Locke uses the word “corporatism”, which has a very specific meaning and is far more accurate then any other word commonly used in the public. To Locke, corporatism is particularly dangerous because all nearly all-major political ideologies support it in one way or another. The slow drift towards corporatism has been steady sense the turn of the 19th century.
His article is a good read, be sure to check it out.
I was saddened by the death of Michael Crichton. Not only did the world lose an incredibly interesting storyteller, but an incredibly intelligent and objective man.
Here he writes about complex systems, and how they apply to the environment; He even throws little economics and sociology in there. Anybody interested in “saving” the environment should read this. In fact, any body the least bit interested in science, complexity theory, economics, should read this; as it is not only incredibly interesting but incredibly informative.
….who believes that the complex system of our atmosphere behaves in such a simple and predictable way that if we reduce one component, carbon dioxide, we will therefore reliably reduce temperature? CO2 is not like an accelerator on a car. It’s not linear (and by the way, neither is a car accelerator.) And furthermore, who believes that the climate can be stabilized when it has never been stable throughout the earth’s history? We can only entertain such an idea if we don’t really understand what a complex system is.
There are also lots of pictures. So please, read it. It really is very good. A great tribute to a mind that is no longer with us.
"Political tags-such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth-are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire."
I wince whenever I hear that Hoover was a supporter of free-markets or laissez-faire Capitilism. It is so easily proven wrong. And it is not wrong in some abstract sense, it is not a matter of argumentation, it is factually wrong. It is like saying “President George Washington is a woman”; it simply has no merit.
And yet, in most history books, in most lectures, and in most people eyes: Hoover was a stanch supporter of ‘free-markets’, which eventually led to the Great Depression (and thank God to FDR for saving the day!)
No. At least not in the classic sense of the term. "Socialism" originally meant government ownership of the major means of production and finance, such as land, coal mines, steel mills, automobile factories, and banks.
I have never been a big fan of Howard Stern (I have nothing against the man, just never listen to him) but I think this experiment is pretty interesting. His co-host asked several people who they supported in the next presidential race, and why, and then asked if they supported certain policies; the twist is that he switched the policies of the candidates.
A women was asked who she supported, she said “Obama”; she was then asked if she supported Obama’s pro-life, pro-Iraq war stance; the women said “yes”; she was then asked if she didn’t mind Sarah Palin for Vice President; the women didn’t mind at all. He did the same thing with a man who supported McCain; But don’t take my word for it:
To be fair, a good social engineer can get people to answer questions they know are false; people, when nervous and on-the-spot, will often say silly things; people who conduct polls have been doing this for years. None-the-less, this still demonstrates the “mental bandwagoning” that politics seems to inspire (and yes, I am fully aware that is not a word.)
It’s funny, very few feel qualified (or for that matter, interested) to talk about issues of philosophy or science, but nearly all feel qualified to talk about politics; a field of philosophy which is theoretically complex, and even more complex in practice.
How many people actually spend the time to research their own opinions, to critically examine their ideas? Wouldn’t a truly honest person want not only an opinion, but a correct opinion? This becomes even more bizarre when you look at the passions that follow politics; the passions seem to go far beyond the intellect.
It seems everybody wants an opinion, but next to nobody seems to want to work for a good one.
The top 5 percent (those making more than $153,542 — the group whose taxes Obama seeks to raise) pay 60 percent of all federal income taxes. The rich (aka the top 1 percent of income earners, those making more than $388,806 a year), according to the IRS, pay 40 percent of all federal income taxes.
He then starts applying the real data to people's preconceptions:
Now, what do people think the rich pay? The IBD/TIPP poll found that 36 percent of those polled thought the rich contribute 10 percent or less of all federal income taxes. Another 15 percent thought the rich pay between 10 and 20 percent, while another 10 percent thought the rich’s share is between 20 and 30 percent.
He goes on to say:
Let’s try this another way. A U.S. News & World Report blogger went to the Democratic National Convention in Denver and conducted an informal poll of 24 DNC delegates. He asked them, “What should ‘the rich’ pay in income taxes?” Half the respondents said “25 percent”; 25 percent said “20 percent”; 12 percent said “30 percent”; and another 12 percent said “35 percent.”
The average DNC delegate wanted the rich to pay 25.6 percent, which is lower than what the rich pay now — both by share of taxes and by tax rate!
The article says far more, very much worth reading.
I don’t like Obama, and I don’t like McCain, but I do like Joe. I relate to Joe; a good, hardworking person that doesn’t want to become a serf to thugs in Washington. Sure, he made a few mistakes in interpreting tax law (and you can’t really blame him, current tax law being so needlessly complicated and convoluted) but he still feels what most people feel: that theft is wrong, and government theft is no exception.
Read this, for a good little article on Joe; and spread the word, the 'Joe's' of the world must be heard.
The current credit and financial turmoil was inevitable, as long as the U.S. government persisted in massively subsidizing and regulating the financial sector; and the current turmoil is no more severe than what U.S. markets suffered in 1990-1991, when junk bonds crashed and the savings-and-loan industry virtually disappeared due to similarly reckless practices. Not even the housing sector’s current troubles can be said to match those seen in the 1974-75 recession.
In the near-term, the dollar will weaken and commodity prices (especially gold) will rise, due to fears of the Treasury plan being inflationary; but in the coming quarters and years the dollar should strengthen again as commodity prices decline.
He goes on to say:
….all the scare-mongering about a potential “systemic catastrophe” or “financial cataclysm,” should a major financial institution fail, is just that: scare-mongering. These unproven (and unprovable) assertions are made by those who don’t understand the financial system, or stand on the wrong side of trades or are eager to see still more socialist power accumulate in Washington.
I have to say I am somewhat ashamed of my government right now. I could accept the existence of the bailout if it was based on some mistaken principles; but principle had nothing to do with this. The bailout was padded with almost a 100-billon more dollars (on top of the 700 billion) for things that had nothing to do with the financial sector, to buy off dissenting representatives.
Shameful. It almost makes me wish the first bill passed. Not that it would make much difference.
I will follow this story as long as it is possible to (and the effects of the bill before it gets lost in natural economic confusion.) For those still interested, keep doing research, and maybe in the future history won’t repeat itself. I implore all of you to do think, debate, and apply logic (and if you interested, look at the Swedish banking crisis in 1991 or the real-estate crises in Japan at around the same time; both have a great deal to say about what's happening right now.)
Wartime propaganda cartoons are an interesting thing; from an artistic perspective, there actually not all that bad (Keep in mind that many of these cartoons where showed before movies, and where intended to reach kids and adults alike.) The biggest studies that made these kind of cartoons where: Disney and Warner Brothers. Of the two, Warner Brothers attempted to be more frantic and comic, often dropping Bugs Bunny or Daffy into war zones (the shows where also incredibly racist, but that’s a different story.) Disney, on the other hand, created more quite and thought-out pieces of work. Like this one:
I suppose it’s too much to ask for a Disney cartoon from the 1940's to be philosophically perfect. Still, there is actually some good stuff there (though the film rather explicitly upholds the reason/emotion dichotomy.) It is surprising to find something so pro-reason, especially in wartime cartoons, which tended to appeal heavily to emotions. Disney was more positive then that, and made films that even today the company can be proud of (unlike Warner Brothers, which tries to hide much of their wartime propaganda.)
Though I do have one major complaint: why does ‘reason’ have to be a balding, scrawny guy in his mid-to-late forties?
Back in 2000, a man named Howard Husock wrote an article on the possible ramifications of the Community Reinvestment Act; how it was structured and what it would do. Considering what is now happing in the financial sector, I wish he was listened to:
"The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their own striving, is the key to their well-being.
The CRA's premise sounds unassailable: helping the poor buy and keep homes will stabilize and rebuild city neighborhoods. As enforced today, though, the law portends just the opposite, threatening to undermine the efforts of the upwardly mobile poor by saddling them with neighbors more than usually likely to depress property values by not maintaining their homes adequately or by losing them to foreclosure. The CRA's logic also helps to ensure that inner-city neighborhoods stay poor by discouraging the kinds of investment that might make them better off."
In my ongoing quest to get the word out about the bailout and the financial “crisis”; I am posting two more good articles I found on another blog (Café Hayek, if you’re interested):
This really is a crucial time for debate and rational inquiry. So do research, get educated, and get the word out. Public opinion means a great deal to legislators, so don't let up.
"Economics is not a complicated science. This may not seem obvious to you if you’ve following the news from Washington, where a cabal of politicians, financiers and lobbyists have been spent the last several weeks desperately making a series of increasingly complicated, expensive, and ultimately unsuccessful plans to “save the economy.” As the costs of their schemes have spiraled from billions and into the trillions of dollars, it has become increasingly urgent for you, the source of Congress’ deep pockets, to examine the potential impact of their actions on your taxes, savings, and investments.
The key to understanding economic theory is to grasp that the same principles that apply to your personal finances, and perhaps to your interaction with your local grocer apply equally to the world at large, at all levels of economy activity. The key to understanding politics is to grasp that political success requires advocating policies which violate these basic economic principles - and then evading the consequences of their own policies - with the voters’ eager participation in the delusion."
"....If Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were free market institutions they could not have gotten away with their risky financial practices because no one would have bought their securities without the implicit assumption that the politicians would bail them out.
It would be better if no such government-supported enterprises had been created in the first place and mortgages were in fact left to the free market. This bailout creates the expectation of future bailouts.
Phasing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would make much more sense than letting politicians play politics with them again, with the risk and expense being again loaded onto the taxpayers."
I don’t know, maybe tons of blogs like this one made the difference; maybe the public and politicians looked outside of their sound-bites for a moment and recognized the economic reality of the situation; or maybe this is just the result of cheap political tactics and partisan politics.
In any case, this is good news; though I foster no delusions that it will last.
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