On March 09, 2009, Paul Krugman wrote an editorial in the New York Times, "Behind The Curve". I agree wholeheartedly with what he wrote, and complemented it with the following comment that the New York Times was kind enough to publish:
***
The fierce recession of 1982 was the consequence of extremely high interest rates deliberately inflicted by Fed Chief Paul Volcker to break the back of inflation. The short term interest rates were brought as high as 23%. The recession of 1982 was an act of will.
This recession is different. It is structural, the result of an erroneous philosophy of civilization. Its causes are much deeper than those of the depression of the 1930s (which was just a big bust after a big boom, politically mismanaged, spiked with a trade war for good measure).
The present recession follows from decades of misallocations of economic efforts, the decision by Clinton-Rubin-Summers-Geithner-Greenspan to found the economy on hedge funds and private equity, and the total disdain for an energy efficient economy in the same direction as Europe. The median salary has been going down for 11 years, which means that this depression has seen already 11 summers.
By unit of GDP, the USA emits more than three times as much CO2 than France: as Rubin and Summers and Geithner were building giant monopolistic banks full of themselves and their friends, the real infrastructure was left to die. Meanwhile the countries of the EU forced energy prices way high inside Europe to force their economies to become ever more energy efficient. When the world economic boom brought energy prices too high, weakened by years of useless, Orwellian war, the completely inefficient USA broke down.
Obama is facing an utter catastrophe. But, in a NYT interview on March 6, he informs us that he uses television to watch basketball. I guess it's more lively than the utter destruction out there.
Then Obama goes to see Summers, who orchestrated the Credit Default Swaps in 1998. Summers has got to be happy: everyday that goes by, more taxpayer money is sent to the counterparts of the few giant institutions who lent all the money to the hedge funds, private equity, etc. So the wealthy people Summers love are getting relatively richer everyday (while, and because most of the People become poorer). Tomorrow the world will be theirs even more than it was yesterday: the dream goes on.
These are not ranting charges; Obama did not reinstate various short sale rules put in to stop the Great Depression of the 1930s, so his friends in the hedge funds make a killing destroying the stock market investments that constitute most of the retirements dozen of millions of US citizens have. The same friendly hedge fund managers enjoy their maximum 15% tax rate. Indeed, as Obama insists, he is "not socialist". is there an adjective for "hedge-fundist"?
Obama is facing catastrophe, but he does not look at the right indicators, or he cannot read them: the unemployment rate is a NON LINEAR curve. One can just look at it, and sees this: it's clearly a quadratic curve, or an exponential.
Obama does not understand what this means: he knows basketball and law. The exponential function has not been taught to him. He has proably never met a differential equation in his life. This non linear graph, which is totally obvious, means that the catastrophe is feeding on itself, its rate of increase is proportional to how big it already is. The real unemployment rate is already 17% (and even though. most people in the USA need some sort of employment to get health care, so people will accept whatever job in the USA, differently from, say, France, where they get health care, no matter what).
At the present rate of augmentation, by September, the unemployment rate should be above 13% (it's 8.1% now, higher than France). The speed, and self feeding of the disaster is such that, by September, Obama maybe facing 25% real unemployment, or more (the USA jumped in a month from 14% to 17% in real unemployment, and from 7% to 8.1% in the short term unemployment measure, U-3).
Interestingly the real stimulus in the USA is arguably of the same relative size as the French stimulus (although France just entered recession, and although France has mandated, very strong automatic economic stabilizers that kick in when the economy goes down, because of huge spending on social services).
There are many things that Obama could have put in a real trillion dollars stimulus: rail is an example. Light and high speed: there is a huge need for both in their electric version(very efficient; rail could save the car companies). Another huge need is to go to a closed nuclear cycle (like France, and now Japan, the UK, Germany). It's not a question of liking nuclear or not; the open nuclear cycle now used in the USA is an ecological monstrosity, and an enormous waste.
Soon Obama will have sent all the money to his hedge funds friends, and there will be no more money, and then what?
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
(I just wrote on my site an essay on a new method to better avoid catastrophes, that rolls over Descartes' "Cartesian method". Obama would be well inspired to follow it!)
— Patrice Ayme, Hautes Alpes
RecommendedRecommended by 66 Readers
Showing posts with label Obama.. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama.. Show all posts
Monday, March 9, 2009
Friday, January 16, 2009
NO TRUTH, NO JUSTICE, NO DEMOCRACY.
OBAMA SHOULD LET THE REPUBLIC SAVE ITSELF BY LETTING JUSTICE DEAL WITH THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION.
As Paul Krugman points out in an excellent and very important essay in the New York Times: "If we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years, this means that those who hold power are above the law and can abuse their power."["Forgive and Forget", New York Times, January 16, 2008].
I agree 100%.
After the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of French collaborators of the Nazis were put on trial, 120,000 were condemned, nearly 50,000 suffered "National Degradation" (loss of face and civil rights), and well in excess of 10,000 were executed (under diverse legal procedures).
That may sound excessive, but the USA has never been occupied by Nazis, and suffered the rule of extreme traitors. France was not alone in the severity of her reaction. Several European countries, some of which had made the death penalty unconstitutional for more than a century (e. g., the Netherlands), reintroduced it, and judged and executed their own traitors and war criminals. In France some of the most famous Frenchmen were judged, and condemned to death, including a former head of state and a past prime minister (Laval). The famous writer Brasillach was condemned to death. He wrote movingly to president De Gaulle to spare his life, denying he did anything really wrong, but for writing. He was executed. Decades later, photographs were found of him looking at freshly assassinated victims of the holocaust.
One or two European countries (that will stay nameless at this point) never prosecuted any Nazi collaborators. Why? Because they were themselves wholeheartedly collaborating with Hitler (giving him most of his steel, for example).
Morality? Culprits will lie and deny. At some point, the truth has to be established. Truth can only be established in the past, so it can be hoped for, in the future. The USA never prosecuted the many US citizens who helped the Nazis before, during, and after W.W.II. This had many deep consequences for the deep gangrene of the republic. As Paul Krugman points out, a habit of not establishing the truth was taken. Another consequence has been the systematic rewriting of history, but a rewriting many people do not believe around the planet (since it was not certified by justice). For example, it is often alleged, worldwide, that many of the American secret services took the habit of self financing through drug trafficking (South East Asia, Pakistan-Afghanistan, South America), an Iran-Contra of drugs. It is even alleged that they used famous Nazi monsters (such as Klaus Barbie in Bolivia) to set up the drug networks. Now, the easy reaction of many Americans, when hearing of such things, is to deny it all, and condemn anti-Americanism. But so doing, by not projecting the power of truth and justice, they actually feed the Anti-American propaganda (just as well, or better, than Osama bin Laden).
Western republics are states of laws. They are not states of siege, as Bush tried to make them. If there is never any threat to apply the law, there will be no law. The law is hard, but it is the law, as the Romans said. Far from being above the law, politicians, being more visible, should lead exemplary, extremely lawful lives.
In the French republic, in recent years, the head of the Constitutional Court was prosecuted and had to resign, and the latest president of the republic, Chirac, is being prosecuted (and had to answer judges' questions many times). The preceding Prime Minister, Villepin, famous for his critique of Bush in 2003, has been charged, and is being judged [Not for criticizing Bush, but for taking part in a nasty campaign of disinformation]. No doubt the present French president, Sarkozy, does not feel above the law. If the USA refuses to ever prosecute its worthies, it's not really a democracy. Democracy means people-power, not people-noodle.
It would be very sad if Obama did not let the law be respected inside the USA. That would be more of the same: Bush violated the law outside the USA, now it would be violated inside. Maybe the USA should change its Constitution, so that justice can be much more independent of politicians. This is the case in France.
***
Patrice Ayme
A much deeper version of this essay is found in Patriceayme.wordpress.com: "JUSTICE AS TRUTH FIRST, AND FAIRNESS, SECOND."
— Patrice Ayme, Hautes Alpes
As Paul Krugman points out in an excellent and very important essay in the New York Times: "If we don’t have an inquest into what happened during the Bush years, this means that those who hold power are above the law and can abuse their power."["Forgive and Forget", New York Times, January 16, 2008].
I agree 100%.
After the Second World War, hundreds of thousands of French collaborators of the Nazis were put on trial, 120,000 were condemned, nearly 50,000 suffered "National Degradation" (loss of face and civil rights), and well in excess of 10,000 were executed (under diverse legal procedures).
That may sound excessive, but the USA has never been occupied by Nazis, and suffered the rule of extreme traitors. France was not alone in the severity of her reaction. Several European countries, some of which had made the death penalty unconstitutional for more than a century (e. g., the Netherlands), reintroduced it, and judged and executed their own traitors and war criminals. In France some of the most famous Frenchmen were judged, and condemned to death, including a former head of state and a past prime minister (Laval). The famous writer Brasillach was condemned to death. He wrote movingly to president De Gaulle to spare his life, denying he did anything really wrong, but for writing. He was executed. Decades later, photographs were found of him looking at freshly assassinated victims of the holocaust.
One or two European countries (that will stay nameless at this point) never prosecuted any Nazi collaborators. Why? Because they were themselves wholeheartedly collaborating with Hitler (giving him most of his steel, for example).
Morality? Culprits will lie and deny. At some point, the truth has to be established. Truth can only be established in the past, so it can be hoped for, in the future. The USA never prosecuted the many US citizens who helped the Nazis before, during, and after W.W.II. This had many deep consequences for the deep gangrene of the republic. As Paul Krugman points out, a habit of not establishing the truth was taken. Another consequence has been the systematic rewriting of history, but a rewriting many people do not believe around the planet (since it was not certified by justice). For example, it is often alleged, worldwide, that many of the American secret services took the habit of self financing through drug trafficking (South East Asia, Pakistan-Afghanistan, South America), an Iran-Contra of drugs. It is even alleged that they used famous Nazi monsters (such as Klaus Barbie in Bolivia) to set up the drug networks. Now, the easy reaction of many Americans, when hearing of such things, is to deny it all, and condemn anti-Americanism. But so doing, by not projecting the power of truth and justice, they actually feed the Anti-American propaganda (just as well, or better, than Osama bin Laden).
Western republics are states of laws. They are not states of siege, as Bush tried to make them. If there is never any threat to apply the law, there will be no law. The law is hard, but it is the law, as the Romans said. Far from being above the law, politicians, being more visible, should lead exemplary, extremely lawful lives.
In the French republic, in recent years, the head of the Constitutional Court was prosecuted and had to resign, and the latest president of the republic, Chirac, is being prosecuted (and had to answer judges' questions many times). The preceding Prime Minister, Villepin, famous for his critique of Bush in 2003, has been charged, and is being judged [Not for criticizing Bush, but for taking part in a nasty campaign of disinformation]. No doubt the present French president, Sarkozy, does not feel above the law. If the USA refuses to ever prosecute its worthies, it's not really a democracy. Democracy means people-power, not people-noodle.
It would be very sad if Obama did not let the law be respected inside the USA. That would be more of the same: Bush violated the law outside the USA, now it would be violated inside. Maybe the USA should change its Constitution, so that justice can be much more independent of politicians. This is the case in France.
***
Patrice Ayme
A much deeper version of this essay is found in Patriceayme.wordpress.com: "JUSTICE AS TRUTH FIRST, AND FAIRNESS, SECOND."
— Patrice Ayme, Hautes Alpes
Saturday, August 23, 2008
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/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)