Posts Tagged ‘sophist’

Chimerica and the Global Economy

Thursday, September 9th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the Chimerica analogy is apt but misses a critical point.

The Chimerica analogy is… That the growth we saw during the first decade of the 2000‘s was a result of China producing products, Americans purchasing those products and borrowing the money to buy those products from China. The collapse of the American home market translated into a collapse in the American appetite for Chinese products.

Where it misses the point is the part where China loans Americans money to buy Chinese made goods. The largest consumer of Chinese goods is the United States Government. In the form of debt. Take the US debt out of the equation and the American Chinese picture changes.

Today we hear rumors of sovereign insolvency. The news reports that Harrisburg Pennsylvania has gone insolvent. Another example of Sovereign insolvency. We find out Greece hasn’t come clean on it’s debt yet. Rumors abound, about the other countries in Europe teetering, even as Germany reaps huge profits from the devalued Euro.

Governments are spending money as fast as they can to “prop up“ their economies. Especially the American government. Spending to “Improve” the economy and drive up aggregate demand. Some are cheering the spending claiming that as long as the bond market keeps interest rates low government can keep spending. Ignoring the fact that most people thought Lehman Brothers was a good investment… until it wasn’t. So is government borrowing. There is a brick wall somewhere in the fog out there. No one knows where it is… So might it not be prudent to slow down?

Government borrowing also has the pernicious attribute of raising the expected level of government spending. People get more money from government and expect that money to never stop coming in. Look at the mohair subsidy. The US stopped putting mohair into military uniforms after the first world war.

The Obama administration believes, publicly, that there is a multiplier of .8 for government spending. So a dollar of government spending stimulates $1.80 in the private sector. If this were true then all spending should be channeled through the government. It would be a win win. This is exactly what some in the administration believe. That the government is in the best position to determine what should be bought and sold in the economy. Added a .8 multiplier and it makes it seem, to them, a no brainier.

Of course reality has to stick in it’s ugly head. Empirically, if that were true the 3 trillion dollars the US government spent on stimulus should have generated 5.4 trillion dollars in economic output. At a tax rate of 33% that aggregate demand should have generated 1.78 trillion in tax revenue. We clearly see that it did not. In fact government spending has a negative economic multiplier.

Now the money is spent, (on everything BUT infrastructure), and we nothing to show for it. The national debt load to foreign persons and nations has dramatically gone up. Driving up the aggregate balance of trade deficit, Soaking up capital for industry and creating fear of future taxation. All have a negative effect on any economy.

So the American economy is faltering. Due at least in part to the unrestrained spending. The US budget deficit is slated to be 100% of GDP this year. The last time this happened was during the FDR administration when we were fighting the Second World War. With no such existential threat the US government is spending like it is fighting an all out war.

Maybe it is… Against the American People, our children and our grandchildren…

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Nuance

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the term, “nuanced view” is most often synonymous with dialectic defeating logic.

There once was an ancient Chinese sage, who made the argument that, a white horse is not a horse but a yellow or black horse is. Using dialectic Kung Sung Lung effectively proved that a white horse is not really a horse. (Knowing himself that a white horse is of course a horse). What he was really pointing out was that the deficiencies in language make it possible to prove that a white horse is not a horse. I.e. Prove the empirically impossible.

We all know that a white horse is a horse as is any other color horse. Because color is a subservient attribute to species. But in the language that Kung Sung Lung spoke it was possible to prove otherwise. He used language (dialectic) to defeat logic (or empirical reality).

It is taking advantage of these deficiencies in language that allow people to act, speak and think anti-Semitically but not be anti Semites. They have nuanced views on the subject. But people who have no opinion at all about Jews are anti Semitic, (There is no nuance in their view). Nuance allows a politician to claim that he didn’t realize doing personal business using company property, and premises, during working hours, is a bad thing. (Soliciting campaign contributions on government phones in his government office during working hours). Nuance is why an unborn baby is not a human being but in a matter of seconds it becomes a person. Nuance gives cover when a politician lobbies for a bank teetering on bankruptcy that her husband is a large stockholder in…

Twisting language to make the absurd seem plausible is the bailiwick of lawyers. (the modern incarnation of the ancient Greek sophists). That is why a sneak thief who cuts himself on a window, he broke, getting into a hose to rob it, gets millions of dollars from the lawsuit. But the guy’s legal bills, who invents delayed wipers, outweighs the settlement. Nuance is the side of the toast the butter is on… for lawyers. That butter is rendered from human flesh however.

For the rest of us it is a source of friction. A few examples include, higher taxes, more red tape, higher unemployment, lower wages, more off shoring of jobs and a generally higher stress level in society than would otherwise be. The extra costs associated with protecting a business, person or organization from lawyers is astounding. Much of the insurance industry is simply legal costs.

But to argue that this is a positive externality is spurious. As Bastiat said about the broken window. The economic stimulus from the broken window comes at a price. That price is, whatever other use that capital would have been put to, say… a new pair of shoes. So the window maker gets a windfall at the expense of the cobbler.

What incentive does the lawyers butter set up in society? The incentive to rob homes. If you get trapped in the garage and have to subsist on Gatorade, for a week, until you are rescued by your victims, they owe you millions. Legally… How about the incentive to improve the lot of Mankind?

This butter for lawyers is a pernicious incentive to inventors and entrepreneurs. The rise of the legal oligarchy coincides with the fall of the entrepreneurial ethos. Using nuance lawyers undermine the ability of entrepreneurs to bring dynamism to markets. Stability benefit’s the wealthy Elite. (Old money).

The very dynamism that has led to the largest increase in the standard of living of the human race ever. In only four hundred years, since the invention, of the market system Humanity has gone from a state of perpetual want to a state of constant surplus. The industrial revolution itself would not have been possible if not for the market system.

So while it is nice to have a segment of society that has means. It is not in societies best interest to have that segment’s means come at the cost to dynamism in our markets. That insures we go from growth to contraction. No matter to lawyers… They make money in growth or contraction. People can be induced to fight over an ever smaller pie easier than an ever growing pie.

Nuance, it has it’s place… in History.

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Good Intentions are the Road To…

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that In all matters it is best if government use incentives instead of regulation. Incentives work universally. Regulation is bypassed universally.

Take the new banking regulation. While I haven’t read the 2000+ page bill I am no less ignorant of it than most (If not all) the people who voted for it. It seeks to move power to the Fed to regulate certain actions. But it is no different than the SEC. Remember the SEC who’s employees were looking at porn while the banking system burned? I have heard (on Bloomberg radio) the SEC as the most captured unit of government.

Industry capture is always an omnipresent pernicious force. It undermines the people’s trust in fairness of the financial system lowering GDP growth. Regulators, consciously or subconsciously, start to believe that their job is protecting the companies or industry they oversee, (an example of normalizing deviance), not protecting the consumer. This capture is especially prevalent where companies have access to huge amounts of capital and legal resources. They over awe the people who are tasked with keeping them honest.

But if the incentives are set up thoughtfully… I heard an excellent idea the other day. Unfortunately I don’t remember who said it but it was on Bloomberg Radio. He said that if banks or institutions grow beyond a certain size the amount of capital reserves would have to grow at a faster pace. Thus reducing the incentive to grow out of proportion. Basically like a transmission in a car.

In a transmission the ratio between the engine speed and the drive shaft speed changes given the gear ratio. In his idea the capital needed to be tied up unproductively as M1 money would change as the capital size of the corporation changed. An incentive like this would make growing too big to fail too expensive. The amount of capital needed to grow would make it more productive to spin off a division to handle a new opportunity. Reducing the risk to society if the new (or old) company fails.

Today there is no personal risk to management if a company were to fail that was too big to fail. The government would certainly step in to rescue them. In fact that in itself is a pernicious incentive to grow to be too big to fail. Once your company is too big to fail it will have a tacit free safety net. The precedent has been set on numerous occasions.

Regulation is always full of pernicious incentives. They are inevitable when extremely complex transactions are regulated. No person or group is omniscient. There will always be pernicious incentives when activity is regulated. No matter the activity.

The wise lawmaker keeps the law simple and thinks it through. A few years ago there was a spike in falls from aerial lift vehicles in the USA. The spike lasted a few months and the companies that were involved addressed the situation. (People not wearing their fall protection devices or lanyards). The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) stepped in.

They did millions of dollars of taxpayer funded research and decided that the answer was to shorten the length of the lanyard and increase the fine to companies that didn‘t comply. The fine was the same whether the wrong lanyard was worn or not at all. The incentive for the person using the aerial lift vehicle was not to use the new shorter lanyards because they are far more restrictive. So the incentives the new rules set up were pernicious. They undermined the solution to the actual problem. Which was, people not wearing their lanyards while operating aerial lift vehicles. The result was lower productivity from the employees, higher operating costs to implement the new rules, (buying the new equipment) and I bet not one more lanyard was connected than had been done after the companies involved had addressed the situation in house.

Results are irrelevant when government is involved. It is good intentions that counts. Regulation that produce the worsening of a situation requires more government intervention. It’s obvious. If the result of the new government intervention make things even worse, then it requires a cabinet post in the Executive branch…

Government’s ineptitude and outright corruption coupled with good intentions always result in more government. Regulation is simply the road to it…

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Individualism vs Egoism

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that when a millionaire ten times over says he or she will hurt the rich and help me… I know I am being lied to. Because for a rich person to hurt the rich violates human nature. They would have to hurt themselves. No one hurts themselves… No one. Unless they are mentally deranged. I hope not many of our lawmakers are mentally deranged… but their actions an the other hand…

John Kerry is a perfect example. He went to New Zealand to buy a 7 million dollar yacht. (Apparently he doesn’t like union workers in Massachusetts). Then he moored it in Rhode Island to avoid paying the five hundred thousand dollar sales tax bill and the seventy thousand dollar a year excise (luxury) tax, (that Kerry supports). Here is an example of a man who claims to help the poor by hurting the rich. I.e. Raising taxes on the rich. Apparently he doesn’t believe himself rich… People who have exponentially less money then him are rich. Their taxes are going up. But the billionaire is not.

The best part of this story is that a reporter asked Kerry; if he docked the boat in Massachusetts would he have to pay the Massachusetts tax then. Kerry responded, “It depends on who owns the boat.” [A very rare example of honesty in a lawgiver.]

The premise of this statement is that some people are subject to taxation and others are not. I ask you… What incentive does this set up in society? Where the people who set tax law are not held to that law? Is it likely, self interested, human beings will keep tax law fair if they are not subject to it? Of course not.

It is not human nature to hold the interests of others as high as one hold’s his or her own. In this instance Hsun Ching is correct that the congenital nature of Man is evil… Self centered. Philosophies that hold human nature to be wrong and force whatever the Elite believe, today, is “virtue” are flawed. To have at the core of a philosophy of ruling people a premise that is diametrically opposed to human nature is like building a gasoline motor and trying to run water in it. It is flawed. Not the motor… or the water… just that they will not work together.

Over and over we have examples of why people cannot self police yet we staunchly believe that the Elite will violate human nature. I.e. be un-self-interested. Even when we have grievous examples like the one above before us many say; “so what.” To them tomorrow is a white fog. Impossible to predict and mysterious as a Stephen King novel. I dare say too many people are of this persuasion. When the fruit of their nonchalance is visited on them they will lament that it was unforeseeable.

“How could this possibly have happened? I voted for the same people over and over but things never got better. They only got worse and worse.” is the lament of the willfully ignorant.

Another sophist argument that I hear and am dumbfounded at is that I personally have it ok now so why worry about the future. To make this argument and believe it a person must live in a one dimensional world. A point in time with no past no future, and no other possibilities then what is.

I love the way de Tocqueville called American individualism as opposed to egoism; “The doctrine of self interest rightly understood.” What a beautiful way to explain the truly civilized person. Someone who understands that sometimes we have to subordinate immediate gratification for long term gratification. To understand that self interest is intricately tied to societal interest. And that safe streets are in our own best interests. Of course the progressives are working to undermine this character trait in the American ethos.

The Elite are not held to the law in most places and times on the Earth. Their self interest need not be rightly understood. If they are not subject to a law will they give it the same scrutiny that they would if they were subject to it?

The modern Elite (progressives) seek to change people from individualists to egoists. Then the egoists will willingly forge the chains for the Elite and even bind themselves with them. Egoism is stupid self interest. It requires that one not think critically about our leaders. An egoist lives in a singularity. Egoism makes a person think a job flipping burgers is beneath him but being on the public dole is honorable. An egoist believes that the world owes him or her. An egoist calls another greedy because he doesn’t want to give more of his hard earned money to the lazy egoist but the egoist will scream like a scalded cat if a dollar of his money is missing.

By the way… did you hear about Barney Frank flipping out over not getting a senior citizens discount that he was not entitled to?

It cost him an extra dollar for the ride.

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Capitalism

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that there has always been capitalism. The market system may be a relatively new invention but capitalism is as old as humanity. From the first time Ug traded Grug a spear head for a dear head there has been capitalism.

The market system has it’s roots in the time just before Adam Smith. It was the invention of the factory and the division of labor factories brought about that made production cheap and of higher quality. These innovations along with a capitalistic ethos have made our modern society so prosperous.

Imagine if the Romans had discovered the market system. Today Humanity would be striding among the stars. But they didn’t. It was after the last gasp of Roman Civilization (about a century after the fall of Constantinople) that the market system was being born in Denmark. The market system has evolved and devolved in steps since then.

But capitalism is a consequence of mankind’s social nature. It is a fact of our sociability that we mingle and trade. Each getting a need met in the trade. The one a plow and the other funds to build another plow and to feed his family for the day. Each getting more than he had before in the trade. No matter if the product or service is a spear head or fiber optic service the result is the same. It is a win-win.

That is the driving force of capitalism. That we all win when we engage in it. The buyer gets a good or service that in some way enhances his life and the seller gets to make a livelihood. Both have a positive outcome from the transaction. The small personal gains translate to huge societal gains in the aggregate.

Taxation lowers the good for each person. Some profit is diverted from new production or personal wealth to government use. Or some good or service costs more than it otherwise would, The good is lessened by taxation. Regardless of the societal good gained by the service paid for by the tax. There is a cost to a tax.

It is a valid role of government to protect the persons and property of it’s citizens. To that end taxation is a necessary evil. But it is never stopped at that end. Taxes are like an unstoppable tide. They rise and rise until they have drowned economic progress. Then the lawmakers responsible lament the lack of economic progress. But more importantly… the Elite lament the lack of tax revenues. So they raise taxes more…

This is because; if taxation lowers the good to the point that it is equal to or greater than the positive effects from all transactions, transactions will only go on, “under the table.” Off balance sheet transactions become more and more prevalent, when government taxation or other interference in markets are too onerous, erasing the benefit of a free exchange transaction.

If, a country want’s to measure how much it’s interference in the markets effect their markets, they need only compare the size of the black market to the legal market. If there is almost no black market the government is doing a good job not interfering in the markets. If there is a large black market then the government must look into it’s policies else it will face poverty and hunger in the future.

Capitalism is like air. The level of economic activity being like the pressure… The positive outcome is like the oxygen in the air. You can have plenty of air pressure but if there is no oxygen, (Because of government interference) then you cannot breathe. But if there is plenty of oxygen but little pressure you can breathe… If labored.

In other words… Business can go on in a poor country if the government doesn’t, tax too much, impose unnecessary rules, licenses, or other ways governments cause friction in their markets. The profit motive is still there. Even though business conditions are poor. But when government makes doing business too expensive to make a profit…

The point being that government policies have a direct bearing on the state of their economies. To blame capitalism for poor performance is like knowingly depleting the oxygen in a closed room then blaming the inanimate oxygen itself for our shortness of breath…

… if you use rhetoric, like “capitalism is dead.” no one points out the idiocy of the statement, and I believe it…who‘s the fool?

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We Judge Others By Ourselves

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that people judge others by themselves. The best template we have to place others in is the one we ourselves have forged… And it is the one we know best.

That is why a thief is the most afraid of being stolen from. A liar always believes everyone is lying to them and an adulterer always is the most afraid of having someone cheat on them. It is in our nature. We all have faults and we project them on others.

That is one of the reasons that the uber rich are progressive if not actually communists. They believe that everyone is as heartless as they are. To them it is impossible to believe that another person would do a virtuous thing. Then turn around and do another. There has to be a catch. They themselves always have a hook. Basically they are the avatar of the man Thrasymachus and Nietzsche believed in.

Like Nietzsche’s book The Will to Power. (A dark book that chills the soul to read). Nietzsche is smart enough to know the tribulations en route and the end of the road that he proposes. Yet he goes ahead and proposes it. The path and the end is chaos. A state of perpetual war… man against man. Victory to the cleverest, strongest or most political. Mankind would very quickly shed the accoutrements that are given to us by our social nature. Like housing, ready access to food, transportation, heated homes, etc…

People of this ilk often become extremely rich. But not all extremely rich people are of this ilk, i.e. sociopaths. The ones that are however have the ability to sow much mischief in the world. Placing all mankind in the same box as themselves they can only see total government to curb mankind’s total greed. They have no concept that others have no desire for riches beyond what makes them comfortable. Beyond that to make one comfortable further riches only serve to gain more security. But at an acceleratingly diminishing rate of return. At some point the wealthy Neitzchian would get a better return, (in improvement in his or her lot in life), by investing it in science research. The security and improvement in the standard of living would accrue to him as well as society. And could possibly lengthen his or her life span.

What about Power? The ultimate goal of the self centered. Power rover others. Power to coerce action at another’s expense simply for the satisfaction of some whim. Like old king Di Xin, he, reportedly, had a pool filled with wine and ruled by his whim… Once Caesar and some friends were riding past a small filthy French town. His friends said to Caesar, “How would you like to live in such a wretched place?” To which Caesar replied, “I would rather rule there that serve in Rome.” Later Caesar overturned the Republican system that had served Rome well for most of a millennium.

If this is the template that you judge others by… Isn’t your view going to be skewed? If I am a self centered despot in waiting… I will think everyone else is too. When I get power I will gear my input on law to reflect my view of humanity. (Based on myself).

These are the Elite. The ten percent of any group that will take control. (The dross floats to the top). Rarely is someone put into power who did not seek it. Numa Pompey is the only one who comes to mind. (And that tale is probably more myth than reality). So When almost everyone who writes law is an utterly self centered, despot in waiting, is it hard to explain why we have law that is always written with an eye to serve some faction?

Lately every law, that is written and passed in the USA, is expressly for a faction against the overall good. Take the “Health Care overhaul”. It has as it’s purpose to redistribute wealth. From those that have health care to those that don’t. The actual reason the people don’t have it is never addressed. Except a background hum that they are poor. (The poor already had healthcare under Medicaid). Reality was never allowed into the debate.

The result will be much higher cost of healthcare for every American. Lower standard of care for normal Americans. A higher rate of structural unemployment… Among other negative effects. The Elite however will have no diminishments in their health care. They have a separate system. The rest of us are forced into the government “choices” by law. The Elite are not.

With Elitist theory, as I have explained, we can clearly see why…

But, I am told, there is no need of a NUMA.

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Progressivism and Education

Sunday, May 16th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the way our children are taught has a great influence on them in their adult lives. Education is a means to not only teach children to read, write and do arithmetic but is a means to civilize them.

American schools today have taken a new path. They have eschewed teaching reading, writing, arithmetic and logic and have replaced them with progressive propaganda. Anti American adjectives like imperialism are often used to describe the USA. These are definitions taken directly from the Manifesto of the Communist Party and anti American Soviet handbooks. The schools teach homosexuality and the mechanics of it. They teach that God is dead. One of their favorite lessons today is that the American Constitution is a living breathing document. What do all these new evil societal myths have in common?

They serve to demean the children. They all serve to make children believe that simply the color of their skin determines if they are good or evil. This is not a very inclusive philosophy. But it has always been the philosophy of the progressives. Propaganda to the contrary aside…

I watched a show on PBS today, Need To Know. The show had a long segment about the Texas school board’s revue of new textbooks. The thrust of the piece was that a few members are wrong and bad by trying to force their conservative view of society on the whole country. Because Texas buys so many textbooks that the whole industry caters to their needs and wants. The news story never mentioned if California or New York have a similar effect on the textbook industry… At least that angle was never explored. I wonder… Would California drag the industry further to the right or the radical left… And if that had any bearing on the coverage of California’s effect on textbook slant.

Of course a hit piece on a conservative in the unbiased media is proof of their lack of bias. The show, Need To Know, also talked about the Texas Freedom Network, an organization that monitors the right’s effect on school curriculum. Amazingly this progressive organization agrees with the unbiased PBS and thinks America should be characterized as imperialist. PBS didn’t mention if there are any organizations that monitor the left… Why would there be?

The unbiased media today use evolution as a straw man argument. They constantly hammer that people of faith are bad because they deny evolution. They equate evolution deniers to holocaust deniers. The argument is used to as a means to disqualify any argument made by the right whether or not evolution is brought up. If I argue that The United States has liberated almost as many people in the twentieth century as the communists have murdered… The left argues that I deny evolution. The unbiased media agree. And the argument is changed to whether or not I believe in evolution. It has become a tool of the progressives to change the argument.

Changing the subject is a underhanded way to keep an opponent in a debate off his feet. It is the job of a good moderator to keep arguers on point. But unfortunately with the media being so unbiased only the right is kept on point the left is given free reign to move the debate as they see fit.

What is the inevitable outcome of this? The lowering of debate. Which leads to keeping the people in the dark. Which leads to the lowering of the quality of decisions made by the American people. (Exemplified in the last election). Which leads to the lowering of the lot of the American people. Which leads to the lowering of the lot of all Mankind. Because, in this World, we are all economically connected .

As long as the progressives control, the media, education and both political parties, our fortunes will continue to go down. Only until we have a media that is actually unbiased instead of pretending to be unbiased will the cancer that is progressivism be exposed by the light…

Only foul things grow in the dark… Progressivism withers in the light…

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Apperances Trump Reality

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that people the world over, generations from now, will be paying for the poor decisions that the party in power in the United States are making. Decisions that will inevitably lower the lot of Mankind.

Not the least of which is the way the democrats and the administration deals with critics. A question about the costs of a given policy are answered by calls of racism. People who make legitimate policy points about the role of government are called, tea baggers, hate mongers, racists, Nazis, and other such vitriolic names by the unbiased media.

Look at the reporting of race baiting some Senators and Congressmen claimed were made by opponents of the health care bill. Utterly unsubstantiated, no video, no audio, in a place where every person there had a cell phone capable of recording the event. Yet reported as fact… without question.

Vilifying political enemies is old hat. But in the past in the US once a party is in power it lowers the rhetoric to maintain a sense of propriety. This group has taken political rhetoric into the gutter. The constant ad homonym attacks come like bullets from a gattling gun. They have taken it to the point where they even call opponents potentially violent. Intimating the use of the State monopoly on violence to their political end.

Like the arrests on the Hutaree. I hope and pray they are glistening turds. Because the alternative is so alarming. The arrests send a message to opponents. That message is, “You better watch out, we control the apparatus of power, and we are not afraid to wield it.”

The history of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first, teaches us that violence comes from the left… not the right. Look at Europe during their recent troubles, (any meeting of international leaders). Youths wearing communist red and carrying communist banners burned businesses and threw Molotov cocktails at riot police. How may times have you seen references to this behavior in the press. The unbiased media are loathe to focus on violent demonstrations that come from the left.

Earth First is a violent faction that is responsible for bombings and arson in the US. Millions of dollars of damage to business and infrastructure have been destroyed at their hands. William Ayres of the Weather underground is responsible for murdering a police officer in a terrorist attack… IN THE US! Yet he walks free, due to a technicality, and is a big supporter of President Obama. In fact the President announced he was running for the US Senate from Ayres home. Could Mullah Omar be released on just such a technicality?

Now if I associated with a known, admitted and unrepentant violent terrorist, society would shun me. I would be ineligible for political office. I would be watched and monitored by the FBI. If, God forbid, I got mad and ranted on a tapped phone line I would do such and such. I would be arrested just like the Hutaree. Yet the American people have elected a president that is exactly such a man (is best friends with an American home grown terrorist). Lets file this under, no way that could go wrong… like setting off a cherry bomb in your underwear.

The unmitigated expansion of government, the party in power proposes, is staggering. The last bill they passed is the biggest intrusion in the personal lives of it’s citizens the US government has ever made… (and withstood constitutional muster). But what they have done is the tip of the iceberg. What they want to do is alarming. They want to set up nothing short of a command and control economy. They know once an entitlement is started it is never stopped. Like the Mohair subsidy, (for World War One uniforms).

Some people might be thinking, “Too bad for Americans.” But, think of this. If the American economy’s growth slows a mere 1%. (And that is the best case). That translates into slowed growth for the rest of the world on the order of 1%. If this is the case that slowed growth will lower the income of people for the next few generations and possibly for eternity. Cumulatively a small drop in GDP growth over time is what made Argentina go from parity with US citizens in 1900, change to the Argentinean citizens personal GDP of $7,508.00 to the US Citizen’s $46,716.00 (measured in US dollars) in 2009. This small difference in GDP growth compounded over a century has amounted to this wide disparity.

Imagine the choices of the party in power in the US will amount to this same drop in the growth of the world economy. Not only the great grand children of US citizens will be greatly harmed but those of the African, European, Asian and South American will be harmed as well.

But… he does speak well… and he got a Nobel Prize.

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Meritocracy

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that, as Time Magazine once said, Merit is the only real measure of a man. Most in the USA would agree that merit is a good scalar (yard stick) to measure people. It is the basis of the American Meritocratic system.

Aristocratic systems as we see in modern Europe and elsewhere are striated. They have more rigid hierarchy and less class mobility. Merit is a minor attribute in the greater scheme. Birthright is higher on the social scale of value. Not only in aristocratic systems, but in other, more popularly known as populist systems. Some people argue, (in these “populist” systems), that some groups have been discriminated against and so they should get preferential treatment… Essentially making these groups aristocrats (on some level). These are non meritocratic systems.

Other societies assign different values to different attributes. Some systems give great value to the elderly. This can be said to be a kind or type of meritocratic system (Meritocracy). The elderly contain a vast reserve of wisdom, those that hold the elderly to have value, have access to that reserve. To always rely on the written word is to blind oneself for that sake of it. Others assign great value to military achievement, still others value piety as the highest good. These are said to be the “Societal Myths” of these societies. And represent forms of merit.

Merit implies earning a given reward, position, accreditation, job, etc… To merit something is to have earned it by giving some good for it. When something is earned common usage implies that the earning was done by the “sweat of the brow.” Not taken from a plebian because he has no rights and the other has rights.

Aristocracy (class based) or Caste systems have within their societal myth that the goods of society are earned by virtue of one’s birth or status. Merit reverses this by saying that, to justly deserve a good, it must be earned by “the sweat of one’s brow.”

The sweat of ones brow can mean many things. The obvious would be to fashion a product from some primary input such as a stone. Less obvious means are to invent and record something or simply to facilitate it’s being fashioned. The good in question need not even be a thing… It could be a thing, but it could also be a good like an idea, fidelity, fecundity, or a service.

So we see that merit depends on the society in which we live. The definition of which can be fluid. But the overriding theme that runs through all societies is the idea that to merit something one has to have done something to earn it or have some natural talent to merit it. Systems that give value to birthright, party status, place in a tribe, etc are non meritocratic.

The argument against meritocracy is always the same. That some people have fewer marketable talents than others so that inequality will result in any meritocracy. To make this argument it is necessary to ignore the historical fact that, no system, ever devised by man, actually resulted(s) in equal in outcomes.

I say that, who cares how equal everyone is, if we are all starving, or how unequal, if the poorest among us are overweight. I would rather live in the unequal nation where the poorest have plenty than the one where we are all starving. Especially because I know we won’t all be starving… The Elite will have plenty. It is the masses that will always go without. No system is truly equal. Some just claim to be as a sophist way of getting power.

I hold that it is in fact America’s meritocratic system that has not only raised the lot of the American people but the lot of all mankind as well. If other countries and nations adopted America’s meritocracy, as well as some other American traits, starvation on Earth would be eradicated in less than a generation.

Lets just face it… to be anti meritocratic is to be lazy.

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Posted in Group Politics, Societal Myth, philosophy, polictics of class envy | No Comments »

Unbiased Journalists

Sunday, October 25th, 2009

Dear Friends,

It seems to me that the modern definition of media bias depends on your perspective.

What is media bias? There seem to be several definitions. Everyone who finds a media story that portrays them in a negative light believes it is slanted. Some people believe that media stories that include certain information to be slanted. Others believe that media stories that allow certain points of view to see the light of day are slanted.

Every definition depends mostly on the point of perspective of the opiner’s. The merits of this or that argument is superfluous. The perspective of the viewer is paramount. An example is the Chris Mathews Show today.

Chris Mathews emphasizes he is a journalist and had three other journalists on his show today. They all had the exact point of view regarding Obama’s attack on Fox News. They all agreed that it was Fox News that is being unfair to the President. They also chortled at the unbiased journalist Chris Mathews calling everyone on his right and those at Fox News “wing nuts.” Chris was also incensed that Palin would use a teleprompter! (Apparently no other presidential candidate has ever used one before). Chris’s unbiased reporting went on, when Palin’s book was brought up as a best seller, he mentioned that it was ghost written. Apparently from his demeanor Chris Mathews finds ghost writing a book extremely distasteful.

Andrew Sullivan (who claimed to be a conservative… but has absolutely no conservative viewpoints) claimed Mitt Romney will say anything… To what end? He didn‘t elaborate. Andrews the conservative also claimed that McCain picking Sara Palin was wrong, because it was caving to the right wing. (of which he claims to be part of). But Mostly he purports that Obama’s best forte is his ability to let the right wing destroy themselves. By giving them enough rope.

Kathleen Parker said that, in the republican party, publicly, the belief is that Sara Palin could win the Whitehouse, But privately…(Read Elite), the belief is, she cannot.

The most interesting point was by Helena, (they didn’t put her name or credentials on the screen), when she said that right wing media makes republicans look more centrist. I wonder if she even gets a whiff of the irony in what she was saying as an unbiased journalist?

Unfortunately Dan Rather was incoherent. He came out with sophist statements like “The megaphone of right wing media outweighs them.” Of course he is the only one on the panel who has been caught fabricating evidence, then reported it as fact, just before an election… So he can be certified an unbiased journalist.

So… if this is the case, how can we ever rectify the term media bias?

Like a carpenter uses a chalk line to find a straight line we need to use, find or develop tools to find the straight in “news” as well. Many tools exist now but are only selectively used. Ad Homonym attacks like wing nuts show a perspective that is not in keeping with actually being unbiased.

Rhetoric is effective at moving a crowd but appeals to emotion… not to logic. Political philosophers have made the determination that government must run on logic not emotion. To do otherwise is folly. Every mischief will follow. So empty rhetoric is not a fair tool to use to make a point. Phrases like “The megaphone of right wing media outweighs them.” are good examples of this sophistry.

Changing the subject is another sophist means of redirecting a discussion away from a loosing point. Things like when a book is on the best seller list the author is denigrated instead of pointing out some flaw in the logic of the book.

Many other rules exist regarding just discussion of a subject… Regrettably the unbiased media demonstrates knowledge of none of them.

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