Comments for Feral Scholar http://www.feralscholar.org/blog Making the Connections Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:44:41 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Comment on The Roles of Finance, Food, and Force in US Foreign Policy by Henry http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2012/02/05/the-roles-of-finance-food-and-force-in-us-foreign-policy/#comment-697655 Henry Tue, 07 Feb 2012 02:44:41 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1389#comment-697655 The great problem today is less that of dollar hegemony than that of what Michael Hudson calls the "financialization" of the economy. The FIRE sector extracts enormous "rents", like a parasite, from the economy as a whole. Add to this the immense sums received by these firms by way of what Wm. Black terms "accounting fraud," and what you see is a variety of fascism: a corporate oligopoly that has hijacked--or captured--the state and turned it into an extraordinarily powerful oligarchy with global ambitions and extension. See also "The Predator State," by James Galbraith. The great problem today is less that of dollar hegemony than that of what Michael Hudson calls the “financialization” of the economy. The FIRE sector extracts enormous “rents”, like a parasite, from the economy as a whole. Add to this the immense sums received by these firms by way of what Wm. Black terms “accounting fraud,” and what you see is a variety of fascism: a corporate oligopoly that has hijacked–or captured–the state and turned it into an extraordinarily powerful oligarchy with global ambitions and extension. See also “The Predator State,” by James Galbraith.

]]> Comment on The Orlando Arrests by Curt http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/24/the-orland-arrests/#comment-697590 Curt Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:58:33 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1217#comment-697590 I was talking with Curt today about retirement. He said, "I do not care if I have any savings when I retire. What good is savings when a person is that old. They may die at anytime and then all that money was good for nothing. We will have a house that is paid for and fairly new cars that are paid for. We should be able to live nicely on our retirement income. Well I personally find such an attitude irresponsible. Old age is a time a many unexpected expenses. The more cash that someone has for emergencies the better is my attitude. Yet I am troubled by what it takes to accomplish this saving. A person has to become a participant in the Wall Street System. This system now seems completely immoral to me. So now I ask myself what is more irresponsible being part of a system in which a person can be rewarded with blood money for saving or not saving at all and possibly, even probably, being a greater burden on others when a person is old? Is there a way out of this dilema? Well since Curt does not want to save any money anyways he will not suffer from the dilema. As for myself I have wondered if I and everyone gave all there excess cash to charity would we all be saved from financial hardship in the end? If by some great stretch of the imagination someone could demonstate that we would all be able to live happily ever after how likely is it that more than 2% of people would give all of their excess cash to charity to achieve such a feat? Are faith and naiveity the same thing? I was talking with Curt today about retirement. He said, “I do not care if I have any savings when I retire. What good is savings when a person is that old. They may die at anytime and then all that money was good for nothing. We will have a house that is paid for and fairly new cars that are paid for. We should be able to live nicely on our retirement income.
Well I personally find such an attitude irresponsible. Old age is a time a many unexpected expenses. The more cash that someone has for emergencies the better is my attitude.
Yet I am troubled by what it takes to accomplish this saving. A person has to become a participant in the Wall Street System. This system now seems completely immoral to me.
So now I ask myself what is more irresponsible being part of a system in which a person can be rewarded with blood money for saving or not saving at all and possibly, even probably, being a greater burden on others when a person is old?
Is there a way out of this dilema? Well since Curt does not want to save any money anyways he will not suffer from the dilema. As for myself I have wondered if I and everyone gave all there excess cash to charity would we all be saved from financial hardship in the end? If by some great stretch of the imagination someone could demonstate that we would all be able to live happily ever after how likely is it that more than 2% of people would give all of their excess cash to charity to achieve such a feat?
Are faith and naiveity the same thing?

]]> Comment on The Orlando Arrests by Curt http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/24/the-orland-arrests/#comment-697573 Curt Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:38:57 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1217#comment-697573 Yes I agree with your manipulation assumption and what gets me is how many people does it take to pull off this kind of manipulation and who knows what they are doing and who is just a useful idiot. I saw this episode of Treme the other day. A man asked this insurance agent how he sleeps at night. The insurance agent said, I drink a lot of alchohol. I thouht that was pretty funny. Yes I agree with your manipulation assumption and what gets me is how many people does it take to pull off this kind of manipulation and who knows what they are doing and who is just a useful idiot.
I saw this episode of Treme the other day. A man asked this insurance agent how he sleeps at night. The insurance agent said, I drink a lot of alchohol. I thouht that was pretty funny.

]]> Comment on The Orlando Arrests by Curt http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/24/the-orland-arrests/#comment-697571 Curt Tue, 07 Feb 2012 00:35:02 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1217#comment-697571 Dear Curt, One thing that I have been wondering a lot about recently is why so much emphasis has been placed on creating a perception over the past year or so that Europe has a debt problem worse than other places. Maybe they do have a worse debt problem than some places but why did the shit hit the fan WHEN the shit hit the fan? This question implies that these events are not the product of chance but are the product of manipulation. Of course if just may seem like manipulation to me since I do not understand the factors that created the storm. But I have some attempts to explain the factors and they seemed fake so that then gives the impression that manipulation is involved although it could just be factors that have not been properly explained. But when I see the media providing poor explinations of what is happening I think back to Churchhill saying that the truth is so valuable that it has to be protected by a bodyguard of lies. When is see this bodyguard being deployed it seems to be a reasonable assumption that manipulation is going on. So if there was a truth that needed to be hidden I would suspect that a key truth that would need to be hidden would be MOTIVE. People do lots of things in this world. When we know their motive we may be willing to forgive them for some acts that normally we would condem or we may be come even more enraged if we knew what their motive was. One motive that I have long suspected for this debt scandal is to protect the value of the US Dollar versus the Euro. But that does not seem to me to be a complete answer. First of all who would want to protect the value of the dollar. After the way the theory goes at least as it was taught to me was that if the value of the dollar drops the rich in the US will make more money becasue their products will become less expensive to buy compared with products produced in other countries. So who would want to protect the value of the dollar and why and why in 2011 and not in 2010 or 2012? Dear Curt,
One thing that I have been wondering a lot about recently is why so much emphasis has been placed on creating a perception over the past year or so that Europe has a debt problem worse than other places. Maybe they do have a worse debt problem than some places but why did the shit hit the fan WHEN the shit hit the fan? This question implies that these events are not the product of chance but are the product of manipulation. Of course if just may seem like manipulation to me since I do not understand the factors that created the storm. But I have some attempts to explain the factors and they seemed fake so that then gives the impression that manipulation is involved although it could just be factors that have not been properly explained.
But when I see the media providing poor explinations of what is happening I think back to Churchhill saying that the truth is so valuable that it has to be protected by a bodyguard of lies. When is see this bodyguard being deployed it seems to be a reasonable assumption that manipulation is going on. So if there was a truth that needed to be hidden I would suspect that a key truth that would need to be hidden would be MOTIVE. People do lots of things in this world. When we know their motive we may be willing to forgive them for some acts that normally we would condem or we may be come even more enraged if we knew what their motive was.
One motive that I have long suspected for this debt scandal is to protect the value of the US Dollar versus the Euro. But that does not seem to me to be a complete answer.
First of all who would want to protect the value of the dollar. After the way the theory goes at least as it was taught to me was that if the value of the dollar drops the rich in the US will make more money becasue their products will become less expensive to buy compared with products produced in other countries. So who would want to protect the value of the dollar and why and why in 2011 and not in 2010 or 2012?

]]> Comment on The Roles of Finance, Food, and Force in US Foreign Policy by Henry http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2012/02/05/the-roles-of-finance-food-and-force-in-us-foreign-policy/#comment-697537 Henry Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:23:09 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1389#comment-697537 Also worth studying: Davos – an exercise in denial not solutions http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=17923 IMF – the height of hypocrisy but still wrong as usual http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=17906 Also worth studying:

Davos – an exercise in denial not solutions
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=17923

IMF – the height of hypocrisy but still wrong as usual
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=17906

]]> Comment on The Roles of Finance, Food, and Force in US Foreign Policy by Henry http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2012/02/05/the-roles-of-finance-food-and-force-in-us-foreign-policy/#comment-697532 Henry Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:14:16 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1389#comment-697532 A continuum of infinitely lived agents normalized to one – GIGO Part 3 Posted on Monday, February 6, 2012 by bill The IMF released a working paper recently (January 2012) – Macroeconomic and Welfare Costs of U.S. Fiscal Imbalances – which purports to estimate the losses that the US economy will incur if the US government delays a major fiscal consolidation. The paper attracted a Bloomberg news headline (February 3, 2012) – How Reducing the Deficit Can Make Us Richer: The Ticker – which, in its own way provides an example of a dishonest piece of reporting. What has the IMF paper have to say about real world issues like real GDP growth, unemployment, underemployment etc? Answer: virtually nothing. It is an example of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) and confirms that my profession has learned very little (if anything) from its total failure to see the crisis coming or offer valid solutions. It also confirms that while the IMF leadership might be going around lately trying to sound reasonable (warning against austerity) the engine room of the IMF hasn’t changed direction at all. It is still pumping out indefensible rubbish, which then garner headlines and influence the policy debate to the detriment of the unemployed everywhere. The IMF consider humans to be a “continuum of infinitely lived agents normalized to one”. Which means this paper becomes Part 3 of my GIGO series. Full Article: http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=18093#more-18093 A continuum of infinitely lived agents normalized to one – GIGO Part 3
Posted on Monday, February 6, 2012 by bill

The IMF released a working paper recently (January 2012) – Macroeconomic and Welfare Costs of U.S. Fiscal Imbalances – which purports to estimate the losses that the US economy will incur if the US government delays a major fiscal consolidation. The paper attracted a Bloomberg news headline (February 3, 2012) – How Reducing the Deficit Can Make Us Richer: The Ticker – which, in its own way provides an example of a dishonest piece of reporting. What has the IMF paper have to say about real world issues like real GDP growth, unemployment, underemployment etc? Answer: virtually nothing. It is an example of GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) and confirms that my profession has learned very little (if anything) from its total failure to see the crisis coming or offer valid solutions. It also confirms that while the IMF leadership might be going around lately trying to sound reasonable (warning against austerity) the engine room of the IMF hasn’t changed direction at all. It is still pumping out indefensible rubbish, which then garner headlines and influence the policy debate to the detriment of the unemployed everywhere. The IMF consider humans to be a “continuum of infinitely lived agents normalized to one”. Which means this paper becomes Part 3 of my GIGO series.

Full Article:

http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=18093#more-18093

]]> Comment on Christian Soldier at 60 on Veterans Day by Henry http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2011/11/10/christian-soldier-at-60-on-veterans-day/#comment-697530 Henry Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:12:02 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1279#comment-697530 Obama’s SOTU, authoritarian followership, and civil society: Part I http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/obamas-sotu-and-authoritarian-followership.html Part 2 http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/obama’s-sotu-authoritarian-followership-and-civil-society-part-ii.html Last week in Part I of this piece, I argued that Obama’s recent State of The Union speech endorsed a particular model of military organization named the “warrior ethos” by its DOD developers, and that this ethos and American soldier’s oath of enlistment (10 U.S.C. § 502) were in contradiction. That is, one can treat the “mission” and the “team” as primary, or the Constitution and the UCMJ as primary, but not both. Ethos is one thing; the rule of law another, and in the SOTU Obama, by focusing exclusively on the first, rejected the second — and not merely for the military, but for civil society also, since the SOTU posits that the warrior ethos should apply to all citizens, not only soldiers. Obama’s rejection of the rule of law should surprise nobody who has been following his administration’s failure to prosecute bank executives for accounting control fraud, his abolition of due process when assassinating U.S. citizens, or his vote, while still a candidate, to grant retroactive immunity to the telcos for felonies committed during the program of warrantless surveillance initiated by the Bush administration. Obama’s SOTU, authoritarian followership, and civil society: Part I
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/obamas-sotu-and-authoritarian-followership.html

Part 2

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/02/obama’s-sotu-authoritarian-followership-and-civil-society-part-ii.html

Last week in Part I of this piece, I argued that Obama’s recent State of The Union speech endorsed a particular model of military organization named the “warrior ethos” by its DOD developers, and that this ethos and American soldier’s oath of enlistment (10 U.S.C. § 502) were in contradiction. That is, one can treat the “mission” and the “team” as primary, or the Constitution and the UCMJ as primary, but not both. Ethos is one thing; the rule of law another, and in the SOTU Obama, by focusing exclusively on the first, rejected the second — and not merely for the military, but for civil society also, since the SOTU posits that the warrior ethos should apply to all citizens, not only soldiers.

Obama’s rejection of the rule of law should surprise nobody who has been following his administration’s failure to prosecute bank executives for accounting control fraud, his abolition of due process when assassinating U.S. citizens, or his vote, while still a candidate, to grant retroactive immunity to the telcos for felonies committed during the program of warrantless surveillance initiated by the Bush administration.

]]> Comment on The Roles of Finance, Food, and Force in US Foreign Policy by Henry http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2012/02/05/the-roles-of-finance-food-and-force-in-us-foreign-policy/#comment-697521 Henry Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:47:40 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1389#comment-697521 Rigging American ‘Democracy’ February 6, 2012 Exclusive: Aided by Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, America’s ultra-rich are buying up the political process with vast sums of cash, some through dummy corporations. The money has made the GOP campaign nasty, but will dirty up President Obama in the fall, writes Robert Parry. http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/06/rigging-american-democracy/ Rigging American ‘Democracy’
February 6, 2012

Exclusive: Aided by Republican partisans on the U.S. Supreme Court, America’s ultra-rich are buying up the political process with vast sums of cash, some through dummy corporations. The money has made the GOP campaign nasty, but will dirty up President Obama in the fall, writes Robert Parry.

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/02/06/rigging-american-democracy/

]]> Comment on The Roles of Finance, Food, and Force in US Foreign Policy by Henry http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2012/02/05/the-roles-of-finance-food-and-force-in-us-foreign-policy/#comment-697508 Henry Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:18:53 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1389#comment-697508 Link to Hornborg, Cornucopia or Zero Sum Game? pdf: http://goo.gl/fbbkt Link to Hornborg, Cornucopia or Zero Sum Game? pdf:

http://goo.gl/fbbkt

]]> Comment on The Orlando Arrests by Curt http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/index.php/2011/06/24/the-orland-arrests/#comment-697419 Curt Mon, 06 Feb 2012 18:45:30 +0000 http://www.feralscholar.org/blog/?p=1217#comment-697419 @Curt, I am still trying to understand this debt thing. I read somewhere recently that during the peroid of stagflation that the rich were more concerned about inflation than unemployment. Obviously the rich are not concered directly about unemployment because they do not work. On the other hand I have to wonder if the rich are really concerned about inflation either. The rich own lots of THINGS besides lots of money. The value of the things that they own is also a product of inflation. Some of the things that they own will increase in value even faster than the rate of inflation. Some will increase slower. Most rich people take great pride in being able to invest in those things that maintain their value in inflationary times. Furthermore if unemployment is high the value of some of the things such as real estate that the rich own could suffer relative to the rate of inflation. So I would think that the rich would like an economy with high employment and not really care about the rate of inflation so long as it does not become hyperinflation. Theoretically in a democratic society it is the politicians who make fiscal or monetary policy. Since there are a lot more people who are not rich than are rich I would think that they should be more interested in the concerns of the vast majority. Yet I am fairly confident that in the US society democracy does not operate along any kind of theories that are taught in public. Another thing thaat I often hear is that US deficits are bankrupting future generations of Americans. But if we are using the money to make a more effecient society then we are actually helping the future. So that little sound bite sound to me like nonsense and should be pointed out as that. Also Why should the government pay interest on money that it borrows from the federal reserve? If we do not then we surely are not hindering the progress of the future. All of these different contradictory thoughts lead me no where. I did not write this to make a point. I wrote to express my confusion. Yes I am confused. @Curt,
I am still trying to understand this debt thing. I read somewhere recently that during the peroid of stagflation that the rich were more concerned about inflation than unemployment. Obviously the rich are not concered directly about unemployment because they do not work. On the other hand I have to wonder if the rich are really concerned about inflation either.
The rich own lots of THINGS besides lots of money. The value of the things that they own is also a product of inflation. Some of the things that they own will increase in value even faster than the rate of inflation. Some will increase slower. Most rich people take great pride in being able to invest in those things that maintain their value in inflationary times. Furthermore if unemployment is high the value of some of the things such as real estate that the rich own could suffer relative to the rate of inflation. So I would think that the rich would like an economy with high employment and not really care about the rate of inflation so long as it does not become hyperinflation.
Theoretically in a democratic society it is the politicians who make fiscal or monetary policy. Since there are a lot more people who are not rich than are rich I would think that they should be more interested in the concerns of the vast majority. Yet I am fairly confident that in the US society democracy does not operate along any kind of theories that are taught in public.
Another thing thaat I often hear is that US deficits are bankrupting future generations of Americans. But if we are using the money to make a more effecient society then we are actually helping the future. So that little sound bite sound to me like nonsense and should be pointed out as that.
Also Why should the government pay interest on money that it borrows from the federal reserve? If we do not then we surely are not hindering the progress of the future.
All of these different contradictory thoughts lead me no where. I did not write this to make a point. I wrote to express my confusion.
Yes I am confused.

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