three and "flipping" them), your bank became exposed (that is, took ownership) of a lot of these kinds of loans where people put little money down because they were borrowing on the anticipated value of their home in the future. Everyone's been telling each other for years (hell, it's the American dream) that owning a home is always the way to go because homes always increase in value (and they do, but it takes generations, not tens of months).
So your this exposed bank, with loans that no one wants to buy for the amount the banks originally said they were worth. Say you had a loan for $1.00 and had been doing all your accounting assuming that the loan would either be paid on time or that you could sell that loan to someone else for at least $1.00 if not $1.30.
Problem is now everyone knows that these hot potato loans are no good, so now people are making offers to buy what the bank thought was worth $1.00 for maybe $0.30. That's called current value.
The bailout that's been proposed until today, when McCain came in and screwed the pooch by insisting he had answers to the problem (this is the same man who a week ago said the American economy is fundamentally strong and we had nothing to worry about; his economic adviser even had the chutzpah to say that all this economic recession/meltdown talk was due to America being a country of whiners).... Anyways, the problem with the bailout is two fold:
1) it doesn't give a realistic value for the value of these loans its about to take on (so the Fed will buy those loans for $1.00 and then hopes to sell them; but will likely only be able to sell them for at most $0.60; so tax payers lose a lot and the people who sold those loans to the Fed will just swoop in and buy them back for $0.60 thereby making a killing)
2) it has as its goal reintroducing credit into the economy, trying to get banks to lend money to each other again (which is like giving Isaac Mendez heroin so that he can paint the future for Mr. Bennet).
So, I think that America has a choice: either go ahead and let the economy spill out into a depression by allowing that wave of deregulation go full circle or go ahead and bail out these banks.2) it has as its goal reintroducing credit into the economy, trying to get banks to lend money to each other again (which is like giving Isaac Mendez heroin so that he can paint the future for Mr. Bennet).
I think the bailout as it's structured now will lead to at least a recession and probably won't allow us to avoid a global depression anyways. I think a depression is a given. I think the further problem with the bailout as it's set up, though, is that it creates a system that in the future is going to do more to harm the American people than help them.
I think not offering a bailout that emphasizes that the tax payers become the primary beneficiary of whatever "assets" they acquire by purchasing all these loans will not only lead to recession at least but also is a $700bn slap in the American face.
McCain’s Lies Just Keep Comin’
So McCain's announced he will stop campaigning so that he can save our economy by going to Washington and - get this - stop the rescue effort that was nearly agreed upon.
He even dropped his appearance on David Letterman, the place where he announced his candidacy, so that he could get to saving the economy. And naturally, to save the world economy (by following the same policies of the very people that got us into this mess)... No seriously, to save the world economy McCain had to cancel his appearance with Letterman so that he could meet with whom? Well Katie Couric, of course!
He even dropped his appearance on David Letterman, the place where he announced his candidacy, so that he could get to saving the economy. And naturally, to save the world economy (by following the same policies of the very people that got us into this mess)... No seriously, to save the world economy McCain had to cancel his appearance with Letterman so that he could meet with whom? Well Katie Couric, of course!
The McCain Campaign Sputters on
Here's something scary to imagine: Sarah Palin having any sort of role in the White House. This is from her interview with Katie Couric (by way of the LA Times) -
What the hell is she talking about? She's sitting there with the chick from Good Morning America, y'know? This is the slow and easy pitch if ever there is one. How can anyone have faith in the leadership decisions of someone that would choose her as a running mate?
"That's why I say I, like every American I'm speaking with, we're ill about this position that we have been put in . . . where it is the taxpayers looking to bail out. But ultimately, what the bailout does is help those who are concerned about the healthcare reform that is needed to help shore up our economy. Um, helping, oh -- it's got to be all about job creation too. Shoring up our economy, and putting it back on the right track. So healthcare reform and reducing taxes and reining in spending has got to accompany tax reductions, and tax relief for Americans, and trade, we've got to see trade as opportunity, not as a competitive, um, scary thing, but 1 in 5 jobs being created in the trade sector today. We've got to look at that as more opportunity. All of those things under the umbrella of job creation. This bailout is a part of that."
What the hell is she talking about? She's sitting there with the chick from Good Morning America, y'know? This is the slow and easy pitch if ever there is one. How can anyone have faith in the leadership decisions of someone that would choose her as a running mate?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Bush’s Speech Last Night
How do you know that he's lying? Yeah, his lips are moving.
Bush said the $700bn Paulson-Bernanke Proposal would "buy troubled mortgages at current low prices and hold them until the prices rise." But the truth is (as every economist on the interweb seems to agree, for once) the complete opposite will occur.
The problem that no bank is willing to sell the garbage that deregulators (like McCain's Economic Advisor, Phil Gramm) allowed to be called assets for what the free market believes is the accurate price: it's garbage and deserves garbage prices.
McCain, also lying, said that the reason he won't go to the Presidential debates is because he should go help the discussion in Washington. How's that a lie? As Obama pointed out, "President's have to be able to do more than one thing at once." Obama also pointed out that both of them have big, expensive, fast jets that could get them from Point A to Point B. One Congressman commented, "What's McCain think? We're gonna be sitting in here debating at 9 o'clock that night?"
McCain's such a terrible liar. He stated in the Wall Street Journal:
"America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system," Sen. McCain said. "We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy." [emphasis mine]
The issue with the economy is not a lack of credit (credit's what got us to this point), it's a lack of liquidity. No one can get rid of what the deregulation crew (such as McCain's economic adviser, Phil Gramm) allowed to be called assets. These "assets" were simply credit extended.
Bush said the $700bn Paulson-Bernanke Proposal would "buy troubled mortgages at current low prices and hold them until the prices rise." But the truth is (as every economist on the interweb seems to agree, for once) the complete opposite will occur.
The problem that no bank is willing to sell the garbage that deregulators (like McCain's Economic Advisor, Phil Gramm) allowed to be called assets for what the free market believes is the accurate price: it's garbage and deserves garbage prices.
McCain, also lying, said that the reason he won't go to the Presidential debates is because he should go help the discussion in Washington. How's that a lie? As Obama pointed out, "President's have to be able to do more than one thing at once." Obama also pointed out that both of them have big, expensive, fast jets that could get them from Point A to Point B. One Congressman commented, "What's McCain think? We're gonna be sitting in here debating at 9 o'clock that night?"
McCain's such a terrible liar. He stated in the Wall Street Journal:
"America this week faces an historic crisis in our financial system," Sen. McCain said. "We must pass legislation to address this crisis. If we do not, credit will dry up, with devastating consequences for our economy." [emphasis mine]
The issue with the economy is not a lack of credit (credit's what got us to this point), it's a lack of liquidity. No one can get rid of what the deregulation crew (such as McCain's economic adviser, Phil Gramm) allowed to be called assets. These "assets" were simply credit extended.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
America’s Anti-Intellectualism
I got this post from Economist's View and I think it's a great post to share.
I believe that the author is pretty spot on, really: America's deliberately steered itself away from "book learning" and really embraced "street smarts." Am I taking it too far to say that this is why gangsta rap and gangster movies and jackass-type movies are so popular? Don't get me wrong: I like gangsta rap and I really enjoyed American Gangster (although I laughed really hard at the part where the Fed agent yelled at Russell Crowe, "No black person in the history of America has come close to what the Italians have done," how was that for race-baiting?)
And here's where I feel Philosophy, once again, is overlooked. In 1979 Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote "The Postmodern Condition - A Report on Knowledge" addressing the rise of just this way of thinking. Lyotard sees this world view shifting during the 1950s in the wake of the rebuilding of Europe's devastation during WWII. Of course, ultimately Lyotard would probably see this as the inexorable result of the pursuit of Enlightenment Ideals, and I have to agree.
Earlier, at the University of Memphis, I had discussed some of what this conflict over Enlightenment Ideals looked like and I owe a great deal to Zizek and Roger T. Ames for how I would situate this problem.
Perhaps I will skip the juicy parts and leave it bluntly like this: all rational discourse in the West are suspect today because at the core of this discourse are the seeds of their own demise and these core assumptions must be overcome, as Nietzsche said, or we will forever be caught in this fatal tail-spin between rationalism and spiritualism, as Thomas Mann describes in his novel, The Magic Mountain.
From Jeffrey D. Sachs in Today's Zaman:
"In recent years, the United States has been more a source of global instability than a source of global problem-solving.
Examples include the war in Iraq, launched by the US on false premises, obstructionism on efforts to curb climate change, meager development assistance and the violation of international treaties such as the Geneva Conventions. While many factors contributed to America's destabilizing actions, a powerful one is anti-intellectualism, exemplified recently by Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's surging popularity.
By anti-intellectualism, I mean especially an aggressively anti-scientific perspective, backed by disdain for those who adhere to science and evidence. The challenges faced by a major power like the US require rigorous analysis of information according to the best scientific principles."
I believe that the author is pretty spot on, really: America's deliberately steered itself away from "book learning" and really embraced "street smarts." Am I taking it too far to say that this is why gangsta rap and gangster movies and jackass-type movies are so popular? Don't get me wrong: I like gangsta rap and I really enjoyed American Gangster (although I laughed really hard at the part where the Fed agent yelled at Russell Crowe, "No black person in the history of America has come close to what the Italians have done," how was that for race-baiting?)
And here's where I feel Philosophy, once again, is overlooked. In 1979 Jean-Francois Lyotard wrote "The Postmodern Condition - A Report on Knowledge" addressing the rise of just this way of thinking. Lyotard sees this world view shifting during the 1950s in the wake of the rebuilding of Europe's devastation during WWII. Of course, ultimately Lyotard would probably see this as the inexorable result of the pursuit of Enlightenment Ideals, and I have to agree.
Earlier, at the University of Memphis, I had discussed some of what this conflict over Enlightenment Ideals looked like and I owe a great deal to Zizek and Roger T. Ames for how I would situate this problem.
Perhaps I will skip the juicy parts and leave it bluntly like this: all rational discourse in the West are suspect today because at the core of this discourse are the seeds of their own demise and these core assumptions must be overcome, as Nietzsche said, or we will forever be caught in this fatal tail-spin between rationalism and spiritualism, as Thomas Mann describes in his novel, The Magic Mountain.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Vote for the Mumps or the Measles
I got a great email from mi cumpanero, Trente Centavos today and it was a perfect segue between my blogs this week and what I want to write about today. Thanks, Thirty Cent!
So, what are we supposed to do? We know that the government in office and that which is to come sucks. Vote or don't vote, you still have to choose between two people that don't represent you. So why vote? One thing that America, thus far, has yet to be at its core is fatalistic. As a nation, we still tend to act as though we are always just moments away from being a hero to someone. You can see it in the wake of every tragedy that has befallen Americans in America: there is always a glut of people trying to do good.
And of course, as was the case in response to Katrina, there are plenty of "leaders" that create a situation where those capable of giving help are actually denied access to providing that resource.
So what are we to do? I'm going to share a link hereand I want you to really ruminate on this one. It's a story about a Green Beret that leads military school cadets to the Himalayas to meet the Dalai Lama.
Wha?!
I'm sure there are many who will read just the headline and have a cynical response, like, "Why? So they can be better killers?" Or, "Just goes to show what an opportunist that Dalai Lama guy is," as though everyone understands already that being the world's most visible Actively-Engaged Buddhist means being so anti-military that the two are antithetical.
It reminds me of a story my wife, Karen, related to me after she went to last year's Mind and Life Conference. There was a woman representing the Military present who was interested in sharing mindfulness and meditation techniques with people in the military. Once this was identified, people began raising a stink saying things like, "Why? So they can be better killers?!" And it's sad to hear that. If you think that teaching people in the military about how to be more mindful of the interconnectedness of all things and that we ourselves are the roots of all suffering in this world is a bad thing, then you, are missing the point.
We are all equally capable of making the world a better place, and so we are all equally culpable. To the largest extent, that change in the world will not come from changing what is "out there," but rather changing from within. I'm not advocating self-abnegation (one more source of illusion and suffering in this world), I am instead putting forward a notion of hyperbolic responsibility for the situations we find ourselves in. We must be the change we want to see in the world.
I am saying that the lesser of two evils is less evil. We must move forward from somewhere, and it will always be from the point at which we find ourselves aware of the need to change. I do think that McCain is a worse choice at this moment in American history. I am fairly confident that his administration will make America weaker, not stronger. I would suggest to those of you that care, that you amplify that message. Do I think that Obama's going to underwhelm those people that think he will change politics in America? Yes I do.
But I do believe that it is time that America had an articulate leader. I think that the virtue of the Obama campaign has been precisely because it has activated so many people. The supporters of Obama's campaign made it clear that today, America will seriously consider a Woman and a Black man for President.
That's mind-blowing. It wasn't only by force of personality, or a gazillion dollars, or that his dad was the head of the CIA, Vice President, and former President, that Obama was put into this position. He was put there by the hard work of campaigners that had never been involved in a political campaign before.
Let me tell you something: I worked under a guy who was the SAME AGE as me and was not only the Executive Director of the Georgia Region office of the largest microlender in the United States, he was also the Commissioner of Clayton County in Atlanta. He was 29 years old.
I asked him how he decided to run for office and he said it was because he helped with one campaign. From that he learned how to assist in another campaign. And from that he realized that he, himself, could be that guy running for office. And now he's out there making the changes he believes in.
That's what Obama's come to represent - people saying that they want to be a part of the solution. There are so many problems with how America is running right now that it if you are not getting involved, it's more than a shame.
Yes: you can and will change how things work in this country if you are willing to learn about how it's happening and are willing to engage those people that are critical to changing how it is done. It's that simple. You simply have to be the hands and feet: walk the talk and do the work.
If you think that you have a better way of making that change then please, join the Americorps*VISTA program or the Peace Corps because those are two of the best ways to begin walking that talk.
I trust you.
So, what are we supposed to do? We know that the government in office and that which is to come sucks. Vote or don't vote, you still have to choose between two people that don't represent you. So why vote? One thing that America, thus far, has yet to be at its core is fatalistic. As a nation, we still tend to act as though we are always just moments away from being a hero to someone. You can see it in the wake of every tragedy that has befallen Americans in America: there is always a glut of people trying to do good.
And of course, as was the case in response to Katrina, there are plenty of "leaders" that create a situation where those capable of giving help are actually denied access to providing that resource.
So what are we to do? I'm going to share a link hereand I want you to really ruminate on this one. It's a story about a Green Beret that leads military school cadets to the Himalayas to meet the Dalai Lama.
Wha?!
I'm sure there are many who will read just the headline and have a cynical response, like, "Why? So they can be better killers?" Or, "Just goes to show what an opportunist that Dalai Lama guy is," as though everyone understands already that being the world's most visible Actively-Engaged Buddhist means being so anti-military that the two are antithetical.
It reminds me of a story my wife, Karen, related to me after she went to last year's Mind and Life Conference. There was a woman representing the Military present who was interested in sharing mindfulness and meditation techniques with people in the military. Once this was identified, people began raising a stink saying things like, "Why? So they can be better killers?!" And it's sad to hear that. If you think that teaching people in the military about how to be more mindful of the interconnectedness of all things and that we ourselves are the roots of all suffering in this world is a bad thing, then you, are missing the point.
We are all equally capable of making the world a better place, and so we are all equally culpable. To the largest extent, that change in the world will not come from changing what is "out there," but rather changing from within. I'm not advocating self-abnegation (one more source of illusion and suffering in this world), I am instead putting forward a notion of hyperbolic responsibility for the situations we find ourselves in. We must be the change we want to see in the world.
I am saying that the lesser of two evils is less evil. We must move forward from somewhere, and it will always be from the point at which we find ourselves aware of the need to change. I do think that McCain is a worse choice at this moment in American history. I am fairly confident that his administration will make America weaker, not stronger. I would suggest to those of you that care, that you amplify that message. Do I think that Obama's going to underwhelm those people that think he will change politics in America? Yes I do.
But I do believe that it is time that America had an articulate leader. I think that the virtue of the Obama campaign has been precisely because it has activated so many people. The supporters of Obama's campaign made it clear that today, America will seriously consider a Woman and a Black man for President.
That's mind-blowing. It wasn't only by force of personality, or a gazillion dollars, or that his dad was the head of the CIA, Vice President, and former President, that Obama was put into this position. He was put there by the hard work of campaigners that had never been involved in a political campaign before.
Let me tell you something: I worked under a guy who was the SAME AGE as me and was not only the Executive Director of the Georgia Region office of the largest microlender in the United States, he was also the Commissioner of Clayton County in Atlanta. He was 29 years old.
I asked him how he decided to run for office and he said it was because he helped with one campaign. From that he learned how to assist in another campaign. And from that he realized that he, himself, could be that guy running for office. And now he's out there making the changes he believes in.
That's what Obama's come to represent - people saying that they want to be a part of the solution. There are so many problems with how America is running right now that it if you are not getting involved, it's more than a shame.
Yes: you can and will change how things work in this country if you are willing to learn about how it's happening and are willing to engage those people that are critical to changing how it is done. It's that simple. You simply have to be the hands and feet: walk the talk and do the work.
If you think that you have a better way of making that change then please, join the Americorps*VISTA program or the Peace Corps because those are two of the best ways to begin walking that talk.
I trust you.
Monday, September 22, 2008
This Is Where I Want To Work
I've been looking for a few years now for a job that would require my researching love and satisfy my desires to both teach and effect policy change or allow me to make policy changes. I've so far envisioned that career path to simply include me teaching at a university and then maybe, one day, through lots of publishing I'd be a noted public intellectual. Like Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky, or maybe Ralph Nader (but, you know, without the angry suburbanites at rallies making out and acting like it's a rock concert).
Then today I discovered Public Diplomacy.
This is a new, uh, bureau? Section? Under the Department of State and promotes overcoming ideologies that valorize terrorism by winning the hearts and minds of publics around the world. The ultimate goal is to create a world where terrorism is an untenable option for people trying to affect change. And I support that.
Then today I discovered Public Diplomacy.
This is a new, uh, bureau? Section? Under the Department of State and promotes overcoming ideologies that valorize terrorism by winning the hearts and minds of publics around the world. The ultimate goal is to create a world where terrorism is an untenable option for people trying to affect change. And I support that.
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Creating Immunity for Domestic Spying
I know that if I email one of you back in the US that my email will be intercepted and read by the U.S. government. Why? Because of what's called the Terrorist Surveillance Program (TSP). Anytime someone from overseas communicates with someone in the U.S. the Fed has a program for intercepting and reading said communications.
Now the Attorney General, Mukasey, has announced that the telecommunications companies (AT&T, Comcast, and so on) will be immune from prosecution for this secret spying. Senator Obama, that change you obey (I mean, believe in), and the rest of our terrible Congress, voted for passage this July of the new bill that makes this domestic spying program totally legal. Read more here.
I wanted to make more substantial some of what I said in my last post about how failed America has become. I know, each generation says their government fails them, but, seriously, our government is torturing innocent people (sometimes even children from Canada), because our government has been on this deregulation kick we are entering world wide economic meltdown (not my words, but the words of our government), because of our precedent for "Pre-emptive Strikes" the world order is even more fragile than it was 50 years ago (this is from a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General who resigned to expose the genocidal policies in Iraq).
What are you going to do to make this world better?
Now the Attorney General, Mukasey, has announced that the telecommunications companies (AT&T, Comcast, and so on) will be immune from prosecution for this secret spying. Senator Obama, that change you obey (I mean, believe in), and the rest of our terrible Congress, voted for passage this July of the new bill that makes this domestic spying program totally legal. Read more here.
I wanted to make more substantial some of what I said in my last post about how failed America has become. I know, each generation says their government fails them, but, seriously, our government is torturing innocent people (sometimes even children from Canada), because our government has been on this deregulation kick we are entering world wide economic meltdown (not my words, but the words of our government), because of our precedent for "Pre-emptive Strikes" the world order is even more fragile than it was 50 years ago (this is from a former United Nations Assistant Secretary-General who resigned to expose the genocidal policies in Iraq).
What are you going to do to make this world better?
Saturday, September 20, 2008
McCain Will Destroy America
If you think John McCain is someone that should be trusted with making decisions on your behalf or in your best interest, beyond - maybe - whether to order that sandwich or that soup and salad set, please read the following:
John McCain is lying everyday, and he will ruin our country. How? By continuing to put his head in the sand and trust the same pack of wolves that have eroded our rights to lawful search and seizure, who have decided that America is a country that willfully and unashamedly tortures the innocent, that have bankrupted our economy by protecting their primary donors, and who have created the foreign policy that has lead our allies to not-so-quietly discuss how to move into the next century without us.
This has been the Party that destroyed America.
(I got this from Paul Krugman's blog)
"Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation." (emphasis added by me)
Do note that it is exactly this deregulation of the banking industry that has put us, as Henry Paulson (the guy running the Federal Reserve) warned Congress today, within days of complete economic meltdown. The meltdown caused by the "innovative products" that McCain refers to are more commonly understood as subprime loans.
He cannot campaign saying he will be the scourge of Wall Street and then praise Wall Street for doing the very thing that has placed the world economy on the brink of collapse. He's a liar, and you are killing your country and your future if you support John McCain's presidency.
I can't believe that Americans believe that there is any merit to the McCain campaign's assertion that what seperates him from Obama is experience, this absurd comment that Obama is too inexperienced. Here are some other "inexperienced" president's that we've been served by:
John Adams, who had no "executive" experience
Abraham Lincoln, Congressman for one term
Harry Truman, who was a Senator for two terms
And that was just off the top of my head.Abraham Lincoln, Congressman for one term
Harry Truman, who was a Senator for two terms
John McCain is lying everyday, and he will ruin our country. How? By continuing to put his head in the sand and trust the same pack of wolves that have eroded our rights to lawful search and seizure, who have decided that America is a country that willfully and unashamedly tortures the innocent, that have bankrupted our economy by protecting their primary donors, and who have created the foreign policy that has lead our allies to not-so-quietly discuss how to move into the next century without us.
This has been the Party that destroyed America.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Why Wall Street Is Melting Down
Lots of posts today, lots on my mind...
This is a truly historic moment in the history of the United States, we usually think "business will go on as usual" but that clearly can't be the case anymore.
The argument from the American Conservative Reich (and I include Clinton in this since he was, "more Reagan than Reagan," to quote Matt Benard) has been to get smaller government and by that they meant less social services and less regulation in the economy. The swindle has been sold along these lines, "the gubment should git out of providing these services, American people know what they want, not the gubmint. If we git the gubmint outta these services then honest 'Mericans will start their own service providing cumpnies."
Well, today we see what I've always said: that those small-government/libertarian/neocons (McCain-Palin are just, simply, lying, to you all) have never had the sac big enough to back up that talk. We're nationalizing Wall Street, folks. Why? Because we ought to. That same ought that conservatives are so resistant to (remember that D Magazine article I shared yesterday?), has won the day. Let's face it, the conservative worldview that we've been force fed and withered under for nearly 30 years now has been one of deep distrust (this is from the Secretary of Labor) and ugly, naked greed. And now that the whole thing's spinning outta control, those that are supposed to be public servants are reaching down deep, like the Grinch in the cartoon, and trying to find a way to minimize the bloodbath.
Slavoj Zizek said in an interview last month that Communism was going to win. Fess-up, comrades.
This is a truly historic moment in the history of the United States, we usually think "business will go on as usual" but that clearly can't be the case anymore.
The argument from the American Conservative Reich (and I include Clinton in this since he was, "more Reagan than Reagan," to quote Matt Benard) has been to get smaller government and by that they meant less social services and less regulation in the economy. The swindle has been sold along these lines, "the gubment should git out of providing these services, American people know what they want, not the gubmint. If we git the gubmint outta these services then honest 'Mericans will start their own service providing cumpnies."
Well, today we see what I've always said: that those small-government/libertarian/neocons (McCain-Palin are just, simply, lying, to you all) have never had the sac big enough to back up that talk. We're nationalizing Wall Street, folks. Why? Because we ought to. That same ought that conservatives are so resistant to (remember that D Magazine article I shared yesterday?), has won the day. Let's face it, the conservative worldview that we've been force fed and withered under for nearly 30 years now has been one of deep distrust (this is from the Secretary of Labor) and ugly, naked greed. And now that the whole thing's spinning outta control, those that are supposed to be public servants are reaching down deep, like the Grinch in the cartoon, and trying to find a way to minimize the bloodbath.
Slavoj Zizek said in an interview last month that Communism was going to win. Fess-up, comrades.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Ugly Things Happening to Ugly People
Or, Instant Karma's Gonna Getcha...
from the always helpful ARTNEWSlistserv I'm going to simply share the whole story from Twincities.com
from the always helpful ARTNEWSlistserv I'm going to simply share the whole story from Twincities.com
My favorite bit has to be this:
"Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.
"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement." A few hours after the interview, an unknown woman helped herself to Schwartz's resources."
GOP delegate's hotel tryst goes bad when he wakes up with $120,000 missing
.. -->date-->Article Last Updated: 09/17/2008 08:32:27 AM CDTHe met her in the bar of the swank hotel and invited her to his room. Once there, the woman fixed the drinks and told him to get undressed.
And that, the delegate to the Republican National Convention told police, was the last thing he remembered.
When he awoke, the woman was gone, as was more than $120,000 in money, jewelry and other belongings.
The thief's take stunned cops.
"It's very, very, very rare," Minneapolis Police Sgt. William Palmer said. "I can think of a couple of burglaries where we had that much stolen, but it's the first time I've heard of this kind of deal."
In a statement released today, Gabriel Nathan Schwartz, 29, of Denver, put the figure at much less.
"It's embarrassing to admit that I was a target of a crime. I was drugged and had about $50,000 of personal items stolen, not the inflated number that the media is reporting from an inaccurate police report," he said.
"As a single man, I was flattered by the attention of a beautiful woman who introduced herself to me. I used poor judgment."
Contacted by the Denver Post Monday, Schwartz declined to speak on the record. In the statement released today, Schwartz said he would decline further interview requests.
The haul included a $30,000 watch, a $20,000 ring, a necklace valued at $5,000, earrings priced at $4,000 and a Prada belt valued at $1,000, police said.
Schwartz is a single attorney and a fixture in Colorado Republican politics. He was one of the state's delegates to the convention this month in St. Paul.
Reached by phone at his law office Monday, Schwartz said that because the case still was under investigation, "I think at this point, I don't want to make a comment on it."
During the convention, Schwarz wasn't shy about talking to the media. In an Associated Press article about Sen. John McCain's acceptance speech, Schwartz was quoted as saying that as far as oratorical skills go, McCain "has more experience in his little pinkie" than Democratic nominee Barack Obama.
In an interview filmed the afternoon of Sept. 3 and posted on the Web site LinkTV.org, Schwartz was candid about how he envisioned change under a McCain presidency.
"Less taxes and more war," he said, smiling. He said the U.S. should "bomb the hell" out of Iran because the country threatens Israel.
Asked by the interviewer how America would pay for a military confrontation with Iran, he said the U.S. should take the country's resources.
"We should plant a flag. Take the oil, take the money," he said. "We deserve reimbursement."
A few hours after the interview, an unknown woman helped herself to Schwartz's resources.
The theft happened at the Hotel Ivy, a luxury hotel in downtown Minneapolis. (The Colorado delegation was housed at the Four Points Sheraton, several miles away on Industrial Boulevard Northeast.)
The theft occurred early on Sept. 4, hours after Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin gave her speech accepting her party's vice presidential nomination. A police report said Schwartz told officers he met a woman at the bar and took her to his $319-a-night room.
"Victim reported suspect made victim drinks, told him to get undressed, which is the last thing he remembers," a police narrative said. "Upon waking, victim discovered money, jewelry gone; total loss over $120K."
A police report notes the crime occurred between 4:22 and 5:46 a.m., and Palmer said investigators believe Schwartz was drugged, although he declined to discuss details.
Aside from the watch, ring, necklace, earrings and belt, Schwartz also reported a $1,000 purse or wallet, a $1,500 cell phone, $500 in cash and a couple of rings worth $50 had been taken.
Alister Glen, general manager of the Hotel Ivy, called the theft an isolated incident and said no hotel personnel were involved.
"I don't know if I'm at liberty to discuss it," he said. "It's still under police investigation."
Schwartz was a supporter of former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, donating $2,300 — the maximum individual donation allowed by law — to his presidential campaign last year, according to records from the Federal Election Commission.
After Giuliani dropped out, Schwartz switched his allegiance to McCain, and records show he donated $2,300 to the Arizona senator's campaign in April.
In biographical sketches of Colorado's delegates published in the Rocky Mountain News, Schwartz said he was single, didn't have any pets and most admired Colorado Secretary of State Mike Coffman, "as he has served our party for many years and has served in the military."
He said his idea of a "dream ticket" was McCain and Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor.
On the Web site for his Denver law practice, Sandomire & Schwartz, the lawyer describes his experience as a civil and criminal lawyer and points out he is a regular guest on "Colorado State of Mind," a public affairs program produced by Rocky Mountain PBS. The show, according to its Web site, says it gathers "opinionated and passionate people from across the state" to discuss a wide range of issues.
In his interview on LinkTV, Schwartz seemed opinionated and passionate.
He said an attack on Iran was needed to protect Israel, and he offered how it could be accomplished through "strategical airstrikes."
"Hopefully, just bomb the hell out of them from the sky. No troops," he said.
Schwartz was asked if he had a message to the protesters who filled the streets of downtown St. Paul.
"Get a job," he replied.
David Hanners can be reached at 612-338-6516
Conservatives for Obama?
I got the heads-up from an econ blog I like to scan, Angry Bear.
The author of the following is now the publisher of The National Review (long-time champion of the conservative movement) and the whole thing is available at D Magazine
I'm glad to read this because it confirms what I'd been saying all along: Obama's not even liberal. Beyond even the semantic argument that will come up about Neocons and Neoliberal politics, I'm saying this: America's fallen asleep, it's hand in the bag of Doritos, cigarette still smoldering, "5 minute Abs" DVD playing on the TV... Those in a position to do so have nationalized AIG and are using taxpayer dollars to bail out the scoundrels that have brought down the American economy over the past 20 years - meanwhile teachers are having to pay for their own school supplies (Roper and my sister included).
I was reading today that the American economy is going to need 1 to 2 trillion dollars to get out of the muck it's in now. That's almost as much as the deficit Dubya put us into when he cut taxes and began this unwinable war.
The author of the following is now the publisher of The National Review (long-time champion of the conservative movement) and the whole thing is available at D Magazine
THE MORE I LISTEN TO AND READ ABOUT "the most liberal member of the U.S. Senate," the more I like him. Barack Obama strikes a chord with me like no political figure since Ronald Reagan. To explain why, I need to explain why I am a conservative and what it means to me.
....I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don't matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama's books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.
....I now see that Obama is almost the ideal candidate for this moment in American history. I disagree with him on many issues. But those don't matter as much as what Obama offers, which is a deeply conservative view of the world. Nobody can read Obama's books (which, it is worth noting, he wrote himself) or listen to him speak without realizing that this is a thoughtful, pragmatic, and prudent man. It gives me comfort just to think that after eight years of George W. Bush we will have a president who has actually read the Federalist Papers.
I'm glad to read this because it confirms what I'd been saying all along: Obama's not even liberal. Beyond even the semantic argument that will come up about Neocons and Neoliberal politics, I'm saying this: America's fallen asleep, it's hand in the bag of Doritos, cigarette still smoldering, "5 minute Abs" DVD playing on the TV... Those in a position to do so have nationalized AIG and are using taxpayer dollars to bail out the scoundrels that have brought down the American economy over the past 20 years - meanwhile teachers are having to pay for their own school supplies (Roper and my sister included).
I was reading today that the American economy is going to need 1 to 2 trillion dollars to get out of the muck it's in now. That's almost as much as the deficit Dubya put us into when he cut taxes and began this unwinable war.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Why Isn’t Someone in This Election Yelling?
Seriously: the election strategy of McCain-Palin has been one out-right lie on top of another in a b.s.-Dagwood-sandwich.
Why isn't this being pointed out?
It has, seriously, become a situation where if a commenter in the media points-out the facts, that commenter has a partisan (read: Liberal) bias. Look at how Paul Krugman got shrugged-off on Larry King the other night:
But here's more for you to chew on when thinking of McCain's trail of tears and lies:
Why isn't this being pointed out?
It has, seriously, become a situation where if a commenter in the media points-out the facts, that commenter has a partisan (read: Liberal) bias. Look at how Paul Krugman got shrugged-off on Larry King the other night:
"KING: Paul Krugman, do you agree with Andy Serwer that neither one of these candidates are hitting the mark?
KRUGMAN: You know, there's a little -- that's a little bit of false symmetry there. I mean, Obama has been calling for increased financial regulation. He has some pretty decent-sounding proposals there. I have no idea what McCain's talking about. He's saying we're going to stop the executives from getting outsized bonuses. How are we going to do that?
SERWER: It sounds kind of partisan frankly, I mean right?"
Nothing partisan about what he said, it just so happens that McCain's economic adviser, Phil Gramm, is one of the primary midwives of this economic meltdown.KRUGMAN: You know, there's a little -- that's a little bit of false symmetry there. I mean, Obama has been calling for increased financial regulation. He has some pretty decent-sounding proposals there. I have no idea what McCain's talking about. He's saying we're going to stop the executives from getting outsized bonuses. How are we going to do that?
SERWER: It sounds kind of partisan frankly, I mean right?"
But here's more for you to chew on when thinking of McCain's trail of tears and lies:
Am I a Futurist?
The University of Hawai'i offers an MA in Future Studies and I found that out through synchronicity (our vacation to the US seems to have been one big synchronicity).
Anywho, I've been catching up on the whole Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merril Lynch thing and one of the articles I got was through the artnews listserv. So far the article is interesting but then I was struck by this:
"Back on December 21, 2007, I interviewed Gerald Celente, Editor and Publisher of The Trends Journal based in Rhinebeck, New York. Mr. Celente has been interviewed by network newscasters for years and his trend predictions are generally correct....Are we facing depression greater than the "Great Depression of 1929?" I took that question to Gerald Celente and began by asking him how he was so accurate back in December 2007?"
Now, of course, Mr. Celente is much better at doing this kind of predictive work and I would continue to look to him and his organization for trend forecasting. But I do want to set the record straight about who else saw this economic 9/11 coming: yours truly:
"I'd also like to just say that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession and the real estate market has only just begun to experience the first of several waves of "adjustments" as they called the dotcom bubble bursting.
Expect that the price of a home will decline for the next 5 to 7 years and in about 10 years the next housing boom will start again..."[sic]
That was from my blog posted on November 7, 2007. I also wrote a subprime reader for ACCION USA during that fall, but I can't seem to find a post of it.
Anyways, Celente actually knows how to do this trend forecasting stuff, not me and I simply went reading the economics blogs that made the most compelling arguments with the best data available.
We told you so.
Anywho, I've been catching up on the whole Lehman Brothers, AIG, Merril Lynch thing and one of the articles I got was through the artnews listserv. So far the article is interesting but then I was struck by this:
"Back on December 21, 2007, I interviewed Gerald Celente, Editor and Publisher of The Trends Journal based in Rhinebeck, New York. Mr. Celente has been interviewed by network newscasters for years and his trend predictions are generally correct....Are we facing depression greater than the "Great Depression of 1929?" I took that question to Gerald Celente and began by asking him how he was so accurate back in December 2007?"
Now, of course, Mr. Celente is much better at doing this kind of predictive work and I would continue to look to him and his organization for trend forecasting. But I do want to set the record straight about who else saw this economic 9/11 coming: yours truly:
"I'd also like to just say that the U.S. economy is heading into a recession and the real estate market has only just begun to experience the first of several waves of "adjustments" as they called the dotcom bubble bursting.
Expect that the price of a home will decline for the next 5 to 7 years and in about 10 years the next housing boom will start again..."[sic]
That was from my blog posted on November 7, 2007. I also wrote a subprime reader for ACCION USA during that fall, but I can't seem to find a post of it.
Anyways, Celente actually knows how to do this trend forecasting stuff, not me and I simply went reading the economics blogs that made the most compelling arguments with the best data available.
We told you so.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Me in the Japan Times
I didn't realize that the Japan Times already published my letter to the editor last week.
For those of you interested, it can be found at this link or below:
Strength in cultural differences
By PAUL BOSHEARS
Okinawa
Debito Arudou's assertion in his Sept. 2 article, "The 'gaijin' debate: Arudou responds," that there is any sort of comparison between the words "n--ger" and "gaijin" are strained, pathetic, and causes more harm than good because, at the root, his argument is tawdry and facile.
Arudou's stated desired outcome is to have his Japanese status acknowledged. What would that look like? At a social event, would a recent acquaintance mistakenly call him "Taro" instead of "Debito"? He has been issued a passport and a health-care card, and is entitled to all the benefits the nation offers. The state has given him what he wants. What does Arudou want from me and the readers of this newspaper?
I appreciate that he plays at fighting the good fight, but in this instance he has seriously offended me. Because, let's face it, Arudou doesn't speak for the "n--gers" living in Japan. He is not a champion of the rights of Filipina sex workers who are brutalized here in Okinawa. He is not the defender of Chinese students or third-generation Koreans who still aren't "Japanese."
He wants to champion the cause of newcomers to Japan. But instead of ham-fisted and ugly similes, we need words that can nourish the imagination of the reader -- words that speak to every human being's basic need to be a part of a community predicated on mutual benefit.
In the American tradition, we can look to the poet Robert Frost for these kinds of words. In "The Mending Wall," we read that good fences make good neighbors. It is in our supposed boundaries -- our cultural differences -- that we find the very source of our mutual strength. That we are the inheritors of rich cultural traditions means that we are better able to meet the needs of our communities.
Friday, August 29, 2008
A Fascinating Article About Racist Rhetoric
So MLK gave his famous speech just over 45 years ago, so that his homophobic family could then sell it to cell phone companies; I am reminded of the "I Have a Dream Speech" because Obama accepted the Democratic Presidential Nomination. I read the speech, it was alright.
I hope that he's the next President (because the only other person that could be is McCain and that spells disaster). By the way, I think that the next "racial issue" will be that group that we call Hispanic or Latino. I think it's going to come in the form of further Immigration Control, which is absurd but happening.
Today I read a fascinating article about the history of American White Supremacist Rhetoric that is currently being used as the legal defense strategy of these black drug lords in Baltimore and I am sharing it with you all because it's amazing. I think that it's a fascinating article because it describes a really prominent feature of our historical moment: the dissolution of the nation-state through the rise of the interest group.
Nation-States are really monolithic, right? They're huge, they don't move around because they are geographically-rooted, when they move it is always in one of two directions: retreat or advance/colonize. Now we have Multinational Corporations, entities that are quite large in a number of measures (Wal-Mart is one of the largest economies in the world), and what we call globalization (itself simply the footprint of the Sasquatch that is sometimes called The System); and we also have organizations like Al-Qaida (unless you're John McCain and insist that it's only related to Muslims, by ignoring all those crazy Christian and Jewish, and any other violent extremist group out there). These groups are like nomads, and here I'm thinking of Deleuze & Guattari's sense of nomads...
Anyways, I'm tiring you out from reading the real meat and potatoes here. The article is a little long, but it's really well-written and a fascinating stage on which to present some complex ideas (although the journalist never even touches on where I'd like to go from here).
Please Read This and Respond: here(or in Japanese, ココ)
I hope that he's the next President (because the only other person that could be is McCain and that spells disaster). By the way, I think that the next "racial issue" will be that group that we call Hispanic or Latino. I think it's going to come in the form of further Immigration Control, which is absurd but happening.
Today I read a fascinating article about the history of American White Supremacist Rhetoric that is currently being used as the legal defense strategy of these black drug lords in Baltimore and I am sharing it with you all because it's amazing. I think that it's a fascinating article because it describes a really prominent feature of our historical moment: the dissolution of the nation-state through the rise of the interest group.
Nation-States are really monolithic, right? They're huge, they don't move around because they are geographically-rooted, when they move it is always in one of two directions: retreat or advance/colonize. Now we have Multinational Corporations, entities that are quite large in a number of measures (Wal-Mart is one of the largest economies in the world), and what we call globalization (itself simply the footprint of the Sasquatch that is sometimes called The System); and we also have organizations like Al-Qaida (unless you're John McCain and insist that it's only related to Muslims, by ignoring all those crazy Christian and Jewish, and any other violent extremist group out there). These groups are like nomads, and here I'm thinking of Deleuze & Guattari's sense of nomads...
Anyways, I'm tiring you out from reading the real meat and potatoes here. The article is a little long, but it's really well-written and a fascinating stage on which to present some complex ideas (although the journalist never even touches on where I'd like to go from here).
Please Read This and Respond: here(or in Japanese, ココ)
Monday, August 18, 2008
New PSA Site
So, here's a place that I hope will act as a great tool for those of you that have been a part of the PSA so far (and for those to come).
It's an archive to show the unintiated what the PSA is all about:
http://sites.google.com/site/philosophystudentassociation/Home
It's in need of more information because I have only, what, three flyers out of the 90 that we made... I've only got, like, two of the PSA stickers posted. We did lots of cool stuff and the world needs to have rapid access to that when they meet us - they need to know with whom they are dealing.
I'd like to also post the CVs of alumni (for future job hunts, newspapers looking for background on "the early genius of ________" so I need you, mis cumpaneros, to give me your photos. If you have hardcopies of any of the Sophias or stickers, whathaveyou, take a digital picture of it (a nicely lit, big one) and email it to me. If you have digital copies of any of it, please email it to me.
http://sites.google.com/site/philosophystudentassociation/Home
And tell me what I got wrong on there and what you'd like to see on there.
Rots of rove
It's an archive to show the unintiated what the PSA is all about:
http://sites.google.com/site/
It's in need of more information because I have only, what, three flyers out of the 90 that we made... I've only got, like, two of the PSA stickers posted. We did lots of cool stuff and the world needs to have rapid access to that when they meet us - they need to know with whom they are dealing.
I'd like to also post the CVs of alumni (for future job hunts, newspapers looking for background on "the early genius of ________" so I need you, mis cumpaneros, to give me your photos. If you have hardcopies of any of the Sophias or stickers, whathaveyou, take a digital picture of it (a nicely lit, big one) and email it to me. If you have digital copies of any of it, please email it to me.
http://sites.google.com/site/
And tell me what I got wrong on there and what you'd like to see on there.
Rots of rove
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
What Is Lost in Translation?
So, as you may be aware, Japanese society is perhaps the most polite society on the planet. There are several degrees of politeness that must be employed to do the simplest things, even when buying groceries.
This politeness-thing is difficult for Westerners to understand and it's really difficult to live here comfortably because we are constantly having to do our best to demonstrate the proper level of politeness (like, "is it okay, when taking off my shoes to enter a building, to turn completely around - and so show my butt to the host? Answer: yes it is).
But there is a reciprocated problem: the Japanese have no swear words. The worst thing you can say is that you will kill someone. Yeah, now think about the massacres that you've committed when you're late to work or someone is too slow to make your Willy's super veggie burrito (mmm, I'd kill someone for a Willy's Superveggie burrito - I'd kill they mama).
So I spend a certain amount of time, every day, trying to educate my (totally fluent) Japanese colleagues. Here is today's lesson, it's about using slang as adjectives:
UPDATE:
According to my coworker the title of "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" in Japanese is:
ジェイ & サイレント ボブ 帝国への逆襲
which translates to "Jay and Silent Bob counterattack empire"
This politeness-thing is difficult for Westerners to understand and it's really difficult to live here comfortably because we are constantly having to do our best to demonstrate the proper level of politeness (like, "is it okay, when taking off my shoes to enter a building, to turn completely around - and so show my butt to the host? Answer: yes it is).
But there is a reciprocated problem: the Japanese have no swear words. The worst thing you can say is that you will kill someone. Yeah, now think about the massacres that you've committed when you're late to work or someone is too slow to make your Willy's super veggie burrito (mmm, I'd kill someone for a Willy's Superveggie burrito - I'd kill they mama).
So I spend a certain amount of time, every day, trying to educate my (totally fluent) Japanese colleagues. Here is today's lesson, it's about using slang as adjectives:
UPDATE:
According to my coworker the title of "Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back" in Japanese is:
ジェイ & サイレント ボブ 帝国への逆襲
which translates to "Jay and Silent Bob counterattack empire"
Monday, August 11, 2008
The History of the PSA and Getting into the EGS
Many thanks to all y'all that have sent me congratulatory statements upon being admitted to the European Graduate School, I hope I do ya proud.
So, I really want to thank all of my friends that contributed to that work and I encourage you to continue to think about the great work you've done so far and use these experiences garnered to date to really break-out from the tediocrity that surrounds us.
No seriously, I do.
Kristy asked how I got into the EGS and I thought I'd share.
I wrote about working with my friends in the Philosophy Student Association (PSA). Actually, the last three positions I've taken I have discussed at length my work with the PSA because it has been great work so far (because I believe that we will continue to do awesome shit).
Here's what I wrote, actually:
My work with the Philosophy Student Association (PSA), I think best exemplifies my fierce independence of thought and need for creativity in my scholastic endeavors. I come from a small state university on the outskirts
Kennesaw during this time saw the median age of its student body go from 35 to 23 which meant that the PSA largely consisted of students between 21 and 25, the university describes that demographic as "nontraditional." Among the membership were several artists (two of whom were working as tattoo artists in the metro area), a full-time high school teacher, a full-time elementary school teacher, and several students such as myself that were supporting ourselves and paying our own way through our undergraduate years. We all shared a certain degree of irreverence and a desire to overcome the general malaise, the overall suburban Americanism, that Kennesaw had been steeping in for the previous decade. The Philosophy Student Association began with a sketch that one of the members had created during a lecture on the Buddhist rejection of Hinduism. I recognized that brand identity was the crucial step needed in order to begin our work and so this sketch became a limited run of stickers which we could use to cover over the Coca-Cola and Home Depot (both based in Atlanta) logos that had become ubiquitous on our campus. This logo, "Sophia," would be placed on all works we produced as a collective. So far, five of our original members have had this logo tattooed onto our bodies, we joke that we are a "blood in, blood out" community.
As the Philosophy Student Association we created the annual North Georgia Student Philosophy Conference (NGSPC), an international conference held over two days in the spring. The NGSPC publishes an annual journal, selected proceedings which feature original works by scholars such as David Farrell Krell and Henry Rosemont, Jr, and Walter Brogan. I served for five years as head of the selection committee for the conference as well as the selected proceedings. We, the students, found the funding, we coordinated all the logistics for hosting the conferences, and we were entirely responsible for the layout and design of each journal. The PSA was responsible for what has been described by professors at other universities in the southeast as, "the best philosophy lecture series in the region," the Mike Ryan Lecture Series. This lecture series, named after a member that tragically died at the PSA's inception, brought world-renowned scholars and artists such as Graham Parkes, Saul Williams, David Wood, P.J. Ivanhoe, and Robert Bernusconi. Again, we, the students, found all the funding and coordinated all the logistics for each of these events, including setting up and breaking down the tables and chairs. The Philosophy Student Association generated a monthly newsletter, "Sophia," in which we published student précis (again all design and logistics were directed and executed by us). We created an online journal, OtherWise, which seeks to foster and encourage undergraduates to engage comparative and continental philosophies. The PSA was awarded "Best Student Organization of the Year" for five years in a row for our exceptional dedication to improving the quality of discourse in our community. My friends and I accomplished all of this without a Philosophy major, there was no structural support from the faculty of the Philosophy faculty with the noted exception of David Jones (or advisor) and Tom Pynn.
So, I really want to thank all of my friends that contributed to that work and I encourage you to continue to think about the great work you've done so far and use these experiences garnered to date to really break-out from the tediocrity that surrounds us.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Nationalized Healthcare in Japan
Karen and I just watched Michael Moore's SicKO last night and I feel compelled to share a little something.
We live in a country that has universal healthcare and we've used the healthcare several times already.
When I lived in the U.S. I was working as a waiter and going to school and I broke my elbow while riding my bicycle. I did not have health insurance and so filed for indigency (like a homeless person) and got half the costs removed. The other several thousands of dollars I simply told them I would not be able to pay, which is still true.
I had maybe three hundred dollars saved. I spent half on my first visit with the orthopaedist. I spent the rest buying my prescribed medicine. But I ended up selling my prescribed pain killers to my boss at the restaurant so that I could buy groceries that month.
I'll grant you that dental care here is nothing like what is available in the U.S. but that really doesn't matter since I haven't been able to afford to see a dentist in the U.S. my entire adult life. Here it's a negligible cost.
I work with folks from Europe and I get really pissed off at them because they talk about how absurd it is to work when you're ill... I get pissed because I feel so used and I feel like it's wrong, WRONG, that they can go to a doctor whenever they feel like it and I've spent my entire adult life afraid of getting sick.
I have a sense of perspective: the number one killer in the world is lack of drinking water and American toilets are full of teh cleanest water in the world.
But still, it's just wrong the way healthcare is set up in the U.S. and it's the reason why immigration is even an issue in the U.S. Immigration is used as a mask for our lack of universal healthcare. The whole "I'm a Libertarian Patriot, Don't Tax Me" b.s. is also a direct response to this lack of healthcare for all: the number one reason for people over the age of forty filing bankruptcy is for overwhelming healthcare costs. So sure, you look outside your mcmansion and you realize that you can't afford to pay for the surgery or treatment that would keep your wife or child or yourself alive and you might be inclined to start listening to Neal Boortz like he knows something - any fairy tale that will allow you to feel like someone, anyone agrees with you that this is a sin, this lack of healthcare.
We live in a country that has universal healthcare and we've used the healthcare several times already.
When I lived in the U.S. I was working as a waiter and going to school and I broke my elbow while riding my bicycle. I did not have health insurance and so filed for indigency (like a homeless person) and got half the costs removed. The other several thousands of dollars I simply told them I would not be able to pay, which is still true.
I had maybe three hundred dollars saved. I spent half on my first visit with the orthopaedist. I spent the rest buying my prescribed medicine. But I ended up selling my prescribed pain killers to my boss at the restaurant so that I could buy groceries that month.
I'll grant you that dental care here is nothing like what is available in the U.S. but that really doesn't matter since I haven't been able to afford to see a dentist in the U.S. my entire adult life. Here it's a negligible cost.
I work with folks from Europe and I get really pissed off at them because they talk about how absurd it is to work when you're ill... I get pissed because I feel so used and I feel like it's wrong, WRONG, that they can go to a doctor whenever they feel like it and I've spent my entire adult life afraid of getting sick.
I have a sense of perspective: the number one killer in the world is lack of drinking water and American toilets are full of teh cleanest water in the world.
But still, it's just wrong the way healthcare is set up in the U.S. and it's the reason why immigration is even an issue in the U.S. Immigration is used as a mask for our lack of universal healthcare. The whole "I'm a Libertarian Patriot, Don't Tax Me" b.s. is also a direct response to this lack of healthcare for all: the number one reason for people over the age of forty filing bankruptcy is for overwhelming healthcare costs. So sure, you look outside your mcmansion and you realize that you can't afford to pay for the surgery or treatment that would keep your wife or child or yourself alive and you might be inclined to start listening to Neal Boortz like he knows something - any fairy tale that will allow you to feel like someone, anyone agrees with you that this is a sin, this lack of healthcare.
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