Category: Philosophy

People You Hate to Love

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Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

This man is a nasty piece of work, but you have to admire the shear ballziness that he has exhibited in the past few weeks by appointing Burris to the Senate.

It’s kind of like watching the villains in pro-wrestling, which I did when I was rooming with a wrestling fan. You hate them, but you love them, because they are so much more engaging than the heroes.

Of course, the adult in me realizes that pro-wrestling is really primarily theater, and pro-wrestlers don’t have the power of life and death, as governors do with pardons, or just through the vicissitudes of budget process, which frequently determine who shall live and who shall die.

The Illinois legislature should dump him as soon as possible, and rationally he should never be allowed near the public sphere again, but my yetzer hara* will miss him.

*Yetzer hara is Hebrew for one’s evil inclination, and yetzer hatov is the inclination to do good. Imagine if you will, going to a store, and paying with a $10 bill, and getting change for a $20. When you correct the cashier, it is your yetzer hatov, and when you walk out of the store calling yourself a moron for not keeping the money, that’s your yetzer hara.

The Genius of John Maynard Keynes

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As noted by FT columnist Martin Wolfe

I see three broad lessons.

The first, which was taken forward by Minsky, is that we should not take the pretensions of financiers seriously. “A sound banker, alas, is not one who foresees danger and avoids it, but one who, when he is ruined, is ruined in a conventional way along with his fellows, so that no one can really blame him.” Not for him, then, was the notion of “efficient markets”.

The second lesson is that the economy cannot be analyzed in the same way as an individual business. For an individual company, it makes sense to cut costs. If the world tries to do so, it will merely shrink demand. An individual may not spend all his income. But the world must do so.

The third and most important lesson is that one should not treat the economy as a morality tale. In the 1930s, two opposing ideological visions were on offer: the Austrian; and the socialist. The Austrians – Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek – argued that a purging of the excesses of the 1920s was required. Socialists argued that socialism needed to replace failed capitalism, outright. These views were grounded in alternative secular religions: the former in the view that individual self-seeking behaviour guaranteed a stable economic order; the latter in the idea that the identical motivation could lead only to exploitation, instability and crisis.

Keynes’s genius – a very English one – was to insist we should approach an economic system not as a morality play but as a technical challenge. He wished to preserve as much liberty as possible, while recognising that the minimum state was unacceptable to a democratic society with an urbanised economy. He wished to preserve a market economy, without believing that laisser faire makes everything for the best in the best of all possible worlds.

(emphasis mine)

In fact, this may be the best message to economics professors out there: that reality matters more than your philosophy.

More People Who Write (and Think) Better Than I am Able Too

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In this case, it’s Jonathan Schwarz of A Tiny Revolution:

There’s a rule of thumb for American politics that will never steer you wrong: if the Washington press corps worships a political figure and squeaks for decades on end about how he’s a Brave Man of Honor and Wisdom, that political figure is one of the most dangerous lying scumbags on earth.

I would only add that sometimes *cough* John McCain *cough* he’s also batsh%$ insane.

Once Again, the Germans Are a Menace to the Civilized World

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I know, Godwin’s law, but I completely with Paul Krugman calling out the Germans on economic policy.

Specifically, he calls out Peer Steinbrueck, the Germany finance minister, who suggests that spending programs are “Crass Keynesianism”, and indirectly he calls out Angela Merkel, who is strongly resisting spending to stimulate the economy, and is instead keeping, “her trump card – tax cuts – in reserve.”

So in the middle of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression, Merkel and Steinbrueck are advocating Hoovernomics.

I understand the hyperinflation of the 1920s and how it shaped German thought, but this is insane.

Another Failure of Economic Philosophy

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The economic philosophy of the free trade Evangelicals is not just destroying our banking system, it’s also creating starvation in poor nations:

Inside and out, the rusted towers of El Salvador’s biggest grain silo show how the World Bank helped push developing countries into the global food crisis.

Inside, the silo, which once held thousands of tons of beans and cereals, is now empty. It was abandoned in 1991, after the bank told Salvadoran leaders to privatize grain storage, import staples such as corn and rice, and export crops including cocoa, coffee and palm oil.

…

“The World Bank made one basic blunder, which is to think that markets would solve problems of such severe circumstances,” said Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and a special adviser to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki- moon. “But history has shown you need to help people to get above the survival threshold before the markets can start functioning.”

It appears that the person who got this ball rolling, with “structural adjustment” loans, which required countries to disinvest in staples in favor of cash crops for export, was that guy who ran the Vietnam war so well, little Bobbie McNamara.

Google Ads: There Are Still a Few Bugs in the System

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OK, so a few days ago, I serve up an excerpt from a parody of Atlas Shrugged, so what does Google ads serve up?

Gifts for Proud Producers and Capitalists Everywhere!*

Ummmm….OK…I have nothing but contempt for Ayn Rand and routinely mock her and her followers, calling them “Randroids”, and in this case, I am spreading mockery of what she and her “Randroids” consider to be her magnum opus, and I get an ad serving a company dedicated to lionizing a horrible person and a lousy writer.†

Then again, perhaps the proprietor is mocking her too. There is a notice at the bottom of the page:

JohnGaltGifts.com is not in any way affiliated with or sponsored by the estate of Ayn Rand ®, the Ayn Rand ® Institute (ARI), Dr. Leonard Peikoff, or any other organization or company.

It appears to me that this means that the T-shirt and sticker maker is using the fruit of Ayn Rand’s intellectual output to enrich himself, which is specifically what Rand condemned.

If that’s the case, it’s a very subtle and sophisticated parody.

*I’m linking because I’m complaining, it’s only fair.
†While I have never read Atlas Shrugged, nor do I intend to, I have read The Virtue of Selfishness in 1980 as part of a philosophy of literature class in high school, and it was awful. Emanuel Kant was more readable.

Republican Party Has Lost The Economist

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In an editorial, they call the ‘Phants, a Ship of fools, and lambast them for systematically becoming anti-idea and anti-thought over the past 30 years.

It’s a good read, and the last sentence, “Richard Weaver, one of the founders of modern conservatism, once wrote a book entitled “Ideas have Consequences”; unfortunately, too many Republicans are still refusing to acknowledge that idiocy has consequences, too,” had me cleaning my screen.

While there is much wrong with the Republican party, they are correct that the anti-intellectual anti though bent of the modern Republican party is at the core of much of this.

It’s a good read.

Krugman Pwn35* Amity Shlaes

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Though I would have to say that Pwn463† of Ms. Shlaes is like shooting fish in a barrel:

When you hear claims that the New Deal made the depression worse, they often come directly or indirectly from the work of Amity Shlaes, whose misleading statistics have been widely disseminated on the right.

…

Krugman then goes to show that Shlaes is suggesting that actions based on Keynes theories failed to contain unemployment in the 1960s.

Yes, I was unaware of the historically high unemployment rates in the 1960s too.

Just go read… A few hundred words, and he destroys her.

*Owns.
†Ownage.

The South Fell This November

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Kevin Drum makes a very good point about the south, specifically from 1932 on, reactionary southerners have controlled much of American politics.

First, they were the tail wagging the dog for the Democratic party through until 1994, when they had completely become Republicans, and from 1968 or so through the present, they were, and are, the backbone of the Republican party.

This is the first time since at least the 1930s, and Kevin Drum argues that it’s since Reconstruction, when we have had a government in power which was not beholden to them.

I am sure that Democratic strategist, and advocate for capitulation to so-called Southern values, Dave “Mudcat” Saunders is crushed, but for the rest of us, and for the nation, the idea that a group of reactionary, bigoted, and small minded Neo-Confederate assholes are out of power is a very good thing.

Shoot Me, I’m Quoting Racist Nutbag Ron Paul

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He wrote a commentary on CNN.com:

Now, in light of the election, many are asking: What is the future of the Republican Party?

But that is the wrong question. The proper question should be: Where is our country heading?

(emphasis mine)

I don’t believe that it is particularly likely that they will ask that question though, because it is a 2nd cousin to asking, “What is best for the country,” and movement conservative Republicans don’t ask that question with regard to governance, because governance, and the government are evil in their minds.

Spocko Says…

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That we should forgive and forget the Republicans, just like the victorious powers in WWII forgave the war crimes of the Axis powers and saw no need for judicial activity.

It’s snark, and marvelous snark, and I’ll just leave you with this:

Remember, nobody is a villain when they are doing what they feel is right for the country. This isn’t like the movies where a short bald “Dr. Evil” laughs and holds the world ransom for 700 billion dollars.
__________

To attack them now, after we have won, isn’t helpful. Why?

One warning…Not only should you avoid drinking anything before reading, you should empty your bladder too….It’s that funny.

They are Irrelevant

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Timothy Burke makes a very good point:

It’s schadenfreudey fun to read the ongoing psychotic meltdowns at various far-right sites like the Corner, I agree. But there’s little need to take the really bad-faith conservatives seriously now. For the last eight years, we’ve had to take them somewhat seriously because they had access to political power. You had to listen to the hack complaints about academia from endlessly manipulative writers because it was perfectly plausible that whatever axe they were grinding was going to end up as a priority agenda item coming out of Margaret Spelling’s office or get incorporated into legislation by right-wing state legislators. You had to listen to and reply to even the most laughably incoherent, goalpost-moving, anti-reality-based neoconservative writer talking about Iraq or terrorism because there was an even-money chance that you were hearing actual sentiments going back and forth between Dick Cheney’s office and the Pentagon. You had to answer back to Jonah Goldberg not just because making that answer was arguably our responsibility as academics, but also because left alone, some of the aggressively bad-faith caricatures he and others served up had a reasonable chance to gain even further strength through incorporation into federal policy.

(emphasis original)

I would disagree on two points:

  • Schadenfreudey is an offence to the English and German language. I believe, based on my limited German, and some Google, it should be Schadenfreudes.
  • The are no seriously good faith conservatives out there. This is simply misplaced optimism. Modern conservatism is, as John Kenneth Galbraith said, “The search for a superior moral justification for selfishness.

Quite honestly, movement conservatism, which I admit is not all of conservatism, has always been so. When looks at William F. Buckley and his spawn, it is all about preserving hereditary privilege, and the feeling of superiority that comes from justifying the unjustifiable.

That’s why you see so much in the way of Racist screeds in the 1950s and 1960s in the National Review, many from Buckley’s own poison pen.

There are also the haters, Delay and Musgrove come to mind, who are simply motivated by hate, and find conservationism the easiest way to find an outlet for their hate.

There are, of course, the inevitable hangers on: people who find personal affirmation on being part of “the movement”, particularly when it is in the ascendancy, but this is largely a social, and not an ideological phenomenon but a social one.

At its core, movement conservatism in the United States believes that nothing can be done to improve anything, and thus, there is no more point in dialog with them than there would be with a turnip.

As to “non-movement” conservatives….I’ve never met any, except for senior Catholic clergy, Bishops and higher, who appear to pine for the days of feudalism, and al Qaeda, who pine for the days of feudalism, but feudalism a few miles further east.

The Greenspan Putz

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No, it’s not a typographical error, it’s a great play on the concept of, “The Greenspan Put“

The indispensable Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture found an article of that title by Alan Kohler:

The Greenspan putz

…

As Alan Greenspan said in his testimony to Congress last night: “With … home prices rising, delinquency and foreclosure rates were deceptively modest. Losses were minimal. To the most sophisticated investors in the world, (mortgage securities) were wrongly viewed as a ‘steal’.”

Unsophisticated investors didn’t stand a chance.

Now the “steal” is going to work the other way. Mortgage securities vehicles everywhere are being liquidated because their risk is being repriced – in most cases dramatically, to the point where investors don’t want their money in them at all.

….

I am amused, though I would disagree with the characterization. A putz has a head.

This has been another episode of Yiddish vocabulary.

Some Insight on the Russian Psyche from a Russian

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From Stanislav Mishin‘s blog Mat Rodina, we find The Sixteen Reasons Why Russia Should NEVER Trust the West.

You can go to the site to get a bit more in exposition.

About half of the reasons are true, or at least true as one can when one is talking about international relations:

  • Western banks and institutions raped Russia in the 1990s, which is true. The bankers made money, the pensioners were out on the street, and teen aged girls were selling themselves as prostitutes in order to keep from starving.
  • Western Governments did cheer when Yeltsin shelled his own parliament
  • The West, particularly western oil companies do want control of Russian oil
  • NATO was expanded to the Russian border, despite promises to the contrary
  • NATO bombed Serbia, though I would argue that there were legitimate reasons, a genocidal regime, for doing so.
  • The West has a policy of explicit and extensive support to political enemies of Russia in the nations of the former USSR.
  • That the West’s moves into Central Asia following 911 were accompanied by attempts at regime change, or regime foreign policy change to create states generally hostile to Russian interests.
  • That the west abrogated treaties as soon as they were no longer convenient, most notably the ABM treaty.
  • That the west has provided fairly explicit aid to opposition groups in Russia. Clearly true, though I think he lists this one item as two on his list of 16.

Then there are those that I have doubts as to their significance or veracity. Either I have no knowledge of the truth of the statements, or I think that he is conflating basic international Realpolitik with explicit hostility:

  • That the west has been backing secessionist and Islamist movements within Russia, most notably in Chechnya. Certainly, given the consequences and how they might effect access to Caspian oil make them plausible, particularly when it appears clear that the US gave tacit approval for Saakisvili to launch assaults in South Ossetia.
  • That the Polish missile defense silos for could be used for the deployment of short range nuclear missile….Technically true, I put this in the paranoid section, it’s easier/safer to use SSBNs firing missiles on depressed trajectories.
  • That the West is giving asylum to people wanted by Russia, while demanding extradition of Russians to face western courts…Technically true, but meaningless, as a pretty standard standard state of diplomacy.
  • That the west went soft on the Taliban, and pressured the Russians not to respond militarily to them prior to 911 because they wanted an oil pipeline that avoided both Russia and Iran. True, but I don’t see it as overtly hostile, it’s just the Texas oil men running the US government. To quote The Godfather, it’s not personal, it’s, “Just Business”.

Then there is the tinfoil hat stuff:

  • That the West despises “Russian Patriotism and Christianity”
  • That the, “The West back every Jihad aimed at Orthodox Christians”

These are tinfoil hat, but it does reflect the deeply Xenophobic character of the worldview expressed here.

What I see as stupidity, he sees as malice.

I would say that this is particularly the case with NATO expansion, where the Euros were just too busy partying about the fall of the wall, and the US was looking at new markets for their military hardware and saw the need to replace Soviet legacy systems in new NATO members as a profit center.

I do think that Mr. Mishin represents a mainstream view in Russia, which begs the question, how is this addressed.

Unfortunately, many of the things that have been done, the feeding frenzy of the 1990s and the expansion of NATO cannot be easily undone.

As start, a forceful statement that the US is opposed to NATO membership for the Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan would be constructive.

I have little knowledge of the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, but it is clear that the presidents of Ukraine and Georgia have a few screws loose.

Additionally, it’s clear that the state security apparatus of Georgia has been thoroughly penetrated by the Russians, as the speed and effectiveness of the Russian military response shows that they knew of the specifics of the assault on South Ossetia for weeks in advance.

I am not a military man, but the idea of having an ally whose defense establishment is completely penetrated by another country does not fill me with glee.

Major Army Strategist Savages Future Combat System*

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Col. H.R. McMaster, a, “is a highly influential soldier-scholar who is currently putting together a brain trust for Gen. David Petraeus to review U.S. policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan,” just released a blistering paper condemning the direction of the US military.

He believes that the folks who support the Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA), which espouses high tech communications, surveillance, and precision weapons at the expense of boots on the ground is are profoundly wrong, and unclear on what is actually going on the ground right now.

He also cuts the flyboyz in the USAF a new one while he’s at it.

Good read, check it out.

*Full disclosure, I worked on the Future Recovery and Maintenance Vehicle, FRMV, “wrecker” variant of the FCS-MGV* from 2003-2006 at United Defense (later BAE Systems after the Carlyle Group sold me to buy Dunkin Donuts).

When Ideology Makes You Stupid

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The FDIC is trying to create a program to guarantee home mortgages to encourage modifications to contracts. This is stupid, particularly because in many of the cases, you can’t find anyone to modify the contract, because the instrument is held in a portfolio of bonds with hundreds, if not thousands, of stake-holders, all of whom have a legal right to veto any change,

The solution is simple, and does not cost the taxpayer anything: Modify bankruptcy to allow judges to modify mortgages. When you can’t find the owner of the loan, an judge handles it, and when you can, it to force lenders to the table.

Argentina Plans to Renationalize Pensions

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Of course, Moody’s investor’s services hates the idea.

I will make a note on the bigger picture: When Argentina privatized its pension system over a decade ago, it set the stage for its brutal economic implosion in the first place, because it stripped the government of all reserves in the process.

In response to the reports of the plans the Argentina markets dropped like a stone (13%).

I will note Brad Delong’s blog, and this quote:

The private retirement system, set up in 1994 to help bolster capital markets, owns about 5 percent of companies listed on the Buenos Aires stock exchange and 27 percent of shares available for public trading, data compiled by pension funds show.

The market crash was inevitable. It would either happen now, or when the population cohorts start sellling stocks when they retire.

This should have been done sooner.

A Good Note on Policy

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Tom Angotti of the Gotham Gazette Makes a very good point:

Neither of the two candidates [Obama and McCain] has explicitly acknowledged the failure of the current urban policy that single-mindedly promotes homeownership. But if history is not to repeat itself, both parties might do well to explicitly acknowledge the needs and problems of urban renters – that means the majority of New Yorkers — and redefine the “American Dream” as a stable job, a rent-controlled apartment and a safe, walkable urban environment.

This is true. In addition to being a failure in regulation and monetary policy, it is a failure of philosophy on two levels:

  • As Greenspan admits free market fundamentalism has failed.
  • The idea of a stand alone home owned by the occupant as an unexpurgated good.

Many of our problems, not just the housing crash, but also urban sprawl, are a direct result of the latter philosophy.