The Culture of Debt

RealClearPolitics - Articles - Reversing America's Culture of Debt

Good article -- I'd argue that the core evil that caused a lot of this problem is the creation of FICA. The idea that "everyone deserves a decent retirement", independent of how much they saved over the course of their life pretty much instigates the idea that "I might as well enjoy myself now" -- because tomorrow, I'm taken care of.

Recently, America has been moving from a culture of ownership to a culture of debt. People went from wanting to own their home and car and have enough for retirement to making monthly payments on everything they consume while relying on someone else (the government) to pay all the bills when they get older.

We have also been moving to a culture of "economic relativism". Democrats for years kept piling on long term entitlements -- FICA, Medicare, Welfare, Foodstamps, etc, etc that were effectively "debt". The promises were made to their voting blocks, and the checks would have to be cashed by subsequent administrations and generations. Yes, Bush piled on the same stupidity with the prescription drug benefit, but it was something that very few Republicans supported. The saddest part about it -- and his daddy's tax increase, was that it muddied the waters. With the dominant culture being Democrat, it is very important for Republicans to stand very firm -- when they don't, as in the case of Bush Jr and Sr, but even in the case of Reagan with the big FICA increase and large deficits, it all adds to the "both parties do it, so we might as well have the Democrats, cuz they give us more".

The other nasty part of the relativsm is that the sheep get confused about the numbers. When Republicans are in power, the size of deficits are a never ending source of sensational articles in the MSM of how HORRIBLE the numbers are. Of course, when the Republicans are in power, we tend to have a growing GDP, which means that the deficits as a % of GDP are low. If I tell you "I spent $1,000", the only way that is really meaningful is if I tell you what I make -- $10K a grand spent is huge, $100K it is significant but only 1%, $1,000K, and it is "lunch money". So the Bush deficits of $400+ Billion were chided as "records" but only in raw numbers. As a % of $10T+ growing economy, they were not records.

Suddenly, deficit numbers in the $2 or even $3 Trillion area on a GDP that is shrinking are now of very little MSM concern. Other than the issue of "Are they big enough??".

These policies are a Trojan horse creating not only a mentality of government reliance, but also a mindset where a lifestyle of permanent debt is acceptable. Not long ago, someone paying massive interest to finance things they couldn't afford was looked upon as irresponsible, and their behavior shameful.

Now, instead of debt being an unfortunate necessity for massive purchases like a house, everything is being financed by interest-bearing debt. If you can't afford something, don't save up until you have the money, just put it on a credit card and pay 12% or 20% interest for years. This interest can double the sticker price, cutting in half people's purchasing power and plunging them ever-deeper into debt.

I'd argue that we got here long ago -- we just keep going deeper, and the BO policies have put us in hyperdrive going straight down.

The Lack of Knowledge Depression

Our Epistemological Depression — The American, A Magazine of Ideas

I'm starting to love that word even more. Epistemology, the study of knowledge and of the limits on man's ability to know.

In many cases, even more importantly, our willingness to jump to anything that SEEMS like knowledge because it "sounds good enough". We don't really like to think about complex things much, even less if the answers turned out are grey to maybe negative, vs nice quick judgments that seem to show our enemies to be wrong, evil and deserving of punishment while showing those that we like, and above all, ourselves to be brilliant and morally above reproach!!

So with our current financial situation, the congress, the president and the MSM grind away about "greed, rich folks and the failures of Wall Street" -- and how in hind sight, it is all so "obvious".

These factors have received a good deal of attention. But they are not the whole story, and certainly not the most original part of the predicament. What seems most novel is the role of opacity and pseudo-objectivity. This may be our first epistemologically-driven depression. (Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature and limits of knowledge, with how we know what we think we know.) 

That is, a large role was played by the failure of the private and corporate actors to understand what they were doing. Most heads of ailing or deceased financial institutions did not comprehend the degree of risk and exposure entailed by the dealings of their underlings—and many investors, including municipalities and pension funds, bought financial instruments without understanding the risks involved. 

We should keep this in mind when we chastise government agencies such as the SEC for failing to monitor what was going on. If the leading executives of financial firms failed to understand what was taking place, how could we expect government regulators to do so? The financial system created a fog so thick that even its captains could not navigate it.

The article goes into a quite a bit of detail about how the financial firms were thinking and operating and that when it all went down, all the "features" that were supposedly there to "keep them safe" -- diversification, hedging, fancy mathematical models and "insurance" all turned against them and aided in the fall.

Confidence cannot just be conjured out of air. Nor can it be created with injections of capital or fiscal stimulus. It will be rebuilt to the extent that financial institutions take actions that lead us to believe that they know what they are doing. And they are more likely to know what they are doing if they are smaller, less diversified, and less engaged with financial instruments that are too clever by half. 

Some recent policies seem likely to exacerbate the problems I’ve outlined. Take the Treasury’s encouragement of institutional consolidation through amalgamation. Bank of America was encouraged to take over Merrill Lynch; and JPMorgan Chase took over Bear Stearns, and then bought the assets of Washington Mutual. Whatever the purported advantages of these takeovers, the creation of ever larger and more diversified companies makes it more likely that these firms will be plagued by the epistemological problems noted above. The Treasury has created more firms that can’t really be understood (or whose riskiness can’t be assessed)—not by their managers, not by government regulators, and not by investors. 

To speak of a crisis of financial epistemology may sound abstract, but it has had very concrete and disastrous consequences. Understanding this underrated aspect of our current crisis is a prerequisite for getting us out of the hole we’ve dug ourselves into.

I think that McCain was more right than we know when he discussed the "recession" in early '08 as being more mental than anything. In the late '90s, the MSM was VERY worried that impeaching Slick Willie would "hurt the economy". Somehow, when it came to casting the Bush administration as completely corrupt, incompetent and to talk about the economy as "depressed", before anything severe had even happened, there was suddenly no "confidence issue".

As in a lot of things, confidence is a lot easier to destroy than it is to build -- like economies, countries, investment accounts, relationships, careers -- and so much more. It can take decades for the things to be built (or longer), but usually, it is possible to destroy much if not all of what was built in a very short period of time. Look at how successful the Democrats have been! They only took over congress in '06, and the WH and filibuster proof congress in '09, and already we have the worst economic numbers in at least 25 years and the largest deficits by all measures in the history of the world!

BO Likes Secret Wiretaps Now

Government opts for secrecy in wiretap suit

There would be some elements of a hopeful sign here if BO is ONLY going to follow the same very limited actions taken by the Bush administration to thwart terrorism. The REAL problem with the Bush did is and always was "precedent", which was made much more horrible by the media "outrage" over the "destruction of constitutional rights". Naturally, considering how buried this obvious move by BO to keep the same programs legal is, we can see that the REAL MSM focus was on "destruction of the Bush administration" -- which I must admit that they succeeded at very well.

The Justice Department said Friday that government agents monitored only communications in which "a participant was reasonably believed to be associated with al Qaeda or an affiliated terrorist organization." But proving that the surveillance program did not sweep in ordinary phone customers would require "disclosure of highly classified NSA intelligence sources and methods," the department said.

Uh, Duh!!! Suppose that legally proving how you knew that some of these phone numbers were attached to al Qaeda would compromise getting that info in the future??? Who would have thunk it!!! Naturally, no such Bush defense would get even momentary consideration by the MSM as having any merit, but hey -- this is BO, we can trust him!!!

Unfortunately, I suspect that we can "trust him" to wiretap political adversaries, create a bunch of false indictments and do IRS audits against "enemies" like the Clinton administration liked to do. Of course, nothing to be worried about there, all those evil people would be on the RIGHT, and the MSM knows that they whatever THEY get, they deserve!!

Fluent Austrian?

Uh, gee BO, I think you will find that "Austrian" is not a language. He isn't sounding so good again -- maybe they don't have a teleprompter there?

How Could Al Qaeda Last So Long"?

CNN Political Ticker: All politics, all the time Blog Archive - Axelrod hits back at Cheney: Not behaving like a ’statesman’ « - Blogs from CNN.com

We all remember that supportive "statesman" Al Gore, and all the MSM criticism of him! Yes, former VPs coming out with such incendiary statements as "we think our policies were better" is something that certainly calls for condemnation.

I find it supremely ironic, on a day when we were meeting with NATO, to talk about the continued threat from Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they're still plotting against us eight years — or seven years later," he said. "I think the question for Mr. Cheney is, how could that be? How could this have gone so long? Why are they still in business?"

Irony -- one of those things like beauty that tend to mostly be in the mind of the beholder. Now of course the MSM successfully spent a lot of time rubbing the nose of any Bush adviser that predicted that Iraq would be a "short battle" in it over and over -- and indeed, extended the comments of a few to be "administration policy that it would be short and easy", when the facts show that it was well understood to likely be a long hard slog.

So, we can be guarenteed that there will be no terrorist threat from Al Qaeda against the US in MUCH less than 7 years. It is utterly amazing to Mr Axlerod how even an administration that they have labled as "utterly incompetent" and "the worst ever" could not take care of this problem in less than 7 years. Let's not push them very hard, let's just assume that they are a mere 4x better than the "worst administration ever". That would mean that it would be "ironic" if there was still any remaining threat from Al Qaeda in 1.75 years. So by the time of the congressional elections next year, the new "better way" will have completely removed the Al Qaeda threat.

This is very useful. I'm sure the MSM will be reporting on that with the same alacrity that they are on this Axlerod comment.

BO Does Bush Impression

The great BO goes overseas where apparently not everyone in the press feels that licking his boots is the key function of "reporting". Looks like maybe no teleprompter for a change?

All of a sudden it is uh, ah, pause, uh ... and then a very meandering dissertation of who knows what. Of course, if he was a Republican, the nightly news would be the worst 15 sec sound bite!

The One Thing You Need to Know

About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success, By Marcus Buckingham

This book is at the crossroads between business success directions and self-help. More on the business side. It is quite efficiently written, so I'll try to do the same in the review. There are 3 major points, I'll reverse his order because I think the last is applicable to all of us, the other two are less so.

1. The one thing you need to know about individual success -- "Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it". Whenever you become aware of some aspect you dislike, do not try to work through it. Do not chalk it up to the realities of life. Do not put up with it. Instead, cut it out of your life as fast as you can. Eradicate it.
2. Are leaders born, or are they made? They are born. A leader is born with an optimistic disposition or she is not. If she is not, then no amount of "optimism training"is going to make her view of the world as optimistic as it needs to be to lead. To lead effectively you must be unfailingly, unrealistically, even irrationally optimistic. Like it or not, this is not learnable.
3. All managers excel at turning one person's talent into performance. They will succeed or fail based on their ability to make their employees more productive working with them than they would be working with someone else.

The rest of the book is coverage of why these 3 items are especially important, as well as supporting information and anecdotes as to why the specific positions taken are true. My belief is that these three items ARE as critical as indicated, and are very much related. If you are bad at the task of turning talents into performance, you aren't ever going to be a great manager, no matter how hard you work at it ... and indeed, by breaking rule one, you are most likely to fail.

The same sort of analysis is key relative to leadership -- are you leading or are you managing? They are very different things.

The idea to not do what you don't like (and will typically be bad at as well) is sort of a reverse on discovering your strengths. There is some logic here -- sort of like the discussion about Michelangelo doing "David" supposedly said he didn't "create", he just uncovered the image that was in the stone. By removing that which we do not like, we become better in touch with "what we are", and increase our chances for success.

Quick read, well written, fairly useful information from a big picture point of view. Recommended.

BO Bows In Respect

I guess BO must know where all the oil comes from!!

90% of Guns

The Myth of 90 Percent: Only a Small Fraction of Guns in Mexico Come From U.S. - Presidential Politics | Political News - FOXNews.com

Common sense would tell you that the statement "90% of the guns used in crime in Mexico come from the US" is a lie. Virtually all of those guns are fully automatic, and fully auto guns are ALREADY illegal here, and have been since the '30s.

This article shows that the number comes from "Of those guns that have serial numbers indicating that they MIGHT come from the US and are sent here for tracing, 90% of them actually are from here"!

That is like saying that "90% of the crime committed in WI is committed by Minnesotans" when what you "meant" was that of the criminals that you found to have MN IDs, 90% of them actually turned out to be from MN".

Doesn't seem like a "mistake" does it? That is because it isn't -- it is an overt attempt to set the sheep up to support an "assault weapons" ban because "of all the harm our guns are causing in Mexico". This is how the lefty's and the MSM get the herd bleating in unison!

Steven's Charges Dropped

Some Alaskans See Stevens As Good As Vindicated : NPR

I'm sure this won't get nearly the coverage as his conviction one week before the election!! The article says "some Alaskan's think he would have won had he not been convicted the week before the election". Ya think?? Gee, he lost by a whole 1% even though he WAS convicted!! Sure glad that I have NPR to tell me that he MIGHT have won!!!

I wonder if this was reversed and a long time Democrat had lost, the Republicans had taken over the White House and the Congress with big margins, if there might be "one or two" media stories about how the legal system was used to take away a Senate seat???

Note, CNN finds there is some really big news this PM so the Steven's story can't make it on their page -- the HEADLINE is a "Struggle With Food Allergies"!!! Democrats outright manipulate an election to steal a Senate seat and then it turns out that they had no case!!!!

Not even a National Story!!!

Make Democrats Tax Exempt?

The Associated Press: Sebelius admits errors, pays $7,000 in back taxes

Can BO find **ANY** Democrats without tax issues? It just becomes clearer and clearer why they are so much in favor of high taxes!! If you aren't going to pay them, it really doesn't make any difference how high they are!!

No Half Measures

Obama, Brown call for tough moves against economic crisis - CNN.com

BO seems to believe that mankind controls it's own destiny and that there is no need to have "cycles". I wonder if that means he is due to banish death? I've heard that is unpopular with a number of people and gives them the "false impression" that many really important things are not within their control. Oh well, I guess that is old pre-BO irresponsibility talking. Now that BO has got it all in hand, the future is only sweetness and light!

"We've passed through an era of profound irresponsibility," Obama said at a joint news conference. "Now, we cannot afford half-measures and we cannot go back to the kind of risk-taking that leads to bubbles that inevitably burst. So we have a choice: We either shape our future or let events shape it for us."

Warming Heretic

The Civil Heretic - Freeman Dyson - Profile - NYTimes.com

Long article on Freeman Dyson -- sort of sad that the fact that he doubts Global Warming is somehow "controversial". He also is very anti nuclear weapons and has been a big war protester -- he is just a very intelligent man that keeps his own counsel. The kind of man that our founding fathers created America for, but now one that our elites find "inconvenient".

Heil BO, Der Corporate Fuhrer

GM and Chrysler failing to turnaround. Wagoner out. - Mar. 30, 2009

Forget shareholders. Forget the Board of Directors. Forget the Constitution. Forget it all, this isn't America any more, it is the Obamination!!! Der Fuhrer has spoken!

This **is** "National Socialism". "Nazi" is derived from "National Socialism" -- the hallmark of SOCIALISM is redistribution of income and the "safety net". The hallmark of communism is the government just 100% takes over everything.

Nazis like BO are very tricky -- they essentially raise lying to a new art form, and the removal of Wagoner is a great example. BO ousts the CEO, names a replacement, and then says that the government is going to back car warranties! ... But THEN, he clearly states that "he doesn't want to be in the car business"!!! What does that mean? Well, it is a direct bold faced lie! Nazis redefine EVERYTHING in political terms -- Der Fuhrer is god, leader, father, brother, boss -- everything. We aren't "in danger of turning Nazi", we are THERE!!!

Where in the constitution under the "separation of powers" does it say that the President can remove a corporate CEO??? Where are all the people that talked about how "chilling" it was when Bush tapped calls to known terrorist cell numbers?

Nowhere. The sheep are bleating quietly.

Heil BO!!!

Seeing the Space Station

My recent quest to watch the ISS pass over was rewarded this evening on the 8:53 orbital pass. I found the time and likely magnitued on HeavensAbove walked out the front door at 8:50, and right on schedule, a nice yellowish bright object began rising in the W-NW. I was actually surprised that it wasn't faster, but then when I watch it on the satellite tracker on the web, it doesn't exactly race along the screen either -- even at 16,500 an hour, it takes over an hour for it to get all the way around, and it was visible for close to 3 min.

The listed magnitude was -2.5, which is brighter than the brightest star, and close to Venus (magnitude 4.0) ... I'd guess it was about that as it got to around 45 degrees, but I was surprised that it was already getting dimmer by the time it went over and when it got to like 70 degrees in the E-SE sky, it rapidly declined in brightness and winked out -- my assumption is that it went into the earths shadow at that point.

It is easy to see, so probably worth going out on a reasonable evening and seeing it.