ColorComments Breaks with Obama
26 Comments Published January 27th, 2009 in National and International Issues.(I’m sure this announcement will create panic in the streets.)
Remember “Shock and Awe” ?? Bush, Rummy, et al. were going to win the war by simply blasting Baghdad apart from the air. Night after night, we were treated to a spectacular view of our tax dollars at work, going up literally in smoke. The idiot Bush evidently believed Saddam would surrender because he was so impressed by the fireworks.
What President Obama is proposing for the economy is the financial equivalent of “shock and awe”. Obama has said as much, calling it a “stimulus” and saying that “dramatic action” is required. A “stimulus” suggests that nothing is really wrong and we just need a boot in the right direction. What is proposed is long on “dramatic” and short on “action.”
The theoretical underpinning of Obama’s idea is based on what is sometimes called the “Tinkerbell” analogy. Banks are like the fairy Tinkerbell in Peter Pan. They only exist if you believe in them. There’s a lot of truth in that. You put your money in a bank only because you believe you can get it back again. Nobody would start a business if they didn’t believe they could get capital financing. Nobody would buy a house or build a house … The whole thing is based on belief. When that’s gone, the house of cards collapses. That’s what’s actually happening. Obama believes that, somewhat like electric shock for a heart attack victim, enough money will start our economic heart pumping agains because people will believe again.
Maybe … Dunno …
This part is one part psychology and two parts Hollywood. I’m still taking a “wait and see” attitude about it.
But this page has previously expressed the opinion that, whatever the immediate result, the long term result of blasting trillions of dollars into the economy mainly through more debt will be a crushing inflation that will make the present Bush Depression (note the capitalization – I’m proposing an official title) seem like a walk in the park.
But I’m willing to go a step further now. The big spending that Obama has made the centerpiece of his new administration won’t solve the real problems either. Why? Because it’s what economists call “financial” and not “structural”. In other words, nothing yet has been proposed that will actually change what’s wrong.
Blasting apart the stranglehold that management and big labor have over the workplace.
Putting shareholders in actual control of the companies they “own” by giving them the abilty to nominate and elect the Boards of Directors.
Enacting national health care and pension reforms that make worker benefits transferable from company to company so you can just quit and walk across the street to another company if you don’t like the way your boss is running things.
Toppling these sacred icons would really create “shock and awe”!
The reason Saddamm didn’t surrender when stealth bombers targeted his swimming pools was that he didn’t believe that the next step, actual boots on the ground in Baghdad, would ever take place and all he had to do was survive the crisis and then things would go back to normal. He was, to his downfall, wrong. But bankers, excutives, union leaders, and yes – you and me – find it really difficult to believe that the things that are really wrong with the economy are actually going to get fixed.
Maybe Obama can and will do something about them. But after the smoke clears from his monetary stimulus bombs, I’m still not convinced that a whole lot will have changed.
I like your Tinkerbell analogy. We consumers are not going to start borrowing and spending until we think the economy has started on the upswing and we clearly don’t believe that is happening yet
I’m not sure your three examples of what is wrong with the economy is really what the problems are — but fixing them certainly would not hurt.
Unfortunatley our Lords and Masters in Washington don’t know what to do so they are doing what they do know how to do — spend money they don’t have. Fish gotta swim — birds gotta fly.
Congress and the White House have changed their objective from stimulating the economy to spending $850 billion
“I’m not sure your three examples of what is wrong with the economy is really what the problems are …”
You don’t like mine? What do you think ought to be changed then?
“spend money they don’t have”
The aim was just to avoid panic and give confidence. Perhaps, it was the best solution they have.
What are your solutions Dan?
It’s too late to avoid panic. I’d say we’re already in a panic.
“Best” will always be a judgement where different people in different situations will reach different conclusions.
Is avoiding more economic trouble today worth the risk of hyper-inflation tomorrow? In my view, no. The hyper-inflation will be much worse. I don’t think people in the US understand how bad that will be. (In the US, we have not suffered a hyper-inflation in modern times, although we came close in in the 1970’s, so people in the US have no direct experience.)
I don’t have a “solution”. Unfortunately, the idiot Bush has created a situation that is so bad that I don’t think a “solution” exists.
I do have a recommendation, however.
1 – Implement “structural” reforms like the ones I listed in my article.
2 – Suffer through the Bush Depression and, hopefully, emerge a stronger and wiser country when it’s over. We have a saying here, “That which does not kill you will make you stronger.”
It seems that Obama has started to see the hidden face of the iceberg. He was not smiling yesterday.
Tell us more about the strutural changes you propose.How to implement them.
“That which does not kill you will make you stronger.”It’s our saying too.
(In France, some managers are committing suicide,,)
Dan, you have participated actively to Obama’s campaign. Have you received an e-mail asking you to participate to his economic campaign? If so, how can you participate in a positive manner?
“The Illinois state legislature has ousted Gov. Rod Blagojevich after allegations of corruption” Structural change in your point of view?
I supported Obama (and argued against McCain) throughout the campaign on this web site. Check out some of the articles I wrote about it by clicking “Older” at the top of the page.
I gather that you might be a bit concerned because my “manner” isn’t as “positive” as it might be? Do I have that right?
First, I’m not fooling myself by thinking that I’m writing an update to the works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau or Alexis de Tocqueville. This page is primarily entertainment and that’s the way I write it. So I’m also not overly concerned about making sure that everything I write is “positive”. It’s good enough for me if it’s “entertaining” while still being “correct”.
Second, your suggestion that I write something about “structural reforms” has hit the mark. I’m thinking about it.
There are three items in the main article here that I think are good examples of the type of reform I’d like to see. I haven’t written about how they might actually be implemented and maybe I’ll get that done at some point. It’s a good suggestion.
(ps … Impeaching Gov. Blago is a good move, but it’s not a “structural change”. A “structural change” makes the rules different from that point forward. Getting rid of Gov. Blago was just cleaning out a piece of dirt and the rules stayed the same.)
Yes, we all have the right to give our opinion but we are assuming that our leaders are super men. Look at France, we are always criticizing and these strikes cost a lot to the country. I have the impression that we are inside a mondial storm and we are criticizing that storm.
Obama’s team is very competent. However The last protectionist measures (steel..)remind the spectre of 1929 where cascade retorsion measures led to the fall of mondial economy.
“Large American aid to ailing carmakers is discomfiting European governments that are under pressure to follow suit. Subsidies may indeed become a new protectionist battleground, as similar concerns play out in other industries”.
http://www.economist.com/world/europe/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13038996
I am not a lawyer like Tocqueville or Obama, nor a philosopher like Rousseau and this page is not only “entertainment” for me, I just want to try to understand where we are going.
These are really excellent comments. I find much to agree with in them.
However …
I do not assume that leaders are supermen. Quite the contrary, I think they usually only have the skills to take power, but no skills to do the right thing when they have power. It is a sad thing.
Obama might be a little different. We shall have to wait and see.
I think you are right about “protectionism”. We must all remember that we now live in a world economy. Unfortunately, different countries have very different values and this results in the problems.
For example, in America, we love the low prices that China charges for manufactured goods, but they achieve these low prices by paying very low wages to their own people, destroying the environment, manipulating currency exchange rates, and stealing intellectual property. We have not come to an agreement about what to do, but it is a bomb just waiting to explode in the future. France has decided that nuclear power plants are the solution to energy problems. Most other countries do not agree. And France still has no solution to the nuclear waste problem and simply tries to get rid of it in other countries.
I love your analogy, “we are criticizing that storm”. (I believe “mondial” must be “hurricane” or “cyclone” in English. Yes?)
My point of view is very much the same. I think we are in a mondial too. And it is one that very well may destroy the whole Earth. So, if we are to be destroyed anyway, why not enjoy the time we have left?
Have you ever read the Buddhist parable of the Strawberry?
http://www.katinkahesselink.net/tibet/zen-stories.html
Being optimistic by nature, I think that the only thing we must fear is FEAR itself.
Hence in your point of view, we are in a cyclone, already condemned.The sailors governing the ship have attempted to avoid Charybdis and are now passing too close to Scylla..
I loved the Buddhist parable of the Strawberry and the Zen-Buddhist Stories. Born muslim, I recognize all the prophets before Mohamed and I am trying to study the diverse religions starting by the most recent, the only Book written during the life of a prophet, the Koran.
May your optomism be rewarded.
For me, “the euphoria of dispair” is a sort of optomism by itself. I’m not fearful at all. It seems to me that fear should be reserved for situations where there is something that you can do.
That’s why I quote the parable of the Strawberry. A Buddhist parable is usually more acceptable to people than just explaining it myself.
(You are probably aware that the quote about fear you used was from the first inaugural address of the American President, Franklin Roosevelt. He used this phrase at a time very much like this one, when the Great Depression was just starting.)
There is always something we can do..Together..
Unfortunately,the priorities of every president are towards his own country..first,and this is somewhat logic while being illogic.
Tell us Dan another parable linked to the present cyclone and our struggle for life. At what stade of despair we are, pendulating between euphoria and despair
Indeed there is always something we can do. We can ‘enjoy the strawberry’. And I agree. The enjoyment is better ‘together’.
You asked about another parable linked to our struggle for life. Since you seem to like stories about religion, how about one of the greatest religious stories ever written, Dante Alighieri’s Inferno. A story about his trip through the nine circles of Hell, written against the background of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages.
I like this book because it’s really about values. Your values are different from mine. But both of us have really different values from Dante. You can tell what his values are because they’re ranked in the circles of Hell. The things he hated most are at the bottom. And what did Dante hate most? Traitors. Traitors to friends, country, religion. And interesting choice, don’t you think? How do you think this compares to your statement that the, “priorities of every president are towards his own country.”
Why do you want to deepen the differences. As long as we believe in ONE good, the “values” for which we deserve to be respected by the other should be universal, hence the same for all human beings.That’s why the passion inspired by these values that elected Obama was a beautiful moment .
With respect to Dante and his marvellous Divine Comedy, if one day you read the Koran, you will be surprised by all the similarities you will find between it and all the religious books preceeding it, especially the notion of terraces in Hell, purgatory and Heaven and the importance of numbers.For Dante, the structure of Purgatory and Paradise is of the form 2 7 1=9 1=10, with one of the ten regions different in nature from the other nine
The major difference is that in the Koran, Jesus is not the son of God.
For my part, if I can imagine God as a Force being everywhere generating an infinite light, I can’t imagine Him as a three in One, God. God is unique, undivisible, incommensurable.
As for the traitors to their country, the judgement must take in consideration the whole context (Petain was a traitor for many, yet being the Victorious of Verdun and a great patriot)
As with the game “Fight the terrorist. Fund the terrorist.Be the terrorist”
Thank you again for your interesting comments.
You wrote, “Why do you want to deepen the differences?”
I don’t want to deepen them. But the differences are there whether we want to deepen them or not. My point about Dante is that his values were very different. But for him, they were “correct”. Who is to say that he was wrong? Your point about Marshal Pétain is a very good one. He was a hero at one time and a traitor at another. Yet, he was still Marshal Pétain at both times. Who is to say whether he was a “good” man or a “bad” one?
It is our failure to understand and accept our differences that creates much of the conflict in the world. You expect that if I read the Koran, I will find similarities. That is because you see the ways of the Koran as being “correct”. But others think their ways are “correct” too. Is it correct to wear the head scarf? Is it a sin to eat pork? The Mormons where I live believe it is a sin to drink coffee.
Who is to decide? And do not say, “God” because everyone believes that God is on their side too.
I do not want to deepen any differences. But I also do not say that one of us is “wrong” and one of us is “correct” because we have different values. In most things, you can have your values and I can have mine and we can still live together in peace.
Everyone has the right to believe that God is on his side as long as he believes in, and put into practice, the 10 commandments, the basis for the last three monotheistic religions.
I am convinced that the Koran is God’s words beause, as I have said before, it was written during the life of the prophet and well preserved. Interpretation of these words may lead to controversy. I don’t wear the head scarf as I am not convinced of the interpretation of one verse. Eating pork or drinking alcohol is not a sin as long as this will not harm you. The same stands for coffee or anything that harms you when abusing of it.
When anybody starts a research, he starts by the most recent reference, as this one is supposed to expose the best, correcting the faults or deviations which might have occurred . With respect to the prophet Mohamed, his miracle is the Koran proning a just middle in everything. Even with polygamy, this is permitted in Islam only within a very special context and when certain very difficult conditions are fulfilled.
The term “correct” is very vague, being used in everything especially in politics and you know the hypocrisy of politicians. I think that one of us is
“correct” as long as he doesn’t harm intentionally anybody, regardless of his beliefs about universal values.
Returning to Obama and the USA as it seems that the theme of religion is not so interesting…
“I sincerely believe that banking establishments are more dangerous than standing armies, and that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale”. Jefferson, Thomas – 1743-1826 Third President of the USA
Religion … politics … it’s all the same to me.
So … regarding your first ‘religion’ message …
I asked you, “Who is to decide?” But you did not answer. Instead, you gave me more rules. This time, you said, “The Ten Commandments” were the rules we should follow. Do you mean the version in Exodus 20:2–17, Deuteronomy 5:6–21, or Exodus 34:11–27? OH, I know! You mean the selection of verses scattered throughout the Koran. But how are we to know which are the “ten” in the Koran? You also expressed admiration for Zen Buddhism. But these people do not revere the Ten Commandments. And how about the people who worship Hindu gods? They are not even monotheistic.
Again, I ask, “Who is to decide?”
As for me, I have more regard for the philosophy of Heraclitus of Ephesus, “Everything is change.”
Regarding Jefferson. I like to look beyond the individual to the circumstances of his life. Since Jefferson was personally in debt to bankers to pay for his life style as a country gentleman, it is natural that he disliked them. But because “everything is change,” we should consider the circumstances of our own lives more carefully than the circumstances of one who lived so long ago.
Lucky Dan, I am really impressed and I wish I have your knowledge as scientists are nearer to God. I didn’t know that the ten Commandments arrive to us in three versions. Are they so different? For me, simply, they are:
1. You shall not worship any other god but God 2. You shall not make a graven image (and You shall love your neighbor as yourself). 3. You shall not take the name of God in vain.4. You shall take one day out of seven to
recuperate and rest 5. Honor your father and your mother.6. You shall not murder.7. You shall not commit adultery 8. You shall not steal.9. You shall not commit perjury. 10. You shall not covet.
You said:”Who is to decide? And do not say, “God” because everyone believes that God is on their side too”. Here,there is no choice. It’s certainly God. God has sent plenty of messages to every people in our world, the more recent ones correcting the deviations deforming the ancient ones. He has given the human kind a brain, a way to think,to decide. And finally, it’s God who will decide if our decisions were right or wrong.
Heracletus was an unbeliever philosopher:”The universal cosmic process was not created by any god or man.”How can he compares a man with God. His view was direct opposite of Einstein’s.The more we read and search the more we approach the conviction that God really exists.
Maybe “scientists are nearer to God” and maybe they are further away. I do not know.
Einstein certainly did not want to believe in the role of probability in physics, but as for God … ? I’m not sure he thought about it as much as he thought about physics. (He did think about Zionism. He could have been the first leader of the new state of Israel if he had wanted the job. But he turned it down.) Einstein said he believed in “the God of Spinoza”. If you read Spinoza, you will discover that his God was a very different God from your God.
Yes, there are three different versions of the Ten Commandments in the Bible. And the version from the Koran has to be collected from many places. Many who read and search do not approach the conviction that God really exists. Many others approach different convictions about the true nature of God. I don’t understand how God is helping anyone decide. It seems to me that the opposite is happening.
You are very correct that “God has sent plenty of messages to every people in our world.” The problem is that these messages are not the same. As a result, Shi’a believe the Sunni are heretics. The Catholics persecute the Protestants. And everybody has killed Jews at one time or another. It seems to me that God’s messages are not helping us live together in peace.
“Maybe “scientists are nearer to God” and maybe they are further away. I do not know”. They are surely nearer: The first word sent to prophet Mohamed was: Read.
“Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” As an agnostic, Einstein confess the ignorance of human beings about abstract religious concepts.
Why talking about his God or your God or my God.. God being One, everywhere, very close to everybody, is simply Our God. Ignorance, misinterpretations or political tendencies have created the differences when His oral messages were transmitted to further generations.
“Yes, there are three different versions of the Ten Commandments in the Bible. And the version from the Koran has to be collected from many places”.
First I haven’t said that the 10 commandments I mentioned before were from the Koran (my mother was protestant before converting to Islam). It’s my version.. and I think there are no contradictions with Islamic principles.
Second, Koran is God’s words and has not been “collected” from many places. Evidently, the Source being the same, there are similarities in the subjects that have survived ageing without distortion.
Men hav’nt invented anything, they have only discovered things already created by God. Now, with the quantum computing we will be able to transmit data via only a beam of light over huge distances. Universe is perpetually expanding and contracting in an infinite loop and the complex chain of cause and effect is only understood in part. Will men one day discover what is Soul? Perhaps this Soul is the answer to your “I don’t understand how God is helping anyone decide”
“And everybody has killed Jews at one time or another” What about the historical context? Whatever the reasons, I agree that killing is not a solution. Killing is the solution of the weak who don’t see that perhaps,there is another solution. Our future is Our creation, you and me and the others. Let’s built together bridges not walls.
I’m happy that you are at peace with your concept of God.
Others continue to feel that they must enforce their own concept of God on their neighbors with bombs and guns. I continue to simply not understand why anyone needs to believe in something called, “God” but if you do, that’s your business. We can at least agree that killing is not a solution for us.
Manou: I have been following the conversation between you and Dan . That’s what happens with email. It’s out there where anyone can read it. And that’s not bad. We all need to know and undestand eachother better.
There is another concept that I would like your comment on. I’m asking you because your world is far different than mine I’m sure. What is your view of Evolution ?
Delighted Lena to read you. In front of this well of erudition named Dan, I was a little bit lost alone and obliged to effectuate searches and searches..even Peggy and RPMcMurphy did not intervene to my great despair. I have been unable to convince Dan that the Creator exists. Who knows? perhaps one day he will.
No doubt that Darwin was a great scientist who has brought science a step further. But as with any discipline worthy of continued research,there have been many scientific discoveries in multiple fields of study (physics, archeology, cosmology, biology, chemistry, anthropology, zoology, geology etc)in the 150 years since Darwin published his book, and it seems now that “random mutation” and “natural selection” only can’t account for the
complexities of life. Fossil evidence of the “Cambrian Explosion,” which supports a “Biological Big Bang” (not a gradual evolutionary process across species), the discovery of “Big Bang ripples” by NASA’s Cosmic Background
Explorer satellite, clearly indicate a Creator must exist and the universe had a beginning.
Universities in the whole world are doing researches: Here I mention Georgia and Caltech among others
Henry F. Schaefer, director of the Center for Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia, a five -time nominee for the Nobel Prize in chemistry, believes, that “God created the heavens and the earth.”
Lena, this is for you especially:
http://www.learnthebible.org/creation_science_cambrian_explosion_disproves_evolution.htm
ciao all of you for a while.
A trip in perspective. Will follow Dan’s advice and eat strawberries