| Tuesday,
March 24, 2009
More on Europeanization :
Hi Dr. Pournelle.
I take issue with a comment you accept fairly
uncritically from one of your readers the other day, specifically:
“to bring this country up to the level of
civilization that Europe has achieved in the last 50 years. . . .”
Europe is a wonderful place and I’d accept a posting
back there because the difference is lovely (and because I can always come
home to the U.S.), but I’m not sure I’d describe its relationship to our
version of civilization as a place upwards from here. I’d call it lateral at
best, and in some significant ways, I find it demonstrably inferior. For
instance, police agencies in Europe enjoy unfettered access to privacy
information; the surveillance power is shocking. The courts operate on a
“civil law” basis in which the judge is factfinder, legal administrator and
punisher (judge, jury and executioner, in less sanguine terms).
State-sponsored racism (such as the de jure segregation of Turks in Germany,
and de facto segregation of the descendants of former colonial citizens in
France) is accepted, and class stratification not only limits downward
mobility, but excludes most opportunities for upward mobility. There is no
glass ceiling through which one can burst; it’s a class ceiling that is
impenetrable; those under it speak the wrong way, think the wrong way, look
wrong, and can never move up, nor can their children. Your secular readers
won’t find this a big one, but the near absence of God in daily life, the
way the state in many countries makes it difficult or impossible to follow a
faith (e.g. an expensive religion tax in Germany) is one way in which I find
the Old World particularly backward looking, and far inferior to the U.S. in
light of the role of moral values in forming a mature polity capable of
ruling itself. We’re no great shakes on that but at least aren’t dead on it.
In some ways Pound was right about European civ, it’s
a bit of an old b**** gone in the teeth along with a few boxes of old
marbles. It pains me to say that because I love a lot of places in Europe
and Europeans I’ve known. The discomfort does not make it less true.
Leave my name out if you choose to mention my thoughts
please.
Warmest regards,
J
I often post mail with which I don't agree. I
would think my views on most subjects fairly easily deduced even when I
don't state them explicitly, so I don't feel I have to.
I haven't been in Europe for a while, but it is
my impression that the old class structure is crumbling; of course it
depends on which European country one looks at. Despite the EU there are
differences. I expect many readers will take exception to some of your
descriptions, just as many do not concede that Europe is at a higher level
of civilization than the United States..
==
More on traveling toward the European path:
Jerry
I’ve been dipping in and out of your various writings
since the earliest Byte days and have always found it worthwhile, however I
feel compelled to write regarding the piece in the Mail linked
to from your site as proof that Europe is “going mad” etc.
To make any sense of this “story” you need to realise
that the Mail is an hysterical tabloid whose every pronouncement, especially
regarding the EU should be taken with a very large pinch of salt.
Quoted in the referenced article is the supposed EU
directive to legislate on banana shape. This never existed. I know because,
being a British expat working in Brussels for many years, one of our
favourite games is to hang around in the 2 or 3 bars where reporters from
the English tabloid press congregate and invent and loudly discuss the most
preposterous legislative proposals we can think of, safe in the knowledge
that these “journalists” are never going to bother leaving their bar-stools
to check the provenance of their new “scoop”. Over the year points are
awarded for the number of appearances of each story in the UK tabloids with
extra points for the proximity of the phrases “it’s political correctness
gone mad” and “you couldn’t make it up”, well we did make it up (and the ban
the bagpipes story too).
So don’t believe everything you read in the papers,
remember a worrying number of journalists rarely get off their backsides to
do their jobs properly any more.
Best regards.
Gareth Lloyd
I don't read the Daily Mail, and I fear I am not
familiar with the banana shape legislation proposal; and it may be that
the sexism proposal is also a hoax. The problem is that so far have things
come that it isn't obviously a hoax.
==
Income ranges and Wealth
I'm enjoying the discussion on income ranges and
wealth. But the socialist mindset of the new administration is frightening.
The WSJ had an article several months ago (alas, my cursory search didn't
reveal it) comparing the average income ranges of various countries. The
information was enlightening: The USA and Great Britain had the widest
ranges of incomes: GB about 200% spread between lowest and highest incomes,
and in the USA over 300% spread. In the EU countries, the spread was much
lower, generally under under 100%, as I remember. The data was pulled across
many different job types.
I drew two conclusions from the data (really wish I
had the article!)
1. More opportunity in the USA and Great Britain to
make a high salary. Corrolary: In the USA and Britain, people don't mind
folks making lots of money.
2. Europeans are used to "having enough." Earning more
(simply to have more, or spend more) is seen wasteful and greedy. The
socialist political agenda that has been fed to Europeans for decades is now
part of the culture.
The current "anguish" we are being asked to feel in
the USA over the AIG bonuses is a good example of the media trying to feed
more socialist mantra to the public. We should be "outraged" over these
bonuses, instead of paying attention to the underlying economic problems. I
fear if we hear the same agendas long enough, we too, may become socialists.
This also reminds me of a utopian SF series by Kim
Stanley Robinson. The third and final novel was "Pacific Edge" (1988). A
primary conflict was the economic model: a Fixed Income Cap for individuals.
There was a base income for those who worked, those who worked more
difficult(?) jobs earned up to 3 times more, but nowhere what someone would
consider "rich." No one needs to be rich, all your needs are met! Drama
arose when folks discovered people "gaming" the system to earn more. Ahh,
human nature - Go figure :)
Cheers, Joe Conyers
For good or ill, the US has until recently left
such decisions to individuals, and rightly so. Modern technology has made
money a nearly decisive factor in elections, and other factors have become
nearly irrelevant. This means that society does have a stake in income
distribution if we accept the notion that the best republic is ruled by
the middle class and those with middle class interests.
Distributists did not intend to use taxes to
strengthen government at the expense of the wealthy; they weren't trying
to transfer money from the rich to civil servants or to the poor.
==========
Running political campaigns
Jerry: Regarding "He had no practical experience in
running anything, except political campaigns..." I believe Parkinson
suggested requirements for leaders (classical languages, poetry, etc..)
which would be as good as any other criteria. Mencken has his own view:
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like
you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the
business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding
office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant
and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them.
Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time it is
made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker
in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen
goods." H. L. Mencken
==
C
Parkinson's list of qualifications for Prime
Minister are interesting; his goal was to eliminate elections by setting
the qualifications to a level that only one person would apply for the
job. ("Successful applicants will die for their country, by painless
means, on reaching the age of 70", and applicants would prove stamina and
devotion by lasting a round with the current heavyweight boxing
champion...)
Qualifications for public office are difficult to
specify. We have a dread of professional politicians, but we want people
to have some experience. And nowadays winning elections requires an
ability to survive the Sound Bite. Look at the Virginia Senatorial
election of a couple of years ago; one thoughtless comment caught on
camera...
==
mississaugua
O Canada!
Dr. Pournelle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fY79KbCptTo
88-year old lady has been Mayor for 31 years. Her city
has $700 million (Can.) in reserve funds, NO debt. After 11 terms, she
claims an approval rating of 92%. Apparently, there are still some people
who know how.
jomath
===========
A short report on Current Science on Climate Change
Dear Friends,
Earlier this month, the Heartland Institute sponsored
the 2009 International Conference on Climate Change in New York. This may
help to dispel Gore's theories of drowning bears and imminent Global
Apocalypse. Despite dramatic movies and massive propaganda to alarm people
(and intense political pressure to silence skeptics), what you are being
told about Dangerous Anthropogenic Global Warming (DAGW) simply isn't true.
It's a scam.
http://www.powerlineblog.com
/archives/2009/03/023144.php
Important things to note:
* There is minor global warming (and cooling). No one
I know disputes this, and the planetary record goes back hundreds of
thousands of years. The "warming" that people have been expressing concern
about is about 0.6 degrees per century. It's no big deal, and the most
recent years have been cooler. 2008 was the coldest year in the past ten.
Experts differ about the causes of climate change (the sun is the primary
"suspect"), but they generally agree that was is happening isn't unusual or
dangerous and that there is nothing that humans can do (even if we wanted
to, and regardless of how much we spend) to significantly change our
planetary climate. * There is no evidence that the frequency or intensity of
severe weather events have changed significantly over the past 100 years. *
Pollution is a totally separate subject from Global Climate Change. Everyone
I know is against pollution, including myself.
A good reference for this is Climate of Extremes.
Check the book's reviews on Amazon.com. The novel State of Fear is a fun
read, and relevant.
Conclusion: The "Climate Crisis" is political, not
climatological. It's about huge sums of money ($ Trillions in Carbon taxes).
A good reference for the economics, ideology, and politics is Blue Planet in
Green Shackles. Please feel free to pass this along, including to your local
media.
Best,
John D. Trudel
==
St Andrew debate
This is a report of the Saint Andrews University
debate on AGW which the alarmists lost. Monkton was one of the speakers. An
alarmist speaker's comparison of sceptics to Mengele, which he refused to
retract, did not go down well.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2200792/posts
Neil Craig
==========
Obama Drops Vet Insurance Plan
http://www.military.com/features/
0,15240,187179,00.html
Dear Jerry:
Obama has discarded this idea, but the main point here
is that the insurance companies are the winners, not veterans, since the
former avoid paying out on the policies financed by the premiums paid by the
latter when VA medical services are used. It was not an unreasonable plan
from a financial standpoint, and , as I said earlier, the VA already
collects such payments for non-service connected conditions. Note that if
the veteran has no health insurance, that it does not affect, in any way,
their treatment by the VA. The VSOs have reacted out of emotion, not logic.
They lose and the insurance companies win.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
One would think this the kind of thing easily
decided in Congressional Committee, but that assumes a degree of trust in
Congress that we seem no longer to have.
===========
Re: F-22 vs F-35
Nigel Tzeng writes: "...if you have sufficient
numerical superiority that you can loiter over their airfields and kill them
as they take off..."
Well, if that's the case, then it doesn't matter how
good his planes are because the air war's over and you won it.
"...Even then, the P-51 could out turn the Me-262 and
could defend itself fairly well assuming equal skill and SA. They couldn't
catch a Me-262 or Ar-234 in a straight line..."
Sounds similar to the balance between Allied and
Japanese aircraft in the Pacific theater--fast Allies versus maneuverable
Zeroes. The standard Allied tactics were to avoid a turning fight, depending
instead on superior speed to make quick passes and then disengage. This
seemed to turn out rather strongly in the Allied favor.
But again, there it is--the advantage depended not
just on individual capability, but on overall battlespace management.
Awareness, communication, tactical planning; these things are all required
to make an Air Force, rather than just a collection of airplanes who are all
on the same side. As I said before, this is what makes the F-35 work; the
recognization that you were always going to need this network, and so why
not just run with that? Make the aircraft be a terminal, rather than a whole
server farm unto itself.
-- Mike T. Powers
===========
Obama re-writes the Bill of Rights.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/
our_government/the_constitution/
As my source said, "You think just posting the
original text would have been too complicated?"
Note especially the 2nd, 5th, 9th, and 10th.
Alan
=============
Musings
Jerry,
Some overnight and morning musings...
Some musings...
1. According to all I've heard, one signature trigger
of the failure (through definition of "toxic asset") was the provision
passed by the 2006 Democratic Congress which required financial institutions
to carry the value of their assets based not on the remaining balance of
principal on their loans, but on the value of the underlying equities.
If the equities were not being traded themselves, how
was the loss in value of those equities determined? How does one trace an
underwater equity from one loan -- which loan was not revalued -- through
the mortgage-backed derivatives that were being traded?
Am I missing something?
2. I've been hearing a lot of complaints from the left
that "the Republicans are criticizing and are rooting for Obama to fail, but
are not offering any alternatives." We know that the Republicans are not
"rooting" for Obama to fail but are recognizing that his policies are doomed
to fail; but I agree that there is not much out there on alternatives. Well,
here are some preliminary thoughts in that arena.
They mostly go back to the subject of "old-fashioned
standards."
a. Repeal the above law.
b. Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act and any other
provision of law which obligates banks to make lending decisions based on
any consideration other than the ability of the borrower to pay back the
loan, or for the bank to mitigate their loss through foreclosure and resale
of assets.
c. After the present crisis is over, disband Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac in favor of a government-administered mortgage insurance
program similar to FDIC.
d. One contributor to the crisis has been financial
institutions and other corporations which became "too big to fail." In
reality, larger corporations have NOT delivered "increased efficiency," they
have delivered concentrations of financial power which have warped the
economic and political landscape. I'm not sure of all of the details, and
there is probably room for some flexibility, but some standards are obvious:
d1. Banks,
brokerages, and insurance companies should not be interstate entities but
should be confined to a single state, or at most regional. The banks should
return to historical standards of solvency in terms of cash reserves. Let's
use e-commerce effectively to manage transactions involving multiple
independent entities -- we already do that.
d2.
Manufacturing concerns should similarly be of regional focus. If GM wants to
sell cars in, say, Nevada, let them franchise manufacture of cars to a
separate company which covers, for example, California, Nevada, Oregon, and
Washington. That company has to worry about California emission standards;
the rest of the company can build to sane standards. Note though that if a
GM customer wants in Kentucky wants to buy GM West instead of GM South, they
can order the car through their dealer. Note that these will normally begin
as spinoffs of the current company with the same owners, but will eventually
be independently traded; I think I would set standards that limit ownership
of publicly held corporations in the same market an force some further level
of divestiture at the ownership level. Note also that part and parcel of
this plan is that the Defense/aerospace (Boeing, Lockheed, Northrop) should
have the mergers of the later 1980's and 1990s undone back to at least 6
companies ("Old" Boeing, "Old" McDAC, "Old" Lockheed, "Old" Martin, "Old"
Northrop, "Old" TRW) and required to compete on an equal basis for
government contracting and the commercial marketplace.
d3. I would utterly
eliminate short selling, hedge funds, derivatives, and reinsurance. A
financial risk has to be accepted on its merits. Yes, I understand there are
some benefits of honest shorting, but stock prices are too speculative and
to subject to changes based on inside information and misinformation.
That's probably enough to chew on for one morning.
Jim
I think the important need is to set sane
regulatory policies and change the financial rating system. When SIG
decided to add financial products to their line -- i.e. to put a hedge
fund business on top of an insurance business, because there was so much
money to be made -- had the financial ratings companies acted in anything
like a rational manner they would have rated the new junk as junk. Not
much would be sold and what was sold would have been identified as high
risk. Instead, Standard and Poor, Moody, and the other two rated these
financial products as safe. It cost them nothing to make that rating, and
since AIG was paying the ratings companies for their ratings the conflict
of interest was obvious.
The ratings system need an entire reformation;
the conflict of interest remains.
And, I continue to believe that institutions that
are too big to be allowed to fail are too big to be allowed to exist.
Regarding (b), even if one accepts the goal of
wider distribution of housing ownership, there have to be better ways of
subsidizing this. They should also be explicit subsidies. Didn't we at one
time have subsidies for loans to Veterans?
======================w
f
g
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