Category: Philosophy

Mitt Picks a Running Mate

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So, Mitt Rmoney has picked Paul Ryan as his vice presidential running.

Only in America could be someone who idolizes a virulently anti-religious atheist with the sexual morals of a rabid mink in heat could be considered the savior of the Republicans, and conservative politics.

Of sourse, it is America, so Paul Ryan, who is such a fan of hack writer Ayn Rand that he requires his staff to read every page of Atlas Shrugged.

He’s also the guy who put forward a budget that eliminated Medicare, which led to some very surprising losses in special elections for the GOP.

I can’t imagine that Willard needs to appease the party’s right-wing base this badly, so I gotta figure that this is a ploy to get Obama to stop talking about his tax returns, or lack thereof.

If you don’t know who Paul Ryan is, I would refer you to Charlie Pierce on what a contemptible piece or work he is.

BTW, Michael Moore had the tweet of the day:

Link

This might be unfair to Charles Manson.

Interesting Point About Religion

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One of the things that honks me off is the phrase, “Judeo Christian”.

I consider it to be code words for “White European”.

Jews are not Christian.

More than the whole “Jesus thing”, there are profound differences in how textual analysis is applied to scriptures, attitudes toward sex in marriage, the application of historical data to the analysis, and the acknowledgement of the oft contradictory character of the writings.

In any case, I came across a rather interesting analysis of one of the more troubling parts of Torah, the divine instructions to engage in what essentially was genocide in the conquest of Canaan following the exodus from Egypt.

Dr. Science of Obsidian Wings, a Jew by choice, compares two blog posts, one from an Evangelical Christian minister, and one from a Reconstructionist Jewish Rabbi, and puts to words a core difference in the intellectual approaches that I have always found difficult to put to words:

The two ministers come across as reasonably similar in personality and emotional tone — I suspect they would get along quite well. Both read the Bible in historical-critical context, but they insist that it is necessary to read the Bible, not to just follow your bliss. Neither is willing to accept the “genocide commandments” as-is, but neither is willing to just throw them out or ignore them, either.

And they approach this text from different perspectives: asking different questions, using different tools. I was brought up as a Christian (in a Catholic/Lutheran family) but am now a practicing Jew, so I find a compare/contrast very illuminating. In this case, the Christian asks about the character or personality of God; the Jew asks what we Jews should *do*.

(Emphasis mine)

At its core, this is why fundamentalism is not really a part of normative Judaism.  (Maimonides made the point nearly 900 years ago that a strictly literal interpretation is not compatible with a meaningful study of Torah.)

If you view scriptures as instructions on how to conduct your life on a daily basis, it is impossible to take scripture literally, because the myriad contradictions and inconsistencies become manifest, thus you need to put your brain in gear, and ask yourself, “What does this mean, and what do I have to do?”

It’s why the term Orthodoxy, meaning literally one way of thinking, is really not an accurate description of observant Jews.  Their practice of religion is very nearly the same, they are all a bunch of guys in black hats, but when you ask them why, or attempt to get an opinion on a part of Tanach (Torah, Prophets, and Writings) you will find them coming to this from distinctly different viewpoints.  (See Orthopraxy)

And In the Role of Enron, JP Morgan Chase

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Remember the California Energy Crisis in 2001? When Enron was found to be manipulating the energy market.

Well, now it’s JP Morgan:

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM)’s refusal to turn over e-mails in a federal probe of potential energy-market manipulation is the latest challenge for Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon as the bank faces multiple investigations.

The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission sued JPMorgan July 2 to release 25 e-mails in an investigation of possible manipulation of power markets in California and the Midwest by J.P. Morgan Ventures Energy Corp., according to court filings by the Washington-based agency. FERC opened the probe in August after complaints from California and Midwest grid operators that JPMorgan’s bidding practices were abusive, the documents show.

The real lesson here is that these energy markets are rife for abuse, as are most “market based” alternatives to regulation.

Market based solutions, in effect if not in intent, are about the elites in government throwing cash to their old school chums in finance.

Panglossian Bulls%$#

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Notwithstanding the Senate pickup, Tueaday was a loss, but we see the crap like this suggesting that it wasn’t that bad.

No, it was that bad.

There are some lessons to learn, the first is that you need to fight something with something, and Tom Barrett wasn’t something.

He is, by all accounts, a nice guy but that’s all he was.

We waffled on repealing the union busting bill, etc.

Any wonder that he lost?

In any case, if you don’t acknowledge that you have failed, you cannot learn from your failures.

They Own Us

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Too hot for TED

When someone gives a TED talk suggesting that lower taxes on the very wealthy actually makes out economy worse off, because the middle class is the real engine of job growth.

The response of TED was to refuse to release the video of the talk:

TED, the nonprofit organization that organizes and promotes wonky web videos on varying issues known as “TED talks,” has reportedly decided not to publish a video on income inequality in which venture capitalist Nick Hanauer declares, “Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs.” TED organizers deemed the talk too “politically controversial,” and in an email obtained by the National Journal, TED curator Chris Anderson told Hanauer that “we couldn’t release it, because it would be unquestionably regarded as out and out political. We’re in the middle of an election year in the US. Your argument comes down firmly on the side of one party.

It’s the super-rich’s world, they just allow us to rent a space in their attic.

BTW, the “Curator” of TED posted his his response online. The phrase, “Whiner” comes to mind. (Be sure to read the comments, they realy cut him a new one)

Basically, this was cut because the thesis makes the moneybags who back TED feel bad. The “Masters of the Universe” really think that they are different and special.

Thus they cannot abide being described as an effect rather than a cause.

Another Reason Banksters Walk

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Because there are a lot of people who make a lot of money by finding the scammers and betting on the damage that they do, like this short seller:

But then he came to the nub of the issue. The easiest scammer to find is a repeat offender. We actively seek out people who promote dodgy stocks and who who are repeatedly involved in dodgy companies. The slogan is “once a scumbag, always a scumbag”. That slogan is probably not strictly accurate – but we only need to be right 90 percent of the time to be fantastic at this business – and the recidivism amongst scammers is surprisingly high.

………

So, says my son asks you like nasty people to steal from poor investors, mutual funds (and he did not say pension funds for school teachers) so that you can join them in taking the loot by being a short-seller – and you don’t want the regulators to do anything about it because there are more opportunities for you?

Sheepishly I confess yes.

And he says with a mixture of admiration and horror: “daddy you are more evil than I thought”.

As shocking as the outright law breaking on Wall Street it, what is legal is even scarier.

I’m surely not the first one to observe this, but the incentives in our financial system are seriously whack.

Betraying Women for Fun and Profit

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It looks like the Democratic establishment in Michigan is going all in for a Congressional candidate who has voted to defund Planned Parenthood:

That’s a serious question: Who does the DCCC back in the Michigan 3rd CD race?

Context — Obama’s White House is in the process of trying (and failing) to damp down the firestorm from the gay community about Obama’s pointed refusal to grant the same protection against same-sex–preference bias as it routinely grants to other biases.

Marcie Wheeler, who lives in the district pointed it out this way:

Meanwhile, the Democrats are still going to use GOP attacks on women as a political stunt. DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz tweeted or re-tweeted 7 comments about women’s issues yesterday, in addition to the seemingly mandatory condemnation of Rosen.

I was particularly amused by this DWS tweet:

Bottom line: Choice, affordable contraception, and Planned Parenthood are at stake in this election. http://j.mp/I6A8c0

As it happened, a few hours after DWS sent that tweet, I went to a Debbie Stabenow event hosted by a local women’s group. As we were waiting for the Senator to speak, a top county Democrat was sitting several rows behind me trying to convince some of the women not to support Trevor Thomas. “There is absolutely no way he can win,” the guy said (the polling says he’s wrong, and I suspect he knows that). In addition to saying a gay man can’t win, he also said a pro-choice person can’t win in the district (his listeners pointed out that Stabenow herself had won the district; so have at least two other pro-choice candidates). Then he described Steven Pestka, using the line Michigan Democrats used to defend Bart Stupak as he was rolling back access to choice for women across the country.

He’s with us on everything else.

But the really appalling comment, uttered by a man at a women’s event, was this:

I need to win this year.

If the guy were reasonably intelligent, he might have said, “we need to win the gavel back for Nancy Pelosi.” But he couldn’t even muster a “we need to win” this year. Nope. It was “I need to win this year,” and that’s why women have to suck it up and vote for someone who has attacked their autonomy in the past.

Steve Pestka’s with us on everything else, this guy said at a women’s event. But he’s not just anti-choice. When he was in the State House (the experience locals point to to claim he’s a better candidate than Trevor) he scored a whopping 0% on votes to support choice. That included a vote for HB 4655, which singled out Planned Parenthood to be defunded, precisely the outrage–at the national level–that Democrats use as the cornerstone of their metaphorical attack on the GOP for its “War on Women.”

It really is remarkable just how craven, and willing to abandon core principles the professional Democrats are, and how f%$#ing stupid this sort of behavior is.

Cowardly political calculation, particularly with the active public support of the party establishment, turns off voters.

They Can’t Even Give Away Ads on Rush Limbaugh’s Show

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For the next two weeks, his syndicate, Premiere Networks, will be suspending their national ads from his show:

Radio-Info.com reports that Premiere Networks, which syndicates the Rush Limbaugh show, told its affiliate radio stations that they are suspending national advertising for two weeks. Rush Limbaugh is normally provided to affiliates in exchange for running several minutes of national advertisements provided by Premiere each hour. These ads called “barter spots.” These spots are how Premiere makes its money off of Rush Limbaugh and other shows it syndicates.

But without explanation, Premiere has supended these national advertisements for two weeks. Radio-Info.com calls the move “unusual.” The development suggests that Rush Limbaugh’s incessant sexist attacks on Sandra Fluke have caused severe damage to the show.

They are suspending the spots because they cannot give them away right now, and dead air is not a reasonable alternative.

This is a good thing, notwithstanding the concerns from the commentariat about a “slippery slope” of censorship. (Yeah, I’m talking to you Kevin Drum)

It’s pseudo-intellectual, pseudo-liberal hand wringing bullsh%$.

Being on the East Coast, I still hear now and again WBZ’s late night talk radio, which, even though its hosts lean right about 80% of the time is kind of a pre-repeal-of-the-fairness-doctrine relic, and their producers don’t pre-screen for conservative political orthodoxy.

In particular, I remember the late David Brudnoy, who was a conservative, and a libertarian, and one with VERY strongly held beliefs. (He loathed the Clintons)

The fact is that the most extreme of their hosts (like Brudnoy) re to the right about like Ed Schultz is on the left.

What you have on the air on the right wing right now are, to paraphrase Roger Stone, “Rat F%$#ing” political operatives.

If sponsors flee the freak show conservatives, it is an unalloyed good.

To think otherwise is to declare that Rachel Maddow and Glen Beck to be to opposite sides of the same coin.

I have no problems with polemicists, and neither will advertisers.

What is happening now is that sponsors are getting the message now that there are risks to backing the partisan Rat F%$#ers, and this is an unalloyed good.

Schadenfreude, Irony, We Haz Them!

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The Koch Brothers are attempting to take over the Cato Institute, and its head, and much of the staff, are appalled.

The law seems straightforward, the Koch Brothers own at least half the shares in the institute, so they get to call the shots, which seems to be to turn it into a partisan think tank, as opposed to a libertarian sand box.

The response of the principals at Cato has been a remarkable exercise in self abnegation:

No. The irony here is that the nation’s preeminent libertarians—who ought to be exquisitely attentive to freedom of contract, institutional design, and observing the letter of the law—couldn’t get their rights right. They built this Streeling of libertarian thought, with its $20+ million annual budget and world-wide reputation, on a shareholding structure that is either actually or nearly under the control of people who do not share many of their values and have not for decades. The entire enterprise may well have been for years only one death away from Koch domination. If so many libertarians are now so worried about a Koch takeover, one has to ask, why have they spent so many years building a brand with an unshielded thermal exhaust port?

I must say, a week ago I would have said that I would have been willing to pay serious money to hear Ed Crane and his posse at the Cato Institute say something like:

Shorter Ed Crane: Our collective societal well-being is advanced when restrictions are put on the ability of property owners to do what they wish with their property. The Cato Institute itself, for example, is in a legal sense the private property of its shareholders. But its shareholders do not have the moral right to do what they wish with it. For the Cato Institute is not a mere legal instrumentality that three shareholders control and direct. Instead, what the Cato Institute is is a social trust, a Great Compact, a contract that makes a great chain between all libertarians dead, living, and yet unborn, in which all those committed to the collective intellectual project of libertarianism are stakeholders who have moral rights over the Cato Institute that completely trump the property rights that so-called “owners” of The Cato Institute may claim to have.

For such an argument would seem to have the potential for wider applicability…

While the schadenfreude is nice, James Grimmelmann observes that this entire dispute knocks out one of the primary philosophical underpinnings of Libertarian thought, the idea that contracts executed between people of reasonable intellect can handle such matters:

The answers are obvious, and completely understandable. Because few people knew about Cato’s unusual share-based ownership structure. Because those few who knew didn’t think the Kochs’ power play was a serious possibility. Because Cato was there, and so it made sense as a coordination point, whatever its weaknesses. Because each individual project made sense, regardless of the long term. Because they never even thought to ask. All completely human, all quite arguably reasonable, and all things any of us would likely have done in the same position. And yet the end result could well be to deliver one of the world’s most recognizably libertarian institutions into the hands of men who would use it for other purposes.

I could not tell you how many times I’ve encountered libertarian arguments about law that assume that individuals can and ought to use contracts to protect themselves against just this sort of contingency. Don’t worry about users clicking “I agree” to overreaching terms of service; if they truly cared about the terms, they’d negotiate for better ones. Don’t worry about people who refuse to buy health insurance; they’re making a rational choice for themselves. Don’t worry about minority shareholders, don’t worry about franchisees, don’t worry about all the other groups that find themselves on the wrong end of a bargain that always seems to tip against them in the long run—if they wanted better protections, they could and should have negotiated for them up front.

Except they don’t. They never do. And really. If the uber-libertarians of the Cato institute can’t watch out for themselves, what hope is there for the rest of us?

And so libertarianism is shown not to be just morally lacking, intellectually as well.

If the best libertarians in the world can get taken down like this, then the idea that contracts are a replacement for government is a lie.

But this is still some really yummy schadenfreude.

Of course, if the Koch’s win, now that the spat has gone public, much of the credibility of the organization will be destroyed in the process.

Heh.

Broken Window Theory of Financial Crimes

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Bill Black has a very interesting look at the “Broken Window” theory of law enforcement and how, and whether, it might be applied to financial wrongdoing.

For those of who are unfamiliar with the “Broken Window” theory of law enforcement:

James Q. Wilson was a political scientist who often studied the government response to blue collar crime. The public knows him best for his theory called “broken windows.” The metaphor was what happens to a vacant building when broken windows are not promptly repaired. Soon, most of the windows in the abandoned building are broken. The criminals feel little compunction against petty destruction because the building’s owners evince no concern for the integrity of their building. Wilson took social norms, community, and ethics seriously. He argued that as community broke down fewer honest citizens were active in monitoring and policing behavior. The breakdown in community was criminogenic – it led to widespread serious blue collar crime. He urged us to take even minor blue collar crimes and breaches of civility seriously and to demand that they be contained through social pressure and policing.

Wilson got a lot of credit for cleaning up New York City, where crime levels did drop, but they did elsewhere, so perhaps the theory is a bit overrated.

And it should be noted that Mr. Wilson specifically excluded white collar crimes.

I think that the operative word here is “white”.

As in pigmentation, and Wilson found “white crime” just fine:

In a book entitled, Thinking About Crime, Wilson argued that criminology should focus overwhelmingly on low-status blue collar criminals.

This book [does not deal] with “white collar crimes”…. Partly this reflects the limits of my own knowledge, but it also reflects my conviction, which I believe is the conviction of most citizens, that predatory street crime is a far more serious matter than consumer fraud [or] antitrust violations … because predatory crime … makes difficult or impossible maintenance of meaningful human communities (1975: xx).

I am rather tolerant of some forms of civic corruption (if a good mayor can stay in office and govern effectively only by making a few deals with highway contractors and insurance agents, I do not get overly alarmed)…. (1975: xix).

Wilson won’t say it, and cannot now, because he’s dead, and may not admit it to himself, but he’s tolerant of white collar, because “Broken Window” enforcement should only be used when it involves cops harassing poor people and/or minorities.

That’s why Wilson created a “get out of jail free” for the crimes of the upper class.

I’m inclined to believe that small crimes beget bigger crimes, and that this problem is worse among the privileged than it is among the poor and minorities.

As Prof. Black illustrates in his article, when the little things are let slide, you end up with things like liars loans, and blacklists of honest home appraisers, with executives engaging in wholesale looting of their own firms.

H/t Yves Smith.

Iceland Wins

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I don’t understand why other countries don’t compare what has happened to Iceland, and compared it to what is going on with Greece, Ireland, Portugal, etc., and realizing that telling the banks to go Cheney themselves is the best policy. Fitch’s has just upgraded Iceland’s credit rating from BB+ to BBB-, which means that they are now investment grade.

What is of note here is that the Icelanders made the decision to favor their own people over the banks:

Icelanders who pelted parliament with rocks in 2009 demanding their leaders and bankers answer for the country’s economic and financial collapse are reaping the benefits of their anger.

Since the end of 2008, the island’s banks have forgiven loans equivalent to 13 percent of gross domestic product, easing the debt burdens of more than a quarter of the population, according to a report published this month by the Icelandic Financial Services Association.

“You could safely say that Iceland holds the world record in household debt relief,” said Lars Christensen, chief emerging markets economist at Danske Bank A/S in Copenhagen. “Iceland followed the textbook example of what is required in a crisis. Any economist would agree with that.”

The island’s steps to resurrect itself since 2008, when its banks defaulted on $85 billion, are proving effective. Iceland’s economy will this year outgrow the euro area and the developed world on average, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates. It costs about the same to insure against an Icelandic default as it does to guard against a credit event in Belgium. Most polls now show Icelanders don’t want to join the European Union, where the debt crisis is in its third year.

What? You mean the people of Iceland don’t want to become part of an institution that increasingly is an instrument of Germany’s incompetent hegemony? Hoocoodanode?

What they also did:

The island’s households were helped by an agreement between the government and the banks, which are still partly controlled by the state, to forgive debt exceeding 110 percent of home values. On top of that, a Supreme Court ruling in June 2010 found loans indexed to foreign currencies were illegal, meaning households no longer need to cover krona losses.

Note that both of these actions are considered to be cardinal sins under the international financial consensus, which states that creditors must always be repaid under the most favorable terms.

The fact that, “Iceland’s approach to dealing with the meltdown has put the needs of its population ahead of the markets at every turn,” is an anathema to the large financial institutions, as is the implementation of capital controls in a crisis.  (And, BTW, they are prosecuting senior bank executives as well)

They argue that these sorts of policies put a damper on international credit and finance.

They may be right, but it increasingly appears that the capital flows that they are describing do more harm than good for everything but the bankster’s bonus checks.

Keynes was right about this, and Wall Street and The City should thank their lucky stars that Iceland is small enough (population 318,452) to be ignored.

If other countries followed their lead, not only would the “Masters of the Universe” be out of job, they would be under criminal indictment.

H/t Credit Write Downs.

You Have Got To Be Kidding

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Guess what, the heavy duty Randroids out there are now going after their enemy du jour, George Bailey, president of the Bailey building and loan:

It’s been a standing joke for ages to claim that some free-market Randroid was so clueless that he or she would watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” and cheer for Mr. Potter while hissing at George Bailey. It would be the equivalent, say, of someone hoping that Scrooge would tell the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future to sod off or that Spielberg would leave E.T. to die alone in a ditch in Southern California or that Dorothy would be stranded in Oz for the rest of her life as the Wizard’s concubine.

But, of course, this, or so everyone thought, was all just cute and snarky hyperbole. No one, not even the High Priestess Ayn Rand herself, could possibly actually watch “It’s A Wonderful Life” and come away not sobbing like a child but instead thinking that George Bailey was a social parasite spouting vile commie propaganda against the heroic Mr. Potter, the job creator who knew what was really best for the people of Bedford Falls.

Yes, they are demonizing the hero, played by honest to God war hero Jimmy Stewart, of Frank Capra’s treacly bit of cinema, It’s a Wonderful Life, which is considered by many (not me) to be an American cinematic icon.*

Seriously, what the f%$# are wrong with these folks?

I’m beginning to understand what led Ayn Rand to have a doting crush on one William Edward Hickman, a monster who kidnapped and dismembered a twelve year old girl, it’s because Randian libertarianism is not so much a philosophy as it is a beard to conceal from the rest of the world that they are sociopaths.

*Personally, I’m not a big fan of the movie, and it was viewed as a resounding failure when released.  My interest was in the fact that it became popular when it passed out of copyright, and TV stations showed it repeatedly in the holiday season, creating a classic.  My interest is how a series of court rulings allowed it to be snatched out of the public domain.