Democrats may feel the pain about all those with bad health care, forced into destitution by emergency room treatments, but, without power to fight back the causes of the pain, there will be pain always.
In economics, power is money. So where are the democrats going to find the money? Nowhere much, if they do not change their minds, because the taxes on income are not far from maximal already. European countries confronted that problem long ago, and decided to find the money with new taxes. The taxes, in turn, diverted economic activity from consumption and waste to savings and caring. To do this, a French "inspector of finances" invented the Value Added Tax in 1954. That tax was soon made mandatory in all countries members of the European Union (it taxes all increased values of stages of production around 19%). Huge taxes on energy were also introduced (they correspond roughly to $300 per barrel oil). France is now introducing a system of bonus-malus on all products according to their CO2 impact during use and manufacture (tax the inefficient ones, reward the efficient ones; it's already deployed with cars, and that explains why Peugeot SA has the best fleet mileage, worldwide: 141 grams CO2/kilometer).
The USA has to go in that general direction. Away from rabid consumption and mindless waste. Into saving, caring and investing. And taxes are the only way. Short of this, the pain is just made into a song. Short of this, it's just change one cannot believe in.
Patrice Ayme.
— Patrice Ayme, Hautes Alpes
Friday, August 29, 2008
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
MOSCOW RULES.
GEORGIA TOLLS FOR THEE.
The New York Times editorial on the invasion of Georgia concludes this way: "Ties between Russia and the West are now the worst in a generation. It will take toughness and subtlety to ensure they do not lock into a permanent confrontation — not more bluster from anyone."(August 27, 2008)
Right. But lots more toughness. Moscow, per its intrinsic genesis and nature, is anti-Western. That was long hidden by the fact Moscow claimed to be Marxist, and socialist, and many in the West were, and are, genuine socialists. Basically, all of Western Europe, Britain included, is socialist (and the USA is not too far behind!). So there is a lot of sympathy for socialism in the West, and Moscow ended using that sympathy as a trick to advance itself. That Moscow is deeply anti-Western was also hidden by the fact that Stalinian fascism, after being allied to Hitlerian fascism, was attacked by it, and conducted a desperate fight against it (suffering 20 million dead).
But now the smokescreens are dissipating. The time of the final confrontation is at hand between the mentality of the West and the anti-Western mentality of Moscow. That anti-Western mentality is more than 1,000 years old (indeed much older than Moscow itself). This confrontation is much bigger than any problem connected with the US mistake of having invaded Iraq, because invading Iraq was deeply anti-American. Thus, invading Iraq was contrary to American nature. Whereas invading Georgia is exactly what Moscow has always been about, ever since it was born as the double agent stooge of the Mongols (before 1480).
Cheney, that error onto himself, should better be threading lightly, indeed, as he goes to Europe to talk about Russia. The Europeans dislike and despise him, and the Europeans have to carry the main economic weight of confronting Moscow at this point. The Europeans have to have the courage to go all the way, and forget about begging for energy from Moscow, down on their knees. They can do it, but it will be tough. Otherwise Moscow will reinvade as much as it can (until the unavoidable military struggle).
Gorbachev, the Russian tzar before Putin, impudently condemns the fact that Kosovo voted for its independence repeatedly. Voting is a big no-no for Moscow. Invading is what Moscow does.
Kosovo has been its own country forever. The Serbs were invited to settle in the area by emperor Heraclius (7th century). The Serbs are the guests, the Kosovars are the original stock. And, although the Serbs fought a battle against the Turks in Kosovo, they mainly stayed out of it for a very long time. Moreover the Serbs have voted recently twice to say implicitly that Kosovo could go its own way, and that Serbia would join the European Union instead (reunifying Serbia with Kosovo, in the fullness of time!). Kosovo, besides, is 35 times the population of South Ossetia, South Ossetia has been a province of Georgia for 3,000 years. But now Moscow has decided that South Ossetia is part of Moscow. Is Kosovo also part of Moscow? What about Berlin? After all, Berlin is much closer to Moscow than Kosovo.
So why is Moscow so obsessed about Kosovo? Kosovo is smack dab in the Middle of the Mediterranean region (100 kilometers from the sea). Kosovo never had anything to do with Moscow, except as an object of desire. The Muscovite desire for the Mediterranean sea. Moscow wants all the seas. It has many of them, but not that one. It is painful. Moscow wants it all, like Staphylococcus Aureus. It is high time to draw the line. The line is that if Moscow wants to keep on with its anti-Western, antidemocratic, invasive mentality, it can stay in its own sand box. After all, it is the largest in the world.
Patrice Ayme.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
P/S: The NYT published the text above, minus the final section (commentary # 31). It was an interesting wink: OK, we know who you are, and you may be right, but we, at the NYT, have our own foreign policy, we are sure you understand. At least, this time we did not outright ignore you. A week earlier, a post of mine giving a list of facts demonstrating that Russia had planned its invasion of Georgia was outright omitted (true, the Georgian may have opened fire first, but only after 3,000 tanks and dozens of thousands of troops were found to be advancing in Georgian territory).
The New York Times editorial on the invasion of Georgia concludes this way: "Ties between Russia and the West are now the worst in a generation. It will take toughness and subtlety to ensure they do not lock into a permanent confrontation — not more bluster from anyone."(August 27, 2008)
Right. But lots more toughness. Moscow, per its intrinsic genesis and nature, is anti-Western. That was long hidden by the fact Moscow claimed to be Marxist, and socialist, and many in the West were, and are, genuine socialists. Basically, all of Western Europe, Britain included, is socialist (and the USA is not too far behind!). So there is a lot of sympathy for socialism in the West, and Moscow ended using that sympathy as a trick to advance itself. That Moscow is deeply anti-Western was also hidden by the fact that Stalinian fascism, after being allied to Hitlerian fascism, was attacked by it, and conducted a desperate fight against it (suffering 20 million dead).
But now the smokescreens are dissipating. The time of the final confrontation is at hand between the mentality of the West and the anti-Western mentality of Moscow. That anti-Western mentality is more than 1,000 years old (indeed much older than Moscow itself). This confrontation is much bigger than any problem connected with the US mistake of having invaded Iraq, because invading Iraq was deeply anti-American. Thus, invading Iraq was contrary to American nature. Whereas invading Georgia is exactly what Moscow has always been about, ever since it was born as the double agent stooge of the Mongols (before 1480).
Cheney, that error onto himself, should better be threading lightly, indeed, as he goes to Europe to talk about Russia. The Europeans dislike and despise him, and the Europeans have to carry the main economic weight of confronting Moscow at this point. The Europeans have to have the courage to go all the way, and forget about begging for energy from Moscow, down on their knees. They can do it, but it will be tough. Otherwise Moscow will reinvade as much as it can (until the unavoidable military struggle).
Gorbachev, the Russian tzar before Putin, impudently condemns the fact that Kosovo voted for its independence repeatedly. Voting is a big no-no for Moscow. Invading is what Moscow does.
Kosovo has been its own country forever. The Serbs were invited to settle in the area by emperor Heraclius (7th century). The Serbs are the guests, the Kosovars are the original stock. And, although the Serbs fought a battle against the Turks in Kosovo, they mainly stayed out of it for a very long time. Moreover the Serbs have voted recently twice to say implicitly that Kosovo could go its own way, and that Serbia would join the European Union instead (reunifying Serbia with Kosovo, in the fullness of time!). Kosovo, besides, is 35 times the population of South Ossetia, South Ossetia has been a province of Georgia for 3,000 years. But now Moscow has decided that South Ossetia is part of Moscow. Is Kosovo also part of Moscow? What about Berlin? After all, Berlin is much closer to Moscow than Kosovo.
So why is Moscow so obsessed about Kosovo? Kosovo is smack dab in the Middle of the Mediterranean region (100 kilometers from the sea). Kosovo never had anything to do with Moscow, except as an object of desire. The Muscovite desire for the Mediterranean sea. Moscow wants all the seas. It has many of them, but not that one. It is painful. Moscow wants it all, like Staphylococcus Aureus. It is high time to draw the line. The line is that if Moscow wants to keep on with its anti-Western, antidemocratic, invasive mentality, it can stay in its own sand box. After all, it is the largest in the world.
Patrice Ayme.
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
P/S: The NYT published the text above, minus the final section (commentary # 31). It was an interesting wink: OK, we know who you are, and you may be right, but we, at the NYT, have our own foreign policy, we are sure you understand. At least, this time we did not outright ignore you. A week earlier, a post of mine giving a list of facts demonstrating that Russia had planned its invasion of Georgia was outright omitted (true, the Georgian may have opened fire first, but only after 3,000 tanks and dozens of thousands of troops were found to be advancing in Georgian territory).
Sunday, August 24, 2008
COGNIZANT PSYCHOLOGY SYNCHRONIZES WORLD ECONOMICS.
COGNIZANT PSYCHOLOGY IS CORE TO ECONOMICS.
Paul Krugman claims that the synchronization of the world business cycle is something of a mystery (NYT blog, August 22, 2008).
It seems to me we had a similar quandary earlier, when some of us were mystified by the influence of the price of the futures in oil on the oil cash price itself. (Traditionalists, such as Krugman, said it is not so, because, according to them, it could not be so; that is the traditional authoritarian explanation pitfall: refusing the observation, because it does not fit the preexisting theory; some commodities hedge fund managers disagreed deeply, because, in their experience, futures influence cash prices.)
In both cases, a mystery influence apparently propagates, and it cannot be detected with numbers attached to matter or currency exchanges. Conventional economics seems baffled.
But the nature of the propagation may simply be that this thing being transmitted has to do with basic cognitive psychology.
A hunter walking in the forest can detect something is amiss, just by the absence of bird singing. In an equivalent case, a conventional economist would detect nothing because the presence of the absence of something not easily quantified would not strike him as relevant to a jury of his peer reviewers (hence to the advancement of his career).
On the other hand, the average businessperson, however small and remotely located, or the governmental, or administrative decider, or the average cab driver, even in Karachi, hears, or reads the news. Thus, they become cognizant that an economic tsunami has struck a remote, but important part of the world. Naturally that decider will expect the tsunami to come around, and rather soon than later. it is not a matter of their career, but most of the time, of their livelihood.
Primitive people are not always primitive when their life is at stake. When the giant earthquake (9.3 Richter) struck Indonesia, the people in the closest islands to the epicenter immediately went to the high ground, and suffered nearly no casualties when the 120 feet waves crashed on the shore. More sophisticated people did not know what to do, until waves crashed into cities. Thus the total, illiterate savages demonstrated a better appreciation for risk than the most sophisticated specialists. Why? Because they were more concerned.
As people, worldwide, expect a slowdown, they batten their hatches, reduce, or even stop investing, and the crisis is instantaneously transmitted, faster than anything economists usually measure. Nowadays, information moves at the speed of light, and information always was at the core of economics.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Paul Krugman claims that the synchronization of the world business cycle is something of a mystery (NYT blog, August 22, 2008).
It seems to me we had a similar quandary earlier, when some of us were mystified by the influence of the price of the futures in oil on the oil cash price itself. (Traditionalists, such as Krugman, said it is not so, because, according to them, it could not be so; that is the traditional authoritarian explanation pitfall: refusing the observation, because it does not fit the preexisting theory; some commodities hedge fund managers disagreed deeply, because, in their experience, futures influence cash prices.)
In both cases, a mystery influence apparently propagates, and it cannot be detected with numbers attached to matter or currency exchanges. Conventional economics seems baffled.
But the nature of the propagation may simply be that this thing being transmitted has to do with basic cognitive psychology.
A hunter walking in the forest can detect something is amiss, just by the absence of bird singing. In an equivalent case, a conventional economist would detect nothing because the presence of the absence of something not easily quantified would not strike him as relevant to a jury of his peer reviewers (hence to the advancement of his career).
On the other hand, the average businessperson, however small and remotely located, or the governmental, or administrative decider, or the average cab driver, even in Karachi, hears, or reads the news. Thus, they become cognizant that an economic tsunami has struck a remote, but important part of the world. Naturally that decider will expect the tsunami to come around, and rather soon than later. it is not a matter of their career, but most of the time, of their livelihood.
Primitive people are not always primitive when their life is at stake. When the giant earthquake (9.3 Richter) struck Indonesia, the people in the closest islands to the epicenter immediately went to the high ground, and suffered nearly no casualties when the 120 feet waves crashed on the shore. More sophisticated people did not know what to do, until waves crashed into cities. Thus the total, illiterate savages demonstrated a better appreciation for risk than the most sophisticated specialists. Why? Because they were more concerned.
As people, worldwide, expect a slowdown, they batten their hatches, reduce, or even stop investing, and the crisis is instantaneously transmitted, faster than anything economists usually measure. Nowadays, information moves at the speed of light, and information always was at the core of economics.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Saturday, August 23, 2008
POTENTIALLY SERIOUSLY WRONG ON CLIMATE
How come governments have been unable to predict the greenhouse heating presently assailing the planet?
Specialists want to be taken seriously. This means they tend to make predictions serious people take seriously. "Serious" means at the pinnacle of society, hence of conventional thinking. In other words, those serious people predict what conventional thinking can accept. That means what conventional social structures are ready to accept. It does have to do anything with reality.
Instead, in the case of the climate, just as in the case of flying a plane, what would be really serious would be to get ready for the worst possible cases. Conventional, let alone wishful thinking is useless and dangerous. But, unfortunately that is what has served as the ground for governmental thinking, especially in the USA. The history of the climate in the last billion years, plus the cases of Mars and Venus, plus some elementary logic, show that the worst possible cases are highly non linear, fast and most terrible. Highly non linear means that the heating effect would feed on itself. The worst possible climate catastrophes would make the holocausts humankind visited on itself in the past small details. And those catastrophes are entirely imaginable. So we should get ready for them, just as those who built and operate planes are getting ready for the worst, and, by anticipating it, mostly, avoid it.
Earth is our spaceship, the most complex one ever imaginable. By working on it so hard and so long, we made it into our contraption, and we are operating it. Just as for any spaceship, the worst imaginable should be studied, and avoided.
Details can be found on http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/france-versus-greenhouse-or-how-to-mitigate/
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Specialists want to be taken seriously. This means they tend to make predictions serious people take seriously. "Serious" means at the pinnacle of society, hence of conventional thinking. In other words, those serious people predict what conventional thinking can accept. That means what conventional social structures are ready to accept. It does have to do anything with reality.
Instead, in the case of the climate, just as in the case of flying a plane, what would be really serious would be to get ready for the worst possible cases. Conventional, let alone wishful thinking is useless and dangerous. But, unfortunately that is what has served as the ground for governmental thinking, especially in the USA. The history of the climate in the last billion years, plus the cases of Mars and Venus, plus some elementary logic, show that the worst possible cases are highly non linear, fast and most terrible. Highly non linear means that the heating effect would feed on itself. The worst possible climate catastrophes would make the holocausts humankind visited on itself in the past small details. And those catastrophes are entirely imaginable. So we should get ready for them, just as those who built and operate planes are getting ready for the worst, and, by anticipating it, mostly, avoid it.
Earth is our spaceship, the most complex one ever imaginable. By working on it so hard and so long, we made it into our contraption, and we are operating it. Just as for any spaceship, the worst imaginable should be studied, and avoided.
Details can be found on http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2008/05/21/france-versus-greenhouse-or-how-to-mitigate/
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
OBAMA'S VP CHOICE DEMONSTRATES SORELY NEEDED WISDOM.
Bill Clinton long refused to divest himself from some embarrassing financial speculation, although, while his wife was running, he promised several times to do so. Bill had to chose between servicing some more, or serving himself much more. Although Hillary Clinton was the obvious choice for VP, considering her extremely strong run, the various attachments of Bill with various dubious characters and tin pot dictators worldwide made her too vulnerable a choice (a small example: did she use Dubai Investment Group money through Bill's Yucaipa fund in her campaign? It seems so...). The Republican attack machine would have had it easy (talking about Bill and Moldava, and Kuchma, and Kazakstan, etc...). Bill Clinton's behavior was unusual for a US president: neither Nixon, nor Ford, nor Carter, nor Reagan did such a thing (Bush Senior did, but much more discreetly). It forced Obama into not making the usual choice of selecting the runner-up.
Biden's experience in foreign affairs is real: the Bush administration used him front and center in the negotiations that led to Libya's peaceful nuclear disarmament, quite a remarkable task, considering how difficult the great, incomparably unpredictable leader Khadafi and his super wealthy super arrogant family can be (as Switzerland and France found out recently once again).
So, as the Clintons forced themselves out, Biden was left to stand out.Thus here we are. Differently from other choices (fighting drilling, refurbishing old tax schemes that have proven wrong headed in the past, etc.), this was the most obvious, most sensible choice.
Interestingly, this was a decision Obama took alone, differently from the other, rather non sensical ones, taken in committee. Thus, there is hope!
Hope for McCain, that is, because, in the end, the fact remains that the obvious person was not selected. It is only fair, and traditional, to select a strong runner-up. Clinton was more than that: she beat Obama in all big states primaries, except two. She now incarnates the obvious woman who was not selected, where, it will seem, a man would have been. Will women see a pattern there? Will they ever forgive Obama?
Patrice Ayme. http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Biden's experience in foreign affairs is real: the Bush administration used him front and center in the negotiations that led to Libya's peaceful nuclear disarmament, quite a remarkable task, considering how difficult the great, incomparably unpredictable leader Khadafi and his super wealthy super arrogant family can be (as Switzerland and France found out recently once again).
So, as the Clintons forced themselves out, Biden was left to stand out.Thus here we are. Differently from other choices (fighting drilling, refurbishing old tax schemes that have proven wrong headed in the past, etc.), this was the most obvious, most sensible choice.
Interestingly, this was a decision Obama took alone, differently from the other, rather non sensical ones, taken in committee. Thus, there is hope!
Hope for McCain, that is, because, in the end, the fact remains that the obvious person was not selected. It is only fair, and traditional, to select a strong runner-up. Clinton was more than that: she beat Obama in all big states primaries, except two. She now incarnates the obvious woman who was not selected, where, it will seem, a man would have been. Will women see a pattern there? Will they ever forgive Obama?
Patrice Ayme. http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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