Plum in the middle of the FT’s comment section, Simon Schama has his chance to reach a verdict on the world at the end of 2009. If any of your younger relatives ever need to ask what is meant by ‘overwrought, melodramatic prose’, go to this column:
Long ago, we were told by the French historians of the Annales School that spectacular events were but spume on the crest of history’s waves; that what really shaped the shoreline was the invisible pull of deep tides and currents far beneath the surface. Long-term influences are what change the world. It does not take analytical genius to see historical forces of this kind engaged in their relentless impoverishment over the past 10 years.
What relentless impoverishment, you ask? The great historian answers:
Give me a sceptic and I will take him to Shanghai or São Paulo on a day of ripe smog and see how sceptical he remains while coughing his guts into a mask and peering at brown sunlight as if through a dome of begrimed glass.
So environmental, then – the problem is waste management and resources in the Third World – something that used to alarm and depress me as an Isle of Wight fourth former in 1985, leaning endlessly about the favelas. (ironically, Brazil is meant to be a beacon of hope). But no, it is more than that:
pandemics have returned: in which, like some as yet unwritten scripture, the animal kingdom – avian, porcine, bovine – is a bellwether of human perishability. All of which seems to put the nail in the coffin of a collective optimism born 200 years ago, when the Enlightenment envisioned a world illuminated by reason, banishing the afflictions of ignorance, poverty, war and disease.
Here you start to wonder: where is the historian? You would have thought that the Depression, World Wars, Cold War and possibility of nuclear annihilation might have popped that particular bubble of optimism sometime before 2009. And is Schama really sure that Lagos rubbish heaps and swine flu are the final blow for optimistic progress? He surely knows all about previous famines and pandemics. Does he know how few people have died of swine flu? As is often the case with miserabilism, it rests of temporarily forgetting proportion – particularly historical – and opting for colourful language. On the subject of which, here is his argument for Marx, Ford and capitalists in general being wrong:
none of those prophets could have anticipated that the main obstacle to their respective programmes for social felicity in the third millennium AD would be a war to restore a theocratic caliphate and extend Sharia over the face of the earth. Nor that the most formidable weapon of this campaign would be the ecstatic embrace of mass death,
Huh? Now I am winging it, but if I were Marx and were told that in 150 years an enemy of capitalism so weak and desperate should emerge that the only weapon it possesses is the suicide bomb, I would conclude that capitalism has won. As the Japanese showed, the suicide bomb, while being terrible and inhumane, is the spasm of weakness of a defeated enemy. It is not a solid step on the road to a Caliphate. To have one of them, you need to keep your soldiers alive. 19th century imperialists would not have blinked at such behaviour, because their standards were so brutal – you shoot at us, we raze your village – that the casualties would have seemed trivial. The difficulties we have in wars right now are as much a reflection of the higher standards modern armies have, than any terminal weakness. But for Professor Schama it is somehow the final nail in the coffin of capitalistic optimism, despite the method having claimed a tiny number of Western lives.*
Further cliches abound. As well as ‘theocracy on the march’ (it seems in retreat in Iran, by the way), we have the Oligarchic Chinese, who might actually protect us from ‘theocratic delirium and capitalist fecklessness’. Never mind that it is by finally indulging in such fecklessness that the Chinese have been able to grow at all to the semi-developed state they are in. China: 200m people on half-European standards of living, attached to another billion or so still in deep impoverishment. And the West is terrified, because they run an export surplus.
There then follows some naked pretension about the Web: “the most paradoxical polarity to have opened up in the past 10 years may not be between anarchy and authority so much as between solipsism and community; between the iPod with its headphoned sovereignty of Me Alone and its apparent opposite: hunger for networking”.
I loved Citizens, and wish I had read the Embarassment of Riches. In fact, I am slightly concerned that the whole thing might be a spoof.
(I had hoped to effortlessly swing over to Hamish McRae’s optimism about economic growth, the Economist’s excellent demolition of that classic of the miserabilist canon, the ‘we don’t make things any more’ fallacy, and Brad De Long’s concern that the public does not get what it has gained from the bailouts. But I lack the finesse, this late in the year).
*What of other lives? Well, even in Iraq it has not managed to push the country’s mortality rate above . . . Britain’s. See Wiki figures. No matter what grabs the headlines, access to sanitation, and age structure, are a bigger factor for Death than the violence of the misguided young, which is in long-term decline. Oh, and alcoholism. I could understand Russian miserabilism . ..
Rabu, 30/12/2009 19:15 WIB Sri Mulyani Siap Beradu Argumen 24 Jam Soal Penanganan Krisis Herdaru Purnomo – detikFinance
Foto: dok depkeu
Jakarta – Menteri Keuangan Sri Mulyani Indrawati mengaku dirinya siap untuk beradu argumen terkait metode penanganan krisis akhir 2008 lalu.
“Saya sudah ditanya oleh auditor BPK (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan) soal metodolgi dan saya mau 24 Jam beradu soal metodologi tersebut, data, dan cara analisa. Karena pengalaman saya sebagai ekonom, dan memang saya bukan ekonom yang muncul tiba-tiba seperti sekarang,” ujar Sri Mulyani.
Ia menyampaikan hal itu dalam acara Temu Wicara Para Pelaku Pasar Dengan Menteri Keuangan di Gedung BEI, Jakarta, Rabu (30/12/2009).
Menurutnya, persoalan krisis atau tekanan pada bulan November 2008 lalu dimana Banking Presure Indeks (BPI) naik dua kali lipat dibandingkan dengan krisis pada tahun 1997-1998 dan akan menyebabkan efek kepanikan kepada bank sekelas Bank Century jika ditutup.
Dalam kesempatan tersebut, Sri Mulyani juga menegaskan dirinya tidak melanggar sumpah jabatan sebagai Menteri Keuangan atau mempunyai sebuah kepentingan tersendiri dimana pada situasi krisis pada akhir tahun 2008 harus membailout Bank Century.
“Saya tidak melakukan (mem-bailout Bank Century) hal tersebut karena saya dianggap kenal dengan pemiliknya, saya tidak pernah ditraktir apapun dan saya tidak dijanjikan atau menjanjikan apapun. Dimana tertuang dalam sumpah jabatan saya,” ujar Sri Mulyani
Ia mengatakan bahwa sebagai Menteri Keuangan dirinya sering mengangkat sumpah pada bawahannya dan dirinya akan merasa sangat malu jika melanggar sumpah tersebut.
Sri Mulyani juga mengatakan bahwa tugasnya sebagai Menteri Keuangan dan sebagai Ketua Komite Stabilitas Sistem Keuangan (KSSK) mempunyai tugas untuk mencegah krisis dan mengelola krisis jika terjadi.
“Dan hal yang saya lakukan dengan menyelamatkan Bank Century sesuai dengan perhitungan mikro maupun makro dimana cost-nya lebih rendah dibandingkan dengan menutup bank tersebut,” tuturnya
With the bloodstock market swirling in the general economic malaise and getting no added energy in Kentucky from at least the promise of slots or other forms of funding, breeders have had to turn their attention to finding niche markets where they can greater profitability.
Becky Thomas of Sequel Bloodstock has moved her Sequel Stallions operation in New York and has expanded it this year, rather than contracting, with the addition of the Unbridled’s Song horse Noonmark.
Thomas said that “Noonmark is a horse with exceptional good looks and conformation. With his pedigree and racing ability, he is a horse that I can get behind 100 percent.” Noonmark has the backing of Thomas, who has earned a prominent reputation as a breeder of racing stock, 2-year-olds, and yearlings, and partners such as Chester Broman and Lewis Lakin.
Thomas and her partners in the new stallion for 2010 are committing a large pool of quality mares to Noonmark because “in the New York market, if the horse’s owners don’t support the stallion, the rank and file breeders aren’t going to be there for him. I would never try to stand a stallion there without a strong mare base.”
And despite the challenging economic climate, Thomas said that she is “gangbusters for the stallion market. It’s the area that I’m most convinced is going the right way.”
Other farms are also bullish on the stallion market and the New York program and have moved such solid sires as Posse and Congaree to stand in New York. Thomas said she bought 11 mares this year and expects to purchase another five to 10 in January as part of her “huge commitment to the stallion program in New York.”
With the broodmares they have committed to the horse and their program of raising and preparing young stock, Thomas said she was confident the partners would have “Noonmark stock in every select sale for 2-year-olds in training” in 2013.
The United Nations Correspondents Association and the UN Society of Writers and Artists announced the winners of the 2009 Ranan Lurie/UN Cartoon Awards earlier this month. First place, and $10,000, went to Robert Ariail, cartooning in The State.
Ariail’s winner is a clever depiction of a commuter making the most of advertising for $4.00/gallon gasoline, becoming a bicycle commuter in the process.
Robert Ariail's First Place cartoon, 2009 Ranan Lurie UN Cartoon Award competition ($10,000)
Ariail's self-portrait -- he is without portfolio at the moment
Sad news, too typical for cartoonists these days — Ariail was laid off from The State before the award announcements. You can see Ariail’s work at his website.
Hey! Mr. Murdoch! Want to do some public service and promote your news organizations? Hire Ariail, and some of the other laid-off cartoonists whose visual opinions we sorely need in these complex and too-somber times. (Anyone else who owns a newspaper, or edits one, should consider doing a favor for cartooning and the public, too.)
Go check out the other cartoons, all the way through honorable mention. There are some spectactular, funny, and stinging works there. I’ll post a few of them as we near 2010, but you can look now.
Paula’s heart-throb opines in this NYTimes Editorial that the 10 year period from 1999 to 2009 should be labeled the “Big Zero” – as in zero net gain in any economic sense. Job Growth = zero; housing value gains = zero; economic gains for the typical family = zero; read the article there are more zeros to behold.
Krugman is distressed by our nation’s inability to learn from its recent mistakes. He pointedly chides Republicans, whose policies of tax cuts and deregulation fostered in this economic mess, now are loudly recommending tax cuts and deregulation.
Paul stops short of saying it, but let me help him, Libertarian stupidity is beyond help – let’s drown them all in Grover Norquist’s bathtub – he probably wouldn’t even notice…
I really don’t want to drown anyone, but I thought the allegory was too good to pass up.
I discovered Brian Loasby by accident as I was browsing the shelves of a college library. Being generally interested in institutions and evolution, I was attracted by the title of his 1999 book; “Knowledge, Institutions and Evolution in Economics.” It turned out to be a challenging read. Indeed, this book is the only one I have read four times. Nowadays, I assign it as one of twelve books in my Ph.D. seminar course, and students tend to find it much more difficult than the two books that precede it (Schumpeter’s Theory of Economic Development and Kirzner’s Competition and Entrepreneurship). Loasby’s texts are not only difficult because of their density of ideas; they are also difficult because they combine ideas that are not usually combined.
It goes without saying that Loasby does not belong to any single school of thought. And yet his thinking is remarkably consistent in its subjectivism. While radical subjectivism is usually associated with Ludwig Lachmann and George Shackle, I would argue that Loasby’s subjectivism is at least as radical. Sometimes I even find him too extreme (and being criticized by me for being too extreme a subjectivist is quite a feat). For example, Loasby has stated that policy implications offered by economists are almost always unfounded. I’m not at all convinced by this, but maybe the difference between me and Loasby is that I believe that institutions stabilize expectations to a greater extent than he thinks (he is more Shacklian — institutions make people march together in an arbitrary direction – while I am more Lachmannian — some such institutional directions are more likely to spread because they promote survival and material accumulation).
In spite of this reservation, I wholeheartedly recommend Loasby for providing numerous insights. His discussion of economists’ conventional treatment of evolution deserves to be considered a classic (Alchian made some minor mistakes which led to greater mistakes by Friedman and even greater ones by Becker). His notion that the history of economic thought is not a history of continuous progress but rather a sequence of confused detours down blind alleys punctuated by the occasional brilliant insight is spot on. And his analysis of entrepreneurship is a very creative combination of ideas from Schumpeter, Kirzner, and Popper.
Indeed, it is in his wide-ranging knowledge of economic ideas that Loasby’s thought becomes most challenging, since the reader is not likely to be as erudite as the author (I assume here that I’m a typical reader, which is not necessarily true). A typical paper by Loasby may discuss topics as different as Adam Smith’s observations about the development of astronomy, Menger’s view of the emergence of money, Marshallian economics, Hayekian psychology, the philosophies of Popper and Ryle, Penrose’s resource-based view of the firm, Chamberlin’s theory of monopolostic competitipon, and Shackleian surprise functions. His criticisms of various economists may not even be noticed by the uninformed reader, since they often take the form of understated but nonetheless lethal asides. His endorsements are also somewhat vague, and can usually only be identified as such by an absence of parenthetical observations that subtly undermine the theory in question. Loasby’s own conjectures and hypotheses are similarly elusive: he has a penchant for what I would like to call “carefully considered and precise imprecision.”
The conclusion is that reading Loasby can be a very rewarding experience, but only if one is patient and shares some of his disillusionment with mainstream economics. In particular, I would recomment the above-mentioned book as well as his book dealing separately with a number of prominent economists; “The Mind and Method of the Economist.”
If my interpretation is correct, Loasby has a generally favorable view of A. Smith, Menger, Marshall, Chamberlin, Coase, Hayek, Popper, Ryle, Penrose, Richardson, and Lachmann. But he seems closest to Shackle. He is mostly critical of another almost equally prominent group of economists: J. Robinson, Alchian, Friedman, Becker, Lucas, Baumol, and Williamson. I have still not figured out his overall views of Schumpeter, Keynes or Kirzner, even though they figure prominently in his narratives. The resulting fusion in terms of new ideas is perhaps best described as “an evolutionary radical subjectivism which is powered by entrepreneurial imagination and cumulative knowledge.”
Despite what coal industry executives and opponents of renewable energy research would have you believe, America is running out of this filthy, costly, fossil fuel- and not a moment too soon.
Businessweek Magazine recently reported that “the federal government is encouraging farmers to spread a chalky waste from coal-fired power plants on their fields to loosen and fertilize soil even as it considers regulating coal wastes for the first time.”
Just over a year ago, an enormous coal ash spill took place at Tennessee’s Kingston TVA Coal Plant, spewing 525 million to 1 billion gallons of coal ash sludge (enough to cover 400 acres in coal ash about 6 feet deep) into the Emory River, potentially contaminating the water supply for Chattanooga, Tennessee as well as millions of people living downstream in Alabama, Tennessee and Kentucky.
With clean up efforts STILL underway for the TVA spill, which the EPA called “one of the worst environmental disasters of its kind in history,” both the EPA and U.S. Department of Agriculture are now brazenly promoting what they call the wastes’ “beneficial uses” in an effort to deal with the excessive ash piling up around the nation’s coal-fired plants.
The waste material is produced by power plant “scrubbers” that remove acid rain causing sulfur dioxide from plant emissions. A synthetic form of the mineral gypsum, it also contains mercury, arsenic, lead and other heavy metals, reports Businesweek.
Although the EPA and USDA claim that these toxic metals are only found in trace amounts in the coal ash, environmentalists are shocked that they would take such a gamble with farmer’s crops and the nation’s food supply.
“Basically this is a leap into the unknown,” said Jeff Ruch, executive director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. “This stuff has materials in it that we’re trying to prevent entering the environment from coal-fired power plants and then to turn around and smear it across ag lands raises some real questions.”
With cleanup costs of the Tennessee spill expected to clear $1 billion before they are completed in 2013, it seems suspect that these federal agencies would be willing to inflict the presence of coal ash on these delicate lands without knowing more about how it could potentially affect both the quality of the food and the water supply.
The Businessweek article also noted that “since the EPA/USDA partnership began in 2001, farmers’ use of the material [FGD gypsum] has more than tripled, from about 78,000 tons spread on fields in 2002 to nearly 279,000 tons last year, according to the American Coal Ash Association, a utility industry group.
The EPA is expected to announce its proposals for regulation early next year, setting the first federal standards for storage and disposal of coal wastes.
TAKE ACTION by signing the Adopt the Clean Slate Agenda – Because “Clean Coal” is a Myth petition on Care2.
Restrictive building codes are forcing people to look for alternative housing. Building a portable trailer is one of the best tricks for bypassing building codes legally. No permanent foundation and no utility hookups typically mean very few codes. There’s a wealth of free information on trailer houses and tiny houses on the Internet.
But it doesn’t necessarily have to be tiny. Here’s one example using straw bales or earthbags filled with lightweight insulation such as lava rock or perlite: Double Wide
It’s not difficult to set up a DC power system and live off grid if you’re willing to cut out energy wasters and make some basic lifestyle changes. Laptop computers, LED lights and compact fluorescents use very little electricity. Set up a solar shower, composting toilet, etc. to simplify your life.
Where can you put your trailer? I recommend networking with people in a rural area you’d like to live in. The souring economy is forcing many people to consider additional ways of making money. You may be able to make a deal with a farmer, for instance, who allows you to park your trailer on their farm. Or maybe make a trade with an elderly person who needs an extra hand. You could make offers through Craigs List, Woofer sites, post office and restaurant bulletin boards, etc.
(Deletes incorrect historical reference for continued claims in last paragraph)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The number of workers filing new applications for jobless benefits fell last week to the lowest level in more than 15 months, according to government data on Thursday.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits fell by 28,000 to a seasonally adjusted 452,000 in the week ended December 19, from 480,000 in the prior week, the Labor Department said.
That was the lowest tally since the week of September 6, 2008, which was only days before the bankruptcy of investment bank Lehman Brothers ushered in a deeper recession.
Economists polled by Reuters had expected a more modest decline from the 480,000 reported for the prior week.
The number of people still filing for benefits after an initial week of aid fell to 5.076 million in the week ended December 12 from the previous week's 5.203 million.
(Reporting by Emily Kaiser, Editing by Neil Stempleman)
Elly and I just returned from the weekly trip to Federick, Maryland, where we buy health foods and vegan products at The Common Market, a great food coop unlike any we have here in the Shepherdstown area), and, after unloading the bags, I put on C-Span2 to find that the Republicans in the Senate are trying to put a new stall on the bill.
The trick they are trying to pull off is to say that the Health Care bill violates the 10th Ammendment of the Constitution.
This is the 10th:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
So what the Republicans are saying is that Health Care is not in the Constitution, therefore only the States can do Health Care Bills, and the Senate has no business playing this game. Snator Hutchinson from Texas proposed this, and it lookslike it will come down to an all Republicans versus all Democrats vote, and the Republicans will lose… but they will have accomplished a time stall. I don’t know how long they debated this one, because I was shopping… but the vote on the point of order went 15 minutes and came out 39 to 60, where it fell.
Whew! Now DeMint, Republican from South Carolina, is trying to suspend the rules to have a motion put into place banning “earmarks”, or funding for a personal request by an individual Senator in return for a vote on a Bill. This is, really, another stall. Let’s see how long this one lasts.
Ontario, Canada has had what has been called a feed-in tariff program to encourage small scale alternative energy production. The small scale facet does include homeowners and small businesses who would install solar power for instance and sell the excess back to the power company. It is a new concept in North America and Ontario has made some changes to the original program, Feed-In Tariff 2.0
As of early December, the Ontario Power Authority said that it had received more than a thousand small-scale renewable energy project applications, cumulatively representing over 8,000 megawatts of generation potential.
….“We’ve had an outstanding response,” the chief executive, Colin Andersen, said, adding that an additional 1,500 megawatts would be made available with the construction of more transmission capacity in southern Ontario. He estimates the investments represent about 5 billion Canadian dollars, or $4.7 billion, in economic activity.
A feed-in tariff, advanced renewable tariff or renewable energy payments as a policy incentive was pioneered in Germany. What makes Ontario’s especially interesting, in addition to its tremendous success, is the goal of the government to go coal-free energy generation. Why don’t we try something like that here. Well there are similar state based programs in Florida, Vermont, Washington and California. It’s too bad states such as Montana, Nebraska ( very coal dependent), Arizona, New Mexico and a few other states that are prime potential solar energy producers are not on track to more decentralization of the energy grid.
Like many people I find nuclear energy attractive as an energy source that is low greenhouse emissions, but remain concerned about waste that is highly toxic for 10s of thousands of years. If push comes to shove and we head in the direction of a new generation of nuclear plants maybe thorium will make it a little easier to live with, Uranium Is So Last Century — Enter Thorium, the New Green Nuke
After it has been used as fuel for power plants, the element leaves behind minuscule amounts of waste. And that waste needs to be stored for only a few hundred years, not a few hundred thousand like other nuclear byproducts. Because it’s so plentiful in nature, it’s virtually inexhaustible.
I wonder if thorium could be used in a Pebble reactors such as the one in use in China. They operate at high temperatures, but only require passive safety measures and does not produce the kind of radioactive fluids of traditional nuclear power plants.
What would you do if a harbor seal decided to make your back yard home, Baby seal in garden named Rudolph
The RSPCA is now caring for the seal, which has been renamed Gulliver, at Mallydams Wood Wildlife Centre near Hastings in East Sussex.
Keeper Elaine Crouch said baby seals often became separated from their mothers in bad weather such as storms or floods.
“This one is a really good weight, and not starving but has been completely lost,” she said.
They surmise the seal probably came from a stream that connects to the River Rother.
Obscene profits quickly driven down by competitors? Businesses struggling to make a franc/euro/dollar/pound because of cutthroat pricing? Many competitors simultaneously rising and falling? Strenuous work environments (okay, maybe this doesn’t count)? You’ve got all the makings of a perfectly competitive marketplace. For all the benefits it offers to the consumer, businesses and perhaps more importantly, their employees, must suffer.
At times looking at an example of someone getting an idea wrong is actually the most helpful thing in formulating a better understanding of the topic. That’s how I felt, some while back, when I ran into this post descriptively entitled, “Love Never Ends, So How Could A Just Society Bring An End To Charity?” which argues:
I have heard it said by many people that if the government provides for the needs of society through its social services, there will no longer be any need for charity. Yet, we are called to charity, and therefore, we must not allow governments to interfere in our acts of charity. There is something very mixed up with this notion. It is perverting the very nature of charity, twisting it in a way to make sure there will be people who are suffering, so that they can be the objects of our good will. We are being told we cannot wish for a more just society because if such a society exists, charity will vanish.
But this cannot be the case, can it?
What exactly is the aim of charity but love? Love can be manifest in many ways; when someone is in dire straights, love seeks to help them out of it. But that is not all love seeks for them. Indeed, does a husband or wife love their family less after they have provided for their family’s needs? Certainly not! If we would not look at our family relationship in this way, why do we look at the world in this fashion?
…
Charity is caritas, love; to act in charity is to follow the dictates of love. Charity seeks for the betterment of others; in doing so, it recognizes that the most immediate need should be taken care of first (food, shelter, clothing, health, quality of life, etc). If these are taken care of, this does not diminish the need for charity: it provides room for greater forms of charity, for greater forms of love.
Now, I don’t think that, “Where will that leave charity,” is a universally good answer to suggestions of instituting social services. In a society which is already weak and uncohesive, there’s clearly a need for some minimal level of social services. The legitimate question to be argued between political factions is what the appropriate extent and form of social services should be — not whether there should be any at all. (If you’re unsure of this, ask yourself if you’d really support closing government homeless shelters and food assistance, abolishing unemployment, or eliminating the federal deposit insurance that assures that if your bank runs into problems your saving account doesn’t vanish over night. The sight of people literally dying in the street was not uncommon 150 years ago in many parts of what is now the developed world, and the fact that we’ve largely eliminated that — though social programs as well as through charity — is certainly not a bad thing.)
However, I think the above blockquote shows a fairly common progressive misunderstanding of human nature and the nature of moral action, which it’s important to recognize and counter if we’re to come to a proper understanding of social and moral relationships.
It is suggested that since charity is love, it clearly goes far beyond providing people with physical necessities. And so, even if we are not responsible for providing people with physical necessities, we need not worry about charity losing its place in our social relationships. What I think this misses is that we are, as humans, incarnational beings. We are not pure minds or pure souls, but mind and soul bound intimately to physical body. And as such, our physical actions are not only one way to express our love and relationship with others, but one of the primary things that forms our relationship with others.
Picture an extreme example of this: Imagine that at some future point it become a pressing political issue that nearly 10% of children are unparented and a shocking 30-50% are under-parented. Children are our future, and we cannot stand by while people neglect our future! No loving parent would want to see their children disadvantaged as a result of his or her not having time or training for proper parenting! A national parenting agency is established, and properly trained government workers will make sure that all children receive minimum levels of food, affection, personal interaction and age level appropriate conversation in intellectually stimulating and hygenic surroundings. Parents will, of course, not be sidelined. So long as they obey proper child rearing regulations, they are welcome to provide above-and-beyond care and gifts to their children, and they can even engage in primary care opportunities such as nightly read-alouds and tucking into bed, so long as they have suitable training to provide as rich and nurturing an experience as parenting agency workers would.
I think virtually everyone would see such a system as clearly dystopian, because it would disrupt a relationship which we see as fundamental to human society. People would talk about the state “seeking to replace parents” — and in a practical sense this would be true to a certain degree. But more insidiously, such a program would strike at the very root of relationship between parent and child. This is because it is through the act of caring for our children that we as parents learn to love them. It is the knowledge that this small life is dependent upon us for all things which first awakes love in us. And it is the slow training in putting other before self which parenting involves — the nights spent awake when one would rather sleep, the diapers changed, the games played, the knees bandaged, the stories told, the awkward performances watched, the living earned, the necessities and small luxuries bought — that we tern that inclination to affection into a deep and active love. And if the necessity of that care was removed, I think it takes little imagination to see that this fundamental relationship would be blighted at its root. Indeed, we have a rather good test case of this looking at those times when it was common for rich parents to put the day-to-day raising of their children almost entirely in the care of a nurse maid — which if the literature written by such societies is to be at all believed often left the relationship between the nurse and the children incredibly intimate, while the relationship between parents and children became distant.
A less outlandish example of the replacement of familial relationships with statist ones can be seen in our relationships with our parents. Working with a large number of recent immigrants from India, one of the biggest social differences that stands out when family interactions are discussed at work is that in Indian families it is expected that unless they are very rich, when parents retire they will go to live with one of their married children, or circulate from one filial household to another, staying at each for several months out of the year. This is practically unheard of in the US at this time, and it is frequent for US-born people around the office to say, when hearing about this, “I couldn’t stand to have my parents visit for more than a week.” However, such arrangements were far more common both in the US and in Europe before social programs to assure an independent income for the retired rendered such arrangements unnecessary. One can argue that longer distances make for closer families, and certainly, human nature being what it is, enforced closeness can lead to resentment instead of love, but I don’t think it takes a great deal of imagination to see that this is a case where removing the need to care for each other in a practical and financial sense has allowed the erosion of social relationships.
Going beyond the family, and as I began my annual re-reading of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol the other evening, I’m reminded of the famous exchange between Scrooge and the charitable gentlemen in Stave One:
“At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.”
“Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge.
“Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.
“And the Union workhouses?” demanded Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?”
“They are. Still,” returned the gentleman, “I wish I could say they were not.”
“The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?” said Scrooge.
“Both very busy, sir.”
“Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,” said Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
“Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”
“Nothing!” Scrooge replied.
“You wish to be anonymous?”
“I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge. “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned — they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.”
Quite the progressive in his own day, Dickens’ view of social solidarity is the opposite the modern progressive outlook, in that he sees Scrooge’s failure as being that of refusing to involve himself directly in supporting charitable work. Perhaps in an updated version, Scrooge would instead be asked to commit himself to gathering signatures to raise awareness of the necessity of opening a new and improved union workhouse funded via a tax on those in the top five percent of annual incomes. In the modern progressive pantheon, much greater virtue would be assigned to such advocacy for the many than for the more personal virtues of contributing to a fund for Christmas jollity for the poor, buying a prize turkey for a poor family, doubling Bob Cratchet’s salary, or securing better care for Tiny Tim.
The danger of such an approach is that whereas we shall always have some contact with our families, even if we are not responsible for providing care in old age, unemployment, and distress for them. In the wider society, if we are absolved of any direct responsibility for helping to provide for those suffering in our neighborhoods or parishes, we are more likely than not simply never to encounter them at all. Expanding social services fund a contracting of our social sphere to only those whom we wish to see, since we are told that, like so many Scrooges, we should pay our taxes and rely upon the workhouses and the poor law to do their work. When real actions are no longer required, our relationships, which are formed by our actions, will soon shrivel quietly away.
This is why the Amish, hardly a group known for lacking solidarity with those in their community who are in need, eschew both government programs such as social security and medicare and also private insurance, using instead a direct community fund from which they pay for medical care and other emergency expenses on a case by case basis.
In the wider world, our communities are already far more fractured than those of the Amish, so we would be foolish to immediately abandon all the mechanisms we have developed for securing basic necessities for those in need in a mobile and fragmented society. At the same time, however, we must not allow ourselves to imagine that, when we place ever more needs under the maintenance of massive programs paid for through taxes, that we diminish our social solidarity and our relationships with others.
Below is a statement from the CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield. He speaks the truth. A truth that should send chills down your spine. We have received similar information from our insurance company. This fact alone is enough to boggle my mind. It is enraging that people like Ben Nelson, who will not see this type of increase, can pass legislation crippling my budget and family.
In the recently released Nebraska BLUES Reform Impact Study, we reported that insurance rates for Nebraska’s youngest and healthiest could increase by a stunning 192 percent. For middle-aged Nebraskans of average health, the increase could be up to 82 percent. The one bright spot would be for 60-year-old, less healthy couples. Their rates could actually go down in many cases.
via Omaha.com – The Omaha World-Herald: Columns – Midlands Voices: Health reform plans mean massive hike in premiums.
All those who have studied economics for the past 50 years or so have heard about Samuelson – Foundations of Economic Analysis, Samuelson-Stopler theorem, Factor-price equalisation theorem, revealed preference theory, Bergson-Samuelson social welfare functions, non-substitution theorem, linear programming in economics, etc. The first one is his 1947 book which dominates economics teaching even today, directly or indirectly. Samuelson transformed economics into some sort of science (pseudo-science, as some call it)-social physics. [For more on this, go here]
Robert Lucas on Samuelson:
“Samuelson was the Julia Child of economics, somehow teaching you the basics and giving you the feeling of becoming an insider in a complex culture all at the same time. I loved the Foundations. Like so many others in my cohort, I internalized its view that if I couldn’t formulate a problem in economic theory mathematically, I didn’t know what I was doing. I came to the position that mathematical analysis is not one of many ways of doing economic theory: It is the only way. Economic theory is mathematical analysis. Everything else is just pictures and talk.” [Marginal Revolution and here]
SCARY!
In his Foundations, he is supposed to have popularised the views of Keynes. In fact, what he popularised is the neo-classical synthesis (IS-LM curves, which were created by Hicks). Hence, what we learn in most macroeconomics texts is not what Keynes said. Post-Keynesian economics is more closer to what Keynes said.
Despite his ‘ideas of good economics’, one needs to appreciate the works he carried out in different areas in economics – macroeconomics, public finance, international trade, consumer theory, capital theory and general equilibrium, etc.
In his initial editions of the Foundations, one could find a few pages devoted to the 1960 capital theory debates. However, with passage of time, the debate was relegated to footnotes. Now, in mainstream textbooks, capital theory is entirely omitted. In fact, Samuelson admitted the problems neoclassical microeconomics and general equilibrium run into because of their notion of capital. [More here]
I end with two questions.
Is mathematics the only way of studying economics and analysing economies? [We mostly use calculus and game theory. Should we employ other kinds of mathematics?]
How reliable are textbooks? It makes learning easy, but probably, a bit too easy.
Beware Of Harry “The Grinch” Reid: He’s After More Than Just Christmas!
While the Obama administration and Congress are hoping our attention is diverted for the holiday season, it’s time for all Americans to educate themselves on the real state of the economy and what Harry Reid (President Obama’s hatchet man) and Congress intend to do to ruin not only our Christmas, but the very health care system which is the envy of the world and, quite possibly, our entire economy.
Now is not the time to let your guard down. Your activism is crucial!
We all have discussed the impact of health care reform in regard to the destruction of our existing health care system. But in order to truly understand the economic impact of health care reform, one needs to educate him/herself beyond the obvious social impact.
Simply put, if passed, health care reform could very possibly become the straw that breaks the United States economy beyond the point of fixing… part of what many see as the Obama administration’s goal to take complete control of our economy and implement full-on socialism.
Whether that’s Obama’s agenda or not, the failure of America’s economy is a very distinct possibility. And most of the liberals in Congress either dismiss it as folly or refuse to accept the facts. Or worse, they could be complicit.
Grand Rants has written a number of articles about our economic crisis both warning us and educating us about where we are and why. Those who have taken the time to read those articles have a much better understanding of:
Where we are, financially speaking
How we got here
The economic “Perfect Storm” that’s heading directly as us
What in the name of all that’s holy do we do now?
Those of you who haven’t yet read the below articles: It’s time.
No really. It’s time.
Without being informed, you’ll have no idea what we’re likely facing. Hiding your head in the sand will not work. Without that knowledge, you’ll have no clue what a monstrous impact it will have on life in the United States if we don’t act now.
NOW. Not in three or four years. NOW.
Here’s a sampling of the articles that point to an absolute economic ”Perfect Storm”. This may well be what is heading our way if we don’t take immediate steps to avoid it:
Société Générale and Global Collapse
Financial Speech for the Ages… Uh Oh!
“Soylent Green” and Social Security
How Much is a Trillion Dollars?
The Next Economic Crash – Absolute Disaster
I urge beg you to read the above links. We need educated, aware, angry Americans to pull this off.
Last year, before Obama won the election, a documentary was filmed about our economy and how monetary experts were shaking their heads at our precarious situation.
An abridged version can be viewed at the end of this post. As you watch this, keep several things in mind:
This was produced during the Bush administration. Bush, and his predecessors from both parties are taken to task (and rightfully so) for feeding the 800 pound gorilla that is our debt.
Since then, Obama has tripled that debt and long-term commitments to the point where it is simply unsustainable.
The Obama administration is waving a $100 billion ANNUAL offering at third-world nations as an entirely new way to apologize to the world for our accomplishments. It’s his combination “apologetic gesture” and “spread the wealth around solution” all wrapped up in one great big “We’ll just borrow more money to make it happen” package.
And now… right now, Harry Reid and the Democratic Congress are attempting to force-feed us a health care bill that, if passed, may be enough all by itself to break the back of our economy once and for all.
Stand up for what’s left of our freedom and capitalism before it’s too late. Contact your Representatives and Senators in Congress. Make sure they know where you stand on this. Everything is on the line: the economy, health care, jobs, and our very way of life. After all, it’s that way of life that has been an inspiration to billions of people around the world.
Still think it’s OK to keep your head in the sand concerning health care? Start reading the links above, then watch the video below. Finally, act! This may be our last chance to preserve our independence and true freedom in this country. Don’t let the Grinch steal your economy, health care, and freedom this Christmas–or ever!
The leftist attack on the healthcare bill leaves me cynical.
I think it is an attempt to distance President Obama from the left wing because the President is being hammered in the polls, and the populace thinks he is too liberal. The Democratic Party probably offered Howard Dean something in the future if he would make the President look more centrist by disassociating the President from the uber-leftist, ultra-kook wing of his party.
There was nothing to lose…the public option was toast, but the administration wants the redistributionist parts to remain (taxing the “rich” to pay for the slackers medical care) whether there is any medical reason for the bill or not.
The President wants SOMETHING, really anything to be able to declare a “victory” – but the more redistributionist the better.
We recently discovered that just before the American Revolution, Benjamin Chew purchased several thousand acres of land across Pennsylvania. He was able to acquire this property at a very cheap rate through special privileges he had attained as the Supreme Court Justice of Pennsylvania.
In one land-patent document we found in the Chew Family Papers, Chew details 4742 acres of land he recently purchased in the state. His parcels of property were spread out throughout several counties and include sites in Bedford, Berks, York, Lancaster, Cumberland, and Philadelphia Counties.
A land-patent document which details 16 properties purchased by Benjamin Chew over a two-day span in 1774.
Why would Benjamin Chew acquire so much land? We have our theories…
We believe that Chew was aware of the increasingly threatening political landscape and perhaps saw the American Revolution brewing. He likely sensed that his days as an appointed Supreme Court Justice were numbered and feared he would lose his special privileges for purchasing cheap land.
As a result, Chew went on a shopping spree and bought thousands of acres of land across the state in the years leading up to the Revolution. He likely saw this transaction as an investment which would pay off after the turmoil had abated.
Why do you think Benjamin Chew purchased all this land? Take a closer look at the land-patent document and let us know what you think!
Phlips International makes widgets, and nothing but widgets. Each widget is produced the exact same way, rolls off the assembly line and is packaged exactly the same way. They only make and sell one model of widget, and they always charge the same price: $100. Nobody ever pays a different price, and anyone can buy them. Yet Phlips is practicing price discrimination when they sell this widget to customers. How can this be?
One of things that I could not pass unnoticed was a number of gold buyers along roads in Florida I started getting a feeling that we are heading to a wrong direction. I was thinking that currently a lot of wealth is stashed away in gold creating a bubble. Eventually this bubble will burst. Gold sucks out all resources out of development and innovation much needed for the future. This will cost us in years to come. This wealth should be moving, moving to produce value.
Nouriel Roubini put it in a more formal way. I’m quoting his tweet:
if you want protection against inflation risk stock up on Spam that you can at least eat rather than Gold that has no intrinsic value or use
The reason of this situation is simple. We get more and more “investors” looking for “easy money” and less investors willing to invest into innovation and growth. We just become less confident in what we can do.
[The Guardian has published an article stating that drug money has kept the world financial systems afloat. According to a UN official, that was about the only liquidity available to the financial markets during the depths of the crisis. Bankers dispute this however.]
Drug money saved banks in global crisis, claims UN advisor
Drugs and crime chief says $352bn in criminal proceeds was effectively laundered by financial institutions
Drugs money worth billions of dollars kept the financial system afloat at the height of the global crisis, the United Nations‘ drugs and crime tsar has told the Observer.
Antonio Maria Costa, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, said he has seen evidence that the proceeds of organised crime were “the only liquid investment capital” available to some banks on the brink of collapse last year. He said that a majority of the $352bn (£216bn) of drugs profits was absorbed into the economic system as a result.
This will raise questions about crime’s influence on the economic system at times of crisis. It will also prompt further examination of the banking sector as world leaders, including Barack Obama and Gordon Brown, call for new International Monetary Fund regulations. Speaking from his office in Vienna, Costa said evidence that illegal money was being absorbed into the financial system was first drawn to his attention by intelligence agencies and prosecutors around 18 months ago. “In many instances, the money from drugs was the only liquid investment capital. In the second half of 2008, liquidity was the banking system’s main problem and hence liquid capital became an important factor,” he said.
Some of the evidence put before his office indicated that gang money was used to save some banks from collapse when lending seized up, he said.
“Inter-bank loans were funded by money that originated from the drugs trade and other illegal activities… There were signs that some banks were rescued that way.” Costa declined to identify countries or banks that may have received any drugs money, saying that would be inappropriate because his office is supposed to address the problem, not apportion blame. But he said the money is now a part of the official system and had been effectively laundered.
“That was the moment [last year] when the system was basically paralysed because of the unwillingness of banks to lend money to one another. The progressive liquidisation to the system and the progressive improvement by some banks of their share values [has meant that] the problem [of illegal money] has become much less serious than it was,” he said.
The IMF estimated that large US and European banks lost more than $1tn on toxic assets and from bad loans from January 2007 to September 2009 and more than 200 mortgage lenders went bankrupt. Many major institutions either failed, were acquired under duress, or were subject to government takeover.
Gangs are now believed to make most of their profits from the drugs trade and are estimated to be worth £352bn, the UN says. They have traditionally kept proceeds in cash or moved it offshore to hide it from the authorities. It is understood that evidence that drug money has flowed into banks came from officials in Britain, Switzerland, Italy and the US.
British bankers would want to see any evidence that Costa has to back his claims. A British Bankers’ Association spokesman said: “We have not been party to any regulatory dialogue that would support a theory of this kind. There was clearly a lack of liquidity in the system and to a large degree this was filled by the intervention of central banks.”
The Code of Federal Regulations contains a regulation on how to cite the Code of Federal Regulations. It reads as follows:
The Code of Federal Regulations may be cited by title and section, and the short form “CFR” may be used for “Code of Federal Regulations.” For example, “1 CFR 10.2” refers to title 1, Code of Federal Regulations, part 10, section 2.
See for yourself at 1 CFR 8.9.
Standard citation formats are extremely useful. That would be why, even without regulation’s guiding hand, the private sector evolved the Chicago and MLA styles, among others.
Yet another example of spontaneous order at its finest.
In an interview on 60 Minutes this evening, Obama blamed Wall Street bankers for the nation’s financial troubles. If I remember correctly, the question was asked if banks are repaying TARP funds so they could pay their CEOs big bonuses. To that, Obama said that he thinks that’s a motivation and that Wall Street still doesn’t get it that everyone is mad at them for causing the financial mess (paraphrased from memory).
What’s sad is that many American accept this explanation and we never hold government accountable for their role in the mess.
A true leader would own up to it. Wall Street certainly played a role in the financial crisis, but they by no means acted alone. This is where journalism needs to DO IT’S JOB!
Here are some great questions I would have loved to ask President Obama at that point:
1. Do you think the government or government agencies had any role in the financial crisis or did Wall Street act alone?
2. Do you believe the Federal Reserve should have acted quicker to remove excess money supply after it seemed that the economy got back on track after 9/11?
3. You don’t believe that government put pressure on banks to make credit easier (i.e. lend to people they would normally consider high credit risks) in order to push this idea of expanding home ownership?
4. Didn’t the government provide implicit guarantees to subprime lending, again to expand home ownership, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
5. Wasn’t Fannie and Freddie one of the largest, if not largest, provider of these bad loans? And weren’t they acting under direction from Congress?
6. Weren’t regulations proposed in 2004 that would have reduced the risk of the housing crisis by making it tougher to get loans, but those regulations were rejected by Congress because they would have interfered with the goal of expanding home ownership?
6. In order for us to better trust your leadership, shouldn’t we expect you to be honest about government’s role in the financial mess? Rather, you seem to pretend that government has not blame and we should continue to blindly trust the government as you want to expand regulatory power even further.
7. Please tell me, how are the new financial regulatory powers that your administration is proposing different from those in 2004? Why didn’t the current regulations not work to prevent the crisis? Did anyone in government not even recognize that a crisis was about to happen? If not, how can we trust those in government to recognize the next crisis?
8. What do you think about the people who borrowed well beyond their means? Shouldn’t they have acted more prudently? Shouldn’t we expect our citizens, who are provided thirteen years of education with a total valued at $150,000, to make responsible financial choices? Shouldn’t we expect them to be able to read and understand a loan document and do their homework about the realities and responsibilities that come with home ownership?
9. What personal finance advice would you give Americans?
10. Some say that people were motivated to borrow beyond their means because they felt that home prices were appreciating so rapidly that they could always sell the house and make a nice profit. In other words, they were borrowing on future hopes rather than their realistic income. Don’t you think that the government’s finances are reflecting that same behavior? We are borrowing beyond our means with the hope that the economy will grow strong and pay for it. Haven’t we learned our lesson here? Don’t we know how this story is likely to end?
Main Entry: 1wel·fare
Pronunciation: \ˈwel-ˌfer\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from the phrase wel faren to fare well
Date: 14th century
1 : the state of doing well especially in respect to good fortune, happiness, well-being, or prosperity 2 a : aid in the form of money or necessities for those in need b : an agency or program through which such aid is distributed
//
No, I’m not okay!
I needed few days to think about the War Speech by Barack Obama. In fact I got very little sleep that night.
I felt shocked and slightly betrayed, even though he never said he WOULDN”T I was still surprised because he ran as the anti-war candidate. A part of it was that there was no public process with this decision.
And it seems as if our nation has collectively fallen asleep, just like the West Point students listening to him. I want to open up my front door and shout “Hello, people! Did you hear what Obama said?” Are the two wars we are in so far removed from our national consciousness or is it that we sincerely don’t care?
Then yesterday I listened to Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace prize. In short, it was more a justification for war than anything else. I just think it is so misguided. Is the only option how many troops we send? Why must we increase military resources at all? Obama has not made a case that I can accept easily. He did not talk to the American people: he sequestered himself away with his experts and decided. This is still a democracy and going to war is something we should have some say in.
The Human Toll
Thousands of soldiers are injured or have been killed in the last seven years. The human toll is significant! More than 4,000 Americans have died. More than 60,000 wounded. There were 140 suicides of active duty soldiers this year. The toll on military families alone is huge.
But for some strange reason no one is questioning our national security policies, or the cost, or the human toll, despite the failures of the last seven years.
Beyond the human toll, in the end the United States may spend $2.7 trillion on this war. After we are spending up to $700 billion on the bailout. That would be $2295 estimated cost per American.
Taxpayers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin have “paid” $1.2 billion for total Iraq and Afghanistan war spending since 2001. For the same amount of money, the following could be done:
20,846 Elementary School Teachers for One Year
OR 770,473 People with Health Care for One Year. (http://costofwar.com/)
Don’t get me wrong. I am conflicted. I really want our President to succeed. And I want us to support our 100,000+ troops already in harm’s way. I am.was so hopeful about the change of leadership. I.we voted Obama in to office believing that he would do things differently. That he was a new kind of leader — not Washington things as they are and have been.
And we’re sending 30,000 more troops. We are sending not pulling troops. Obama stated a several times that we should have fought in Afghanistan instead of Iraq. I just never expected that the war there would be stepped up. So this decision didn’t come out nowhere.
I remember Obama saying during the election:
“I had the judgment and courage to speak out against going to war, and to warn of “an occupation of undetermined length, with undetermined costs, and undetermined consequences.”
(I had to look it up to get the exact quote.) So maybe he’s had it in his mind as an option all along and I.we just wanted to believe that he would end the wars because he voted against the war with Iraq? Wishful thinking?
What else could we spend the money on?
44 percent of American children in 2008 are growing up in families that face serious financial struggles. In Wisconsin, there are 741,674 families, with 1,303,605 children.
15% (192,761) of children live in poor families (National: 19%),
defined as income below 100% of the federal poverty level.
The National Center for Children & Poverty has listed on their website the top ten questions about children & poverty. [Go here for all of them.] I just lifted a couple of their questions and answers. It is powerful and so important to read. I hope you will hear me out.
What are the effects of economic hardship on children in the United States?
“Economic hardship and other types of deprivation can have profound effects on children’s development and their prospects for the future — and on the nation as a whole. Low family income can impede children’s cognitive development and their ability to learn. It can contribute to behavioral, social, and emotional problems. And it can cause and exacerbate poor child health as well. The children at greatest risk are those who experience economic hardship when they are young and children who experience severe and chronic hardship. …They are also cause for concern because they are associated with difficulties later in life — dropping out of school, poor adolescent and adult health, and poor employment outcomes. Stable, nurturing, and enriching environments in the early years help create a sturdy foundation for later school achievement, economic productivity, and responsible citizenship. Parents need financial resources as well as human and social capital (basic life skills, education, social networks) to provide the experiences, resources, and services that are essential for children to thrive and to grow into healthy, productive adults — high-quality health care, adequate housing, stimulating early learning programs, good schools, money for books, and other enriching activities. Parents who face chronic economic hardship are much more likely than their more affluent peers to experience severe stress and depression — both of which are linked to poor social and emotional outcomes for children.”
Is it Possible to Reduce Economic Hardship for American Families? Why is there so much economic hardship in a country as wealthy as the U.S.?
Given its wealth, the U.S. had unusually high rates of child poverty and income inequality, even prior to the current economic downturn. These conditions are not inevitable — they are a function both of the economy and government policy. In the late 1990s, for example, there was a dramatic decline in low-income rates, especially among the least well off families. The economy was strong and federal policy supports for low-wage workers with children — the Earned Income Tax Credit, public health insurance for children, and child care subsidies — were greatly expanded. In the current economic downturn, it is expected that the number of poor children will increase by millions.
Other industrialized nations have lower poverty rates because they seek to prevent hardship by providing assistance to all families. But the U.S. takes a different policy approach. Our nation does little to assist low-income working families unless they hit rock bottom.
And this shocked me because I had never look at it like this.
At the same time, middle- and especially upper-income families receive numerous government benefits that help them maintain and improve their standard of living — benefits that are largely unavailable to lower-income families. These include tax-subsidized benefits provided by employers (such as health insurance and retirement accounts), tax breaks for home owners (such as deductions for mortgage interest and tax exclusions for profits from home sales), and other tax preferences that privilege assets over income. Although most people don’t think of these tax breaks as government “benefits,” they cost the federal treasury nearly three times as much as benefits that go to low- to moderate-income families. In addition, middle- and upper-income families reap the majority of benefits from the child tax credit and the child care and dependent tax credit because neither is fully refundable.
In short, high rates of child poverty and income inequality in the U.S. can be reduced, but effective, widespread, and long-lasting change will require shifts in both national policy and the economy.
Why should I care about another’s hardship? I have enough troubles of my own.
In addition to the harmful consequences for children, high rates of economic hardship exact a serious toll on the U.S. economy. Economists estimate that child poverty costs the U.S. $500 billion a year in lost productivity in the labor force and spending on health care and the criminal justice system. Each year, child poverty reduces productivity and economic output by about 1.3 percent of GDP.
The experience of severe or chronic economic hardship limits children’s potential and hinders our nation’s ability to compete in the global economy. American students, on average, rank behind students in other industrialized nations, particularly in their understanding of math and science. Analysts warn that America’s ability to compete globally will be severely hindered if many of our children are not as academically prepared as their peers in other nations.
Long-term economic trends are also troubling as they reflect the gradual but steady growth of economic insecurity among middle-income and working families over the last 30 years. Incomes have increased very modestly for all but the highest earners. Stagnant incomes combined with the high cost of basic necessities have made it difficult for families to save, and many middle- and low-income families alike have taken on crippling amounts of debt just to get by.
Research also indicates that economic inequality in America has been on the rise since the 1970s. Income inequality has reached historic levels — the income share of the top 1 percent of earners is at its highest level since 1929. Between 1979 and 2006, real after-tax incomes rose by 256 percent for the top 1 percent of households, compared to 21 percent and 11 percent for households in the middle and bottom fifth (respectively).
The good news, in my opinion.
Improving the Odds for Young Children provides state-specific, regional and national profiles that integrate data about an array of policies that affect early childhood development. These policies fall into three categories: health and nutrition, early care and learning, and parenting and economic supports.
Look up your state.
Holler at your Congress people and Senators!!
It’s not too late. Once we start spending money on sending these troops I predict, and I’m not alone in this, we will be dragging ourselves into another Vietnam like war.
A part of me just wants to stick my head in the sand a ride out the winter taking care of my own, but we can’t look away.
1 in 50 American Children Experience Homelessness.
You know there is a problem when 1 in 50 of our children encounter homelessness. The figure sounds more like something from a developing nation, not America. But there it is. Revealed by the National Center on Family Homelessness. And these are numbers from 2005-2006 data. Imagine what the number is today, given the current economy? Get more information here.
A report called “America’s Young Outcasts,” issued by the National Center on Family Homelessness, shines much-needed light on an age-old problem in the United States: the shame of homeless children across the country. Surveying the years 2005-2006, the report found that child homelessness is worse now that at any point since the Great Depression.
Some interesting stats from the report (Source):
– 1.5 million children are homeless (or 1 in 50 children in America)
– 25 percent of homeless children have witnessed violence of some sort
– 22 percent of homeless children have been separated from their families
– The report states: “20 percent of homeless preschoolers have emotional problems that require professional care.”
This is a problem across America.The toll of war on our nation is devastating, the tragedy is being told in the live of soldiers and their families as well as the Iraqi and Afghan people. The financial cost we cannot afford. Children in American are hungry, scared and needing better education and yet we cannot help.
Wake up America!
Thanks for reading this and hearing me out. What do you think?
MELODY
——————————————
And in case you can’t sleep, some reading for you: The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism by Andrew Bacevich. Publisher’s weekly says:
A caustic critique of the growing American penchant for empire and sense of entitlement, Bacevich (The New American Militarism) examines the citizenry’s complicity in the current economic, political, and military crisis. A retired army colonel, the author efficiently pillories the recent performance of the armed forces, decrying it as an expression of domestic dysfunction, with leaders and misguided strategies ushering the nation into a global war of no exits and no deadlines. Arguing that the tendency to blame solely the military or the Bush administration is as illogical as blaming Herbert Hoover for the Great Depression, Bacevich demonstrates how the civilian population is ultimately culpable; in citizens’ appetite for unfettered access to resources, they have tacitly condoned the change of military service from a civic function into an economic enterprise. Crisp prose, sweeping historical analysis and searing observations on the roots of American decadence elevate this book from mere scolding to an urgent call for rational thinking and measured action, for citizens to wise up and put their house in order.
So every good business needs an accountant. That should be – every business needs a GOOD Accountant, but how can you tell who’s good and who’s not? I’m going to take a brief look at how you can go about choosing the right one for your business:
1. Get recommendations from business associates or colleagues. Alternatively why not ask your bank manager or local business support groups in the area.
2. Once you have your recommendations and you’ve narrowed it down to a select few it is very important to check that the accountant is suitably qualified. They should also be a member of an accountancy body such as the Association of Chartered Accountants (ACCA) or the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICC).
3. It’s important that the accountant has experience in working with the business field that you operate in. So you should ask what how many businesses of a similar size they work with and whether or not they have experience working in your business sector.
4. Setup a meeting to discuss the needs of your business and supply him/her with a copy of your business plan and details of the areas in which you want them involved. This can be anything from business advice to financial reporting and tax auditing work.
5. How much does the accountant charge and can you afford it? It is also worth checking if there are fixed fees for annual audits and when these fees should be paid.
Despite the points mentioned above it is also that the accountant you will be working with makes you feel comfortable and at ease. So probably the most important question to ask yourself once you’ve taken the above into consideration is – Do you feel comfortable enough with this person to discuss your business and any problems you may face?
In addition to this I would also continuously price compare between your existing accountant and what other firms offer to ensure you are getting value for money – but that’s just common sense.
For more business related help and advice check out the following:
How to write a business plan – 10 top tips
How to choose the right accountant
Tips on choosing the right accounting software for your business
During my very chilly walk with my dog tonight, I was listening to the Invisible Hand podcast from Heron and Crane. This episode was a review of the book “Liquidated – An Ethnography of Wall Street” by Karen Ho. Quite an interesting interview. Many know about how the people running the big investment banks may have some say in the current economic collapse. This interview actually explores how lessons may not have been learned. And how, for short-term pain, it might be worth revamping the whole retirement system–especially the reliance on owning shares in the stock market. Some interesting ideas, but may be almost impossible to implement.
Overall it gives some insight into the world of investment banking on Wall Street. The podcast is worth a listen, and from that you can decide on whether you want the book.
“The EU is committed to reaching a global, ambitious and comprehensive agreement in Copenhagen that create the best possible conditions for a long-term cooperative effort,” said Anders Turesson, Swedish Chief climate negotiator in his statement at the opening plenary of the COP15 Summit. “The agreement – he continued – must enable an international effort to keep global warming below 2 degrees and be inclusive by encompassing all nations of the world. The detail must cover all Bali building blocks, the principles of the convention and enable immediate action.”
These two weeks the world’s political, economical and cultural leaders will be spending in Copenhagen are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity “to take a significant leap forward in this fight. Here we can set out a new path towards a greener, more sustainable and more equitable future in which development and emissions of GHGs are decoupled.”
The starting point is the Kyoto Protocol, that is the first condition. the second and most important conditions is that any agreement reached in Copenhagen “should be translated into a universal legally binding agreement”. Not necessarily here in Copenhagen: the Eu leaves open the back door for a delayed agreement not to be forced to call the COP15 appointment in Denmark a failure. But it does not spare harsh words for those who’d like to slow the process, if not drag it to a full stop.
“We all know that delaying action to tackle climate change is not an option. Global emissions must peak no later than 2020 and be at least halved by 2050 compared to 1990 levels. Developed countries must lead and in aggregate cut emission by at least 80-95 percent over that same period and developing countries must contribute according to their responsibilities and respective capabilities.”
“Together we can make Copenhagen a historic breakthrough on our common journey. The world is watching and will not allow a downward spiral in our ambition – this agreement is not about the lowest common denominator but it is about showing leadership and global cooperation to prevent dangerous climate change. The EU will work with purpose, and with an open mind, to make this happen”.
clipped from www.huffingtonpost.com
A new effort by Senate Democrats to expand Medicare coverage by opening it up to 55- to 64-year-olds has forced Republicans into an about face of sorts.
Republican Senators, who for weeks have been dogging their Democratic counterparts for pursuing what they describe as drastic cuts to the Medicare program, are now making the awkward shift from ostensibly championing Medicare to fighting against its expansion.
Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-K.Y.) sent out a press release on Sunday, titled: “Cutting Medicare is not what Americans want.” That was followed by a new press release on Monday. Its title: “Expanding Medicare ‘a plan for financial ruin.’
“We already know that Medicare is going broke in seven years,” McConnell told Fox News on Tuesday.
“This is the worst kind of political deal-making in this frantic attempt to get to 60 votes.”
But, politically speaking, the GOP position on the government-run health care program certainly has become twisted, and then twisted again.
In August, Republicans came to the conclusion that they could win political traction by framing their party as a defender of the government-run system, despite having decried it for decades. RNC Chairman Michael Steele released a “seniors’ health care bill of rights” and held a testy exchange with an NPR reporter to drive this home his Medicare support.
It seemed like opportunism then. Now, however, it has the potential to trip the GOP up. Having spent the last two weeks insisting that Democrats were destroying the bedrock of health care coverage for seniors, Republicans may soon be forced to explain why expanding Medicare coverage would be a bad thing.
Let’s see how they approach this in the Senate today (I’m especially interested in how McCain, who has been ranting and screaming this week that the Democrats were destroying Medicare by making cuts… what will he do now?)
Damn… I’ve been studying and keeping my head in a book recently, avoiding the news. Partially, this is due to my brother’s deployment in Afghanistan. Sometimes it seems better to just not know. Eventually, like a rubbernecker near a train wreck, I started to read the news… Prepare yourself.
War…Obama becomes LBJ, adds 30,000 more troops, bringing us almost to the level of Russian forces in their oh-so-successful foray in Afghanistan. Wanna hear it from the horses mouth? That links to the Soviet commander of the Afghan War and his perspective. Iraq seethes under the surface, then explodes. 127 people today. I just got started and I’m almost choking on my tongue.
Environment…It get’s worse, Americans. The NY Times, in a rare occurrence of journalism, published a big feature on the water quality of America and the Environmental “Protection” Agency. It’s devastating. 20%, 1 in 5, municipal water systems have illegal concentrations of things like mercury, coal slurry…goddamn! Even right next door to people I love.
Deal, No Deal Barack has also said that he views climate change as a moral issue. But there will be no treaty in Copenhagen. Environmentalists…listen, when asked about the protests at the g20 in Pittsburgh, Obama replied thusly:
“You know, I think that many of the protests are just directed generically at capitalism. And they object to the existing global financial system. They object to free markets. One of the great things about the United States is, is that you can speak your mind and you can protest; that’s part of our tradition. But I fundamentally disagree with their view that the free market is the source of all ills.”
F&C responds to the Prez: I identify as an anarchist and I don’t blame capitalism for “all” ills. Capitalism has nothing to do with disease, except for profiting from it. Nothing to do with the human propensity for violence, except for profiting from it. It isn’t the source of all ills, its a catalyst for some very disturbing and planet ending behavior. I thought you were a lawyer? That’s a pretty crass generalization. The fact is, I think the things it can actually be blamed for are enough of a reason to destroy it. Fuck this plastic, bar-code future. Tell your girls to harden their hearts and learn to kill, cause there will be a Mad Max future if we hurtle down this path. The political expediency of your capitalism defense disgusts me and perhaps will be your legacy.
Perhaps protesters should put up banners with more nuance next time…
That could read: “No Bailout, No System of Exchange based on the exploitation of the earth and our fellow humans”
Jesus, Barack…we can’t get a good news story anyway, we might as well shoot ourselves in the foot. Ahh, the exercise of your right to meaninglessly assemble. Now since we’re not scared or pissed off enough…
Folks, I didn’t even get past war and the environment. Alas, but at least all the issues are basically the same in the end.
War/economics/politics/environment/your future is being decided.
“There’s a strange political cocktail brewing in Washington, one that mixes top conservative strategist Grover Norquist and tea party organizers at FreedomWorks with democratic socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders I-Vt., progressive activists and public interest advocates.The unlikely coalition’s bid to block Ben Bernanke’s nomination to a second term as chairman of the Federal Reserve until Congress votes on legislation to audit the secretive central bank is tapping into a growing anti-establishment mood — and legislators up for reelection next year are taking notice.The Fed fighters’ charge that the White House favored Wall Street over the public interest during the financial crisis appeals to a lot of people these days. Average voters resent the government’s response to the market meltdown — the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, the auto industry bailout and the trillions doled out by the Federal Reserve — because it hasn’t seemed to help them out, as the national debt has soared and the unemployment rate has moved north of 10 percent. It’s a populist anger that goes far beyond traditional definitions to include, as one analyst noted, people living in gated communities in Florida.“They look at Wall Street, and they say, ‘Who’s been held accountable? Anybody going to jail? No? These guys are actually getting huge bonuses,’” said Sanders, whose campaign to block Bernanke has been embraced by progressive and conservative groups alike.“Bernanke represents the status quo. People want a change in the way Wall Street functions; they want a change in the way the Fed functions,” Sanders said.”
Angela over at Liberal Vision produces some, um, less than damning arguments against the Copenhagen summit. Like the cost of flying 15,000 people there. Or the fact that the agreements will outlast a UK parliament.
And she seems to be learning off the London Citizen’s Forum that asking People what they Think is the right way of solving a massive systemic crisis. 50% of people doubt it is happening. Oh, that’s ok then – it can’t be happening. Man on Street is Dubious. Man on Street is in favour of all sorts of things that Lib Vision Libertarians would regard as odious majoritarian bullying, but never mind that.
Paul’s excellent post on the downsides of a free media is an excellent antidote to this. He compares to the “is smoking bad for you?” ‘debate’.
By creating the illusion of a lack of scientific consensus, tobacco companies delayed measures being taken against them (an illusion strengthened by the fact they also repressed findings and lied).
Angela complains about the lack of ‘an open honest debate on this issue’? How? Was she personally relying on the East Anglian Scientists and their tree-ring data? Do the hordes of bodies that believe in this problem as real growing and serious provide her with no information? Has she read it all and still thinks “umm, need more. Something missing”. What a very demanding scientist Angela is, clearly.
No. She seems to have a model in her mind of “Do you like Marmite” as the ideal debate – something which goes on endlessly and cannot be solved by any amount of evidence or argument. The reason the pro-AGW theorists are impatient is because they feel strongly that they have brought the matter to 99% closed. Most of the tired arguments about it not happening are very tired, and are not taken up in the same way as Tobacco brings you Health! is not taken up. Like “oooh, 1998 was warm!” which is a statement about the El Nino of 1998.
Asking the full time climate scientists to continuously take bad arguments seriously, and then accusing them of being closed and conspiratorial for losing their rags, is rather silly. In the same way, we don’t have an open debate about the earth being flat, about Santa Claus, or indeed whether communism is a good system. It is not a conspiracy of obfuscation – just a refusal, after a while, of highly qualified professionals to continuously humour politically motivated scepticism.
I remind people again to watch the video Paul posted if they are to really hold up the sniggering and misquotation of the East Anglian Cabal for World Confusion as an example of how the debate has gone skew whiff. And read again the economist article about what exactly the “Trick” referred to is. It is not “trick everyone into thinking something I don’t believe is actually true”.
What I remain to be convinced of is that any sceptic comes to their position because of some independently founded scientific information, taking all information into the mix, rather than a pre-existing political disposition. People don’t want it to be true, find the people who do care about it “holier-than-thou, great-and-the-good”, and therefore scrabble around for reasons not to believe it. Like all politics – just as a Spectator reader will believe, passionately, that 50% tax rates on the people earning £150k signals death to the country, whilst the Guardian just loves it. Neither are going at it from the point of view of the IFS.
But in this case, we are not dealing with a debate like the 50p tax band. And the equivalent of the IFS, the body of professionals qualified to work it out, has come down heavily on one side of the equation.
Firstly, to summarize Friday in the US – it was all about the jobs numbers. Nonfarm Payrolls came in much better than expected at -11k (vs -125k expected). This meant US unemployment actually improved from 10.2% to 10%. Pretty surprising number for everyone, I think – even the bulls!
Now on my weekend reading I stumbled across this rather contrarian article in ZeroHedge: Albert Edwards on a potential Yuan Devaluation. That’s right… not an appreciation revaluation of the Yuan, but a devaluation! Read on, this is an interesting piece if only because it helps to see a new perspective on the value of the Yuan.
Finally, in a NY Times piece, James Surowiecki talks about The Debt Economy. He takes a different tack to me, implying that it was political legislation and attitudes towards subtle tweaks on taxation policies which have helped to gently coax a culture of debt (as opposed to inflation mismanagement). The truth is it’s probably a bit of both.
There are a couple of peculiar things about these tax breaks—which have been around as long as the federal income tax. The first is that they’re unnecessary. Few people, after all, can save enough to buy a home with cash, so home buyers naturally gravitate toward mortgages. And businesses like debt because it offers them tremendous leverage, making it possible to put down a little money and potentially reap a huge gain. Even in the absence of the deductions, then, there would be plenty of borrowing. The second thing about these breaks is that their social benefits are pretty much nonexistent. Advocates of the mortgage-interest deduction, for instance, claim that it increases homeownership rates. But it doesn’t: in countries where mortgage deductions have been eliminated, homeownership rates haven’t dropped. Instead, the deduction simply inflates house prices. The business-interest deduction, meanwhile, may lower an individual company’s taxes, but it also means that the over-all corporate tax rate is higher, so its real impact is to give companies with lots of debt an unjustified advantage.
If the benefits are illusory, the costs are all too real. Economies work best, generally speaking, when people are making decisions based on economic fundamentals, not on tax considerations. So, as much as possible, the tax system should be neutral between debt and equity, and between housing and other investments. It’s not, and, worse still, as we’ve seen in the past couple of years, debt magnifies risk: if companies or individuals rely on large amounts of leverage, it’s much easier for bad decisions to lead to insolvency, with significant ripple effects in the wider economy. A debt-ridden economy is inherently more fragile and more volatile. This doesn’t mean that the tax system caused the financial crisis; after all, the tax breaks have been around for a long time, and the crisis is new. But, as a recent I.M.F. study found, tax distortions likely made the total amount of debt that people and companies took on much bigger. And that made the bursting of the housing bubble especially damaging. So encouraging people to take on debt qualifies as a genuinely bad idea.
It reminds us that debt is like speed when driving a car. It simply magnifies risk in both directions – to the upside and the downside. Also, while reading this article I thought about the so-called Wealth Effect. The effect of rising asset prices and how this “perceived” increase in wealth, in turn, influences consumer confidence and thus the modern economy as a whole, in a sort of backward loop of causality. The Wealth Effect, of course, is a symptom of a debt-dependent society, debt magnifies the effect of asset price inflation and deflation (and thus the aversion to deflation and thus the importance of pursuing accommodative policy at the Fed – which causes yet more debt). Thus in a society less pre-occupied with debt, the inflation of an asset, say, the price of one’s house, is barely influential on consumption patterns. However, where that house has been financed with huge amounts of debt, from a macroeconomic perspective, the perceived return (and loss) on capital is outsized. The psychological effect is magnified, hence the Wealth Effect.
Macro Data to Watch:
Taiwan CPI and export numbers
Markets
The S&P got off to a flier due to the jobs numbers, although there was a bit of a sell off in the middle of the day.
You see Gold? What a sell off. But we had a sell-off like this at the end of the week before and the precious metal still hit a new high the following week. Let’s see if the same thing happens this week.
Of course, the Dollar rallied hard on Friday. I’ve been a little wary of being short the Dollar lately. As I’ve said before: too many people on one side of a trade is always recipe for some pain down the road!
Global Stocks to Watch:
Obviously the gold stocks names like Goldcorp, Harmony Gold and Barrick Gold (one of the biggest movers on Friday – down 9%).
Banks again – it’s not always about the price. Have a look at my chart of the day for Bank of America. Forget the price, look at the graph below for volume!
California State University reimbursed a high-ranking official in the chancellor’s office $152,441 for expenses he should not have billed to the university, according to a report released Thursday by the state auditor.
Between July 2005 and July 2008, the official billed CSU for expensive hotel stays, travel around the world, meals that cost nearly $167 a head, phone and Internet service at home, and more than $43,000 for commuting between his home in Northern California and his job at the chancellor’s office in Long Beach, according to the audit.
The audit by Elaine Howle does not name the CSU official. It says he worked in the information technology services department and left the university in July 2008.
A spokeswoman for CSU said the subject of the audit is David J. Ernst, who earned an annual salary of $204,420 when he left Cal State. Ernst now works for the University of California as the chief information officer, drawing an annual salary of $238,000.
Howle called attention to Ernst’s frequent global travel, including trips to Amsterdam, Singapore, London and Melbourne, Australia.
“We found the official took trips that did not appear to have a clear or demonstrable benefit to the state or university. In addition, there was no need for the official to regularly attend nonuniversity events, particularly given the costs involved,” she wrote.
Even his domestic travels were unusually costly, the audit says. Ernst billed the university for a $672-a-night hotel stay to attend a two-day meeting at a resort in Pebble Beach. The airfare for that trip was $662, the audit says.
In another instance described in the audit, Ernst billed the university for four nights at a hotel in San Francisco – at $450 a night – when records show he only stayed there for three.
The university did not exercise enough oversight, Howle claims, and violated its own policies in approving the reimbursements.
“The official consistently failed to follow university policies in submitting requests for reimbursement. In addition, the official’s supervisor and the university failed to adequately review the official’s expense reimbursement claims and follow long-established policies and procedures designed to ensure accuracy and adequate control of expenses,” the audit says.
The CSU chancellor’s office agreed with most of the auditor’s findings and recommendations, the report says. The university agreed it should try to get Ernst to pay back some of the money and scrutinize its reimbursement procedures. But the university did not agree with the auditor that much of Ernst’s travel was unnecessary.
“The university asserted that many of the trips were necessary to maintain a relationship with a particular vendor in whose software the university had made a substantial investment,” the audit says. “Nonetheless, the university still failed to clearly identify how the official’s extensive travel provided it concrete and measurable benefits.”
The CSU faculty union blasted the administration for its lax oversight during a fiscal crisis. Because of state budget cuts, professors are taking furloughs, students are paying higher fees and courses are being cut.
“This improper use of public funds could not have come at a worse time for students and faculty at the CSU,” Lillian Taiz, president of the California Faculty Association, said in a statement. “The $152,441 wasted by this individual should have gone to pay for class sections. This behavior would be inappropriate even in better times, but under the current economic circumstances it is beyond reprehensible.”
Sen. Leland Yee (D-San Francisco), a frequent critic of university management, called on Ernst to pay CSU $152,441 for the expenses the auditor found were improperly billed. He also asked CSU Chancellor Charles Reed and UC President Mark Yudof to publicly report all payments made to executives.
“The public deserves to know the extent of this problem,” Yee said in a statement. “Considering the culture of secrecy and corruption within the UC and CSU administration, it is highly unlikely this is an isolated incident.”
The audit is at: bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/I2007-1158.pdf
Paula’s heart-throb opines in this NYTimes Editorial that the 10 year period from 1999 to 2009 should be labeled the “Big Zero” – as in zero net gain in any economic sense. Job Growth = zero; housing value gains = zero; economic gains for the typical family = zero; read the article there are more zeros to behold.
Beth Buczynski Care2
