Prove Me Wrong

Scott Ritter Knew

2012-01-27T10:08:00.002-05:00

A lot of people know about how Scott Ritter forcefully made the argument that the Bush administration in fact did not have convincing evidence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction prior to the invasion. Yes, weapons inspectors were withdrawn by the US in 1998 and Ritter admitted that it was possible he had developed weapons since then. But he also pointed out that the development of these weapons should still be detectable. We can't rule out that he has succeeded in developing these in an undetectable way. But we shouldn't leap from "He could possibly have developed weapons" to "He probably developed weapons."

But as war approached Ritter was able to draw firmer conclusions about the weapons programs. Inspectors were allowed back in. They were actually able to inspect the various sites that the CIA and US government had identified as locations where prohibited weapons were being manufactured. They turned up nothing. So there was a very brief period before the war where we really knew. Ritter forcefully tried to communicate that. Obviously to no avail. Watch a program below that offers some of his analysis prior to the war.

Ritter is now making the case regarding Iran. What he's saying is a less controversial now. We know they aren't making nuclear weapons. But those with truly thick skulls still want to pretend they are. They want to listen to the Krauthammers and the Kristols and O'Reillys and all the other pundits that were so colossally wrong before. They'd have zero credibility in a media dominated by pursuit of truth. In a media owned by entities in pursuit of short term profit maximization however they still are treated with respect.

The History of Compulsory Education

2012-01-25T12:13:00.002-05:00

Interested in understanding how and why compulsory education in the US came about? I stumbled upon an interesting source. If you are curious about this topic watch the 10 minute clip from below.

If that is enough to whet your appetite for more, the book by this author is available for free online. I'm not advocating everything within it, but I thought it was very enlightening (I've read about half so far).

Why Jesus Was Pretty Awesome

2012-01-23T15:57:00.003-05:00

Jesus would have been a product of his time, so naturally there are some things about him that a liberal atheist like myself would object to. But set aside his opinions on slavery or eternal hell fire, views that he probably held more due to culture than conviction. Take a look at what really made him different. It's pretty damn impressive.

Who is it that is subjected to Jesus' most scathing criticism? It's the Pharisees. Read Matthew 23. It's an absolute tirade. Woe to you scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrites. You give money to the temple and neglect justice and mercy. You travel the world to make converts and they become twice the sons of hell that you are. You are whitewash tombs, beautiful on the outside but inside full of dead men's bones. You snakes. You brood of vipers. You kill the prophets sent to you to help correct your ways. How can you possibly escape hell fire?

Here's what's amazing about this tirade. There are plenty of people in the world worth criticizing. How about pagans? How about the Roman leaders? Jesus never criticizes them. From Jesus' perspective they are awful people worthy of hell fire. Jesus says virtually nothing of either. He's repeatedly asked to weigh in on Roman matters, like the legitimacy of the Roman tax or the restriction Rome imposes on Jewish religious practice. He sidesteps it. He doesn't care. Why?

Because he understands something that Republicans today don't get. Who cares what the pagans do? Who cares what the Romans do? I am a Jew. I care what Jews do. I care what our leadership does. That is what I will focus on.

Turn on Bob Dutko today and all you hear is "Muslims are bad. Oprah is bad. Atheists are bad." And when you even try to get Bob, an American Christian, to talk about American atrocities, he says "I don't want to talk about it. That's bashing America. That's unpatriotic. What about Ahmadinejad? What about Fidel Castro?"

That's probably what the Pharisees told Jesus. "But look at the pagans!! Look at Rome!! You are anti-Israel. You are unpatriotic. You shouldn't criticize us."

That's probably what they said to Elijah or Jeremiah. "How dare you bash Israel!! That's unpatriotic. You shouldn't shine light on Israel's mistakes. You should only talk about the crimes of enemies of the state." Jesus knew that these people who stood up to the Jewish leadership at the time were the real heroes. They were hated for standing up against wicked Jewish behavior. They were killed for it. And that persecution was enabled by the prophets that flattered the king and told him he was so great. They probably told him that he was right to kill that prophet on his own authority, as Dutko praises Obama for killing US citizens on his authority.

I've seen the most committed Christians express extreme revulsion at the idea that we should follow the Golden Rule, just as Ron Paul was booed for suggesting we follow it as well. Republicans literally find Jesus' teachings repugnant and outrageous. That's because Jesus seems to have really cared about the poor and weak. He also seems to have recognized that if you really want to improve the world you should talk about what your own people are doing wrong. Those are the ones you can influence. Because this is actually effective it is demonized by totalitarians. The Soviets called dissidents "anti-Soviet" and those that take Jesus seriously in the US are called "anti-American." And we are called that by the very people that pretend to follow Jesus.

Doing My Part

2012-01-21T10:30:00.002-05:00

I was disappointed reading articles in the Toledo Blade about the new I-Phone 4. It reads as if it would be reasonable to drop a few hundred dollars upgrading from a 3 to a 4. You can talk to the phone and ask questions. It's got a dual core processor. Blah, blah, blah. Aren't commercials supposed to be for the advertising section? An I-Phone 3 is a lot more than the phone I have. Where I stand I wasn't even going to go out and get a 3. And yet it's reasonable for people to consider upgrading from a 3 to a 4?

Why is it even considered rational to make such a move? I'll tell you why. Because our economy is structured such that we must consume more and more, even if that means disposing of perfectly good stuff. And so we are bombarded by propaganda that tries to convince us to make this irrational choice. And that propaganda works.

Is this sustainable? Absolutely not. We are going to have to figure out a way to have an economy that doesn't rely on this kind of thing. Right now we extract the equivalent of 112 Empire State Building's worth of material from the ground EVERY DAY to meet our consumptive needs. This can't continue. Don't fall for the propaganda. Do you really need a new phone or computer every year? Most people don't.

It's probably bad for the overall economy to fail to consume. But it's good for you personally. And it's good for the environment. Here are a few of the ways I try to resist temptation and keep my old crap working.

This is what I drive. A 1995 Ford Windstar. About 160K miles. Does the A/C work? No. Passenger window? No. Washer fluid pump? No. How about the heat? Not really. That's my own fault. I put the wrong thermostat in it. In fact the speedometer is a bit flaky. OK, this is maybe pushing it. I should make sure it's safe. My wife doesn't drive it. But let me tell you. I love this vehicle. Why? It's paid for and it works. Monthly insurance is nothing. It gets me to work every day. I don't need a new car even though a new one would be nice. But why waste the money and resources?

1995 is a long time ago and there's a lot of technology that this van lacks. But that can be remedied. For me GPS and an ability to plug in an audio device via an aux jack is nice, so I've added that as you can see. Not done in an especially pretty way, but it works. There's something about just continuing with this POS that gives me a thrill. I love parking it at work. A lot of people where I work are well paid. Most drive nice, newer cars. I'm paid decent. I make enough to get something nicer. People that make less than me and have more debt than me drive nicer cars. But I don't want to because I don't need it.

I splurged and bought an ipod touch on my birthday. Two and a half years ago. It works just exactly as it did when I bought it. Just as fast as it ever was. You can watch Netflix on it. Youtube videos are crystal clear. Do people think they need a new one to replace something like this every time an upgrade is released? The phone next to it does need to be replaced. It's 2 years old and apparently the processor can barely handle the OS. I've literally had the phone fail to ring because the processor can't keep up. So I'll get a new one shortly. But if in fact it worked now as it did when I got it I wouldn't replace it. It's a really great device.

Recently I was concerned that I'd need to get a new desktop computer. That kind of annoys me because I would think it should be easy to just buy components and upgrade. But it seems they are designed in a way that encourages you to discard them.

I bought mine in 2007 and it runs Windows Vista, which is flaky. I just had to wipe the HD 2 months back, and it's already acting strangely again. I was afraid I'd need to get a newer one. Five years is probably a typical lifetime for a desktop computer. But I was pricing new ones and to get one that has the kind of hardware I have was still going to be $400. I realized I can just buy Windows 7 for $120 and I think it should be good to go. This hardware can last a good length of time. But you do need to keep it clean. Every now and then take off the side panel and use the vacuum cleaner to get the dust out of there, especially in the CPU area. My CPU fan was kicking on constantly trying to keep the CPU cool. Now that I've cleaned it it never turns on.

My laptop is the same story. I have a Sony Vaio. I bought it in 2002. It has a 1.2 GHz processor and 256 meg of RAM. Not enough to run a modern Windows operating system. But an OS can be upgraded. Like with Ubuntu, which is not too processor intensive. As is the case for the desktop I think you can keep it running for a long time if you keep the dust out of it. Here's my processor fan prior to cleaning. It had been shutting down because it was overheating. Now it runs full tilt indefinitely. So now I can use this 10 year old laptop and it can still do most of what I need a computer to do.

This is my old GPS. Bought it in May of 2007. Still runs great. See the little USB port? That connector broke. I'm really not particularly good at fixing stuff like this, but a friend of mine happened to have access to the right connector for the board and another friend pried the thing apart and soldered the new connector on. Some of the trim broke in the process, but that doesn't bother me a bit. It's still going.

I hear a lot of people say "I'm the kind of person that really likes to have the latest and greatest, so that's why I've spent money on this upgrade." Yeah, you are that kind of person. And so are most people. And the reason we are that kind of people is because we are bombarded with advertising that is just really good at convincing us that we want and need the latest and greatest. Even when upgrading is not really necessary. We're subjected to this because it's profitable. But it's not good for us or for the environment.

The So Called Liberal Media on Nuclear Iran

2012-01-19T15:43:00.002-05:00

An interesting catch from FAIR. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta explains in an interview on Face the Nation that Iran is not trying to build a nuclear weapon. PBS clips that sentence, adds some commentary, and leaves the viewer with the opposite impression.

The Suppression Is Encouraging

2012-01-18T11:41:00.005-05:00

On capitalism there are going to be a lot of people that make money not from working, but from owning. That's really not legitimate. But obviously it's something that these rich people really like. Who wouldn't want to collect most of the money while doing none of the work?

The major threat to that gravy train is when workers figure out that they don't really need that owner. They can do it themselves, distribute that money to the people doing the work, and tell the owner to pound sand. If you are an investor this is absolutely frightening. So when other countries have tried it, like Cuba, Vietnam, Nicaragua, Iran, etc, we know what happened to them. Investors in this country and in the target country used their corporate tools, like the media and politicians, to try and frighten the population into thinking these countries were a danger. Then these places were attacked.

So far US residents haven't suffered as much suppression and violence. We live in a very open society. The law says we have a lot of freedoms. But like Frank Zappa pointed out, these are freedoms that are permitted only so long as they aren't used in a way that threatens the gravy train of the rich. As soon as you start exercising these freedoms in ways that aren't profitable, out come the billy clubs, pepper spray, etc.

There may have been no Occupy movement if not for the internet. I watched the development of Occupy very closely. I watched when the initiated a trial run at Wall St just to see what the cops would do before it was officially launched. I saw them be ignored in the main stream corporate media. I wouldn't have been able to see without the internet. And if I and others hadn't seen, it may have fizzled. How badly do the rich wish it had fizzled? Did it have an effect?

The answer is found in SOPA and NDAA, acts that could serve to block Occupy type action in the future. Our free and open society has now dispensed with the fifth amendment of the Constitution, which grants people a right to have charges brought against them openly adjudicated by a third party. Now you can literally be thrown in prison indefinitely based on the decree of an anonymous panel appointed by the President. SOPA gives the government broad authority to block the internet, preventing the kinds of activities needed to organize and question some perceived injustices.

This is kind of a bummer obviously. On the other hand, what do you expect illegitimate wealth to do when you present a real challenge to them? Are they just going to lie back and let it happen without pushing back? Is that what they did in Vietnam, Cuba, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Iran, Panama, Iraq, Brazil, Haiti, Chile, Argentina, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, El Salvador, Italy, and on and on it goes? The suspension of freedom means what the people are doing is really scaring those in power, which means it's working. This is an inevitable step in the process toward progress. It will probably get worse before it gets better. That's how progress usually comes. We just need to keep doing what we are doing.

Republican Audience Boos the Golden Rule

2012-01-17T12:07:00.002-05:00

The so called Christian party apparently objects to the most famous rule Jesus ever offered. At Youtube here. If you don't support the principle that the rules that apply to them ought to apply to us what do you offer in its place?

Drug Legalization Is Laughable

2012-01-16T14:45:00.003-05:00

Obama was asked about legalization of marijuana, and I guess he thinks the suggestion is kind of funny and doesn't merit much by way of response. For Obama extremely popular positions are laughable.

Why is this laughable? For good reason. It has nothing to do with protecting Americans from damaging health effects. Setting aside marijuana, which kills about nobody, all hard drugs combined kill relatively few people. If we really cared about the health of Americans we'd decriminalize drugs, since that would be expected to improve things.

There are two other major factors at play. First we have a for profit prison industrial complex, which is pumping millions of dollars into Washington as part of lobbying efforts to keep incarceration rates high. That's profitable. The additional issue is that the CIA needs money to run covert wars. Better to sell drugs than ask Congress for money, since that is more likely to bring the wars to light. Ron Paul discusses these issues back in (I believe) 1988.

For a discussion of the centrality of CIA drug trafficking in the Nicaraguan Contra terrorist war directed by the US, watch Iran Contra Coverup.

Colbert SuperPAC's First Presidential Ad in SC

2012-01-15T14:45:00.003-05:00

Cobert is running for President and now has an ad, which is apparently on television running all the way from Charleston to north Charleston.

The Colbert Report
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If you want to see bravery, watch Colbert at the White House Correspondence dinner in 2006. Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3. Incredible. During the Helen Thomas skit there is a separate video that captures Bush's reaction. I don't think he's happy. Apparently Colbert was booked by the outgoing president of the White House Press Corps Association. He'd probably have been fired if he weren't already leaving after this. A Wiki overview here.

This Hurts Romney Badly

2012-01-13T11:58:00.003-05:00

I'm no political strategist, but I just watched this 28 minute documentary about Romney's exploits at Bain Capital. I'd known of this for a while ever since Colbert covered it. This guy is about the worst caricature you could imagine of a cruel and abusive Wall St tycoon, gutting profitable and solvent companies for short term gain that lines his pockets with millions while thousands of poor lose their jobs. It's awful. But now there's a documentary, I understand put together by some Gingrich supporters, that lays out these facts interspersing interviews with real people that were on the receiving end of the hardship. It's a heart breaker. Watch below.

It's no mystery how the right wing will reply. This focuses on the down side of creative destruction while ignoring the upside. Prosperous economies must remain dynamic. Etc, etc. Setting these bogus arguments aside, just consider how this plays to white middle class and poorer class people. Pregnant women fired. Parents fired that now lack health insurance and must endure a child with leukemia. An older married couple, both of whom work at the plant, are fired and lose everything. Are people watching this really going to accept this libertarian theory which allowed Romney to pad his fortune? As he bulldozes a 3,000 sq foot home to build maybe his tenth home that is instead 12,000 sq feet? In this economic environment? It's an absurdity that only a completely out of touch right winger could justify.

And it's not like Obama is doing the heavy lifting here. He's got Gingrich doing it for him. Who but the most ardent right wing dogmatist is going to cast a vote for Romney knowing that this is how he treats the non 1%?

Update:

Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post offers a corporate shot across the bow for Gingrich. Stop criticizing our economic destruction for the benefit of the rich or we'll pull the plug on your funding. Rush, Hannity and other corporate right wing sources are also demanding that Gingrich snap into line and continue to support polices that harm the poor at the expense of the rich. So though this hurts Romney with normal people it may help him with CEO's and venture capitalists.

I Debate Peter Schiff

2012-01-12T23:30:00.004-05:00

Sort of. I called up and argued with him on his radio show. It's in two segments because first I called and he had to go to interview a guest, then I called back. Segments 1 and 2 are below. You can also download the whole show at Peter's website here, at least for now. It's the January 11 show. Or download segment 1 and segment 2.

Update-Yanked embedded audio because it wasn't working.

Didn't quite work out as well as I'd have liked because I never really got rolling. I think he misunderstands me as if I'm claiming that there should be laws against breaking up a company, which is not at all true. China blocks short term speculative capital flows as I understand it, and this removes some of the incentive for a Bain Capital to come in and dismantle a solvent company in the interest of short term profit. Anyway, it's OK. Just getting my feet wet a bit. Next time I'll need to try and be more concise and hope that works better.

Bryan Caplan's Advice for More Equality

2012-01-12T17:54:00.004-05:00

You'd think it's a joke, but it isn't. He's serious. Here's the advice.

If you really want a materially more equal society, stop beating up on the 1%. Do a complete 180. Smile upon them. Admire them. Praise them. Sing songs about how much good they do for the world.

He's got some tortured logic for why this really is how you do it. Additionally he wants to undermine democracy.

More advice for the poor. The key is to give the rich more of the money.

Another Iranian Nuclear Scientist Assassinated

2012-01-11T11:55:00.004-05:00

Get the story here. This despite zero evidence that they have a nuclear weapons program, as I discussed here. This is scary stuff because it's obviously provocative, as are the sanctions. We're talking about a theocracy here. Who knows what kind of retaliatory action this could prompt. Our government obviously sees corporate profits as a greater priority than the safety of Americans and the world.

Gingrich wants Iranian scientists assassinated covertly as does Santorum. Apparently they are getting their wish.

Update:

Here's video of Santorum saying that the assassination of these scientists is wonderful.

The First State Secret

2012-01-10T16:23:00.003-05:00

The state secrets privilege was established in a US Supreme Court case from 1952. United States vs Reynolds. A B-29 crashed in Georgia. On board secret military tests were being conducted. The families of the victims wanted to view the accident report, but the government didn't want to release it. They argued that this would jeopardize national security. The government petitioned the court to dismiss the case without looking at the report. Just trust us. The court agreed. This decision has set the precedent for many subsequent court decisions, like the decision to deny detainees at Guantanamo a right to a day in court. Disclosure of evidence related to their detention puts US national security at risk supposedly.

The report related to the crash of the B-29 was finally released in 2000. Guess what? Nothing revealed in the report was in any way a threat to national security. The report did reveal negligence regarding the maintenance of the aircraft. That was about it.

So why did the government do this? The daughter of one of the men that died in the plane believes it was in fact to establish a precedent that allows the government to act with impunity. We can do whatever we want and never be subject to scrutiny.

Wikileaks and Guantanamo show that this is often the real purpose of secrecy today. Take a look at some of the Wikileaks revelations. The real enemy is not the terrorist abroad. It's the domestic population. Secrecy is intended to prevent Americans from knowing what the government and corporations are up to.

Cut The Working Week to 20 Hours

2012-01-10T10:15:00.002-05:00

That's the recommendation of the New Economics Foundation, a left leaning think tank.

10 years ago that would have sounded really bizarre to me. And I'm sure it sounds bizarre to a lot of people.

But for reasons I've discussed here I've come to understand that in fact this is going to be necessary at some point. We're always producing more with less. We're always improving our productivity. So on our system to sustain employment it is absolutely necessary that we consume more and more. But that can't go on forever.

There's plenty to go around. We make more than what we need. But because of the way we distribute what we make not everybody gets what they need. We fight over the limited resources. We destroy the environment. It has to change. It will change. Will it change in a catastrophic manner or not? The recommendation is the non-catastrophic change. I like it.

What It's Like to be Muslim in America

2012-01-09T13:02:00.004-05:00

I was talking with a friend at work about how we've lost the fifth amendment and there's no longer due process of the law for Americans or others. Sad and ridiculous. But keep in mind that it's always been pretty bad. It wasn't that long ago women couldn't vote. It wasn't that long ago that blacks de facto couldn't vote. Yeah, the law said they could. But the reality was they couldn't. The powerful are pushing to take away more freedoms, but they're always doing that. You just have to keep pushing back.

My friend asked if I was concerned because I always express so much hostility to status quo power structures. Nah. I'm a white guy and I'm not a Muslim. I'm not really in any danger.

But if I were non white and a Muslim I'd definitely think differently. My friend from Pakistan is in this position. He says that he's talked with his brother on the phone, who lives in LA. If he so much as says "As-Salāmu `Alaykum" (peace be upon you), his brother will hang up the phone. Don't say that. Don't so much as say Allah. He literally says that if he says Allah his brother will hang up the phone. He's come too far, worked too hard, to do anything that could even lead to him being mistakenly targeted as an enemy by the US government. He refuses to discuss politics or anything that approaches issues related to terrorism on or off the phone.

You might think that's too paranoid. I don't. Within this article from Glenn Greenwald you can hear harrowing tales of innocent Muslims shipped to Cuba and tortured for years on end. And without a shred of evidence. Possibly errors, possibly other reasons. And these are the lucky ones that through an almost random series of events managed to get a day in court and be ordered released. There are others that sit there today with no recourse.

I imagine many Muslims silently derive much encouragement from non-Muslim people that object to this treatment. Non-Muslims can speak out without too much fear. We are the best hope for justice, which I think will come eventually. But we have to press on.

Is The Wealth of the Rich Legitimate?

2012-01-07T09:28:00.002-05:00

A highly recommended series of posts addressing arguments used to justify the wealth of the rich:

Part 1-Is the wealth of the reach due to the fact that they are compensated based upon their contribution to productive capacity?

Part 2-Is the wealth of the rich their just reward for having taken bold risks?

Part 3-Is the wealth of the rich legitimate because it comes about through free, voluntary exchanges?

What You Don't Know About Iran

2012-01-04T21:40:00.003-05:00

Lots of saber rattling regarding Iran lately. This is on the heels of an IAEA report which suggested there's risk Iran still has a nuclear weapons program. There's a great interview on Democracy Now with Pulitzer prize winning journalist Seymour Hersch here explaining how these claims are all just not remotely believable. But I saw an interesting list of claims regarding Iran that may surprise you (via reddit).

Evolution is taught in Iran. Iran has the fastest scientific growth of any country. They have an excellent progressive program dealing with drug addicts, including a needle exchange program. They have free access to contraceptives (the only condom factory in the region), free and mandatory pre-marital counseling with family planning, government assistance for gender re-assignment surgery, and a model sustainable population growth program. Literacy gains since the Islamic revolution are excellent. Iran is the 12th largest automotive producer in the world and they've built 3 million that run on natural gas, which is more than the US, to go along with other green energy programs. Substantial public housing, AIDS prevention programs, and massive rural healthcare programs. Employment of women is expanding. Women make up the majority of university graduates. They are doing important scientific research, such as cloning, stem cell research, and nano technology.

Iranians do support their government. Their government has repeatedly offered peace concessions to the US, including a willingness to recognize Israel, a willingness to completely abandon a nuclear weapons program, and a desire to have a nuclear weapons free zone in the region. Iran does need nuclear power, and started their nuclear program with the encouragement and assistance of the US and others. And while the assertion that Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be wiped off the map is completely false, Iran has been repeatedly threatened with annihilation by leading government officials (the threats themselves violate international law), as well as by prominent, right wing, religious extremists.

As mentioned above there is literally zero evidence that Iran i s d evelopin g a nuclear weapon, and yet Iran is subjected to severe sanctions, bombings, and sabotage, including multiple murders of nuclear scientists. There is much to criticize about the regime in Tehran. How about the insane idea that Ramona Amiri should be in a hijab? However in relation to the various other despots in the region, particularly those that large amounts of US military assistance, Iran looks pretty good. Why is our government so aggressive and adversarial? It would seem to make no sense.

But of course it makes perfect sense when you set aside the pretexts and understand the real motivation behind the hostility.

This Media Coverage is Revolting

2012-01-04T13:28:00.002-05:00

What a spectacle the media coverage is of the primary process. This is the first time I've watched an election unfold with Chomsky's media insights in the back of my mind. It's pretty amazing watching it play out as he describes that it is designed.

One function of the media it so just marginalize people. Get them away from issues so they have no say. So talk about a two headed baby. People who are famous for being famous. Act like athletics is the most important thing in the world. These keep people distracted and marginalized on real issues.

You might think political coverage would have something to do with issues. Does it? I'm at the gym the other day and rather than listen to corporate news, which you can get with your headphones on devices attached to equipment, I'll listen to Democracy Now on an mp3 player. Or maybe listen to an audio book. That way I'm learning something. You don't learn much from corporate news. But I have 10 screens in front of me when I'm on the treadmill and I see one of Ron Paul's spokesmen is coming up on CNN. So I pause my audio book and listen in.

"What do you think of Santorum's surge? Is Ron Paul too old to be President? Ron Paul said that Santorum isn't conservative enough. Wow, what an alarming thing to say!! Can Ron Paul win Iowa? What strategies is he employing to steal a few more votes from one candidate or another?" What is called "politics" has little to do with whatever issues voters might be concerned with and how preferred policies could be implemented. It's about the horse race. Who said what of whom? What about a recent haircut? Has anybody been offended?

Have I learned anything about the candidates here or issues? No. I've wasted my time discussing the horse race. I should have just continued listening to my audio book. In fact the book I'm listening to is by Scott McClellan called "What Happened". It's about his experiences during the Bush years. He objects to the media's constant obsession with the horse race which he says they focus on to the exclusion of issues.

Remember how Michelle Bachmann won the Iowa straw poll a while back and how this was a big deal? Why does that matter at this point? Why was it such a big deal? It's basically a non-issue. Like Kim Kardashian or whoever won the Sugar Bowl. It's useful in that it's a means of preventing people from focusing on things that matter.

It's just plain revolting at this point to watch this charade. We'll get a couple of candidates, both of whom are approved by the 1% and have no interest in the rest of the country, except to placate them and shut them up while they continue to serve the needs of the super rich. And we'll get media coverage that pretends that the differences between Romney and Obama represent substantial differences.

For more on that topic, here's a good article from Matt Taibbi. For brief commentary on how political coverage in the corporate media is not really political coverage at all, read this from Pink Scare.

This Ron Paul Ad Is Dynamite

2012-01-01T10:51:00.001-05:00

Guess who wrote the text for that?

How Iceland Recovered

2011-12-30T15:44:00.003-05:00

An interview with the President of Iceland on CBC is here. The interview starts at about the 9 minute mark. Iceland did precisely the opposite of what prevailing economic orthodoxy recommends. They allowed the banks to fail, allowed their currency to devalue, rejected austerity, expanded social services, didn't concern themselves with balancing the budget. Basically anti-Republicanism. Where Republican policies remain in force in Europe economic downturn remains.

Four Key Gulf War I Stories

2011-12-29T10:43:00.007-05:00

I was talking with a colleague about Iraq's invasion of Kuwait and I realized that there are certain critical facts that are just unknown to most Americans about this war. I talk with people all the time and almost nobody knows anything about this until I tell them.

1-Just prior to the invasion the US Ambassador to Iraq gave Saddam an effective green light to invade. April Glaspie (shown meeting Saddam to the right) questioned Saddam regarding the troops he was amassing at the border. It was well known that Saddam regarded the border as illegetimate. It blocks his access to the sea and deprives him of certain oil rich regions. It was intended to prevent one state from having too much power in his view. Following the Iran/Iraq War, which Saddam probably entered at the behest of the US, the treasury was drained and he thought he could resolve this by eliminating the border and conquering Kuwait. After questioning Saddam about the troops Glaspie informed him that the US has no position on Arab-Arab conflicts and Secretary Baker asked her to emphasize this instruction. This was probably taken by Saddam as tacit permission to invade.

2-Public opinion in the US was not strongly in favor of US involvement in a war. The President was seeking Congressional approval and it wasn't obvious that he would get it. Then came testimony from a Kuwaiti girl that claimed Iraqi soldiers were removing sick babies from their incubators at Kuwaiti hospitals and the result was the death of these babies. George Bush would repeat this story multiple times to achieve maximum exposure in the media. Seven Senators cited this testimony in their speeches explaining their ultimate support for the war effort, which passed by a mere 5 votes. After the war was over some facts started to emerge. The girl was the daughter of the Kuwait ambassador to the US. She had been coached in her presentation and possibly in her testimony by the PR firm Hill & Knowlton, a group that in the past had worked for the tobacco industry attempting to convince people that there were no verfiable links between smoking and lung cancer. The story is a concocted fraud.

3-Prior to the initiation of hostilities with the US, Iraq repeatedly offered peaceful withdrawal proposals. Those offers were ignored, both by the US government and the major media.

4-In an effort to help remove Saddam from Kuwait President Bush called on the Shiites in Iraq to rise up and rebel against the dictator. So they did. And when Saddam withdrew from Kuwait Bush then assisted Saddam's efforts to crush the rebellion because he preferred that Saddam remain in power. The result was the death of 300,000 people. The mass graves were discovered after the 2003 invasion.

I believe these are 4 of the key facts everyone that wants to understand this war should know. And in the US most Americans know of none of them. It's the kind of event that left these Chinese students perplexed when they visited the US in 1979. What they really wanted to understand was how the party secretary of New York controls the NY Times. When they are told that no party controls the NY Times they were incredulous and confused.

Propaganda in the US is much more sophisticated than control by force or on command. And quite a bit more effective.

Is Peter Schiff a Parasite?

2011-12-28T12:51:00.004-05:00

Peter Schiff is one of Ron Paul's economic advisers, and I've been listening to his radio show lately. On his December 22 show he talked about an appearance he'd made on Cenk Uygur's show. He was ultimately cut off by Cenk. On his radio show he explains that he was having trouble with his ear piece, so he didn't realize Cenk was trying to break in. Cenk probably thought Peter was ignoring him so he cut him off. More of a misunderstanding than anything.

On the show Peter was essentially defending the 1%. They create the jobs, they write the checks, they pay the taxes. He read an email from someone that saw him on Cenk's show and the email called him a parasite. Peter laughs and says no, the writer has it backwards. He's the host. He's paying all the taxes. Do the poor want him to leave? If so who's going to pay for the welfare that all the poor people want? Who's going to employ everyone? You are sucking off his tit. He's not sucking off yours.

I was thinking about how I would react to Peter as I listened and I was a bit stymied. I had to think about it. This is the value of listening to those I disagree with. Something's not right about what he's saying, but formulating that into words takes effort. Putting myself through that effort is a good thing because I think it prepares me to explain it to those that might want to know.

In a capitalist system there are two ways to make money. You can work and get paid a salary. Or you can own a business. If you are paid a salary you aren't a parasite. You are compensated for what you are doing. And if you own a business you aren't necessarily a parasite. Suppose you work really hard to create a business that provides a product people value. Let's just use a janitorial service as an example. Someone is willing to pay you to clean their home or building. That's not parasitic.

Let's suppose your business expands and you can employee one person. You delegate this person to do 75% of the cleaning. You are the owner and you do 25% of the cleaning and also run the books, try to find new business, etc. Your employee is better off having the job opportunity. And you are providing a service to consumers. That's all fine. But there is just a tiny bit of a parasitical relationship here. Your employee is obviously doing something productive and your company gets a check for it. You take a portion of that check and pay him a salary. You keep the rest. That's fine. There's nothing wrong with it. You took a risk and started a business, made an employee better off, provided a service for your customers. I don't think anybody has a big problem with this arrangement. But the work he does provides more value then the amount of compensation he is given. If it didn't he wouldn't have been hired.

As this arrangement continues and the business expands that parasitical arrangement becomes more and more pronounced. Maybe a right winger would still not object if the owner had expanded to 1000 employees, including management that permits the owner to do nothing at all, including dealing with books, advertising, and marketing. The owner just stays home, pays salaries with revenue generated, and then retains the surplus revenue. You can call that good or bad. Maybe that's his just reward for taking that initial risk. But it is parasitical. Right now the productive efforts are entirely the work of others and he collects the money.

And let's take it a step further. Let's suppose we're not dealing with a person that worked hard in starting a business. Let's suppose a man has $1 million for whatever reason. Maybe he inherited it. Maybe he won a lottery. Maybe he stole it. He decides one day he's going to start a janitorial service, but he isn't going to do any work. He's going to pay someone a salary to initiate it. This person needs to hire workers, manage the books, and perhaps do some cleaning if necessary. Let's suppose this service succeeds. The owner doesn't do anything productive. He wrote an initial check, and that was it. Now he sits back. The service employs 350 people. It generates $1 million/month in revenue. With that revenue he pays his employees an average of $1500/month, or $18K/yr. The balance is $475K/mo. He spends $100K/mo on materials/tools, etc. He retains $375K/mo. He never breaks a sweat. He does pretty much nothing except writing checks (most check writing is delegated to someone else, but he writes the one check to the manager). He is in fact generating his revenue based on the sweat of others. He is a parasite.

This is really close to what Peter Schiff is. Peter Schiff runs an investment firm. He makes money from owning things. Suppose he just buys all the stock in this janitorial service. His income could be in the form of dividends. Payouts based on the profit of the company. If he owns all the stock he gets the $375K/mo.

If you think Schiff is contributing to the service, consider what would happen if the employees were to decide that they simply weren't going to respect the ownership title that he waves in their face. Suppose they said sure, you own the brand and you own the mops. But we don't care. We're going to use them to clean buildings, and we're going to take the revenue and distribute it amongst the workers as well as keep the business running. Would the work cease? Would it no longer be possible to clean the buildings? No. Work would go on as before. We don't need Peter Schiff to clean the buildings and make a good living. He's doing nothing but collecting the revenue that is generated due to the work we do.

Where I work the janitorial service has been outsourced, perhaps with a company like Peter would own. They drive up in their rickety cars. They try to hide their smiles so we don't see their crooked teeth. I've befriended one lady. Her name is Kathy. She goes to work at her first job at the shock absorber plant and works about 10 hours. Then she comes in to our office building and puts in another 3 or 4. She works in our office 5 days a week and at the plant 6 or 7. But that's not enough for her to afford a home, so she lives with her brother. Yeah, she drinks and smokes. Not wise. But it's a tough life and it's hard to cope. She really could use some health care coverage. She obviously can't afford it.

Peter Schiff says we should be grateful to him because he pays all the taxes. He takes his $350K/mo or whatever it is he makes which comes from the productive efforts of people like Kathy and he's outraged that he's expected to pay taxes. "Do you want all us rich people to leave?" he asks.

I say sure, let him go, but with a caveat. If he doesn't stay we aren't going to send him the surplus revenue generated by the janitorial service. We aren't going to respect the piece of paper that says he owns it. He doesn't do anything that is needed for productive output. He doesn't really contribute. He wouldn't even be paid in the first place if people didn't respect his property rights.

This is of course not how all the rich became rich. Many of the rich did it the way the hypothetical man that started the janitorial service in my example did. Everyone respects that. Everybody knows that in cases like this, where a person is taking a lot of risk and working really hard, harder then most others, that this guy should be rich. That is just and good for the economy. But that's just not what has been going on in the US over the last 30 years. Those that are getting rich these days are overwhelmingly hedge fund managers and CEO's. The belief that people like this are actually compensated due to their productive value is highly dubious, and certainly not necessarily true.

The janitors, factory workers, tomato pickers, and garbage men aren't parasites, leeching off the benevolent capitalist that owns Waste Management and gave the garbage man a job as a gift. The garbage man is keeping only a portion of his productive effort and giving the rest to the stock holder, who for all we know is sitting in a mansion doing absolutely nothing. Schiff says the worker is the parasite and the rich man sipping piña coladas by the pool is the host. That's twisted and wrong.

Massacre in Kazakhstan

2011-12-22T14:00:00.003-05:00

It's a full on war on unions in Kazakhstan. An overview at Naked Capitalism here. It's mostly ignored in the US as is our own bloody labor history. Some Johnny Cash in memory of the murdered Kazakhs.

The Immorality and Failure of Austerity

2011-12-19T12:38:00.002-05:00

There's nothing new about austerity. It's a program of lower deficit spending, reduced government expenditure, and debt reduction. This is a part of a program that goes by another name. Neoliberalism. Neoliberalism came to be associated with policies dubbed the Washington Consensus.

It's been tried in many places. In the 80's countries in Latin America attempted to install governments that expanded social spending, income redistribution and the like. Basically the opposite of austerity. The response was a terrorist war and imposition of thuggish governments that did in fact impose the Washington Consensus. In Haiti the people attempted to install Aristide. Once again he advocated progressive economic policies. He was ousted and replaced by a World Bank official that retained the austerity type programs. The failure of these methods is obvious.

But let's suppose you're not a history buff and you're unaware of this. That's fine. Take a look at the places where austerity has been implemented since the turn of the century in Europe. It's places like Ireland, Spain, Italy, and Greece. How have they performed since their austerity measures? About as bad as could possibly be conceived.

Not every country has gone that path. Take Iceland. The movie "Inside Job" used Iceland as it's initial focal point. The reason is because it was just that bad. The failure was so big that a bank bail out wasn't even an option. So they had no choice but to tell creditors to take a hike. They in fact expanded the social safety net. Once again the opposite of austerity. They're one of the few European nations doing rather well.

Precisely the same thing happened in Argentina. In 2001 they defaulted on debt. Rather than bailing out the banks (rewarding the rich) and repaying that by punishing the poor (implementing cuts in social services) they did the opposite. Screw the creditors. Expand the welfare state. The result? An economy that is growing like gangbusters.

What else would you expect? Impose Haitian and Latin American economic models on countries and those countries go straight down the crapper just like Haiti and countries in Latin America did. It doesn't work. We've known it doesn't work for decades. We're learning again as we watch even 1st world nations now falter.

But it's not just that it doesn't work. It's unjust. It's a reward to the rich for their abuse paid for by the poor. Mark Blyth, professor at Brown University explains why.

Why I Abandoned Ron Paul

2011-12-16T17:55:00.002-05:00

You have to respect Ron Paul in that he is principled. A key moral principle is that if an action is wrong for others it's wrong for us. Ron Paul understands that and so he recognizes that various US invasions on the basis of perceived threats are wrong. He talks about the enormous human costs of our invasions. He asks us to think about how we'd feel if it was done to us.

I had a big Ron Paul sign in my yard in 2008. Still have the sign in fact. But I won't be putting it up this time. As much as I respect him and agree with him on many issues, he's just wrong economically.

Paul Krugman has been noting this recently. Paul's models have simply failed. People of the Austrian school of economics made some really bold predictions. They've just been dead wrong. That matters.

Today Paul Krugman has some similar erroneous claims from Peter Schiff from back in 2009. Schiff is a huge Ron Paul fan. I was likewise a fan of Schiff. I knew about how he was predicting a crash and being called a moron for it. Watch how accurate he is compared to Ben Stein. So yeah, he looked to be someone that understood what was going on. But even in that popular video you can see hints of how he's wrong. He's expecting a dollar crash. That hasn't happened.

On the other hand when you look to Krugman you see that he likewise saw the downturn coming due to the housing bubble and additionally let it be known that he expected the dollar to be strong. He also expected the downturn to be prolonged because there was on net no stimulus (you hear that Obama passed stimulus, but this wasn't enough to offset reductions in state revenue, hence no stimulus on net).

On a similar note, here's an interesting article regarding Friedrich Hayek. Similarly wrong about the Great Depression like Paul and Schiff are now.

Goodbye Fifth Ammendment

2011-12-16T17:00:00.003-05:00

Congressional approval levels are at record lows. 9% approval. Lower than porn, polygamy, and the BP oil spill. That's still enough clout to pass through an outrageous dismantling of our Constitution. It used to be that if our government wanted to put you in prison for a long time they had to charge you with a crime and convict you. Then sentence you. You had the opportunity to prove that you were innocent. Bush violated that and so did Obama, but at least we knew that they were breaking the law. Sure, the law doesn't apply to them because they are rich and powerful, but perhaps they hesitate a bit to break the law.

No longer. Soon it will be legal for them to act in this way. A discussion with Cenk Uygur and Glenn Greenwald below.

Was Fox News Always This Bad?

2011-12-16T13:39:00.003-05:00

I used to watch and like Fox News, but don't like or watch much anymore. I get news online. But when you're at the gym on the tread mill and there are 10 screens I usually decide that Fox is the most interesting, so I watch it sometimes. I can hardly believe how deceptive they are or that I used to watch them unaware of this.

A while back I watched Hannity interview Dick Cheney. The transcript is here. Here's Hannity supposedly doing an interview and they are talking about the Plame/Wilson affair. Plame's identity was leaked and this was possibly a crime. Hannity first points out that the prosecutor knew at the beginning that the source of the leak for Novak was Amitage. And yet the prosecutor went after Libby anyway. That's supposedly outrageous. Why does he go after so many other innocent people, like Libby? "Doesn't this make you mad?" Hannity asks?

Hannity betrays that he knows certain details about this event that suggest he must know that this is grossly misleading. I explained the details here, but in summary yes, Armitage was Novak's source. But Plame's name was leaked to multiple reporters by multiple people, including Libby and Rove, and that would be just as much of a crime as what Armitage did. It doesn't matter that only Novak published the information. This info was leaked in a coordinated effort coming from the Vice President's office. Fitzgerald was attempting to determine the facts and decide if a crime had occurred as part of a coordinated leak. Libby concocted a story to throw Fitzgerald off the trail. That's a crime for which he was properly convicted. Come on, Sean. You must know this stuff.

Then last night was the Fox Republican Presidential debates. Gingrich apparently took $1.6 million from Fannie and Freddie as a "paid consultant." Yeah right. He's selling influence. According to Bachmann it's doubly bad because Freddie and Fannie were at the center of the financial collapse.

Gingrich should respond by saying no they aren't. Every independent study has shown that they are not responsible. In fact if anything they relieved some pressure because they did have higher mortgage standards due to government oversight, so they issued fewer loans that defaulted. Gingrich must know that. But his response assumes the Bachmann caricature is right and everybody else played along. He has to sustain right wing caricatures because that's what his financial backers demand. And presumably tea party Republicans believe these lies. So they all have to pretend that up is down in order to pander.

Bachmann also claimed that Iran was months away from getting a nuke "according to the IAEA." No. That's just not what the IAEA report said. Nor do we really have good reason to think he wants to wipe Israel off the map. This is out of this world nonsense which passes unchallenged or is defended by the Fox moderators. Fortunately Ron Paul corrected Bachmann in this case, but later Hannity would interview Paul and peddle the same nonsense. They are so aggressively misleading it's strange that they are taken as seriously as they are.

Stephen Schneider: Science and Distortion

2011-12-15T13:01:00.001-05:00

A really well done video on climate change and disinformation. Via Peter Sinclair.

How Much is Spent on Welfare?

2011-12-14T20:08:00.002-05:00

Reading some right wingers one might think that the source of all economic problems is black welfare queens having baby after baby in an effort to extract tons of federal welfare dollars so they can live in mansions and drive Cadillacs. OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggerated description of right wing thinking, but it captures the sentiment.

The actual poor are nothing but the whipping boy. The total amount spent on welfare for the poor is not large. There's a nice break down here. People conflate welfare for the poor with other forms of welfare, like Social Security, Medicare, and Unemployment. The latter are in fact programs that you must pay into in order to receive generally speaking. They aren't targeted to poor people. When you set all that aside and actually look at outlays to the kind of people the right wing have in mind it's not much. 6.4% of the federal budget.

How much is defense? There are different ways of measuring it, but the standard claim is that it's about 20% of the federal budget. And what kind of value does this bring? It's kind of a bad joke. Is there an entity that actually represents a threat to our nation's security? Even with 9-11 the fact is that the threat of terrorism is miniscule, as this interesting report from Cato makes clear.

This kind of expenditure is pure corporate welfare. Our military endeavors certainly enhance the threat of terrorism in this country. Our wars are counterproductive. We knew they would be before we embarked on them and we now know that in fact they have enhanced the threat of terrorism. We'd be better off giving defense contractors the money, but just dropping bombs in our own deserts. Our military adventures overseas are the root cause of Islamic terrorism.

So if you want to blame our economic problems on welfare why not first blame the much larger and much more counter productive corporate welfare that is our military industrial complex. Instead the right wants to blame the much smaller amount of welfare that actually helps poor single mothers.

Bill Ayers was a Vandal, not a Terrorist

2011-12-09T15:40:00.004-05:00

For some reason the right wing is ratcheting up the Bill Ayers rhetoric lately. During 2008 Sarah Palin accused Obama of "paling around with terrorists". The right wing is restating the charge now. I saw Sean Hannity going nuts on it again last night. Dutko's talking about it. I wonder if these people really know what Bill Ayers did.

There's a decent documentary available at Netflix on the Weather Underground. It gives the details of what they did and why. I'd like to record a brief summary. First some historical context.

In 1962 JFK sent the Air Force to bomb South Vietnam. When you carpet bomb a country in this way (tens of thousands of bombing runs occurred in 1962) you recognize that civilians will pay a heavy price. This is pretty unambiguously terrorism and an extreme moral outrage if there ever was one.

Opposition movements in the US were slow to emerge. In fact the anti-war movement in the US was tiny and faced enormous hostility. Noam Chomsky says that prior to 1966 if he were giving a talk against the war even in a liberal city like Boston he'd be taking his life in his hands. Later the protest movement was larger. But the incredible death and destruction imposed didn't seem to be slowing.

This is what lead to the Weather Underground, which formed in 1969. By now the enormous US backed terror campaign was rising to the fore of the American consciousness. The My Lai massacre had occurred. It wasn't particularly unique, except in two respects. A Life Magazine photographer happened to be there. And after the Tet Offensive the business community started to turn against the war, which made it more likely for events like this to be discussed in the major media. Various pictures were taken, including the one to the left. In this case the photographer asked the soldiers to pause just a sec so he could get this shot. They obliged. They gave him a moment so he could get his picture. Then they immediately gunned them all down.

This is an enormous evil and it's occurring on a large scale. Don't think the image to the left reflects an isolated incident.

Members of the Weather Underground decided that the war needed to be brought home to bring pressure to end this. But here's the key. They DID NOT want to kill anybody. They initially planned an event that would have killed people, but in the process of creating the bombs there was an accident. The only people killed were members of the WU. After that they realized that trying to kill people was a mistake. They decided instead to destroy some property.

There modus operandi was as follows. Plant a bomb in a federal building. Time it to go off at midnight when nobody was present. Phone it in to the police so everyone would know it was coming. This would minimize the chances that anybody would be injured or killed. Hope that the prospect of property damage helped end the war or other acts of violence perpetuated by the US government.

They engaged in property damage in reaction to other acts of US violence besides Vietnam. For instance in 1973 the Nixon administration helped bring about a coup in Chile that installed a military dictator and terror state. Concentration camps were built to torture and murder thousands of people. The WU responded with some property destruction.

One can object to Bill Ayers methods, but unless I'm unaware of what the WU did I don't see how it can be called terrorism. And what he was reacting to is unambiguously terrorism. Yet that terrorism is not just ignored. It's actually celebrated by a lot of the same people that now criticize Obama for "paling around with terrorists."

Bill Ayers engaged in property destruction. JFK, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Ronald Reagan engaged in a level of terrorism that Osama bin Laden could only dream of. Shouldn't we first object to the hero worship of Reagan before complaining that Obama had a fundraiser in the home of Bill Ayers?

[Edited mention of B-52's in 1962. These may not have been initiated until the post 1965 escalation under Johnson.]

Family Guy Writer's Occupy Experience

2011-12-08T13:56:00.002-05:00

Patrick Meighan describes what it was like to get arrested by the LAPD for peacefully protesting. Read it here. H/T Greenwald. Frank Zappa put it as follows:

Some People Knew

2011-12-07T17:28:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled across this Youtube clip with Janeane Garofalo on Fox News. It was apparently prior to the invasion of Iraq. She says Collin Powell's speech was a joke. She takes the view that the inspectors effectively disarmed Iraq and there wasn't good reason to think they had WMD, and that the costs of an occupation were a large unknown and potentially very high. In response Brian Kilmeade of Fox News is talking about the link between Iraq and Al Qaeda. They are so wrong and she is very right. The contrast is stark.

The wars and economic downturn have been immensely damaging. If nothing else those of us that were on the wrong side of the debate at the time must acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them. How many of us were dismissive of Garofalo as a know nothing Hollywood celebrity? She knew her stuff. The Bill Kristols, Fred Barnes, and Charles Krauthammers seemed so impressive. They were clueless.

Some Links on Tax Policy

2011-12-07T15:31:00.002-05:00

What is the optimal upper marginal tax rate? Should it be much higher than it is now as it was in previous more prosperous and more egalitarian times? Or if you do raise rates in that way will you stop innovation and see all the job creators "going Galt"? Krugman discusses an interesting study by Peter Diamond and Emmanuel Saez here. This study evaluates the effect of high taxes as a disincentive so as to arrive at an optimal rate. The result? 70%. Much like it was back in more prosperous times. Maybe the study is wrong, but it's important for people on the right to remember that just because it sounds plausible that higher taxes do more harm than good that doesn't necessarily make it true. The data and facts matter.

Also a couple of links from Bruce Bartlett. In the first he talks about how Republican solutions to our economic problems are precisely the opposite of what CBO and other data indicate would work. In the second he talks about how the tax hikes of 1990 and 1993 clearly were causal in deficit reduction and they were of course likewise opposed by most Republicans. There are workable solutions to our current fiscal problems. Republicans just won't allow them.

Do People Listen to James Delingpole?

2011-12-05T14:39:00.002-05:00

I get newsletters via email from conservative publications sometimes. One is Human Events. There's a book by a guy named James Delingpole called "365 Ways to Drive a Liberal Crazy". Human Events sends them out one at a time, maybe once a week, kind of as a teaser to buy the book. I read them. They're kind of juvenile. One day he suggests you refer to the media as the "Old Left Media." Talk about how great Columbus was. Talk about how the reason God made liberals with whiny voices is so even the blind could hate them. We shouldn't celebrate MLK day. Just stupid things.

I follow another blog called Climate Denial Crock of the Week. Peter Sinclair does some good videos covering the climate science denial community. Apparently Delingpole was on the BBC and interviewed by a prestigious scientists. I was a little surprised by that. Is it worth interviewing a guy like this? I mean sure, you'll find obnoxious trolls in comment sections for blogs. People do act in this way. But these are obscure people, right? I would expect that even conservatives don't want to give a guy like this a platform. So why is he being interviewed? Watch below. It's kind of interesting.

I thought that could be an aberration, but apparently not. Now he's written a column and it has been published by the Wall Street Journal. He's pushing another batch of so called Climate Gate hacked emails. In the Wall Street Journal? You give a guy like this that kind of forum and real scientists like Michael Mann apparently feel compelled to reply. (HT to Peter Sinclair)

I guess I'm a bit surprised. I've been getting these emails from Human Events for a long time. I just assumed this guy was a crank and not taken very seriously. In fact it appears he's taken quite seriously. If I were a conservative I'd be embarrassed.

Bryan Caplan - High Priest of Wealth

2011-12-03T19:21:00.002-05:00

I thought it was put well by someone that goes by the name of "t" over and Pink Scare (thanks Sheldon). Throughout history those with wealth sustain their grip on power not just by controlling means of violence. They do it also by attempting to legitimize their wealth. The kings of old were justly endowed with their riches by divine right. The role of the scribes and priests was to justify the king's position to the masses.

Economist at George Mason University Bryan Caplan gave a lecture that you can watch here. In it he talks about his new book. New at the time. It was 2007. It's "The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies". In this talk Caplan tells us that economics departments have been beating into the heads of students the glories of neoliberalism for 30 years, but the public stubbornly refuses to accept it. It's baffling. Why won't the public go along with expert opinion? It's hard to say.

Take NAFTA. Like this NY Times article explained, it's going to be really great. Corporate lawyers, PR firms, the financials. They are going to really benefit from this. Of course (read the end of the article) there will be some losers. Women, blacks, Hispanics. You know, like 70% of the population. It will be tough for them. But all in all it's really great. Why is the public opposed?

Or take immigration. The public seems opposed to large scale immigration. They seem to think that it would depress wages. What are they, racist or something? Large scale immigration is really good for the economy, says Caplan.

Which it is. If by the economy you mean it's really good for the short term profit of wealth. Productive outputs require labor and equipment. On capitalism the equipment is owned by the capitalist and he hires labor to operate the equipment. He pays labor with the revenue generated by production and keeps the remainder for himself. If you can get a lot of unskilled labor to come into the country the capitalist of course can pay the labor less and keep more for himself. So this is unquestionably a better scenario for wealth, at least in the short term. If you're more poor and don't generate income from ownership but rather you live by the income gained from labor, this is a tougher situation. Prices could come down, but does this compensate for your depressed wages? That's not clear. Clearly though capital and wealth stand to gain. So this is really great for capital and not clearly so great for the bulk of the population. Caplan can't understand why the bulk of the population doesn't want to go along.

So what can be done? Here's Caplan's solution. And I'm not joking. People are so stupid that we need to undermine democracy. We need to force everyone to accept economic arrangements that they think are harmful to themselves. An independent panel of priests for wealth. That's the trick. Lower tariffs, free trade, financial deregulation. Look how great things are thanks to the independent Fed (remember, this is in 2007). The masses are asses.

Not that there's anything new here. The kings have always paid the priests in order to prevent the common man from having a voice. The cathedrals are now the economics departments at our universities.

Media - Seeking Profits, Not Truth

2011-12-02T16:41:00.003-05:00

I was having some car repairs done yesterday and they had Good Morning America on. Apparently there's another pretty blonde girl that's gone missing in Aruba. Seems like this happens occasionally. It's the kind of story that Greta van Susteren and Nancy Grace really like. I don't know how people can watch these shows, but to each his own.

I know absolutely nothing about it. GMA was the first I'd heard of it. They first did an intro piece. They basically laid out the case for why they think her companion was responsible. He was detained for a rather long period in Aruba, but was never charged. Still it sounded pretty nefarious. He says she went missing while they were scuba diving. He took out a large life insurance policy on her though he didn't know her very well. There are reports that he excitedly called the insurance company to collect very soon after the events. Video footage shows him seeking help after he says they went missing, but he doesn't look too excited.

After the intro it turns out Robin Roberts, the GMA host says "And Gary Giordano (the accused) joins me now in his first interview since being released." Wow. A tough intro and now he's facing tough questions. Should be interesting.

Gary seems annoyed and you figure out why very quickly. In my judgment the intro was a hit piece. Watch all segments of the GMA segment here. He's got very reasonable explanations for every accusation. Yeah, he took out a life insurance policy. He does it for himself every time he travels. He has 3 kids and a large mortgage payment. He added his companion. He maximized insurance for himself. He's not able to select one insurance coverage amount for himself and another amount for others that are listed along with him, so her coverage went along for the ride with his. Yeah, he called his insurance company after she went missing. His lawyer advised him to. Search and rescue operations were going on and his lawyer told him he might get an invoice for it, so he'd better call. And it turns out government agencies do recommend that you first call authorities, then call your insurance company after someone you know goes missing. This is standard behavior. They say he doesn't look excited in video footage as he's trying to notify someone. He says he was exhausted and he shows up at an establishment but apparently everyone has gone home. He's banging on the windows. What is he supposed to do? Scream at nobody and flop around on the floor? It's ridiculous. Robin Roberts says he's not wet. He says of course he's wet. The video isn't clear enough. Why is she saying he's not wet? There are other pictures of him that show in fact he clearly was wet, so he came directly from the beach to find help.

I thought GMA looked pretty bad at this point. Their intro portrayed him as if he was guilty. But his answers sound very plausible. Roberts should have been aware of them before hand. Knowing these details would have led to a less nefarious intro. There's no actual evidence against him. Nothing I see from the piece would lead me to suspect that this guy is guilty.

So last night I go to the gym and catch Shepard Smith on Fox News. They're covering the GMA interview. I thought it would be interesting to watch how they covered it. It was a bit bizarre. They were very dismissive and portrayed Giordano as if he was guilty. They sliced and diced his replies to give the appearance that he was dancing and unwilling to answer questions. They pretend his lawyer had to jump in and save him. It was crazy. I can't see any reason to treat this guy like he's a murderer. But that is what they did. They should have been talking about how GMA embarrassed themselves.

It made me think immediately of how ABC treated this poor guy from the Bachelor. They basically made a guy a villain because that makes for an interesting story. Why would they do that? Because it gets people to watch.

People like the lost pretty blond girl in Aruba story. Nancy Grace and Greta probably get a big boost. But it's much better if she was murdered. If there was an accident and she was lost that's boring. If the murder accusation is a lie, so what? It's more profitable.

They're just shaping it and crafting it so as to make for a profitable story. We know it's true of seeming reality shows like the Bachelor, the Real World, Hogan, Kardashian, and whatever else. Is the news much different?

The Fairness of Free Markets

2011-11-30T14:09:00.002-05:00

Walter Williams tells us that:

in a society of voluntary relationships income is not “distributed”; it is earned—earned by individual efforts to please one’s fellow man. One person is not poor because another is rich. The fact that people earn income reflects the morality of free markets. It is their ability and willingness to please their fellow man that enables them to have a claim on the productive assets of the society.

Is this true? Let's consider a hypothetical voluntary relationship.

Suppose you are driving off the beaten path in Death Valley with your wife and child and your car breaks down. I pass by. I'm your only hope of survival. You need water and a ride. I've got both. But I want $10M of your future earnings in exchange. I've got a contract and you can choose to sign it or not. If you do, should it be enforced? If you sign it you do so in a state where you are perfectly lucid. You are rational. Should a court enforce this contract in a free market world and respect my property rights?

According to the law today this contract would be ruled unconscionable and declared unenforceable. One party took advantage of its position of superior bargaining power in order to craft a contract that is excessively unfair.

Reading Williams you'd think that the court's action is unfair. You can't have a court come in violate a freely agreed upon contract. I've earned the $10M in your future compensation. I helped my fellow man.

That's a pretty bizarre stance in my world and I doubt very much Williams really believes this. He uses this definition of fairness in his economic arguments, but does he use it in his home? Let's suppose he had two children and let's suppose they happened to be stranded in town and wouldn't get a ride for 8 hours. Child A is hungry and Child B has $20. Child B says that she'll give Child A $10 provided Child A licks her boots. Child A after a few hours is desperate enough and does so. What would Williams say to his children when he finally arrived to pick them up and Child A complained? Would he say "Good job. You both helped your fellow man. One was able to be fed and the other was able to be entertained. A mutually beneficially transaction. This is a just and right a system as could possibly be devised."

When right wingers start arguing about economics they'll defend boot licking and bum fights. The bum knows what's in his own best interest so he and another bum should be allowed to fight each other in hopes of gaining meager compensation. I doubt very much these right wingers would say the same to their children that received boot licking for modest compensation. I bet they'd be outraged. I bet they'd say that their children should feed these hungry people rather than demand that they humiliate themselves.

But that all changes when they enter a blog comment section and start arguing.

Quote Of The Day

2011-11-28T12:44:00.002-05:00

The crises of the mid-1990's hit countries that had, in general, embraced the policies of the Washington Consensus. The pattern was the same in each case. Following financial deregulation, countries enjoyed strong capital inflows and booming stock markets. Some seemingly minor event produced a reversal in market sentiment and a sudden flight of capital, producing an economic crisis. Following the crisis, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and world markets sought to impose the 1980's package of public expenditure cuts and economic contraction, which only exacerbated the problem. Finally, in retrospect, the victims were blamed for minor divergences from the free market ideal which, before the crisis, had been seen as unimportant, or even praiseworthy.

John Quiggin, Professor of Economics at the University of Queensland writing in Zombie Economics

Documentary About Terrorism Against Cuba

2011-11-28T11:14:00.003-05:00

If you get Netflix instant streaming and you'd like to see a documentary about the various acts of terrorism directed against Cuba you can watch Will The Real Terrorist Please Stand Up. It's interesting to see the various unrepentant terrorists interviewed. One thing I learned is how in Miami the Cuban exile community has actually engaged in a lot of terrorism against Americans. When policies are enacted that they object to they can bomb related people in the city. One person interviewed says that more bombs were going off in Miami than in many other war torn regions, like Beirut, and yet it's odd that people don't seem to notice. The US government seems uninterested or unwilling to put a stop to it, so the terrorists get their way.

Except for the title it doesn't seem to me the film tries hard to cause anyone to reach a particular conclusion. They just interview the various people and allow them to speak for themselves. Quite informative.

Manufacturing Consent-The Documentary

2011-11-26T10:12:00.003-05:00

If you haven't seen the documentary done about Chomsky and Herman's book, it's definitely worth watching. I've embedded it here.

It was at the time the most successful documentary ever made by a Canadian producer. It was huge overseas. Shown in about 30 countries. Where it was shown in the US it tended to sell out, but it wasn't shown on television here. In fact it was barely reviewed. The NY Times did review it in a sort of positive review you can read here. The thesis seems to be, according to the NY Times review, "that the government is most responsive to the wishes expressed by the minority of citizens who vote." Huh? It's pretty hard to understand how someone could watch this movie and miss the point so badly.

As far as I know Chomsky never watched the film. He apparently was a bit annoyed because though there was an overwhelmingly positive response he found that people looked to him like he was the leader of a movement. I suppose this violates his anarchist sensibilities. But he doesn't blame the creators and thinks they did the best they could. People naturally react this way apparently.

You Are Irrational

2011-11-25T17:51:00.002-05:00

In this Ted Talk Dan Ariely explains how humans decisions are easily manipulated such that they are irrational.

Should We Vote For Obama?

2011-11-23T09:58:00.002-05:00

There's only one guy that I read religiously and that's Glenn Greenwald. If he writes it in his column I read it. I think he would advise the left not to vote for Obama in 2012. Obama is killing US citizens with no due process, gets lavish praise from people like Dick Cheney for his handling of our overseas wars, aggressively punishes whistle blowers, pressures attorneys to let Wall St bankers skirt the law. He's an absolute disaster. Greenwald seems to side with Ralph Nader who likes to point out that these spineless liberals repeatedly demonstrate that they just have no breaking point. You can give them absolutely nothing and they'll still vote for you as long as you have a D next to your name. You've got to communicate that you have your limits or they will give you nothing.

You know what though? I think we did communicate that in 2010. Democrats stayed home instead of voting. And what do we have to show for it? Did the Democrats move to the left? We got Republican majorities in Congress. And what has this done for us?

We've got an economic crisis right now and it could be solved. Yeah, we have a deficit problem. We also have an unemployment problem. We also happen to have corporations and wealthy individuals sitting on record amounts of cash. You can solve the deficit problem by raising revenue and by cutting expenditures. But you don't want to cut expenditures when unemployment is as high as it is. In fact you want to increase them. So what you do is of course you raise taxes back to something like the prosperous 90's level, or the even more prosperous (and more progressive tax era) pre-80's level. You use the revenue to reduce the deficit and also spend some of it to spur demand. This improves the employment situation.

OK, that's my fantasy solution and I recognize that Republicans aren't going to go along with that. But in a reasonable political climate what you do is you compromise. Maybe I'm not going to get spending increases. But I can at least get some revenue increases in a sane world. I might offer some spending cuts in a compromising move.

But that's not feasible post 2010. These Republicans won't budge. No compromise. You cut spending. In exchange we'll give you nothing. That's the Republican compromise. That's insanity. This is the result of the 2010 election. Is this good for the country? Had Democrats won I wouldn't be happy with the results. But it would be better than this.

Obama is a war criminal. If the Nuremburg standard were applied he'd be hanged. But that's true of every American president since FDR. And it will be true of the next President whoever he is. I think the question is, do you want a war criminal that crushes the American poor or do you want a war criminal that might throw the poor a bone?

Or do you want a war criminal that will wreck the climate at an extremely fast pace. Obama is nothing to brag about on the environment. But at least he's not a member of the lunatic fringe climate denying anti science crowd. He says climate change cannot be denied, and economic growth must be sustainable in that it must combat this change. This may be rhetoric. He may do what his fossil fuel burning owners demand in the long run. But the Republicans can't even acknowledge the basic facts.

It's up to us to do the work that provides voters with a real choice. But suppose November 2012 comes and we haven't done the work required. Should we step aside and let a Republican win? These are real people that will suffer immensely with prolonged unemployment and the minimal benefits they have getting slashed.

Take an issue like a Boeing effort to undermine their union. The National Labor Relations Board's job is to flag violations of labor laws. Under Bush there's no problem. Bush just didn't enforce the laws, so Boeing can run rough shod over the union. Obama serves the same cronies, but he had to appoint members to the NLRB and he did go ahead and appoint some pro labor people. So what did they do? When Boeing broke the law they actually did something about it. Boeing is outraged of course. And Obama is doing what he can to help them out. He's appointed a former Boeing director to head the Commerce Department. So both Democrats and Republicans work to undermine unions and people on behalf of corporations. But under a Democrat you still have a bit of a chance. Under a Republican it's just blatant law breaking on behalf of wealth. That's real people that suffer. Do we stand back and let Romney walk into the White House? That's imposing unemployment and reduced wages on a lot of real people that will suffer.

What we need is a Presidential candidate that actually cares more about what people think than what wealthy corporations think. Then the war crimes would be scaled back, the police state can be rolled back, health care can be fixed, etc. Our best hope is that the occupy movement (possibly in conjunction with the Tea Party) can produce something like that. But if they haven't by November 2012 I think you do have to support the least worst option, and that is Obama over Romney.

The Fake USPS Crisis

2011-11-22T15:57:00.003-05:00

Here's a bizarre one. You hear how terrible the US Post Office is. They lose tons of money supposedly. They operate at a loss. Government is terrible at everything. They should be abolished and privatized (even though it is explicitly authorized in the Constitution).

But have you heard why it is they are losing money?. In an absurd move Congress passed a law that mandated that the USPS prefund pensions, including health benefits, out for a full 75 years. And they had 10 years to do it. This means funding pension liabilities for people that not only don't work yet. We're talking about liabilities for people that haven't even been born. That's $105 billion in 10 years. On top of that none of this money applies to current retirees. That's additional funding that is required. Almost no large businesses could have a burden like that imposed on them and survive.

And here's another kicker. The USPS previously operated under a retirement plan called the Civil Service Retirement System. Since then a different system has replaced it. But the Post Office overpaid into the CSRS to the tune of $82 billion. The US Treasury has not refunded the money. If the USPS could get their hands on the money that is due to them then that, combined with the money they've already contributed to the 75 year forward retirement fund covers the requirements and the USPS operates in the black.

Democracy Now covers it here. Ralph Nader has some details here. What we are dealing with here is elements acting on behalf of private wealth and profit seeking, like AEI, are seeing to it that the rules are rigged so the USPS can't function. Then when they don't function they point to them and act like they are defective. Then they can be privatized.

More on Freddie and Fannie

2011-11-22T15:28:00.002-05:00

Another good summary of the arguments against AEI on this point. A couple of interesting tidbits.

1-Peter Wallison of AEI prior to the mortgage crisis criticized Fannie and Freddie because they served to retard the issuance of mortgages to sub prime borrowers. He's now the lead proponent of the theory that their excessive lending to sub prime borrowers is the problem.

2-Wallison's colleague at AEI, Ed Pinto, played 3 card monte in an effort to place the blame with Fannie and Freddie by saying that Fannie and Freddie had tons of sub prime AND OTHER HIGH RISK MORTGAGES and when you group all together it was a huge number. These so called other high risk mortgages had a default rate that was very close to the national average and much lower than the default rate of sub prime. By grouping them together though you are given the illusion that Fannie and Freddie had a lot of sub prime.

3-Wallison was appointed to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission and he presented these arguments. They were regarded as so outlandish by even the Republican members of the FCIC that these Republicans were asking each other if Wallison was on the take (which he is in a sense). We have their emails in which they wonder about this. The Republicans did have their own dissents from the FCIC findings but they would not join Wallison in his dissent and instead wrote their own dissent separately so as to be in no way associated with him.

Welfare and the War on Drugs

2011-11-21T12:04:00.002-05:00

It's starting to make some sense to me why liberals talk about institutional racism against blacks. People I know don't regard blacks as inferior or evil by race. But people do recognize that blacks as a group have more social problems relative to other races. Higher incarceration rates. Higher broken family rates. Lower educational attainment rates. Lower family income. This is all true. Why? I think when you fail to recognize the institutional factors that contribute to this while laying the blame at the racial group as a whole, that's what a liberal means with institutional racism. And I think it's fair to call it racism.

In my view one of the major reasons for social problems in the black community is the war on drugs. Glenn Greenwald recently debated the war on drugs, and you can watch here. His opening statement is quite powerful. You might be shocked at just how unfair drug policy is to African Americans. I was taken aback. There's some great info here. That source indicates that drug use is actually higher among whites. Blacks are 14% of all illicit drug users, yet they are over half of the prison population. The war on drugs was crafted as a racist policy by design. It was based on the presumption that black were inferior and dangerous.

What are the consequences? By 1991 29% of all black males had spent time in prison. Compare to 4.4% of whites. It's pretty tough to be married when the father is in prison. It's tough to get a job when you have a criminal record. Even if you are a law abiding black citizen and you live in a black community this will affect your home's value. It affects your ability to get a loan on favorable terms. The result is that for every dollar of wealth white people have black people have 8 cents.

The one thing that can alleviate suffering a bit for black children is welfare for dependent mothers. This is your lifeline. So what might you think if you were a black person and you knew that your lifeline was being pointed to as the cause of the social problems in the black community? You'd wonder if these people were racist.

Thomas Sowell loves to blame welfare for black social problems. He does so in this hour long program on PBS. Gosh, black families weren't broken prior to 1962 when welfare legislation was passed. I guess welfare is the cause.

In my view Sowell isn't so great when it comes to allowing facts to inform your theory. I haven't seen him provide plots of the number of children headed by single parent families through the years. Did it take off in 1962? I'm not sure. I'm trying to find some data myself. Here's what I was able to find, via this link.

This of course doesn't break it down by race, but there's no noticeable downturn in 1962. In fact it looks bad just after 1970, right about the time the war on drugs began. I found another chart that does break down single parenting by race. Unfortunately data for black families only goes back to 1970.

I think what you can conclude here is that much of the spike in single parenting that you see around 1970 is the spike due to the increase in black families. That makes good sense. When you lock up a large proportion of black males you'd expect the number of single parent black families to rise.

With regards to Sowell's theories that welfare is to blame, take a look at this plot of the amount of welfare going to families and children. Doesn't it take off right about the time the war on drugs started?

If I were black I could see getting pretty ticked listening to the Tea Party object to welfare because it is unconstitutional. Where is your outrage about the war on drugs? Where does the Constitution say you can craft laws that provide extra punishment to people that use a drug more common amongst one racial group and less punishment to people that use a virtually identical drug more common amongst another racial group? You crush the black family with an unconstitutional law, but you only object to the unconstitutional law that provides the black family with a little bit of assistance in light of the devastation imposed on him. Are you a racist? I can sympathize with a black person that thinks that way.

However I don't think my tea partying friends are racist. What I think is that the corporate pressure is working to emphasize the evils of government growth that harms profits while downplaying the government growth that helps profits. So the prison industrial complex and weapons manufacturers profit greatly from the drug war. So the tea party doesn't emphasize that. The corporate elements within the tea party like that unconstitutional behavior.

Principled tea partyers need to recognize that they are being played. They can join forces with OWS and object to the drug war. It is unconstitutional. And it is destructive to minorities.

The Walk of Shame

2011-11-20T12:02:00.005-05:00

You may have seen images of peaceful protestors at UC Davis being sprayed with chemical agents. Here's a link to the video. A couple of images below.

Watch this incredible video of the Chancellor of the school walking to her car. She had refused to leave the school building because students had gathered because of their outrage associated with what had happened. The students apparently decided to line the pathway to her car and remain in silence. It's very powerful.

Glenn Greenwald comments here. Read an open letter from an untenured professor at UC Davis calling for the Chancellor's resignation and describing the events that lead to the pepper spraying incident. Also read this NY Times column written by a 70 year old poet laureate clubbed and shoved, along with his wife, because he went there to see what was happening and couldn't believe the stories of police brutality.

Charles Krauthammer's Strategic Incompetence

2011-11-20T10:07:00.002-05:00

Have you ever had to deal with health care companies? Most of us have. It's common for them to deny legitimate claims. My wife and I have a method. We always tried to pay what we thought was our co-pay at the doctors office. That way if we ever got a medical bill in the mail we knew not to pay it. We knew we were seeing it because there was an error of some kind. Probably our health care provider denied a claim or didn't pay all that they should have.

I'm dealing with it in a big way with Aetna right now. I've been fighting with them for 5 months to get compensation that is due to me. I'm amazed at their incompetence. And I also have noticed that their incompetence always serves to improve their profit margins. Is it strategic incompetence?

Here's Charles Krauthammer in a debate prior to the presidential election in 2008 telling us the Democrats plan for troops in Iraq. Have a listen.

It's unequivocal. Hillary and Obama will immediately begin troop withdrawals. Well, that's pretty incompetent. Even I knew that was silly. I had listened closely enough to know that they were calling for troop expansions in the region.

So while Obama wasn't really promising that he'd scale back the wars his critics were pretending that he was. Is Krauthammer this incompetent? Or is he a genius?

Because think about what Krauthammer gets with Obama. An expansion of the wars. More mercenaries. Now we have due process free assassinations for US citizens. The surveillance continues. Guantanamo stays open. War opponents vote for Obama based on an expectation, delivered by Krauthammer, that Obama was somehow different from Bush. Krauthammer has in Obama everything he could want in a war mongering president. And it's the liberals that delivered it to him. Sure, he'd have preferred McCain, but this isn't bad.

Pretending that mainstream Democrats are liberals is really useful for the right wing.

The 53%-Proud To Be Slaves

2011-11-18T19:08:00.004-05:00

It's kind of like 1984. In the future world people will be conditioned so that they are proud to be trampled on. Proud to spend no time with their wife and kids. Proud to sacrifice it all for the wealth of another.

I was just checking out the right wing answer to the "I Am the 99%" letters. It's the 53%-ers. I think they have a perception that the bottom 47% of income earners don't pay federal taxes, which is nonsense. But here's one on the top of the screen at the moment. A proud 53%-er.

Work 50 hours a week to get yelled at and that's good enough to allow you to afford the clearance racks. This is a badge of honor.

I might respect this guy. He should be proud that he's able to sacrifice in this way and able to deprive himself of luxuries. But I think he should not regard his condition as just. We can do better than this.

A liberal replied to an apparently popular post from a 53%-er. Letter from a liberal to a young marine. It captures my sentiments well. Via Reddit.

Blaming Freddie and Fannie

2011-11-17T14:04:00.003-05:00

The 2008 financial crisis looks to me like very clear evidence that the more unregulated free market economic system that has been implemented in the US since 1980 has failed relative to the more regulated market system that existed prior. This disconfirms a lot of right wing economic theory in my mind.

But of course in the mind of right wingers it doesn't and a key pillar of the argument is that the blame lies with Freddie and Fannie. The theory is that the government not only encouraged, but mandated that banks issue risky loans. That's Thomas Sowell's assertion here.

But as far as I can tell that's just not true. The Community Reinvestment Act did not require banks to make loans to the poor and risky. What it did was disallow redlining. Redlining was a process whereby services and the costs associated with them were determined by simply drawing a "red line" on a map and saying those on one side of the line get one set of services at a certain cost and on the other side people get other services and costs. The effect was to generally make things tougher for minorities. What the CRA did was it required institutions to use consistent standards that were not based on which side of the tracks someone lived on but based on other factors, like a person's financial status.

There were a number of causes for the crisis in 2008. Several are discussed in this article that also addresses this myth that Freddie and Fannie are to blame. These causes don't support free market dogma. But why are people blaming the CRA? In fact CRA regulated institutions were less likely to make subprime loans. Further they were less likely to repackage and sell them. According to Wikipedia "every empirical study that has looked at CRA loans has concluded that they were safer than subprime mortgages that were purely profit driven, and CRA loans accounted for a tiny fraction of total subprime mortgages." Wikipedia cites this paper from Michael Simkovic out of Seton Hall and Harvard to justify that claim.

So if every empirical study shows that Freddie and Fannie were not responsible where are these claims coming from? The paper from Simkovic provides insight, so I will quote it below:

A. Industry has sought to defend itself by blaming government

Arguments that government policy primarily caused the financial crisis have generally been made in the context of advocacy paid for by the financial industry rather than through empirically substantiated academic scholarship. Many of the most forceful proponents of these arguments—such as mortgage consultant Edward Pinto and Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission dissenting member Peter J. Wallison136—are not academics but are instead affiliated with “think tanks” such as the American Enterprise Institute (“AEI”) which fundraise based on their efforts to deflect blame for the financial crisis from private financial institutions and which are committed to advocating free market ideology and limited government.137 AEI “is governed by a Board of Trustees, composed of leading business and financial executives.”138 During the five-year period from 2005 to 2009, the vast majority of its revenues came from annual donations.139

AEI’s 2009 report trumpeted Wallison and other AEI-funded writers efforts to deflect blame for the financial crisis from private financial firms and to place the blame for the financial crisis on government policies.140 The report also highlighted AEI’s ability to influence “Financial Regulation’s Future” because of Wallison’s role on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.141 The report suggested that Wallison would likely use the opportunity to blame the GSEs for the financial crisis and to combat more comprehensive financial regulation.142

AEI’s 2010 annual report points out that in his role as a dissenting member of the FCIC, Wallison did in fact blame government policy for the financial crisis.”143 The report reiterates Wallison’s opposition to regulation and his ability to influence legislation.144

Wallison’s unwavering efforts to blame GSEs and government policies for the financial crisis were noted by other members of the commission, including fellow Republicans, who were often critical of his single-minded approach.145

For further analysis of Wallison and Min's apologetics for the financial industry, go here. I keep coming back to this point. You might think it strange that such smart people can argue in this way when all of the empirical evidence is against them. But it makes perfect sense when you recognize that confusing people on behalf of wealth is their job.

A Huge Win for OWS

2011-11-14T14:21:00.002-05:00

There's oil in the tar sands of Canada. Lots of it. Oil companies of course want to exploit it, and part of that involved building the Keystone Pipeline.

Extracting oil from tar sands is a lot more energy intensive. You have to heat the ground and burn a lot of fossil fuel just to get the fuel out. That of course generates a lot of CO2 emissions. But the larger issue is just the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere that will result if we exploit the tar sands like we exploited Saudi Arabia.

NASA's lead climate scientist has run the numbers. What does he say? We go this route and "it's essential game over." The game being human civilization as it exists today. See further discussion here and here.

So this has caused unusual activity in the scientific community. Scientists leaving their offices and protesting in Washington. As Naomi Klein discusses here they really didn't think there was any way to stop the corporate freight train. They've got all the money. What do we have? We have the majority of little people. But if you aren't organized, who cares?

Then came Occupy Wall St. The result? Obama for once did not cave to wealth. He delayed approval, which will scare off investors and stave off the day of reckoning. A huge win.

Of course the corporate lackeys are ticked. Profits above all else. The science and the facts be damned. The Wall St Journal says "But what about jobs!!" Jobs claims are bogus anyway, but does anybody really think the WSJ cares about jobs? They care about profits, which benefit owners. They'll be back, fighting for wealth and ownership and against people. But we've won for once.

Contrast OWS with the Tea Party Again

2011-11-14T10:55:00.002-05:00

The so called liberal media (AP in this case via NPR) informs us that police at Berkley were shown in video "pulling people from the steps and nudging others with batons." Watch the video which shows the nudging. Makes sense to Colbert. He comments here.

This is just one of dozens of videos you can watch of protestors getting assaulted. This is another difference between the Tea Party and OWS. OWS protestors get beaten without provocation routinely. Also arrested. Not so for the Tea Party.

Contrast OWS with the Tea Party

2011-11-11T16:45:00.002-05:00

Interesting graphic here. A couple of interesting facts:

1-OWS protestor is more likely to be employed (though the Tea Partyer is more likely to be retired).
2-The Tea Partyer is older and less educated.
3-Look at the contrast in the number of arrests. 50 in 3 years for the Tea Party. 1500 in just a couple of months for OWS. Which does the establishment prefer?

Confronting Global Warming Skeptics

2011-11-09T14:54:00.002-05:00

I want to formulate a basic case regarding global warming based on some study I've been doing in response to global warming denial. In addition to the basic case I want to address some common skeptical claims.

I think a good place to start if you are trying to formulate an opinion about this is to look at the strength of the scientific consensus. Some of this is complicated and most of us aren't experts. Relying on experts is rational as a starting point. What do they say?

The scientific consensus is pretty overwhelming. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was a massive effort to assess the scientific consensus. It concluded that global warming is real, the recent spike is the result of human emission of greenhouse gases, and that it represents a serious threat to human kind as well as other living species. No scientific body of international standing rejects these conclusions. Studies show that 98% of climate scientists accept the IPCC conclusions and in fact the greater the level of expertise (as measured by the number of papers published) the more likely the scientist was to accept the IPCC consensus.

So why believe that global temperatures are rising? Because multiple peer reviewed studies show that it is. Take a look at this chart of global temperatures based on multiple studies.

You might ask, what are these based on? How can one know what the temperature was 2,000 years ago? The answer is that there are various proxies that can be used to attempt to answer that question including tree rings, coral, ice cores, and glacial records. These are imperfect of course. And the error bars generally enlarge the further away you get from the present day. But these various studies based on various proxies tend to converge on a similar conclusion.

The first historical temperature reconstruction produced a graph like this and it was referred to as the hockey stick. It was used by the 2001 IPCC Report, and, though the creators of it made obvious reference to the uncertainty associated with it, the IPCC literature presented it in a graphic without error bars. Global warming skeptics were outraged and aggressively attacked the scientists that produced the graph, even though the scientists presented the results tentatively and with generous error bars. It rose to the level of Congressional hearings. Wikipedia has a summary here. The whole Wiki entry is worth reading, but in summary the skeptics have made several runs at discrediting the chart. The first ended in disgrace (Saul and Baliunus). Next was an effort by a guy named Stephen McIntyre, which apparently did provide some decent correctives, but didn't change the overall conclusions. More recently a Koch funded study has tried again and failed (as I mentioned here). At least to this point. Meanwhile over a dozen peer reviewed scientific studies have been published confirming the general accuracy of the original study.

So what about CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere? Here is a historical chart.

Makes sense. You take massive amounts of hydrocarbons out of the ground and release the CO2 to the atmosphere and you get an increase in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere.

But why believe this is the cause of warming? There are a number of good reasons.

Here's one reason explained in some detail, but I'll offer the quick version. CO2 levels have increased dramatically relative to the past several hundred thousand years and CO2 absorbs infrared radiation. There's no debate on that. But here's the key. Outgoing IR radiation can be directly measured. The amount of outgoing IR radiation has dropped at precisely the frequency at which CO2 absorbs IR radiation. That means this radiation is being absorbed rather than released to outer space. Effectively it is like putting on a blanket.

Another reason is that the stratosphere is cooling while the troposphere is warming. That is, the very top part of our atmosphere has been cooling while the atmosphere closest to the ground is warming. View the surface and upper air temperature historical plot here. That's pretty bizarre, right? What can account for that?

It was a long ago predicted consequence of warming due to man made CO2 emissions (see that prediction here). Go here for a good description of the causes. I don't think I can summarize it any better than it is done at that link.

These are not the only reasons. Several more are discussed here. Once again, in the scientific community the consensus is strong.

There are legitimate scientists that dissent. There are two main categories to the objections. The first is the claim that solar forcing explains the recent warming. The second is that the recent warming can be explained by what is known as the Cosmic Ray Flux (CRF) and its effect on cloud formation. A brief overview of these views and discussion of why they are by and large rejected in the scientific community is offered in this Youtube video.

So now, on to some of the questions that arise from the right wing disinformation effort.

Didn't scientists predict a global ice age back in the 70's?

The short answer is no. Time magazine had an article that made this claim but failed to provide a source. Surveys of the scientific literature revealed that at the time about two thirds of the experts expected global warming and a third expected global cooling (not an ice age). You'll notice based on the hockey stick graph that temperatures had been falling prior to the 70's. This was due to pollution from coal fire plants. There was debate about which effect would dominate. Would it be the cooling from the aerosols or the warming from the greenhouse gases? It's impressive that despite the history of cooling the majority of experts still expected warming and they were right. Since then there has been a lot more good research and the debate has been resolved. The warmers were right. For an overview watch this video.

Hasn't CO2 concentration changes lagged temperature rise in the past by 800 years? Doesn't this mean the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere is an effect of warming, not a cause?

Often CO2 rises have lagged the temperature increase, but not always. There are a number of different mechanisms that can drive a temperature increase, including the earth's orbital variation, volcanoes, solar irradiance, meteorites, possibly cosmic rays. In the present case we know it is greenhouse gases because scientists have managed to rule out alternative causes and because we are observing the predicted effects of temperature rise through artificial greenhouse gas emissions.

What causes the CO2 concentration changes to lag the temperature changes? Let me explain with an example using the earth's wobble as the dominant forcing mechanism.

The angle of the earth's axis to the sun varies from about 24° to 21°. When the angle is 21° there is less direct sunlight in the polar regions and ice forms there. Imagine what would happen as the tilt shifts towards 24°. More direct sunlight on the cap melts some ice at the cap. Melted ice converts to water. Water absorbs more heat than ice. Ice reflects radiation. So now with more water and less ice the earth as a system absorbs even more heat. That heat melts more ice and you create a positive feedback. Runaway warming and ice melting.

CO2 is trapped in ice. So as ice melts CO2 is released. This is why the CO2 concentrations lag the temperature change.

This process can reverse. As the earth's axis heads back to 21° we again get the freezing of the polar ice caps. Once again you go from a state where water is absorbing radiation to ice reflecting the radiation. This is a cooling positive feedback. The additional ice and snow can trap CO2 and methane from escaping to the atmosphere, once again creating a positive cooling feedback. The CO2 drop in the atmosphere once again lags the cooling.

The real concern is not the temperature effect of CO2. It's that the slight warming caused by CO2 can create a positive feedback due to the ice and other effects. At that point you can have runaway warming that can't be stopped even if you stop producing CO2 artificially.

What about the hacked emails? Don't these show a conspiracy within the scientific community to mislead the public?

Absolutely not. Multiple independent studies have confirmed there was no wrongdoing. For a fun video explanation of part of the issue, go here.

Isn't the sun the dominant climate forcing mechanism?

Of course. Without the sun there would be no climate. And solar output does vary. Approximately every 11 years the sun's polarity flips, and this results in altered solar output. But the conclusion in the scientific community is that recent solar changes cannot account for the rise in temperature we've experienced. The sun's output has been quite stable, following it's 11 year cycle regularly. Yet temperatures are rising. Why? The consensus of the experts is the greenhouse gases.

In times past CO2 concentrations were much higher. Today they are much lower. Why wasn't it a problem then?

Because the concern is not strictly the CO2 concentrations but the combined effect of the various temperature forcing mechanisms. Take the Huronian Glaciation. About 2 billion years ago the entire globe was covered in ice. Remember what I said about the feedback mechanism. An ice covered globe reflects solar radiation. That means when the entire globe is covered in ice solar output could increase a lot and yet you still may not be able to extract yourself from the snowball earth condition. That solar heat is just not absorbed.

And the reality was the sun's output was in fact much lower then than it is today. Solar heat was about 75% of what it is today. How did the earth ever come out of the snowball condition?

The answer is CO2. Volcanoes continued to erupt. When they did they emitted CO2. And there was no vegetation to extract the CO2 from the atmosphere. It took a really long time, but finally the concentration was high enough (about 1000 times what it is today) that ice started to melt. Once again the positive feedback kicked in. The ice melted rapidly. After it was all melted the earth continued to warm. Even with the sun producing a mere 75% of the output it is making today the earth was still much warmer thanks to the greenhouse effect. Vegetation began extracting CO2 from the atmosphere and though solar output increased the temperature on earth began to drop.

But why do I hear so much criticism about global warming in the media and from the right wing think tanks? These are smart people. They must know something.

Of course they are smart people, and they may know what the scientific community knows. But what is there job? Informing you? Or serving their owners and customers. I work for a corporation. In my professional capacity who do I serve? The owners and customers. Is Rush Limbaugh any different? Is the American Enterprise Institute any different? Limbaugh works for a mega corporation. His customers (advertisers) are mega corporations as well. He's going to spin tails that serve their interest. AEI is going to funnel money from Exxon to climate science denial efforts. Why? It serves their profit agenda. AEI's job is to confuse you for the interest of profit. They do it for economic matters. Why wouldn't they do it for environmental matters? You should expect spin and lies from them. That's what they deliver. Stop listening to them if you want to be informed.

When Republicans Become Keynsians

2011-11-01T13:05:00.002-04:00

To grow this economy we need to cut spending. The deficit is an enormous burden on job creation, as are taxes. So, say the Republicans, let's cut taxes. And cut spending even more. On education, health services, research, welfare, etc.

What about defense? Can't do that!! That would cost us jobs. Krugman has a good article on the recent flip flop from Republicans here. It's the weaponized Keynzians. Stimulus to create stuff we blow up? Good. Stimulus to help average Americans? Bad. Yglesias likewise comments.

And I agree with Yglesias. For once the Republicans are right. Cutting defense spending would be a real blow to the economy. It's probably true that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have prevented our economic situation from being even worse. That's an absurdity, but it's a consequence of our consumption based economy.

Notice the pattern though of the right wing apologist. When it comes to government spending that helps the average guy they talk about waste, misallocation of resources, Milton Friedman is awesome, etc. When it comes to spending on war? A lot of chirping crickets. Austerity is for poor people. For the rich? Socialism.

Interview Regarding OWS

2011-10-31T21:26:00.001-04:00

Charlie Rose interviews Amy Goodman and Chris Hedges. Watch here.

Income Mobility

2011-10-30T10:25:00.002-04:00

Chad says here here that only 18% of the people among the bottom 20% of income earners are still there 10 years later. I asked for a source and haven't gotten it yet. It could be true. Thomas Sowell says here that most in the bottom in 1975 had at some point also been in the top by 1991. Mark Perry claims that after 6 years only 56% of the people in the bottom 20% remained there.

But these are short term trends. What would be more interesting to me is how fathers and sons compare. If you are born in a poor family, what is the likelihood that you will be poor as an adult? If you are born to a rich family, then it's not a big deal being poor. Maybe you're poor while you're going to medical school or law school. Then your income takes off. The poor would have a harder time going to law school.

Brookings has the generational comparison here and they do it across various countries. Comparing how fathers compare to sons the US is among the worst. You are more likely to be poor if your father is poor in America than in most other countries surveyed. What's interesting about this is that the perceptions of Americans are precisely the opposite. They think that America is the best place to be if you'd want to pull yourself up from poverty and become rich. Yet fewer in America are actually able to do that as compared to the more socialist European countries, with the exception of England.

Why do Americans have this erroneous perception? Mark Perry is relying on studies from James Pethokoukis from the American Enterprise Institute. Paul Krugman is familiar with it. He calls the work "flat out lies". That's an unusually harsh statement from Krugman. But we are inundated with lies from the AEI. It's their job to convince us that we have it best. That serves the interest of their corporate and wealthy backers. They do it even when the arguments contradict each other. Global warming isn't happening. Or yes it is happening and nobody denies it, but humans aren't the cause. Or wait, yes it is happening and humans are the cause, but that doesn't mean we should do anything about it. Here's how Krugman put it.

You might ask, how is it possible to take such mutually contradictory positions? And the answer is, it’s very easy if confusing the debate is your job.

Mann's Hockey Stick Verified by Climate Skeptics

2011-10-29T11:58:00.003-04:00

Apparently Robert Mueller, a quasi-critic of the climate science community, attempted to independently confirm average global temperature history. He did so with the backing of well known climate science deniers. His results were published recently and to the chagrin of the denialists his findings confirmed what the non-conspiracy theorists have long known. A rapid increase in global temperature since 1950. A video overview below.

So the focus of science denial really needs to move at this point. There's now really no denying that the change is occurring and it is relatively rapid. I suppose they'll need to emphasize other claims. Either it's not man made or it's just not a big deal.

Occupy Wall St with Bob Dutko

2011-10-29T09:33:00.003-04:00

It's been a while since I bugged Dutko, so I gave him a call Friday. I listen to him a bit and it's the same nonsense you hear all the time regarding OWS. These people are just jealous of the success of others. Why don't they protest Hollywood celebrities? Why don't they get mad at Obama? Here's the downloadable link or listen below.

It was a fun call. It was kind of spur of the moment once again, so I didn't prepare a lot. I was hoping I wouldn't be the first caller so I could think about what I wanted to say during commercial, but I was the first, so I just had to go. So there's a bit of hesitation from me at some points. But it went well anyway.

Here's an annoying part. Bob says "Why don't they protest in Washington? That's the real problem." I said that they are in Washington. He says "But not at the White House." I say who cares. They are there. That's the point. So he chuckles like that's absurd. Turns out, there at McPherson Square and Liberty Plaza, which is just about as close to the White House as you can get with a crowd like that situated permanently. What the heck does he want? I really think he just makes it up as he goes along and really has no idea what the facts are. And since I didn't happen to know where they were located while I was on the phone nobody is the wiser.

Fortunately we at least have the internet where a record of the lies can be stored. It's not much, but better than nothing.

Why They Protest

2011-10-28T11:43:00.002-04:00

You have to wonder sometimes of these right wingers actually believe what they say or if in fact they are cynics telling what they know to be lies in service to power and privilege. For Mark Perry by OWS logic protestors should object because the average Texas Ranger salary is a mere $3 million and should be more. They should be mad at Michael Moore because he's rich. They should protest in Washington DC because it has the highest per capita income.

I think the real objections should be obvious, but if you don't think so read Taibbi and/or Greenwald for a description. The problem is not that some are rich. It's that some get rich by cheating and breaking the law and yet the law doesn't apply to them because they buy influence in Washington. What lawbreaking? Read this article from Taibbi.

Ted Talk on the Effects of Inequality

2011-10-27T16:23:00.003-04:00

Milton Friedman believed that his form of economic freedom would lead to greater prosperity, and if it lead to greater inequality he would regard that as acceptable. Watch this fascinating Ted talk on the effects of inequality. Not only is it bad for the poor in the unequal societies. Even the rich within those unequal societies suffer. Rich in unequal societies suffer more as measured by these social indicators than less rich people in more equal societies.

Northern Lights in Michigan

2011-10-27T16:21:00.002-04:00

As luck would have it I was in wide open farm country, and happened to walk outside about 9:30 or 10, only to look up in the sky and see what was below. I've watched the northern lights once in the past, but never saw the red. It was brighter then I had seen it before. The whole family was with me so we all got to enjoy. Take a look.

Some Links on Anarchism

2011-10-24T15:38:00.003-04:00

It may sound bizarre, but it's interesting to note that many of the world's top intellectuals are anarchists. These include Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn (see here). This has prompted me to look into it a tiny bit. I watched a series of YouTube clips called Anarchism 101 that is here. It introduces the concept and addresses common objections. Seems very reasonable to me. There are different strands, including anarcho capitalism and anarcho syndicalism. The former is regarded as a contradiction in terms by it's critics (see here) and is criticized in the Anarchism 101 series. Chomsky and Zinn regard themselves as anarcho syndicalists.

Which societies have adopted anarchism? According to my first wiki link some Native American societies would qualify, if imperfectly. David Friedman asks whether the Amish are anarchists here and concludes that they are. For a brief period Spain was anarchic (see here). Monty Python's annoying peasant was an anarcho syndicalist (see here). A city in Hong Kong was regarded by some as anarcho capitalist and there's a German documentary on it starting here. It has since been demolished. Noam Chomsky criticizes anarcho capitalism and discusses liberterianism here.

Is Arson a Good Economic Policy?

2011-10-22T12:29:00.004-04:00

Alan Greenspan says that what the government should have done in response to the housing bubble is buy up a bunch of houses and burn them to the ground. Watch him here.

Greenspan was among Ayn Rand's inner circle. Here's a photo of the two of them along with Gerald Ford. But what he's advocating sounds more like Keynsian stimulus. It sounds like something you might here from a liberal. In this YouTube clip Paul Krugman makes the claim that from an economic perspective the attacks on the World Trade Centers were actually good for the economy. The video describes what is known as the Broken Window Fallacy. Sure, breaking stuff puts people to work. But now the owner of the window can't spend his money on other things. He might have bought a suit. Now he can't afford it. Buying a suit puts people to work too. And if the window hadn't been broken people would have been put to work AND he'd have a suit. That would have been better.

Fair enough. But what if the owner was so rich that he could afford both to buy a suit and to fix the window. Does breaking the window mean we actually get to enjoy more economic growth? It seems to me that we do.

Conservatives are generally very much prone to ridiculing this view. Recently University of Maryland economist Peter Morici said something similar regarding hurricane Irene. In reply Mark Perry points to Don Boudreaux, economist at George Mason University in what he calls a brilliant economic smackdown. Here's Boudreaux:

I hereby offer my services to you, at a modest wage, to destroy your house and your car. Act now, and I’ll throw in at no extra charge destruction of all of your clothing, furniture, computer hardware and software, and large and small household appliances.

Hardy har har. Seems Morici's point is kind of silly. I guess he wants us to destroy stuff.

Morici says that destruction does produce economic growth. That is it does lead to an increase in GDP. It comes at the cost of wealth. Wealth is destroyed. Economic growth occurs. Isn't that true? Seems it is. Then comes Boudreaux's fallacy. I guess Morici wants to destroy things.

No, he doesn't. But that doesn't change the facts. Destruction can lead to economic growth. Particularly when present resources are underutilized, as they obviously are in our economy today.

Isn't it true that WWII ended the Great Depression? The government created the demand for tanks, bombs, and planes. So everyone went to work creating them. Unemployment fell through the floor. GDP went up. And the stuff that was created was just destroyed. It does produce economic growth.

That doesn't make it wise. Why not rather create demand for things that are useful and won't be destroyed? Build bridges and schools. Fund research that can lead to improvements for all, like renewable energy and medical research. Rather than send people to war, why not send them off to provide medical care for the poor? That can stimulate the economy as much as war and destruction can.

Better still why not contrive an economic arrangement that doesn't demand escalating consumption, as ours does? Our system does in fact incentivize destruction. Hardware engineers and SW developers will tell you that really phones don't have to be designed such that they are obsolete so quickly. I-pod accessories don't have to be designed so that they are incompatible with future models. But they are. Computers really could be designed so they are easily upgradable instead of discarded. But that's not in the interest of short term profit.

But back to the system we have. We're not in favor of destruction. We prefer a better use of resources. But in an economy where wealth is concentrated in the hands of few and resources are underutilized, would breaking the windows in mansions produce economic growth? It seems to me that it would would.

Milton Friedman on Donahue

2011-10-20T18:16:00.002-04:00

As much as I would disagree with Milton Friedman, you have to be impressed with his ability to argue and his fun demeanor. He completely stymies the liberal Phil Donahue in this 1979 interview. His influence is probably partly due to the fact that his arguments are very useful to business and concentrated power, but also due to the fact that he is quite persuasive. It seems to me looking at the audience that he is reaching them.

Krugman in 2006 on Housing Bubble

2011-10-20T11:21:00.003-04:00

I think it's useful to just go back in time and see what one side was saying and what the other side was saying prior to the economic downturn. Who understands things and who doesn't? I've talked about Mark Perry from the right wing American Enterprise Institute. Take a look at what Krugman had to say in 2006. Who knows their stuff and who doesn't?

Krugman has been criticized because in 2002 he recommended policies that would create a housing bubble in order to get us out of that recession. Basically it was some Keynsian stimulus for a slumping economy. It worked temporarily and blew up in our faces in 2008. But sometimes people don't know that in 2005 Krugman saw that as well. He said sure, the bubble was necessary. It was implemented and it worked. But at this point it's gone on too long and must be scaled back. So he seems to have understood what was going on.

How Far We've Come

2011-10-19T09:11:00.002-04:00

I was at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry a couple of years back and my kids enjoyed climbing into a big tractor. There was a scene before them that made it appear they were farming their field. Some buttons to push. Interactive sounds. It was fun. In fact the whole museum was great.

Had my kids gone in 1968 they might have found a different interactive exhibit. Read an article from Time about it here. It's a Huey helicopter aimed at Vietnamese huts. The kids would fire the machine gun at the huts and enjoy the sound of machine gun fire. When they hit the huts light bulbs would glow to let you know you've scored a direct hit.

When JFK sent B-52's to carpet bomb South Vietnam in 1962 most Americans really didn't mind. Contrary to perceptions today in fact Walter Cronkite was as much of a cheerleader as the rest of the mainstream media. To protest was to take your life in your hands. That's the kind of backdrop that produced this exhibit. But what the Pentagon hadn't yet realized is that the activism and protests of the 60's had changed public perceptions. By 1968 things were starting to change. Groups such as Vietnam Veterans for Peace angrily resisted and the museum was forced to close the exhibit.

It seems to me that it used to be much easier to inflict massive death. JFK's massive bombing campaigns were not only tolerated, they could be celebrated. Games for children could be created to glorify them. That seems unimaginable today. It is unfortunate that our government still is killing a lot of people. But they can't do it quite as openly. It can't be celebrated publicly. So the young people that go off to war haven't been indoctrinated to the same degree, which means likely they will be less indifferent to gratuitous violence. That means less death. Violence is pervasive, but it could have been worse. It isn't thanks to 60's activism.

7 Biggest Economic Lies - Robert Reich

2011-10-13T17:09:00.001-04:00

Too Smart For The Job

2011-10-10T10:51:00.002-04:00

You may have heard how Bill O'Reilly thought that the tides proved the existence of God because they cannot be explained. What you may not know is that when his listeners wrote in and explained that the tides are caused by the moon, not God, O'Reilly, rather than admitting he was perhaps out of line, instead compounded his error by just moving on to what he thought was the next unexplainable thing. "So how'd the moon get there? How'd the sun get there." Pretty wild. Watch here.

This guy has the top rated cable news show in America. One might think that this is strange. You might expect that the top rated cable news show would be headed by someone that isn't so ignorant. But I don't think we should be surprised.

Corporate sponsored media is naturally going to prefer that certain stories, even if they are important and even if the public would want to hear about them, will not be discussed. You'd have to be a real cynic to know of the stories and intentionally focus on irrelevant tripe in order to distract the masses. That's not easy. It's also not going to work to have producers tell hosts what stories they can cover. You can't go up to O'Reilly and say "Don't tell viewers that the Taliban repeatedly offered to hand over Osama bin Laden. That would make war less likely and we want war." O'Reilly would be indignant and would probably talk about the Taliban's offers under those conditions. O'Reilly sits where he does because he demonstrated that he's the kind of person that doesn't talk about the wrong kinds of stories. He has the critical blind spots. People like that are more likely to have other, non-critical blind spots. Sometimes those can be embarrassing, but it's worth it.

I call Bob Dutko and it's constantly a matter of making him aware of critical things. He has a real problem with terrorism, especially the 9-11 terrorism that killed 3,000 people. What about the terrorism in Nicaragua that killed 40,000? He's vaguely familiar with it. What about the fact that single payer health care has been supported by the public by overwhelming majorities for decades? Can't be true. He's never heard of OBL's letter to America where he spells out the motivations for his attack.

I think the same is often true of major corporate sponsored media. Terrorism against Cuba? Never heard of it. Afghan convoy of death? Never heard of it. COINTELPRO? Never heard of it. Oil spills in Nigeria or the Amazon? Never heard of it. Nurse Nasiriyah? Never heard of her. Saddam's peaceful withdrawal offers in 1990? Never heard of them. Iran's full cooperation on nuclear weapons offer? Never heard of it. Well yeah you've never heard of it. If you had your chances of working here wouldn't be so good.

The Real Unemployment Rate

2011-10-08T13:35:00.004-04:00

A often see the claim that the unemployment rate is misleading for a few reasons. First, it doesn't count people as unemployed if they are discouraged and quit looking for a job. Second, it doesn't count those that are just entering the work force but are unable to find employment as unemployed. If you graduate from high school and are just living with your parents unable to find work I don't think you are regarded as unemployed.

For that reason it may be better to consider the Employee Population ratio. You can get the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics here. I'm contrasting that with the unemployment rate, which is available here.

These generally should be expected to move in opposite directions, as they usually do. The decline in the ratio leveled off in mid 2009 and is mostly flat since then. Possibly a slightly further decline. The unemployment rate has just slightly declined as well since then. So these are now moving in the same direction, which is unexpected if the unemployment rate accurately reflects real unemployment (and by real I mean the actual number of people that really would like to be able to work but can't find work).

Here's another point to consider. When you have a large collapse in stock market values you expect that more of the elderly put off retirement and continue to work. Under those conditions just to keep unemployment rates level the employee/population ratio should rise. It's not rising. Yet more elderly are continuing to work. This means that the economy is not creating the number of jobs needed to employee the young people entering the work force. And yet we don't see the unemployment rate rising.

That says to me that the grim realities are being masked. Unemployment is worse than what the official rate indicates.

In Praise of Flip Flopping

2011-10-07T18:21:00.003-04:00

Being wrong is one thing. I can't begrudge people of that. I've been colossally wrong. In fact I don't agree with everything I've written on this blog.

Suppose you advocated the invasion of Iraq based on fear of WMD and claims that the process would be easy. Also it would be welcomed by Iraqis. Suppose you advocated tax cuts and deregulated finance thinking that this was the best way to manage economic risk and improve the economic situation generally. How can people not look at the catastrophic failure that was our invasion of Iraq, or the catastrophic failure that was the 2008 economic collapse, and not at least modify some of their opinions? And how can they treat the very people that lead us to these catastrophes as if they continue to be good sources of insight? Take a look at some of Bill Kristol's economic insights prior to the economic collapse:

After the bursting of the dot-com bubble, followed by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, we've had more than five years of steady growth, low unemployment and a stock market recovery. Did this just happen? No. Bush pushed through the tax cuts of 2001 and especially 2003 by arguing that they would produce growth. His opponents predicted dire consequences. But the president was overwhelmingly right. Even the budget deficit, the most universally criticized consequence of the tax cuts, is coming down and is lower than it was when the 2003 supply-side tax cuts were passed.

His insights on foreign policy are similarly absurd in hindsight. But he's still treated with respect despite advocating policies, which were implemented thanks to his persuasive power, that have undoubtedly been so destructive.

I shared his views on the war and on Bush's tax policies. Following the collapse it was clear to me that I had been mistaken to trust people like Kristol, so I worked to try and make better sense of the data. Maybe Ron Paul understood the situation. I thought that for a while. Ron Paul expects things like runaway inflation. Seemed plausible.

Well, that's now also been put to the test. And as Paul Krugman explains here it seems pretty clear that Ron Paul is wrong. Maybe Krugman is right. Maybe the Keynsians are better at explaining things. That's what I tend to think now.

I might be wrong. I'm doing the best I can. I've been criticized for flip flopping. OK, maybe I do. But better to be a flip flopper than to be a person who's opinions are never shaken no matter what the evidence.

The Looming Retirement Crisis

2011-10-06T12:20:00.001-04:00

I'm certainly sympathetic to right wing claims about personal responsibility. So much of the difficulties people have in this life are a product of their own bad choices. At least in America. You do have the opportunities here that people in most other countries don't get. So supposing you don't take advantage of those. Should others be obligated to bail you out?

Let's take an issue like pensions vs 401k plans. When 401k's were introduced right wingers loved them because they allow people more freedom. A pension is in effect a forced savings plan. Part of your compensation is saved on your behalf. With a 401k you can decide to save that money or not. Suppose you have a financial need in your younger years and you choose to forego savings for some period of time. A 401k allows you the freedom to make that choice. Also the pension funds are invested for you. You don't have the freedom to choose the investments you prefer. In a 401k you do.

Freedom is great. But sometimes the freedom of others affects you. You might not think that the bad choices of others in this sphere would matter to you. But it seems to me that there's a good chance they will.

What have people done with this freedom they now have to save for their own retirement? What they've done is failed to save. To me the paltry savings of Americans is shocking. According to one poll 36% of Americans don't contribute to a savings plan of any kind. 43% have less than $10K saved for retirement, including 29% of those over the age of 55.

And just anecdotal in my world it seems obvious that retirement for people near my age is going to be a catastrophe. I know people that have been laid off. Their savings, which in some cases was not huge to begin with, has taken a massive hit. When you have been forced to contribute to a pension it doesn't matter if you've peen laid off. You can't touch the pension money. People with 401k's can and do. And they of course must pay the corresponding tax penalties.

I hear this again and again. "We're not planning to retire." You can plan to work all you want. But this doesn't mean an employer plans to hire you. I happen to know a guy that recruits technical people, like engineers. He tells me straight out that age discrimination may be illegal, but it is an indisputable part of the corporate world. He can hardly place people in their upper 50's. It's not that elderly people are incapable of doing the job. It's more that elderly people are more expensive. They have health problems. Why hire a 55 year old when you can hire a 25 year old? So you can want to work all you want, but you can't count on working at a job that has any interest in providing health coverage.

Screw 'em, says the right winger. They made the choice to spend their savings or they failed to invest. That's their problem. Well, it may be yours. Again, take a look at what people have. People between the ages of 55 and 65 have an AVERAGE accumulated savings of $69K. And remember that averages are skewed by the few wealthy on the very upper echelons of society. The median (which is the value that reflects the amount at which there is as many above as below) will be lower than $69K, possibly much lower. You'd have to stretch $69K to even provide 2 years of retirement.

With an extremely paltry amount saved, do you not think there will be consequences for you even if you did save? We're talking not just about a LOT of people without adequate funds in their old age. We're talking about the VAST MAJORITY of people. You could have streets packed with elderly homeless people, all clamoring for jobs that offer no benefits, like at Wal-Mart. Whether you like it or not this extreme level of inequality is going to produce social upheaval. And if you've saved your whole life it may not matter. You'll lose much of what you've saved as society crumbles.

The plus side is that we do have Social Security. As I've mentioned before, as a savings plan it's not good. But thinking it through I think it's important to focus on the fact that this is not what it is intended to be. It is intended to prevent the many multitudes that have made those poor choices from starving at the very least. So that's our saving grace. If Republicans don't destroy it.

To me though this whole thing is a catastrophe. Today's elderly probably mostly have pensions. It's not terrible right now. But as the years pass and more and more retire that lack a pension we could start to see a lot more crushing poverty. That's bad for the poor and the rich.

The So Called Liberal Media - Tom Braden

2011-10-05T15:48:00.001-04:00

We all know the CNN show "Crossfire". You got one guy from the right and another from the left. When the show started the person on the right was Pat Buchanan. We all know Pat Buchanan and there's little debate about his right wing credentials. Take a look at this guy they put in to stand for the left. Tom Braden. Who was Tom Braden? Not a very well known guy. What were his left wing credentials?

Tom Braden was apparently an ex-CIA operative. He cut his teeth during the Cold War infiltrating trade unions in efforts to undermine Soviet influence. He worked to undermine strike efforts in Italy, using CIA money to pay people to work as scabs. He was involved in a series of CIA front groups and bribes involving journalists.

The left wing journal "Ramparts" was set to publish some of the details of these CIA activities attempting to undermine democracy in Europe and so the CIA unleashed a series of dirty tricks in order to prevent publication. "Ramparts" published anyway, and in response Tom Braden wrote an article for "The Saturday Evening Post". It was called I'm Glad the CIA is Immoral.

With credentials like that he qualifies as a so called liberal in mainstream media.

Due Process Free Kill Orders

2011-10-01T09:59:00.003-04:00

Some thoughts from the ACLU on the due process free execution of an American citizen in a non-battle zone.

Learning Experience for the Christian Apologist

2011-09-30T09:26:00.004-04:00

When I was a Christian I teamed up with other Christians, some of whom were Reformed, and we ganged up on Catholics. We'd laugh about how crazy their beliefs were and marvel at their inability to properly deal with our arguments. I'd learn a bit as I went.

But I learned a lot more when suddenly the disagreements within my own ranks came to the fore. I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with these people fighting for the true gospel and suddenly we've turned our guns on each other. That's fine really. Catholics are obviously supremely irrational. Since my fellow Protestants are so much smarter and more reasonable maybe we can make progress.

But of course it was a mess. They're really obnoxious. I never noticed before. They don't seem interested in understanding what I'm saying. I never noticed that before. Do they treat Catholics the same way? Do I? I needed to start paying closer attention to their treatment of their critics. These are my mentors. I expect others regard them as mentors. Maybe that is misplaced.

Steve Hays is not someone I knew while I was a Christian. But today he seems to be someone that others listen to. He seems to have a lot of readers at Triablogue. He's treated with respect. To me his inability to seriously interact with critics is more extreme than any other Christian I know. He's also among the most obnoxious apologists I know. But apparently Christians that read him don't see that.

Why? Same reason I couldn't see it. When they are on your team sometimes you don't notice.

James White didn't seem to notice. But maybe he does now. At least a little.

James White has others that contribute at his blog, and one of them, Jamin Hubner, has questioned evangelical devotion to the secular state of Israel (see for instance here). He raised this on his own personal blog, not James White's blog. So Steve, apparently dedicated to the secular state of Israel, essentially tried to compel James White to punish Hubner for this. Allahu Akbar and Omega Ministries. This compels James White to reply, which he did. Wednesday Musings. He's trying to be discreet with a title like that. Let's not have a huge division over an issue like this. Nope. Steve has a new post, once again trying to tweak White over his long running battles with Norman Geisler and Ergun Caner. Geisler Syndrome. White replies only to say wow, Steve didn't interact in a serious way with anything I said.

That's right. He didn't. But that's been going on for a long time in all of Steve's battles. This is the kind of incident that helps Christians see that for the first time.

How Different Denominations See Each Other

2011-09-29T10:49:00.002-04:00

This is really spot on. Via Dave Armstrong.

Mark Perry's Accuracy

2011-09-27T12:40:00.002-04:00

Mark Perry is a visiting scholar at the right wing American Enterprise Institute. He's Professor of Economics at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan, but presently on sabbatical. He's generally optimistic about the present state of the US economy. Here are some of his thoughts on the state of the economy just prior to the stock market crash in 2008.

July 02,2008. Don't compare us to the Depression. Things are looking great.

July 03, 2008. Cheer up. Look how great household wealth looks. It's a story you don't hear from our "disaster sells" media.

July 06, 2008. Things are looking great. It takes less work to buy food. People are working less. (I'm not sure where he gets this stuff. It's true that people spend less on food, but not on other fixed expenses. Family working hours are up a shocking 700 hours for the median two parent family since 1975).

July 09, 2008. People are way too pessimistic.

July 11, 2008. Subprime losses aren't that high.

July 25, 2008. Global warming? Irrational hysteria.

July 26,2008. Look at this incredible home ownership rate rebound.

July 27,2008. Like Ben Stein says, overall this economy is not bad.

July 31, 2008. We're not in a recession.

Aug 05, 2008. Disposable income looking good.

Aug 7, 2008. Home sales data looking good.

Aug 7, 2008. Jobless claims are looking good.

Aug 10, 2008. Amount of sub prime mortgages is too small to matter.

Aug 12, 2008. Real estate boom continues for US farms.

Aug 12, 2008. Why are liberals like Paul Krugman pessimistic about the economy while conservatives are optimistic?

Aug 12, 2008. Look at the amazing growth in US exports? Expect US GDP to be revised upwards.

What he says is not always untrue. He often plots data and just comments on it. But the tone was similar then to what it is now. Things are just great. But they weren't back then. We need to look at track records more, including those of the left. We need to ask ourselves who it is that learns from their mistakes and who it is that never admits to any all while recommending the same failed policies of the past.

Iranian Hostages and the US Media

2011-09-26T13:58:00.002-04:00

An important element of this hostage story that isn't mentioned in mainstream media sources (via Greenwald). How did the Iranian guards justify their harsh treatment of the US hostages? Joshua Fattal explains in his interview with Democracy Now.

In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay; they'd remind us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world; and conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S.

We do not believe that such human rights violation on the part of our government justify what has been done to us: not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S. provide an excuse for other governments - including the government of Iran - to act in kind.

Is this narrative even remotely being mentioned in mainstream sources. Unsurprisingly not. Glenn Greenwald's commentary is excellent as usual.

PBS Piece on Inequality

2011-09-25T09:27:00.001-04:00

Watch the full episode. See more PBS NewsHour.

Give Michael Moore Credit

2011-09-21T18:49:00.002-04:00

You might think that when you are hanging out with Hollywood types you're hanging out with liberals. Check out Michael Moore's acceptance speech at the Oscars in 2003. He denounces Bush and the war. Look at the Hollywood celebrities in the crowd. Do they praise him? They are uncomfortable and unwilling to be supportive. In fact Moore is getting booed extensively. He denounces a President that is "sending us to war for fictitious reasons." Rather prescient. To prevent him from saying more they queue the band and cut him off. These are your supposed liberals. Goes to show how much courage it took to make a statement like this in this patriotic atmosphere. But he was right.

Michael Moore - oscar speech by Pzychofreak

After making the movie Sicko he was invited on to Wolf Blitzer. Wolf had prepared a hit piece created by Dr. Sanjay Gupta which he played by way of introduction. Then Wolf turned to Moore to get his reaction. A total ambush. Moore handled himself spectacularly even though it was very difficult to respond to the various fabrications so rapidly. Totally slamming Wolf and CNN for their nonsense.

And if my memory is correct in every actual point of dispute between Moore and Gupta Moore was right and Gupta was wrong. Gupta said Moore was wrong to say we spend $7K per year on health care per person and in fact it was closer to $6K. The reality was by the time they did this interview it was even higher than $7K. Gupta said Moore claimed in Cuba they spend $25/person. In fact Moore had correctly stated they spend $250 per person. Gupta points out that Cuba ranks below the US in the WHO rankings but Moore had never denied that.

And I've talked before about how in 1999 Moore was doing what he could to alleviate the sanctions regime in Iraq and the consequent starvation. Watch here. At a time when nobody was talking about it. He was right then, right about the facts in Sicko, and right about our more recent invasion of Iraq, which he courageously denounced. Pretty impressive.

Tony Bennett - They flew the planes but we caused it

2011-09-21T14:36:00.002-04:00

"because we were bombing them and they told us to stop."

Seems so simple.

Setting Records in Output and Severe Poverty

2011-09-15T11:20:00.002-04:00

Do you know that in America we are producing more than we ever have? GDP is higher than it has ever been. Production has recovered from the 2008 downturn. Manufacturing companies are enjoying record profits. US exports are at an all time high. We have record corporate profits.

The same is true of consumption. More things are being consumed than ever. Isn't that wonderful?

But there are more records being set. Severe poverty, defined as half the official poverty line, which amounts to $100/week is higher than it has been since data began being recorded (1975). The % in poverty, which is $200/week, is as high as it has been since 1993. Median income is down to 1996 levels. Income gains are ocurring. But only for the highest income earners.

Real GDP/capita is about twice what it was in 1975. How is it possible that we can as a country make twice as much and yet push even more people into severe poverty?

The problem is the way we allocate the goods we produce. We allocate largely by employment and naturally we think employment is desirable. But is it really?

Let me propose a hypothetical scenario. Let's just suppose that as a society we decided that we would discontinue growth in output. We would just say that the present GDP would be a maximum. Suppose we were concerned about depleting natural resources and we thought this would help. What would happen?

What would happen is employment would drop. Why? Because technological advancements are always permitting us to do more with less. Fewer people are required to produce the same output this year as compared to last year because we always get better at what we do. That ought to be a good thing. We should be happy to have more free time. But in our system this is not good. Why? Because we allocate based on employment. And we don't ask everyone to equally share the reduction in required work. What we do is we lay people off. So while some continue to work as before others have nothing. Those that continue to work get a larger allocation of the goods produced. Those that are laid off get nothing. Does this make sense?

What it really means is that in our society we absolutely must continuously increase our consumption. People that are laid off must find new areas to work in and provide an ever increasing amount of goods consumed. That's not always easy. You need consumption increases. Even though present consumption may be at record levels, the increase we've seen recently may not be enough to offset the gains in productivity we've enjoyed. So it may not be enough to employ more people.

Imagine a system that is so efficient, with robotics, solar power, and computer programming, that on average only 1 hour/week of work is required per person to sustain the system. That produces enough that it's possible for every American to enjoy a lifestyle typical of an upper middle class member of society. Sounds pretty good, right? In fact it's a nightmare. We'd have 95% unemployment. So these so called parasites that happen to not have jobs do nothing and are thus not entitled to any of the output according to some liberterian minded thinkers. Is that acceptable? A system that permits most to not even work, some work a tiny amount, is one that would probably lead to revolution. Rather than being a system that is enjoyed it is a system that would inevitably be destroyed. That's irrational.

Free market capitalism leads to production for exchange, not production for need. This leads to a society that could never be satisfied with what it has. And if increased production meant increasing consumption of our limited natural resources, those resources would be depleted, with catastrophic results. Increased leisure time is possible if production for need is considered. In that scenario productivity gains are embraced by all sectors of society. Today they are embraced by owners and those unlikely to lose jobs. It seems possible to do better than this. We are treating the earth like an infinite resource when it is not. We are leaving many people with next to nothing. We are in fact working more and more. It has to change. It is really not sustainable.

Ron Paul Flummoxed on Health Care Question

2011-09-14T14:41:00.002-04:00

A good question from Wolf Blitzer to Ron Paul that you can see at YouTube here. Suppose a healthy 30 year old guy takes a risk and says he's going to go without health insurance. The worst is realized and he's in a coma. Should the government pay or should we let him die?

Paul struggles here. The ideologues in the audience (notice at about the 50 second mark) say sure, let him die. It's easy to talk that way when you are anonymous. That's the kind of thing someone might say in a blog comment stream. But say that on the record in front of millions of people. It's pretty grotesque. Paul knows that so he doesn't say it. He stammers for a bit, then finally comes up with the "charities" solution. Let private charities resolve it. He's never seen anyone that needed care turned away.

But they are already turned away and that's with some government support. With no government support even more will be turned away. Paul does not have a solution here other than the ideological one. Let him die. But I think that violates basic moral sensibilities for too many people, so it's kind of untenable.

Quote of the Day on Anger

2011-09-13T13:15:00.001-04:00

"He who is not angry, whereas he has cause to be, sins. For unreasonable patience is the hotbed of many vices, it fosters negligence, and incites not only the wicked but even the good to do wrong."

attributed to St. John Crysostom via Aquinas

David Cross and Ron Paul on the Terrorists

2011-09-13T08:42:00.002-04:00

First I have Ron Paul at the debate last night getting booed for stating the obvious. That's followed by David Cross stating the obvious.

Never Forget

2011-09-11T20:25:00.000-04:00

"We should never forget those in our government who used the worst terrorist attack in our nation’s history as an excuse to launch completely unrelated wars, to do unprecedented damage to Americans’ historic liberties, to run roughshod over the Constitution, and to betray the Founders’ vision by savaging some of our most deeply held values."

Ron Paul saying it better than me.

Signs of Hope on September 11

2011-09-11T19:11:00.002-04:00

As I listen to the remembrances and homages to the victims of the attacks 10 years ago today I can't help but think of the distinction our media makes between worthy and unworthy victims. Worthy victims are those killed by the bad guys. Victims of Pol Pot, Hussein, bin Laden, Castro. These are the ones everyone knows about. The unworthy victims are the ones killed by us. So the several thousand Chileans during the first 9-11, the few thousand Panamanians, the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, the hundreds of thousands of Timorese. The victims of 9-11 should be remembered. But there are others that should be remembered as well.

But what gives me some hope is that the American people are not the same as the corporate media. The corporate media is going to serve their propaganda function. That's their institutional structure. So we shouldn't expect anything else. They will focus on the worthy victims because that serves corporate interest. Despite that we still see that the American people don't entirely go along. Sure, the media is influential. But so many of the people I speak with sound nothing like them. They care about others as well.

Take a look at this poll via Greenwald.

As Greenwald points out, this is a view that is almost never expressed in the mainstream media. Nearly a plurality recognizes it anyway. You hear it from Ron Paul. You then hear Rush Limbaugh freaking out and baffled that the crowd agrees with Paul.

There's a lot to be pessimistic about. Our government is targeting US citizens for assassination. People not in battle zones. People not even convicted of a crime. It's bad. But this has been happening for a long time. Fred Hampton was nothing but a charismatic leader of an entirely legitimate political party. We would learn that this political party was entirely infiltrated by the FBI so that crimes could be attributed to it and it could be discredited. It's complete undermining of democracy. People don't know too much about this stuff. But they seem to be more aware today.

In Vietnam JFK just sent B-52's to carpet bomb civilian areas. I don't think he asked permission. And few in America really cared. If you spoke out against it in 1962 or 1963 you took your own life in your hands. Today they have to hide the slaughters of the innocent people. They don't send B-52's. They fear public backlash.

I for one had no clue about any of this 10 years ago. I knew there was some hostility to the US, but I thought it was quite irrational. I think there's more awareness now. I think there are a lot of people that dug a bit after these events to try and understand why they happened. And a lot of depressing realizations followed. It's a gloomier world then I realized. That's unfortunate. But the knowledge is the first step required for fixing the problems that I didn't know about. If we can fix them not only will we reduce the death tolls for the unworthy victims, we can reduce the likelihood of retaliatory violence against the worthy victims. I think it can be done, but it won't be easy.

Burdensome Taxes and Regulations

2011-09-09T13:54:00.002-04:00

Watch this interview on Bloomberg with Gary Burtless from Brookings and Bill Beach from the right wing Heritage Foundation to see a debate on the causes of our unemployment. For Heritage the problem is that corporate taxes and concern about future regulation are what is preventing our economy from improving.

But Burtless has a question in light of a couple of facts. Corporate profits as a share of income are at a 60 year high. Corporate taxes are near a 60 year low. Why would we conclude that less taxes and regulatory conditions that improve profits would make any difference?

And if future regulations are a concern, why not hire now in this low regulatory environment. If the regulations finally come that's when you scale back labor. You get while the getting's good.

The problem is lack of demand. Companies don't see that they need additional staff to meet demand and they don't see much by way of future demand. That makes sense. People are unemployed. People don't have spare money. If there were more demand then companies would hire. Instead they sit on their cash. That's rational.

The Selfish Gene and Right Wing Economists

2011-09-09T10:38:00.003-04:00

Below is an interesting documentary with Richard Dawkins from 1987. Apparently following the publication of his book "The Selfish Gene" right wing economists regarded it as some sort of justification for their exploitative and seemingly nasty economic theories. Only the strong surviving and the weak poor suffer their fate as nature intended.

In this documentary Dawkins explains that this is a misinterpretation of what the biological science shows. He uses interesting studies in game theory to show that under natural selection kindness and mutual aid could be expected to produce a selective advantage. Altruism could be expected to make it more likely that a species would continue to pass on its genes successfully.

Our society teeters on the verge of environmental destruction and nuclear war, in my view because of our lack of empathy and altruism. If Dawkins is right and altruism is preferred by natural selection, then altruism is what the world will get. And it will get it either with humans or without them.

Left Turn by Tim Groseclose

2011-09-08T16:22:00.002-04:00

Does the media tilt in a liberal direction? That's the thesis of political science professor Tim Groseclose. Some of his admirers now believe he's proved it "scientifically." I watched a 5 part video interview with him that starts here and sent some commentary to Tim just to give the perspective of a leftist viewer. I reproduce that below. I don't think it was written great, but it contained some links that I want to save.

Hi Tim,

I watched the 5 segments you did at NRO and wanted to share some thoughts/ask some questions.

First question. Have you read Chomsky and Herman's media analysis? It's called "Manufacturing Consent". It's a pretty widely read, though not frequently discussed in the major media (if ever). Your views would conflict with theirs, so if you haven't read this and you're interested in a different point of view I would recommend this.

I'd like to offer a criticism for you to consider. Your definition of liberal appears to be related to the positions of the two major political parties. Here's a hypothetical question. What if the parties in fact did not represent the range of opinion held by the public, but instead reflected a narrower range that reflected certain business interests? There have been some studies on this. Particularly those of Thomas Ferguson. He offers what he calls "The Investment Theory of Politics." See this wiki link. There's also a series of YouTube videos starting here you could watch if you want an easy to listen to overview.

Based on the theory put forward by Chomsky, Ferguson, and Herman I would suggest that you are correct when you state that the media tilts leftward if by leftward you mean they tilt towards the Democratic Party, which in my view is one wing of the business party.

But what if liberal and conservative is defined differently? Let's define it based on public opinion. Take a particular issue and see what polls show the opinion of the public is. Here's a sampling of public opinion on various issues.

Should our government provide health insurance for all? 64 to 27 Americans say yes.

(From January 2003) Would you support the invasion of Iraq without UN authorization but with the support of one or two major allies? Oppose 52 to 39%

(From January 2011) Do you favor or oppose the US war in Iraq: Oppose 66 to 33%.

Do you think the US is doing the right thing by fighting the war in Afghanistan now, or should the US not be involved in Afghanistan now? Shouldn't be involved now 54 to 38%.

(From August 2010) Do you think the result of the war with Iraq was worth the loss of American lives and other costs of attacking Iraq, or not? Not worth it 72 to 20%.

(From November 1978) Would you agree with the following description of the Vietnam War: More than a mistake, fundamentally wrong and immoral. 72% agree.

Should US companies be allowed to trade with Cuba? Yes 62 to 26%.

Should the government negotiate prices with drug manufacturers? 85% of Americans say yes.

Would you favor or oppose taking away collective bargaining rights from public sector employees similar to what Governor Walker of Wisconsin is proposing: Oppose 61 to 33%

Do you support Obama's demand that Israel halt settlement construction? Support 52 to 31.

The majority position in each of these examples is what I would call the liberal position. But how often is this expressed in the media? Take for example media coverage in the run up to war. Here's an interesting graphic. Perhaps you are aware that the Donahue show on MSNBC was cancelled due to his opposition to the war, a position shared by the majority of Americans. This happened to be the top rated MSNBC show at the time.

Or take the Vietnam war, covered extensively by Herman and Chomsky. The overwhelming majority of Americans believe it was fundamentally wrong and immoral, not a mistake. But according to Chomsky in major media that view has never once been expressed. If you know of a single expression of that view please forward to him because he's interested. The expressed opinion ranges from the right side (it's a just war and we should use additional force) to what is called the "dovish" position (the war was done with benign intent, but it was a strategic blunder, too costly, and beyond our means). That's the kind of criticism you might hear from a Nazi general. Opening an eastern front was a strategic blunder. Not that aggression is wrong. It was just unwise in terms of furthering Nazi ambition. Incidentally this is Barack Obama's position regarding Iraq. We're told he is a principled opponent of the war. Based on what? He called the war a strategic blunder. Meanwhile the bulk of the population thinks it was immoral to invade a country that wasn't threatening us and had done nothing to us in a manner that lead to the death of hundreds of thousands of people. That view isn't really expressed by what you would regard as liberalism (mainstream Democrats, like Pelosi).

So yeah, I think if you define liberal as reflecting the Democratic party, then the media does look liberal. But both the Democratic party and Republican party are well to the right of the American people generally. If you define conservative and liberal by the views of Americans now the media is not liberal at all.

That's pretty unsurprising when you consider what the media is and who it's customers are. The media (that is the major, agenda setting media) are large mega corporations. Their customers are advertisers. Who are advertisers? The extremely wealthy ownership class. So what picture of the world should we expect to emerge from such an institution? Without even looking at the output we would expect an institution that reflects the needs and interests of the owners and advertisers. So then you go look at the media product and see if that holds. I'm convinced it does.

Here's another interesting corollary. Herman and Chomsky's Propaganda Model actually predicts that their model will not be part of mainstream discussion. The function of the media is to serve the interests of their owners and advertisers. Laying bare that fact is dysfunctional. The model predicts that dysfunctional elements are filtered out. So if the model is true we would expect it wouldn't be discussed. If it's false it wouldn't be discussed. So we won't expect it to be discussed. Depicting the media as "liberal" serves to sort of bound the debate. If the mainstream Democrats/the media reflect liberal positions (complete with Obama's spiking of the public option, all the Democratic support for various wars, Obama's war on whistle blowers, extension of the torture regime, extension of the Patriot Act, rendition, extension of the Bush tax cuts) then to go to the left of that is really outside of what is acceptable. So real liberal positions (opposition to war, support for tax hikes on the rich, support for strengthening union rights) are portrayed as extreme even though they are majority positions. Democrats are the ones that effectively spiked the public option according to Tom Daschle. If Obama Care (which is really Romney Care which traces to the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank) is liberal, then what of the 70% of the population that supports a public option and/or single payer? The majority is made to feel like they are extreme. But if extreme means minority then Republicans and Democrats are the extremists.

So anyway I just wanted to offer an alternative perspective. Your thoughts are welcome in reply. Hope that wasn't too long to read.

Ron Paul States The Obvious

2011-08-31T13:11:00.002-04:00

How would we feel if what was done to them was done to us?

Good Question From Lauer to Cheney

2011-08-31T11:16:00.003-04:00

Matt Lauer interviewed Dick Cheney recently and asked a good question about torture. Cheney's response is interesting. Partly an attempt to dodge, part delusion, and part an admission that hypocrisy is a key component of his thinking.

LAUER: Enhanced interrogation techniques: In your book, you state bluntly you have no regrets about being in favor of things like waterboarding – I think you say even if circumstances were the same today you'd make the same decisions....If an American citizen were to be taken into captivity in Iran, for example, and the government of Iran were to look at that person and say, 'We think you're a spy for the U.S. or you're here to carry out a covert operation. Would it be okay for the Iranian government to waterboard that American citizen?

CHENEY: Well, we probably would object to it.

LAUER: On the grounds that it's torture?

CHENEY: On the grounds that we have obligations towards our citizens. And that we do everything we can to protect our citizens and to put them through a process that we think is appropriate.

LAUER: So why was it okay for us to use what most people would say was torture against terror suspects?

CHENEY: Well, remember, first of all, these were not American citizens. We weren't dealing with American citizens in the enhanced interrogation program. Secondly, it was people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, there were a handful, two or three, for example, that actually got waterboarded. Third, we had good reason to believe they had information that we could only get from them and that they knew more than anybody else.

LAUER: But if the government of Iran were capture someone and say, 'We have reason to believe that you're a spy or you're carrying out an operation that could be damaging to our country, would you object or would you say they did what they had to do to get the information they needed at the time?

CHENEY: Well, I think we would object because we wouldn't expect an American citizen to be operating that way. When you're dealing with Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, for example, a man who was the self-admitted mastermind of 9/11, killed 3,000 Americans. And at a time when we had very little knowledge and understanding about Al Qaeda and what they were doing. And after we'd gone through a lot of other procedures and interrogation efforts, then at the end of that process, he was subjected to the program. It was very carefully supervised. None of the techniques used were things that we hadn't already used on our own people in training.

We object on the grounds that they are American citizens. Torturing a Saudi is one thing. Torturing an American is another. And we wouldn't expect an American in Iran to be operating as a spy. What can you say in the face of such absurdity.

Also worth reading is Greenwald's discussion of this Cheney book tour.

Where Emphasis Is Placed

2011-08-30T12:26:00.001-04:00

Some right wing ideologues may be consistent. Workers and the poor should be subject to market forces. What about the rich? Should they also be subjected to the ravages of the market? Sure, says the right wing ideologue. They need market discipline too. OK. But then why don't I hear right wingers say that?

Let's take a recent union related dispute. Apparently Boeing was thinking about building another plant in Washington, but as a condition they wanted the union to agree to not strike for 10 years. The union wouldn't agree, so Boeing decided to move the plant to South Carolina. According to the National Labor Relations Board this is a violation of the Wagner Act. They say you can't make a move like that in an effort to bust a union.

Right wing ideologue Megan McArdle thinks this is crazy. It can't possibly be against the law to move to a location that has better business conditions. Why shouldn't we have freedom? And by the way, right to work laws are great.

I can see the merit to Megan's claim, but here's a question. Government intervention has created the corporate entity. This limited liability entity creates conditions where the employer has tremendous bargaining power against an individual laborer due to the employer's enormous concentration of wealth. I'm no lawyer, but it seems to me (read opening paragraphs of the Wagner Act here) that to combat that imbalance the government has likewise intervened to bias employer/employee relations in a way that makes it easier for laborers to bargain for wages as a group. That way the employer can't play one employee against another in a race to the bottom to see who will sacrifice the most for the ownership class. So maybe there is some restriction of movement for a company like Boeing for that reason. Megan doesn't approve of government intervention that makes it easier for employees to bargain as a group. Does she disapprove of the government intervention that permits the owners to have a disproportionately strong hand in wage negotiations?

Because it seems odd to deprive the poor of intervention that allows them a stronger hand while retaining intervention that provides wealth with a stronger hand. Megan might tell us that she disapproves of government sanctioning and protection of the corporate entity. Good. But we almost never see that from her do we. What we see is a constant stream of union bashing. The effect is to produce legislation that removes government intervention that strengthens the hand of unions (like right to work laws) and nobody is even talking about legislation that would end the corporate entity. The effect serves the interests of wealth and ownership.

Or let's take Mark Perry at Carpe Diem. Union pay is a cancer on the big three. See, the big three are not competitive because they pay way too much for labor, unlike the non-union Japanese automakers. Megan agrees. High union labor costs make Detroit uncompetitive. OK.

But what about CEO pay. As Ha-Joon Chang shows in "23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism" American CEO's have inflated salaries as compared to CEO's in the rest of the world, and there's no reason to think they provide better performance. In fact the indications are that their performance is quite a bit worse. I don't think Mark Perry has ever commented on that. But if you ask him he'll say sure, let the market punish companies that over pay for their CEO's. But why doesn't he criticize over payed executives as well as over payed laborers? It's odd that he only notices overpayment when it applies to the poor. He doesn't notice it when it applies to the rich.

What about government spending? Medicare and Social Security are out of control, say the right wing ideologues. Fair enough. What about war? Talk about waste, it's not doing anything. We're spending hundreds of billions and at the end of the day this probably makes us less safe. There are some pretty good studies that show this. And that's leaving aside the tremendous damage it does to the victims of our wars. At least Medicare provides services to people that need them. War on terrorism (particularly Islamic terrorism) insulates you from a threat that is less than the threat posed by your own bathtub. You could drown in your tub after all. Why are we doing this?

Oh sure, that's bad too says the right wing ideologue. We should cut that as well. Why don't I see posts at Carpe Diem explaining how our comically expensive and pointless war machine/surveillance state contributes to our deficits?

Immigration is another one. One of the most important factors determining your salary if you are American is the fact that our government limits immigration. A huge market intervention that keeps right wingers rich. Some will concede the point and say yeah, we should have open borders. They don't really like this market intervention. Fine. Do they start blog posts criticizing this market intervention? No. They whisper it in a comment stream where it won't be read.

The right is all for free markets. They say it loudly. As it applies to the poor. When it applies to the rich they'll still say it. But quietly.

Christian Parents Spank Child to Death

2011-08-24T10:46:00.001-04:00

Effective Tax Rates Including State & Local

2011-08-22T10:59:00.004-04:00

Just because it seems like I'm frequently looking for this data and can't find it, I'll put it here. Chart of the rate below.

Quote Of The Day

2011-08-22T10:35:00.002-04:00

We were told that if we refused the international community’s conditions, we would become the Cuba of the North. But if we had accepted, we would have become the Haiti of the North.

Icelandic Head of State, Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, who refused to implement a law that would saddle Iceland's citizens with the debt incurred by the banksters via neoliberalism.

Romney, Paul, Chomsky Address Marijuana

2011-08-20T09:46:00.003-04:00

Romney is confronted by an individual that requires medical marijuana and asks Romney if he would arrest him and his doctor for using it to treat his symptoms. Romney's indifference to the suffering is pretty amazing.

The same questioner poses a similar question to Ron Paul. Paul makes a great point. They won't be criminalizing alcohol even though it is far more destructive. Politicians drink alcohol. Watch Paul.

It's rather incredible that Paul, with such a sensible, and popular position, is a fringe candidate and Romney who must advocate unpopular views to please certain powerful elements, is the front runner.

Chomsky explains how criminalization of marijuana came about.

The War You Don't See

2011-08-19T14:59:00.002-04:00

You can watch John Pilger's latest documentary below. The premier was cancelled by the Lannan Foundation for reasons that aren't clear. This is a look at media coverage in recent US wars.

The War You Don't See from dimios on Vimeo.

Annoying Campaign Coverage

2011-08-16T18:22:00.002-04:00

Mitt Romney apparently addressed a heckler recently. I kind of like to see candidates do that. Get off the stump speech and deal with the extremely unhappy electorate. It touched on corporate personhood. Here's a rough estimate of the exchange:

Romney - ...if we are able to balance our budget, we have to make sure that the promises we make for Social Security and Medicare are promises we can keep. There are a couple ways to do that: one way is to raise taxes on people.

Heckler - Corporations!!

Romney - Corporations are people, my friend.

Crowd - No they are not.

Romney -Of course they are. Everything that corporations earn ultimately goes to people.

Heckler - Bwahahaha!!

Romney - Where do you think it goes?

Heckler - Their back pockets!!

Romney - Who's pockets? Human beings, my friend.

I might agree that corporations should be taxed more. I might agree that giving corporations the legal status of persons has been very bad for our country. But in the sense that Romney intending his terms here he's right. If you do tax corporations more ultimately you're taking more money from people. Mostly from rich people, but people nonetheless. Romney is probably fine with the Citizens United ruling. But he's really not discussing that here. That's kind of separate.

Well, for Rachel Maddow this is now a sound bite. And this just goes to show how bad a candidate he is. This is proof that he's terrible with people. Maddow shows several other instances that reveal how bad Romney is with people. She showed a clip where he's getting his picture taken with a bunch of ladies and somebody I think grabs his butt and he jumps. Is it wrong to be ticklish? I don't get it. Then he made a bad joke one time. Then he apparently pressed into someone's legs while reaching out for a handshake and this made someone uncomfortable. I'm no fan of Romney but this kind of coverage is really annoying. There's plenty to criticize about Romney and instead the problem is that he said a truthful thing in an inelegant way and he's ticklish. It's just silliness.

Maddow seems OK to me normally but this is nonsense.

Why Is The Propaganda Model Controversial

2011-08-13T18:49:00.002-04:00

How should the media function in our society and how does it function? There are two views typically expressed within the media. One is that the media is adversarial and iconoclastic and that this is how it should be. It's fulfilling it's traditional Jeffersonian role. That is it serves as a check on power. It exposes corruption and evil. It's true that this can sometimes weaken power and weaken American interests in the short term, but it's necessary to have that exposure in an open democratic society.

The other view is that yes, the media is adversarial and iconoclastic, but this is a bad thing. Or at least they go too far. They shouldn't bash America, criticize our behavior, expose our weaknesses, etc because America is really the beacon of light in the world. This kind of criticism undermines our prestige and diminishes our ability to act for the good of the world.

The former view is regarded as the left/liberal view within the media and the latter view is more the right/conservative view. So take an issue like Vietnam. Sure the media was critical. But that's what we need, says the left. Questioning power and criticizing America was what we should have been doing. No, says the right. They were very critical. But this harmed American interests. Perhaps we would have succeeded in Vietnam if the press weren't so adversarial.

These two views start from the same assumption. The media in fact is adversarial and contrary to power. Both sides recognize that they act this way for what they perceive to be the good of democracy.

What's not discussed is the fact that there is a third view. A view that doesn't share the assumption. This view is that in fact the media are not adversarial. In fact they are subservient to power. And in fact they function to serve the interests of power and wealth at the expense of democracy. This view is known as the Propaganda Model.

If you really want to know which view is right you have to look at the actual media product. Chomsky, Herman, and others have done a lot of that. It's a lot of work and it's subject to an important criticism. When you are looking at these kinds of questions in the social sciences anyone can charge you with picking examples that support your point while excluding others that undermine your point. So what Chomsky and Herman do is they do their best to allow their critics to choose the examples. Supposedly Vietnam and Watergate show that the media is adversarial, so Chomsky and Herman focus on these. In my view their case is convincing. Even these examples adhere very well to the propaganda model and do not at all conform to the typically expressed view that the media is adversarial.

But I don't want to focus on the evidence here. I want to just articulate a view expressed by Chomsky in a lecture he offered years ago called Thought Control in a Democratic Society (which also makes the same points I make above). When I explain these views, some critics react as if this is very bizarre, like it's a conspiracy theory. It obviously sounds very foreign to them. Why is that? I would think that people would regard it as plausible, or even likely just based on background knowledge. Consider the following three points.

Number one, political elites openly advocate on behalf of a media that functions precisely as the PM describes it. Some good examples of this advocacy can be viewed at the chapter 1 notes on Understanding Power starting at 38. Let me offer a couple of excerpts from Edward Bernays, the founder of Public Relations (and person responsible for pioneering the idea of invoking the Communist menace as a means of rallying public opinion behind the violent overthrow of unfavored governments).

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.