“Many professional economists now find themselves answering questions from their students, friends, and relatives on topics that did not seem at all central until a few years ago, and we are collectively scrambling to catch up. (p.1, emphasis added).”
Note how damning of mainstream macroeconomics this statement is: the key dynamics of the crisis – massive leverage and credit expansion, fed by the shadow banking system, that contributed to a housing bubble and crash – all elements of a macroeconomic dynamics well known to more than one generation of economists trained in the economics of Keynes and Minsky. They have studied many of these topics for decades, which to the mainstream are topics that “did not seem at all central until a few years ago”, that is after the meltdown and crash!...
I believe there is a reason for this: the mainstream never changes its underlying theory which is based on the erroneous ideas that financial markets are, by and large, perfectly self-governing and efficient and that the market economy has strong self-equilibrating forces that always bring the economy back to full employment... Since they won’t change their basic framework, they have no where to put the new information they get after each crisis... The tragedy is that it is these same economists who still control the elite economics departments, the main economics journals and hold the key policy making and research positions in our public institutions such as the Federal Reserve. Their stranglehold must be broken if we are going to break the Memento syndrome that is hindering sensible economics and economic policy.
...
I. A Fast-Fish belongs to the party fast to it.--
II. A Loose-Fish is fair game for anybody who can soonest catch it.
... First: What is a Fast-Fish? Alive or dead a fish is technically fast, when it is connected with an occupied ship or boat, by any medium at all controllable by the occupant or occupants,- a mast, an oar, a nine-inch cable, a telegraph wire, or a strand of cobweb, it is all the same. Likewise a fish is technically fast when it bears a waif, or any other recognized symbol of possession; so long as the party wailing it plainly evince their ability at any time to take it alongside, as well as their intention so to do.
... What to the rapacious landlord is the widow's last mite but a Fast-Fish? What is yonder undetected villain's marble mansion with a doorplate for a waif; what is that but a Fast-Fish? ... And concerning all these, is not Possession the whole of the law?
But if the doctrine of Fast-Fish be pretty generally applicable, the kindred doctrine of Loose-Fish is still more widely so. That is internationally and universally applicable.
What was America in 1492 but a Loose-Fish, in which Columbus struck the Spanish standard by way of wailing it for his royal master and mistress? What was Poland to the Czar? What Greece to the Turk? What India to England? What at last will Mexico be to the United States? All Loose-Fish.
What are the Rights of Man and the Liberties of the World but Loose-Fish? What all men's minds and opinions but Loose-Fish? What is the principle of religious belief in them but a Loose-Fish? What to the ostentatious smuggling verbalists are the thoughts of thinkers but Loose-Fish? What is the great globe itself but a Loose-Fish? And what are you, reader, but a Loose-Fish and a Fast-Fish, too?
So, the president started carping for the payroll tax cut extension — and Republicans, many of whom have pledged not to raise taxes, had to support the cut. They should have taken the time to explain that “the payroll tax cut” is not a proper tax cut, but they lost the rhetorical battle before they even began to fight the policy battle.Not a "proper" tax cut. Interesting evolution of the Grover Norquist pseudo-primate from the stews of country clubs to a semi-upright position in the bunker near the green.Totally Darwinian. Never would have guessed it merely 7 months ago, when even "Default on Debts" was judged to be Doctrinal and Dogmatic.
For those who are following the debate in this country on shale gas development, as I am, today’s column by David Brooks in the New York Times is a must read.
In balanced terms, Brooks summarizes the future energy and economic potential of America’s enormous shale gas endowment – and the current debate surrounding its safe and responsible production. The benefits of shale gas development in terms of economic growth, job creation and energy security are without question, as he points out.
I struck me this morning that the goal or teleos of language, image-making, arts, etc. are symbols of greater complexity and refinement."Had the government not stepped in, GM might have restructured under normal bankruptcy procedures, without putting public money at risk", we said. But "given the panic that gripped private purse-strings...it is more likely that GM would have been liquidated, sending a cascade of destruction through the supply chain on which its rivals, too, depended." Even Ford, which avoided bankruptcy, feared the industry would collapse if GM went down. At the time that seemed like a real possibility. The credit markets were bone-dry, making the privately financed bankruptcy that Mr Romney favoured improbable. He conveniently ignores this bit of history in claiming to have been right all along.The painful fact for Romney is that the bail-out worked. He has a hypothetical that going through normal bankruptcy would have been the best course, but he now must argue that hypothetical against 2011's being the best year for domestic auto since the financial crisis began.
LEELANAU CO. -- A migrant labor problem is hitting Northern Michigan, and this year it's going to be more difficult to get fresh local strawberries.
Leelanau Fruit Company in Suttons Bay plans to withdraw from the local strawberry market this summer, they're worried that not enough immigrants will migrate to the area to pick the crop.
Glenn Lacross, Leelanau Fruit Company President says it will be much easier to import strawberries from Mexico. He says the federal government is cracking down on immigration. Getting a green card or temporary work permit is a complicated process and unemployed US citizens aren't interested in the job.
A high-context society is one in which people are highly involved with one another. Awareness of situations, experience, activity, and one's social standing is keenly developed. Information is widely shared. Simple messages with deep meaning flow freely. There are many levels of communication - overt and covert, implicit and explicit signs, symbols, and body gestures, and things one may or may not talk about. Members are sensitive to a screening process that distinguishes outsiders from insiders.Amish Society, Hostetler, John A.,
The models created to explain nature are rooted in culture - are very much a part of life - but are unavailable for analysis, except under very special circumstances. The nonverbal, or unstated, realms of culture are extremely important as conveyors of information. High-context cultures are integrated, for members are skilled in thinking comprehensively according to a system of the common good. Loyalties are concrete and individuals work together to settle their problems. If one person has a problem, others are expected to know what is bothering him.
...Marcus Brauchli, the executive editor of the Washington Post... wanted to know how... The Post was covering the 2012 election and what might be improved. [He was informed that the] paper... needed to strike a better balance between the ferocious 24/7 news cycle and more ambitious longer-term projects...A "ferocious 24/7 news cycle"... What are we to make of that? One would think we have the most highly informed population in the history of mankind. What are the outcomes from such enormous heaps of information?
Interpol has been accused of abusing its powers after Saudi Arabia used the organisation's red notice system to get a journalist arrested in Malaysia for insulting the Prophet Muhammad.
Police in Kuala Lumpur said Hamza Kashgari, 23, was detained at the airport "following a request made to us by Interpol" the international police cooperation agency, on behalf of the Saudi authorities.Kashgari, a newspaper columnist, fled Saudi Arabia after posting a tweet on the prophet's birthday that sparked more than 30,000 responses and several death threats.
There are a growing number of international thought crimes in the world, and suddenly we see Interpol being used to arrest people accused of thought crime.The posting, which was later deleted, read: "I have loved things about you and I have hated things about you and there is a lot I don't understand about you … I will not pray for you."
Dan Amira, an associate editor for New York Magazine, published "Obama Gay Marriage Evolution: Day 468". The title is not misleading: it's a quick aggregated piece about the president's developing stance on marriage equality, which has changed a bit since he entered office 468 days ago. Amira, like many of us, is ready for Barry O to slap a rainbow flag across the White House doors, give a middle finger to conservative opponents and finally make marriage (or at least civil partnership) an option for all Americans. Maybe in his second term.It seems to say that if we share a political viewpoint and agenda, my racism is merely insensitivity.
Yet it isn't Amira's thoughts on Obama's politics that are drawing ire. It's the image used to accompany the story (pictured above): a riff on the classic Darwin's evolution of man chart that depicts President Obama as a knuckle-dragging primate that becomes a bipedal man carrying a rainbow flag. Get it? Evolution used to illustrate ... evolution. They so clever at the New York Magazine! If this were 8th grade, someone would receive a gold star in the column marked "creativity." But the lack of a "racial sensitivity" grading scale would likely prevent Amira and his illustrator from receiving the critique they deserve. Perhaps it's that lack of learning early on that is the problem.
During the 1960s, the Shanghai of my childhood seemed a portent of the media cities of the future, dominated by advertising and mass circulation newspapers and swept by unpredictable violence. But how could I raise this Titanic of memories? Brought up from the sea bed, the golden memory hoard could turn out to be dross. Besides, there are things that the novel can't easily handle. I could manage my changing relations with my parents, my 13-year-old's infatuation with the war, and the sudden irruption into our lives of American air power. But how do you convey the casual surrealism of war, the deep silence of abandoned villages and paddy fields, the strange normality of a dead Japanese soldier lying by the road like an unwanted piece of luggage?http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/mar/04/fiction.film
Over the last year and a half, I have looked at the field of cultural production in Detroit through several lenses. As I've reflected on things a little more, I have to come to see that these lenses are interconnected. What's more, they point to a way in which certain art projects in Detroit are perhaps opening up an avenue for thinking about how we might actually go about making that other world the new social movements slogans tell us is possible....Check it out.
Yields for U.S. debt have fallen to historic lows because demand for government bills and bonds is so strong.Seems like an opportunity to rebuild a good deal of infrastructure, fund alternative energies, and re-establish manufacturing at almost no interest cost. Sounds too goo to be true, actually, but we have a small window of opportunity granted by our T-bills status as a safe-haven investment.
Interest rates on government debt are at historic lows. The government pays about 0.1% to borrow money for six months, and investors are clamoring to get in on that deal. At one auction in January, investors offered to lend the government a total of $159 billion for 28 days at 0% interest. The government accepted $29 billion, leaving the rest to scramble for a safe place to park their money.And now investors want to take the next step: Negative interest rates. Last week, the group of bond traders that advises the Treasury on debt matters unanimously recommended that the Treasury allow investors to offer to pay the government for lending it money. You’d give the Treasury $10,000 now and get back $9,990 in a few months. Read the report from the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee.On Capitol Hill, all you hear is about how we have to get the deficits under control immediately, about how we must stop spending so much, about how we must stop borrowing so much. But on Wall Street, the attitude is different, because the global recession has created a huge demand for ultra-safe assets. Risk is out of favor, and safety is king.
"Sagan used to preach to me, and I now preach to my students," says Chaisson, "that any intelligent civilisation on any planet will eventually have to use the energy of its parent star, exclusively." More specifically, they will be limited to the solar energy that is normally absorbed by their planet - anything extra, including space-based solar, is out.
A group of the leading virus experts in the US has called for new, permanent restrictions on research in the face of a new genetically engineered flu virus that could kill half the population of the world.
Scientists are currently observing a 60-day moratorium on research into the bird flu virus, after two groups found a way to make it infectious through airborne transmission.
An outbreak of this virus could be worse than the 1918 Spanish flu that killed tens of millions of people, warned Michael Osterholm – who has led research into previous dangerous outbreaks – at a public meeting on censorship in science in New York on Thursday night.
"Frankly, I don't want a virus out there that, even if it was 20 times less lethal, would still be the worst influenza pandemic in history," he said.
Professor Osterholm is a member of the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity, which in December asked the journals Science and Nature not to publish the full research on the virus.
Arizona’s state ban on ethnic studies—in HB 2281—took effect January 1, and states that no classes can be taught that “promote the overthrow of the United States government; promote resentment toward a race or class of people; are designed primarily for pupils of a particular ethnic group; advocate ethnic solidarity instead of the treatment of pupils as individuals.”
Abdul Ghaffar Khan also followed the obvious nationalist cause after his educational initiates and established the Khudai Khidmatgars, ‘Servants of God’ movement in November 1929. This movement was significant since it was also deeply rooted in the ideology of non-violence. For the warlike Pakhtuns, where revenge and conflict are almost a way of life, Ghaffar Khan preached the gospel of non-violence. His philosophy of non-violence was deeply religious and found the inspiration in the person of the Holy Prophet (pbuh) and his treatment of people, especially of those from Makkah after the city’s final conquest.http://tribune.com.pk/story/329395/bacha-khan-our-forgotten-quaid/
Public Access to Scholarly Publications: Public CommentThese may be read at:
On November 3, 2011, OSTP released a Request for Information (RFI) soliciting public input on long-term preservation of, and public access to, the results of federally funded research, including peer-reviewed scholarly publications as required in the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2010. Below are the public comments received by OSTP during the comment period...
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