AND NOW PLEASE FIRE THE INCOMPETENT, AND, OR, CORRUPT MANAGERS.
***
In a belated, but significant philosophical shift, White House and Treasury Department officials now say they can stretch what is left of the $700 billion financial bailout funds further than they had expected a few months ago, simply by converting the government’s existing loans to the nation’s 19 biggest banks into common stock.
I advocated this approach an eternity ago, last September: http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/to-get-leverage-nationalize/
I am happy to see that rationality is at last reaching the White House, the Summers of our discontent.
By the way, all and any of the opponents of this nationalizing approach use arguments which can, each, one by one, be completely destroyed. I literally do not know ONE argument of the opponents of nationalization that is valid in any sense. In particular the difference between "public" and 'private" is laughable. The whole problem was precisely that the later owned the former, a contradiction of the republican constitution ("We The People...")
The financial disaster was set up by what has been dubbed "Government Sachs", the reigning plutocracy. By definition the private sector, at that point, had become the government. It sucked up all the money, or nearly so, to itself. Then it proceeded to lose most of it. Then it turned to the taxpayers, and the public, and ordered them to fork over more money, and be deprived of basic services, or else... This is of course intolerable, and it's high time that those of these crooks that deserve to go to jail join Madoff in the slammer.
Now the taxpayers and the public will be more willing to work to reestablish the riches, since they are becoming the owners. They will work even better that way, and for themselves. Capitalism, the free market, work for riches at its best. Oh, by the wy, let's not forget to put honest, capable, transparent managers at the top of the nationalized institutions. We want the best. Off with the old plutocracy!
***
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com
Monday, April 20, 2009
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
FIRST THINGS FIRST.
TAX GASOLINE MORE, NOW. IT WILL HELP JOBS AND THE ECONOMY.
***
(Published by NYT, April 7, an extremely extended version will be published shortly on wordpress.)
***
The Obama administration seems obsessed by Carbon Tax and Trade, a European trick to encourage industry to modernize and become more efficient, after, and only after the first order effect, high taxes on energy, did most of the work.
The administration's approach reminds one of a chimp putting a tuxedo on, in the hope that would help him to type intelligently. Instead, the administration should keep things simple, if it is really sincere about implementing change.
A gasoline tax is not subtle, it is nothing difficult to implement. A gasoline tax would support a rejuvenated Detroit. Indeed people would be forced, and could be incited to buy new cars (that could be done right away, as I advocated, and as the Obama administration has enjoined Chrysler to do; an alliance between GM and Renault, and Ford with Peugeot and/or Volkswagen could do the same). The country, overall, and quickly would save energy, a national defense function (and advance its technology and base thereof, another defense function).
A national gasoline (and more generally energy) tax would also decrease the enormous deficits that are piling up as the USA tries to spend a huge amount of energy (hence money) trying to get out of its desperately erroneous trajectory. That is another natioanl defense function.
But, unfortunately, the Bush, sorry, Obama, economic advisers are deeply entranced in Market Mystique, as Paul Krugman puts it cogently. So they are delighted to set up another market, the Carbon Cap Trade. It took years for the French and other Europeans to make it work, sort of (the carbon exchange is based in Paris). So Carbon Cap and Trade will allow to delay treatment of the national carbon disease by years. It was also highly profitable to a chemical company such as the French Rhodia, and other giant corporations. One of the problem is that the carbon pollution prices had been mispriced (and given to companies too generously).
Of course it would be unimaginable that Carbon Cap Trade would allow some of the friends of the administration, the hedge fundists, to make more money, and it would be unimaginable that the reason that some in the administration want to set it up is that, precisely, it will take years to do so, while making it looks as if they were busy doing something.
If the executive could execute, rising energy taxes could be done by executive order. Compensatory payments could be made to the poor as in Europe.
Another even greater pie in the sky is "Carbon Capture", also pushed by the administration. This has been done in a few places, true. But mostly for economic reasons (typically reinjecting CO2 to push natural gas out). Otherwise it would turn out so expensive that it would make coal too expensive. But coal produces more than half of U.S. electricity.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
***
(Published by NYT, April 7, an extremely extended version will be published shortly on wordpress.)
***
The Obama administration seems obsessed by Carbon Tax and Trade, a European trick to encourage industry to modernize and become more efficient, after, and only after the first order effect, high taxes on energy, did most of the work.
The administration's approach reminds one of a chimp putting a tuxedo on, in the hope that would help him to type intelligently. Instead, the administration should keep things simple, if it is really sincere about implementing change.
A gasoline tax is not subtle, it is nothing difficult to implement. A gasoline tax would support a rejuvenated Detroit. Indeed people would be forced, and could be incited to buy new cars (that could be done right away, as I advocated, and as the Obama administration has enjoined Chrysler to do; an alliance between GM and Renault, and Ford with Peugeot and/or Volkswagen could do the same). The country, overall, and quickly would save energy, a national defense function (and advance its technology and base thereof, another defense function).
A national gasoline (and more generally energy) tax would also decrease the enormous deficits that are piling up as the USA tries to spend a huge amount of energy (hence money) trying to get out of its desperately erroneous trajectory. That is another natioanl defense function.
But, unfortunately, the Bush, sorry, Obama, economic advisers are deeply entranced in Market Mystique, as Paul Krugman puts it cogently. So they are delighted to set up another market, the Carbon Cap Trade. It took years for the French and other Europeans to make it work, sort of (the carbon exchange is based in Paris). So Carbon Cap and Trade will allow to delay treatment of the national carbon disease by years. It was also highly profitable to a chemical company such as the French Rhodia, and other giant corporations. One of the problem is that the carbon pollution prices had been mispriced (and given to companies too generously).
Of course it would be unimaginable that Carbon Cap Trade would allow some of the friends of the administration, the hedge fundists, to make more money, and it would be unimaginable that the reason that some in the administration want to set it up is that, precisely, it will take years to do so, while making it looks as if they were busy doing something.
If the executive could execute, rising energy taxes could be done by executive order. Compensatory payments could be made to the poor as in Europe.
Another even greater pie in the sky is "Carbon Capture", also pushed by the administration. This has been done in a few places, true. But mostly for economic reasons (typically reinjecting CO2 to push natural gas out). Otherwise it would turn out so expensive that it would make coal too expensive. But coal produces more than half of U.S. electricity.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Sunday, April 5, 2009
TURK SAYS ISLAM NO IDEOLOGY.
(In an interview to Roger Cohen, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey claimed that "Islam is a religion, not and ideology". I comment)
***
Islam is just one of the heresies of Judaism, Christianism being the other one. Judeo-Christo-Islamism is an extremely violent religion when compared to Buddhism or Confucianism and other Eastern religions.
Islam, as described in the Qur'an is not just a religion, but a legal system. This is the same with Judaism or Catholicism (the initial form of state Christianism). But the difference is that the later two spread in the Roman empire, where a secular law was already fully deployed. Ultimately even the fanatical Catholic butcher-emperor, Justinian, had to admit that Christian law had to be separated from secular law formally (Justinian killed millions of non Catholic Christians, and devastated entire regions of the Roman empire). In the empire of the Franks, Catholic law was nowhere in sight.
What to do with Islam has long been a serious political problem. Around 1300 CE, interpreting the Qur'an "literally" was repressed, and its great advocate, Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah (1263 - 1328) was put in jail, deprived of ink and paper, and died there. His ideas were resurrected centuries later in Arabia, and more recently, became the official religion of Saudi Arabia, and he is now the great hero of today's Islamist fundamentalists.
It is funny that Erdogan claims that Islam is not a discourse of ideas (ideo-logy). Maybe he should read the Qur'an. Not all these ideas in the Qur'an are bad, far from it, some are even excellent, and they assuredly have some logic to them.
So maybe he wanted to imply that he would treat Islam as a religion, the way the West treats a religion, separating it from politics. So to accentuate this, he claims that Islam has neither ideas, nor logic, or maybe ideas, but not logic, or logic, but no ideas?
Interesting perspectives...
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Readers interested by Islam may want to read: http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/god-slay-because-you-believe/.
***
Islam is just one of the heresies of Judaism, Christianism being the other one. Judeo-Christo-Islamism is an extremely violent religion when compared to Buddhism or Confucianism and other Eastern religions.
Islam, as described in the Qur'an is not just a religion, but a legal system. This is the same with Judaism or Catholicism (the initial form of state Christianism). But the difference is that the later two spread in the Roman empire, where a secular law was already fully deployed. Ultimately even the fanatical Catholic butcher-emperor, Justinian, had to admit that Christian law had to be separated from secular law formally (Justinian killed millions of non Catholic Christians, and devastated entire regions of the Roman empire). In the empire of the Franks, Catholic law was nowhere in sight.
What to do with Islam has long been a serious political problem. Around 1300 CE, interpreting the Qur'an "literally" was repressed, and its great advocate, Taqi al-Din Ahmad Ibn Taymiyyah (1263 - 1328) was put in jail, deprived of ink and paper, and died there. His ideas were resurrected centuries later in Arabia, and more recently, became the official religion of Saudi Arabia, and he is now the great hero of today's Islamist fundamentalists.
It is funny that Erdogan claims that Islam is not a discourse of ideas (ideo-logy). Maybe he should read the Qur'an. Not all these ideas in the Qur'an are bad, far from it, some are even excellent, and they assuredly have some logic to them.
So maybe he wanted to imply that he would treat Islam as a religion, the way the West treats a religion, separating it from politics. So to accentuate this, he claims that Islam has neither ideas, nor logic, or maybe ideas, but not logic, or logic, but no ideas?
Interesting perspectives...
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Readers interested by Islam may want to read: http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/2008/12/03/god-slay-because-you-believe/.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
WHY EUROPE DID NOT OBEY THE USA AT THE G20.
FULL METAL JACKET, FULL HISTORICAL CONTEXT.
***
(A version of this essay was published by NYT, April 4; an expansion of it will be put on wordpress.)
***
Gail Collins, a well known columnist in the New York Times, April 3, 2009, tries to be funny by being so shallow and offensive to others as to be self deprecating with the deliberate display of one's own low cultural performance, which, in turn, is supposed to show a great sense of humor. George W. Bush was a master of that art, but it is ubiquitous in the USA. It goes hand in hand with racism and cultural obscurantism.
Here she goes: "If nothing else, the president’s trip overseas helped resolve the longstanding question of who can be more irritating, the Republicans or the French. The president’s main mission, after all, was to try to talk the French and Germans into supporting a serious global stimulus plan, and he failed. There were other accomplishments, sure. But even the tiniest seemed to have required a lot of pandering."
The Europeans were not born yesterday. As I said many times on my sites and various comments to the blogosphere and the New York Times, there is no evidence that the stimulus of the USA is larger than France's or the EU's. Obama's stimulus has in it the AMT (an irrelevant tax relief, which is voted every year), partial compensation for the collapsing state budgets, and desperate attempts to provide for two years or so a small fraction of the social help the EU has mandated into law on a permanent basis. The EU total stimulus is above half a trillion dollars, and the real stimulus of the USA is certainly much less than that. So enough. Obama went to Europe to beg, but as long as it is to make war and pay his ultra rich friends, he will not get charity.
The Europeans know that the Bush-Obama administration is sending trillions of US Dollars to the corrupt giant banks/hedge funds/private equity vulture machine, the plutocracy the guys in his administration (Summers, Geithner, Emanuel) belong to, as low level soldiers.
Bretton-Woods insure that the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. Other countries, such as China, by buying US Treasury bonds, feed the USA, and pay for its wars, and also pay for its pseudo stimulus, and pay for its plutocracy. Obama went to France and Germany to ask them to pay for the plutocracy of the USA, as if they were China and Japan. And the answer is Nein.
The game is over as far as Europe is concerned. The question is to know what China will do.
Some in the USA will say it's unjust, that the USA insured Pax Americana, saved Europe, etc. This is, very unfortunately, propaganda. It is the apparent truth, as all good propaganda is. But it is not what really happened. The truth is stunning, and basically just the opposite. If some masterminds set fire to your house in the dark, and then recruit some youth to help you out extinguishing the flames in broad day light, what do you call them? How should you view them? This was Wall Street, various American plutocrats and the government they own, did, throughout the twentieth century.
My thesis, exposed in depth on my sites, is that the plutocracy of the USA was the fundamental enzyme of Bellum Americanum, the enormous wars that wrecked Europe from 1914 to 1945. The USA played a very nasty, treacherous role against Europe during the entire century.
Far from supporting democracy, American plutocrats undermined it very carefully. The plutocrats supported Hitler, crucially, and then gave half of Europe to Stalin. Not satisfied with this, the same sort of double game was played in the Middle East (supporting and exciting Iranian Shiites, Hussein and bin Laden, and then switching on them, and decrying them as evil). Well, enough! These truths, however paradoxical they are, will get to be known, and, as they are, the clout of the USA will sink even faster than its industry.
Other countries have known terrible government and horrendous periods in history. The way out is first by shedding a light, so that knowledge can flow in.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
***
(A version of this essay was published by NYT, April 4; an expansion of it will be put on wordpress.)
***
Gail Collins, a well known columnist in the New York Times, April 3, 2009, tries to be funny by being so shallow and offensive to others as to be self deprecating with the deliberate display of one's own low cultural performance, which, in turn, is supposed to show a great sense of humor. George W. Bush was a master of that art, but it is ubiquitous in the USA. It goes hand in hand with racism and cultural obscurantism.
Here she goes: "If nothing else, the president’s trip overseas helped resolve the longstanding question of who can be more irritating, the Republicans or the French. The president’s main mission, after all, was to try to talk the French and Germans into supporting a serious global stimulus plan, and he failed. There were other accomplishments, sure. But even the tiniest seemed to have required a lot of pandering."
The Europeans were not born yesterday. As I said many times on my sites and various comments to the blogosphere and the New York Times, there is no evidence that the stimulus of the USA is larger than France's or the EU's. Obama's stimulus has in it the AMT (an irrelevant tax relief, which is voted every year), partial compensation for the collapsing state budgets, and desperate attempts to provide for two years or so a small fraction of the social help the EU has mandated into law on a permanent basis. The EU total stimulus is above half a trillion dollars, and the real stimulus of the USA is certainly much less than that. So enough. Obama went to Europe to beg, but as long as it is to make war and pay his ultra rich friends, he will not get charity.
The Europeans know that the Bush-Obama administration is sending trillions of US Dollars to the corrupt giant banks/hedge funds/private equity vulture machine, the plutocracy the guys in his administration (Summers, Geithner, Emanuel) belong to, as low level soldiers.
Bretton-Woods insure that the US Dollar is the world's reserve currency. Other countries, such as China, by buying US Treasury bonds, feed the USA, and pay for its wars, and also pay for its pseudo stimulus, and pay for its plutocracy. Obama went to France and Germany to ask them to pay for the plutocracy of the USA, as if they were China and Japan. And the answer is Nein.
The game is over as far as Europe is concerned. The question is to know what China will do.
Some in the USA will say it's unjust, that the USA insured Pax Americana, saved Europe, etc. This is, very unfortunately, propaganda. It is the apparent truth, as all good propaganda is. But it is not what really happened. The truth is stunning, and basically just the opposite. If some masterminds set fire to your house in the dark, and then recruit some youth to help you out extinguishing the flames in broad day light, what do you call them? How should you view them? This was Wall Street, various American plutocrats and the government they own, did, throughout the twentieth century.
My thesis, exposed in depth on my sites, is that the plutocracy of the USA was the fundamental enzyme of Bellum Americanum, the enormous wars that wrecked Europe from 1914 to 1945. The USA played a very nasty, treacherous role against Europe during the entire century.
Far from supporting democracy, American plutocrats undermined it very carefully. The plutocrats supported Hitler, crucially, and then gave half of Europe to Stalin. Not satisfied with this, the same sort of double game was played in the Middle East (supporting and exciting Iranian Shiites, Hussein and bin Laden, and then switching on them, and decrying them as evil). Well, enough! These truths, however paradoxical they are, will get to be known, and, as they are, the clout of the USA will sink even faster than its industry.
Other countries have known terrible government and horrendous periods in history. The way out is first by shedding a light, so that knowledge can flow in.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
CORSAIR CAPITALISM KILLS.
France and Britain, several centuries ago, supported corsairs, who were state sanctioned pirates (preying on Spanish shipping, typically). Some became very famous and honored (Sir Francis Drake in Britain, Surcouf and Suffren in France). The USA has been using its plutocrats and hedge funds as old time corsairs, but on a world sucking scale. Nazism was a client of Wall Street and varied American plutocrats. Stalin, Hussein and bin Laden were allies, and received gifts [such as half of Europe for Stalin]. Enough.
Plain old thievery and organized crime is at the root of the present crisis. Unfortunately, the inexperienced, plutocratically advised Obama, chose as economic advisers devoted fanatics of the plutocracy, Summers and Geithner, and their perverse and ridiculous advice is often regurgitated by the august presidential lips, just as it was put in. G20 leaders should be aware of that.
Present American policy, with its trick to force other countries [such as China] to buy Treasury Bonds of the USA, lest the world economy collapses, forces the rest of the planet to support American military adventures.
For nearly a century, the American oligarchy has taken ethical short cuts to enrich itself at the expense of everyone else. Under the cover of "DEREGULATION", that very small minority, mostly based in the USA physically and philosophically, has set up special "industries" to steal as much as it could from commoners [American for-profit health care is an example, it kills dozens of thousands of Americans every year; even putting people in jail has been made into a for-profit industry, so has been credit ratings]. This small minority of "the best and the brightest" has stolen so much of the world capital, that not enough has been left for the rest of the world economy to function. As simple as that.
It is time for serious intellectual leadership for this planet. It will not come from a country that is unable to rise its energy taxes [the only highly effective proximal measure to reduce CO2 emissions.]
The color of the face may have changed, but not the color of money.
[Full post on that subject on the site below.]
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Plain old thievery and organized crime is at the root of the present crisis. Unfortunately, the inexperienced, plutocratically advised Obama, chose as economic advisers devoted fanatics of the plutocracy, Summers and Geithner, and their perverse and ridiculous advice is often regurgitated by the august presidential lips, just as it was put in. G20 leaders should be aware of that.
Present American policy, with its trick to force other countries [such as China] to buy Treasury Bonds of the USA, lest the world economy collapses, forces the rest of the planet to support American military adventures.
For nearly a century, the American oligarchy has taken ethical short cuts to enrich itself at the expense of everyone else. Under the cover of "DEREGULATION", that very small minority, mostly based in the USA physically and philosophically, has set up special "industries" to steal as much as it could from commoners [American for-profit health care is an example, it kills dozens of thousands of Americans every year; even putting people in jail has been made into a for-profit industry, so has been credit ratings]. This small minority of "the best and the brightest" has stolen so much of the world capital, that not enough has been left for the rest of the world economy to function. As simple as that.
It is time for serious intellectual leadership for this planet. It will not come from a country that is unable to rise its energy taxes [the only highly effective proximal measure to reduce CO2 emissions.]
The color of the face may have changed, but not the color of money.
[Full post on that subject on the site below.]
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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