RE PROFESSIONS EXPERTS SPECIALISTS IN DECLINE VERTICAL MONOPOLY INTEGRATION

I want to say a word about some loosely related matters, which cross different fields, regarding cooptation of what used to be called the professions, and also cooptation of burgeoning experts within various emerging fields as well.

Recall that we wondered why the lead impresarios of certain types of human endeavors were experts, or professionals, previously even limited to a few 'learned' professions, of certain types, eg architects, doctors, accountants, scientists, lawyers?

In the century just past, these vocations were increasingly taken over by what some would call market forces, but I would call even monopoly forces.

A classic example, from classic quasi-pulp fiction, is the architect hero of Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead, Howard Roark.

There are few 'Howard Roarks' around nowadays; their field was coopted by the construction industry, construction companies, general contractors taking over, construction managers, vertical construction firm integration, design/build firms, architects' services usually just one small input, things like that.

I shared a house with some architect grad students at MIT back in the 70s (visions of Howard Roark); they bemoaned the process, well under way at that time even then. Frank Lloyd Wright (apparently the model for Roark) may have been almost the last, except for the few really big 'name' commercial late 20th C architects.

Very similar kinds of processes have been going on for decades now, in fields as diverse as law and medicine, once learned professions which dominated their fields by technical expertise, and meritocratic criteria up to a point, who called the shots in their areas, and policed themselves as best or as badly as they could, in a loose system of regulation.

Similarly, doctors have increasingly been coopted by drug companies and the insurance industry, which increasingly have been calling the shots both on what they prescribe, on how much they are paid for their skills, and whose constraints configure the practices more than any other single factor.

Similarly for lawyers and the insurance companies. Some lawyers even have some favored coopted medical experts in their stables, rather than rely on impartial doctors who live largely by work outside the legal forensic area. Similarly, some lawyers corruptly rely on forensic medical experts for their livelihoods.

Even liability feuds between these professions were eventually more or less largely coopted by the insurance industry, a bigger more organized hitter with governments.

Public educational and private corporate institutions increasingly dominate the directions and the conclusions of 'research', and the discoveries made, by exact and not so exact science experts in their employ or influence.

Companies, often MNCS, and other entities which control either the funding, production, or the channels of distribution, and eventually the politics, lobbyists (see eg below comment), gain control at the expense of the professions, and of other experts, especially individual practitioners, as inputs.

The business man, the executive, the banker, the insurance executive, the call the shots for the erstwhile learned professions and others.

The Casanova hand of the monopolistic market at work, concepts of profitability overwhelming all other foreign considerations.

Oddly, it has been the unfettered march of an ostensibly individualistic social and economic order which utterly overwhelmed Randian individualistic types, although we continue to pay lip service to it with the so-called entrepreneurial, or Maverick, or even 'the overconfident CEO' (outlined recently in the BU School of Management Magazine), model of the successful person.

Has it been on balance a good development for the societies in which this has happened? On the whole, I think not.

John Droz, jr., wrote a comment on DK's site, this post:

http://historyunfolding.blogspot.com/2010/12/self-restraint.html

I rather liked it too, in context of this topic:

"Anyway I am a physicist and longtime environmental advocate. In my view what is happening is that real science is being diminished, and lobbyists are taking over on all levels. This is how such trivialities as wind energy have gotten so far."

RE RATIFICATION BY PAULINE MAIER

Reading her recent book.

Wonderful so far.

Sad story in many ways from the beginning.

As I have said before, too bad something more like Hamilton's views wasn't adopted, then ratified.

RE KRUGMAN VOODOO ARTICLE NYT

I agree.

'But Nassau County shows how easily responsible government can collapse in this country, now that one of our major parties believes in budget magic. All it takes is disgruntled voters who don’t know what’s at stake — and we have plenty of those. Banana republic, here we come.'

My comment on this is that we generally haven't had responsible government even at the local level.

It doesn't have to do so much with the party system as such.

RE TWO POSSIBILITIES FOR 2011 POST

DK:

'More importantly, we still do not know if the country can survive in the state to which it has evolved, especially economically, over the last few decades--the state which he and his advisers have now accepted as the new normal.'

I agree with this assessment.

Or, if so surviving, for how long.

the menu

Greenwise precooked leftover thin sliced turkey breast; thick sliced health food Canada smoked bacon slice(s) and a dribble of bacon oil (!); raw onion; and a mild Greek pepperoncini or three to taste; all sauteed briefly together stovetop.

This is the entree. (Others are having blander pollo arrosto fare.....)

Were I really hungry, I would drape a slice of raw Amish mozzarella (which we happen to have) over the turkey bacon melange,

a sort of ad hoc turkey Saltimbocca.

Seared garlic kale.

We would have field green salad, perhaps with feta.

06 Red Truck Organic California Zinfandel.

Hazelnut meringue cookies. (The egg whites leftover, from mayonnaise, etc.)

RE WHY NOT USE, SAY, OIL, AS A CURRENCY STANDARD?

RHETORICAL QUESTION, FOR THOSE WHO MIGHT WONDER ABOUT IT, AS A CANDIDATE.....

One Answer: rapidly wasting away commodity.

When it runs out, pretty soon, no more currency, among other things.

RE MAYONNAISE AND COOKING INTEREST

So important a thing, I thought I'd renew reference to it.

Term search mayonnaise, for that prior post.

ON THE OTHER HAND KRUGMAN'S NYT EDITORIAL RULE BY THE RIDICULOUS

I rather liked.

His comment on Ryan, very good.

I also liked the quote from Kung Fu Monkey site.

I had read Atlas Shrugged, in the hospital, about age 15,

about the time I read Russell's The Problems Of Philosophy.

As between those two albeit disparate works, no comparison.

See also other posts, term search eg Rand, Randism, philosophy, Hayek, Ayn Rand.

RE EUROSKEPTICS KRUGMAN'S EDITORIAL NYT COMPARTMENTALIZATION

It is all very nice to do, or to criticize, economically, an economic cost benefit currency analysis, very nice,

in a more or less political, social, national, and strategic, intellectual

vacuum.

What would real, rather than economic, 'skepticism' look like here?

RE DAVID KAISER'S CURRENT POST SELF RESTRAINT

And my comment, as well as those of several others.

Re comments of partisan, there once was a student of Voegelin, ('bogey of Gnosticism'), who had become a professor of mine at my college, his views turned my stomach at that time. Still would.

See also, Wikipedia's article on Roger Scruton, another author cited in David Kaiser's referenced article. DK is not, I think, an apologist for any of those views.

I have A Short History of Modern Philosophy. Cannot pick it up without almost immediately putting it back down.

THE MENU

Smoked local mullet, (a Dutch-like tradition, carried on here, in the new country, as best we can; they smoked mostly herring in Holland, not mullet.)

Field greens with beets and Greek feta cheese.

Fetzer Merlot.

Black walnut ice cream with mashed bananas.

Home made hazelnut meringue cookies.

Organic dark roast blend coffee.

This is what it might look like, after:

Think: beautiful.

Think, say, Venus of Willendorf, even.

Why not?

RE KRUGMAN'S EDITORIAL NYT A FINITE WORLD A WORLD NOT FOUND IN NATURE UNPROSPERITY TRICKLING DOWN

Unfortunately, "at a fundamental level, it is about us."

The US, grew the developing world, almost singlehandedly, by strategic global market capitalism and American consumerism, as a great ideological alternative to communism, arguing that there was no domestic down side except a little dislocation of some employment at home.

That turned out, even by say the 60s, not to even be true.

Further, with respect to commodities, it has shown itself to have been a truly catastrophic strategy, developing large hungry global 'market' competitors everywhere, each of which wants more of the 'finite world', a world not found in the economists' models, a world moreover not found in nature, from its global market competitors.

Unfortunately, gradualism, of growth of a pacific, but hungry, 'global middle class', is probably not what we will be seeing, going forward, as further dislocations, not even just financial or fiscal or monetary ones, dog every regime.

We have been seeing more aggressive nationalistic regimes and civilizations. Cf. Margaret MacMillan's citation from Paris 1919, 'vicious from the moment of their birth'.

RE WHY REAGAN WON book

Great account of how things have gone.

'Grass roots' movement account.

Highly recommended.

RE MARGARET MACMILLAN EDITORIAL

Great comments.

Paris 1919, excellent book.

Lloyd George's great granddaughter.....

RE CHINA DEFENDS ITS TRADE ROLE IN AFRICA BBC

Shape of some really big things to come.

Get ready.

RE CHINA AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY BLOBALIZATION THREE BILLION NEW ENTRE PREENER MAVERICK EXECUTIVES

For most laissez faire or property rights enthusiasts, this is just all part of a freer trade less government world we should all get used to having and be happy we have it, and have ever more of it.

(Sing "It's a Small World After All".)

But, wait a minute, intellectual property rights are property rights, and our free trade partners, China and others, ignore them forever.

What does China think of property rights, or of any rights for that matter? Think of the Wind God, Zephyr.

Just one other little 'sticky wicket' in a rapidly deteriorating politico-economic-military situation.

'Income redistribution', abroad.

See also Krugman's 'The Humbug Express' NYT editorial today:

Most Democrats have long been on this Orient Express too.

Obama Korea, for example.............................

(Dickens' antisemitism grates on me.

It is not-so-thinly concealed in Scrooge.)

Scrooge is a variation, by the way, on that weird type, The Maverick Executive, Thurston Macaire Howell, and the Entre Preener. Rail to rail.

WHY HAVE UNIONS OR WORKERS,

WHEN WE'VE GOT CHINA?

What are property rights, or Americans' 'rights',

compared to labor cheapness?

Here's a harder one, for the thinkers,

What is Truth compared to labor cheapness?

Wind.

Humbug.

RE ENTRE PREENERS TO THE RESCUE RAIL TO RAIL

Makes you think of cats, preening themselves and each other.

There has been way too much bull about 'entrepreneurs', as a positive force.

Almost no one really qualifies; see some prior posts re those weird individuals who actually do, terms search: really erratic, rail to rail, venture capitalists, Maverick Executive, Thurston Howell, Macaire, Maverick, or simply the blob CEO.

See also BU current School of Management Magazine, I recommend especially the artice entitled "The Overconfident CEO".

You might also take a look at "BU, The Capital of Entrepreneurship".

"The Overconfident CEO": This is pop-management social science par excellence.

This article dances all around ostensible trait ineffablenesses of CEOs. A quasi pathology, really.

I would suggest, merely as a literary rather than a scientific hypothesis, that the overconfident CEO, at night, when all cats are gray, can shade over into some of the traits of The Maverick Executive, or even into the Entre Preener, or even into, Thurston Robert Macaire Howell,

or perhaps The Rooster of Roswell, even. This thing can crow.

RE MEREDITH WHITNEY LOCAL GOVERNMENT DEBT DEFAULT IMPENDING

Kind of predictable.

She was the analyst who first uncovered the bank insolvency, according to Michael Lewis.

So she has been a bear. It's a good season for them.

Cf now, article on Pritchard, Ala.........etc.

HOLIDAY CARTOON

Daumieresque drawing throughout.

Picture a fat roast capon sitting on a set colonial style dining table in a garret. Candelabra.

The caption reads 'Made Elsewhere'.

Emaciated Revolutionary War American soldiers are sitting, all around the table, handcuffed behind or to the sides of their chairs. Some of them might passingly resemble, writhing in their upright colonial chairs, (from Christian art) martyrs, etc, etc.

The caption above, Holiday Feast

The one below:

Human rights violation

RE TRADE ISSUES ETC and fattening things up etc

Been reading The Coming Conflict With China, 1997,

still worthwhile reading, even now.

One of their problems, though, they both embrace free trade and comparative advantage, so do not draw enlightened conclusions even from the extensive investigations and experiences they have had with international trade. Too bad really.

Particularly helpful are the passages re domestic political influence, and transfer of technology.

Still haven't read later chapters, eg 'China's Plan For Japan'.

Looking forward to that.

"What would the Founding Fathers have said?"

Terms search 'fattening things up',

various other cartoons, Nixon Shock, Fattening Things Up

re Pauline Maier's article nyt

She knows some history.

Read especially "There is a problem with Justice Breyer's argument...."

Not unusual.

'...Thus the right to keep and bear arms was granted as a means to sustain that “well-regulated militia....”'; ie not for other reasons asserted in the current debate.

Current politics, and law, are filled with factual misconceptions; what I would call 'phenomenologist politicians', and some historians even, Schama being a notable example, are no longer always concerned, so much, about historical accuracy.

They don't want the facts to interfere too much with the story they want to tell, the picture they need to paint, or the argument they have to make.

RE A REAL SCIENCE OF MIND NYT THE STONE EDITORIAL

'PERCEPTUAL PSYCHOLOGY'

'The difference between functional correlation and representational accuracy is signaled by the fact that scientific explanations of light-sensitivity in plants or bacteria invoke functional correlation, but not states capable of accuracy. Talk of accuracy would be a rhetorical afterthought. States capable of accuracy are what vision science is fundamentally about.'

Helpful distinctions here, for those who can follow it. Implications in many directions. Still a little reductionistic, in subtle ways, it seems to me, but hey, what specialization isn't, and efforts to cross fields are evident.

See also John Cleese, referred to in the article:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-M-vnmejwXo

cf also my post re my undergrad thesis re Wittgenstein, psychology of perception, Gombrich, aesthetics, metaphysics, epistemology, mind, etc.

One might 'term search' some of these terms, using Bing at upper left, on this site..............

RE UBS DRESS CODE BBC EDITORIAL CERTAIN BEAUTIFUL OR UGLY INDIVIDUALS AND GODS EXEMPTED

Creatures such as Thurston Macaire, or the Maverick Executive, and some others, gods mostly, such as those below,

would of course be exempt from the dress code for obvious reasons:

Julius Caesar, descended from the goddess Venus, and Aeneas,

would also have been exempted, of course.

Question:

What about a complexion code?

Or, say, a bone structure one?

How about a soft tissue configuration one, too?

Why not?

RE GONE WITH THE MYTHS EDWARD BALL PATHETIC EDITORIAL

He and his acolytes might want to read something like Nevins, which I am reading, too. Volume 1 has been especially helpful.

It paints a rather more densely textured canvas.

One might review what many citizens, North and South, were saying, what they were worrying about, in the 1850s, regarding proposals for abolition and its possible consequences, to see that the looming problem of race relations underlay the disagreement over slavery; and it was this deeper issue which prevented a solution going forward, and ultimately lead, after decades of ferment, to secession when the abolitionist North increasingly forced the slavery issue (with accruing frontier political preponderance).

If he has read it, and he is now, as so often with journalists,

just stirring the pot, then too bad.

the menu

Cumin, turmeric, clove, cardamom,

cinnamon, pepper, rosemary, bay leaf,

and garam masala ground spices,

in a roast diced Australian lamb shank potato onion garlic Persian lime

curry,

basmati rice,

kosher dill pickle,

Dutch anise cookies,

Red Truck, organic zinfandel, 2006

Yes, I am a global economy hypocrite,

regarding certain ingredients unobtainable here.

In answer to this legitimate minor charge,

an audio reference for the day:

Miles Davis

Kind of Blue,

"So What"

RE REPUBLICAN FINANCIAL REPORT EDITORIALS TOO BIG TO BLAME SEE MICHAEL LEWIS' BOOK THE BIG SHORT

"...Wallison’s theory... not...reality....Fannie and Freddie...spent most of the housing bubble avoiding subprimes.... finally did get in... very late in the game... pressure from the marketplace... the subprime companies and Wall Street had long used subprime loans as a way to do an end-run around Fannie and Freddie. By the mid-2000s, subprime underwriting and securitization had become so profitable — and such a large part of the overall mortgage business — that Fannie and Freddie felt they had no choice but to dive in. In other words, the G.S.E.’s were reacting to the realities of the market, not to the government. They were worried about losing market share."

See also Frank Rich's editorial today, touching also on the FCIC report. RICH WRITES A GREAT EDITORIAL EXPOSE,

THE BIPARTISAN RACKET. Readers should follow up Rich's references to other sites; very revealing in the usual way.

I also recommend Michael Lewis' book The Big Short on the subject.

RE S KOREA SLOWING FOREIGN MONEY FLOWS

So much for sparking growth or hiring in the US:

"Of particular worry to developing economies has been the Federal Reserve's move to purchase $600 billion of U.S. government bonds in a bid to spark growth and hiring in the United States, an increase in global liquidity they fear will wash into their markets."

That money won't wash in as growth or hiring in the US.

RE LEPORE'S DISUNION PAUL REVERE'S RIDE LONGFELLOW

I have been reading Nevins.

I recommend it.

RE PELL GRANT LAISSEZ FAIRE

Why worry about financing (subsidizing)American graduates, when foreign grads are so much cheaper to educate?

Laissez faire.

And, why subsidize students in the first place, under laissez faire?

No point.

RE DON'T ASK DON'T TELL

It is symptomatic of deeper political fragmentation problems the US faces, has long faced, will increasingly face, that issues such as this, at a time like this, command so disproportionately great attention.

RE THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP FOUR

Apparently, according to David Kaiser, these four are 3 Catholics and a Jew.

I thought this was striking.

It shows something, perhaps, to someone.

I can make hunches.

RE TURN IN YOUR BIN LADENS NYT EDITORIAL

Not very enlightening advice,

going forward, for anyone.

RE VIDEO REFERENCE THE GRACCHI

Rufus Fears Famous Romans LECTURES.

See especially, re nowadays, The Younger Scipio,

and then particularly, The Gracchi.

They should really all be seen in sequence. See especially remarks of one of the Skeptic, tutors,

"we hold these truths to be self evident,...."

Re Rome, in the time of the Gracchi:

(Yes, I criticized Krugman's very essay, from which this (nevertheless quite good) passage comes:

"If you ask how it’s possible that a handful of bad actors can get their way so often, the answer has to be, wasn’t it ever thus? What we call civilization has usually been a form of kleptocracy, varying mainly in its efficiency (the Romans were no nicer than the barbarians, just more orderly). Yes, we’ve had a few generations of government somewhat of, by, for the people in some places — but that’s an outlier in the broader sweep of things."

But what's a little hypocrisy,

or klepticism for that matter,

or Skepticism, even,

among editorialists?

(They didn't have corporations back then, anyway.)

An alternative video reference, for the lecture-challenged, might be,

in memory of Blake Edwards,

The Pink Panther.

See, now, also David Kaiser's blog, post entitled "Two possibilities for 2011",

and my comment.

RE KRUGMAN WALL STREET WHITEWASH EDITORIAL ASK NOT WHAT YOUR BANKER CAN DO FOR YOU; ASK WHAT YOU CAN DO FOR YOUR BANKER

THE COMMISSION'S MISSION, “examine the causes, domestic and global, of the current financial and economic crisis in the United States.”

Although the explanation, contrary to Krugman's account, is not limited to banking problems, and doesn't just go back to the 80s,

the GOP does not have a good reply either:

“in Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

"Ah! credit,

that is beautiful!"

Robert Macaire

RE DANIEL LITTLE'S SITES

(Re Philosophy of History, Philosophy of Social Science, Globalization)

Although he has three interests in common with mine, that is where the similarities end. Don't bother with his sites, nonsense.

RE A GREEN DETROIT? NO, A GUZZLING ONE NYT EDITORIAL

This is still what very little there is, which passes here, for 'industrial policy', in the US. Foreigners have to laugh hard when they see stuff like this.

Big corporate bail out, utter failure.

Pathetic, really.

RE NEVINS ORDEAL VOLUME ONE

I will have some comments, and excerpts, on this work, shortly.

Wonderful work.

RE TO CONQUER WIND POWER, CHINA WRITES THE RULES

Not that hard to figure out where all this is heading,

is it?

Here is the Wind God, Zephyr, in this case he is now Chinese,

landing in a forest glade en pointe:

Translated from the French: "He sways slightly, Foot barely touching the water:Flora admires in silence Says: Ah! credit that is beautiful! Anacreon translated by Ratapoil, retired police colonel,

a member of society

belles lettres at Chalons sur Marne

and the company's tenth day of December in Paris."

the menu

Cold weather menu:

roast lamb shanks, kartoshka, onion, garlic, rosemary.

sauteed kale, baby field green salad, Fetzer Merlot

strawberry banana ice cream (Why ask why?)

Jojo's Java

NPR REPORT TODAY CHINA INDIA TRADE PARTNERS

The obvious...................old rivals,... new friends.

Each building big ports near each other's borders................

Kind of predictable, really.

The US, talking recently about India, its really big new trading friend;

after geopolitical relations with China have soured, surprisingly enough.

Don't believe the India thing will last.

We 'started it all', in the 20th Century, in a 'really big way'.

RE DAVID MCCULLOUGH

Started reading his biography of Truman.

Ugh.

RE BLOCK THOSE METAPHORS KRUGMAN NYT

'The root of our current troubles lies in the debt American families ran up during the Bush-era housing bubble.'

This is not the root of our current troubles.

The roots of our current troubles lie deeper than that.

They have to do with:

1. the permanent structure of our political system (from the beginning), and political and economic practices in light of that political system;

2. most notably our post WWII laissez faire Am/Com ideology ; and

3. the fact that the rest of the world has not stood still while we tinker with isolated tax or spend or morality issues, but rather has taken advantage of our weaknesses to accrue power.

The fix for these problems does not lie in economics alone.

Americans have long needed a more strategically 'able' political system, a more consolidated not more fragmented structure, one that favors and fosters domestic development over foreign development. This aspect of the problem has become critical going forward.

A few people have begun to realize that developed countries cannot merely even further globalize their way out of malaise by use of cheaper labor and skills abroad;

or by trying to use foreign sites for manufacturing or services without soon losing the very reasons for doing so in the first place.

RE TOWN AND COUNTRY ETC

Lester Thurow did an interesting talk, saw it recently, re the Chinese industrialization break through in the 80s.

It apparently, according to Thurow, began quietly with an agricultural reform in the 70s, allowing peasants to work their own small plots, so that a surplus was eventually created; whereas the previous collective system had failed.

He contrasted that with the Russian transition to 'capitalism'.

Very interesting.

RE CHINA'S ARMY OF GRADUATES STRUGGLE FOR JOBS EDITORIAL NYT SUNDAY

More evidence of global 'smelling the coffee'.

RE HIVE-MINDS AND KLEPTOCRATS KRUGMAN MNC BLOBALIZATION BLOG TOPIC SELLING BIG CORPORATE NEWSPAPERS

Commenting on another blog post, he poo poos the notion of the big corporation as bad actor,

fails to impugn the political system, and the bi-partisan understanding, that allowed these very powerful entities to overgrow,

and blames individual bad actors at the tops of the ones most visibly acting bad.

This is not a very helpful image, and wildly distorts what has been going on to drive globalism blobalism in such an unhelpful direction and extent.

Not that corporations themselves initiated the process of accruing too much reach and power, blobalizing everywhere, or are intrinsically bad,

but now that they're there, not very helpful to blame only certain allegedly bad imperial corporate controlling individuals (even if themselves bloblike) manipulating otherwise benevolent MNCS.

The Republicans permanently abandoned the domestic economy, as even someone like Buchanan pointed out in The Great Betrayal, when MNCs, and foreign interests, not imperial American individuals, became so influential in the 70s that there was no going back.

Buchanan's Chapter "Companies Without A Country", contains some passages, which could be multiplied many times in the literature, showing that it is not individual imperial 'bad actors', but the MNC phenomenon itself, which has been allowed to swell and take over politics.

One can find similar history in Prestowitz, Chalmers Johnson, Alfred Eckes, Jr., Gilpin, Gill, Reich, Greider, Batra, and others.

Of course, if you work for a MNC that has a subsidiary corporation that sells newspapers, it's hard to impugn the entity that pays your salary.............

Or, if you are a politician, like say Buchanan, not very popular to attack the corporate powers that be, imperial or not.

the menu

The menu:

sauteed garlic kale;

roast lamb leg in red wine and cumin reduction;

basmati rice from the foothills of the Himalayas, buttered;

beet and cabbage dill vinaigrette salad;

Red Truck Organic California zinfandel 2006.

Breyers vanilla ice cream, with banana crushed in.

Jim's whole bean organic Witch's Brew drip.

Brandy.

RE EUROPE CLAMPS DOWN ON BANKERS' BONUSES WILL THEY EMIGRATE BBC EDITORIAL

Starting the open season on bankers in the EU.

Not that bad an idea.

The US cannot go there, with so much banker power over here.

RE OBAMA'S HOSTAGE DEAL KRUGMAN EDITORIAL

This is probably a fairly accurate depiction of the status.

It is typical of the kinds of small potatoes turnstile politics the US has been engaged in, since the beginning.

The difference is that it is winding down, now that there are no frontiers, or permanent hoards, of really cheap labor or materials, left to awkwardly and inefficiently and ever so gradually absorb.

Want a lot of good ole market competition:

Be careful what you wish for. Cf. Prestowitz'

Three Billion New Capitalists

RE KRUGMAN DECEMBER 2011

At least he is talking 'political economy'.

That is a small relief.

Unfortunately, when you take a close look at American political structures and their workings, together with economics,

you end up just wanting a much better system.

Unfortunately, almost no way that will happen,

and a catastrophe of some kind, either a war or economic further melt down, would likely bring on not necessarily a better structured political/economic system, but worse changes, within the existing one.

RE A SOUND TRADE DEAL WITH SOUTH KOREA EDITORIAL NYT

Don't believe a word of this.

Same old same old, Trading American Interests

RE EUROPE'S LEADERSHIP DEFICIT NYT ARTICLE

Pointing a finger at Europe's leaders is not useful, because the unstable system put in place after WW II, and the EU which we also promoted, are things that have gotten them into this glob alist instability quagmire.

RE THOMAS FRIEDMAN PISA TEST ARTICLE ECONOMICS IS WAR BY OTHER MEANS

Sec of Education says 'wake up call'.

It's really a 'game over' call.

Friedman, still the glob alist, still says ridiculous things like

'economics is not war',

'it can be win-win'............

No, economics,

rather than the peace idea we and our economists have had,

Economics Is War.

It cannot in the long, OR EVEN THE SHORT, run be win-win.

WE SHOULD HAVE ADOPTED A MORE MERCANTILISTIC IDEA FOR OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM LONG AGO.

How well do you think the 'Casanova hand' of the free market would produce better educational standards?

The free market would say, privatize education.We already have, to some extent, 'marketized' it elsewhere, from our end:

subsidizing it by making it pay, in other places, by public order of foreign regimes, because they know they have to do it to live.

The same principle applies to funding education as has been applied to labor costs: if it is cheaper elsewhere, do it there; education therefore is better funded where it is cheaper. Let them be better educated. That's Friedman's win-win.

RE FLORE ET ZEPHYR DE LA MEURTHE DAUMIER

"FLORA AND Zephir (de la Meurthe.)
He sways slightly,
Foot barely touching the water:
Flora admires in silence
Says: Ah! credit that is beautiful!
Anacreon translated by Ratapoil, retired police colonel,

a member of society belles lettres at Chalons sur Marne

and the company's tenth day of December in Paris."

Thurston Robert Macaire Howell,

alias the Maverick Executive,

landing in a forest glade.

(The early ballet, Flore et Zephyr, was the origin of ballerinas going en pointe, as the technology of this ballet allowed them, and their partners, as the above image attests, to fly through the air on wires, and poise momentarily on the tips of their toes. Later dancers developed special shoes and techniques to achieve the effect without the wires.)

RE PAT BUCHANAN

Because some of my comments re economic nationalism are similar to those of such religious right figures as Buchanan,

it may have given some the impression that I am on the religious right.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

RE DAVID BROOKS' COMPLEX CREATURES AND WHAT PASSES FOR SOCIAL SCIENCE AND NAVIGATING PAST NIHILISM SEAN KELLY EDITORIALS

'.... a day without sunshine.'

Perhaps we need a reprise of some recent The Bell Curve - related social science research works, to further raise our spirits, during this holiday season.

Reading random isolated articles on a broad array of picayune topics, as Brooks recommends, is rather idiotic;

and may even qualify as an example, or an expression, or even a proof, of the kind of suburban nihilism Kelly refers to in criticizing Brooks;

and qualifies as a valid and related point, (moving from literature as such to the loosely related fields of the social sciences),

similar in some ways to those implied by Kelly against Brooks' suppositions of an absence of nihilism, or its containment within a literary sub world.

(I LIKE PHILOSOPHY OF SOCIAL SCIENCE,

BUT NOT MOST OF WHAT PASSES FOR IT NOWADAYS, EITHER.)

One can read Harvard Business School Management articles,

we had a hundred or so of them while I was at BU,

until you are purple,

but I still rather prefer The Maverick Executive,

for 'management social science'.

Terms search various terms for other articles on this site.

RE NATION STATES AND MARKET STATES AND GLOBS AND BLOBALIZATION

This is my new term for 'it':

BLOBALIZATION

I still think I see the spectre of nationalisms, good and bad, and more importantly, civilizationalisms,

hovering above and within  the blobalizations now long under way.

'The world is flat' metaphor, just doesn't 'cut' it,

liposuctionally, or obesity surgery-wise.