A good buddy of mine was recently critiquing my admonition that the Fed/Treasury or whatever should post its long-term interest rates. My position is that the volatility that the Fed creates to put the pedal and brakes on the economy (to fight inflation and deflation) actually create some of the volatility in the market (as in how the Real Estate boom was created due to the low interest rates the Fed used to battle the after-effects of the dot-com bubble.
I read an Austrian Economics blog that put up a post on this very subject. The funny thing about it is that it doesn't quote some quack of an economist to bolster its point. They quote Keynes himself, who many people attribute the policy of large government spending:
“A low enough long-term rate of interest cannot be achieved if we allow it to be believed that better terms will be obtainable from time to time by those who keep their resources liquid. The long-term rate of interest must be kept continuously as near as possible to what we believe to be the long-term optimum. It is not suitable to be used as a short-period weapon.” (“How to Avoid a Slump,” The Times, Jan. 13, 1937, p.13).
Amidst my moaning and complaining about everything, i just saw this video from a blog that i follow that puts things back into perspective.
Glad to be alive.
Now that that spasm of gratefulness has passed: back to the moaning.
A few days ago i ordered the book Termites Turtles and Traffic Jams by Mitch Resnick. Resnick was a computer programmer who wrote a program that turned scientific thinking about a lot of things on its head. Basically he modeled how a particular single-celled amoeba was able to assemble into a smile mold and disassemble from one without some central coordinating cell. Before Resnick scientists tried to locate a 'pacemaker cell' that coordinated the creation and dissolution, much like the pacemaker cells in our hearts and the drummer in a band.
Resnick created a program called Starlogo in which you could program populations of cells with very different rules. He put in a few basic rules that
This is a round-about way to justify why i think there should be an income or wealth cap.
I was reading an excerpt from his book where he was talking about a different modeling project with termites and wood piles. He would change the rules of the little world, such as how many termites were in the arena, how many woodchips they would put in a pile and things like this. He was talking about the ramifications of the different rule systems when he put in a different criteria.
For the most part, these termites would make piles of wood. He could also implement a rule that said that termites could not take woodchips from a pile with 10, 25 or some number of chips already. This drastically changed how many piles were made and how fast.
When he talked of this, I'm not sure whether i thought it or he said it (my perusing on google books stopped) but I thought to myself why he could just put a cap on how many chips a pile can accrue!
Let's say there's 1000 termites and 2500 wood chips. The rules of how termites pick up chips and move them around i thought were just like an economy. People make money (pick up chips) and put them in piles (buy something at a business or into savings or investment accounts). If you say that termites cannot take from piles with more than 10 chips, then you could have a maximum of 250 piles. But there will always be some chips circulating so that limit will never be reached.
In this scenario, there will inevitably be one or two piles of chips with say 50 chips, which is large compared to other piles, and again extra large when compared to the piles of no chips had by some termites.
But if you make a rule that says no pile can grow larger than 30, then what's going to happen is that more termites will have more chips! I don't see any systemic reason as to why this wouldn't be feasible in the economy.
The argument i've hear so far is that a limit on wealth or income would stifle creativity and innovation. But those are individual characteristics, not characteristics of the system.
Already the government is supplying banks with loads of old, new and unmade money not for the survival of any one individual bank, but for the system. It's about time that we start look to literally level the playing field.
Every once in a while a couple things swirl into a theme. I was listening to NPR earlier today and they were interviewing people who went overwhelmingly for McCain, and are still weary, not hopeful, of an Obama presidency. That was one. Two, i read about the Madoff scandal, I only got interested due to another story on NPR, but that is besides the point, so that's not actually point #2.
The real point #2 is i read on Slate, my favorite e-rag (bad pun on electronic rag/magazine . . . no google hits) a nifty article about the foreign car companies doing wonderful business in the American South. They say it was partly because of the fact that these are 'right-to-work' states. Right-to-work states are those that make illegal the 'forced' collective bargaining rules of some unions that make deals with employers that say that all employees have to at some time sign-up for the union. [the wikipedia article has arguments for and against].
But what got me was when i saw a graphic of the right-to-work states:
as compared to the outcome of the 2008 election:
I found it interesting that the vast majority of right-to-work states went for McCain and the union-friendly states went democratic. This just sparked some thinking along the lines that there's a fundamental schism in American politics, and this shows it. It is the economy stupid. But people vote their wallets, not what's actually in them, but they vote according to how they can and are able to make money.
I still find this hard to swallow, on account of reading the rise of the corporate class across America in the book Who Rules America by William Domhoff and how there is a union vs corporate 'class war' going on and how the white shirts and bean counters got the upper hand. The comparison between these two maps doesn't sit well with the white vs blue collar warfare, as overwhelmingly i don't think of the southern and mid-western states as anything close to wall-street business owner types.
ah well, such are the contradictions and nuances of life. I had the thought it would be nice to have some deep insight that solved this problem, but i've got better things to do than heal the American schism, i just put a guy in office to handle that.
Apparently, people are saying the Pentagon's budget is bloated. You don't say! in a relatively detailed article that i read on reference from another article i realized that Obama can really cut the budget deficit down by shedding overly-expensive, and frivolous military spending. Though the article says that a lot of the budget is for personnel, there's still gonna be a lot of cost-cutting for experimental weapons programs.
I think that the army will eventually have to downgrade its advanced weaponry to the slingshot. Well, maybe not that much, but you can bet your AR'15s that joe soldier won't be getting any new toys for xmas next year.
What has me delighted about this is that our military spending is the highest per-capita on the planet, unless you count Waco back in the 90's, and needs to be reduced. I'm not saying that we shouldn't be equipped for wars that we should be fighting, i'm saying that sometimes the hottest technologies don't beat old-fashioned know-how.
I read in the book Moving Mountains by the Quartermaster in the Gulf War that he won a mock battle against high-tech weaponry using uninterceptable messages and orders written on 3x5 cards! The high-tech part of the army got routed. So there's room for non-high tech weaponry if our strategy and execution is novel.
I also read in the Pentagon's new map by Thomas Barnett which predicted the tranformation of the American fighting forces towards more of a peace-keeping and nation-building force. Granted, this was dismal since the third year in Iraq, but was glimpsed in India after the Tsunami when the Aircraft carrier came into port and was cheered by the indian populace, and commenced to produce massive quantities of clean water for the people whos water supply was now mixed with millions of gallons of salty ocean water.
So when i say the slingshot, i both mean the reduction in the complexity of vehicles, and a reduction in the government-financed research into them as well as the predilection for America to avoid fighting a war, armed with more of a pitchfork (for farming) and a slingshot than a cannon
i am underwhelmed at the level of disgust and outrage that people don't exhibit about how completely incompetent Palin is to be a prospective vice president.
Yo, i need a bailout. My company lost 3.6 billion and all i'm getting is a 11.6 million compensation package. . . of course i'm lying, and so are they!
Really though? I've been reeling at this crisis, and there's a lot i don't get about it. We have two parallel crises on our hands. the first crisis is the home mortgage crisis, and the second is the Wall Street business credit crisis.
The supposed bailout that is being proposed on Wall Street bails out the Wall Street behemoths who bought and re-packaged bad loans to each other, and lent money based on the profits from their swindling ways. But, there doesn't seem to be a bailout being proposed for the mortgagees of the swindling sub-prime loans that were taken to be fleeced and are now left with loans they can't afford.
Now, there seems to be a real problem in the financial sector, that makes everyone nervous. But that's just the thing . . . it sounds only like its in the financial sector. I don't see how the contraction in credit will churn the economy to a grinding halt. But then again, i'm not in finance, but i do know a little bit. I just think the world economy needs a little sobering up on building a solid and stable economy versus the rampant unsubstantial 'growth' and profits that corporate business has had, while the rest of us struggle to pay our bills.
I know that it seems very short-sighted of me to want to tell those investment bankers to go jump out of a building (see crash of 1929) but i mean, they swindle joe homebuyer and want jane taxpayer to bail them out! They robbed peter, gambled and lost, and want paul to pay for it. How ludicrous is that!?
Jon Stewart kills it. He shows how republicans did a complete 180 about the gender card. When Hillary was talking that gender stuff, they said, as Bruce Said in die hard 143: "cowboy the fuck up". When the spotlight is on Palin, they say its unfair.
Well, that's to be expected.
But its not just overt comedy shows that don't like her: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/09/03/peggy-noonan-mike-murphy_n_123647.html
But i tell you. I read a yahoo article about how Palin fits the bill for the conservative right. We've got a pentacostal (fundamentalist is one of the two words in first sentence of the wikipedia article on it), a gun nut (she hunts with AR-15s), an anti-abortion advocate (birthed a down syndrome kid) and well, apparently a snappy speaker. And to us liberal-leaning folk, her being a pick is rather foolish. But to Republicans, this is the first breath of life the McCain campaign has gotten since, well since it started.
i'm on a discussion list where it seems that i'm on the losing side of the debate team (if you count numbers) but winning in terms of analyzing issues. So, somebody posted a list of things they'd like the next prez (they're assuming its the big O) to solve. I remixed it and put it in a ranking. I modified #3 to be what i said, what's in parentheses is what he put.
lists are cool, but rankings are better:
Alternative fuel source development - this comes first cuz like Barack said, you can't outsource that. Not only would that build indigenous energy sources, it would also build a technical research infrastructure (hopefully filled by #3)
Equitable income distribution - i think there should be an earning cap where the highest paid person can only be paid some multiple of times as the lowest paid person in the same company (including subcontractors), options and fringe benefits included. That would be the quickest way to spread the love. I also think that there should be taxes on net worth and perhaps not income (which is only constitutional due to an amendmen). And i support the estate tax. I also think the payroll tax should be eliminated in favor of other options such as a revenue tax and/or an increased business energy tax.
Rigorous Math and Science Education (precursor to developing the prosperous 21st century economy) - number one on this is to halve the number of children in a classroom. Having been a teacher, the more kids, the more complex. Simply halving the number of kids in a class would greatly enhance the ability of teachers to teach. Raising the salary of teachers but keeping them teaching so many children is just paying more for masochism, however noble we may all think. An analogy would be would you instead pay more for soldiers or invest in ways to not have to go to war? I think that a quarter of the Iraq occupation budget should go to education: specifically school construction and teacher pay, not administration nor muddled in state sieves.
Social Security restructuring (to be a supplement not a source) - i think we should have an OPTION for people to put a portion of their SS against an index (like the S&P) of the stock market. That's what pretty safe investors end up doing in many 401Ks anyway. If people opt out of SS and the market tanks, then they're SOL because of their own decision. They gambled on their allowance. Tough noogies.
Immigration - build the great wall of texas
Restoring US world leadership in things that matter instead of war - i think a superfluous goal. The first goal is integrity, simply by getting our own stuff straight and minding less of other countries busienss would be the generator of clout on the international scene. Sufficiently doing 1-3 would satisfy most of this goal i think.
Elimination of disease like Aids and Cancer - i don't know. From a evolutionary standpoint, disease is a natural part of being an organism. The problem with curing diseases is that people live longer and thereby exert more strain on the environment, so it's like robbing peter to pay paul. Being scared of your own or the mortality of others doesn't demandmoney from the government, but i support private donations and research.
Actually, i was kidding with number five, but i couldn't pass that up. In order to curb immigration we actually have to invest in some ways that make third world countries (mexico for instance) on some kind of par with the US, thus lessening the attractiveness of coming to US. On the flip side, i find it funny that people believe in human-created borders as if they are an aspect of reality and not an aspect of governmental dealmaking based on war capacity. Borders were created to tell tribes who can tax what people on what land, not necessarily who could or could not come in. Historically, the merchant class has free reign across borders, but perhaps not the peons and serfs like us (RAB).
I invited my dad over so he could wax poetic about how important the Kennedy endorsements were. Being a youngster, i hear about the literal adoration that a whole nation had for the Kennedy's (something that Bill C. didn't achieve). So i had to tap someone who actually lived through those times to weigh in on how important this was, and the ramifications in that generation.
So in this analysis, my dad said (you'll hear a lot of that in this post) that Hillary was counting on the white baby-boomer women to be at least a solid backbone to her campaign. So the Kennedy endorsement flies in the face of that. The 'princess' and heir apparent to the Kennedy legacy (that would be Caroline folks) has just endorsed Obama. What was important about that was that Caroline isn't a politician. Analogously, that's like Princess Di supporting a candidate for Prime Minister over.
And Ted/Edward Kennedy coming out behind Obama does something serious to the race. Even though my dad says Ed is a wildcard, his weighing in makes New York a battleground for Hillary and not a walk-over. The Kennedy's are heavy in the Northeast, and their name carries weight in both political and social circles, so this is really big folks.
I've got my eye on New York's numbers in the upcoming days. What about you?
My dad also dropped some science on the racial politics of "'ol miss" and how the Jack Kennedy (Jack was his nickname) sent troops to ol miss. Apparently after Eisenhower sent troops to Little Rock, a few years later Kennedy sent some federal marshals to "Ol Miss". Apparently 60 of those marshals were hospitalized!!! In response, Kennedy sent parts of the 82nd airborne and the 101st (both of which landed in Normandy) down to Mississippi to show the Gubna of Miss just what country he was in. And apparently it was that that had black America fall in love with the Kennedy's . . . troops in mississippi, whodathunkit
. . . of this election cycle that is. And i think that Obama fricasseed (had to look that spelling up) them how do you spell that word? I think the only fault that i have with Obama is that his speech is choppy. He has a lot of 'uh's and what i think is a mild stutter. I think it's cuz he's actually thinking about what he says, which is actually becoming of him.
I did find that he doesn't support universal healthcare, which i TOTALLY agree with. And when it came down to it, Hillary came out in full dig-her-heels in force for universal healthcare (which Obama calls 'mandatory') and that's just what i don't like about her. Sure, i like mandates. But she's not going after a mandate. She said that universal healthcare is a core democratic value. That's a mis-statement. Universal Healthcare is a core liberal value, and unfortunately she's confused the two, just as many other people have.
I think Edwards is fighting a real good fight. Honestly, i like his honesty and his fight for poverty. But i just don't think his fight against poverty is ripe yet for the picking. I'm for an Obama Edwards ticket. I think Obama would serve as a wonderful uniter, and Edwards with a good groundwork during those years can come with the knock-out punch to help end poverty and its brother: overconsumption, in the next eight years. All the while, i do think that we should have at least one republican congress during that sixteen years to keep those pesky democrats (i'd say 'asses' but i mean that in the symbolic not literal sense) honest and not too wild.
I think Hillary has an axe to grind, and i neither agree with her particular axes, how she's grinding them or why she's grinding them. I think Obama's message of hope and unity hasn't been heard within the beltway for a long time, and it's time to hear it again. And i think Edwards has a passionate empathy for the underdog . . . it's too bad he's a white man having to stress how he's for the 'little man' against two 'minorities'. I think in a playing field of all white men he'd be doing MUCH better, but his message of empathy 'for' someone is much different than a message of empathy 'from' someone. I just hope his love for people doesn't get lost in the fact that he's a white guy.
I've been sorta watching the Obama-Clinton fiasco. What was really interesting was to hear Bill Clinton come out on radio (heard on the Tom Joyner show) not really attacking Obama, but really taking the man's campaign to task. It was funny, i started to think about the fight as a boxing match and thought of what was going on. What i thought was Bill was definitely a past champion, on the ropes fighting against Obama, but not really wanting to blow the guy out of the water. For some reason, in his diatribe, it just didn't sound like Bill had the poise he once had as president and expert politician. He sounded like he was on the defensive, but not in terms of being pummeled, but in terms of trying to get the sympathy for him that black folk so desperately want to give him for being married to that tyrant in heels.
Also, i read a great article on a website that i used to read a bit, but haven't lately (slate) which is decidedly anti-Hillary. It's almost slanderous (not really, i just wanted to say that word). My favorite is an article that says that she's actually not more experienced than Obama. Bascially, her elected official tenure is six years, compared to Obama's 11 when you include his stint in the Illinois State legislature. So what Hillary has been trading on is her proximity to Bill!!! http://www.slate.com/id/2182073/ there's the link
ps: note to self, i gotta learn to embed links in html so they come up snazzy like in other blogs. If anyone knows how to do this, drop me a line
loved the explanation of the superdelegate system, i was wondering what that was. And Obama and hillary basically tied in NH, the term 'win' is malleable and over-hyped.
Many people are also missing the fact that many independents played their cards in the republican primary. So, i'm thinking that McCain beat Obama much the way that they say Nader beat Gore
And i think the republican race is actually fighting for the 'soul' of the party, therefore it was actually more important to outline a republican mandate for McCain in New Hampshire to make a good showing than whether Obama or Hillary won.
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