tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47408999188070372042024-03-14T03:42:51.523-04:00Apocalypse RoadOn the Road to the end of the world? Enjoy it while it lasts. . . .Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.comBlogger419125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-8778181548634461462016-02-27T07:55:00.000-05:002016-02-27T07:55:58.177-05:00Obama vs. Apple and USWe have been given another <a href="http://nyti.ms/1LjVnLV" target="_blank">little window</a> onto the psychology of this president, a president many have compared to Nixon for his paranoia about leaks, about the truth. New York Times reporter James Risen has said that he thinks Barack Obama <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/10/06/obama-hates-press-james-risen-new-york-times-leaks_n_5940960.html" target="_blank">hates journalists</a>. Read what the Times reports of Denis McDonough, look at the photo heading the article, and we must ask how many others in the administration share that contempt.<br />
<br />
Evidently, the kinds of threats Pres. Obama and his administration have used to coerce agreement (or obedience) — including imprisonment in James Risen's case — didn't work with the CEO of one of the world's most successful businesses. They didn't with James Risen either. So Tim Cook and James Risen become champions of average Americans who for years has been treated with thinly-veiled contempt by an administration that pays little more than lip service to equality or fairness. For years, stories have floated about of Barack Obama's anger when subordinates disagree with him. Yet this is a president who takes without question the demands of authority figures, the petty idols he draws from institutions like Harvard (institutions that have far less to do with "veritas" than with imperium — the empire of belief).<br />
<br />
This is an administration that has lied and coerced when it had nothing to gain by doing so. Not surprisingly, we now doubt its word. We need people like Tim Cook to make our case. Pres. Obama is too hostile to democracy to take the word of mere voters.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-21235282862378394672015-09-12T00:01:00.001-04:002015-09-12T00:06:14.291-04:00My _____ Is Better than Yours!Neil Irwin at <i>The New York Times</i> has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/13/upshot/how-stanford-took-on-the-giants-of-economics.html" target="_blank">sad little piece</a> on the pissing matches between economics departments.<br />
<br />
Why is a newspaper like the Times concerned in the slightest over which economics department is best? What does that mean? It's clear why Stanford or Harvard or MIT would be concerned -- donor dollars. But nobody would suggest that X being best means that every economist at X is better than any economist at Y, or that all the work emerging from X is better than any work from Y.<br />
<br />
And why is it the people that make one better? It's the obsession with star names that leads less wealthy schools to spend fortunes building a handful of superstar departments, spending fortunes on a handful of faculty. Do the students benefit? Do junior faculty? Is there better funding for any but the superstars? Harvard, Stanford and a handful of others can buy almost anyone they please. But NYU or Berkeley -- outstanding schools with outstanding economics departments -- can't. Why not create a better overall climate for students and faculty and worry less about the superstars?<br />
<br />
Isn't it the quality of work coming out that matters? Certainly, the work is tied to the people, but if research is the real standard, then economists and the reporters who follow them around like little puppies might do well to consider some history. Twenty five or thirty years ago, many would likely have said that Chicago's was the 'best' department. Now, many would say that much of the work done at Chicago was politically driven hokum. (And who would now deny that political ideology drives an enormous part of economics?)<br />
<br />
It's telling that in no natural science would this kind of chest beating take place. There are tempests in teapots over the 'best' physics or biology department and there is something sense to saying one is better than they other, but few worry so much about status because the work is the standard. By contrast, economics (and political science) seem to be little more than personality cults.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-69238753742314210962015-05-02T20:30:00.000-04:002015-05-02T20:30:12.263-04:00Wall Street Bonuses Are Twice the Total Earned by Minimum Wage Workers<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">According to the <b>Bureau of Labor Statistics</b>, about 1.1 million US workers were paid just the federal minimum wage in 2013. The average Wall Street bonus paid at the end of 2013 was about $164,000 with all the bonuses adding up to about $26.7 billion. That $26.7 billion is twice the combined earnings of the 1.1 million people making minimum wage. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It's important to remember that, once we the taxpayers bailed out Wall Street in 2008, one of the first things the big banks did was pay bonuses. That was a transfer -- redistribution -- from the average American to the wealthiest. Suggest redistribution of wealth from the 1% (or 0.1%) to the average, and Republicans and Democrats go into hysterics. (Pres. Obama has called for equality of opportunity, but not for more just outcomes or redistribution.) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For 35 years, both parties have repeatedly endorsed policies that have taken from the little held by the average and poorer and redistributed it upward. This is the point made by <b>Joseph Stiglitz</b>, <b>Anthony Atkinson</b>, <b>Thomas Piketty</b>, and many other progressive economists. And it is a point willfully ignored or dismissed by conservative economists who still dominate economic thinking in the US. The economist <b>John Roemer</b> has made the point that so great an indifference to fact by so large a percentage of economists counts heavily against economics being a science.</span><br />
___________________<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Roemer has a nice survey essay: <a href="http://www.gini-research.org/system/uploads/249/original/DP_8_-_Roemer.pdf" target="_blank">The Ideological and Political Roots of American Inequality</a></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-78579182761461196342015-05-02T13:45:00.002-04:002015-05-02T13:45:37.810-04:00Property Rights in the New Glorious Not-Quite-Revolution<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">My guess is that many glitterati economists and political scientists at places like Stanford and Harvard are couching the <b>TPP</b> in terms of "<b>property protections</b>" (among which intellectual property is currently the most popular). By the same token that the "<b>Glorious Revolution</b>" supposedly marked a milestone in protecting property from the interference of a national leviathan (making possible the English revolutions in finance and industry), now restrictions on international leviathans (or national ones with international influence) will -- if you drink Obama's Kool-Aid -- promote revolutions in international commerce. With the TPP, international players will have further incentives to innovate and trade because they will be more confident of retaining the gains from their effort.... Or something like that.
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><b>John Roemer</b> wrote a nice survey essay in 2011: "<a href="http://www.gini-research.org/system/uploads/249/original/DP_8_-_Roemer.pdf" target="_blank">The Ideological and Political Roots of American Inequality</a>". He suggests that micro-economic theory has turned from focusing on the coordinating functions of markets to focusing on markets as devices for harnessing incentives (modeled in the theoretical tool of this time -- game theory). So politicians and executives who want to further line their own pockets now have a theoretical justification for opposing policies that might be deemed to interfere with the incentives of market rewards (especially any redistributive policy).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This serves a convenient dual purpose. First, since the middle class and poor are "takers, not makers," the effect on incentives for them is irrelevant, neatly excluded from the 'scientific' program. Second, redistribution effected by markets is okay (it's 'natural'), but redistribution effected by the leviathan is distortionary and depresses incentives. Regulations, environmental protections, loosening intellectual property protections, and so on, all involve government action that will weaken owners' property claims and effectively redistribute down the economic ladder. This also explains why we are seeing an explosion in conservatives and corporations appealing to rights.</span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-12788543966324770002014-11-05T21:12:00.000-05:002014-11-05T21:12:38.676-05:00Main Currents of Political Science and Economics — Over a CataractDuke professor <a href="https://law.duke.edu/fac/purdy/" target="_blank">Jedediah Purdy</a> highlights a <b><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/05/opinion/elections-2014-the-campaign-in-north-carolina-is-not-about-nothing.html" target="_blank"><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>NY Times</i> essay</span></a></b> by <a href="http://history.unc.edu/people/faculty/molly-worthen/" target="_blank">Molly Worthen</a>, particularly the following passage:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The left can’t talk openly about ideology, while the right pretends to ignore its own identity politics. The country’s political conversation is boring and unsatisfying precisely because its unspoken rules forbid politicians from acknowledging what is really going on and encourage them to talk past one another. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The right has so thoroughly captured the terms of economic debate that American liberals — uniquely in the Western world — champion cultural issues like same-sex marriage equality while avoiding serious confrontation with the structural sources of socio-economic inequality. Their ideological cowardice has left them turning sensible reform proposals like single-payer health insurance into the Frankenstein’s monster of government-subsidized private enterprise that is the Affordable Care Act."</blockquote>
<br />
Before the elections, the<i> Times</i> was running a side by side comparison of several models predicting the outcome of the campaigns. I haven't found an account of how those models actually shaped up in the actual outcome.<br />
<br />
One way or another, the "conversation is boring and unsatisfying" also captures something about the state of political science exemplified in those models. It's badly missing something. And I don't think it's any accident that it has bought so completely into the methods of the main current of economics that so badly missed critical trends of the past 35 years (not just the past 7 years).Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-35033053614157511512014-11-02T07:14:00.000-05:002014-11-02T07:15:37.485-05:00Entropy, the Business Cycle, and the New MediocreVanessa Frieden, New York Times fashion critic, has an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/sunday-review/mired-in-mediocrity.html" target="_blank">essay</a> in the paper drawing on comments by <a href="http://www.imf.org/external/np/omd/bios/cl.htm" target="_blank">Christine Lagarde</a>, director of the IMF, on what Lagarde calls the "<a href="http://www.imf.org/external/np/speeches/2014/100214.htm" target="_blank">new mediocre</a>." I think Frieden doesn't quite get the point.<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thomas-kuhn/" target="_blank">Thomas Kuhn</a>, the philosopher of science, coined the term
"<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift" target="_blank">paradigm shift</a>." Later, after it became a buzzterm with many
meanings and little force, he regretted that, critically brilliant though it
was. I wonder whether Christine Lagarde might feel something like that with the
"new mediocre."<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Lagarde means something specifically economic (as Vanessa
Frieden acknowledges). Still, Friedman may be onto more than she realizes. The
"meritocracy" that the privileged rave about (think executive pay,
elite universities, charter schools, privatization of government functions, etc.)
is mostly a myth. The great people of merit have proved to be stunningly
mediocre (even incompetent, even criminal) — Lloyd Blankfein, Jamie Dimon,
about 90% of Congress and the executive, even the Supreme Court. Economic
theorizing (including about meritocracy) has failed like very few sciences have
ever failed. (A whole science — that's impressive.) Meritocracy was a cover
story invented after the fact.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But the irony is in what Frieden and Lagarde still buy into:
Growth must go on — the old thinking. "No prosperity without growth."
People must buy more. Throw out the old — or even the new, useful or not. Buy
newer, needed or not. Get a new cell phone each year. New clothing each season.
Frieden's real quibble seems to be with the pace, not the irrational cycle.<br />
<br />
Here's another law of physics: Entropy increases. Disorder
increases. In time, things fall apart. Irrationality will accelerate that.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-38184546317905238542014-10-03T11:17:00.000-04:002014-10-03T11:21:33.855-04:00The Secret Service's Sacred Mission — SACRED!Here's is the opening paragraph of Carol D. Leonnig's October 1 <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/pierson-failed-to-provide-fresh-start-for-secret-service-that-administration-wanted/2014/10/01/51a642a2-49a8-11e4-891d-713f052086a0_story.html" target="_blank">Washington Post report</a> on Julia Pierson's resignation as head of the Secret Service:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The resignation of Secret Service Director Julia Pierson and the launch of a top-to-bottom review of the agency Wednesday are an acknowledgment by President Obama of what he has long denied: that the force charged with protecting him is in deep turmoil and struggling to fulfill its sacred mission.</blockquote>
Let's highlight that last part:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
the force charged with protecting him is struggling to fulfill its <b><span style="color: #cc0000;"><i>sacred mission</i></span></b></blockquote>
It's sacred mission.<br />
<br />
Who does Carol Leonnig think the President of the United States is? The Second Coming of the Messiah? Is the year 2014? Is this the United States? Did Carol Leonnig study at least a little history at some level past grade school? . . . Perhaps she studied at Harvard or Yale. With Harvey Mansfield or Gordon Wood. That might explain things. Study with one of the idolaters of America's Golden Cows.<br />
<br />
But how did any editor at the Post let that by? Even some dimwitted, groveling money-grubbing lowlife wealth supremacist like <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/04/AR2009070402253.html" target="_blank">Katharine Weymouth</a>....<br />
<br />
<b>Feudalism with a Constitution</b><br />
This is an expression Rutgers professor <a href="http://smlr.rutgers.edu/JosephBlasi" target="_blank">Joseph Blasi</a> introduced. The idea is one heard more and more widely — that wealth and power is increasingly so great and so concentrated in the hands of so few that it really doesn't matter how robust are the formal guarantees of the Constitution. The law is rendered substantively meaningless given the informal power of the 0.001 percent, the three to five thousand people who really control this country. The people who could commit almost <i>any</i> crime and know that they would not even be investigated (as the Wall Street banksters were not even investigated, as the Bush administration war criminals were not even investigated).<br />
<br />
If one does something genuinely insane (kill someone and stick a head on a pike in the front yard) then the odds are high that they will be prosecuted. But as the case of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Martha_Moxley" target="_blank">Michael Skakel and Martha Moxley</a> demonstrates, even that is not certain.<br />
<br />
<b>Religion Must Step in Where Science Fails</b><br />
When science and reason are unable to justify absurd nonsense — like the billions spent to protect one war criminal, like Barack Obama — then we must come up with a myth to provide justifcation. Hence the job of the Secret Service becomes a "sacred mission." And the presidency becomes an office with divine status. An imperial presidency is no longer just a executive branch in a superpower with imperial ambitions. It is actually the office of a nascent monarch.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-39456333834237448482014-08-29T09:33:00.001-04:002014-08-29T09:34:15.919-04:00Coase ConfusionA tempest in a teapot over seat reclining on airplanes and nifty little (overpriced) gadgets that allow a passenger to prevent the person in front from reclining.<br />
<br />
New York Times pseudo-thinker Josh Barro: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/28/upshot/dont-want-me-to-recline-my-airline-seat-you-can-pay-me.html" target="_blank">Don’t Want Me to Recline My Airline Seat? You Can Pay Me</a><br />
<br />
And a response, Damon Darlin: <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/29/upshot/in-defense-of-the-knee-defender.html" target="_blank">In Defense of the Knee Defender</a><br />
<br />
Barro appeals to an icon of economics: Ronald Coase. "[A]irline seats are an excellent case study for the Coase Theorem. This is an economic theory holding that it doesn’t matter very much who is initially given a property right; so long as you clearly define it and transaction costs are low, people will trade the right so that it ends up in the hands of whoever values it most."<br />
<br />
Coase had plenty of time to clarify what he meant by his 'theorem' (which, as others have noted, was not a theorem anyway). A former student of his, the noted Deirdre McCloskey, has argued that the popular understanding of Coase's 'theorem' is mistaken. I'm not aware that Coase ever chimed in on McCloskey's argument one way or another.<br />
<br />
The obvious problem with Josh Barro's (pathetic) line of reasoning lies in confused handwaving over property rights (or 'property' 'rights').<br />
<br />
My first thought on reading Barro was: How American. Only an American would whine about rights over being able to shove his seat back into another person's face.<br />
<br />
My second thought was: Josh should have paid more attention in his daddy's or Greg Mankiw's courses (not that either Robert Barro or Greg Mankiw have a particularly good track record in economics).<br />
<br />
But the real issue is twofold. The practical component is: What rights does a passenger acquire when buying a ticket for a flight? The airline could designs seats in any of a number of ways.<br />
<br />
The more general component is: How do we adequately describe or specify property rights to make sense of Coase's 'theorem'? The answer is that we can almost always come up with conundrums in any but the most painfully artificial examples of the kind that right-wing nutjobs like Mankiw and Barro like to advance an utterly disproven body of economic theory.<br />
<br />
For example, in the case of the airline seats, why not pose the problem in terms of the air rights of the seat occupant behind the recliner? Philosophers (typically ignored by conservative economists who can't bear any inconvenient facts or thought) will point out that rights conflict. So there will be +no+ well-defined specification of property rights in the sense required by Coase. Logically impossible.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-77299131440098933062014-07-25T01:35:00.000-04:002014-07-25T01:35:02.596-04:00Roger Cohen's False BalanceRoger Cohen's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/25/opinion/roger-cohen-the-shared-destiny-of-israel-and-gaza.html" target="_blank">July 24th essay in the New York Times</a> is a masterpiece of deceptive construction and lying by omission. "Hamas establishes a stranglehold over 1.8 million Palestinians squeezed into ... the 'open-air prison' of Gaza" — as if it were Hamas that maintains that prison; as if Palestinians had not chosen Hamas because the grossly corrupt and ineffectual Palestinian Authority had not proved itself more loyal to Likud than to Palestinians.<br />
<br />
No mention of attacks on civilians sheltered at UN facilities.<br />
<br />
No mention of Palestinian-hating Israelis like Rabbi Dov Lior or Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman ... or Benjamin Netanyahu.<br />
<br />
No mention of the support of American anti-Palestinian bigots like Michael Bloomberg or Chuck Schumer. ...Or Barack Obama, who will never dare support the kinds of sanctions against Israel that he has brought against Russia, though by _any_ measure Israel's crimes are far worse.<br />
<br />
No mention of how the "Middle East's only democracy" is clamping down on free speech and democracy for Palestinians _and_ for Israelis like those at B'Tselem, which has been barred from airing the names of the children Israel has killed.<br />
<br />
Israel is firmly convinced it can win because of American support. And many people who claim to support peace refuse to condemn Israeli crimes or American support for those crimes — people like Roger Cohen.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-71504133346640061732014-03-12T14:29:00.001-04:002014-03-12T14:57:03.594-04:00Feinstanding or MerkelingSen. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/us/cia-accused-of-illegally-searching-computers-used-by-senate-committee.html?hpw&rref=us&action=click&module=Search&region=searchResults%230&version=&url=http%3A%2F%2Fquery.nytimes.com%2Fsearch%2Fsitesearch%2F%3Faction%3Dclick%26region%3DMasthead%26pgtype%3DHomepage%26module%3DSearchSubmit%26contentCollection%3DHomepage%26t%3Dqry520%23%2FFeinstein" target="_blank">Dianne Feinstein</a> has set out to prove just how blatantly, grossly hypocritical the American elite (government figures, corporate executives, pundits, academics) can be. She loudly supported NSA spying programs and, worse, viciously condemned Edward Snowden, charging that he had committed "an act of treason."<br />
<br />
Edward Snowden has rightly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/edward-snowden-dianne-feinstein-hypocrisy-nsa-cia" target="_blank">charged Feinstein</a> with hypocrisy. So, too, has <a href="http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/03/12" target="_blank">Norman Solomon</a>.<br />
<br />
There is a clear, recent precedent for this. German Chancellor Angela Merkel was silent when news broke that the United States had been spying on Germans (and pretty much everybody else). Then it emerged that the Obama-istas had also been <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/26/nsa-surveillance-brazil-germany-un-resolution" target="_blank">monitoring Merkel's</a> own calls . . . for over 10 years. Merkel, previously sanguine about the American Stasi, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/23/us-monitored-angela-merkel-german" target="_blank">was upset</a>.<br />
<br />
The US, we now know, has been spying on pretty much anything that can utter a sentence. What threat the G8 and G20 summits presented is anybody's guess. But Canadian PM <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/nov/28/canada-nsa-spy-g8-g20-summits" target="_blank">Stephen Harper allowed that</a>, so maybe he knows.<br />
<br />
Internet transparency advocate and computer surveillance expert <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU" target="_blank">Jacob Appelbaum</a> has detailed, at length, the many ways in which the US spymasters track us. It is very disturbing. And Sen. Ron Wyden has said, effectively, "We ain't seen nuthin' yet." Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and others who really know what is in the complete body of leaked NSA material have echoed Wyden. Jacob Appelbaum also led a <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html" target="_blank">Der Spiegel series</a> on the NSA's <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html" target="_blank">spy kit.</a><br />
<br />
Political theorist <a href="http://www.hist.cam.ac.uk/directory/dwr12@cam.ac.uk" target="_blank">David Runciman</a> argues that hypocrisy is part of what it is to be human, and especially part of what it is to be a politician. Witness, for example, the American and European hysteria over the Russian invasion ("incursion," in the language of American media) of the Crimean Peninsula. This is an act of "aggression," an "outrage," a "violation of international law." Israel, of course, has done far worse in the West Bank and Gaza for nearly 50 years. (To my knowledge the Russians have not killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians or "ethnically cleansed" hundreds of thousands.) And Russia has used Israel's excuse: It's defending its people. The US could hardly claim that (though it did try) in Iraq (twice) or Grenada or Nicaragua or Chile, or in any of a dozen or more other places that have enjoyed American "generosity" over the past 60 years.<br />
<br />
<br />
<b>Some resources</b> (to be updated):<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU" target="_blank">Jacob Appelbaum</a> on the frightening array of technologies used by the NSA, CIA and others: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vILAlhwUgIU<br />
<br />
Applebaum on NSA <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/the-nsa-uses-powerful-toolbox-in-effort-to-spy-on-global-networks-a-940969.html" target="_blank">hacking unit</a> and, believe it or not, the NSA's <a href="http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/catalog-reveals-nsa-has-back-doors-for-numerous-devices-a-940994.html" target="_blank">catalog of spy gear</a>.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://firstlook.org/theintercept/" target="_blank">The Intercept</a>. The new online journalism project of Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, Jeremy Scahill, and others.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-60643996087312719522014-01-30T11:10:00.001-05:002014-01-30T11:18:11.399-05:00Wealth Supremacism: The Real Reason the Harvard Study on Mobility is a 'Landmark' in the Eyes of American MediaThe amount of hype the <a href="http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/">Chetty study</a> has gotten is quite astonishing, but not surprising. First, we have to remember the lengths to which Harvard goes to present anything and everything that happens at Harvard as more earth-shattering than anything and everything that happens anywhere else. It is easy to roll ones eyes at this point of mine, but it is part of the politics and economics of academia. We see much the same in the <i>lobbying</i> of universities for Nobel Prizes — one of the reasons why some, like physicist <a href="http://www.lassp.cornell.edu/Nobel/MerminDiary.html" target="_blank">N. David Mermin</a>, have so strongly criticized prizes generally: "[Mermin] <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1989/10/17/science/nobel-fever-the-price-of-rivalry.html" target="_blank">maintains that the prize system has run amok</a>, absorbing far too much of scientists' time and effort." (It is also, in my opinion, a reason for the public ownership of all universities.) Check out the ancillary materials Harvard has released in connection with this study. There has clearly been an effort to market the work for popular consumption.<br />
<br />
The more important reason this is a '<i>landmark</i>' study in the eyes of NPR or New York Times or Post pundits and editors is that it fits very nicely into the outcomes that they find tolerable. It fits into the prevailing attitude of <b>wealth supremacism</b>. The Bill Kellers or Robert Samuelsons or Cokie Robertses <i>embrace</i> inequality. That <i>want</i> more inequality. They firmly believe that the privileged are <i>innately</i> superior. They absolutely will not tolerate scientific findings that clearly support a case for redistribution of wealth. This cannot be overemphasized. How many mainstream observers of President Obama's State of the Union address obsessed over any possible redistributive implications of his statements:<br />
<ul>
<li>The <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2014/01/obamacare-and-inequality">Economist</a>; "Obamacare and inequality — A healthy dose of redistribution";</li>
<li>Conservative, Clinton-style Democrat <a href="http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/fixgov/posts/2014/01/28-state-of-the-union-galston" target="_blank">William Galston</a> at Brookings;</li>
<li>Britain's <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/9868843/Barack-Obama-calls-for-more-redistribution-of-wealth-to-Americas-working-poor.html" target="_blank">Telegraph</a> newspaper: "Barack Obama calls for more redistribution of wealth";</li>
</ul>
Consider this from an op/ed at <a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2014/01/26/republicans-need-to-start-acting-like-adults-and-embrace-income-inequality/">Forbes</a>: <b>"[I]ncome inequality is <i>unrelentingly beautiful</i>."</b> This is a common view among Americans, who overwhelmingly share the conviction, take as an article of faith, that they will soon win the lottery, that they are just about to become fabulously wealthy.
But, crucially, Americans also overwhelmingly adhere to a conviction that the wealthy <i>deserve</i> to be so.<br />
<br />
Here is 'noted' Harvard economist Gregory Mankiw: <b>"Smart parents make more money and pass those good genes on to their offspring."</b><br />
<br />
This is the thinking underlying eugenics, and it is a pervasive and growing conviction among American conservatives, moderates, and no small percentage of progressives. (And not just among Americans.) It is reflected in the cultish adoration of evolutionary psychology and evolutionary economics, and the gross misunderstandings of genetics and biology common among people generally, social scientists, and even many biologists. Stephen Jay Gould was an outstanding thinker on these issues. Richard Lewontin and others still write on these matters.<br />
<br />
I highly recommend <a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/" target="_blank">Dean Baker's</a> writing on the Chetty mobility study:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/mobility-and-inequality-more-on-non-new-findings" target="_blank">Mobility and Inequality</a>: More on the Non-New Findings</li>
<li><a href="http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/beat-the-press/did-we-need-a-landmark-study-to-tell-us-mobility-didnt-decrease-for-people-entering-the-labor-market-between-1990-and-2007" target="_blank">Did We Need a Landmark Study</a> to Tell Us Mobility Didn't Decrease...</li>
</ul>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-17566457903890393242013-09-27T11:18:00.000-04:002013-09-27T11:18:01.162-04:00More Wealth Supremacy — the Divine Right of BillionairesPaul Krugman has a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/opinion/krugman-plutocrats-feeling-persecuted.html" target="_blank">nice essay </a>today on sociopathy among America's wealthiest citizens. He begins:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia, 'times new roman', times, serif; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;">"Robert Benmosche, the chief executive of the American International Group, said something stupid the other day. And we should be glad, because his comments help highlight an important but rarely discussed cost of extreme income inequality — namely, the rise of a small but powerful group of what can only be called sociopaths."</span></blockquote>
Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman of the Blackstone Group (who through a <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F05E4D9173FF934A15752C0A9619C8B63&smid=pl-share" target="_blank">$3 million birthday party</a> for himself in 2007) said, "It’s a war; it’s like when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939."
Krugman left out Lloyd Blankfein's "We are doing God's work".<br />
<br />
Berkeley scientists published a 2012 paper: "<a href="http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/02/21/1118373109" target="_blank">Higher social class predicts increased unethical behavior</a>." Inequality promotes rule-breaking, indifference to others, etc., in those who are better off.<br />
<br />
Is it any surprise that greater inequality causes greater immorality? In the course of their money-grubbing, the Benmosches and Schwarzmans and Blankfeins must realize that there is no real justification for anyone making billions while huge numbers struggle at minimum wage. People like Michael Bloomberg (whose wealth grew by about $4 billion in just one year) must either admit that they are leaches or they must invent some 'justification'.<br />
<br />
Psychologists call it "cognitive dissonance". Orwell called it "doublethink".<br />
<br />
In a different time, monarchs invoked a "divine right of kings". Blankfein, Benmosche, et al., think likewise, that they are divinely entitled. Right-wing economists like Gregory Mankiw appeal instead to innate superiority deriving from genetics. This is a familiar phenomenon in the US. Horrific American behavior in Iraq or Afghanistan is excusable because "Americans aren't really like that". Americans are "exceptional" — citizens of, as Christiane Amanpour put it, the world's "most moral country" or as Madeleine Albright said, "the world's only indispensable nation".<br />
<br />
Whatever it's called, the outcome is the same — a wonderland in which gross misdeeds aren't simply justified, they're moral.<br />
<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-42819682321836267942013-09-27T08:14:00.000-04:002013-09-27T08:14:36.588-04:00When American 'Moderates' Try to Sound Moderate<b>"[D]ecades of perceived humiliation by the West."</b>
Thus <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/27/opinion/cohen-between-martyrdom-and-diplomacy.html" target="_blank">Roger Cohen</a> characterizes Iran's many complaints against the US (and a handful of other nations, most notably Britain).<br />
<br />
Inability to place blame where blame is due when doing so would undermine American jingoist mythology — an essential requirement for any American pundit.<br />
<br />
Perceived humiliation?<br />
<br />
The 1953 overthrow of Mossadegh. Years of of support for the brutal Shah. The 1988 attack on Iran Air Flight 655, killing 290 (after which the Vincennes Capt. Rogers was rewarded). Years of increasingly brutal sanctions whose only substantive impact is on average Iranians. Overflights by American drones. Likely US support for military incursions into Iran (as reported by Seymour Hersh), which are acts of war under the international law the US demands Iran obey. The placement of US forces in nearly every country bordering Iran. The Stuxnet attack concocted by the US and Israel. A constant stream of invective and bigotry from Americans against Iranians and Islam. US support for and training of the MEK and blind eye turned toward express violations by prominent Americans (like Rudolf Giuliani) of US laws against support for terrorism.<br />
<br />
And Mr. Cohen's most glaring omission: The slavish obedience of American politicians (and pundits) to Israel's Likudniks, including AIPAC.<br />
<br />
What about this is just perceived? What about it would given <i>any</i> Iranian, even the most liberal, any reason to trust the US?<br />
<br />
The real question is what humiliations remain unperceived, still secret.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-15336829603626474012013-09-07T10:32:00.002-04:002013-09-07T10:33:37.419-04:00James Turrell<object id="flashObj" width="480" height="270" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,47,0"><param name="movie" value="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="flashVars" value="videoId=2525185879001&playerID=2558880403001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAABpkRvB3E~,mMvo3RkSdKF-vGDS4FrHUqFfgJR3pDun&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" /><param name="base" value="http://admin.brightcove.com" /><param name="seamlesstabbing" value="false" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="swLiveConnect" value="true" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><embed src="http://c.brightcove.com/services/viewer/federated_f9?isVid=1&isUI=1" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" flashVars="videoId=2525185879001&playerID=2558880403001&playerKey=AQ~~,AAABpkRvB3E~,mMvo3RkSdKF-vGDS4FrHUqFfgJR3pDun&domain=embed&dynamicStreaming=true" base="http://admin.brightcove.com" name="flashObj" width="480" height="270" seamlesstabbing="false" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowFullScreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" swLiveConnect="true" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></embed></object>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-61434193898484110722013-08-09T15:55:00.001-04:002013-08-09T15:56:08.077-04:00Werner Herzog's Genius Brought to Texting and Driving<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/_BqFkRwdFZ0" width="560"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-84270073019802682622013-08-07T11:03:00.000-04:002013-08-07T11:03:27.111-04:00Jay Rosen on "The Toobin Principle"<br />
Jay Rosen of NYU has a <a href="http://pressthink.org/2013/08/the-toobin-principle/" target="_blank">nice essay</a> on the inability of pundits like Jeffrey Toobin to tolerate support for Edward Snowden. Here are some of my thoughts:<br />
<br />
Despite the appearance of contradiction (and while there is a tension), one can be consistent in thinking that the debate resulting from Snowden's leaks is good although Snowden's actions themselves are bad.<br />
<br />
Jeffrey Toobin seems conservative to me. He certainly falls within the spectrum of standard American thinking where actions are justified instrumentally — by virtue of the good outcomes those actions produce. (The most dogmatically held example of this in the US is the conviction that enormous inequality is justified by the 'trickle down' effect.) So if the debate resulting from Snowden's actions is a good thing, Toobin must believe there is some overriding negative outcome that makes Snowden's actions bad. This could be a coherent argument, but neither Toobin nor others attacking Snowden make it because there is little real argument nor any wish for such in the mainstream about Snowden.<br />
<br />
My suspicion regarding Toobin's (and others') distress over Snowden's leaks is threefold:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Toobin and many journalists, scholars, observers like him (e.g., Matt Yglesias, Chris Hayes, David Gregory, etc.) deeply, personally identify with power, especially Washington ("This Town", as Mark Leibovich has described). They have powerful incentives to do so; their wellbeing as pilot fish depends on that of the sharks.</li>
<li>They therefore see criticism of Obama or the US government as criticism of themselves.</li>
<li>They are profoundly unable to conceive of the possibility that American leaders, in government or business, might be guilty of really awful wrongdoing. This is why years ago, for example, Toobin could casually attack OJ Simpson before the facts were in, but cannot criticize any American leader, like Obama, as a plausible candidate for war crimes charges.</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
Snowden or Wikileaks generate cognitive dissonance for the Toobins in America. They resolve the dissonance with just-so stories that exonerate American power. If they actually thought about it, they could construct a coherent argument. They are unaccustomed to doing so because the US culture is one that bitterly rejects challenges to power, fashion, wealth, fame.<br />
<br />
<b>"[D]emocracy here at home must be balanced against the requirements of security."</b> What would be the response to: "Security here at home must be balanced against the requirements of democracy"? The notion that democracy brings demands seems to have been lost.<br />
<br />
How would Obama or Sen. Feinstein or any of those who endlessly defend government abuses react if there were a broad, deep public demand for democracy, defense of rights, and an end to massive surveillance? If we have not already reached the point of no return, we are rapidly approaching one where a surge in public opposition would provoke a constitutional crisis worse than that seen in the Civil War. The crisis will likely never arise because the public is so misinformed, so deceived, and so dogmatic in its faithful attachment to American power that the demand will never be made.<br />
<br />
Lest this seem like conspiracy theorizing or just handwaving, recall that in the Nixon years, calls by some within the administration for more troops in Vietnam were opposed because it was thought those troops might be needed <i>in the US</i> to quell domestic unrest. Recall also that both Bush and Obama made legal moves that would, in principle, undermine <i>posse comitatus</i> and allow use of US troops within the US.<br />
<br />
Finally, despite racist hostility to Obama or malicious GOP opposition to anything Democratic, Americans are still overwhelmingly of the view that we <i>owe obedience </i>to political leaders. Americans identify the powerful in America with America itself. And they suffer under the delusion that they, any day now, will win the lottery and join the powerful.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-80311241868868069512013-02-04T12:25:00.000-05:002013-02-04T12:26:17.014-05:00Richard III Finally Wins<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/blog/2013/feb/04/richard-iii-skeleton-last-plantagenet-king-live" target="_blank">Skeletal remains found</a> under a parking lot in the British city of Leicester have apparently been confirmed to be those of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_of_England" target="_blank">King Richard III</a>, who was killed at the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Bosworth_Field" target="_blank">Battle of Bosworth Field</a> in 1485. Most who have any association at all with the expression "Richard III" will think of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_III_(play)" target="_blank">Shakespeare's play</a> and the lines "Now is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by this son of York." Or "My kingdom for a horse!" My favorite has always been Richard's response to Lady Anne:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Lady Anne<br />
... No beast so fierce but knows some touch of pity. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Gloucester (Richard)<br />
But I know none, and therefore am no beast.</blockquote>
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2013/feb/04/richardiii-archaeology-leicester-scepticism" target="_blank">Charlotte Higgins</a>, writing in the UK's Guardian newspaper, raises some doubts about the science and a far more important point about popular science.<br />
<br />
Skepticism regarding the validity of the claim that the remains are indeed those of Richard III has nothing at all to do with the more important, genuine issue of what discoveries like this have to do with broader scientific efforts.<br />
<br />
I couldn't help noticing that the de facto spokesperson among the scientists on this project just happens to be the most attractive female, Jo Appleby. This is a symptom of a poisonous trend in the sciences — that to be worthy of public support, they must be popular and 'relevant'. The New York Times and the BBC both have pet, pretty scientists who write or host pieces from time to time. What a coincidence that they are so photogenic. Stephen Hawking is also a creature of this phenomenon. How good a scientist he is has less to do with his popularity than the freak-show factor, which brings an audience.<br />
<br />
The standard for science today is the American Standard. It must have the potential to drum up millions in funding. We expect private corporations to lust after money and nothing more (though once upon a time, many leading firms had great pure research arms, like Bell Labs decades ago).<br />
<br />
The same standard is applied to the arts and more or less every other human effort where once non-profit meant non-profit. Thus we see the absurd success of (con-)artists like <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/video/2012/apr/18/damien-hirst-tate-modern-skull-video" target="_blank">Damien Hirst</a>. Or Marc Quinn's gold (22 pounds of gold) <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2008/jun/04/art" target="_blank">statue of Kate Moss</a> first shown at the British Museum. Important museum shows take a back seat to yet another round of Impressionists who will pull in hordes of ticket buyers. University presses like Oxford's or Harvard's, once specializing in books that might no more than five thousand readers, increasingly demand that a book be able to sell at least tens of thousands of copies to be 'worth' publishing.<br />
<br />
Everything must be 'monetized' because contemporary culture values money above all things, even money as the only thing.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-85257166413966738962013-01-28T07:16:00.001-05:002013-01-28T07:16:40.978-05:00More on Wealth Supremacism<br />
Paul Krugman <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/28/opinion/krugman-makers-takers-fakers-.html" target="_blank">writes again today</a> on the intellectual bubble conservatives continue to inhabit while trying to pretend otherwise to win votes. Not only do Republican politicians live in an intellectual bubble (joined by conservative and pseudo-moderate Democrats), so too do journalists and scholars who claim to find 'evidence' supporting right-wing GOP economic policies. Conservative politicians may be grossly ill-informed or just weak-minded. But what accounts for undeniably very-intelligent researchers like Gregory Mankiw or Glenn Hubbard? Economics is dominated by conservative thinking.<br />
<br />
The question is not whether the intellectual bubble exists, but, firast, how it is kept inflated despite all the evidence that should burst it and, second, what cherished belief is at its center.<br />
<br />
I think the answer is profoundly troubling. A significant body of conservatives and pseudo-moderates (e.g., Cass Sunstein) are wealth supremacists. They believe that the wealthy are naturally superior — even biologically so. Gregory <a href="http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2009/08/least-surprising-correlation-of-all.html" target="_blank">Mankiw stated this explicitly</a> in his blog in August, 2009. He asserted that children of the wealthy perform better in school because they've inherited their wealthy parents' superior genes.<br />
<br />
Conservatives (and pseudo-moderates) aren't all so extreme. But American culture is thick with evidence that many people, perhaps most, view the wealthy or famous as simply better people. It is quite amazing and disturbing that Americans have effectively reinstituted a divine right of wealth that many would have said we abolished two centuries ago.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-2074125330704684782013-01-21T08:07:00.000-05:002013-01-21T08:37:17.072-05:00Obama Inaugurated for Second Term — Big, Fat, Hairy DealEconomist and New York Times essayist Paul Krugman <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/21/opinion/krugman-the-big-deal.html" target="_blank">today suggests</a> that progressives take a break from our "anxiety" and take some solace in the few, modest accomplishments of the Obama administration.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
No.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<div>
I'm unclear whether Paul Krugman thinks Obama's 'accomplishments' are a "Big (so what!) Deal" or a "Big (wow . . . almost) Deal." And "anxiety" is an interesting choice of words — just that little bit demeaning, disparaging. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As for the substance of Krugman's claims:</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Nobody disputes that <a href="http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php" target="_blank">inequality in the US</a> will continue to grow (with Obama and most Democrats seeming to embrace that, modest palaver to the contrary notwithstanding), and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/harder-for-americans-to-rise-from-lower-rungs.html?pagewanted=all" target="_blank">social mobility</a> will continue to decline. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
We'll see whether health care in the US improves. Massachusetts is more of a <a href="http://www.kff.org/healthreform/upload/8311.pdf" target="_blank">mixed story</a> than Obama-supporters will admit. Insurers got everything they demanded from Obama. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
As for <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/17/neil-barofsky-obama-wall-street-reforms_n_1973280.html" target="_blank">financial reform</a>, Wall Street is just as petulant as the NRA — and more powerful. Ninety-nine percent of American revile Wall Street, yet the oligarchs still get most of what they demanded. But they are spoilt brats. Unless they get 110 percent of their demands they whine about how hard-done-to they are.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Unmentioned are any international issues. The world has learned that Obama is as bad or worse than Bush: <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/02/05/u_s_drones_targeting_rescuers_and_mourners/" target="_blank">drone strikes</a>; <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/15/israel-gaza-obama-assassinations" target="_blank">assassinations</a> (including of <a href="http://www.salon.com/2010/04/07/assassinations_2/" target="_blank">American citizens</a>); uninterrupted funding for <a href="https://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/03/05-10" target="_blank">Israeli occupation</a>; denial of due process for all accused to terrorism; a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/16/court-terrorism-morales-gangs-meaningless" target="_blank">different and poorer standard</a> of justice for Muslims and Arabs; vicious and unprecedented <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/06/obamas-whistleblowers-stuxnet-leaks-drones" target="_blank">abuse of whistleblowers</a> and activists for openness (most recently, <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/ortiz-heymann-swartz-accountability-abuse" target="_blank">Aaron Swartz</a>). And nothing at all on <a href="http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/16/obama-on-climate-policy-not-just-now-thanks/" target="_blank">climate change</a>. </div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Sorry, I'm not going to take a break. And it's not anxiety. It's fury.</div>
</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-46740497633812408082012-11-06T03:26:00.003-05:002012-11-06T03:27:37.001-05:00Bloomberg's Blind Spot and the Blindness of WealthJoe Nocera has an essay in the November 6th New York Times noting something that many have long noted about Mayor Michael Bloomberg — his unwillingness to admit error, his pig-headedness or blindness, his conviction that he is always right. I do not share another of Joe Nocera's views about Bloomberg — that he is a great mayor, though I do think that Nocera's observations about Bloomberg's blindness are correct. Indeed, I believe the problem is worse than Nocera does and is indicative of a more serious problem.<br />
<br />
Consider some of the other instances of Bloomberg's indifference to 'lesser' New Yorkers — stop and frisk, spying on Muslims, indifference to accidental electrocutions of pedestrians, construction accidents, flying to one of his several estates during a huge snow storm.<br />
<br />
Bloomberg, like a huge percentage of American politicians and business elite, does indeed think he knows what's best for us. More so than many, and like a large percentage of the 0.1 percent, he also thinks he is just better than us. He believes that we owe him obedience, loyalty, and appreciation. This is a point made regarding many of the wealthiest Americans by Chrystia Freeland in her book "Plutocrats."<br />
<br />
In direct opposition to many, I have always thought that Bloomberg should be disqualified from high elected office precisely because he is so wealthy. I do not believe, as many apparently do of Bloomberg, Romney and others, that a person is qualified because he is 'successful' in business (or that being wealthy is evidence of success in business; consider Wall Street post-crisis).<br />
<br />
People were outraged by resources diverted to marathoners. How many could be housed in Bloomberg's five or six mansions?<br />
<br />
How can a person worth many billions in any way grasp the circumstances of an average resident, even if he "came up from nothing" (something that is not true about Bloomberg anyway)? Some evidently do — perhaps Andrew Carnegie, George Soros. But we must ask what kind of person seeks to accumulate wealth on the scale of a Bloomberg. Can such a person be well-suited to hold office? What kind of indifference to others is required to hold such wealth when so many are so needy?<br />
<br />
This is not an endorsement of strict egalitarianism, or even rough egalitarianism. It is a condemnation of radical inequality. Isn't it interesting that egalitarians are condemned as extremists but not those who embrace extreme inequality?<br />
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The mayor whom Joe Nocera considers one of New York's greatest has endorsed massive development projects, but has done remarkably little to address ongoing problems of the city's infrastructure or housing. Could someone who had ridden the city's subways for years allowed so little substantive improvement? Or someone who went to public schools spend so much time vilifying teachers? The answer, of course, is actually yes, but my contention is that someone of such long-standing, extreme privilege is too my removed from the live of the average to be able to govern well.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-61268532819775901722012-10-06T09:47:00.001-04:002012-10-06T09:48:56.065-04:00<br />
Friday, October 5th, saw <a href="http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm" target="_blank">Bureau of Labor Statistics</a> <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/06/business/economy/us-added-114000-jobs-in-september-rate-drops-to-7-8.html" target="_blank">reports on the employment numbers</a> for the US. It was good news for Obama, with the overall unemployment rate dropping below 8 percent. Strikingly, a large number of conservatives suggested that the numbers had been fudged to suit the Obama campaign. Most notable among these was former GE titan Jack Welch.<br />
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Indeed, the most telling development regarding the employment numbers was in the responses of many Republicans and conservatives. Some were surprising, like the <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/10/05/1140826/-Jack-Welch-Dick-Nixon-and-the-Great-BLS-Jobs-Conspiracy" target="_blank">idiotic blather of Welch</a> who sounds more like a Tea Party lunatic now. Others, like those of Fox News, were just boringly predictable. They are of a piece with the birthed delusions still entertained by the likes of Donald Trump.<br />
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These responses have in common one thing — dangerous, malicious indifference to scientific fact, an indifference also seen on climate change, evolutionary theory, etc. All people show a capacity to 'massage' facts when trying to reconcile emotional responses with observation. But the comments of conservative 'leaders' like Welch or of many right-wing voters interviewed in the past 24 hours show something worse — an absolute determination to disregard <i>all</i> facts to preserve a dogmatic adherence to right-wing articles of faith.<br />
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The economics profession itself is not immune. Consider the right-wing economists who still tout the thoroughly debunked notion that lowering taxes invariably increases revenue (though over 35 years of Reaganite tax policy has failed to produce any evidence to support this).<br />
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The conservative fanaticism is so great that they'll destroy respected government institutions, like the Bureau of Labor Statistics, to further their agenda. Liberals have shown no comparable inclination.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-56346831640416816372012-10-04T08:03:00.005-04:002012-10-04T08:04:31.140-04:00Reason for HopeSara <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/fishko/2012/oct/04/#commentform" target="_blank">Fishko</a>, of WNYC, on the Back Chaconne:<br />
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<iframe frameborder="0" height="54" src="http://www.wnyc.org/widgets/ondemand_player/#file=%2Faudio%2Fxspf%2F241587%2F;containerClass=wnyc" width="474"></iframe>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-16147915800946803162012-09-26T10:26:00.003-04:002012-09-26T10:27:12.818-04:00When Necessary, Manufacture a War<br />
<b>"[C]risis initiation is really tough." </b><br />
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Washington Institute for Near East Peace (de facto 'think tank' arm of AIPAC) is pushing for war with Iran. Patrick Clawson, director of 'research', made that remarkable statement, reported by <a href="http://mondoweiss.net/2012/09/winep-director-of-research-suggests-a-covert-attack-to-get-a-war-on-with-iran.html" target="_blank">Mondoweiss</a>.<br />
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What a striking comment. Of course, the US has done a lot of crisis <i>initiation</i>. The Bush administration initiated the post-9/11 crisis with Iraq. I've often thought that the cruel sanctions regimes, previously imposed on Iraq and now on Iran, are calculated to provoke the victim.<br />
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When I saw the headline here, I thought that "covert attack" war's idolaters might have in mind would be more in the vein of old-fashioned US covert ops. During the Reagan years, the US would dress up its "advisers" and Contra terrorists in the uniforms of the Nicaraguan Sandanista soldiers, then have them commit atrocities while so outfitted. The idea, of course, was to bring down blame on the Sandanistas.<br />
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The IDF and Mossad are known to have their operatives dress up as Palestinians. Reports have noted that they are so well-trained that their accents can match regional Palestinian ones.<br />
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The caveat here is that such reports are easily misstated (over or under) and even more easily dismissed as "conspiracy theory." Past charges by <i>Americans</i> (especially African Americans and Native Americans) that FBI or local police forces were infiltrating protester ranks to sow discord or provoke violence have invariably been dismissed by the likes of Man's Greatest Newspaper, the Times. The catch is that such charges have repeatedly been shown to be true. For example, we now know that the NYPD infiltrated protester groups during the 2004 RNC and continues to do spy on Muslims and Arabs, including through planted NYPD operatives.<br />
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Seymour Hersh and others have reported on US/Israeli covert operations already underway in Iran. If these have failed to provoke the overt Iranian response that Clawson would like to see, one has to wonder why he thinks a sabotaged submarine would. My guess is he has something more drastic in mind — something like the 1988 US destruction of the Iranian Airbus, killing 290 innocents.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-68552350142743090742012-07-29T16:03:00.002-04:002012-07-29T16:04:45.731-04:00Some Lies Are More Equal Than Others<br />
Another tempest in a tiny, tiny teacup. In the past 18 hours (it's 4 pm on the East Coast), a <a href="http://www.opinion-nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/keller-a-post-postscript.html" target="_blank">fake Bill Keller op-ed </a>has made the rounds. Within a few hours it was <a href="http://www.salon.com/2012/07/29/the_curative_powers_of_the_internet/" target="_blank">exposed as fake</a>. The real giveaway was that it was better than any actual Bill Keller writing. The first I heard of the Bill Keller op-ed was as a fraud this morning, so it never even got to me as possibly genuine. I feel I missed out.<br />
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As for The New York Times and 'truth'. It's no coincidence that the traditional media trumpeted by the Times and by Glenn Greenwald's soon-to-be colleague at The Guardian are so much more expensive. The sheer cost of print or television serves as a gate-keeping device to keep out us proles who haven't gone through the brain-washing at the Columbia School of Journalism or the Kennedy School of Government.<br />
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Consider the largely-forgotten epitome of Times fraud — Judith Miller. People were pointing out her lies and fabrications about the Middle East, especially about Israel and Palestine, for nearly <i>20 years</i> before she was finally ditched by the paper and editors that loved her.<br />
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The traditional media is just upset that the frauds being swallowed now aren't always theirs. Or worse — that the frauds exposed <i>are </i>theirs. John Burns, Bill Keller, Thomas Friedman, Walter Isaacson, and their ilk <i>hate</i> being caught out in lies. It's embarrassing when they go to the parties in the Hamptons or on Martha's Vineyard thrown by the people who paid for the lying.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4740899918807037204.post-42827472293760595832012-07-29T08:58:00.001-04:002012-07-29T08:58:05.218-04:00More in the Lifestyles of the Wealth Supremacists<br />
There's been a recent tempest (a very small one) over suggestions that New York City develop "micro-apartments" — very small apartments catering to people who want to live in the <i>big</i> city at <i>low</i> cost. NYC mayor (emperor) Michael Bloomberg supports this proposal. There's been speculation over the real reason for his support, given that he owns five or six palaces around and about (a couple of adjacent townhouses in Manhattan, a place in Westchester County, his shorefront mansion in Bermuda, a mansion in London, and a place in Colorado, I think).<br />
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The economics behind developing smaller spaces is solid. But there is another rationale behind Bloomberg's push for microflats, one based on his conviction that the wealthier are just better.<br />
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There is an obvious way to provide more space for more people — build up. It wouldn't take a city of endless high-rises, the fifty-story, engineer-designed monstrosities that developers love. Going from 3 or 4 story standards to 5 or 6 would provide an enormous increase in space while still keeping many neighborhoods "cozy." But it costs more to go higher than it does to subdivide smaller.<br />
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More important, developers think in terms of dollars per square foot, and in their view, they are <i>entitled</i> to a minimum rent for a unit, based on its size. It can be a roach-ridden, bed bug-infested, rundown as you like. Square footage means money. And Bloomberg is a real-estate Keynesian (to adapt Paul Krugman's "military Keynesian" expression for right-wingers who endorse big government for military purposes). Bloomberg is a strong believer in government intervention to keep real-estate prices ridiculous.<br />
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Floor area is the most 'objective' (watch as real estate agents come up with an argument for why that 300 square foot hole is really 500 square feel) and tangible factor in valuing living spaces. A quick coat of paint, a cleaning, and air freshener and most people will over look the real problems in a 5 minute look at a place. (And most New York landlords will still gripe about doing even a minimal cleaning.) Smaller size is the most cheapest way to cram low-budget proles into otherwise pricey neighborhoods.<br />
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That brings us to part 2 of Bloomberg's thinking. He and his rich buddies will play <i>loco parentis</i> for us, but they sure as hell aren't going to have anybody telling them what to do. They want they're Manhattan MacMansions. But they still need their servants. But living costs are soaring and rippling outwards, so that places 50 or 60 miles from New York are seeing prices typical for Brooklyn (and Brooklyn sees Manhattan prices).<br />
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How are Bloomberg-style wealth supremacists to keep their servants within reasonable distance so they can get to servitude on time? Have to get those living costs down in town. And, as noted in part 1, the best way to do that is smaller area. Bloomberg and Co. do want Manhattan (and parts of Brooklyn — maybe) to be a gated community for Wall Street, but the last thing they want to do is anything resembling work — laundry, cleaning, cooking. They need their servants close enough so that they can be at hand at a moments notice (since, for now, the days when servants lived on-site, in the mansion, are still gone by — for now).<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03767733848982443211noreply@blogger.com9