Sailing Toward The New Year On Brain Death And A Prayer

I hear tell that talker Glen Beck has a book out called “Arguing With Idiots.” Who exactly are the idiots? Are they the Democrats, who have their big chance (finally)? They will build the social welfare state, even if it's upon the wreckage of the country. They think tax revenue is the engine that can run this state. But they are wrong. It's production. The essence of the social welfare state is understanding how much money you can suck out of productive people, without killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. The goose, however, is dead. We sucked it dead without ever getting our welfare state. This means that the Democrats have no ideas that will work; their ideas will finish bringing the country to its knees. The country lacks that one thing that every politician and government worker craves – money for their programs.

The Republicans, of course, are certain that unleashing the free market will generate the entrepreneurial creativity that will raise the US back up where it belongs (and where it presumably was under the sainted Ronald Reagan). That's pretty funny. We spent eight years with the G. W. Bush administration, unleashing the free market (except when we were giving some important firm a sweet heart deal). Those free marketeers sold all the crap they could invent to us cleaver 'mericans, then took the money and ran. They ran to their local Ferrari dealers with their ill gotten bonus checks in hand, they ran away under a cover of plausible deniability for any culpability in the financial disaster (“you've got nothing on me,” “you can't prove a thing,” “Geithner knew about it, so it must be OK”). You say you want to rebuild the US industrial capacity? “That smacks of industrial policy. Bad, bad, bad”

The Libertarians? Very funny. What was that? Libertarians? Did you say something?

The emergency is NOW; the people who claim to be working on our behalf in the government were clear witnesses to the building disaster. Remember – the Roman Empire didn't realize that it had fallen. The British Empire was toast a good fifteen years or more before finally realizing what had happened.

Is anyone in our government THINKING in between bouts of telling us how much they are going to do for us, and how much they are going to giver us? I know, those Harvard and Princeton guys running the government aren't the idiots. I must be one. Gotta go.

After Christmas One's Thoughts Turn To...?

The country is shivering under an increasingly nasty public debate. The debate has been this nasty, in fact, even nastier, in times past. But as the government's role in daily life, and the government's role in our economy, has grown, the tenor of the debate has become more critical, and potentially much more erosive. The days when a President and Congress could debate defense and tariff policy, and be done with it, are over, for better or worse.
We are apparently not printing enough funny money for some folk. Robert J. Schiller, supposedly a reputable economist, writes in the New York Times that the U.S. should consider issuing notes called “trills”. A trill would represent one trillionth of the country's GDP. The government would then pay a quarterly “dividend” equal to one trillionth of the quarterly GDP.
Mr. Shiller is a professor of economics at Yale, so I assume that he is, as my people would say, wicked smart. He considers gross domestic product to be the “national profit”. Professor Shiller suggests that there could be a brisk trade in trills, with their value rising and falling with expectations of the value of GDP. This would be one way to get government directly involved in casino gambling.
I wonder what kind of economist considers the GDP to be the national profit. It doesn't belong to the government, though the government has become a disturbingly, if not suicidally large part of the economy. If I were looking at GDP rigorously, wouldn't I see it as the country's gross receipts? Private companies (at least the ones that want to continue existing) would normally pay dividends based on profit, not gross receipts. One great exception was General Motors, which continued paying dividends even as it hemorrhaged billions of dollars. Those guys all got paid, so I guess they were wicked smart, too.
I also wonder what kind of theory of value Professor Shiller subscribes to. What do you think?
Perhaps what Professor Shiller is really saying is that there is no way out of deficit spending, without completely destroying the country, so here's a bit of flim flam to generate mega bucks, so that we don't have to rein in spending at all. Presumably, foreigners in countries with real economies will buy these things from us. They will buy them, right?
The fact that I don't see the executability of this scheme confirms my limited intelligence. I've been proven stupid before. Being a dumb sailor also made it impossible for me to understand Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman's call for more, and larger stimulus packages, in the face of trillion dollar deficits. Heck, it's not real money – it's just printed paper. No one will notice if we print some more, eh?.
As for trill$ - put me down for a bazillion of 'em, professor. I'm in.

Hope for the Streams

Sunset this evening was just before 5PM, but the sun slipped below the tree line just around 3:15. There is that small disadvantage in living between two mountains. As the snow melts, accelerated by a day of rain, and a day of temperatures in the high fifties, the river has risen to the point where it supplies steady white noise. The ground, however, remains blanketed in white, but the white will be gone soon enough. Will the wet winter continue? Will the snowfall be frequent enough to give the local; streams the replenishment that they have been lacking since 1997? We can only hope, but the weather gives us some reason to hope.

It's Always Christmas for Investment Bankers

The title of this piece says most of what needs to be said. Gretchen Morgenson (IMO the best business reporter working in the U.S. today) reports in the New York Times, that Goldman-Sachs, that paragon of fiscal power and virtue, created bizarre and exotic securities (if I spelt out "synthetic CDO", would it mean any more to you?), which they sold to individuals and pension funds by the $billions. Goldman then bet against those securities, by short selling.

Purveyors of the popular wisdom will say that these exotic securities were, and are, a way to manage risk. They are not. They are a sure sign that Goldman was dealing in too much risk. Analysis of the recent market crash invariably offer at least a partial excuse for the creation of exotic financial instruments, such as derivatives; they say that such instruments help investment banks manage risk. There is no suggestion that there is too much risk to manage, especially in conjunction with the very instruments created to manage risk.

What is the real function of these instruments? To generate commissions and fees. Goldman created the synthetic CDOs, made a commission on every sale (in which they must have known that they were selling junk), then shorted the instruments. Why not? They'd already made their commissions. So, the commission paid when the derivative is sold is added to the gross domestic product. If the product tanks, the short makes money that's added to the GDP. But in some perverse way, the wealth that disappears when the derivative tanks is not subtracted from the GDP. Now that's "new math".

Let's review the bidding. When Mr. Timothy Geithner was head of the NY Fed, his job became one of trying to keep the financial system going, but it wasn't his job to know about the toxic bombs stewing in the financial pot. Of course, now that all those bankers and brokers have made their millions at age 35 (or whatever), now that Mr. Geithner is Secretary of the Treasury, he promises to pay attention. What in hell was he doing in those wood paneled digs of his in NY, when he was "Head" of the NY Fed, and why is he now in the cabinet. He may be way smarter than I am, but I'll bet I could have seen the train wreck coming long before he apparently did. All I had to do was read the NY Times business section. Was he too busy arranging all those catered lunches? The Democrats have proven themselves to be as moronic as the Republicans at picking men who can be part of the solution, or, even better, good stewards up front.

Let us be disgusted.

A Meditation On The Winter Solstice - 2009

The US Naval Observatory states that the period between the first week in December and the first week in January could well be called the "dark days" for the mid-northern latitudes.1 At our latitude, the earliest sunset occurs around 8 December, and the latest sunrise occurs around 5 January. The solstice itself occurs tomorrow, just after noon.

The winter solstice has loomed large in nearly every civilization Even if a culture attached comparatively little religious significance to it, there was generally a mathematical or astronomical interest. This is natural. As the fall harvest time gives way to a cooler, less gentle period, those things within the art of the possible begin to shrink. To the human psyche, the land itself seems to die back, as if it knows that the reduced supply of light is insufficient for lush growth.

The ancients had myths to explain this, and to reassure themselves that, sooner or later, the retreat into darkness would stop, and a return to a gentler time would begin. There is little evidence to support fixing any particular date to the birth of Jesus, but the convention of adopting 25 December gives Christians a reason for high optimism in the bleak mid winter, as well. This convention merely linked Jesus' nativity with a long succession of birth/rebirth myths. I shall leave it to you to separate myth from fact in your own minds, and your own traditions. The facts, however, are bleak – many of us will awaken in the dark, and not return home at days end until darkness has returned. It might be that darkness is not actually a “thing”, but simply the absence of visible light energy. Nevertheless, at this time of year there is so little light that darkness may seem to be a tangible thing, rather than just a condition. Where I live, the sun's path is below the tree line. If those trees were evergreens, we'd have no direct sunlight at all. It has been said that in the far northern latitudes, where darkness is a principal attribute of this season, the suicide rate rises significantly due to the lack of light, though proving cause and effect can be tricky.

We are a modern people. If we set aside our myths, believed or merely cherished, what might we make of the present time of the year, and what is to come?

If the days were to continue to grow shorter, we would be faced with the end of human existence, but as time appears to rest upon this fulcrum of seasonal change that is the winter solstice, with the sun at its southern most declination, mechanics begins to bring the sun back in our direction, and with it comes more light each day. The change is not slow for long; we quickly perceive the increase in light, and the reaction is inevitable. The mid winter myths are stories of birth, death, and rebirth. We know that this return of longer days is not the result of the rebirth of a deity – it's just orbital mechanics, and yet, as we gain light every day, it's hard to not feel a spiritual connection with what is happening. If the return of more hours of light suggests a rebirth, it also enables it. Certain optimistic, and hardy souls use the increasing light to sprout what they hope will be the early spring harvest.

As we consider these literal and mythical properties, we might also consider the imagery of light. Sometimes, when we speak of those in darkness, we are speaking of brothers and sisters who are in ignorance or oppression. For those in such darkness, the solstice has no impact. They may only be brought from the darkness into light through the proactive intervention of their brothers and sisters in humanity Those who reach out to bring their brothers and sisters from darkness to light might be said to be experiencing a rebirth of sorts. When we give something of ours away to someone who needs it, that thing that we have given increases in value. When that thing that we give is truly ours – our time, our expertise, our understanding – then we re-create ourselves as a more valuable entity.

Committing National Suicide

According to the Times of London, the Swiss government is planning to crack down on what appears to be an epidemic of suicide tourism. I'm not familiar with the situation, but I suppose people from less enlightened countries, in need of ending their lives, can visit the alpine paradise to get the deed done.

We in the United States, however, needn't worry about raising the air fare from our shrunken pocketbooks. We are in the midst of committing national suicide right here at home. I know, know, people have been predicting the end of American civilization as we know it since the New Deal, perhaps even since the Wilson administration. This time the doomsayers maybe on to something.

The nail in the coffin will be our enormous national debt. While the current debt has been with us for decades, it got really serious during the Reagan administration. At this point, it began quickly climbing to $200, then above $300 million. The prosperity enjoyed during much of the Reagan Administration gave the impression that, while budget deficits might be a bad thing, their elimination need not be a proiority. The Carter era inflation had been “tamed”, crippling interest rates had been brought down; as far as most observers could see, the major down side of the Reagan era was the low rate of return for investors, due to the depressed interest rates.

Given the current administration's projections of trillion dollar deficits into the near term future, it's hard to believe that we were ever worried about those puny $300 billion dollar IOUs. That's part of the problem; no matter how high we have run up the deficit each year, we've been able to get away with it. Congress blames the executive, the execuitive blames Congress (unless they are of the same party). The fact is that there is so little political consensus in the country that only a budget busting deficit, that fills nevery one's rice bowl, is passable through both houses of Congress.

This time, however, things are different. To use a phrase from the old Soviet dialectict, the correlation of forces is working against us. While the situaion has been developing for some time, we are now rapidly slipping into a position of extreme financial vulnerability within the international community.

Although industrial strength peacetime budget deficits date back to the 1950s, suicidal national behavior dates from the late 1970s, as we began de-industrialiazion, beginning with the auto and steel industries. Early de-industruialiaztion was to the benefit of Japan, but the pace increased rapidly with the rise of Red Chinese state sponsored capitalism.

Where will this take us? I don't know, but I do know that there really is a limit to how far we can drop. We might not notice for a while yet, but the sudden stop should be startling. Who will be less happy at bt6hat point, the government, or the remainder of the population? Watch this space.

My Letter to The New Yorker Concerning Legislative Management of Health Care Reform

Hendrik Herzberg's comments on opposition to the Obama health insurance reform plans (September 21st New Yorker) was classic, well crafted Hertzberg angst, but misses the core issue surrounding the opposition's (thus far) success. The President has chosen to preside over a mischief laden congressional effort to draft health insurance reform. The thousand page flagship bill in that effort is nearly incomprehensible, as a whole, to any ordinary person. I'm sure that every legislative aid who has inserted a particular pet rock into the bill understands the language of his or her particular pet, but making the overall bill as abstruse as it is leaves its interpretation to the high priests of politics, whether they be Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Al Franken, or Nancy Pelosi. If the President had been both serious about achieving reform, and as good a leader as he is a speaker, he might have pushed legislative leaders to craft a crisp bill, of a few hundred pages, free of mischief, and readily understandable. This would have taken the interpretive role away from those who are so anxious to “shape the debate.” That doesn't seem to be the way we do it anymore. The segment of society that chooses to participate in the political process is so polarized, that placing highly controversial provisions into massive bills, where they can slip in under the radar, has become the norm. Avoiding this, in order to achieve something so important, presented an opportunity for extraordinary leadership to the President. Sadly, he has chosen to play it using conventional political methods. Perhaps Hillary Clinton was right when she alluded to Mr. Obama's lack of experience, or perhaps only the train wreck that is the current future of the U.S. Health care system will be sufficient to bring change.

A Political Paradox

Recently, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC), proved himself one of the more boorish members of the House when he uttered "you lie" to President Barack Obama, during Obama's address to a joint session of Congress. Since the President was speaking when Wilson laid his insult upon the table, meaning that his lips were moving, and since the President is a politician, clearly Wilson's charge was correct.

However, Wilson is also a politician, and his lips must have been moving when he uttered "you lie" (I have confirmed that Wilson is not a trained ventriloquist). In accordance with generally accepted rules of political discourse, Wilson must also be lying. If Wilson's "you lie" was a lie, then the President must have been telling the truth. At the risked of being repetitive, however, you'll remember that the President is a politician, and his lips were moving. Q.E.D.

Both men cannot have been lying, yet there appears to be strong, cumulative evidence that they were. Therein is the paradox. It cries out to be solved. No partisans need attempt a solution; only a trained, non-partisan logician is qualified to solve this. One can only hope that such a man is lingering close by, however, some less complex paradoxes have waited centuries for resolution, so an answer may not be close at hand.

A Life Well Lived - Reflections on The High Holy Days, 2009

In a speech at the Copley Plaza Hotel, on June 7th, 1945, General George S. Patton said of those who had died in battle in World War II: “It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.” D-Day was but a year and a day in the past, and Germany's surrender less than a month, when he gave that speech, and our gratitude to those who had sacrificed had been recently burnt deep into the national consciousness, for they had given something of incalculable value.

Now, let's jump to the present, and note the passing of:

Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who founded the Special Olympics, not as part of a committee, but solely of her own volition;

John Hope Franklin, a historian of slavery and reconstruction, whose work changed how we look at those areas;

Dr. Willem J. Kolff, a Dutch physician who invented the first artificial kidney, in a rural hospital, during World War II, using sausage casings and orange juice cans, and went on to build the first artificial heart;

Norman Ernest Borlaug, an American agronomist, who has been called the father of the Green Revolution. His discoveries have been estimated to have saved over 245 million lives.

With the exception of Eunice Shriver, none of these peoples' names were exactly household words. If Mrs. Shriver hadn't been born a Kennedy, she might very well have been as obscure as the rest.

If we review a compilation of people of note who have died in the past year, we find a list mostly populated by celebrities – actors, sports stars, singers, authors. In the world of celebrity, the term “great” is bandied about with little regard for its true meaning, and the “greatness” of celebrity fades quickly. How many amongst us are familiar with Ida Cox (blues singer), Elmer Lach (winger on the best line in hockey), or... for the benefit of my book club members, Lev Nussimbaum.

What distinguishes Shriver, Franklin, Kolff, and Borlung is the fact that they all left humanity much better off than they found it, but with the exception of Mrs. Shriver, none of them rose out of general obscurity. Their other distinguishing characteristic is that their good works didn't consist solely of giving money or other material things. They gave of themselves – they gave the products of their intellect, and their time. We may not be familiar with their names, but as with those who hit the beaches on D-Day in 1944, we should thank God that they lived.

We do not need fame to have lived a worthwhile life. Within our own families and communities, there are needs that will only be met if someone in that family or community comes forward, of their own volition, for in today's era, in which many former elements of civic America seem to have disappeared, many individual and community needs go unmet, especially in the current recession.

About fifty miles south of here lies an old church, with a small congregation. Several years ago a fire destroyed the church's interior; they were able to save only a few pews. A man not of their faith read of the fire, and gave them a considerable (to them) sum of money to help rebuild. Since that man was not of their faith, his gestured puzzled them, but when they asked him why he would do such a thing, he simply said “because”. The truth was that the man was following the example of his father, who had done a similar thing. So, the father's act, decades ago, had not only been an act of charity to those in need, but an inspiration to his son. If we teach our children thus, our good works can live on well beyond their initial effect, as they inspire future generations.

We have all lost friends or loved ones. Those who are gone, who have inspired us to help others, live on in the good works we do, just as we may live on in the good works of our children. That example, that inspiration to do good works, not just those things that are advantageous to us, is a gift that will serve our children long after the shine has faded from any material possessions we may bestow upon them.

In that speech some sixty-nine years ago, General Patton closed by saying: "Like the old soldier of the ballad, I now close my military career and just fade away, an old soldier who tried to do his duty as God gave him the light to see that duty..." So it is with us. No matter what we may do for a living, no matter how busy, full and complicated our lives may be, God commands us to do good works, and if we fulfill that command, then we surely will have left our world a better place, for our time, and for future generations.

May you have a healthy and prosperous New Year.

Thoughts On 17 September 2009

Lest I be tempted to sugar coat things, I'll begin by stating that both sides in the current health care debate are lying. Yup, they sure are. Going in order of seniority:

Those in favor of “health care reform” want to get us to a single payer system. That's what liberal,s do – they work to have the nanny state expanded. It proves to them that thney are superior, because they care. The rest of the “pro” positions are a smoke screen. It's a necessary smoke screen,m since the for-profit health insurance industry is such a large portion of the economy. If the “pros” were serious about reform without mischief, they wouldn't have a 1000 page reform bill on the table. If they were serious, they might have put a 200 page bill on the table – one that anyone could understand. I suppose that would be out of the question.

Republicans: Brain Dead One Trick Ponies

That's right folks, the Republicans are pretty much brain dead. They really have two tricks, though: tax cuts and banning abortion. I won't take a position on abortion, except to say that their pursuit of it has gone beyond common sense.

Tax cuts, however, should be easy enough to evaluate by any fool (even a congressman) with a spreadsheet. Folks, could we just get a few adults in Congress who want to balance the budget? Right now we have those who want to spend and tax, and those who want to spend and cut taxes. If Congress needs specialized help, I'd be happy to show them how I've kept my budget balanced for the last 37 years. Someone has to blink on this.

Trouble With The Truth?

One of the great strengths of western civilization has been a strong conceptual model of truth. What is happening to that strength? The health care debate has gone beyond the partisan, beyond the ideological, to the realm of the worthless.

The Republicans cling to the bizarre "death panel" fable, while the Democrats insist that they can wring big savings from Medicare, a program that is funded at 80 per cent of costs. What's really happening here? We are seeing the Democrats attempting to please their various constituencies, while the Republicans try, by any means possible, to head off a program that will almost certainly be the initial precursor of a single payer national health insurance system. The Democrats just want to get something in place, however impractical. When that's done, and the program is bleeding the country white, they figure they can "fix" it to get what they really want, whatever that is, because there will be no turning back.

So, what are we really seeing? You could say politics as usual, but in reality, you are seeing the complete moral bankruptcy of the press. Observation of the last three weeks of Sunday talking head shows suggests that the national press is more interested in taking sides than in clarifying the critical issues. It's not that the critical issues haven't been mentioned, but rather, that they are mentioned in passing, as the press returns to refereeing this national food fight. There's not all that much liberal bias here - just bad journalism.

I'm a big believer in the second amendment, but it's hardly worth keeping, given the service that we're getting from those that it "protects". Sad, very sad.