Warning or Threat?

The Daily Mail (ht Drudge) claims that Soros, who made a billion speculating the pound 9 years ago, is planning to do the same with the euro. He has a record of profiting on currency collapses, and his shorting is thought to have accelerated the collapse of several. But when you look at the story, you wonder who is doing the threatening here:

He believes that unless the European Commission is given sweeping powers over taxation and spending, the single currency will always be vulnerable to financial turbulence in individual states.

'If member countries cannot take the next steps forward, the euro may fall apart,' he added.

Somehow I doubt that the warning arises from his natural altruism. Qui bono? He sounds like a conduit here from another group, saying “OK, we screwed things up so you'd be better off giving us even greater control.”

The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes

This is a history of the Great Depression until 1940. The “forgotten man” of the title is the man whose pocket gets raided when A decides B is in need. The term was rebranded by Roosevelt, of course.

This is not a polemical book, despite what you may have heard. It does not attribute malevolence to Roosevelt or even to his advisers. It simply tells the story of what happened, highlighted by some of the less well-remembered characters: Tugwell, Wilke, Father Divine, and so on.

However, because the textbooks do have it wrong, I'm going to grouse a little.

The textbooks claim that Roosevelt steered the country out of the Great Depression, but the timeline says otherwise. He and his advisers liked tinkering, and some of their policies (demanding that wages not be lowered, for example) had predictably problematic results. Other nations had gotten out of the slump well before, and the US still hadn't recovered as of the start of the war.

Roosevelt was a great leader during the war, and a skillful politician before it. He created the special interest group paradigm that marks the Democratic party to this day. His notion of what the proper role of government should be was a function of his time, perhaps. Unfortunately many people of that era longed for governments to do everything and give men pride again; and we know where that led.

What did he do wrong? He fell for the “laws will make it so” line with things like the wage freeze. He played inconsistent games with the money and gold supply, ending up taking the country off the gold standard altogether; which had ripple effects. He played up class warfare, blaming the rich for being rich, demanding “undistributed profits” taxes, and then blamed them again for not investing. He was willing to pack the Supreme Court to back up his wide-ranging and unconstitutional control of the economy. He'd overlook inconsistent enforcement of the laws if he could attack his targets. He spent money like water. He spoke in private as though he was happy to let the economy fall in disorder for a few months if it meant getting additional authority.

What did he do right? He meant well. Some of the regulations were badly needed. Some of the make-work projects filled genuine needs. For a while, at least, it was encouraging to think that somebody was doing something. And he had clear sight about the dangers of the national socialists. For that he must be forgiven a great deal. (Until the dangers started to come very near the Republicans were isolationists)

There was yet a second contest among Roosevelt's men. It was between those who sought the cooperation of larger businesses and those who wanted to attack them. In New York, Berle considered that a solution might be guaranteeing wages in certain industries, “beginning with housing.” Such a plan, Berle reflected in his diary, “probably also means taking over the railroads,” was well as, perhaps, government “taking over both housing and construction.” He realized that would be an unparalleled infringement on private property. “But,” he wrote with a diarist's sigh, “I do not see that it can be helped.” Balancing the budget would likewise have to go out the window.

That probably sounds familiar. Just change the industry names...

What saved the US economy was the war, followed by the reconstruction when the only undamaged industrial power left had the whole world for a market.

I emphasize the “didn't fix the Depression” theme here because the received wisdom is carelessly wrong; but that's not the way the book reads. Do you want to know how a couple of kosher chicken distributors met the NRA in the Supreme Court? It was also the era that saw Gone With the Wind and Alcoholics Anonymous appear, and sulanilamide.

Read it.

Cult of Celebrity

I wonder if the celebrity worship we find ourselves with is inevitable.

I do not live in the same neighborhood as my co-workers; not even the same continent as some of them. We know each other at work, but we have no neighbors in common.

We are made for community, but the only people we know in common are those advertised by the media--the celebrities. I can connect better with you if I can make a stronger connection with the people we both know. So if I can say I met a singer you enjoy, I am more closely connected with you.

Therefore to stay connected with the people I meet I ought to pay close attention to the lives and doings of sports figures and actors and whoever is being served up as famous. Their doings need to become important to me--because you and I have no other neighbors. Voila: a cult of celebrity.

It is disturbing to have our interpersonal relations mediated by media tycoons.

Other writers

For those not familiar with Anthony Daniels (aka Theodore Dalrymple), he's a retired doctor with an excellent writing style and a sideways eye on society. He takes a clear-eyed look at a writer more popular in the US than in Britain: Ayn Rand. I think she stunk as a writer and as a philosopher; though she had a clear vision--almost prescient--of the motives and methods of the leaders of the progressive movement. She'd seen them up close in Russia already.

And Mark Steyn has an interesting (not quite complete, but interesting) take on trends in Western culture and a wonderfully lively style: read an example on decline of nations. Of course you may not see declines in the West, but check what he has to say anyway--you might end up quoting him.

Near Death

The stories of people who have survived a deadly disease or disaster often tell that their attitude toward life changed: that they are now more happy with living, less interested in things and more interested in people, sometimes more courageous, and so on. For them, something about the nearness of death gave them a better outlook on life. You might expect the contrary--that they'd be more fearful--and some do react that way. Thinking about death doesn't seem the most intuitive approach to enjoying life, but perhaps the old teacher was telling us that that's the way we work.

Improper Investigation

The Middleton police requested a report from Homeland Security on a possible terrorist threat: pro and anti-abortion groups. They got the report they wanted, but eventually somebody higher up in DHS figured out that this was improper and "the analyst ... received improper guidance" and "was given remedial training." That this could have gotten so far is disquieting, and not unanticipated. Somebody in the organization seems to have gotten the vision from Napolitano that political opponents were the real threat.

The power DHS has is too large to let this sort of thing go unrebuked. And Capt. Noel Kakuske should be out on his ear for stupidity and abuse of power. "Potential for violence?" Pitiful excuse...

Polygamists in America

The current National Geographic has a feature on a Mormon group: the FLDS that practices polygamy. Even more dramatically, their prophet can reassign wives and children. As you can easily predict, they tend to expel young men--there aren't enough women to go around anymore.

My better half called their "reassignment" of wives creepy. But reassigning wives is a very old custom. When a conqueror comes through, he collars all the women and assigns them to his followers. Their "prophet" is a kind of warlord and the followers are the vanquished.

New Orleans 31

Its nice to see a little good news for New Orleans, if only by proxy.

No, I didn't watch the game. Our TV doesn't receive the new broadcast format and we haven't bothered to replace it

Plasma Physics

Prospective student tours all have a stop in Chamberlin Hall to look at the Madison Symmetric Torus, used by the plasma physics group here for a number of different experiments studying the properties of plasma. It is sometimes painful to hear the tour guides descriptions of what is going on, but one scientist overheard what is probably the worst: "That is a giant centrifuge for separating the plasma." Possibly this tour guide was studying for medical technician and got confused; but you'd hope they'd look at their scripts once in a while.

Who Can Resist

Part of the little-known back story for Yoda is that in his youth he was shy, lazy, and clumsy--unable even to tie his own shoes (and so ashamed that he hated to be reminded of it). He shared the cottage for a while with Snow White and the other seven, but was reluctant to do his share of digging until White took him aside and whispered fiercely in his hear "Mine! Mine! Or I help you knot!"

Fitful Sleep

Usually waking for no reason at 2 in the morning is a trial, but sometimes there comes a pang of grateful delight when I look over and see her sleeping beside me.

Ready to talk to anybody except..

Jesus talked to everybody. Crowds, fishermen, disciples, Samaritans, Syrians, whores, tax collectors, Roman procurators, the High Priest--Jesus spoke to them and answered questions. Except for his tormentors, who had no interest in hearing him anyway, there was only one man I can think of who Jesus refused to talk to: Herod.

Herod wanted to be entertained. Jesus refused to be part of it.

That's not a comfortable fact for us in our entertainment culture--we have entertaining movies, entertaining games, entertaining "news," entertaining ways to exercise: do we have entertaining church too? And is Jesus a part of it?

Aura

Aura again.

Libertarianism meets policing needs

John C Wright, a science fiction author, penned a beautiful description of how a "libertarian" society with competing police forces might work. His legal training shows up at the end.

SOTU

I once read a story by Ray Bradbury about an American couple driving through Central America trying to get back to what remained of the USA after the big one went down. One of the men they meet told them of his life. When young and living in the city he read the newspaper every day, and was always worried and angry. When he lived in the countryside, the newspapers he got were a week, two weeks old; and now he read them much more calmly. He urged the couple to let news age to rid it of useless urgency.

I've been trying to remember the last State of the Union address I listened to--and I can't. All I can recall is how often it was interrupted for applause. I'm content to read it in the paper the next day--if I even bother to read the whole thing. I already have a pretty fair notion of what's going on in the country: things that make the news and trends that don't get reported. The president's proposals are going to be elaborated elsewhere, and since the devil is in the details those are the descriptions that matter. And when experience shows that the speech is likely to invoke fraudulent statistics like the "number of jobs saved" I feel even less need to pay attention.

Let it age--a cabinet needs mending and the laundry needs sorting.

Strong Horse

Michael Totten interviews Lee Smith "Al Qaeda, Islamist terrorism, is a function of states." Smith has lived in the Middle East for almost a decade now, and seems to understand things better than most state-side commentators and politicians.

Indie films

Back in the 60's someone gave chimps paint, brushes, and some kind of canvas and found that they sometimes liked making "paintings," and more recently Congo the chimp's daubs outsold Warhol (no grave injustice there).

The next step had to be simian producers and directors. The chimps weren't entirely clear on the concept, and used the chimp-proof cameras/playbacks more to amuse themselves looking through the viewfinder than to actually make a movie or tell a coherent story. That won't disqualify them from winning Emmy Awards, of course.

I'd love to watch Kanye West try to grab a trophy from a chimp.

Interesting sidelight on bank failures

Denninger was referred to me as someone who knows what he is talking about. Unfortunately this is a field where I have virtually no expertise beyond the fairly elementary. Of course, some things are fairly elementary, and if he is correct then the fairly elementary rule that you don't count unhatched chickens was violated, in order to sell worthless financial instruments.

There seems to be an unspoken agreement not to talk about certain things like how much overpriced holdings banks are relying on. I understand some of the reasons why--a panic would make things even more worthless than before. But it certainly looks like the powers-that-be want to just keep doing whatever they did before.

This isn't to say that I'd trust Obama to come up with any sensible economic proposals, except by accident; and I fear what the Congress and Senate would do: "Gospel in, Garbage out."

Theory must satisfy experiment

No doubt it is rude and old-fashioned, but I require political theories to come within shouting distance of human reality. This rules out a number of popular philosophies that don't match simple experimental data points.

We observe a few simple facts about human behavior, and can easily see implications for government.

Observation 1

Anarchy is the worst known political system.

Sorry, circle-A devotees, but if you bother to look you'll notice that people spontaneously organize to avoid anarchy, and in practice will put up with a lot of injustice to avoid the chaos attending anarchy.

That organization doesn't have to take the form of laws—an unspoken agreement that Joe handles defense and you do what he says is an appointment of a ruler. When there aren't a lot of people or a lot of threats the organization can start out simple, but any old society is complex. You just imagine that the Bushman society is simple, but the social rules are there.

Observation 2

An irreducible percentage of your neighbors are criminals.

It may be only a few percent (something like 2% in the USA), but you will always find someone who steals, or likes to abuse, or kills—who is content to treat you as a useless thing. Within your clan, and even within your family you'll find bad actors.

It can get a lot worse. If your neighbors are another tribe, the fraction who'll steal from or hurt you if they can get away with it can rise to a majority.

Millennia of experience tells us you can't reform/redeem all of these—some few yes, most no. Stories of penitent criminals make for good theater but they represent only a small minority. The only thing that helps is to try to punish the criminals. That doesn't solve the problem—that percentage is irreducible—but in practice it keeps it from growing too big.

Observation 3

Nearby tribes are even more likely than your neighbors to be ready to steal or kill if they can get away with it.

You can come up with all sorts of arguments why—“dehumanizing the other” and so on—but the fact is that most neighboring countries have been at war with each other within the past couple of centuries. The USA is at peace with Canada and has been for a long time—but there have been times invasion was a live issue. Our relations with Mexico have been rather more fraught. Switzerland hasn't been at war with anyone for a long time—mostly because they've combined vigorous neutrality with militant preparations for war. Nobody wanted to monkey with them.

A theory of government is going to have to be able to explain how to deal with wars.

Observation 4

”Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

Lord Acton's Law is observation, not theory.

You can find a few exceptions. They are rare. I gather that it is possible to try to teach children virtue and cultivate a slightly larger fraction who can resist the temptations attending the exercise of power, but that isn't a very popular program these days.

Power attracts people who love power, and these are the least likely to emphasize the “service” part of “public service.” They quickly believe themselves better than you, and entitled to control you. Just watch.

If your theory of government centers a radical degree of power in the government, it had better have some radical methods for dealing with the attendant corruption. What's that? You just assume that since they're your kind of folks they'll be righteous? See Point 2 above.

Observation 5

Laws and regulations multiply

It is very easy to pass a new law and worry about the side effects later. That may be an adequate explanation for the phenomena, but the observation stands: it takes huge effort to cut down the number of rules, and it is rarely done; but little effort to add to them.

There are side effects of this multiplication of regulations. Two of the most obvious are that

1. Businesses cannot be sure if new regulations will inadvertently wreck their plans. They can respond by either doing the same old things or by investing in legislators and regulators (see Point 4 above).
2. The web of regulations means that an individual can never be sure that he is not running afoul of some prohibition (Am I allowed to trim my own trees? Can I watch my neighbor's kids for her while they wait for the school bus? Not in England), and gives him a strong incentive to keep his head down and not make waves for fear of attracting the attention of inspectors.

Observation 6

You can always make things worse.

Maybe a new law will help. Maybe not—especially if it is careless or based on “let's pretend” instead of observation. Even when things get so bad that you need a revolution, the new masters can wind up as bad as the old, and on top of a war-torn country to boot.

Observation 7

”You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time”. Lincoln went on to say that you couldn't fool all the people all the time, but sometimes you come close enough. Hitler did.

Observation 8

Everything needs maintenance or it won't last

While not strictly a political concept, the analogy seems to describe what happens with governments—they grow layers of cruft and corrode their important workings. The military becomes more focused on ticket punching and internal politics than guarding the nation, agencies more interested in empire-building and turf wars than actually keeping the land clean or well-regulated. These are invitations to trouble, which rarely needs much invitation. Sometimes the resulting war or disaster can shake things up, but more often a nation seems to acquire dictators.

Observation 9

People forget benefits and remember injuries

If you give a man a free newspaper every day he'll come to expect it, feel entitled to it, and feel it an injury if you stop. That may not seem rational, but that's human nature. If a government gives out goodies the recipients will learn to expect them, and get angry if they stop.

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If a political program doesn't take these into account, I think I'm safe in claiming that it won't work, or not for very long.

Harlequin Trees

Along the back roads the evergreens are green in the lee of the wind, but on the upwind half of the tree feathery frost surrounds and hangs down from every twig.