An amendment to the Financial Stability Improvement Act (currently before the House Financial Services Committee):
..." would empower federal regulators to rein in and dismantle financial firms that are so large, inter-connected, or risky that their collapse would put at risk the entire American economic system, even if those firms currently appear to be well-capitalized and healthy."
Some have proposed thus to limit each single bank to 1%, or 2% of GDP. This is not enough, not to say outright naive.
Indeed, however small, if the banks all conspire, and are all allowed to invest in the same non productive derivatives, they will still divert capital away from the real economy to imaginary profits justifying indecent and damaging bonuses, while starving the real economy.
The notion of integration in the mathematical sense has to be introduced. This is a known problem with carcinogens. To limit each given carcinogen below a threshold is not enough. By piling up carcinogens under the threshold, one can get large carcinogenicity. Thus Germany has introduced an overall integrated carcinogenicity limit. France, and the EU will soon follow suit (under scientific pressure).
So, by analogy, what should be limited is the overall risk to the system, and that should evaluated by checking how much risk is in the global system. An obvious way out is to regulate derivatives by limiting leverage, certifying each and every single derivative, and distinguishing commercial operators from speculators (who should be more limited in leverage).
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Saturday, October 17, 2009
ESSENCE OF THE FINANCIAL CRISIS
For millennia, the STATE controlled the currency. Now, though, most of the currency is controlled by a few private individuals, the bankers. The fractional reserve system is set up that way. This is actually a devolution of civilization.
And it happened before: the French Ancient Regime let private individuals be in charge of taxation, the Fermiers Generaux ("General Farmers"). This led directly to the French revolution of 1789. I have developed this theme, and many related issues, on my sites.
Now, again, this has got to stop. Bankers cannot just create the currency, and lend it to their friends and themselves, with the connivance of the government, artificially boosting GDP, joining insult to injury, has is the case now. Enough is enough.
Now, of course, this is not all what is wrong with the economy. There is a global economic crisis due to globalization (a form of re-colonization), one caused by increasing energy and ecological problems, and one caused by insufficient technological and scientific progress, considering the piling up of problems, and one caused by the related dissemination of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
And it happened before: the French Ancient Regime let private individuals be in charge of taxation, the Fermiers Generaux ("General Farmers"). This led directly to the French revolution of 1789. I have developed this theme, and many related issues, on my sites.
Now, again, this has got to stop. Bankers cannot just create the currency, and lend it to their friends and themselves, with the connivance of the government, artificially boosting GDP, joining insult to injury, has is the case now. Enough is enough.
Now, of course, this is not all what is wrong with the economy. There is a global economic crisis due to globalization (a form of re-colonization), one caused by increasing energy and ecological problems, and one caused by insufficient technological and scientific progress, considering the piling up of problems, and one caused by the related dissemination of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Saturday, September 26, 2009
FRAYING IN AFFRAYING AFGHANISTAN
Bob Herbert correctly notice in the NYT: "The difference between the public’s take on Afghanistan and that of the nation’s top leadership is both stunning and ominous. A clash is coming."
As I have argued on my sites, to win a war, one needs first to know what one is fighting for. Or then have an immense military superiority. We do not have the later: scaling up what the French did in Algeria to the populations, we would need 500,000 [# of French soldiers] times 36 [population Afghanistan] divided by 6 [population Algerians at the time], namely three million men.
The French won militarily in Algeria, and, although "Algeria is France" (as used to be said), they left. They were just plain tired of waging a conflict, and argue about superstition.
So are we going to send three million men to dominate 36 million Afghans? So we can lose a few years later?
Unlikely.
Obama does not know what he is doing in Afghanistan, as shown by his completely self contradictory statements about Islam there (which is, according to him, and the fact of the Afghan constitution, what we are defending there, he means, what he views as the good Islam, except he does not like the law about raping women, and forcing them to enjoy it officially...)
The drain of this grotesque war on treasure, morals, morality, and logical coherence, let alone lives and limbs cannot be sustained...
As I have argued, the war is waged not because of Al Qaeda, or the Taliban: these are just pretexts. But the truth can only be left unsaid...
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
As I have argued on my sites, to win a war, one needs first to know what one is fighting for. Or then have an immense military superiority. We do not have the later: scaling up what the French did in Algeria to the populations, we would need 500,000 [# of French soldiers] times 36 [population Afghanistan] divided by 6 [population Algerians at the time], namely three million men.
The French won militarily in Algeria, and, although "Algeria is France" (as used to be said), they left. They were just plain tired of waging a conflict, and argue about superstition.
So are we going to send three million men to dominate 36 million Afghans? So we can lose a few years later?
Unlikely.
Obama does not know what he is doing in Afghanistan, as shown by his completely self contradictory statements about Islam there (which is, according to him, and the fact of the Afghan constitution, what we are defending there, he means, what he views as the good Islam, except he does not like the law about raping women, and forcing them to enjoy it officially...)
The drain of this grotesque war on treasure, morals, morality, and logical coherence, let alone lives and limbs cannot be sustained...
As I have argued, the war is waged not because of Al Qaeda, or the Taliban: these are just pretexts. But the truth can only be left unsaid...
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
PECK ON BECK NOT
Krugman observes that: "I’d say that Feldstein was channeling Glenn Beck, except that since the Feldstein piece came first, it’s the other way around. So as I said, maybe we shouldn’t be so hard on Mr. Beck."
[Marty Feldstein, a well known economist has been going around, saying, and writing in prestigious editorials that one could not afford to fight the greenhouse effect.]
Beck had an excellent piece on the influence of big bankers, in particular Goldman Sachs, on the political process, in particular the White House. He was standing at the blackboard, and drew an elaborated diagram, which was correct, as far as I knew.
I also know that it required a lot of courage to do so. In my own microcosme, I was harassed and punished by bankers-with-bonuses, just because I emitted similar truths (they threatened and insulted me through email and the Internet, and got me banned from websites). I had to pinch myself to observe that was really happening, and not just a nightmare.
So I can understand the sort of risk that Beck took by drawing that diagram, and going on a long piece about plutocrats. He got many bonus points from me then.
I can understand that Beck wants to depict himself as a clown to divert attention from his grave objections to an ancient regime which is going straight towards the wall of the tsunami of rising seas… He can always justify himself by saying later that he said whatever, being a clown, and thus innocent of any gravitas versus big bankers with offices in the White House (Rahm Emanuel, and various Golman officers...)
Nevermind that Beck is ironical about global warming when it snows in New York. It is an amusing contrast. It is to scientists to explain, and pound down on, the point that the warming is mostly concentrated in the polar regions, and that there is the Achilles Heel of the entire climate: if you bust the frig, the temps are going to shoot up. And the seas will follow…
PA
[Marty Feldstein, a well known economist has been going around, saying, and writing in prestigious editorials that one could not afford to fight the greenhouse effect.]
Beck had an excellent piece on the influence of big bankers, in particular Goldman Sachs, on the political process, in particular the White House. He was standing at the blackboard, and drew an elaborated diagram, which was correct, as far as I knew.
I also know that it required a lot of courage to do so. In my own microcosme, I was harassed and punished by bankers-with-bonuses, just because I emitted similar truths (they threatened and insulted me through email and the Internet, and got me banned from websites). I had to pinch myself to observe that was really happening, and not just a nightmare.
So I can understand the sort of risk that Beck took by drawing that diagram, and going on a long piece about plutocrats. He got many bonus points from me then.
I can understand that Beck wants to depict himself as a clown to divert attention from his grave objections to an ancient regime which is going straight towards the wall of the tsunami of rising seas… He can always justify himself by saying later that he said whatever, being a clown, and thus innocent of any gravitas versus big bankers with offices in the White House (Rahm Emanuel, and various Golman officers...)
Nevermind that Beck is ironical about global warming when it snows in New York. It is an amusing contrast. It is to scientists to explain, and pound down on, the point that the warming is mostly concentrated in the polar regions, and that there is the Achilles Heel of the entire climate: if you bust the frig, the temps are going to shoot up. And the seas will follow…
PA
Sunday, September 20, 2009
WHEN OUTRAGE IS NOT ENOUGH...
PLAIN OLD RAGE IS RECOMMENDED...
In "Even Glenn Beck Is Right Twice a Day", Frank Rich (NYT, Sunday Sept. 20, 2009) declares that: President Obama — and our political system — are being tested by a populist rage that is no less real for being shouted by a demagogue from Fox.
When the People has good reason to be enraged, does that mean the the slightly pejorative "populist rage" should be used?
Well, what is being tested is systems of thought that are erroneous.
Clinton, Larry Summers and his fellow conspirators at Goldman Sachs, the White House, and the like, dismantled (crucial parts of) Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Congress work elaborated in 1933 to keep the financial exploiters at bay, once and for all. These are the people that ought to be denounced. And Beck denounced them (a bit). That's good.
Anybody exploiting so called racial differences to self advance, or not, is playing the racist card, that is also a fact one should bear in mind. One can be funny about it as Lula, the president of Brazil, has been, and that is sort of tolerable, perhaps even necessary, sometimes.
Anyway, people should talk about \"race\" where it counts. Such as: are the budget cuts in California racist and pro-plutocratic? But the brush with which one paints things has to be precise enough to write something meaningful. That Beck does occasionally, and it's hard to do.
So the problem is at the White House, and in Congress, not Beck's studio. Beck does the job that is needed, calling a cat a cat, and the thief, even a large one, a thief.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
In "Even Glenn Beck Is Right Twice a Day", Frank Rich (NYT, Sunday Sept. 20, 2009) declares that: President Obama — and our political system — are being tested by a populist rage that is no less real for being shouted by a demagogue from Fox.
When the People has good reason to be enraged, does that mean the the slightly pejorative "populist rage" should be used?
Well, what is being tested is systems of thought that are erroneous.
Clinton, Larry Summers and his fellow conspirators at Goldman Sachs, the White House, and the like, dismantled (crucial parts of) Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Congress work elaborated in 1933 to keep the financial exploiters at bay, once and for all. These are the people that ought to be denounced. And Beck denounced them (a bit). That's good.
Anybody exploiting so called racial differences to self advance, or not, is playing the racist card, that is also a fact one should bear in mind. One can be funny about it as Lula, the president of Brazil, has been, and that is sort of tolerable, perhaps even necessary, sometimes.
Anyway, people should talk about \"race\" where it counts. Such as: are the budget cuts in California racist and pro-plutocratic? But the brush with which one paints things has to be precise enough to write something meaningful. That Beck does occasionally, and it's hard to do.
So the problem is at the White House, and in Congress, not Beck's studio. Beck does the job that is needed, calling a cat a cat, and the thief, even a large one, a thief.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Monday, September 7, 2009
BLAME THE CAUSE.
[Published on the Roger Cohen blog, NYT, September 6, 2009].
***
The Egyptian cultural minister responded in 2008, in the following fashion to a deputy of the Egyptian parliament who was alarmed that Israeli books could be introduced into the Alexandria Library: “Burn these books; if there are any there, I will myself burn them in front of you”?
Now he is leading candidate for UNESCO, to the alarm of Claude Lanzmann (author of the documentary "Shoah"), Bernard-Henri Lévy (philosopher) and Elie WieselNobel (prize winner in literature). They want "to prevent the irreparable".
But are they barking up the wrong tree?
***
When confronting a single statement, or just a few statements, one has to be cautious about the context that brought them up. This is what happens when people joke: people utter statements that make no sense in a more global context, and the logical incoherence gives pleasure (probably a way evolution has found to encourage the imagination, the source of mental insight).
But statements that make no sense in a more general, but intended context, can happen in other situations too, and not just to amuse, but to instruct directly. Maybe Hosny was trying to shake things up, while giving a few rhetoric morsels to opponents. That is what his "solemn" excuses seem to indicate.
"Anti-Semitism" has come to mean "Anti-Judaism". "Anti-Judaism" originated with Christianism, the so called Catholic Orthodoxy of emperor Constantine and many of his imperial, superstitious, fanatical and extremely atrocious successors.
At the time, the Catholics were busy killing everybody they disagreed with, and they disagreed with whoever had the slightest different philosophy about anything. The Jews barely escaped with their lives as a culture and religion, others were so thoroughly exterminated, nearly nobody knows their names (Arians, Nestorians, Gnostics, etc...). Three centuries later, the concept of fanatical Anti-Judaism was picked up by those who wrote the Qur'an (a bunch of military men under Caliph Uthman, ~ 645 CE).
The Qur'an is violently against the "Jews". OK, not as ferociously as it is for the extermination of some other categories of unbelievers. But I do not see Elie Wiesel, Claude Lanzmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy protesting against the blatant hatred of the Jews in the Qur'an. Why? All the more troubling since Adolf Hitler expressed his admiration for, and knowledge of Islam many times (let alone made more than friends with the Mufti of Jerusalem!)
It seems clear to me that, as long as the Qur'an will be viewed as "holy", all what is inside will be viewed as "holy". Many statements in the Qur'an can be interpreted as calling for the death of Jews and saying they refused God, and Muhammad, and are unbelievers, etc... All these categories of thinkers the Qur'an calls to kill. Shocking but true.
I know this sort of observation on the text of a superstition is viewed as "racist" by people with little brainpower. But it is not anymore racist than observing that the Christian superstition's highest authorities tortured to death millions of Jews and other "heretics" over the centuries. In that sense the catholic Hitler was just the bouquet final of attempted Jewish holocausts(and Hitler was, indeed, not so discreetly supported by the Pope himself).
The hadiths of Muhammad, another sacred text of Islam go even further than the Qur'an: "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him'".(Sahih al-Bukhari 4:52:177) This hadith has been quoted countless times, and it has become a part of the charter of Hamas.
So let those lions of justice and courage, Elie Wiesel, Claude Lanzmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy, lay the blame where it mostly lays. Differently from Hosny, they are better protected, so we expect more from them.
***
Patrice Ayme
***
[A much longer and elaborated version, filling in a lot of savory details, will hopefully be put on:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/]
***
The Egyptian cultural minister responded in 2008, in the following fashion to a deputy of the Egyptian parliament who was alarmed that Israeli books could be introduced into the Alexandria Library: “Burn these books; if there are any there, I will myself burn them in front of you”?
Now he is leading candidate for UNESCO, to the alarm of Claude Lanzmann (author of the documentary "Shoah"), Bernard-Henri Lévy (philosopher) and Elie WieselNobel (prize winner in literature). They want "to prevent the irreparable".
But are they barking up the wrong tree?
***
When confronting a single statement, or just a few statements, one has to be cautious about the context that brought them up. This is what happens when people joke: people utter statements that make no sense in a more global context, and the logical incoherence gives pleasure (probably a way evolution has found to encourage the imagination, the source of mental insight).
But statements that make no sense in a more general, but intended context, can happen in other situations too, and not just to amuse, but to instruct directly. Maybe Hosny was trying to shake things up, while giving a few rhetoric morsels to opponents. That is what his "solemn" excuses seem to indicate.
"Anti-Semitism" has come to mean "Anti-Judaism". "Anti-Judaism" originated with Christianism, the so called Catholic Orthodoxy of emperor Constantine and many of his imperial, superstitious, fanatical and extremely atrocious successors.
At the time, the Catholics were busy killing everybody they disagreed with, and they disagreed with whoever had the slightest different philosophy about anything. The Jews barely escaped with their lives as a culture and religion, others were so thoroughly exterminated, nearly nobody knows their names (Arians, Nestorians, Gnostics, etc...). Three centuries later, the concept of fanatical Anti-Judaism was picked up by those who wrote the Qur'an (a bunch of military men under Caliph Uthman, ~ 645 CE).
The Qur'an is violently against the "Jews". OK, not as ferociously as it is for the extermination of some other categories of unbelievers. But I do not see Elie Wiesel, Claude Lanzmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy protesting against the blatant hatred of the Jews in the Qur'an. Why? All the more troubling since Adolf Hitler expressed his admiration for, and knowledge of Islam many times (let alone made more than friends with the Mufti of Jerusalem!)
It seems clear to me that, as long as the Qur'an will be viewed as "holy", all what is inside will be viewed as "holy". Many statements in the Qur'an can be interpreted as calling for the death of Jews and saying they refused God, and Muhammad, and are unbelievers, etc... All these categories of thinkers the Qur'an calls to kill. Shocking but true.
I know this sort of observation on the text of a superstition is viewed as "racist" by people with little brainpower. But it is not anymore racist than observing that the Christian superstition's highest authorities tortured to death millions of Jews and other "heretics" over the centuries. In that sense the catholic Hitler was just the bouquet final of attempted Jewish holocausts(and Hitler was, indeed, not so discreetly supported by the Pope himself).
The hadiths of Muhammad, another sacred text of Islam go even further than the Qur'an: "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. 'O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him'".(Sahih al-Bukhari 4:52:177) This hadith has been quoted countless times, and it has become a part of the charter of Hamas.
So let those lions of justice and courage, Elie Wiesel, Claude Lanzmann and Bernard-Henri Lévy, lay the blame where it mostly lays. Differently from Hosny, they are better protected, so we expect more from them.
***
Patrice Ayme
***
[A much longer and elaborated version, filling in a lot of savory details, will hopefully be put on:
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/]
Friday, September 4, 2009
THE ROAD TO CARBONIFEROUS HELL.
Sarkozy (the president of France, would I add for the cognitively challenged) declared yesterday that, as far as he was concerned, as long as unemployment was going up, the crisis was still worsening.
The real crisis was well started under Clinton: an increasingly unbalanced, unsustainable economy, with rising unemployment in real jobs (I know that Reagan said that being a shoe shiner was as honorable, as real a job as being a rocket scientist, but that is only illustrative of Reagan’s lack of grasp of what constitutes an economy).
That Americans are getting enraged maybe a good, necessary, although counterintuitive first step. Americans are reduced to rage because rage lessens pain (a scientific study just came out showing that cursing measurably reduced pain). It is the first step towards revolt: cursing helps.
The French have long learned to express their own rage creatively. It is not so dumb; since, in France, the higher ups can be seized at any moment by the vengeful People, they think more carefully at the broad scheme of things. Hence Sarkozy’s many correct insights. The French government made a deal with the French population that it would confront Obama with an ultimatum about banksters’ bonuses.
Of course, many American bankers will scoff: what can France do? Well, France will introduce a carbon tax in 2010. That sounds i nnocent enough. But then the European Union will have to follow. And then of course it could be applied to imports. China is probably guessing this, and making a massive move towards renewables, using the might of her communist command and control of her capitalist free economy.
Applying the carbon tax to imports will be a powerful blow against the international plutocracy that seems to animate the USA as a living skeleton inside. Indeed the delocalized American industry in nice locales such as China will be struck by ruinous taxes (as deserved). It will of course help the European industrial base (still mostly in Europe, thanks to vociferous European protesters).
At this point the USA could be put on the ropes: its plutocracy would be collapsing, its industrial base will have long disappeared, and the worldwide carbon tax will strike hard all heavy users of carbon, including air travel. Only the Hamish will look smart. OK, it’s 10 years down the road to hell, but the situation is clear: since the USA did not want to clean its act, it will be cleaned whether it cooperates, or not.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
The real crisis was well started under Clinton: an increasingly unbalanced, unsustainable economy, with rising unemployment in real jobs (I know that Reagan said that being a shoe shiner was as honorable, as real a job as being a rocket scientist, but that is only illustrative of Reagan’s lack of grasp of what constitutes an economy).
That Americans are getting enraged maybe a good, necessary, although counterintuitive first step. Americans are reduced to rage because rage lessens pain (a scientific study just came out showing that cursing measurably reduced pain). It is the first step towards revolt: cursing helps.
The French have long learned to express their own rage creatively. It is not so dumb; since, in France, the higher ups can be seized at any moment by the vengeful People, they think more carefully at the broad scheme of things. Hence Sarkozy’s many correct insights. The French government made a deal with the French population that it would confront Obama with an ultimatum about banksters’ bonuses.
Of course, many American bankers will scoff: what can France do? Well, France will introduce a carbon tax in 2010. That sounds i nnocent enough. But then the European Union will have to follow. And then of course it could be applied to imports. China is probably guessing this, and making a massive move towards renewables, using the might of her communist command and control of her capitalist free economy.
Applying the carbon tax to imports will be a powerful blow against the international plutocracy that seems to animate the USA as a living skeleton inside. Indeed the delocalized American industry in nice locales such as China will be struck by ruinous taxes (as deserved). It will of course help the European industrial base (still mostly in Europe, thanks to vociferous European protesters).
At this point the USA could be put on the ropes: its plutocracy would be collapsing, its industrial base will have long disappeared, and the worldwide carbon tax will strike hard all heavy users of carbon, including air travel. Only the Hamish will look smart. OK, it’s 10 years down the road to hell, but the situation is clear: since the USA did not want to clean its act, it will be cleaned whether it cooperates, or not.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
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