Poop in the water

The Economist:

In April Mr Obama named Craig Becker, a law professor and lawyer for the Service Employees International Union, to one of three vacancies on the five-member National Labour Relations Board (NLRB), whose decisions weigh heavily on the balance of power between unions and management. Business groups are furious. In a joint letter sent to Congress on October 20th, they protested that Mr Becker’s views are “well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance in current labour law.”

...

Mr Bush’s appointees to the NLRB systematically voted against labour.

This is a lot like saying the intent to uphold existing environmental regulation is "well outside the mainstream and would disrupt years of established precedent and the delicate balance in current environmental law."  It's only true to the degree that not enforcing the law can be ever be called a "precedent."

Feminism and pornography

Madison Young, Making Waves in Feminism One [Sexually Explicit!] Scene at a Time:

I feel like I read a lot of so called feminist articles on the evils of porn that are most likely written by people who don't even watch a lot of porn. Porn can be feminist. Porn can be educational, inspire couples, save sex lives, undo some of the sexual repression and body image issues that women grow up with, document our sexual culture, capture chemistry, create visibility for alternative sexual beings, create connection and dialogue around sex between partners, create connection and reduce isolation around fetishes.

It's fair to say that our culture has some real issues around the subject of women having sex. And yet we sure devote a lot of resources to the prospect that they will! The ubiquity of the sexualized female portrayal in all media, not just pornography, suggests we might do best not to feign silence on a subject in which nearly everyone participates!

For these reasons, it's difficult to make an argument that pornography is not important. In whatever ways it has proven destructive to relationships or imposed male expectations on female sexuality, these trends deserve to be challenged. But one cannot boycott the world's premier industry -- or proscribe specific activity as "anti-feminist" -- and expect its essential character to be changed. Instead, feminism must be reconciled with sexuality in whatever ways women choose. In some cases, this will be pornographic. Women deserve support in instances that the choice is actively theirs, defense in the instances that it is not; and advocacy in general!

Sinking hearts

Karl Marx, Capital:

Milton, who wrote Paradise Lost, was an unproductive worker. On the other hand, a writer who turns out work for his publisher in factory style is a productive worker. Milton produced Paradise Lost as a silkworm produces silk, as the activation of his own nature. He later sold his product for £5 and thus became a merchant. But the literary proletarian of Leipzig who produces books, such as compendia on political economy, at the behest of a publisher is pretty nearly a productive worker since his production is taken over by capital and only occurs in order to increase it.

Personally, I have known many talented people who have produced remarkable work out of the "activation of their own nature." But insofar as their writings or their music or their crafts never adequately "produced" on behalf of an appropriating sponsor, all were subsequently encouraged to view themselves as failures. This is because "productive" work is, in the capitalist estimation, only that work which contributes to capital accumulation; anything else has no "productive" value whatsoever.

This narrow definition of productivity is worth bearing in mind in periods of high unemployment, as individuals and their families wait for that Goldilocks occasion when they can once again contribute "productively" for the benefit of employers. This in spite of the fact that many American communities are in shambles, in desperate need of repair; and that so many people have all their creative capacity to give, yet no viable outlets to do so. It is a surely a mark of distinction that ours is a system incapable of bringing these needs together in a socially productive way.

Civil rights in the workplace

BusinessWeek:

In the greatest surprise of all, the researchers discovered that the people who had been laid off often were happier than those left behind. Many had new jobs, even if they didn't always pay as well. Over and over, Moore says, average depression scores were nearly twice as great for those who stayed with Boeing vs. those who left. The laid-off were less likely to binge drink, often slept better, and had fewer chronic health problems.

The researchers say that thanks to the unceasing uncertainty inside Boeing, those who left felt as though they had escaped a bad marriage. At the time one Boeing employee told researchers: "You feel better when someone takes their foot off your neck."

Someday we may approach a conception of "civil rights" in the workplace, as there is no reason to tolerate in one sphere human relations that which is deemed intolerable in others. This might include the right to participate in decisions which bear significantly on one's life and livelihood, just as it would in instances when such choices are deliberated by the state, the family, or any other relation which aspires to a minimum of human decency.

For now, the rights of property supersede the rights of individuals employed by property; and, moreover, the rights of the communities from which they come. A free society will either reconcile the "rights of property" with the rights of individuals, or it be will be "free" only for particular individuals, not all individuals, in keeping with the social dimensions of its propertied class.

Feast and famine

New York Times:

“The way we manage the global agriculture and food security system doesn’t work,” said Kostas G. Stamoulis, a senior economist at the organization. “There is this paradox of increasing global food production, even in developing countries, yet there is hunger.”

The apparent "paradox" might be explained by the fact that many communities don't control their own food. This makes them dependent on wages to purchase it. Communities that either lack adequate employment or who cannot afford global food prices will go without.

Given the chance, people will produce what they need to survive; but being divorced from the land and dependent on wages, they must produce on someone else's behalf before they can consider their own.

While much hand-wringing goes on concerning these, the most extreme inequalities of condition, few observers challenge the inequality of power on which they inevitably rest, and which is always the root of an evil. But it is only because inequality of condition is approached from a premise of unequal power that so little is ever achieved on this front, as the benefits of ending starvation must always be weighed against the overarching prerogative of power. For this, a lasting solution to hunger imposes an intolerable cost: the cost of surrendering power.

Deficits!

Financial Times:

State-sponsored short-time working schemes – in which people work fewer hours while the government tops up their pay – plus employment protection laws and cultural factors mean that some of the largest European economies have curbed the social costs of the severe recession. And by shoring up domestic demand they have arguably helped their own economies recover as well as contribute to global stabilisation. In so doing, they have also raised the question of whether systems that provide a generous cushion at times of crisis and preserve productive capacity, which had come to be seen as sluggish and inefficient, are really so bad.

Suffice it to say, we know better in the United States, where curbing social costs and shoring up domestic demand is known as "bankrupting the nation," while occupying others militarily is called "defending" it.

Dispatches from the nanny state

Financial Times:

Herb Kohl, chairman of the Senate special committee on ageing, was on Wednesday set to go one step further and propose a law that would discourage people from dipping into their 401(k)s before they retire, which can seriously reduce the pot of money they have to live off in old age.

Do you know what else can seriously reduce the pot of money you have to live off in old age?  Not living until old age!

I suppose it's human nature to preference one over the other when the need arises.   Admittedly, this is less often for senators, who don't face medical bankruptcy, for example.

Con air

Wall Street Journal:

The flight's saga -- during which controllers worried the jetliner might have been hijacked -- appears to offer examples of two of the biggest safety hazards in commercial aviation: lax cockpit discipline and pilot complacency.
...
Investigators say the pilots recounted that they became engrossed in a heated discussion about a newly designed work-schedule system -- a controversial topic among pilots since Northwest was merged with Delta Air Lines Inc. Both pilots retrieved their laptops, and the first officer demonstrated to the captain how the new scheduling system worked.

It would be interesting to learn more about this "newly designed, controversial work-schedule system" which elicited "heated discussion" from the pilots -- especially after revelations of low pay and pilot fatigue surfaced in the Buffalo, NY crash.

Working conditions are the sort of thing you'd want to rule out only after arriving at complete confidence they played no significant role in pilot error; they kind of have implications for countless airline passengers and crew!

But when you operate from the assumption that anyone dissatisfied with a career in aviation is "free" to start their own airline, it is hard to accept that working conditions should ever be accounted for at all.  So this becomes a story about "laptops."

The rights of property

Financial Times:

The Palestinian water shortage is further exacerbated by the generous allocation of fresh water to Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank, some of which boast swimming pools, lawns and – in one case – even a fish farm. “The 450,000 Israeli settlers, who live in the West Bank in violation of international law, use as much or more water than the Palestinian population of some 2.3m,” the [Amnesty International] report states.

Isn't there an argument to be made that a fish farm makes more productive use of a scarce resource than the Palestinian circulatory system? After all, the fish are likely to live longer.

Things that sound great in theory

David Weidner, Wall Street Journal:

For many of us, our love for capitalism is real, and for us, love isn't too strong of a word. But like every relationship, it's complicated. It's easy to be infatuated by theories. Who didn't feel a rush of power when they were handed their first paycheck from a summer job? Who isn't awed by the beautiful efficiency of free markets, how they reward ingenuity and keep balance between buyers and sellers?

I'm awed by the beautiful efficiency of eating a sandwich.  I don't know if that figures prominently capitalist theory, but I'd love to see everyone try it in practice!

The boy scout grotto

John Gapper, Financial Times:

[I]f Goldman Sachs took on more risk when its equity was held by outsiders than with its partners’ own money, what can we expect now that the government implicitly accepts that it is “too big to fail”?

"The Hope'n'Change Express has left the station! Save yourselves!"

Riddle me this, bankman! (cont.)

David Wessel, Wall Street Journal:

"Just as in war, there are unintended victims so, too, in economic rescues, there are unintended beneficiaries," [presidential economic adviser Lawrence] Summers said last week.

Isn't it hard to make a case for "unintended beneficiaries" when the very thing being rescued is entitled "capitalism"?

Morale

Drawing literary inspiration from workaday hard times, my colleagues at the old parcel plantation have resolved that Puff, the magic dragon, lived by the "C".

The best care money can buy

Wall Street Journal:

During the health-care debate, one damning statistic keeps popping up in newspaper columns and letters, on cable television and in politicians' statements: The U.S. ranks 37th in the world in health care.

The trouble is, the ranking is dated and flawed, and has contributed to misconceptions about the quality of the U.S. medical system.

Lest we contribute to misconceptions about the quality of the U.S. medical system, let it be said that ours is the highest quality system that nobody can afford.

The more things strain, the more they remain the bane

via The Angry Arab News Service:

The practice of paying women less for doing the same jobs as men was not only accepted but routine; a wife’s credit card was issued in her husband’s name; and women had trouble securing bank loans to buy a house or even a car. The National Press Club was off limits to women until 1971. No one much questioned these regulations and customs — the dress codes requiring women to wear skirts instead of pants, the firing of airline stewardesses who gained too much weight — nor was there vocal opposition to the sort of prohibitions that we decry when they appear in dispatches from some benighted emirate or sheikdom.

I can't wait for the sequel, when Gail Collins tackles contemporary trends -- like how the practice of paying women less for doing the same jobs as men is not only accepted but routine.

Speaking of dress codes, keep in mind: this is how we celebrate our most talented female icons! Yes, we've come a long way since Rosie the Riveter.

Amityville

Amity Shlaes, Bloomberg:

Just when you think they couldn’t possibly grab any more, they do. Senior citizens, that is, now that President Barack Obama has proposed sending each retiree a $250 check some time soon.

I'd only like to note that this person has a career in commentary. Draw your own conclusions.

Regulatory incident a hoax, officials say

Wall Street Journal:

"What's worse," Mr. Emanuel said, was that "[banks] are now literally lobbying against the very reforms" that are intended to prevent another financial crisis.

Banks are crazy! Just because you explicitly instruct someone to do whatever they want, that's no reason why they should! Banks need to think hard about how record profits, increased market share, and lack of competition fit into their overall business strategy; then ask themselves, "Is it really worth it?" Soul searching at the highest level is always the best remedy for institutional excess.

Banking 101: Bonuses are not loans

New York Times:

How can some banks be prospering so soon after a financial collapse, even as legions of people worry about losing their jobs and their homes?

You know, it's funny. Some people might call it a contradiction. Me? I call it a direct relationship!

To call each thing by its right name

Financial Times:

After massive government bailouts, banks are still enjoying government guarantees, implicit if not explicit. Policymakers have, moreover, slashed the cost of liquidity. Bankers’ handsome compensation is, therefore, in large part underwritten by public money. Second, even before the crisis, inadequate competition failed to whittle away large profits – as enormous returns on equity showed – and therefore outsize compensation, unlike in other industries.

I like to think of capitalism as a system of, by, and for the purpose of capital. If nothing else, it is a system that produces and safeguards capital; administered by whatever group controls the bulk of it.

The fact that this capital class defends its interests through government is not some abrogation of capitalism that suddenly renders it "socialism." It is how the system works, if for no other reason than that this is how power works.

For it's own part, socialism developed out of an acknowledgment that government "picks winners and losers" all the time -- so the public might as well get in the game, rather than perpetually pick up the tab. This is its "social" mandate, which it must fulfill if it is to have any useful meaning.

Talk of "lemon socialism," "socialism for the rich," "Obamunism," and the like, posits some mythical capitalism where privileged minorities don't rely on state protection to secure their interests against the disenfranchised majority at every turn. In a system propped up on myths, this is not surprising; but I don't know of any circumstances in which it is real.

Urbane planning

Peter Eavis, Wall Street Journal:

Forget friendly tellers and the tedious task of making loans. To be successful in banking right now, what you really need are bond traders.

That's good news for a bank like J.P. Morgan Chase -- whose third-quarter results ballooned on the back of strong fixed-income trading revenue -- but augurs badly for financial firms dependent on traditional banking. Indeed, numbers contained in J.P. Morgan's results suggest it will be a long time before the business of making loans recovers.

My understanding of modern banking is that lending institutions are more than happy to extend loans as long you can demonstrate a likelihood of default, and a developer is eyeing your neighborhood.

I guess we're waiting on the developers.

Quid pro blow

Financial Times:

The crisis has been good to JPMorgan. As one rival after another collapsed (Lehman Brothers) or stumbled into the arms of governments (Citigroup, BofA, UBS), JPMorgan emerged as a formidable force. Sifting through the rubble of the financial earthquake, Mr Dimon filled in gaps in an international financial conglomerate that spans complex derivatives and saving accounts. In two opportunistic moves last year, it bought Bear Stearns, the investment bank, and Washington Mutual, the regional lender, through cheap government-assisted deals.

The crisis may have been good for JPMorgan -- but let's not forget just how good JPMorgan has been for the crisis!

The richest continent

Financial Times:

There is enough gold, diamonds, copper and cobalt – among other minerals – to ensure the Democratic Republic of Congo’s emergence from among the world’s poorest and most broken societies. The same can be said of Guinea, in West Africa, which has the world’s largest bauxite reserves. Yet both countries fall woefully short when it comes to exploiting these assets for public gain.

Isn't it a misnomer to call African countries "poor" when their owners can all afford to live in Europe? After all, it's only Africans who are poor -- and since when has anyone counted them?

Bright lights, big pity

Gideon Rachman:

An interesting little item here, on the banning of the works of Noam Chomsky from the prison library at Guantanamo Bay. One has to wonder about the mentality of the Pentagon lawyer, who was trying to obtain a copy of Chomsky for one of the detainees he is representing. Maybe his job at Guantanamo has led him to entertain all sorts of subversive thoughts?

Chomsky predictably interpets the ban on his work as further evidence that the US is slipping towards totalitarianism. But I see it another way. Obama has said that he is banning the use of torture on prisoners at Guantanamo. Subjecting them to the works of Noam Chomsky is clearly incompatible with the torture ban.

Yes, well: That's why I always recommend Understanding Power.

At one point you could get it used at Amazon for a dollar or two; I tried to put as many copies into the hands of my colleagues as possible!

Any other suggestions?

In defense of dudes

I Blame The Patriarchy:

It turns out that dudes who cruise patriarchy-blaming blogs to criticize “dearths” of “actual” revolutionary science, and who demand to know whether a particular spinster aunt is a neo-Molotovian Sputnikist, aren’t interested in a post-patriarchal society at all! They are interested in suckering feminists into tedious “debates” showcasing their tiresome vocabularies.

In all fairness to "dudes who cruise patriarchy-blaming blogs to criticize dearths of actual revolutionary science," it should be said such dudes are interested in suckering anyone into tedious debates showcasing their tiresome vocabularies!

But like most things with internet dudes, women hold a special attraction.

Human rights: Wrong for humans?

William Easterly, Financial Times:

In the US and other rich countries, a “right to health” is a claim on funds that has no natural limit, since any of us could get healthier with more care. We should learn from the international experience that this “right” skews public resources towards the most politically effective advocates, who will seldom be the neediest.

You see, this is why I always thought the so-called "right to vote" was a terrible idea. It amounts to little more than government by people who vote! We all know that this is mostly affluent, educated people; who in turn skew public resources away from apathetic non-voters. For this reason, no one should have the right to vote.

History shows that any ideal not immediately realized must be discarded, for anything less is unjust.

Capitalism: A Tough Love Story

In other news, I saw Michael Moore's new movie this weekend, and I have to admit it inspires the question: How could a successful person ever criticize the system that made him successful?™

Why, it's almost as if the man applied his cognitive powers while observing the plight of others, but failed to reach the entrepreneurial conclusion!

Of course, this is something that capitalism cannot explain, since in every foreclosure lies an opportunity -- not a sob story, Mr. Moore.

Interpreting "good news" on the economy

Brian Wesbury, Wall Street Journal:

When it comes to the economy and financial markets, good news has far outweighed bad news in 2009. Just about every piece of economic and financial market data is tracing out a V-shaped recovery. One would think that this would lead to a little more optimism from the conventional wisdom crowd, but it doesn't.

I have a feeling that the "conventional wisdom" amongst my former colleagues is that they would settle for a lower stock price if only they could have their jobs back!  Anytime I hear a working person say they can't wait for "the economy" to recover, I reach for my standard of living.

"The economy" is mostly an indicator of how wealthy people and their organizations are doing. This class can do well under a variety of scenarios, but it's important to remember that one of them is cutting the costs associated with their employees.

Because most companies are managed with a view toward compensating investors, the productive wealth of these enterprises is always distributed upward and away from ordinary employees by default. Though there are times when companies diverge from this formula, this isn't one of them: the stock markets are doing well because people are losing their jobs and their homes.

This is a cause for optimism amongst some observers, as it lowers the compensation demands of people desperate for work; and points toward a day when employers will be able to rehire at them at less expense. On that day, projected years ahead, recovery will be complete!

Obama attacks moon, wins peace prize; award's legitimacy hinges on one's view of the moon

Stump Lane:

Today we bomb the Moon for suspected water-related activities. The intelligence community has learned that the moon may be concealing significant stores of water in underground facilities. Water is really only suitable for use inside nuclear reactors. Kill the Moon!

Meanwhile, the Mooninites have released an official response.

What's bad about a good idea

Wall Street Journal:

"Commonwealth" is a dark, evil book, and it is troubling that it appears under the prestigious imprimaturof Harvard University Press. Countless millions were slaughtered by adherents of Karl Marx in the 20th century. God help us if the scourge returns in the 21st.

Truth be told, there are few things more dangerous than a persuasive argument.  Marx made a good one against capitalism!  He said: industrial capitalism makes everyone dependent on the industrial capitalist, because the industrial capitalist owns the way things are produced -- and he can produce them faster and more efficiently than the artisan or farmer, undermining their livelihood and fostering a useful dependency on the capitalist for employment.  But precisely because the industrial process conveys so much power to its owners, Marx, like all socialists, felt it should be owned by communities; it was too important to be the exclusive "property" of self-interested agents who bore no greater responsibility than the fulfillment their own short-term gain.  In this respect, socialism was aimed at extending traditional conceptions of freedom and democracy to the industrial era.

The idea has been a big hit!  For one thing, it makes a lot sense, insofar as it is permitted to enter the brain.  For another, capitalism isn't doing a whole lot for huge numbers of people -- to say nothing of animals or the environment -- since property ownership is so concentrated in so few hands.  The world more or less accepts what it can get from the people who own it -- and the world has always resented this.  So the idea of an "anti-capitalism" has always held great power for many people.

The danger that lies in every powerful idea, however, is the fact it is powerful, not that it is an idea.  Power is always the danger, not the freedom to inquire.  This is precisely why the totalitarian fights to suppress ideas -- because he cannot suppress the reality in which they inevitably take root: Ideas that resonate with reality have power.  And because it is the power of an idea which draws people to it, it is the corresponding trust in power to see the idea realized that is the inherent danger, always to be guarded against.   This is as true for socialism as it is for markets, Christianity, liberal democracy, jihad, progress, and so on.

Accumulation by dispossession

Financial Times:

One little-recognised aspect of the rural [China] story is the monetisation of agricultural land – a trend with the potential transformational force to rival the privatisation of the nation’s housing stock from the late 1990s.

The "monetization" of agricultural land -- a trend with the potential transformational force to leave your ass without any land, especially when your best practical options are to "sell" or to "borrow against." Americans know too well how badly the scenario can turn out; one can only imagine the challenges faced by rural Chinese.

This is a good example of what David Harvey calls "accumulation by dispossession," the transfer of productive public assets into the private sphere.  For Marx, the process was central to making people dependent on wage-work for survival, since they were "alienated" from the means of their own self-sufficiency -- the means of production.

American exceptionalismo

Lula da Silva, BusinessWeek:

When a major company wants to make an investment in Brazil, [we have discussions] about what region would be [appropriate for] the investment. Why? So we can encourage regional development. That's the role of the government. I think we learned a lesson from the global crisis. Remember when oil went to $150 a barrel. Soy beans also went up. There was a commodity bubble. That was investors getting out of the subprime market and rushing to the futures markets for food and oil. Otherwise, there is no explanation for oil going from $30 up to $150 in such a short time. We cannot allow this kind of speculation because this harms the poorest people in the world. It brings damage to job creation. We want the welfare of society to grow together with the economy. Otherwise, the economy grows for only half a dozen people.

 I don't know, dude.  It seems like such a foreign concept!

Tempting the triumvirate of terrors

Roger Cohen, New York Times:

I’m grateful to the wise Andrew Sullivan of The Atlantic for pointing out that Friedrich Hayek...

Enough said!

Without fear or favour

The Financial Times, on the other hand, is a very trustworthy paper.

Don't trust, but verify

Robert Kaplan:

Throughout the 1980s, I had been coming as a journalist to Yugoslavia. It was a lonely task because few were interested in what was going on in the place, or where it might be headed. On every trip to Belgrade, I paid a visit to the apartment of Milovan Djilas. After the first visits, our conversations become eerie affairs, because I realized Djilas was always right. He was able to predict the future. His technique was a simple one for an East European, but a difficult one for an American: he seemed to ignore the daily newspapers and think purely historically.

There was a time when I ignored the daily news because, instinctively, I did not trust it. I've since changed my ways, having discovered upon close study just how untrustworthy it is! Now I make it a point to watch the headlines -- and my back.

It was interesting to come across this characterization of Djilas. Formerly the #2 Dude under Tito, he was expelled from the Yugoslav Communist Party, unsurprisingly, for being a communist. That kind of shit never sits well with people in high places!

Anyway, I've been reading his Conversations with Stalin, and aside from being intriguing reading, his insights on the travails of party communism almost make you wish the old man Kropotkin and his anarchist legions had taken control of the state -- at least those fuckers distrusted it!

Increasingly, I find the best critics of communism to be communists. For one thing, they begin with the advantage of knowing something about their system, with the added advantage of knowing a thing or two about others. Sadly, this cannot be said of those employed in defense of capitalism, who steadfastly refuse to understand anything about either; hence "the big kablooey in which we currently reside," as IOZ ably noted.

Credit, where it is due

BusinessWeek:

[Credit card] companies have already rethought [interest] rates. Under the new law, issuers can't raise them without 45 days' notice. But there's a loophole: The rules don't apply to variable-rate cards, with rates that float up and down. That's why companies are moving more consumers into such cards, whose rates are likely to soar from their record lows.
...
C.D. Reimer of San Jose was switched to a variable card last month. At the same time the issuer, Barclaycards, upped his rate to 26.99% from around 16%. Reimer could have canceled the account. But the 40-year-old was laid off from his software support job and depends on plastic. Barclaycards declined to comment. 

I'll tell you what: Capitalism today really puts the "dick" back in Dickens!

Capitalism: A Love Story

A colleague with a hospitalized son is asked whether she can adequately balance her work and home life responsibilities; if not, maybe she should take responsibility for her inabilities, do the right thing, and resign.  After all, she does not meet the minimum hours requirement for FMLA, the boss tells her.

It's rarely wise to judge a relationship by what you get out of it under favorable circumstances; but, rather, by what you can do about it should circumstances change.  When power is the disproportional, state-sanctioned prerogative of one side, that inevitably amounts to not very much for the other.  Too often, it is a lesson learned too late; ignored when it happens to others.

Dr. Boli's Celebrated Magazine.

Celebrating China's 60th

You have to admit, if the Democratic Party ran the United States unopposed, ours would be a very democratic country, indeed.