.. phoney[1] intellectuals: shame on you ...
.. subtitle: neither use nor eff'n ornament - bah!
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Apart from the greedastrophe®[2] (which could quite effectively end life as most of us would like to live it), there are a couple of significant problems: a) the out'a control US+Israel and b) the similarly out'a control economy. These problems are partly as a result of out'a control politics[3] nested in a failing system risibly termed 'democracy'[4]. I, for one, am not laughing. These (among more) aspects of our world are dysfunctional, altogether an insult to our collective intelligence.
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Preamble: once, people cared, things got done. The main thrust of the Magna Carta was in limiting the power of the king, a process which should have been continued to its logical end, i.e. no concentration of power (and no royalty, to boot.) We had various revolutions (France, US, Russia, China) - to rid the sheople® of the time from oppression, either inspired by and/or coincident with The Enlightenment, "Das Kapital" and "Mein Kampf" (say. List not exhaustive, and not all positive.) Democracy - at least as 'old' as the ancient Greeks, was 'chosen' as the preferred system. Q: What went wrong? A: Lots, mainly 'powered' by greed.
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Main argument: Consider SNAFU[6]. Why that? Where are the adults? What are the truly smart people doing; why, when the world could be sooo beautiful, are we drowning in lies, greed, crime and war? We have universities churning out so-called intellectuals, what's gone wrong with their product?
Subsidiary argument: given that things have gone and continue to go so very wrong, change is not just desirable but necessary, hence this blog title:¡ NoMothS !
No more of the same!
1. War: Big news, world; pay attention! War is wrong, we should have none of it (and that, since a long time - at least since WW2.) Message to all intellectuals: Why are you so ineffective? Any who are not actively opposing war are betraying the human race. Yep, as bad as that; traitors!
2. Democracy. The 1st principle here should be "Do no harm!" The primary failing is that our so-called representatives are not properly representing their electorates. At this point one must emphasize: the electorate is the vast bulk of the voters, not just the few obscenely rich fat-cats[7]. Current 'leadership' is leading the world astray: just stop it!
3. Economy. The worst aspect of the current economic paradigm is growth. As if the world was infinite: stop it! Population growth must cease - and numbers allowed to reduce to at or below a sustainable level. No more more! Then as if 'the market' knew all: stop it! Deregulation and its associated running-dog ideology has failed. There are no cops only in Utopia; in real life we need effective economic cops soonest. We've had 25 years of Friedman and the "Chicago School," time to ditch the lot. Time for economists to get real.
4. Morality. First of all, ditch the 'g*d squad;' simply not needed. A necessary and sufficient morality can be built solely on reflexive altruism: I won't piss in your water, if you don't piss in mine. Try my attempted formalisation, the chezPhil morality.
Discussion: a possible corollary of reflexive altruism is "Every wo/man for himself," the extreme being "I'm OK, Jack - pull the ladder up!" - but that idea contradicts democracy; the fact of the matter is that we're all in it together: one (finite) world. Consider "Cooperate or die!" - we have to work together to save the planet - it's a must.
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Fazit: No politician is Superman, they all depend on advice, which can come directly from think-tanks but originates with actual thinkers, these mainly educated through universities. It's time for universities in general and thinkers in particular to abandon all unworkable ideologies and return to straight science: to practical solutions; stuff that works.
BUT: Even if the politicians get good advice, nothing will help unless the politicians don't start acting responsibly.
-=*end*=-
PS Yesterday, I quoted an evil troll, Q: "If yore so clever, why ain't you rich?"
As a member of the sheople, A: Its not sooo important to be rich, more to live a full and happy life. Besides, under the current system, it looks like being rich strongly correlates with being criminal (basically, sick people); I'd rather just be happy, thanks.
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Ref(s):
[1] phoney (also phony) colloq. —adj. (-ier, -iest) 1 sham; counterfeit. 2 fictitious. —n. (pl. -eys or -ies) phoney person or thing. phoniness n. [origin unknown] [POD]
[2] Greedastrophe® - the coming excess CO2-caused climate change, change as in 'not for the better,' and coming sooner rather than later - unless proper remedial action is taken, soonest.
[3] politics n.pl. 1 (treated as sing. or pl.) a art and science of government. b public life and affairs. 2 (usu. treated as pl.) political principles or practice (what are his politics?). 3 activities concerned with seeking power, status, etc. [POD]
polity n. (pl. -ies) 1 form or process of civil government. 2 organized society; State. [Greek polites citizen, from polis city] [ibid.]
[4] democracy n. (pl. -ies) 1 a government by the whole population, usu. through elected representatives. b State so governed. 2 classless and tolerant society. [Greek demokratia rule of the people] [ibid.]
[5] Mein Kampf, a political manifesto in which [Hitler] spelt out Germany's need to rearm, strive for economic self-sufficiency, suppress trade unionism and communism, and exterminate its Jewish minority.
[The OXFORD World ENCYCLOPEDIA]
[6] snafu slang —adj. in utter confusion. —n. this state. [acronym of ‘situation normal: all fouled (or fucked) up’] [POD]
[7] No longer just goodies for the top 1%
The Trillion Dollar Meltdown - Easy Money, High Rollers and Great Credit Crash by Charles R Morris
Reviewed by Julian Delasantellis
«One of the most striking developments over the past quarter century is the dramatic shift of taxable incomes towards the wealthiest people. Between 1980 and 2005, the top tenth of the population's share of all taxable income went from 34% to 46%, an increase of about a third. The changing distribution within the top 10%, however, is what's truly remarkable. The unlucky folks in the 90th to the 95th percentiles actually lost a little ground, while those in the 95th to 99th gained a little.
Overall, however, income shares in the 90th and 99th percentile were basically flat (24% in 1980 and 26% in 2005). Almost all the top one-tenth's share gains, in other words, went to the top 1%, or the top "centile", who doubled their share of national cash income from 9% to 19%.
Even within the top centile, however, the distribution of gains was radically skewed. Nearly 60% of it went to the top tenth of 1% of the population, and more than a fourth of it to the top one-hundredth of 1% of the population. Overall, the top tenth of 1% more than tripled their share of cash income to about 9%, while the top one-hundredth of 1%, or fewer than 15,000 taxpayers, quadrupled their share to 3.6% of all taxable income. Among those 15,000, the average tax return reported US$26 million of income in 2005, while the take for the entire group was $384 billion.»
[atimes/BOOK REVIEW]
My comment: Only three words; ghastly, obscene greed.
6 comments:
Re: Silber's "superhuman devils."
Are we, the sheople®, victims of a few 'bad apples?'
I would argue 'no,' the bad apples are in huge majority, and as 'proof' I would merely point to the current situation:
a) the invasive wars, of course (now been morphed into brutal occupations) but more,
b) the overall rotten state of commerce.
The world is dominated by the mostly US MNCs (the US special case, the M/I-plex), and those MNCs act for the most part immorally. For proof of that, see Perkins' "Economic Hit Man" (spelt with a silent 'S'.) His thesis is that what the MNCs can't get by asking, they get by force, up to and including murder. Which is mirrored precisely by the behaviour of GWBush&Co. More generally, the extractive industries (mining in particular including hydrocarbons of course) delight in 'economic rent' whenever they possibly can - which is a filthy rip-off of the sovereign resource owners, i.e. the sheople.
These people, i.e. those running the MNCs or the US government - and the governments of most (so-called Western) countries - do not 'work' in a vacuum, they (who ever they are; I'm not speculating as to whether or not there is some sort'a 'hidden' component - no tin-foil hats here), they all have a 'peer group.' The majority of any peer group should be the dominant faction, ergo 'what we see is what we get,' i.e. a world dominated by crime - and hence dominated by criminals.
Same for the sheople, they may be - I say are - mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed on bullshit), but they *could* pay better attention. They don't - as we see, being 'bought off' via wide-flat screen TVs, and the rubbish that spews forth; Hollywood, 'news' and ads. But whatever the content, it is almost all 'shaped' by the descendents of Bernays (who morphed propaganda into PR.)
Sooo, exactly because bad behaviour is rife (some 'merely' criminal, GWBush&Co's being in the Nuremberg class) means that the bad apples are in the ascendency, because the majority - be it in the so-called élites (bad word, wrong word, nothing 'élite' about criminality), or sheople in general - tolerate the status quo. I take this one step further; any and all people who are a) aware of what's going on (that should be the majority; no excuse for ignorance) and b) do not do their utmost to resist - are traitors to the human race and the planet both, we (the human race) should operate on a fair basis, and business-as-usual is killing our once jewel-like planet's ecosphere - our one and only life-support system.
[cross-posted]
G'day Phil, more on the three card trick - Michael Hudson.
Glenn Greenwald.
Pam Martens.
A lot of people will be feeling that their pockets have been picked. By experts.
G'day Bob,
.. quite a list of 'homework' you've put up, thanks.
But before I even start on that (Sunday, day of rest), a little 'bon-bon' for you:
20.09.2008
Merkel Slams US, Britain for Blocking Tighter Financial Controls
[dw-world]
Thatcher made TINA into the 'word of the day,' back then.
The current rot started with her, Ronald Ray-guns and Friedman's "Chicago Boys."
What we didn't hear was the full message: "We have guns. Give us your money. TINA!"
I had a bit of luck to see Merkel on the teeve. To turn a fine phrase: "She did not look amused."
One of the 'better' suggestions coming from GWBush&Co is to buy back all the rubbishy MBSs, CDOs etc., so that the affected businesses might have a chance of avoiding being flushed down 'the gurgler.'
The latest estimate I heard was 700Bio(!!?) - and the extremely charming part is that the buy-back would only be offered to US entities. The last bit might be what's not amusing Merkel.
Update:
The US 'fixers' have seen the error in their ways (well, one of 'em, anyway), and have extended the proposed buy-back to some non-US entities:
«Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Sunday that foreign banks will be able to unload bad financial assets under a $700 billion U.S. proposal aimed at restoring order during a devastating financial crisis.
"Yes, and they should. Because ... if a financial institution has business operations in the United States, hires people in the United States, if they are clogged with illiquid assets, they have the same impact on the American people as any other institution," Paulson said on ABC television's "This Week with George Stephanopolous."»
[via a comment on BobW/GG's bailout]
All well and good, perhaps; but what of all the other genuine investors around the world who were conned into buying these rubbishy US financial 'products?' It's a swindle of mammoth proportions; junk was triple-A rated then flogged off by 'shysters' knowing full-well that it was nothing but junk. It's not a matter of 'buyer beware;' the rating-agencies simply lied.
G'day Phil back at you - Chris Floyd.
I've been intending to write about the astonishingly shameless plan to sell the birthright of our children and grandchildren for a mess of pottage reserved exclusively for the muck-encrusted snouts of today's brutal and stupid elites. But I find that Arthur Silber, with an assist from Mike Whitney, has already hit every point I wanted to make, and more, in a series of remarkable posts in the past few days.
These points include the overarching fact of the entire crisis -- There is No Fix -- and something I'd been thinking about a lot in the past couple of days: What if there was somebody in our national political life with the guts to stand up and speak the truth the bipartisan elite's brazen highway robbery? Silber is already there, too, with A Time Bereft of Heroes.
But he hardly stops there. Get on over there now and read Welcome to the Asylum; Public versus Private Agendas and Goals; and Only One Winner, and Only One Loser. (UPDATE: Wait, something else has come in while I was typing this. Check out Silber's latest on the growing "bipartisan consensus" on the highway robbery plan: Now Don't Go Slashing Your Wrists or Nothing.)
And how to fix it from James Ridgeway.
That'll keep you busy.
G'day Bob,
.. before I even start reading, two things:
1. The 1st radio bulletin I heard this morning mentioned a) 700Bio - OR 8(!!?) and b) that the US has now suggested that other countries implement a similar bail-out - and the local response to that was: why should any non-US taxpayers bail-out toxic US mortgages etc.?
2. I have not yet seen any comment on exactly what may happen if $US7-800Bio is 'dumped' into the economy, i.e. what are the *inflationary* effects likely to be?
We've had a situation with too much (investment) money pursuing too few 'targets' now for far too long; and we've had the inflation that caused (i.e. house- and stock-price bubbles. At this point recall Costello's halving of the CGT, and the subsequent doubling of Aus house-prices, and the 20% year-on-year climb in stock prices.) The original $US7-800Bio which stands to be 'replaced' (reimbursed, substituted) might represent potential losses - if the underlying collateral is sold for less than its mortgaged price, but any such loss will only be realised if liquidation (after repossession) is actually carried out.
BUT: The original $US7-800Bio *did not get lost* (let's face it daaarlings, that would be odd in the extreme), so that original $US7-800Bio is sloshing around somewhere, to which may now be added some part of another $US7-800Bio, all the more $s chasing a basically unaltered asset-pool.
In any case, by the bailing-out of the Oh-so-clever-dick criminal frauds who caused this problem in the 1st place, these same criminal frauds will not just remain free to do it all over again, but now they're likely to get (far!) worse - one might imagine, knowing that they'd got away with it so far, abso-bloody-lutely scot-free. No amount of oversight will stop these clever-clog criminals; the rules have got to be changed, and proper regulation (re)introduced, including deploying proper regulators, with real teeth. In other words, the neoliberal deregulation forced upon us by erring ideologues in the last 25-30 years was *wrong*, and must now be totally discarded for the utter failure that it is shown to be.
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