Bad Repetitions

I do not view the financial collapse as a partisan issue--at least, not in its origins (its results are a different matter because the Democrats are likely to use it as an excuse for a binge of socialization programs). The basic problem is that no one in a position of power seemed to consider what might happen if the largest bubble in world history did what all other bubbles have done in the past: collapse. The Fed, the Treasury, the White House, the major banks should have recognized that a collapse on this unexampled scale could cause systemic risk. The first responsibility of the government in its regulation of financial markets and banks is to prevent systemic risk. Instead, the government, in many different ways, each reinforcing the other, virtually invited the risk. To compound the disaster financial institutions that were too big to be allowed to fail underwrote risks that could lead to their failure, unless the government bailed them out.

 

And in the end those individuals who are most culpable, who led these institutions, both public and private--will walk. They seem to have performed the trick of achieving power without bearing accountability. Under such a system the capacity to deter a repetition of these events does not exist.

The Rock and the Hard Place

I count this a clear and ugly summary of our prospects in Afghanistan, and some implications for the region. I especially like the anecdote about the illiterate retards we're trying to train up to fight the insurgents. How long do you think we can continue to fight against an enemy which renders itself unbeatable by taking shelter behind the border of one of our supposed allies and for a narco-state that has neither the resources nor the moral conviction to defend itself? http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1865730,00.html?iid=sphere-inline-sidebar   The Muslims of the world have the most to lose from a failure in the struggle to contain terrorism. After all, the most cost effective way to do this, from the perspective of rest of the world is to contain all the Muslims of the world within a certain prescribed geographical range--and then ensure that they are deprived of the technological capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction. At that point all their terroristic impulses would merely be implosive, and the rest of us could shed the nihilistic drag we currently bear.

Warmed Up Buffoonery

Chapter XXVII: Wherein the Faithful Don Quixote de la Craken Once More Mounted His Magnificent Steed and Sallied Forth to Battle the Wild Phantoms of Other Men's Imaginations

 

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

 

This is not a very coherent piece of work. It's rather hackish, actually. One finds not only deliberately misleading quotes, bad grammar, no sign of proofing--but also, poor organization, no clear thesis, no paraphrasable conclusion. Thus, from the outset, given these formal deficits, it does not appear that the authors expect a serious reception. They certainly do not deserve one.

 

Unfortunately, due to the irreducible complexity of this issue, both those who essentially agree with the IPCC reports and those who propose alternative interpretations of the scientific data have descended into oversimplified rhetoric when discussing climate change in the popular press. Oversimplification is also, to various degrees, falsification. An issue of this complexity is not susceptible to soundbites, nor to live debates, nor to superficial newspaper articles and editorials. All of these conduits transform the underlying information into mere rhetorical displays and political peacocking--yet, what pitiful percentage of the population could even attempt to understand the gross and scope of the climate system (including its feedback mechanisms), the scientific process, the national and international political machinations, the economic calculations, the technological realities and potentialities, the environmental risks, the response of pathogens, the social and psychological adaptations to the realities of all these things and to the images of all these things that actually settles in the mind of the common man?

 

But, now I must set off on my next adventure, before Sancho's island kingdom is deluged by the swollen oceans. Therefore, I commend you to the capable Senor Romm, who provides a more thorough and particularized response at this blog:  http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/11/inhofe-morano-recycles-long-debunked-denier-talking-points-will-the-media-be-fooled-again/#more-4413

The author has the scientific and experiential qualifications necessary for analysis.

By Indirections

find directions out--   Herein lies a feminist rant, which achieved the opposite of its goal, at least in my case:   http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/09/opinion/09hirshman.html?_r=1   She wished to persuade us of the worthiness of women workers, of the contribution they might make to Obama's job program, and of the necessary justice of a tilt in its balance. However, she only succeeded in reminding me how little the female side of the ledger really adds to the economic numbers. For example, men invent virtually everything--and do almost all the difficult and dangerous work. The vast majority of women, whatever their formal titles may be, function as (mostly overpaid) babysitters, nurses, and secretaries. Now, which sex do you think clawed its way out of the Stone Age--and which one continues to propel the economy, and not only the economy, forward? All science, mathematics, technology was created and produced by men; also, all philosophies and religions and cultures, these great civilizing influences in history, were imposed upon the world by men. Women do not evidence the necessary levels of curiosity, ambition, passion, commitment, or talent to generate the major contributions in these areas. Is it possible then that they deserve equal compensation? But, wouldn't equal compensation, under such conditions, mean unequal treatment? "One law for the lion and the ox is not justice."   In the end, feminists have succeeded in reinventing misogyny--first, they deprive the female of half her charms, then they aggressively expose her to unfavorable comparisons with the opposite sex in an environment natural to him but not to her, and, finally, having diminished her strengths and emphasized her weaknesses, these deluded ideologues then want to claim for her a privilege she never possessed even in the past, before her power was foolishly squandered--equality? What? Do they think themselves illusionists to try to foist upon us ideas that betray both sense and reason?   And to think that the Republican party should have such weak and weak-witted enemies as these--and then suffer inglorious defeat to them--   Only the decadence of the age can explain such folly.

Affirmative Action Numbers

Here's some hard evidence on the huge qualifications gap between white and black law school applicants--which gap leads ineluctably to the bar passage gap discussed in the last post:

"In the 1996-1997 admissions cycle, some 2,646 white applicants placed in the top 7.7 percent of LSAT-takers and had college GPAs of 3.5 or better. These credentials are very good, obviously, but not phenomenal; the average student who was admitted to Boalt Hall this year had an LSAT in the 97.7 percentile and a GPA of 3.74. And yet a mere 16 African Americans in the United States and 45 Hispanics had records that strong! In this elite group of applicants, whites outnumbered blacks 165 to one. If we relax the standard substantially and look at students in the top sixth (83.5 percentile or better) on the LSATs and a GPA of only 3.25, 7,715 whites and just 103 blacks qualify. In this broader elite, there were 75 whites for every African American." (See Diversity and Meritocracy in Legal education: A Critical Evaluation of Linda F. Wightmans's "The Threat to Diversity in Legal Education."; Response to Linda F. Wightman, New York University Law Review, vol.72, p. 1, 1997 Constitutional Commentary March 22, 1998).

The differences are even more astounding when you consider that many self-identified blacks and hispanics are actually mixed race (like Obama). Adjusted for the difference in the sizes of the white and black populations in America that 165 to 1 still comes to 30 to 1. If there were as many blacks in America as whites, there would still be 30 times as many highly qualified whites as blacks. This is obviously not a convenient fact socially. Inequality creates tensions and affirmative action is imposed by the elites to keep the people pacified. They will use this strategy for so long as it produces pacification. Of course, if it ever ceases to work, instead of treating the symptoms of pathology (racial inequalities in achievement levels), they might then adopt measures to treat the pathology itself (lower black IQ).

I've drawn up a rough statistical comparison of LSAT scores by ethnicity extrapolated from numbers from this report: Law School Admission Council, LSAT Technical Report 98-04, March 1998. The most recent scores are virtually identical to those in this report. The left hand column is LSAT scores, the numbers in the next 4 columns represent the percentage of each ethnicity who equalled or exceeded the matching score. 

median	152	151	146	142
SD	9	10	9	8
LSAT Scores	White	Asian	Hispanic	Black
142	86	84	70	50
143	84	82	65	45
144	82	79	60	40
145	79	76	55	35
146	76	73	50	30
147	73	69	45	26
148	69	65	40	22
149	65	60	35	19
150	60	55	31	16
151	55	50	28	13
152	50	46	25	10
153	45	42	22	8
154	40	38	19	6
155	35	34	16	5
156	31	31	13	4
157	28	28	10	3
158	25	25	8	2
159	22	22	7	1.7
160	19	19	6	1.4
161	16	16	5	1.1
162	13	13	4	0.9
163	10	11	3	0.7
164	8	9	2	0.5
165	7	8	1.7	0.3
166	6	7	1.4	0.2
167	5	6	1.1	0.1
168	4	5	0.9
169	3	4	0.7
170	2	3	0.5
171	1.7	2	0.3
172	1.4	1.7	0.2
173	1.1	1.4	0.1
174	0.9	1.1
175	0.7	0.9
176	0.5	0.7
177	0.3	0.5
178	0.2	0.4
179	0.1	0.3
180		0.2

Only half of LSAT test takers actually go to law school and these attendees tend to be in the top half of each ethnicity's scoring distribution. This means that a 163 will place a white in the top 10 percent of test takers, but only about the top 18-20 percent of law students. Given that 152 is the median white score, it's fair to assume that few whites with sub-152 scores attend law school. So 152 is effectively the minimum expected from white applicants as far as admissions officers are concerned. If this minimum were imposed on blacks, just 10% would make the cut at any law school. About 15% of law students attend top 20 schools, which are those with nationwide reputations and prestige. This corresponds to a minimum LSAT of 165 for whites and asians. Only 0.6% of black law students score that high. On merit, they would represent less than 0.1% of the student populations at top 20 schools--in reality they are closer to 7%. A 70 to 1 ratio of charity cases to merit cases is impressive. This is a religion forbidding doubts. The black minimum score, then, is 156 at these schools--a full standard deviation below the white minimum. Of course, this makes sense insofar as the median black score on the LSAT is a standard deviation lower than the white median. Coincidentally, the black-white IQ gap has stood at a standard deviation for generations. The education system in this way achieves a superficial unity at the expense of fundamental inequality, de facto and de jure.

On merit, blacks would run to 0.25% of students at the top 50 law schools (which combined graduate a third of law students). And the study quoted at the top of the post estimated that, depending on the predictive model used, between 2% and 3.4% of all law students would be black if admissions were color-blind. Her methodology is quite generous to blacks. To estimate race-blind admissions rates she looked only at LSAT scores and undergraduate GPA. The thing is, white students at any given college have higher IQs than their black peers (due to undergrad affirmative action). I guarantee that people with higher IQs are more likely to take difficult classes than lower IQ people. Result: white and black GPAs are not comparable. An "A" in precalculus hardly carries the same signification as an "A" in multivariable calculus. She certainly overestimates the black representation that would be expected from a more thorough merit-based admissions process. But, even if you accept an average of her numbers, 2.7% is much lower than the 13% of the American population blacks represent. It's a 5 to 1 shortfall. This exactly matches my statistical estimates in the table above: if blacks had to meet the white minimum of 152 to get into any law school, only 10% would make it, compared to 50% of whites. This is slightly misleading, though, since only 10% of test takers are black and my table is based on test takers, not population numbers. By my numbers, 10% of the 10% of test takers who are black would make it--which means they would compose 2% of law students, a 6.5 to 1 shortfall.

The analysis I've done here showing the effect of affirmative action on law school admissions applies in similar fashion to undergrad admissions and admissions to any competitive graduate or professional programs. They are all based, to a significant degree, on pure (eg, SAT, LSAT) and applied (GPA, courseload) cognitive ability. The IQ differences between groups predicts to a high degree of accuracy, as shown above, the academic qualifications that characterize each ethnic group. I do not think most Americans have any notion of the magnitude of the assistance given to affirmative action cases. Even supporters of this racial strategy might be privately grieved by it. My purpose here was to pull out a variety of numbers to give some perspective on the issue.

The Wages of Corruption

Our government mandated racism provokes blowback in all sorts of ways that the PC crowd could never (allow themselves to) imagine. For example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/13/weekinreview/13liptak.html
A key figure from this is that 4% of white law school graduates never pass the bar. For black law grads, the number of those who never pass the bar is 22%. That is a shocking contrast and, for the many, many blacks who cannot pass, it is a tragic waste of time and money.

Here's the problem: black law applicants with the best credentials match places like Ohio State or American (ranked 30-50), but, because of affirmative action, instead go to Harvard or Yale (the top ranked programs). Those blacks who fall just short of this top group have qualifications like those at schools in the 50-80 range, but get accepted to schools in the 4-10 range. This continues down the line until you have the least competitive law schools accepting the best black students that higher ranked schools have not snapped up. These students fall short of the white students at their schools just as blacks at Harvard fall short of white Harvard students. Unfortunately, the whites at low ranked schools can barely pass the bar themselves--their less qualified black peers have even more trouble, and frequently cannot pass even with multiple attempts. So the problem starts at the top, though it is not obvious there since the black Harvardeers (being Emory level students) pass the bar at high rates.

The solution is to either end affirmative action, leaving the top 20 programs with virtually no black students and even the top 50 with about 1% blacks, or to somehow prevent the bottom third of law programs from admitting blacks whose qualifications demonstrate they are highly unlikely to pass the bar--which would leave the bottom third bereft of black students. This would theoretically be simple since there is a close correlation between LSAT scores and bar passage rates. Today these ill-fated blacks are not even informed of their odds. At a minimum, they ought to be provided information they can understand on this issue prior to committing to 3 years of law school. The socialists will no doubt reject all my proposed remedies. I'm a threat to their holier-than-thou hypocrisies, and the religion of PC has no mercy on apostates or heretics.

Safeguards against Tyranny

The recent Boumedienne opinion from the Supreme Court corrects another folly of the Bush regime: holding captive men who were suspected of being terrorists or combatants with no proof that they were such. This means that some dangerous individuals are likely to be released due to insufficient evidence against them, which is a price we can and must pay. Sometimes there is evidence that they had planned to become combatants (letters or email messages saying so, for example). Practically, it is difficult to find sufficient evidence in many cases; and a further difficulty arises in the form of evidence that may be decisive, but threatens national security if provided to the court.

However, the Bush administration's solution of arbitrarily imprisoning anyone who in their unsupervised and unaccountable opinion might pose a risk to America is not a defensible proposition--as the Supreme Court finally indicated. Without this judicial check upon executive authority we give the President the option to exercise tyrannical power. In fact, this is the very definition of tyranny: unchecked executive authority. Contra Bush, we must exchange this exacerbated risk of tyranny for the certain contingency of facing some of the released prisoners on the battlefield. Of course, a further benefit to doing justice is that a competent public relations machine will ensure that we are also seen to be doing it.

I would define my position as intelligence reinforced by skepticism, spiced with some misanthropy. I do not trust our government; nor do I trust the people running it. I never have and I never will. Consequently, I favor the imposition of transparency and accountability upon government actions and agents whenever this is practical.

Some might reject the Court's decision as too charitable to our enemies. But, in terms of altruistic sacrifice for our principles--is it simply altruism? By flaunting its brutality and injustices, the Bush administration encourages anti-American sentiment around the world, and even at home. This costs lives, and not only money and power. Apparently, the critics adopt a more cynical perspective on this issue and assume that our actions and our image in the world have no impact upon this anti-American sentiment. I am not so pessimistic as to believe that we have no control over international perceptions of America. And such perceptions, among our allies and our enemies, absolutely matter. They matter economically, militarily, politically, culturally--and their importance increases apace as the world becomes ever more interconnected and interdependent.

Romney on Detroit

His prescription runs counter to mine, and he fails to answer my main objection to bankruptcy: it will frighten off too many customers for the automakers to survive. Otherwise, he makes an intelligent argument. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/19/opinion/19romney.html?_r=1&hp

The Question of Climatic Certainty

I've long said that the climate system is only partially understood--and, due to the complexity of it, the number of unknown variables and unknown interactions among them--it will never be fully understood. Mathematical theory makes it sufficiently clear that some problems are insoluble. This is one of them. But, finding the precise answer and estimating an approximation to it are different challenges. The former will never be possible, since it is prevented by mathematical laws (which tend not change)--however, an approximation appears to be possible even now. On climate change, thousands of scientists have invested several decades of effort to generate these approximations. In response, we ought to undertake such actions as are justified by their assessed accuracy and by the risk level they foretell.

Detroit's Sinking Fleet

The best option to handle the Big Three would probably be for the federal government to negotiate serious concessions in return for some type of bailout. Those concessions would include major environmental advances (higher fuel economy, recyclability of vehicles, intensified research, possibly obligations to pursue other transportation priorities like electric streetcars), new management (preferably a combination of private equity managers, venture capitalists, and engineers), a non-voting equity stake for the government, renegotiation of the union contract to bring their wages down to market-competitive levels (along the lines of Reagan's negotiation with the air traffic controllers' union). Bankruptcy would cause major defections to other automakers to avoid the risk of owning a car made by a defunct company (which would kill resale value and increase repair costs). Bankruptcy would be a circle sufficiently vicious to kill off at least one or two of them. This would accelerate and perpetuate the recession to little positive purpose.

Biden the Clown

We've had a lot of politicians with communication issues recently. Biden talks faster than he can think, Bush gets lost in the forbidding jungles of English syntax, Slick Willy lies compulsively, Obama pauses to emit at least 3 ahs or ums before he can finish a given sentence, Palin has such poor apprehension of rhetorical evasions as to provide the public with several clear views of her ignorance, and McCain was once so naive as to actually try to tell the truth while running for public office.

Ergo, either the talent tends to avoid politics or in politics the scum rises to the top.

Health Costs

The fundamental problem in the health system is a gross misalignment of incentives. Neither the patient nor the doctor directly bears the burden of the medical expenses they incur. Consequently, their incentive to minimize the expense, or at least to recognize the notion of a cost-benefit trade-off, is heavily diluted. The failure to recognize a cost-benefit paradigm by juries at malpractice trials also distorts incentives and causes doctors and patients to demand too many medical services. Socialization will not correct this incentive issue; instead of a better alignment of incentives, it will only create a different misalignment.

Given the pace and nature of technological advance in this field (which is the prime cause of the vast increase in health costs) over the last few decades, assuming technology fails to provide any significant countervailing trends that reduce costs (eg, automation), America is on a path to becoming a well-armed nursing home.

But, we should bear in mind that we are by far the greatest source of innovation in this tremendously important field. And a vital part of this competitive advantage is clearly attributable to the element of private sector profit-seeking. This innovation benefits America enormously and its influence in the world is actually one of the greatest practical forms of American philanthropy. The two primary costs of socialization (and financial realities make this virtually inevitable sometime in the next 20 years) that we should seek to minimize are the diminution of personal liberty and the slow death of the culture of innovation.

Redefining "Dignity" and "Pride"

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/31/business/31men.html?adxnnl=1&pagewanted=all&adxnnlx=1318172581-aGaU9McISvTHvJDEZTsZDQ

This article is actually from a couple of years ago, pre-recession. But, the trends it gets into are multi-decade in nature. The mystery under examination is the huge number of American men, age 30-54, who do not work, even in a period of 4% unemployment. Fully 13% do not work, some of whom are looking, most of whom are not.

It's useful, first, to separate those looking for work (unemployed) from those not looking (idlers). These are clearly distinct categories. The unemployment figures are well-known; the number of idlers is a more interesting issue. From the numbers in the article and supporting data provided, the trend toward increased idlers was mostly gradual in the 50s, 60s, and 80s. In the 70s, 90s, and 00s it increased rapidly. Approximate number of idlers in each year:

1968: 3%
1980: 6%
1990: 6%
2000: 7.5%
2005: 8.5%

Unfortunately, the stats (on race, education, income) the Times provides do not distinguish between unemployed and idlers--an idiotic misstep. After all, the point of the article is to investigate the mystery of increasing idleness.

Some percentage of the idle work off the books at any number of casual, temporary, informal, or illegal jobs. Mostly, this type of thing is ill-paid and irregular. The main inducements to idleness are likely disability and Medicare benefits or a wife who takes up the slack with her income. A third of the unemployed and idlers have $50k+ household income--either they have significant financial resources or spousal income.

Given that the federal disability program increased its charity cases from 3 to 6.5 million from 1990 to 2005--it's fair to say it's being gamed by millions. This was a time period when jobs were becoming less strenuous and dangerous and population only grew 15%. The problem is that neither the Social Security bureaucrats nor the administrative law judges, who determine whether someone qualifies for disability payments, have an incentive to ensure a fair decision. They take the easy way out--approval (sometimes after appeals of the initial decision) for almost everyone who applies for this charity. No doubt many more will suddenly become disabled during this recession.

The racial breakdown for these men (unemployed and idlers), somewhat disguised by the statistical presentation the Times chose, is thus:

White:     11.5%
Black:      27%
Hispanic: 13%

The blacks are a special problem, as in so many other areas of life. Their excessive rate reflects various causal factors: a high rate of criminality, residence in areas with few jobs, poor education and training levels, the alternative appeal of criminal activity (esp drug dealing), the collapse in black America of the tradition of men supporting women and children, habituation to the low income/welfare dependency lifestyle.

A Republican in Name

I think in the end those who should be most pleased with the Bush administration and its consequences are the Democrats. Bush (and the congressional peons who enabled him) has inflicted more damage to the Republican party than anyone since Nixon--though Nixon was more competent in certain respects, he was probably still worse than Bush in a total accounting. It must be recalled that Nixon got a lot of people unnecessarily killed in Vietnam, that he was an extremely aggressive regulator, a most enthusiastic socialist, an architect of race-based selection in America, an inept manager of the economy, a totally cynical politician, and, of course, Mr. Watergate. And his timing was wonderful too, continuing the disastrous momentum built up by LBJ. Bush was simply never energetic enough to do as much long term damage as these catastrophists. All that now remains for Republicans is to wait, and hope that the Democrats blow their chance at once again building up the kind of political dominance that FDR created for them after Hoover's failed regime. In any case, it looks like the Republicans are in for a long period of reflection on the mistakes of the last 8 years.

On the Nature of Evil

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html A solid talk. Conclusion: some few are actively evil, some few actively good--and the great majority are born followers; they will follow whoever happens to be the established leader, be he good or evil--because they are either incapable of independent thought or have no moral courage. But, his evidence, examples, and analysis are worth hearing (and seeing) for their own sake.

The Affirmative Presidency

Now, if Obama did not slide into Columbia and Harvard Law by "affirmative" means, he might heretofore have released his academic records. Virtually every black in attendance at those schools is an affirmative action case. This is well established. There is no reason to believe that Obama constitutes an exception in this regard. This means if he weren't "black" he probably would not have made it into a top twenty school for undergrad or law--much less the top five Columbia and Harvard. Yet, I merely infer probabilities from available statistical information on these matters. Obama'a academic records could prove him the highly improbable exception to these inferences. One indicator of his intellect is that he never, as a law professor at a top five law school, actually published anything. This is extremely unusual, a flagrantly inadequate contribution. I see no sign anywhere that there is any substance to this man. He's smoke and mirrors. He presents as the sort of black man the liberals have long been desperate to believe they could bring to life--yet he's nothing, nothing in himself, only a collective liberal dream-delusion of a dreamer.

Health Care Realities

I posted this response to a Krugman editorial that denounced McCain's health care policy proposal (which seems to be based on salutary market principles, but appears highly questionable in practice):

There is a fundamental distinction between health care and other sectors of the economy. The great majority of Americans will not in practice or in theory accept the appearance of unequal health care between the rich and the poor. In virtually every other area there is acceptance of this inequality, even in education. And, since the affluent demand a high level (ie, an expensive level) of care, the rest of society expects to receive a level of care reasonably comparable. This means health care will be very expensive and a significant part of society will be unable to pay the true price of their health care. Consequently, the affluent subsidize the less affluent through various government programs and in a number of other less visible ways (like free care for the indigent in emergency rooms).

 

The republican party notices this final result and denounces the economic unfairness of such redistribution and its economic inefficiency (stemming from lack of incentive to reduce medical costs on the part of those who do not pay for them). The democratic party notices that care is not in fact perfectly equal (though it is much more nearly equal than income)—and it denounces the unfairness of unequal treatment and its economic inefficiency (due to relatively limited preventive care available to the poor, which causes health problems to be ignored until they become serious and expensive).

 

McCain’s solution is absolutely irrelevant because it will never pass Congress. Why even analyse it?

 

But, Obama’s plan takes on a special signifance because the democrats will control Congress. One element not in his plan is any credible attempt to limit the increases in health care costs as a whole. This is the essential problem: health care absorbs 16% of GDP, and health costs grow much faster than GDP. Instead, Obama wants to shift around the costs by forcing productive members of society to pay yet another subsidy to unproductive (or less productive) members of society. The health sector is already massively redistributive (government pays, directly or indirectly, for 60% of total health costs), and Obama’s plan would probably have only a modest impact in increasing the level of redistribution. But, the underlying problem of cost is not addressed; it is entirely ignored. Yet, this is one of the major threats to our current position as the leading economy in the world—and also one of the principal reasons why median incomes in the U.S. have been flat for 30 years (it has consumed about half the gains that would have been realized through productivity growth).

 

 

The Two Stooges

An edifying quote, from Joe Biden, in the VP debate:

“When we kicked – along with France, we kicked Hezbollah out of Lebanon, I said and barack said, ‘Move NATO forces in there. Fill the vacuum, because if you don’t know--- if you don’t, Hezbollah will control it.’

“Now what’s happened? Hezbollah is a legitimate part of the government in the country immediately to the north of Israel.”

I recall that statement--and, yes, it was multi-level stupidity, inarticulate, inaccurate, misleading, absolutely absurd. Of course, Palin made no move to challenge him on it during the debate--something she could have done to great effect if she had the slightest notion of this part of history herself--but she does not. These two are jokes--but Biden looks better (as it were) due to media connivance in smothering his blunders and media connivance in highlighting Palin's.

Discovered: The Source of Bush's Self-Confidence

"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits."
-Albert Einstein

How to Prequalify for Financing

http://londonbanker.blogspot.com/2008/09/learning-from-rudi-bogni-thin-space-of.html
I found an article (embedded in the above blogpost) written by the CEO of UBS Private Bank, Rudi Bogni, a few months ago in Wilmotts. This is a man who famously responded to the derivatives-induced bankruptcy of Barings Bank in 95' by resigning his post as CEO of a Swiss bank to take a masters in applied mathematics--in order that he might actually be able to understand the derivatives that had now "become the financial market." He gives here a fairly common sense clarification of what conditions are necessary for the financial system to function properly. It is also, I might add, a relief to read something that was conceived at a salutary distance from the petty, ad hominem political squabbles about assigning blame to particular individuals. He approaches the question from a higher and broader conceptual level, and one can only hope that these notions which he expresses are comprehended by the political powers and financiers.

The Triumphs of Republicanism

Thinking about the role of the federal housing agencies in this financial collapse led me to wonder: have the republicans ever managed to extinguish a socialist or entitlement policy in the party's history? Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have always been harbingers of socialism. The republicans may be less complicit in their creation than the democrats, but why haven't they been killed? Why didn't the republicans do anything to restrain unions during their reign of corruption (2000-2006), when they controlled all 3 branches of the federal government. Oh, I forgot, that's because they were busy inventing a new entitlement. The republican party has not only failed to halt the encroachments of socialism, it has actively abetted this destructive trend. Reaganite populism may have revived the republican party, but this populist tendency has grown decadent and lost touch with its principles. What we now have in this country are two socialist parties: the socialist proclivities of the first range from rabid to merely shameless and of the second from complacent to actually conscience-troubled. Yet all submit to this levelling tendency, with its detrimental knock-on effects of contracting liberty and increasing pyschological (and not only psychological) dependence upon the government. 

More Power = Less Accountability

It is a fact that both the Clinton and Bush administrations worked to increase home ownership rates (which governmental interference also had the side-effect of accelerating the rate of home price inflation). The Byzantine manouevrings of Congressmen relevant to this issue I have only a general notion of--though Republican control for 12 of the last 14 years might lead to some inferences. The only way to increase home ownership rates in a short period of time is to persuade lenders to give loans to ever less qualified buyers. Consequently, risk built up over time and, since a real estate bubble had clearly developed (with house prices rising far faster than personal income), when prices began to decline the full shock of accumulated risks undertaken in the course of many years all hit at once. And these risks were undertaken by high risk buyers, by lenders, by investors in mortgage debt instruments, and by the federal government, which is ultimately responsible for overseeing the financial markets and for preventing, in particular, such a systemic threat as we now face. All of the above parties have suffered in some measure, even those who received bailouts.

 

This crisis was caused in the main by a failure of comprehension, a failure to exercise informed intelligence on the part of the federal government authorities--I mean incompetence in action at the SEC, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve, the White House, and in Congress. Note that no one has gone down for this disaster, not a single federal-level casualty to date. Shareholders have been wiped out, homeowners kicked out, workers and managers cleared out--but, the leaders and regulators, who should have had a global view of this problem, the only people in a position both to see the totality of the problem and to develop preemptive solutions to it--remain unscathed.

 

This is a cultural problem in America. Accountability is necessary for any institution to function effectively.

Japocracy

I cannot help but be pleased that this nation is in terminal demographic decline. What hopeless, disgusting cowardice and conformity they soak themselves in! They might even be more conformist than the Chinese. Result: there are no individuals in Japan, only an indistinguishable mass of insignificant people frightened by the possibility that by some misfortune or mistake they might actually become significant. There are no leaders, no innovators, no exceptional thinkers, no great artists--just the great mass of over-socialized, like-minded mediocrities. This is Zarathustra's nightmare in action. The extinction of individual consciousness, of individual importance, is nihilism and nothing else. This rant is brought to you courtesy of: http://www.physorg.com/news141643079.html

The Politics of Collapse

When it comes to the federal housing agencies and the housing policies that they facilitated, Bush mainly followed the example Clinton set with a bit more vigor. However intensively the republicans spin this, it will be seen as another failure for Bush and the party he has done so much to discredit.

If Obama can't win under these circumstances (unpopular wars, stagnant economy, worst financial crisis since Great Depression, housing collapse, unpopular republican president, superannuated opponent matched with neophyte assistant opponent), McCain will still find himself confronted with a Congress heavily stacked against him on most policies.

Big Brother's Pain

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/magazine/17pain-t.html?_r=1&oref=slogin Populists often complain that the government fails to exercise sufficient control over the people. Here I present a counter-example, an instance, among many, in which the government exercises altogether too much control and exercises it badly (that is, with a combination of stupidity and brutality). Also, the article itself is of such a quality that I should be inclined to include it in a nonfiction anthology, if I were to edit such a thing.   One striking aspect of this problem is that even such a powerful, and relatively intelligent and educated, constituency as doctors seems unable to reign in these vicious governmental incursions into their territory. I suspect this is partly due to the generally cavalier attitude of the "macho" medical establishment toward the problem of pain. The projected "machismo", of course, is laughable--and, fortunately, this superficial posturing may gradually fade as the female of the species overruns the profession. These doctors are cowardly conformists bowing to the half-wits who run the DEA and the quasi-fascist prosecutors who prefer to risk sending innocent men to prison rather than risk allowing guilty men to remain free.   I think this article makes it clear that much of the mismanagement of pain in this country is due to ignorance and prejudice. But, the government should not be in the business of managing pain in the first place. I think bureaucratic or judicial determination of the appropriate amount of pain a person should be forced to live with is far outside the bounds of government's proper sphere of action. The state should interfere only when someone inflicts harm upon another--not when (as in the case of a drug user) he might be inflicting harm upon himself. It is this type of tyrannical brutality that invites and justifies the existence of the black market, the mafias, the corrupt officials, and all the other people and organizations that effectively resist or subvert the government. The only thing that causes me to hesitate in my advocacy for this degree of liberty: the possibility that the sober part of the population will be burdened by the possible overbreeding of the heavy users (though I am not aware of evidence that this group is especially prone to procreation).

Bush and Obama

Apparently Bush recently adopted a new strategy that involves attacking targets in the Tribal Areas without Pakistani permission. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/11/washington/11policy.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin Didn't Obama get hammered by the right a few months ago for saying that he would do just this? I believe he said that he would attack a known Al Qaeda meeting in Pakistan even if the Pakistanis declined to approve the attack. Am I missing something here? These Tribal Areas seem analogous to N. Vietnam, with Pakistani military and intel leaders acting as China did in the Vietnam war. Both would be difficult to conquer by invasion, due to guerrilla activity and a landscape that supports such activity. Of course, the fact that the Tribal Areas are a part of Pakistan makes them even more problematic than N. Vietnam was. An invasion would surely provoke further support for the guerrillas by their state backers or even a direct confrontation with that state. But, without an invasion the cross-border attacks continue indefinitely and threaten the stability of their target. Unfortunately, American operations in the Tribal Areas will probably turn the Pakistani people against us and could destabilize Pakistan.

More Paternalism

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/us/09salvia.html?hp Salvia is a natural hallucinogen that causes intense psychedelic experience that lasts for 5 minutes. Florida recently made possession or sale of it a felony with a maximum prison term of 15 years. This really enters upon the territory of tyrannical overreach. It is insanely disproportionate to any threat to the citizenry--there's no evidence that anyone in Florida has ever harmed himself or anyone else under influence of this plant. It is not even considered addictive. The only hope of keeping it legal is to tax it promptly to give government a stake in its continued availability. This is why the legality of alcohol and tobacco are not threatened (despite the fact that they are far more deadly to their users and to non-users in proximity to users than salvia or marijuana). This illegalizing fetish of our governments is symbolic: it is one of many strategies employed to chip away, bit by bit, at liberty. We are ever more overwatched, regulated, classified, tracked, lied to, protected from ourselves, infantilized.   I've always been inclined to Jefferson's view: the tree of liberty must be fertilized per occasion with the blood of tyrants and patriots. Tyranny waxes all ways. The tree desiccates. Blood is wanted.

Republican Prospects

This is an analysis by an author at a conservative think tank. Basically, he explains how the Bush cabal has succeeded in shrinking and perverting the Republican party--also how his malign influence can be reversed in future. A cogent analysis I think, though he skips a few important issues and seems to underestimate the difficulty of bringing medical costs under control by any means short of draconian nationalization.     http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/magazine/07Inequality-t.html?em

100% Hybrid by 2020

This is a study by IBM in consultation with all the major car makers that concluded all new cars sold in 2020 will be, at least to some degree, hybridized. Also, they predict that 88% of the average vehicle will by then be recycled because automakers are taking the recycling priority into account when designing new vehicles so that they are cheaper to recycle. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/study-all-new-v.html

Interesting Social Proposal

http://www.aei.org/publications/filter.all,pubID.24092/pub_detail.asp This may not be an ideal solution, but the principles from which he derives his proposals are sound and it's far better than persisting with the status quo. This is what the Republicans should have been doing during the Bush administration on the domestic front--instead of inventing a new Medicare handout and letting a bunch of feminists pursue a Title IX inquisition into our best university science and engineering programs.

A Good Bush Policy

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/13/AR2008071301723.html I proposed this policy in my law school thesis as an important way of getting the developing world on board to achieve climate change mitigation. It should capture a lot of low-hanging fruit (ie, cheap ways to reduce emissions) and encourage a more conscious environmental ethos among third-world governments and businesses. Though modest in size and impact, it would at least make a good start in this area of mitigation. But, more important is the potential for it to create positive momentum on a number of levels: the sense of international equity, economic structure, technological dispersion, efficient allocation of emissions reductions.

Iran, Israel, America: A Lovers' Quarrel

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/18/opinion/18morris.html

This is a fairly plausible take on the situation as far as I can tell (lacking all the information on Iranian and Israeli capabilities). The qualification that occurs to me is that even Israeli nuclear strikes might fail to stop the Iranian program, unless the Israelis have adequate intelligence to work with on the key locations of the program. Perhaps the gravest threat posed by Iran’s strategy of nuclear escalation is the first strike incentive each side will perceive once the Iranians go nuclear.

Mossad clearly has the "advantage" of operating under a pressure of necessity that our intelligence services do not experience. They have long known, not just in an abstract sense, but in an absolutely visceral sense with whom they have to deal. I willingly grant that Mossad is more intelligent, superior technologially, more experienced, and, when required, just as ruthless as their foes--hell, they're ruthless enough to spy on us. But, Mossad also played a low-profile, and not particularly commendable, role in the intelligence gathering and analysis that led to the Iraq war. Their intel was wrong: Saddam bluffed the Israelis along with the rest of the world. Yet now they are expected not only to know the status of the Iranian nuclear program, but also to have precise information on its multiple locations, the defensive precautions at each location, the key operatives of the program, etc? This much I do not believe. Nor do I deem it inconceivable that they may find themselves in the position of knowing so little of the program as to render an attack counterproductive. Short of a major nuclear strike, I think the Israelis could delay the program for a few years at best. Given this, perhaps the most probable scenario is an Israeli strike (of limited efficacy) followed by Iranian counterstrikes that would enable the U.S. to sell, for purposes of international PR, its immediate intervention as a defensive measure provoked by Iran. This would give us some diplomatic cover, while ensuring that the Iranian program suffers a more serious setback than the Israelis could inflict themselves. To achieve more than a setback would necessitate regime change at a minimum, possibly a full-blown, old-school occupation (see WWII, multi-year occupations of Germany and Japan).