Nouriel Roubini predicts that the worst economic news is still to come. Writing in Forbes he argues that optimists who have declared the crisis past have been proven wrong six times in a row. More likely is a two year recession followed by a recovery so weak it will seem the recession had never ended.
Obama will inherit an economic and financial mess worse than anything the U.S. has faced in decades: the most severe recession in 50 years; the worst financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression; a ballooning fiscal deficit that may be as high as a trillion dollars in 2009 and 2010; a huge current account deficit; a financial system that is in a severe crisis and where deleveraging is still occurring at a very rapid pace, thus causing a worsening of the credit crunch; a household sector where millions of households are insolvent, into negative equity territory and on the verge of losing their homes; a serious risk of deflation as the slack in goods, labor and commodity markets becomes deeper; the risk that we will end in a deflationary liquidity trap as the Fed is fast approaching the zero-bound constraint for the Fed funds rate; the risk of a severe debt deflation as the real value of nominal liabilities will rise, given price deflation, while the value of financial assets is still plunging.
What’s missing from Roubini’s scenario is any consideration of what would happen to the economic situation if a significant political or military crisis happens over the next four years. Because as he points out, the economic woes will be global in character many regions, already wracked by instability and misery, will be even more so. The traditional palliatives — foreign aid, peacekeeping, bribery — will be available in far smaller quantities. The combination of greater stresses on unstable region combined with a reduced means to cope with them means that Obama will be facing a greater security risk on top of an economic risk.
Moreover, Obama may have inadvertently generated another source of risk for himself: unrealistically high expectations. Austin Bay notes that disputants in regions as remote as the Southern Sudan are counting on Obama to bail them out.
The 2005 CPA created a “national unity” government in Khartoum, but North and South Sudan are increasingly appropriate names. The SPLA has become the GOSS — Government of South Sudan, which regards Kenya as an ally. Recall the Somali pirates who hijacked a freighter loaded with tanks and other weapons. The bill of lading said Kenya. The likely destination? The GOSS.
Now back to President-elect Obama. After his election, a GOSS spokesman requested a U.S.-led peacekeeping force in south Sudan. Why? Perhaps expectations spurred Kenya’s holidays as much as pride. Kenya and GOSS may assume they will have a great deal of influence on U.S. policy in the region.
Obama rhetorically promised hope and change, and seeded great expectations.
As 2005′s fragile peace frays, more war threatens Sudan. Of course, war threatens Ethiopia, Eritrea and Djibouti, and war rages in Somalia, in Chad, in Congo … and the daunting list goes on.
Beware this irony: Great expectations unmet seed grand disappointments — and add new bitterness to devilishly complex conflicts.
“Hope” and “change” are like political credit instruments which a politician floats through his campaign promises and political programs. When people take them seriously enough it is natural for them to present them for encashment. Once they see the check bounce then image of the Messiah can be quickly transformed by disappointment into the likeness of a confidence man. This idea is captured in the phrase, ‘never let your mouth write a check that your ass can’t cash’.
The likelihood is that over the next four years there will be many checks and precious little cash.
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Tip Jar
Many have stated that this election was ahistoric, unsimilar to previous elections. I will trump that with this; the last 60 odd years of history has been ahistoric. What we are witnessing is a shifting back to usual historic norms, and only a cursory glance at a history book will tell you, this isn’t a good thing.
Just tell me where Nouriel Roubini is putting his money.
“”"”"”"”The likelihood is that over the next four years there will be many checks and precious little cash.”"”"”"”"”
Well, golly, no problem! Obama may be a master dissembler, but he simply needs to become an even better one, like Ben Franklin.
Franklin assured the new, rebel nation that it’s paper currency was backed by $2 million Spanish dollars. He was lying, of course, but the ruse worked fairly well for several years.
Wretchard the Cat: “The combination of greater stresses on unstable region combined with a reduced means to cope with them means that Obama will be facing a greater security risk on top of an economic risk.”
BHO: “No problem; just call me if you need me”.
The options:
/ An immediate 100% tax on all gasoline sold.
/ An immediate ban on the sale of all new gasoline engine cars.
/ An immediate electrification of all rail, public transport, and passenger vehicles.
/ An immediate national priority project to build 10GW of green electricity per year and upgrade of the electric grid.
/ An immediate dissolution of the CIA and DOS with said responsibility devolved to the Pentagon.
/ An immediate end to all foreign aid programs including the UN.
/ An immediate 50% cut in the military budget, compounded every year till the US military budget is on par with Russia’s military budget or China’s.
Or
Bankruptcy.
mika,
Most of your “solutions” lead to immediate bankruptcy.
The U.S. does not have a command economy; nobody has the authority or the power to decree such changes. If a president were to try in invoke emergency powers to do so, we would have the very civil conflict that BC members fear.
Every Problem presents an opportunity. In addition to Bankrupting coal, President Elect Obama wants to spend trillions of dollars on infrastructure projects. The Keynesian Liquidity trap provides the excuse for the classic Keynesian cure on steroids: turn the whole country into the TVA
Trillions of dollars will be looking for a safe place to park. The US will create capital accounts with a Government guarantee to provide cash to build windmill farms and power lines and solar arrays and more power lines (where are those environmental law suits when they might do some good?) and alternative modes of transport.
The world will lend the money for the first and second tranche and Obama’s Wall Street buddies will make another fortune. Then, as the global economy recovers and there are more productive investments elsewhere, the cheap money will dry up. At that point finishing the projects will become horrendously expensive (the nature of compound interest will make it so). But we will be too far along to turn back.
All this will be done so that we can pay a lot more for our energy and make our economy costly and uncompetitive in the world market — which will be running on cheap coal and oil (all of a sudden they won’t worry about global warming).
The important thing: President Obama will have been reelected on the back of another government sponsored bubble. The shit will hit the fan when a Republican is in there.
All this will be done so that we can pay a lot more for our energy and make our economy costly and uncompetitive in the world market
==
Nonsense.
$2 trillion a year goes to subsidize oil, every year. Get rid of it. Get rid of the oil and the bloated military mafia, and that’s $2 trillion in energy savings every year. And once the initial capital investment is made, wind and sunshine are practically free!
2 trillion dollar subsidy to oil? Bloated military?
What idiocy. You have not a clue.
You management can surely do better than this. What a loon you are. Have you ever gotten an honest paycheck in your life? I watch out if I were you, they might be planning to replace you.
Where do I file the complaint?
Nonsense indeed.
Zim: So the norm is 1947? Can you please explain that one to me? I do not get that one.
I would say the abnormality was 1930 through 1980, with maybe a shade of normalcy during the Ike years and an even smaller patch of light during the early Nixon years.
The Democrats are the anomaly thus far in our history. Of course, if the succeed into turning us into another Latin American, socialist clepotracy then it is another story, but then we will really be a completely different country and nation, not really the USA anymore.
If these scoundrel can do this, we are already dead anyway, we just do not know it.
*cleptocracy*
Well, Mika, I’m glad you don’t think turning the nation into the TVA is nonsense.
If wind and solar are competitive with coal, than there is a place for it. But we won’t need a massive Federal program to put it in its place.
If Tom Tomorrowland stuff actually works (nanotech solar cells that capture the full spectrum of sunlight and what not) then by all means use it. But don’t spend trillions of dollars saying “Build it and the technology will come” while creating a massive Federal program that will kill innovation.
In fact, giving so much power to DC, even if it produces good results short term, is very bad long term. The Federal system has made the US strong. A centralized system will turn us into Russia. But then, what’s wrong with that?
2 trillion dollar subsidy to oil? Bloated military?
==
Glad you’ve asked. $2 trillion dollars to the oil and military mafia. But you’re right, subsidy is the wrong word. Legalized theft is a much more accurate term.
There are so many people predicting an horrendous future that it sort of takes the edge off the novelty. In fact, it looks a little like schadenfreude. Being gloomy may be justified, but the notion that one can realistically stretch that into a credible empirical prediction including dates and timelines is a little thin. Moreover, the general trend in terms of technology development as well as systems suggests that we’re very likely to see a “black swan” of the sort that renders the predictions (which are all based on the notion that the future will Zerox the past to a major extent) rather irrelevant.
“And once the initial capital investment is made, wind and sunshine are practically free!”
That statement is way beyond stupid.
Windmills wear out, the wind is never where you need it, power lines aren’t perfectly efficient, the batteries (or other storage systems) required to make effective use of solar power require replacement every couple of years, nobody knows how to make good large-scale storage systems. Currently envisioned green energy systems are phenomenally expensive and inefficient (not to mention environmentally harmful). You can’t fix that with government money.
Usable “green” energy systems are in the pipeline, but you can’t hurry them along with a government “Manhatten Project”, because nobody quite knows how they’ll work yet.
Leave it alone, leave capital gains rates low to encourage investment. Maybe a small increase in gasoline taxes, but not enough to cripple transportation. Maybe a big pile of research grants. It takes money to create real wealth. Let us get to it. You’ll get your green economy quicker than you can say “Dubai Sovereign Wealth Fund”.
But we’re not going to do that, now, are we?
If wind and solar are competitive with coal, than there is a place for it.
==
Find me a clean coal plant that doesn’t produce cancer and radioactive pollutants and we’ll talk about price competitiveness.
Show me a windmill that doesn’t swat birds (among nature’s most beautiful creatures) and maybe I’ll continue this discussion.
Show me a windmill that doesn’t swat birds
==
LOL. Talk to the NRA.
nobody knows how to make good large-scale storage systems
==
And nobody needs to when you build redundancy and decentralization.
“nobody needs to when you build redundancy and decentralization”
Possible, but as I said, phenomenally expensive and soon to be overtaken by new technology. Want the Minitel of energy systems? That’s what you’re likely to get. Or perhaps the Apollo program is a better example. Been to the moon, lately?
Been to the moon, lately?
==
I don’t care to go to moon. I care about about putting the jihadis out of business and the mafia fscks that support them.
..go to ^the moon..
Possible, but as I said, phenomenally expensive
==
Not as expensive as giving $2 trillion a year to the jihadis and the mafia fscks that support them.
“I care about about putting the jihadis out of business”
The point is, you can’t.
You can’t transform the world’s energy economy with current technology–it’s simply too expensive and inefficient. It would be possible to force such a thing on the U.S. economy, but that’s not enough to put the oil sheiks out of business. We have to actually come up with something better–so much better that the entire world wants it.
There’s only a small amount that government can do to help that process. Unfortunately, there’s an awful lot that government can do to hinder it.
Sorry to burst your bubble, but there it is.
You can’t transform the world’s energy economy with current technology
=
By creating a government mandate you create a market for current and future green technologies. You spur innovation and real competitiveness, and not this mafia cartel and oligarchy we now have in place.
“By creating a government mandate you create a market for current and future green technologies.”
Not the mandates you’re talking about. For example, you’re advocating specifically banning gasoline-fueled cars, and forcing electrification of the U.S. railway system. What happens if somebody comes up with a practical method of efficiently converting wood pulp to gas and diesel (something which is at least being researched currently)? Oooops. You just made the wrong mandates, and destroyed the market for any such advances in technology.
You said that we should upgrade the grid immediately–in what manner should it be upgraded, with what type of technology in mind? You have to pick the winner, thereby destroying the market for any advances in technology you didn’t already think of.
Unfortunately, nearly all of the advocates of mandating “green” technology are actually mandating the adoption of supremely impractical current technology. The price of this is the near-destruction of the marketplace for energy technologies that might actually solve the problems we face.
What we’re faced with is government picking the technology winner, and government has a poor track record of doing so. That’s the point of the Minitel and Apollo analogies.
The bright side is that the technology isn’t as far away as you might think–but it’s in the cradle, still vulnerable.
It’s an irrefutable law of nature. There must be at least one moronic mika2k1 to balance out the brilliance of a site’s regular commentors.
What happens if somebody comes up with a practical method of efficiently converting wood pulp to gas and diesel
==
LOL. Good. Than we’d have found another way to create electricity, Mr Anonymous Green-Power Engineer.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel-electric_locomotive#Diesel-electric
Mark,
I’m as hard right as you will ever find.
Mark Maps: That is damn right. This “mika thread” is the silliest yet in a long line of fantasy: fantasy problems (oil subsidy? Military subsidy? whhhaaatt?!?!?) and fantasy solutions (Just stop the earth from spinning on it’s axis. It’s sooooo simple.)
Let’s get this thread back to Wretchard’s original thesis and off of mika’s lunatic ravings. Mark Twain’s immortal comment “The reports of my demise are greatly exaggerated”. There is always a market for guys like this Nouriel character (anyone remember Ravi Batra’s Great Depression of 1990?). The financial rags & mags know there is ALWAYS someone out there ready to eat up the Doomsday Scenario. I would imagine that most of Forbes’ readers were not exactly Obamatrons and are even more predisposed to believe the “We’re all doomed now.” thesis. No one ever seems to go back and ridicule them into early retirement once their predictions have been proven scandalously asinine. Maybe this guy is right, but I highly doubt it.
Don’t get me wrong, I think there’s BIG TROUBLE in River City. This is no minor gig and we may very well be looking at the longest slump in a long time. We’ve never seen in our lifetime the kind of de-leveraging it is going to take to get back to some reasonable equilibrium point, but it is almost never as bad as it could be.
When someone figures out how to convert wood pulp to gasoline and diesel they’re going to piss off everybody that loves forests including me. Clear cut for green energy, isn’t kind of like kill for peace?
Situational ethics do not engender trust. Now that it is the norm in business and gov’t the people have decided they will not participate in the shenanigans. The economy will pick up when and only when there is trust in gov’t and business.
P.S. The only way to push “non petroleum based energy production” faster through the pipeline is to make it economically viable in the free market. You can’t get there through presidential decree. It just won’t happen like you think it will.
Jim
Even if the United States stopped using fossil fuels entirely, became “energy independent”, and relied entirely upon renewable energy (including solar, wind, geothermal, and dried bird manure), that would not solve the problem. The United States might be able to afford such a shift, but Malawi cannot. Kenya can’t. India can’t. China can’t. And the list goes on and on.
The key is to find a technological breakthrough that makes renewable energy less expensive than fossil fuels. Good batteries can help. Electric cars can help. However, making any transition such as this requires a strong federal government and a powerful military. We need to buy time for our research and development to kick in. We also need a trustworthy administration to promote a technological shift away from fossil fuels, and this isn’t likely for the next four years.
The last thing any sane person promoting green energy needs is some holocaust-happy nutcase who won’t change his mind and won’t change the subject. Shifting away from fossil fuels requires pragmatic concessions to short term reality such as offshore drilling and an open mind. Just as the federal government is subsidizing digital-to-analog converters to ease the analog-to-digital transition in television broadcasting, the federal government may eventually subsidize conversion of existing cars from gasoline power to electric power. However, none of this pragmatic shift will happen if all we hear is constant badgering from twenty-first century Chicken Littles squawking, “THE SKY IS FALLING, THE SKY IS FALLING!” Such ravings grate on even Green nerves.
If the United States were to completely shift to renewable energy, Saudi Arabia and Iran would still be powerful because the Third World can’t afford highbrow energy. The entire world economy must eventually be shifted to new technology that makes the internal combustion engine and eventually fossil fuels obsolete. With enough research and development, this can be done, but it will take time. For the time being, we must buy time by fighting our enemies in the Middle East to (1) keep them off-balance and (2) show them we aren’t afraid to fight.
Our enemies have been prophesying America’s doom for at least seventy years, and for generations they have been proven wrong time and time again. The Obama administration may very well be a setback, but it will be neither the end of the world nor the end of American greatness. American logistics may need some adjustment, but the war effort must not cease merely because certain fifth column agents seek to incite panic. The path to victory against the Islamists and their fifth column allies may be a difficult climb. Yet, victory is not only possible but likely, especially when we don’t give up. The only way for America to lose this war is if Americans give up the fight.
We need to fight this war on all fronts. To win, we must reject the nuclear cowardice of defeatist badgerers.
The only way to push “non petroleum based energy production” faster through the pipeline is to make it economically viable in the free market.
==
I disagree. It’s already economically viable. Even with the trillions in subsidy going to the oil mafia.
Anyhow, 4000GW divide by 10GW per year, that’s 40 years. Forty years to innovate, compete, and bring the best green solution to market.
What’s not well recognized is that collapsing oil prices have two really big effects.
1.)The bad guys are defunded. That sucks out a lot of the ambition by the bad guys to do bad stuff.
2.) The industrialized world is enormously invigorated. Oil is treated as just a commodity but it is not just a commodity. It is something that goes right to the productivity of citizens in the industrialized world. The cheaper the energy –the greater the profitable output per energy cost input. The greater the productivity of workers. The greater the wealth of a nation.
The enormous transfer of wealth overseas to nonproductive countries–abates.
Oh well, I should include another effect.
3.) the urgency to get other fuel sources abates. This is what happened in 1981 when the Saudi’s drove down prices by driving up output. This time however, I think the push to get away from dependence on foreign oil is so profound that even lower oil prices will not stop the energy transformation of the US in particular and the industrialized world in general.
Finally, imho the price of oil will continue to fall until analysts have their arms around how big the economic contraction will be next year.
That means that oil is going to +-40 and maybe +-30.
At those prices, the entire moslem world starts to draw on their rainy funds. Those countries like Venezuela and Iran that don’t have rainy day funds will find their populations want new leadership.
Hmm I have two problems with making predictions of doom and gloom such as this.
First, I remember when Lester Thurow, the Dean of Sloan’s B-School at MIT wrote ‘Head to Head: The Coming Economic Battle against Japan, Europe and America.’ This was written in 1987, when I had just come home from a tour of duty in the Navy in Japan (USS MIdway 1983 – 1987). Encouraged by what I saw first hand about the growth of the Asian Tigers, the argument Mr. Thurow was making only strengthen my beliefs to study economics with a concentration in East Asian studies.
Throughout the 1990′s and event to today, Japan’s economy was stagnant and the US boomed with the growth of the computer/software/internet businesses, the service sector, financial industry etc. Gee, I guess Mr. Thurow and others (including myself) were wrong in that prediction…
Secondly, I work in the financial industry. I have clients, friends and colleagues throughout this sector (Hedge Funds, Asset Managers, Prime Brokers, Custodians, etc). Some of them are quite famous. Not one of them has an accurate idea of the situation we are in and the waters we need to navigate through.
This is nerve racking, but not doom and gloom. There is an old Irish saying that where there is muck, there is money. As long as the US rewards the ability for those who takes risks, I am a little more optimistic.
4000GW divide by 10GW per year, that’s 40 years.
==
Geez, I made a typo, but what’s your excuse. LOL!
Mika2k1
$2 trillion a year goes to subsidize oil, every year. Get rid of it. Get rid of the oil and the bloated military mafia, and that’s $2 trillion in energy savings every year. And once the initial capital investment is made, wind and sunshine are practically free!
This is nonsense and expresses complete ignorance our energy consumption.
Tell me, how much oil do we import each year, and what % goes to producing electricity vs. transportation?
As far as our economy is concerned, the US is pretty efficient. Most of the electricity in this country is produced via hydro, nuclear, coal, etc. A small portion of energy we get from oil is used for electricity or petro-chemical products.
The remainder, over 80% is used for transportation. Wind and sunshine may be free, but let me see you strapping solar panels on a plane or a cargo ship.
I still have a copy of “The Great Depression of 1990″ if anyone’s interested.
As far as our economy is concerned, the US is pretty efficient.
==
What’s efficient about $1.4 trillion per year on the military, when Russia China France Britian each spend less than 50 billion per year?
What’s efficient about bleeding 700Bn a year on foreign oil imports when the money could be invested in America’s green industry?
What’s efficient about getting 20-30 mpg when you could be getting 200-300 mpg?
As far as our economy is concerned, the US is pretty efficient.
==
What’s efficient about spending $1.4 trillion per year on the military, when Russia China France Britian each spend less than 50 billion per year?
What’s efficient about bleeding 700Bn a year on foreign oil imports when the money could be invested in America’s green industry?
What’s efficient about getting 20-30 mpg when you could be getting 200-300 mpg?
One area the new administration may get help in backpedaling on high expectations is tax cuts; there is a narrative being established that raising taxes can have positive effects, and that many Americans support paying higher taxes if it will help combat societal ills. Watch the media to see if the narrative continues unfolding.
mika2k1,
Where does the $2 trillion per year come from?
US oil imports from OPEC countries are a little less than 2.3 billion bbl/year. Not all OPEC countries are “bad guys” but let’s run with this. If you throw in Russia, it’s another 180 million bbl/year. So say a total of 2.5 billion bbl/year.
http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/pet_move_impcus_a2_nus_ep00_im0_mbbl_m.htm
Current price of oil is about $55/bbl. This gives you a total of about $140 billion.
But maybe this is too low; so let’s run with an average price of $100/bbl. This still only adds up to $250 billion.
Keep in mind that this is revenues. You have to deduct lifting and transport costs. So it seems like the annual wealth transfer is more like $100-200 billion. A lot of money, admittedly, but an order of magnitude less than $2 trillion per year.
But maybe I’m missing something.
Cheers.
L3
Where does the $2 trillion per year come from?
==
US defense plus oil import expenditures are $2.1 trillion. My argument is that is that when Russia China France Britian are each spending less than $50 billion per year on defense, why should the US be spending more than $100 billion? And the answer is simple. The money is spent because the oil car military mafia and their partner in crime the big media corporate fascists have a lock on the corrupt US political system.
Mika, China spends far more than $50 billion a year on defense. That’s what they say they spend. You want to believe it, go right ahead. So their 2,255,000 man army runs on $50 billion? That’s about $22,000 per year per man. And we haven’t bought a bullet yet, much less fighter planes and battleships, which they churn out in profusion. I know the pay ain’t so great in China, but really now.
Meanwhile, as others have noted, we could stop importing oil tomorrow and the Jihadis et al would still sell it by gobs to China, India, Japan, Europe, etc. It wouldn’t matter a lick in that sense.
What would matter, though, is drilling domestically and turning that black goopy stuff in the ground into actual money, which in turn would create actual jobs, and good paying ones at that. The multiplying effect of all that new wealth pouring INTO the country rather than OUT of it would be astounding. It might even — by gosh — help finance the eventual — and realistically timed — movement away from fossil fuel transportation. Not exploiting the oil resources we have is insanity of a high order.
peterike,
“The average annual income per capita differs enormously between urban and rural areas. For 2003 the urban figure was RMB 8,472 (US$ 1,058) while the same figure for rural areas was RMB 2,622 (US$ 328)” via: http://www.chinasavvy.com/services/china-facts.php
Calculate 10% compound growth, and you’re looking at maybe double that income for 2008.
For those who think that this won’t be as bad as stated, I ask you honestly: do you trust that the fed and congress will do the things necessary to limit the damage, or will they do things that will make it worse?
That is why I’m worried.
The market will sort the mess out, with alot of people losing money and jobs, in relatively short order. Very painful for a short time. Then a gradual recovery. Government seems bound and determined to not let that happen.
Derek
one big war cleans out all the cobwebs. i see us cutting a deal with the prc to remove the russians and take the arabs’ oil away from them.
one big war cleans out all the cobwebs. i see us cutting a deal with the prc to remove the russians and take the arabs’ oil away from them.
I think we are looking at the appreciable possibility of a global catastrophe which will affect all of us, regardless of political belief. It’s hard to regard as an “I told you so” moment or an opportunity for gloating. The reason we anticipate danger is not to revel in it but to prepare for it in a practical way.
How can this be done? The best way I can think of is to begin reorganizing so that cool, credible and far sighted leaders — of a practical sort — can be identified. They can come forward in a crisis. The only thing worse than a global crisis is a global crisis met without leadership. There will be no one to provide calm, clear thinking and above all, steadiness in difficulty.
The coming years would have been critical whether John McCain, BHO or anyone else was President. The world is simply changing. It’s first, but not its last victim is George W. Bush. BHO is facing great danger, ameloriated in places and exacerbated in others, by the actions of his predecessor. But I think as with the financial crisis, the worst of the geopolitical is yet to come.
I think BHO has overextended himself; his constituency is riddled with moonbats. But that’s a given. The task now isn’t to gloat, but recognize the dangers in the situation. And while they are still hard to imagine, when they eventuate these dangers will be all too real.
I expect the new POTUS and Congress to really mismanage most of the crises and challenges ahead. I don’t think we are going to have a depression, but we will have an ongoing recession that will last probably longer than a year, maybe a year and a half. Normally, a recession’s average duration has been about three to four quarters of negative GDP growth. What seems to be prolonging this one will be the very slow downward adjustment in home prices, which are, for some strange reason, not coming down as much in price as one would expect at this point. If Congress passes tax hikes, this thing could get very ugly.
I think the Democratic Party is almost completely unhinged from reality. Once the public catches up with this, it’s gonna be very bloody for the Democrats and they may be out of it for a very, very long time.
The problem with the Democratic Party is that its leadership – the ones with the seniority – all come from heavily urban, socialist districts. Our urban centers are settling into a role of being parasitic off the rest of the country, and dictating policy to those of us who are expected to fund the welfare state and put up with their foreign policy idiocy.
Wow, I thought Alex was going hard pn him but Mika really is an asshole.
Beware of fifth column tactics. Conspiracy theories are usually self-defeating precisely because they effectively demobilize protest. If people were to truly believe cynical stories of some all-powerful cabal controlling America, the effect of such news (if believed) on most people would be to lead them to give up any resistance against tyrants. (If there are so all-powerful, what’s the point of resistance?)
In the guise of promoting green energy, there is a defeatist agenda at work dedicated to crippling America’s will to fight and crippling America’s will even to shift its economy to renewable energy. After all, what point would there be in attempting to change policy if our political system were so corrupt that the Saudis would always trump our recommendations anyway?
Dismantling the American military while turning Muslim cities into glass is an invitation to catastrophe. I oppose such cowardly advice. Although it is wise to read Noam Chomsky’s polemics to understand his viewpoint, it is unwise to uncritically accept his portrayal of modern American history. Just because Noam Chomsky writes something doesn’t make it true.
The American form of government may be flawed, but it does respond to pressure. Politicians sometimes listen. Yes, there is corruption, but not every politician has been thoroughly corrupted. Acting as if America were some unredeemably corrupt “New Rome” is a libel against not merely our political system, but it is also a libel against honest citizens who work hard to ensure that our political system works. Many civil servants truly care about enforcing our laws, and many politicians truly care about representing their constituents. Our system isn’t perfect, but it isn’t perfectly bad either.
Although there is much to be disgusted with in American politics, we must combat the virus of cynicism that sees the entire world as controlled by fascist mafias against which there is no hope of resistance. Tyranny is a symptom of defeatism and hopelessness; let’s not let fifth column tactics sap our strength.
I just laugh it off. Better than crying.
So far enlightened self interest and economic versatility has caused the only shift towards green technologies that the world has witnessed. The Ludites did not bring effective change.
“New Rome” is a libel against not merely our political system
==
As much a libel as calling Goldman Sucks triple-A mortgage securities, AAA securities. Votes are sliced and diced as to be rationality defensible as those Goldman Sucks triple-A mortgage securities.
..rationaly defensible..
rationally
k. time for bed. talk amongst yourself.
wipes his mouth…. buuuuuuuurpp.
I seem to recall a tradition Wretchard used to have requesting people limit themselves to two comments per thread. Perhaps two is too few, but currently this mika person is responsible for better than 1 out of every 3 posts in this thread. Of course I’ll defer to Wretchard’s judgement, but the ping-pong match (and the “Goldman Sucks” bit) wears thin after a while. A blogified version of Hannity and Colmes.
I think any rational improvement in the US has to start with the premise that the government(s) spend less. And that means from the Presidential Air Force One right down to the seven man police force in Nowhereville, Yourstate.
And if that means pay cuts and pension cuts and less travel for government employees and less social security cost of living adjustment then that is what it means.
It also has to mean higher taxes not drastic increases which are counterproductive. Some boost in capital gains rates, federal fuel taxes, the highest income tax rates, and at the other end perhaps not writing as much of your mortgage interest off.
Memo to pols: Lot of luck finding capital gains to tax this year.
We have a lot of fiscal problems. They seem overwhelming. IMO until we break the mindset that government spends more in bad times and more in good times and can never cut programs we will not solve anything.
I am not proposing massive cuts. I am proposing a new deal. The government faces reality and politicians have the guts to begin what is needed. People will take pain if they think it comes with medicine. They won’t if they think it comes with BS.
Other things I would do: No bailouts. Nada, zip. When you go broke you use the system created for broken stuff; the Bankruptcy Courts.
Tell our allies that WW2 is over, the Cold War is over, and we won’t be over there anymore. Withdraw from NATO and Europe. Ditto Korea, and whatever is left in Japan and Okinawa.
I don’t like Obama but he is right that military costs must be cut. It looks more like he may mangle than adjust. A Secretary Of Defense must be given the power to cut, be supported when the howls start, and have the sense to do it right. I hope we get that person.
Our entanglements in the Middle East and Asia must end. That might take years but the goal must be stated and preparations started. The peoples of these areas have to run things without our power. As a practical matter, the power cannot be sustained militarily or economically for much longer.
I personally think we face two bad decades. The first will be extemely bad under any conditions. And what we do in the first will determine if the second is absolutely horrible or better than the first.
49. wretchard:
one big war cleans out all the cobwebs. i see us cutting a deal with the prc to remove the russians and take the arabs’ oil away from them.
I think we are looking at the appreciable possibility of a global catastrophe which will affect all of us, regardless of political belief.
But I think as with the financial crisis, the worst of the geopolitical is yet to come.
I think BHO has overextended himself; his constituency is riddled with moonbats.
…..
imho the people BHO is least prepared to deal with are the Chinese–followed by the Russians.
All BHO’s hooks and triggers are designed for westerners. He has never experienced being kicked where he is not and stabbed when he is not there–though these have always been part of his kit.
Victor Davis Hanson
What Obama Might Do.
2) Energy. Gas in nearing $2 a gallon. Oil is at $55 a barrel. That fall could be worth nearly a half-trillion dollar stimulus per year as oil free falls to one third it 2008 high. Already, families who drive 2000 miles per month are saving $150-250 per month in fuel costs. Obama might get away with a 10 cents a gallon tax and could use it to pay down the deficit (he won’t), but you get the picture that the US government, and /or its citizens, suddenly has options and can siphon something back from OPEC.
Reagan likewise realized a real windfall when prices crashed in the early 1980s. What we don’t want to see is some Carter-like, oil-shale monstrosity, but rather lightly siphoning profits from our enemies to encourage alternate fuels so that we are ready for the next hike. Let us pray that Obama includes coal and nuclear power to run the grid, and limits his hands-off, green boasting to areas that don’t have much oil anyway; e.g. “I promise not to drill in Manhattan or Berkeley!”
3) Our enemies. Obama can concentrate on talking about lowering oil prices (or rather should appreciate that the natural market forces are giving him low prices freely). If we go down to below $50 a barrel on oil, I think Iran would have real problems with its centrifuges and missiles. Putin and Co. won’t be so bellicose, given their cash reserves will vanish (they are beginning to do that already). Radical Islam will find fewer floating dollars to tap into. Hezbollah will be cash poor (and much weaker vis a vis Israel). Chavez will have to cut all those subsidies with which he used to buy allies. The point is that most of our enemies are oil exporters, and the crashing prices could bring Obama real foreign policy dividends if he finds ways to keep oil prices low when the economy rebounds. Right now, for all the talk of gloom and doom, Obama has been given a great foreign policy and economic gift. Let us hope he finesses it the right way.
re: mika2k1
..irrationally indefensible .. is your unstated premise, i.e. that global warming is in ANY scientific way, a proven fact. It is not. It is a religion.
Therefore, there is no reason to bother with discussing logic or reality with you. In your mind, man will extinguish himself in 60 years if he doesn’t do all the draconian things you proscribe – immediately. “What if it costs 1000 lives, 10,000 lives, 1 million lives. What’s that cost weighed against saving humanity?”, goes the logic of the radical environmentalist.
If wind, solar, geothermal and other “green” energy methods were commercially viable, or even near viable, no entity could STOP it’s development. If, in fact, these sources do not produce sufficient, cost-effective energy, your “solutions” will ultimately costs lives (as the ethanol debacle is now demonstrating). Ultimately, it will cost Americans freedom, because sans a viable economic motivation, the only way to ensure your “Green” view of the world is by the sword, either directly (read: Nazi style “Brownshirt” tactics the radical left seems to be perfecting) or indirectly (read: government manipulation to change lifestyles, by using economic control, energy control, or food, water and other controls – ultimately starvation to force human change).
So, mika2k1 would abandon freedom, democracy, capitalism, and other American virtues for the sake of his “green” religion? There’s a relatively new term something like that: Talibanism
I can think for myself. I can organize. I can vote. I live in a Constitutional Republic, with fixed laws. I have means. I have courage. I have guns.
Miki2k1. You and your kind will ultimately fail – spectacularly so.
MIka is a typical social engineer.
I say typical, because most folks who pretend to be able to reorder nations’ economies are typically ignorant of market-based remedies, think in “top-down” fashion, and deny the law of unintended consequences.
The Global Warming boogey-man is the social engineer’s attempt to panic us into giving power to her type. People in fear tend to act precipitously and to run in mobs. The progressive movement relies on these spooked mobs for its domestic power.
Hm. What I’m having trouble finding is good, practical advice for how I can prepare for bad times, personally, on the micro level.
I’ve been concerned for many months now, to the point where I’m well advanced in my “personal deleveraging”. I rolled over a sizeable 401K from an old job, and in the process hacked off a sizeable hunk (eating the penalty) in order to pay off the remaining car loan and all credit card debt, which we’ve managed to stabilize at $0 on an ongoing basis.
I’m currently working nights and weekends on finishing the basement of our house with a too-expensive mortgage so that we can list it, hopefully by Thanksgiving. I live in a small town, and there are decent fixer-uppers to be had for less than our equity, so the hope is that if we can sell, we’ll buy one of those and live without a mortgage payment.
Then my attention will turn to gathering enough cash to pay several years’ worth of tax and insurance on the house and cars, and maybe a year or two of other expenses. If I get really paranoid, I’ll probably stock the basement with a metric buttload of canned and dry goods, and get a couple more guns.
Finally, I’m sick of my profession (NOT plumbing…that’s a randomly chosen screen name would probably be a lot less stressful) and want to own a business, so I’ve been scoping ones out that are for sale locally and will likely make THAT jump shortly after we move into town, especially if my wife can get a job that will cover our health insurance.
I’m happy with these decisions whether things go really bad or they look up again and the uneasiness is all for nothing. If nothing else, it will grossly simplify my life and make me a lot happier overall. My question is, what other things might a person do in case things really DID degenerate into the worst case? Nobody seems to be talking much about that, and it seems that people who want to be prepared might be interested.
Ideas?
Agoraphobic Plumber asks:
My question is, what other things might a person do in case things really DID degenerate into the worst case? Nobody seems to be talking much about that, and it seems that people who want to be prepared might be interested.
programmer advises:
Look up Mel Tappan on http://www.amazon.com/Tappan-Survival-Mel/dp/1581605099
The principal deficit is political.
Our political system too many times in the recent past handed the keys to important facets of the economy to the marxist left and allowed them to play as they wished. Being good commies they attacked the foundations of our capitalist system to bring it down, and they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. The left has damaged our financial system far more than people realize.
The world’s financial system is built upon the credibility of the United States. The transparency and trustworthiness of the American financial and political systems has been the dependable rock that allowed capitalists worldwide to create vast wealth ( in simplistic terms) by creatively devising financial instruments that have financed the development and trade of marketable products, goods and services on a scale previously unknown in human history.
Now the trustworthiness of the American financial system has been compromised.
Starting with the Community Redevelopment Act, the Democrat left has been allowed to create and promote financial deceptions and then build upon them. Incentives were pushed to bend previously inviolatable rules one after another. One shading of the truth led to another.
First, it was just the idea that blacklisting was discriminatory. Then, it was a small program to help the poor finance their homes. Then banks were “encouraged” to facilitate these sub prime loans or else. Then the leftists took over fannie and Freddie and expanded the subprime programs way beyond any prudent or reasonable limits. This subprime junk was now guaranteed. Once guaranteed all sorts of sub prime games could be played. The con men of Wall Street,( there are con men everywhere) could create deriatives worth trillions that appeared rock solid. Not to be out done, Fannie and Freddie could create similar financial derivatives that appeared to be guaranteed by the US Government and sell in huge lots to our foreign trading partners. Competitive pressures forced many a skeptical player into the market. The big money, the appearance of guarantees, and the complexities of the derivatives caused the rating agencies and the auditors to overlook the now obvious problems.
But the problem is that at every step of the way, there was shading of the truth and subtle and not so subtle misrepresentations. The subprime mess could not have happened unless there was not a mountain of lies and deceptions built one on top of the other. Now, as the result the trustworthiness and credibility of the loan guarantees, the rating agencies and auditing process is crap.
Most of the value of America’s marketable securities, bonds and stocks, are dependent of on a bond agencies or accounting firm’s stamp of approval.
How do you trust these approvals now? You don’t.
These financial safeguards, these foundations of our financial system have been damaged severely. We cannot build back our economy unless our government watchdogs thoroughly and impartially review what went wrong with our financial safeguards and fix them. We need to rebuild our financial foundations. But it’s not going to happen with the Obamatoids.
This is where we go back to our political deficits. The same people who gamed the system are now running the show. We elected the foxes to run the hen house.
Wretchard, please do something about Mika. I welcome well reasoned left-wing comments, but there is no reason to tolerate the belligerent and delusional.
George,
You can do what I do which is to ignore all Mika posts and most of those responding to Mika’s posts.
The fact that the economy began to tank under a Republican is a godsend to the neo-socialists who surround President Elect Obama. Therefore what P.E. Obama will do is what he says he’ll do.
Back when everyone was talking $180 bbl oil I said the world has plenty of oil at $60 bbl and if the markets are allowed to function that is where the price will go. So obviously, the markets cannot be allowed to function.
For Obama and the Neosocs, $2 a gallon gas has got to be $5 a gallon gas if their “alternative energy” power grab is going to work. The business of OPEC is raising the price of gas by cutting supply. The Democrat Congress is the most important member of OPEC (The US Congress keeps more oil off the world market than any other political organ) so look for them to significantly cut future US production. Of course it must be done with plausible deniability. Environmental concerns will stop oil exploration, stop oil shale development and stop new refining capacity. Meanwhile expanded oil use in the rest of the world will be allowed, if not encouraged, through Kyoto style loopholes (it’s an antipoverty measure). Taxes and regulations of the oil companies must be greatly expanded in the name of Fairness (in a sane USA the Democrats would give “fairness” a bad name). In return Big Oil will get — from the Democrats — expensive oil and good profits (the Democrats will get their cut in the form of taxes). The Neosocs must get the price back on an upward path soon. They don’t want their finger prints on “five dollar gas.”
The USA as the TVA is part of the Neosoc agenda, and economic distress will provide all the excuse they need to implement it. Look for grandiose public works projects (as broadly defined as possible).
Meanwhile the economy as a whole will be organized into Cartels of Caring. Cartels exist to advantage producers over consumers and cartel community organizers over everyone. Cartels are justified as providing a social good — even in autocratic nations. As they spread through our economy they will provide little but social harm. The poor will become poorer (but they will be “helped”) and the workers will become Cartel dependent. In fact, economic distress will make the emerging system more stable by making the dependent citizen conservative in the “change adverse” sense. The “change we can believe in” is neosoc “fear of change” in the population once the neosocs are in charge.
The Cartels of Caring will get a steady stream of income and protection from competition in return for supporting the new social order. In the neosocialist order, management and “Capitalists” will front for the “Washington Party” — that combination of politicians, top bureaucrats, major media and “public private partnerships” that make up our ruling class. The “new cpapitalist” will be politically dependent clients of the Washington Party. They will be selected for being responsible not in the sense of being competent, but in the sense of taking the blame when things go wrong.
Under old style socialism, socialist took the hit when economies collapsed. Under Neo-socialism the “capitalists” become neosoc puppets. They are kept around to take credit for failure rather than provide additional credit to success. Neosocialism operates on the Subprime Paradigm — where the architects of the mortgage meltdown take over the government. Nice work, if you can get it — and have the sort of conscience that allows you to do it.
That is a little tough to do Phil, when his posts and the responses thereto make up the majority of all posts.
Phil @ #69
What he said.
Geo @ 71…so let’s make Mika the topic of this thread???????? He has been here before. when others fail to engage he calls us all idiots, goes away (a good thing) and pouts.
The truly serious financial problems we face are not just from what the lefties did. The economists and finance professors with the help of mathematicians created the derivatives and hedging models that allowed for the excessive leveraging abetted with cheap money from the Fed and the spending patterns of the Boomers.
We have to have incentives to save to pay for our debt. This means higher real yields on the US bonds.
But I expect the next administration and Congress to spend even more and then monetarize the debt, which means hyperinflation. Given the social cleveges in our society inflation will result in repression and chaos.
Meanwhile the Mexican drug gangs have moved into Texas. I expect that they have also moved into Southern California but I do not know if that is the case.
Wretchard said:
“I think we are looking at the appreciable possibility of a global catastrophe which will affect all of us, regardless of political belief…. I think BHO has overextended himself; his constituency is riddled with moonbats. But that’s a given. The task now isn’t to gloat, but recognize the dangers in the situation.”
I agree with this analysis. It occurs to me that we’re in such a deep hole that not even Tom Jefferson or Harry S. Truman could dig us out.
Again, it’s a calamity that we have Hussein as President. However it is poetic justice that Hussein has been left holding the bag and will inherit the blame. Unfortunately with Hussein as President, we’re going to be running around in circles for the next four years as everything goes to hell. Our next President will have to be at least of Harry S. Truman’s caliber.
After we get out of this situation, we will need to take a long and careful look at the miscreants who screwed up our economy and enabled Obama to become our next President.
After we get out of this situation, we will need to take a long and careful look at the miscreants who screwed up our economy and enabled Obama to become our next President.
……
That’s about as likely as McCarthy being rehabilitated –even though he was right and the sort of embarrassing questions he asked like “are you or have you ever been a communist” –are now standardized security clearance questions.
ie obama might have a tough time getting a security clearance if he came in as staff in any of the agencies related to homeland defense. but as president — its all good.
… By creating a government mandate you create a market for current and future green technologies. You spur innovation and real competitiveness, and not this mafia cartel and oligarchy we now have in place …
I had no idea it was so easy. Why don’t we also mandate prosperity or immortality?
The message that needs to be delivered is simple. Thousands of professional communicators can shape it to clearly and effectively make the points that would resonate with the public. I can envision a campaign based around simple themes such as “What Works” and “Enduring Truths” or “Sources of Strength.” Does that mean that I think our problem is in the Messengers? Only tangentially, although it does not help if your public face is inarticulate, indecisive, or corrupt.
The problem is not in the message but in the delivery system. This last election proved the ability of a narrow cartel to function as an Oligopoly over information delivery and effectively exclude competing information from public consideration. All the talk of alternative media changing the playing field was bunk. All the Internet did was make it easier to conduct financial fraud. It had no effect on what the voters knew going into the voting booth.
The real problem is how to get the message out? When the NY Times refused to print McCain’s Op-ed, without every other media outlet grabbing it and running with it, the election was over. We need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and invest in outlets, cable channels, billboards, newspapers, anything that can get to eyes and ears. We have been so ineffective that we could not even keep the NY Sun alive when people should have raised money to pay for 1 million subscriptions; enough for every student in Grades 6 through 12 and college in NYC.
mika’s rantings have a bit of truth to them. The US’s long-term security would be greatly enhanced if we embarked on a plan to facilitate the construction of enough nuke power plants to supply 80% of our needs from non-fossil fuel, along with facilitating coal-to-gasoline conversion projects. Both of the above would best be accomplished by removing legal and regulatory roadblocks.
We also could use a tariff on imported oil, coupled with expanded drilling in Alaska and our continental shelf.
Accomplish all that, and we would have less need to worry about what happens in the Middle East
Lifeofthemind said:
“The problem is not in the message but in the delivery system. This last election proved the ability of a narrow cartel to function as an Oligopoly over information delivery and effectively exclude competing information from public consideration…. When the NY Times refused to print McCain’s Op-ed, without every other media outlet grabbing it and running with it, the election was over. We need to raise hundreds of millions of dollars and invest in outlets, cable channels, billboards, newspapers, anything that can get to eyes and ears.”
Lifeofthemind’s comments are wise words.
This last election was not John McCain versus B. Hussein Obama but rather the American People versus the MSM. I’m sorry to report that the MSM won hands down.
This is a grave threat to our national security and requires correction. Unfortunately, how this is to be corrected without damaging the Freedom of the Press is an equally serious problem. I suspect the answer is limiting the size of individual news organizations and prohibiting the formation of news cartels where the intent is to inhibit the free flow of information. Again, we won’t be able to resolve these issues until after Obama goes away and after the current situation hits bottom.
Received an email this morning with a piece written by Chris Hedges:
“We live in two Americas. One America, now the minority, functions in a print-based, literate world. It can cope with complexity and has the intellectual tools to separate illusion from truth. The other America, which constitutes the majority, exists in a non-reality-based belief system. This America, dependent on skillfully manipulated images for information, has severed itself from the literate, print-based culture. It cannot differentiate between lies and truth. It is informed by simplistic, childish narratives and cliches. It is thrown into confusion by ambiguity, nuance and self-reflection. This divide, more than race, class or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, has split the country into radically distinct, unbridgeable and antagonistic entities.
There are over 42 million American adults, 20 percent of whom hold high school diplomas, who cannot read, as well as the 50 million who read at a fourth- or fifth-grade level. Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. And their numbers are growing by an estimated 2 million a year. But even those who are supposedly literate retreat in huge numbers into this image-based existence. A third of high school graduates, along with 42 percent of college graduates, never read a book after they finish school. Eighty percent of the families in the United States last year did not buy a book.
The illiterate rarely vote, and when they do vote they do so without the ability to make decisions based on textual information. American political campaigns, which have learned to speak in the comforting epistemology of images, eschew real ideas and policy for cheap slogans and reassuring personal narratives. Political propaganda now masquerades as ideology. Political campaigns have become an experience. They do not require cognitive or self-critical skills. They are designed to ignite pseudo-religious feelings of euphoria, empowerment and collective salvation. Campaigns that succeed are carefully constructed psychological instruments that manipulate fickle public moods, emotions and impulses, many of which are subliminal. They create a public ecstasy that annuls individuality and fosters a state of mindlessness. They thrust us into an eternal present. They cater to a nation that now lives in a state of permanent amnesia. It is style and story, not content or history or reality, which inform our politics and our lives. We prefer happy illusions. And it works because so much of the American electorate, including those who should know better, blindly cast ballots for slogans, smiles, the cheerful family tableaux, narratives and the perceived sincerity and the attractiveness of candidates. We confuse how we feel with knowledge.
The illiterate and semi-literate, once the campaigns are over, remain powerless. They still cannot protect their children from dysfunctional public schools. They still cannot understand predatory loan deals, the intricacies of mortgage papers, credit card agreements and equity lines of credit that drive them into foreclosures and bankruptcies. They still struggle with the most basic chores of daily life from reading instructions on medicine bottles to filling out bank forms, car loan documents and unemployment benefit and insurance papers. They watch helplessly and without comprehension as hundreds of thousands of jobs are shed. They are hostages to brands. Brands come with images and slogans. Images and slogans are all they understand. Many eat at fast food restaurants not only because it is cheap but because they can order from pictures rather than menus. And those who serve them, also semi-literate or illiterate, punch in orders on cash registers whose keys are marked with symbols and pictures. This is our brave new world.
Political leaders in our post-literate society no longer need to be competent, sincere or honest. They only need to appear to have these qualities. Most of all they need a story, a narrative. The reality of the narrative is irrelevant. It can be completely at odds with the facts. The consistency and emotional appeal of the story are paramount. The most essential skill in political theater and the consumer culture is artifice. Those who are best at artifice succeed. Those who have not mastered the art of artifice fail. In an age of images and entertainment, in an age of instant emotional gratification, we do not seek or want honesty. We ask to be indulged and entertained by clichs, stereotypes and mythic narratives that tell us we can be whomever we want to be, that we live in the greatest country on Earth, that we are endowed with superior moral and physical qualities and that our glorious future is preordained, either because of our attributes as Americans or because we are blessed by God or both.
The ability to magnify these simple and childish lies, to repeat them and have surrogates repeat them in endless loops of news cycles, gives these lies the aura of an uncontested truth. We are repeatedly fed words or phrases like yes we can, maverick, change, pro-life, hope or war on terror. It feels good not to think. All we have to do is visualize what we want, believe in ourselves and summon those hidden inner resources, whether divine or national, that make the world conform to our desires. Reality is never an impediment to our advancement.
The Princeton Review analyzed the transcripts of the Gore-Bush debates, the Clinton-Bush-Perot debates of 1992, the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960 and the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858. It reviewed these transcripts using a standard vocabulary test that indicates the minimum educational standard needed for a reader to grasp the text. During the 2000 debates George W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.7) and Al Gore at a seventh-grade level (7.6). In the 1992 debates Bill Clinton spoke at a seventh-grade level (7.6), while George H.W. Bush spoke at a sixth-grade level (6.8), as did H. Ross Perot (6.3). In the debates between John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon the candidates spoke in language used by 10th-graders. In the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephen A. Douglas the scores were respectively 11.2 and 12.0. In short, today’s political rhetoric is designed to be comprehensible to a 10-year-old child or an adult with a sixth-grade reading level. It is fitted to this level of comprehension because most Americans speak, think and are entertained at this level. This is why serious film and theater and other serious artistic expression, as well as newspapers and books, are being pushed to the margins of American society. Voltaire was the most famous man of the 18th century. Today the most famous “person” is Mickey Mouse.
In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that “Hamlet” can be as entertaining as “The Lion King” and perhaps as educational. “Culture,” she wrote, “is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment.”
“There are many great authors of the past who have survived centuries of oblivion and neglect,” Arendt wrote, “but it is still an open question whether they will be able to survive an entertaining version of what they have to say.”
The change from a print-based to an image-based society has transformed our nation. Huge segments of our population, especially those who live in the embrace of the Christian right and the consumer culture, are completely unmoored from reality. They lack the capacity to search for truth and cope rationally with our mounting social and economic ills. They seek clarity, entertainment and order. They are willing to use force to impose this clarity on others, especially those who do not speak as they speak and think as they think. All the traditional tools of democracies, including dispassionate scientific and historical truth, facts, news and rational debate, are useless instruments in a world that lacks the capacity to use them.
As we descend into a devastating economic crisis, one that Barack Obama cannot halt, there will be tens of millions of Americans who will be ruthlessly thrust aside. As their houses are foreclosed, as their jobs are lost, as they are forced to declare bankruptcy and watch their communities collapse, they will retreat even further into irrational fantasy. They will be led toward glittering and self-destructive illusions by our modern Pied Pipers–our corporate advertisers, our charlatan preachers, our television news celebrities, our self-help gurus, our entertainment industry and our political demagogues — who will offer increasingly absurd forms of escapism.
The core values of our open society, the ability to think for oneself, to draw independent conclusions, to express dissent when judgment and common sense indicate something is wrong, to be self-critical, to challenge authority, to understand historical facts, to separate truth from lies, to advocate for change and to acknowledge that there are other views, different ways of being, that are morally and socially acceptable, are dying. Obama used hundreds of millions of dollars in campaign funds to appeal to and manipulate this illiteracy and irrationalism to his advantage, but these forces will prove to be his most deadly nemesis once they collide with the awful reality that awaits us.”
Just tell me where Nouriel Roubini is putting his money. – Salt Lick
Just tell me why nobody knew his name until a year ago, more or less.
The signs were there. The “house of cards” was not invisible. People knew (ref the Michael Lewis piece @ portfolio.com).
The contrarian did not fit with the mindset of Corporate America.
The MSM is a business. It has to make money or go out of business. (I can hear the “No duhs” clear over here in OK). However, in an earlier thread I asked the question, “Why does the candidate with the most money win?”. The answer is simple, it seems. They buy votes and the MSM. It’s just business. Seems kind of pathetic to me that the anti-business party won, but heh, business is business. So, we have to effectively address that issue. As Eggplant says, the Freedom of the Press is important, BUT only as long as it is impartial. So we need some sort of watchdog of the press, with teeth. Probably not the government, can’t be trusted, and I don’t mean that in any snarky sense. It is just not good practice to have the watchdog of the government watch over the watchdog. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Eggplant:
I think anti-trust action against news cartels is important.
I also think there should be a shift in hiring policies for both public schools and the news media. I think much of the problem comes from relying upon education schools for teachers and journalism schools for reporters.
Although knowing how to teach is important, altogether too much “education theory” is taught while the actual content of teaching is missed. Moreover, most of the effectiveness of a teacher comes from enthusiasm, not skill. Likewise for news reporting. Reporting news is a skill, but it helps if the reporter has some area of expertise that isn’t about how to write news copy or how to look good in front of a television camera.
If one wanted to indoctrinate future generations with an ideology, the most effective thing to do is to gain control over education schools and journalism schools. So, if one wants to combat indoctrination campaigns, it may be wise to reconsider what attributes future schools and news organizations need from their future employees.
“No Child Left Behind” should be revisited. Its hiring and retention requirements play into the hands of men such as William Ayers.
@Eggplant
Thank you for the kind words. The answer should not be less freedom. Empowering the government, that is the MSM with guns, to restrict competition is the problem not the solution. We need to build voices that can break through the wall. THe Fairness doctrine is coming so we need to build satellite and cable voices and then we need to start planning now for what to do when they threaten to jam those systems.
@Tarnsman
Very hard to improve on. Hannah Arendt wrote on “The Life of the Mind.”
Nearly a third of the nation’s population is illiterate or barely literate. – Chris Hedges
Easy there Big Fella. Stats like that demand a cite. According to wikipedia the US literacy rate is 99%.
The problem here is the proliferation of hysteria during Bad Times, or the Dismal Tide, if you will. Ease up on the throttle.
But one gap that I see emerging is the “off-grid” people versus the registered, especially if the US government moves in the likely direction that is emerging from the response to the financial crisis and especially if the regulatory function becomes consolidated in an international agency such as IMF.
Money won’t just “go overseas”. It will disappear. Completely.
Slade re:87 Take look at Canada, recent estimates by Revenue Canada indicate as much as 40% of all economic activity is under the table due to crushing taxation. Several of my friends north of the border have reported incomes so low that they are eligible for checks from the government but they live quite well in a cash only system.
What worries me is if the money really does dissappear, forcing all of us to use traceable electronic funds (not that it would bother the O’s campaign finance people, oddly their money is hard to follow). We would all end up stuck on the grid.
@Slade,
This would be a major change in America. One difference between the US and Europe is that Americans actually obey the laws. That is why we complain about them. Ask anyone who is a Manager in the government, especially the IRS. The American system relies upon the fact that all but a tiny minority pay there taxes and report income honestly. This puzzles people from Europe who see no connection between the fact that they support confiscatory tax rates and the fact that nobody is honestly paying those rates. The highly Europeanized Media elites who advocate higher taxation take it for granted that the costs will not fall on them.
The American system relies upon the fact that all but a tiny minority pay there taxes and report income honestly. – LOTM
To paraphrase Leona Helmsley “Only the little people pay taxes.”
Capital is protected – by some very high-powered people being paid good money to keep investments solvent.
anton – the black market in drugs, etc (weapons, sex) is estimated as high as 20% of world GDP. That is pause for thought.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/greenerliving/3345109/Shetland%27s-hydrogen-technology-pioneers.html
Perhaps this gent’s time has come a bit early and demographics will rule the day? Blame it all on those baby boomers.
http://www.thegreatbustahead.com
Might Mika be the leftard media talking head who father is the clueless Carterite assclown Zbigniew B.?
The MSM is a business. It has to make money or go out of business. – programmer
The press has been commoditized into a business. It now sells units of information whose value is determined by market appeal. Yet another sacrifice to the “tragedy of the commons.”
The “biz” used to be more than that.
The MSM is not a business, which is to say it is not run like one. Ideology clearly rules over business practices. Same as Hollywood. Again and again, their anti-American/anti-war screeds failed miserably, indeed spectacularly. Yet they put money behind one after another. Meanwhile, a pro-freedom, pro-defense film like “300″ is a gigantic hit, as are the LofTR films, yet they are like gold nuggets in a pile of turds.
Same with the media. Sales of newspapers drop every month. TV news viewers abandon the tube (and Fox News — somewhat more balanced, hardly “conservative” — leads the ratings). Yet does the NY Times make the association obvious to anyone that their sales decline is in direct correlation to their increasingly strident Leftism? Can they NOT see this?
They see it, they know it, they don’t care. They are on a mission from God, and she doesn’t care about mere human concerns like money. And besides, the people who work at the paper hang out with the same ilk. It just wouldn’t do to be off agenda.
The Times circulation could get down to ten copies a day and it still wouldn’t become an honest newspaper.
peterike,
I understand your point, but my thought is that they are not making money for the news they publish and the advertisements they sell. I truly believe that the only explanation for their current behaviour is that they are being paid “cash money”, as my Dad used to say, by some entity or entities for churning out propaganda. That is the business model that is sustaining them. If that model could be broken, then they probably would fold up and blow away. As an aside, it probably is not terribly difficult to persuade the graduates of the liberal schools to lean left anyway, which is the point you are making, I guess.
Peterike said:
“The MSM is not a business, which is to say it is not run like one. Ideology clearly rules over business practices…. They see it, they know it, they don’t care.”
They don’t care because the people paying their bills aren’t in it for the money. The puppet master behind the curtain is keeping the MSM alive to pursue a political agenda. Who is the puppet master?
The Push vs. Pull issue is improtant to the issue about MSM and information dissemination. There is no way, legislative or otherwise, to push more eyeballs towards more truthful/balanced sources of information. Rather, other and better sources must be offered to pull viewers. I think our elected leaders have woefully underused new conduits of information, i.e., internet. All Presidents give a weekly radio address–this was forward-thinking when it began in the 30′s (?), but it is pathetic that this is still the main source of regular communication of Presidents with the public.
The real battle in the next four years will play out in Congress and in the Courts. Congressional Rebublicans could cheaply create a Pajamas Media-like internet offering to communicate their efforts to hold back the Socialist Tide and uphold the integrity of the Constitution. Use, and cultivate, growing public skepticism about media fairness in advertising. Invite dialog with elected leaders and educate at the same time.
Ironically, as we weaken, so will our enemies, for we are the ones who have funded them.
so some cataclysmic event is approaching. what is the nature of this event?
financial meltdown? if so, why now. this area’s pain seems tied to energy prices, which are now cycling down rapidly. housing prices are returning to historical levels, also a good thing (if you didn’t bet the farm on infinitely increasing prices). it’s more likely that new technology and increased productivity lead to a manufacturing rennaisance in this country.
external military threats? from whom? the greatest likelyhood is we lose one or several cities to terrorist WMD. like a forest fire, this would provide stimulation for fresh growth and eliminate political paralysis. it would also result in the removal of a number of irritating entities (like the arab oil weapon, and chavez).
subversion of our form of government, and transformation into an authoritarian state? maybe, but there are a lot of military people who would resist this, as well as a well armed citizenry.
a new plague? possible, but mostly a sci-fi plot.
meteror strike? possible, again mostly a sci-fi plot.
the real problem right now, is the cultural tug of war being played with the leftists. once they are removed from power, and relegated to the margins of society, things will get better quickly. communications technology is causing them a lot of pain. in spite of obama getting elected (which is mostly due to a lot of people wanting to spit in the eye of the republicans) they are losing their grip on the culture.
i would be interested in hearing wretchard’s scenario.