In the wake of Martin Luther King Day, 2015

I cannot let the celebration of Dr. King's birth date pass yet again, without commenting upon the scandal of the memorial erected, we are told, in his honor, but fabricated by Chinese artisans working without pay.

This is wrong at so many levels that one hardly knows where to begin their enumeration.  First, the statue of this most American of heroes should have been sculpted by an American, and I would go so far as to add, by an Afro-American.  Second, given Dr. King's lifelong support of the labor movement in America, it passes credulity that the workers were not paid: "A workman is worthy of his hire" is a watchword in my own life, both in regard the work that I do, and the work that I pay to have done for me.  Third, sourcing the work to China is, to my mind, a calculated insult to all American workers and their capabilities.  Fourth, as many others have remarked, the mien of the statue has a distinctly Asian cast about it; with no aspersion intended upon people of Asian blood and heritage, this is, in the present context, simply wrong.  Finally, although these decisions are not strictly political, one might remark upon the singular inappropriateness of sending this work to China, when the current occupant of our White House is himself of African descent.

The Mid-Term Elections, 2014

Although the Republican sweep of the midterms has occasioned much unhappiness and recrimination in the left blogosphere -- not to mention among Democrats, and self-described liberals and progressives--, I do not consider the results to have been surprising.  I have preliminarily attempted to organize some thoughts on the causes, and now make bold to present them below.  The format is a list of topics, although priority is not necessarily connected to order of appearance.  My reflections tend towards the subjective and anecdotal; those who wish to verify or contradict will find fodder aplenty on the web.

1.  Bad economic times and the end of work.  The economic times are bad, no matter what indicators attempt to tell us, regarding productivity and Gross Domestic Product.  Wages for working people  (anyone below executive band) have been flat in this country for 35 years, despite ongoing growth of productivity.  While this is a multifaceted and multi-factoral proposition, it really comes down to the lack of a robust labor movement.  But labor has been destroyed by a conscious campaign, of policy and propaganda, lasting several decades, and beginning (if one must pick a date) with Reagan's firing of the air-controllers.

Concurrent, coordinated, and consequent upon this has been the loss of manufacturing jobs.  The notion of off-shoring as an economic necessity is not an economic given (I would argue, in any case, that  there is no such thing), but a consequence of low wages.  The marginal gain in offshore manufacturing is trivial compared with the growth of American productivity over 30 years.  If wages had tracked productivity, there would be no imperative to offshore-- or more properly, those small companies who chose to keep work at home would have no trouble competing with the lower price --and lower quality-- goods from abroad.

As an aside, one can view the Charter School movement as part of the ongoing war on labor.  While manufacturing unions can be destroyed by taking the work overseas, this is not true of teaching.  Teachers' unions can only be destroyed by supplanting Public Schools-- with their established tradition of unionization-- by a new class of schools, in which, in the name of innovation, teachers will not be unionized.

Another related and under-reported factor is the growth of part-time service work sold on the web to bidders who require, say, a chauffeur for a day, or a chef for an evening.  Those who provide the actual services are typically trapped in the hamster-wheel of a never-ending and illusory struggle to progress.  A corollary of this type of work is the hiring of professionals -- e.g. lawyers, accountants, programmers, etc. not as employees, but as independent contractors, without benefits, including, conspicuously, pension benefits.  The disappearance of pensions in Fortune 500 companies is another subject worthy of study, as is the attack on the pensions of public-service workers.

2.  Foreclosures.  Since 2008, something like five million homes have been foreclosed upon.  Five million families evicted.  Although the HAMP program was put in place, nominally to help keep financially distressed homeowners in their homes, it has been laughably ineffective; and its main proponent, Timothy Geither, is on record as saying that its purpose was merely to 'foam the runways' for the banks, by stretching out the process-- that is, it was designed to help banks, not homeowners.  The degree to which the foreclosures were fraudulent, due to loss of title chain in the (accelerated and slipshod) process of mortgage securitization, is another shameful chapter in our history, into which we have not now time to delve.

3.  The phenomenon of stay-at-home youth.  A generation of young people is living at home with their parents, at an age when their forbears were out on their own.  This is not altogether a choice; and although I regard it as fundamentally an economic necessity, I am not blind to the fact that this generation spent their childhood in captivity, and have not been allowed the free range of children in earlier times (including my own.)  But I think at bottom it is less a question of lacking initiative that comes from a free-range childhood, and more an inability to find good jobs.  We are truly looking  at the end of work.

4.  The nationally coordinated suppression of the Occupy Movement.  This has been well documented. Whatever one thought of Occupy, its violent eviction , nation-wide, sent a strong message about the consequences of peaceful protest, which I believe resonates to this day throughout the left-leaning populace in America.

5.  Water shutoff in Detroit.  It beggars credulity that thousands of citizens in a major city of a supposedly first-world country could be willfully deprived of water, by city authorities.  The pretense of collecting on overdue billings becomes transparent when it is noted that large concerns like municipal stadiums are also overdue, but have not been penalized. Yet this has been sanctioned by the courts.  That there has not been national action to reverse this is a national disgrace.

6.  The Affordable Care Act.  It is considered anathema in Left Wing Circles, to speak ill, or even critically of the ACA.   And yet I think that a hard look is due.  I believe that many Democrats hoped and believed that this would be a political savior for the Party, yet it has not been so; and I consider that this is not due entirely to negative propaganda from the Right, and their childish campaign to repeal it.

That the bill which passed was largely authored by Liz Fowler, a healthcare industry lobbyist, should indicate (to the cynics at least) that it would be conceptually flawed.  I will note the following issues:

i) Whatever one thinks of the desirability of having health insurance for all (and who could dislike so humane a prospect?) the optics of a mandate compelling the purchase of insurance, and enforced by the IRS are simply atrocious.  There is no way around this, whatever the benefits of being insured, and perceptions are everything in American politics.

ii) The website has established some functionality, following its disastrous rollout, but it is still complicated and difficult to use.  Also, as of May 2014, it still unclear whether the 'backend' of the website, which connects applicants to their insurance providers, is fixed and working.

iii) It appears to be generally the case that most plans, below the level of platinum, have high co-pays and deductibles, making them less than altogether desirable.  Add to this the narrowness of networks, and the problems arising from emergency care out of network.

iv) My belief is that under ACA, many people who had no insurance will get not very good insurance, as will (unfortunately) many people who had reasonably good insurance, as corporations gradually adjust to the new market place and lower the quality of their health care benefits.

7.  The President Himself.  Again, criticism from the left of President Obama is considered anathema in many circles, but I believe it is necessary.  First I believe that the exceptional Congressional hostility that he has faced does not exceed that directed at Bill Clinton.  However, on the national front, outside the halls of Congress, the torrent of racism has been shocking, even to cynics; and I believe that many voters who voted against the Democrats were effectively voting against a the idea of a Black President.

That said, I believe the only political remedy lies in what is called 'retail politics'-- the handshaking, backslapping, baby-kissing connection to the people.  George W. Bush excelled at this, as did Bill Clinton, although I think in Bush's case, it was purely a charade, albeit well acted.  Clinton, (I believe) despite his corporatist leanings, genuinely liked the common people from whose ranks he sprang.

Obama, on the other hand, is notoriously aloof.  Yes, he delivers the occasional well-publicized hug-- most recently and beneficially to an ebola survivor-- but he is not known for the common touch.  And yet the common touch, although it will not win over the hard core racist, is quite capable of swaying those individuals, whose underlying goodness of heart has been corroded by association (often involuntary) with a racist cohort.  But unfortunately, this is is not the President's political forte, and certainly not his inclination.

Beyond this, I admit that pressing the flesh in crowds is a physically dangerous business, but one that goes, for better or worse, with the territory.

But returning now to the difficulties of the ACA, I believe that the President's aloofness has also prevented him from taking a more activist role in monitoring the developmental progress of the website.  And this I put down to inexperience.  I do not expect a president to be a programmer, but experience in governing will, over time, teach the willing learner that one needs to ride herd on complex projects, that in the colorful phrase of Murphy's law, left to themselves, things go from bad to worse.

The comparison with Bill Clinton is also apposite: Clinton had been a long-term governor -- he had also suffered political defeat in his life; in simple terms he understood better what it takes to achieve and occupy a responsible position, and get things done.

The question now arises what direction will the President take with a new Congress entirely in opposition hands?  It is highly unclear to me what are his options in economic and environmental policy; but one frightening possibility stands out.  He has previously attempted to push forward a grand bargain, so called, which would amount to the first step in dismantling and/or privatising the great social insurance programs of the New Deal and Great Society: Social Security and Medicare.  The fear is that a Republican-controlled Congress would give him his wish; the hope is that Republican intransigence will defeat even a grand bargain.

Frankenfoods normalized? A quick response

I was surprised to read over at Eschaton that

                   …there's nothing inherently dangerous about genetic modification.  

                   Several people pointed out, correctly, that it's just a faster way to 

                   practice husbandry than traditional methods.    

This, in the famous words of physicist and Nobel Laureate Wolfgang Pauli, is not even wrong.  Normal  husbandry is confined to mixing characteristics among organisms which can naturally crossbreed.  That is, you can cross one apple with another, one weed with another, one grain with another, and so on.

You cannot, in nature, cross a fish and a tomato.  Old Farmer Jones can throw as many tomatoes as he likes into the pond with his carp, but the two will never exchange genetic information.

But you can do this, by gene modification, and it has been done. 

On the other hand, grains and weeds, (both, in my non-botanical mind, being grasses) should readily cross-pollinate, and have in fact been shown to do so naturally.  (This fact has implications for the development of drug-resistant super weeds, but that's a story for another day.)

So, with apologies to the ghost of the military theorist Clausewitz (certainly one of the most quoted individuals on the internet) gene modification is assuredly not a continuation of  husbandry by other means; it is, rather, a radical reshuffling of a biological order was has developed over hundreds of millions of years.  As the holder of a Ph. D. in Biochemistry, I do not consider myself smart enough to undertake such work.   Those who support it should at least recognize it for what it is. 

Why is the recovery (so-called) so slow?

I have been perusing comments at economistsview, seeking explanations for the slowness of economic recovery as we now experience it.  Well, the commenters are seeking explanations; but I in my usual omniscient fashion believe that the answer lies plainly before us, in the form of history, not of economics.  My view -- which crystallized while examining some anonymous musings on the sustainability (or not) of borrowing against home equity-- is that such borrowing represented the last gasp of the struggling middle class, to preserve the generous levels of consumption, to which its members had become accustomed in the great post-war economic boom.  That boom has of course ended, in consequence of the ongoing war against workers, as embodied in the tearing-up of the social contract between labor and capital, which has been the main social and economic consequence of what I will broadly refer to as Reaganism.

Then, to specify: regarding the sustainability (or not) of borrowing against home equity: it was sustainable as long as the prices of houses kept going up, i.e. in a real estate bubble.  This was a recent phenomenon: it was the strategy arrived at by normal middle class people to sustain their accustomed lifestyle when twenty (now thirty) years of flat wages finally started to seriously bite into their spending habits.

Flat wages were a natural consequence of the 30 year war on the labor movement (and on workers more generally)  that began with the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Then it took the mortgage securitization boom, and the ensuing foreclosure fraud, to throw millions of families out of their homes, and to thus ensure that borrowing one's way to imagined prosperity was a scenario that would not be replayed. Of course, the lost homes are being snapped up by private equity players, who now fancy that they will become real estate magnates skimming the rental cream, while ignoring the plugged toilets.

People talk about our situation as if it were the consequence of immutable economic law. Well the only immutable economic law I know of (I am an engineer, formerly a chemist) is that no economic process whatever transpires without human agency and volition. Which is to say, the economy is what our choices have made it; the facts before us are the consequences of votes and policies and individual decisions by political-economic actors great and small.

The big news this past week was that Boeing has extorted fromthe machinists' union their right to a defined benefit pension, which will be replaced by a 401k. This is part of a general process of asset stripping by Boeing management. Multiply this by a million to get the current situation.

Economist's View

Following the advice of Paul Krugman, I have started to frequent an economics blog run by University of Oregon economics professor Mark Thoma, economistsview by name.  Many links are given to current research papers (surprisingly accessible as often as not), as well as to fairly high level discussions of policy and philosophy by respected economists in academia, government, and industry.  Typically these posts lie to the political right of Mr. Thoma's apparent sympathies, but they are highly informative concerning the mindset of academically trained economists, which, in my reading, is in many instances rather divorced from the messy realities of business and politics in which it might should be embedded.

The discussion seems to involve a smallish group of dedicated readers who post regularly, and are not shy about their views, which are often (though not always) left-progressive, but also reflective of training in economics.  As a recent example, a policy paper was linked from the Federal Reserve  Bank of Atlanta, on the question of the health of today's labor market in America, and whether recovery from the 2007 recession had produced (or not) appropriate levels of employment.   From which I select the following quote:

In these charts lies the crux of some very basic disagreements about the appropriate course of policy. The last three graphs draw a clear picture of labor markets that are underperforming by historical standards—a position that I take to be the conventional wisdom. An argument against following that conventional wisdom centers on the question of whether historical standards represent the appropriate yardstick today. In other words, is the correct reference point the level of employment or the pace of improvement in the labor market from a permanently lower level? For the proponents of the latter view, the bubble chart might very well look like a return to normal, despite the fact that employment has not returned to prerecession levels.

To me, this illustrates a sort of passivity in the face of the facts, which I find inexplicable.  I append my response, which the interested reader can look up under Mr. Thoma's original post.

The sense I get from this post is that, according to economic wisdom, we might be adjusting to a new equilibrium, which includes a shrunken labor market; and since that's what's been determined by the immutable laws of economics, we should all just face the unpleasant facts, and live with them, and stop boo-hooing.

To me, this is akin to saying, that if an individual becomes ill, it reflects the workings of the inviolable laws of biology, and we should let nature take its course without complaint.

Then my response is: Gott in Himmel! what ever happened to the practice of Medicine? To the idea that poor conditions of human existence might be ameliorated? That the human and social factors influencing the health of an individual, or an economy, are not eternally fixed, and have arguably deteriorated in measureable ways over the last thirty years? That maybe it's time for activist policy aimed at making things better?!

Part of my argument for changing conditions is that forty years ago, the Republican party under Richard Nixon was populated by crooks but not by utter dolts; but we have now entered the era of dolts ascendant. The plain fact now is that we have a major party that has cut loose its moorings to reality. Sure, lot's of other things have changed, but I offer that as a simple example.

Occam's Razor and a 9-11 Conspiracy

In an recent post I invoked the principle of Occam's razor -- that when confronted with two competing explanations, we should choose that which embodies fewer apriori assumptions.  My focus was on the difficulty of reconciling three factors: i) the  easily observed characteristics the three catastrophic building collapses of 9-11,  ii) the official explanations of same, and iii) the known laws of physics.  My conclusions --  were that the official explanations were untenable,  and that the collapses could be explained only by the use of explosives, strategically placed and detonated.

Following Occam, however, I explicitly rejected any discussion of conspiracy theories.  Nonetheless, a report in the New York Times  now raises again the conspiracy question.  A pair of credible individuals, both former United States Senators, one of whom served on the 9-11 Commission, both with access to secret information, have publicly stated their belief that the Saudi government was linked the attacks of 9-11.

I refer the reader to the Times article; I will not pursue the discussion other than to note that most so-called progressive or left-wing commentators have refused to touch the 9-11 question as regards the credibility of the official narrative.  Hopefully, this will begin to change.

Requiescat in Pacem

Steve Jobs, a man who saw that digital technology could be beautiful, and made it so, has died.

Occam's Razor and the Attacks of September 11.

On the tenth anniversary of the horrific attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, upon the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, many reflections occur: mostly somber and troubling, with perhaps a few faint rays of hope.

My starting point is Occam's razor: a principle in logic used to guide the choice between competing explanations of a given phenomenon: namely, the admonition to choose the explanation which requires apriori the fewest hypothetical assumptions.  Even in applying this principle to an examination of the World Trade Center attacks, one is forced upon a bifurcation: we have on the one hand the physical question -- based upon the  available evidence and the known laws of physics, of what caused the collapses of three buildings i.e. the Twin Towers and 'Building Seven;' and on the other hand, we have the (essentially) political  question: who engineered and carried out the attack, and for what purpose?

Of the two, the laws of physics are far simpler to approach, and yield (in my view) a far simpler answer.  The simplest explanation for the collapse of the buildings is (as I will later explain) that they were blown up, imploded, by explosive charges placed by demolition experts.  That is, Occam rejects the official explanation, as promulgated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), formerly the National Bureau of Standards.

However, the official account of who planned and executed the attacks -- a group of fundamentalist terrorists supported by Al Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden -- is clearly simpler, and more favorable to Occam, than any of the elaborate conspiracy theories which  must be constructed to justify the conclusion that the buildings were in fact demolished with explosives.

Reasonable people may disagree in weighing the merits and demerits of the alternate conclusions; since my training and professional experience lie in the physical sciences, I much prefer to establish the principle in which physics guides.  In the words of the late Nobel Laureate physicist, Richard Feynmann, "You can't fool Mother Nature."  Beyond that, I believe that history shows that the human race is eminently prone to being fooled, so I will by and large avoid the political question of who and why.  What is important is simply to establish what physics does and does not allow.

I will state at the outset the three simple facts caused me to arrive at my current viewpoint.    First, that all of Southern Manhattan was enveloped in enormous cloud of dense dust and smoke, consisting of pulverized debris.   Second, that Building Seven, which, on the afternoon of Sept. 11 2001,  collapsed as if demolished, had not been struck by an airplane. Third, that three buildings all collapsed, according to eyewitnesses and reporters on the scene, as if they were controlled demolitions.

My ordering must seem eccentric, but it was the dust cloud that first alerted me: there could simply not be enough potential energy liberated in the collapse to pulverize the wreckage, and re-launch it sky-ward.  A straightforward calculation using the bond energy of Portland Cement, and comparing the energy required to convert a kilogram of same into particles of 20 micron diameter, shows that with perfect conversion, a free fall of 300 meters has four times the required energy.  However, the entire mass of concrete did not fall 300 meters, and much energy must be lost in collisions during the fall with structural elements in the path of any falling fragment; furthermore, a comparable amount of energy is required to re-launch the dust into the enormous cloud.  Furthermore, and most damningly, much of the pulverization appears to have occurred in mid-air.

Next we have the case of Building Seven, which was not struck by an airplane, but which nonetheless suffered collateral damage, including the outbreak of several fires.  The anomalies abound here, but I will focus on the official explanation, that office fires weakened a specific structural column, whose failure triggered the collapse of the entire structure.  This defies credulity.  The collapse is quite symmetrical; the failure of one column cannot lead to the simultaneous and symmetric collapse of structural elements remote from the failure.  There would be a torque, and a listing, and the building would have to fall towards the weakened side.

Finally we have the fact that three buildings suffered asymmetrical damage, but all collapsed in largely symmetrical fashion -- that is, straight down into their own footprints, on a single day.

I have marshalled but a tiny fragment of the available evidence. The most complete, and to my mind, reputable effort to make the case for controlled demolition has been put forth by the architect Richard Gage, through his organization Architects and Engineers for 9-11 Truth.  I leave it to the interested reader to look up their website, if he so desires.  I can only caution the reader that the web contains a vast amount of crack-pot posting on these subjects, but pro and contra the opinions I have expressed.

                                                                    ********

As for who perpetrated this crime and why, I will not venture my opinions.  I will only state that readers of this weblog are well aware of my belief that the resultant Global War on Terror has been essentially an exercise in promoting a police state at home, and military adventurism abroad.

I do not think it extreme to say that America has in effect suffered a coup d'etat.  The so-called progressive left in this country, as exemplified by my blog-roll has absolutely proscribed any discussion of 9-11 truth or conspiracy -- largely, I believe, to protect themselves from the jeers of the political right wing.  This is a grave error in my view.

America will never be healed until the truth of is known of September 11, 2001.

It's All Over but the Crying, or Why I will not Vote Again for Barack Obama

For starters, after a brief flirtation with the John Edwards candidacy, I strongly supported Hillary Clinton in the 2008 presidential primaries.  I had many reasons, but they may be summed up anecdotally in terms of a telling contrast.  On the one hand, long before her White House tenure, Hillary had been a staffer on the Senate Watergate Committee, and had seen and known Republican skullduggery at close range;  then during her husband's presidency, she was also served a walloping great helping of the same, which led to her correct diagnosis and identification of a 'vast right-wing conspiracy' at work.  Barack Obama, on the other hand, praised the cheerful optimism of Ronald Reagan, and mixed up (so to speak) a large pitcher of Kool-Aid, labelled 'comity' and bi-partisanship.'

To any objective observer of American politics, who had been awake since, say, 1978, the contrast between Hillary and Obama was rendered stark by comparing these motifs: Watergate versus Bi-partisanship.

I had a sackful of other reasons for dis-liking Obama in the primaries, but let this simple metaphorical take stand in for the rest.  When he won the nomination, I considered withholding my vote in the general election; but in the end, the spectre of Sarah Palin as vice-president was frightening enough to compel my vote -- the latest in a continuous string for Democratic Presidential Candidates, since McGovern in 1972.

But no more.  The debt ceiling comedy, and its horrific denouement, has torn it for me.  This has been from the start a manufactured crisis, in which Obama's principle goal was to attack the great Social Insurance policies of the New Deal and Great Society: Social Security, and Medicare. He has succeeded, beyond the dreams of any Republican president.  I will not provide hyperlinks, but the curious reader who has been asleep may, if he so desires, consult the writings of Nobel laureate and progressive gadfly and truth-teller Paul Krugman, who, from his perch on the Op-Ed page of the New York Times, has analyzed with deadly accuracy the follies and mis-steps of the Obama administration in the run-up to this disastrous piece of legislation.

I will only state in conclusion what should be obvious to all.  Barack Obama is no Democrat.  He is not even a moderate Republican.  He is a mainstream Republican masquerading as a Democrat.  I will not vote for him again.  A Republican in name and deed both could do no more harm.  I weep for the future of our once-great nation.

Is Boenhner Trying to Save Obama from Himself? or Just Chicken? or Both?

The recent big news on the debt ceiling death spiral is that Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner has walked away from the talks with President Obama.  The usual take on this is that it reflects the usual Republican intransigence in all dealings with Democrats, and particularly, with the current occupant of the White House.

My somewhat contrarian view is that Speaker Boehner is in fact appalled at the cuts in social programs being offered by the President, and wants no part of any deal which includes them.

In this sense, he is saving the Republican party from Armageddon -- since the proffered cuts are in Social Security and Medicare, both of which are extremely popular with Republican voters.   Also, by inadvertance (or unwelcome necessity) he is saving the President from his own misguided attempt to cut those programs.

Call it a failure of Republican nerve, or call it a political calculation which mixes a good dose of self preservation with the knowledge that those programs are more useful to Republicans as propaganda targets on the hoof, then they would be if extinguished.  Either way -- I think Boehner's withdrawal from the talks might signal, in an odd way, the best good sense we've seen from Washington in several months.

Default by Design?

As the kabuki dance of fiscal death spirals towards its uncertain conclusion, amidst conflicting reports of deals made (or not made) to raise the ceiling of the US national debt -- thereby staving off a default on same --it becomes permissible to ask whether or not certain powerful parties view fiscal default as a positive outcome, and if so, why.

There is off course the Tea Party caucus in the US House of Representatives, who are the most visible agitators for default, and in my view, the least interesting.  Their gestalt is best summarized in a quotation from the great Sam Rayburn, who (reportedly) said, "Any jackass can kick a barn down, but it takes a carpenter to build one."  The comparison to the Tea Party caucus is of course insulting to jackasses, but my point is simply that the Teahadists are puppets, incapable of much independent thought, essentially cannon fodder in a larger Class War now being fought in our once-great nation.

Of greater interest to me is the anti-tax oracle and agitator Grover Norquist, who famously declared his desire to shrink the US federal government to a size small enough to permit its being drowned in a bathtub. Although he perhaps does not pointedly attack the great social contract programs of the New Deal and Great Society -- most notably Social Security and Medicare -- both are surely in his gunsights, because of their size and scope.

So how does default work towards his benefit?  Through the medium of Bond Vigilantes.  These mythical beasts -- financial unicorns I call 'em -- are supposed to magically appear in these troubled times of bloated government spending, and magically enforce fiscal discipline by driving up the interest on US government debt.  The only problem is, they haven't.  US government debt remains cheap by historical standards, and would easily permit (were policy makers in Washington but to will it) expansion of the national debt, to finance entitlements, but also anti-recessionary stimulus measures.

However, it doesn't take a rocket scientist, a brain surgeon, or a Nobel laureate in economics to see that a default on the US national debt -- or even the threat of default -- could drive up interest rates over the long term, thus effectively conjuring into existence the heretofore imaginary bond vigilantes.  Therefore from Norquist's viewpoint (and that of like-minded individuals) a default is desirable; and I have little doubt that he is stirring the  congressional pot to this end, through every resource of undercover private lobbying.

Another curious fact has recently been noticed: big banks are not actively lobbying against default.  This is odd on the face of it, since banks have much to lose should default occur.  Have the banks gone over to the Norquist camp, despite the obvious dangers to them of a further financial crisis?

Another point.  Why has not President Obama strongly asserted his right to  unilaterally raise the debt ceiling under the 14 Amendment of the US Constitution?  To the cynics, the answer is of course obvious.  It has been clear, ever since he convened the infamous catfood commission, that the President's much vaunted notion of 'bi-partisanship' means simply helping the GOP accomplish its long-held goal of destroying the Social Contract in America -- or any functional equivalent.  This means Social Security and Medicare must be cut, hopefully with such severity that they will bleed to death.

He has therefore, instead of insisting on a clean bill to raise the debt ceiling, pursued the chimera of a 'grand bargain' with congressional Republicans, to reduce the deficit, and cut social entitlements.  To call this a fools' game is to be unkind to fools.

Obama's Liberal Nominations: Failure by Design

Nobel Laureate economist Peter Diamond announces, in a NY Times Op Ed piece, that he is withdrawing his name from candidacy for the Federal Reserve Board of Governers.  He was nominated by the President in April of 2010, but the Democratic Leadership -- Senate and Whitehouse -- were unable to push through his confirmation, even when they held a strong majority in the Senate.  Apparently an recess appointment was never considered; certainly never acted upon.

James Fallows has some thoughts on the broken confirmation process, and the idiocy of Senator Shelby -- sure a candidate for an "Ow the stupid! It Burns!" award.  Hat tip to Brad Delong here, who also has some worthwhile observations on what it means for the nation and the economy.

My personal view is that this is failure by design, an elaborate Kabuki  Obama nominated a strong progressive to shore up support from his progressive base -- then let the nominee twist slowly in the wind -- and never intended to push ardently for confirmation.

Breaking! Sarah Palin will NOT Run for President.

Lawrence O'Donnell has the story here.

Oh, and by the way, Rolling Thunder doesn't like her hangin' around, either.

Ripping a New One in Education Secretary Arne Duncan

I have not paid much attention to Secretary Duncan, but a recent post over at Big Orange rips him quite severely.  I hadn't realized that Race to the Top was a brainchild of his, but I am in principle opposed to all programs that purport to improve public education by applying carrot/stick methodologies according to performance metrics based on standardized testing.

Anyhow, the above-referenced link, from a high-school Biology teacher in Oklahoma, frames the problem of education reform in stark yet eloquent terms. Go read it.

Big Dog on the Dark Side

An news item today quotes former President Bill Clinton -- the Big Dog, as he is fondly called by his old admiring constituents -- warning Democrats, not to turn away from Entitlement Reform, in the wake of last night's special Congressional election (NY 26th District) in which the Democratic challenger won a traditionally Republican seat, by hammering the incumbent with her support for Paul Ryan's plan to end Medicare as we know it.

Unfortunately, Bill was speaking at Fiscal Summit sponsored by the Peterson Foundation, the infamous kleptocratic think tank that stood behind President Obama's nefarious Catfood Commission, which was charged with gutting Social Security.

For myself, I am truly sorry to see the Big Dog lending his weight and prestige to the Peterson enterprise, which is aimed ultimately at ripping off middle class entitlements to engorge the (already overstuffed) plutocracy.

Food and Karma

I cannot vouch for the provenance or authenticity of this, but the conceit is irresistibly attractive:  That is, I recall reading somewhere, in a discussion of Buddhist doctrine, the statement that the total amount of food in any given world is a direct consequence of the entire sum of accumulated Good Karma, of all sentient creatures inhabiting that world.  This would include all animate beings, from humans down to sea-slugs and gnats (to name but a few.)  Obviously people will argue over who or what is good or evil, and simple dichotomies like Ghandi vs. Stalin won't illuminate much; nonetheless, I believe a certain rough consensus exists that starving people to make money is bad conduct, and therefore bad karma.


It is therefore particularly striking to me when a perceived evil action by some human agency is aimed directly at lowering the availability of food for profit.  Or, in terms less stark, action by some human agency with the perceptible and likely consequence of lowering the availability of food while turning a handsome profit.    The journal Foreign Policy recently devoted a full issue to food, and includes an article blaming Goldman Sachs for the current spike  (or bubble, if you prefer, though the two sound incompatible) in wheat prices globally.  These have added about 25 cents to the price of a loaf of bread in America, but have doubled that price in places like Indonesia, where the average percentage of household income spent on food is far higher than in America.


I am not an expert on financial derivatives, although as a worker in an industry that actually makes and exports things, I have a certain moral horror of (not to mention supercilious disdain for) business enterprises that make money from money, without serving any real purpose in capital formation.  I am assuredly not against capital markets; but to me, derivatives are as parasites on the body of an industrial economy; nonetheless, I will defer that soap-box rant for another day.


So as I understand the substance of the FP article, two factors have been operative.  First, in 1991, GS creates a commodities index product (GSCI), in which different commodities (hogs, soy , wheat, metals etc.) sliced and diced and re-assembled into a composite index.  This didn't lead to much, until de-regulation entered the picture.  From FP:

For just under a decade, the GSCI remained a relatively static investment vehicle, as bankers remained more interested in risk and collateralized debt than in anything that could be literally sowed or reaped. Then, in 1999, the Commodities Futures Trading Commission deregulated futures markets. All of a sudden, bankers could take as large a position in grains as they liked, an opportunity that had, since the Great Depression, only been available to those who actually had something to do with the production of our food.

Goldman's system was designed so that one can only buy; when time comes to roll over a futures contract it can't be sold short in a falling market.  This creates an inevitable upward pressure on commodities prices, including food.  


As other speculative bubbles (Tech, Real Estate) have burst, more and more money has flowed into commodities derivatives, hence we now find ourselves with a global food bubble -- not overly noticeable in the G7 perhaps, but disastrous in poorer countries.


So, am I being to hard on GS? pulling out the moral and rhetorical stops on them, and unleashing the impotent fire and brimstone of an obscure commentators, even whose friends are careful not to ask for the URL when this blog is mentioned conversationally?


Certainly there are countervailing opinions, by those who think that grain prices are responding rationally to the simple mechanics of supply and demand.  On the evidence I disagree.  Goldman has the global economic bit in its teeth, and is running wild.  They are altogether unchastened by their recent escapes from annihilation in 2008; and God help us all if they are not brought under control.

More Apologies for Sporadic Posting

As a business traveller, I do not fit the profile of a 'road warrior;' I have nonetheless spent 5 of the last 10 weeks away from home.  Not to complain, but this plays Hell with my routine, and my willingness and ability to face and focus upon the grim politics which form my usual inspiration for blogging.

S&P Downgrade of US Credit Fixed!

The recent threat by rating agency Standard & Poors, to downgrade its rating of US Bonds, is easily neutralized by but this simple step:  Return the top marginal tax rate to the levels which obtained at the end of the Reagan Presidency.

Sound simple?  Hell yes!  Likely, with the Rethuglican pin-heads and Democratic wimps in DC?  Hell no!

The New Kleptocratic Normal

It has been reported that the economy is adding jobs and unemployment has fallen to 8.8%; however, as the New York Times reports, many of those new jobs do not suffice to supply life's necessities.

I have read recently that working for no pay is the 'new normal.'  Does anyone think that the kleptocrats are not winning the class war?

The Westboro Ruling: Playing Catch-up with Blind Pigs.

It is not appropriate to say of Justice Samuel Alito, that 'Even a blind pig finds an acorn sometime.'  A friend has pointed out that it would be a severe cut on blind pigs.  Nonetheless, Alito is the only one of the Supreme Nine who got it right about the hateful disruption of military funerals by Rev. (sic) Phelps and his minions.  From CNN:

The justices, by an 8-1 vote, said Wednesday that members of Westboro Baptist Church had a right to promote what they call a broad-based message on public matters such as wars. The father of a fallen Marine had sued the small church, saying those protests amounted to targeted harassment and an intentional infliction of emotional distress.

The father had this response the Supreme Court ruling:

 "My first thought was that eight justices don't have the common sense that God gave a goat.... We found out today that we can no longer bury our dead in this county with dignity."

Justice Alito, the sole dissenter, wrote that the

"...outrageous conduct caused petitioner great injury, and the court now compounds that injury by depriving petitioner of a judgment that acknowledges the wrong he suffered ....In order to have a society in which public issues can be openly and vigorously debated, it is not necessary to allow the brutalization of innocent victims like petitioner." 

Alito has been on the wrong side of virtually every issue, since he joined the court, but he certainly got it right this time.