RE DAVID BROOKS THE TWO CULTURES EDITORIAL SWAN SONG NYT

What an essay.

While any reader of this site can see that, to say the least, I have not been sympathetic to economics as a discipline,

Brooks' essay is not at all my kind of criticism of economics, except perhaps that it implies a criticism of economic compartmentalization;

but disciplinary compartmentalization, in all fields, is after all one of our biggest problems, and invites journalistic sophistries, like Brooks', a journalistic pot shot across disciplines, eg here 'history' (Brooks' apparent college major) attacking 'economics', in every area of scientific or quasi-scientific endeavor, not just in economics.

It's hard to select, from among obvious angles, which one to use first to criticize this cynical and misleading diatribe of his; even from the point of view of conservative (non-economist) perspectives, were one so inclined.

The only reasonable explanation, for someone who, frankly, knows better, is that he is now having to show some patron(s), somewhere, who are both ignorant, suggestible, anti-intellectual, and angry, that Brooks is still 'on board'.

With so many well known economists, conservative or liberal, being coincidentally Jewish, and Brooks also, one wonders why he would have been chosen, or volunteered, to pen so implicitly divisive an essay, calling it The Two Cultures, on such a topic? It too readily plays into, or could be turned into, the themes that early 20th Century European antisemitism fomented: a Jewish economic conservative (Republican,capitalist, globalist) conspiracy, and a Jewish economic socialist (Democrat, liberal, globalist) conspiracy. Neither Hume nor Smith were Jews, however, and there are many non Jewish economists of either stripe, who may soon be forgotten.

One of the good questions, substantively, might be to ask how the US got into a position, to which Brooks himself refers, where several current economists (their intellectual backgrounds aside for the moment) have produced a study perhaps rightly showing that for a country like the US now, economics (stimulus spending) itself no longer works.

It is, after all, Brooks' and others', kind of globalism, which has resulted in this 'economics conundrum'. See e.g. prior posts, eg

RE GLOBALIZATION TRAP: DEFICIT SPENDING TARIFFS DEBT

Thus, Brooks, frustrated by the technical, exact, yet twilight, quasi-scientific, world of economics, (their models and entities like shadows, silhouettes, thrown up on the wall of Plato's cave from indirect light)

enters the world of common sense, and of art, in politics. (Seldom, however, have there been two more uncomfortable bedfellows than common sense and art, a fact which he also knows all too well.)

The harder fact remains, morality and art aside, that the globalization that now renders domestic economic 'Keynesian' efforts fruitless has been a profoundly bipartisan enterprise for decades now. Additionally, conservative economists have been even less taken with art and morality than the so-called liberal ones he criticizes.

We have also had a lot of conservative economists, Friedman school, in control of things now for decades, who largely hail from Chicago, the town where Mr. Brooks was also educated, with some of them I believe.

Perhaps this is a kind of 'swan's song' for 'intelligent' mainstream conservative journalism?

See also my comment on David Kaiser's blog post re Anti Intellectualism Again, referred to in my post entitled

RE LAZY FARE VERSUS PROTECTIONISM

Here is that comment:

"Professor

Great summation. Thanks for publishing this essay.

I also had read passages of Hofstadter myself, back in the 70s.

I was not so sympathetic to e.g. Allan Bloom's book, The Closing..., on more recent intellectual history.

I will refer to some things I have been noting re causes: there has long been an intellectual compartmentalization, with not just one or two causes, which has caused the discrediting of intellectuals of all kinds.

When the compartmentalized intellectual's pronouncements prove false, for various reasons, the field, or subfield, loses intellectual face.

It is also connected, just one cause, with a visceral turning away from all specialists, even though so many of us, not even intellectuals, are inevitably 'specialists' of one stripe or other.

Take, just one example, many medical doctors, their discipline itself based on exact science, dating of archaeological matter, etc., yet they sometimes embrace a creationist cosmogony beginning 12.5 thousand years ago, despite the exact science contradiction. They also embrace an anti intellectualism inconsistent with their very discipline's underlying tenets.

This is just one of the most glaring examples; there are many others, from all specialist fields, of specialists repudiating intellectual other specialists assertions or constructions.

Another aspect, to which I have alluded, has been the large extent to which liberal democratic politics, and its free market, have been allowed, and have thus been enabled, to overtake and control disciplinary criteria, and meritocratic principles, by money, influence, and progressive transformations in various industries and professions.

The big market players have tended to overpower the professions, the trades, farmers, and other specialists who might have exercised some meritocratic or professional or guild sense to the marketplace; this type of overbearing influence shows itself no more plainly than in such events as the mortgage-backed security debacle.

This is not at all a new thing. For example, I especially enjoyed Jonathan Steinberg's Teaching Company talk on Frederick The Great, his treatment of experts at his court.

There are various other causes to which one might advert, but can't monopolize another site with more of them. This even was perhaps too much of a 'comment'.

So many remarks here invite comment, but space is at a premium.

all the best,

YOU SOMETIMES DON'T APPRECIATE YOUR TEACHERS ENOUGH UNTIL THEY ARE GONE

Perhaps we could get Brooks, say Krugman, and say, James Grant and Bob Herbert, all in a room, and they could, so to speak, fight it out? Tag team?

June 2020 addendum:

I criticize David Reich and Nicholas Wade, too, as well as Brooks and his adversaries. 

I really agree with none of them. 

But backed against bright scalding graffiti amid a flat hot intellectual wasteland, parched desert or rotting jungle, you turn and fight with what comes to hand.

Brooks: https://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/16/opinion/16brooks.html?hp

 New Republic:  https://newrepublic.com/article/79211/david-brooks-and-cultures

RE PLATO AND POSSIBLE WORLDS REPUBLIC

Those who can, should get a copy of the early Teaching Company tape of Dalton's lectures on Power, view the Plato one especially.

The audience's reactions to Plato's, and to Aristotle's contrary, view, on the role of women, alone, is worth it.

Still, one needs to see all this in contradistinction to the rise, and dominance, of Sparta,

a topic seldom considered in the same breath with quite abstract political/philosophical discussions of Plato's views.

RE BACEVICH'S THE END OF (MILITARY) HISTORY?

I am afraid he has the Whig (Butterfield's sense) 'disease',

inherited in part from Fukuyama.

To believe in an 'end' of military history is as chimerical, I am afraid, as to believe in an end to the notion of victory between adversaries.

Sorry.

RE NYT THE STONE EDITORIAL THIS IS YOUR BRAIN AND SAY SYMBOLIC NEANDERTHAL ANALYSTS METAPHOR AND POSSIBILITY

There may be more types of beings than are usually connoted by the term 'symbolic analyst'.

One might, for example, call politics a 'Conversation of Symbolic Analysts', or a 'Clash of Symbolic Analysts';

or one might think of The Clash of Civilizations, as a 'Clash' of Symbolic Analysts.

The 'symbolic analyst in everyone' should be of special concern, more so than the more narrowly defined globalized IT 'group'.

They don't necessarily have to be savvy IT techies, in the desert, or the mountains, or in an office. They don't even have to know how to read, really.

Perhaps they don't have to be human, say 'BONOBO SYMBOLIC ANALYSTS'.

One might depict the nyt author, who has a great deal of hair, in a 'symbolic analyst' interchange with a neanderthal, or with either a very clean cut or punk kid geek, IT techie or two; I can't think of the captions yet.

The bonobo pyramid of experts, say for this purpose a 'Pyramid of Metaphoricians', with something in the captions about 'monkey shines', and 'Possible Worlds', would also work. There might need to be an element of slapstick, banana peels, or banana republic reference.

POSSIBLE WORLDS START WITH PLATO AND MODALITIES

Let's start small, with just one little example, to kick off the discussion of these topics.

A good, early, example of an 'impossible world' is, say, the one sketched in The Republic.

In contradistinction, the Spartan State, as it actually was, an actual city-state 'world', as we might conceive it, (not a literary fiction,) would seem to us to have been almost equally 'impossible', or perhaps better, 'unimaginable', had it not actually existed.

Theme music: The Impossible Dream

RE NOW, WILL CHINA GET IT?

See my prior post cartoon mise en scene:

MISE EN SCENE BUS STOP MAVERICK EXECUTIVE MARILYN FREE TRADE HUMAN RIGHTS HOLD UP AND UGLY PHILOSOPHERS

the Maverick, his gun pulled,

might also be saying: "Get It?'

MORE MODALITIES ON THE HORIZON RE POSSIBLE WORLDS

We are going to be talking shortly, having broached the subject of 'modalities', of some other kinds of reality.

We are going into the twilight reality of some:

'IMPOSSIBLE WORLDS'.

RE HOW TO MAKE THE DOLLAR SOUND AGAIN James Grant and Now, Will China Get It? NYT Editorials

GOLD STANDARD AGAIN, FINALLY. Get It?

Great stuff. Didn't know he had it in him.

This would be one step on the way to redevelopmental America.

China is grossly devaluing its fiat currency,

but mining and hoarding gold and silver voraciously.

What do you think might be going on there?

Re NYT editorial today: "...Get It?",

You wonder if editors talk to each other?

See post above.

Maverick will make sure 'someone' gets it.

RE BEING IN A MARKET STATE OF MIND

Maybe you have heard of 'being in a New York State Of Mind'? It was a lyric.

I am in kind of a 'market state' tonight, so will drop a few new terms, experimentally, draft version, for some kinds of things I think might actually be going on.......

Let's start with a seeming 'oxymoron', or 'occimoron', actually 'asi-moron' is closer, and you can imagine a cartoon for this type of state, individual, or market participant:

'Global Market Communist' Dale Terrain Territory

'Global Goods Nationalist' Hill State Island Territory

'Confucian Capitalist' Gully No Man's Land

or say,

Muslim Town Casino (Not) Coastline

Hindu Country Badlands Steppe Territory

Or how about:

'Plan Rational Global Market Participant Desert Civilization'

Another idea, would be perhaps:

'lazy fare globalist socialist Imperial Peak'

These are just some variations, for a market state of mind.

Various other alternative imaginative scenarios, 'modal worlds', have been discussed, 'park', 'garden', or 'meadow', etc., fleshed out, in a way, elsewhere, by others. E.g. The Shield Of Achilles

For Catholics, Interest in Exorcism Is Revived

While there are a lot of other comments I probably should make, my favorite one is that there are a few individuals who seem to me might benefit from a mild exorcism, even though they happen not to be Catholics.

Perhaps the Holy See can do some dispensation for outreach, in these kinds of cases.

RE THROWING FREE TRADE OVERBOARD EDITORIAL NYT

I suppose it is better late than never.

It seems to take a non-Democrat-non-Republican

to see something long obvious like that.

CYRIL FALLS' INAUGURAL LECTURE EXCERPT

"INDEED, ONE OF THE TRAGEDIES OF OUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN THE FACT THAT IT IS AS RESISTANT TO UNPALATABLE ADVICE AS A BIRD'S FEATHERS ARE TO RAIN."

This was a rather nice lecture, back in 1946.

Re Back to a Gold Standard?

See comment re Mark Thoma's Editorial, Economist's View blog:

"Gold During The Depression"

He, they, claims that without floating rate currencies,

economists lose the chance to control domestic economies.

Hello, in a globalized world, a bubble world largely enabled by floating fiat currencies, economists have created a situation where economists can no longer control 'domestic economies'

anyway.

Re Throwing The Bums Out Editorial NYT Nov 6

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kennedy.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

He draws a great thumbnail sketch of the Gilded Age, and shows a lot of material from which a thinking person might conclude that some fundamental reforms in the American system have long been desperately needed, but not a breath of such a thing passes his lips.

re NYT EDITORIAL TODAY

Countries See Hazards in Free Flow of Capital.

The next step will be nationalization, a process that has been surreptitiously going on, in international intellectual property, for decades now, anyway.

A Real, Property Rights hold up........

Now that's what I call big big 'property rights'.

American property rights advocates identify 'strong property rights' with free (the Casanova hand) trade.

This article: Just another tell tale sign of

GAME OVER.........

RE NYT TODAY EDITORIAL KOREA TRADE 'DEAL' TRADING AMERICAN INTEREST TRADING PLACES AGAIN AND AGAIN

"This is an opportunity that we can’t let lapse, for economic growth in our country and also for a long-term presence in the region, particularly as it relates to China,.."

You figure out what this might really mean.

Re David Kaiser's current post

He refers to previous losers in national crises, business interests and white southerners, in a previous post from 6 years ago:

"How did We Come so Far? The Meaning of Tuesday's Election"

Interesting reading.

RE Where Do We Go From Here?

See David Kaiser's current post.

This is perhaps my favorite phrase "...they have become more and more detached from reality--...."

I have been reading Hanna Arendt, Origins, on and off, and she has some very interesting passages, mid book, Ch. 11 especially sec. II, on themes I see as somewhat similar, what I would call the 'plasticity', as it were, and mediatedness, of political reality.

RE NICHOLAS KRISTOF SUNDAY EDITORIAL BANANA BONOBO REPUBLIC PYRAMID OF EXPERTS PHILOSOPHERS AND YES SLAPSTICK LAISSEZ FAIRE

'Perhaps the most astounding statistic is this: From 1980 to 2005, more than four-fifths of the total increase in American incomes went to the richest 1 percent.'

This QUOTE could be the caption below

for a lone bonobo totem pole, pictured with the familiar three bonobos in a zigzag pyramid. These might each have a different expertise written in block capitals across their chests, Economist, Think Tank, Philosopher, Asia Expert, etc

There need to be actual banana peels all around the pyramid, and them each eating one with one hand.

A fourth bonobo is slipping down on a peel while running by. He might be labelled Europe.

THE CAPTION ABOVE

SLAP STICK LAISSEZ FAIRE

RE THE DEFINING PARTNERSHIP FOR THE 21ST CENTURY MISE EN SCENE WEST SIDE STORY G20

We show an elegant ballroom.

The President and Premier Singh are dancing the tango together, both in suits.

However, the President is the male partner for this particularly dramatic moment in the dance.

There are one or two other identifiable pairs on the dance floor, looking on, with various expressions of emotion.

There are about G20 individuals on the side lines.These should be arrayed in groups or cliques based on ethnic, national, or racial characteristics. Think West Side Story.

Certain groups can be snapping their fingers, facing one direction, etc., in unison........

They eye each other with suspicion, etc., etc.

The caption above

EAST SIDE STORY

The caption below

The Defining Partnership For The 21st Century.

Zoellick Pushes Gold Standard Debate

Thestreet.com article today.

Zoellick Pushes Gold Standard.....

Me too. If you can't carry out needed policies without debasing a currency as part of that process, give it up. Fiat money sanctions cutthroat devaluations.The currencies themselves are backed by nothing verifiable.

There are other ways to accomplish policy while keeping an objective standard for a currency. Claims that fiat money are needed to stimulate, or retard, or something else, are specious because other mechanisms can be used. You can have runs on banks because the deposits do not stand for specie, but rather stand for claims to fiat currency. 'Finance', and speculative investments, divorced from specie discipline, are a big part of what got us here.

We weren't following a strict gold standard, even until 71.

RE KRUGMAN'S DOING IT AGAIN

He has the best advice, from an economist, but our status now does not seem open to mere Keynsian efforts like those begun shortly before WW II.

Additionally, I would point out that Bernanke's speech 8 years ago re Friedman's claim perpetuates a false account both of the causes and 'cure' for the Depression, and of the role and capacity of the 1920s Fed, or the 2010s Fed.

Many other causes played into the Depression, causes not directly susceptible to mere Fed manipulation, even back then. It's a long list.

Similarly, but perhaps more so, today.

Realecontv the situation from an Asian perspective

http://www.realecontv.com/page/667.html

MISE EN SCENE BUS STOP MAVERICK EXECUTIVE MARILYN FREE TRADE HUMAN RIGHTS HOLD UP AND UGLY PHILOSOPHERS

We show the Maverick in his cowboy get up, dressed for the rodeo, with six shooters strapped on, ten gallon hat; Uncle Sam goatee. He has dismounted an older mare. He is wearing a prominent Sheriff's Badge with pointy ends.

He has stopped a stage coach (the large old kind, seen in Westerns; 'Wells Fargo' painted somewhere) in a desert landscape; small circular sign, atop a waist-high pole stand, nearby says BUS STOP; tall cactus etc. We could also show a 'bonobo' Indian Totem Pole 'Pyramid of Experts' somewhere, three bonobos tall, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil, just to add the recent philosophers' and experts' dimensions to the scene.

We see the coach relatively close up, from the side, so that we see inside windows on each side of the open stage coach door in the middle.

The coach is full of disparately dressed individuals.

He has already got one of them out of the coach and is standing next to the coach brandishing a six shooter at this unarmed individual, and has him by the scruff of the neck with the other hand. The Maverick has a Clint Eastwood type cigar stub in his mouth as he is talking.

This passenger might be a plump Arab, Mexican, Asian, or Indian-looking 'business man', 19th Century garb. He might also be Gandhi; Nehru jacket etc. He looks real scared. He is weighed down by two large, heavily stuffed, 'carpet bags', one in each hand.

A Marilyn Monroe figure, dressed in tight jeans and a tight white open blouse, as in The Misfits, is standing at the stop, holding a furled umbrella at arm's length pointed down smartly at an angle to her booted foot. Her blouse reads across the bosomy front, in block capitals 'I LOVE PHILOSOPHY'.

The caption above

Enforcing Human Rights and Free Trade 'In the Territories'

The caption below, he is saying

(

Think of 'Dusty''s voice from Tales of The Cowboys, Garrison Keillor.)

:

Mister, Stick 'Em Up! (Or: Stick Em Up Shorty!)

Don't give me that

'no direct investment' mambo jambo.

That jabber's for city slickers.

Gimme All Yur Free Trade, Now,

and Nobody'll Get Hurt: That's Yur Human Rites.

RE OBAMA INVOKES GANDHI FOR AGGRESSIVELY DEVELOPING INDIA

Nice thot.

But, unfortunately, Hitler, Stalin, and others we shall not name,

would have made very short work of Gandhi.

RE THE REAL GLOBALIST 'FREE RIDERS'

These are the regimes which have to globalize, and stay ever greater globalized, imperialize in the words of some analysts, in order to ostensibly try to maintain basic internal political stability.

This strategy, oddly utopian in its economic aspect and origin, yet starkly realist in political history, has been doomed, in the long run, as an inherently self-defeating politico-economic-military program.

RE EXPORTING OUR WAY TO STABILITY THE LAZY FARE WAY FREE RIDERS BEGGAR THY NEIGHBOR THE REAL ROAD TO SERFDOM

The President's essay. A noble exposition. A continuing exhortation, in its way, of the 'real' lazy fare "Road To Serfdom" which we have been following for a long time now.

Unfortunately, exporting and importing, and foreign direct investment,have been the engines of slowly gathering impoverishment, not prosperity, for developed nations, for the past 50 years. Terms like 'excess capacity', including labor capacity, spring to mind.

Because our 'system' turned on it major corporations only moments after having abandoned its average citizens, those corporations, now MNCS with largely foreign constituencies, have long since abandoned the domestic economy they were originally incorporated, state by state, to serve.

It used to be common among economists, and politicians aped them, to trumpet notions like 'free rider', to decry so called 'beggar thy neighbor' policies of protectionist developmental states like Japan and China; when they were perceived to be merely small lazy fare parasites on the 'free' world economy.

Only a few years later, they are recognized to be not only not merely parasites, but the second or third largest economies, by these techniques. Of what, of what is left, can they meaningfully be said to be 'free riding'?

US Presidents' foreign policies, including the current one, are largely responsible for what has gotten advanced nations into the power morass they have now been in for a while.

Producing is great, rather than consuming, but stability has to be based primarily on domestic industrial and commercial policies, not on 'economics', and not primarily on trade; nor will long term prosperity come from that direction, particularly for developed and declining advanced economies which embrace lazy fare.

Further, and this really shows where the ball has been dropped, military power, and security, still have to be based largely on a strong and socially coherent domestic social and political base, not primarily on diplomatic/strategic/trade negotiations, on deals bargaining access to markets, or on a compartmentalized, and mercenarized, military paradigm.

Trading commercial for OSTENSIBLE, AND FRANKLY, ILLUSORY, military or diplomatic advantage has been a fool's paradise for 5 decades now. One's partners turn into, at best, one's commercial adversaries, in short order.

Re Barry Blitt image re security umbrella Middle East Shield of Achilles

He has, under his Hoo Haw section, an image of Marilyn Monroe, covered over, but above the subway vent, with skirt spread umbrella-like.

Why not show this as an image of a security umbrella for the Middle East, with this type of image descending, similarly to Mary Poppins in others I have described, from say 10 feet above the ground, over a desert landscape, with date palm trees at an oasis, plus a spring, at near right or left.

The caption above:

Middle East Security Blanket deploying.

The Caption below:

The Shield Of Achilles

RE CARTOON MIS EN SCENE SECURITY UMBRELLA STATUS NOW

This is a take off on previous posts, re Lear as Uncle Sam.

It might be good to continue with President Obama in drag as Cordelia.

At least he is shown in that role as faithful to Old Glory.

Other parties' notables could be suitably, and threateningly, arrayed.

We could show a scene in the play where Lear is mad,

it is raining, pouring, he is wailing,

think of one of Daumier's better dynamic 'rain scenes',

he needs a shield, a large, picnic table size, umbrella,

call it 'The Shield Of Achilles',

or something,

and is offered a small, delicate, and true, parasol,

by Cordelia.

RE REPUBLICANS TO FIGHT OBAMA AGENDA mis en scene cartoon Uncle Sam as Lear

Ironically, he hasn't had much of an agenda.

Obama as Cordelia: 'Nothing, my lord'.

Say what. 'Nothing will come from nothing'.

Lear:

"...our darker purpose...

while we unburden'd,

crawl toward death....

Nothing will come from 'nothing'."

Question for the really eager:

Which is a 'Republican' and which a 'tea party',

girl, if distinguishable, as between Goneril and Regan?

CONSERVATIVING ONE'S WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG

CANNOT BE DONE.

ALSO, PROGRESSIVING ONE'S WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG, CANNOT BE DONE.

FURTHER,

COMPROMISING, MIDDLE OF THE ROADING, ONE'S WAY OUT OF A PAPER BAG, CANNOT BE DONE.

AMERICAN 'POLITICS AS USUAL', 'TURNING OUT THE INCUMBENTS', 'KEEPING THE INCUMBENTS', 'FIGHTING OFF THE NEOCONS', 'RAISING THE BANNER OF THE LIBERALS', 'COMPROMISING',

ECONOMICS, ANY WAY YOU TURN IT, SANCTIONS, CARROT OR STICK, EMBARGO, YOU NAME IT, NOW,

WAR, E G WWII,THE GREAT SOLUTION FOR THE DEPRESSION (WORKED A LOT BETTER THAN THE RATHER ANEMIC NEW DEAL),

WAS IN MANY WAYS JUST DUMB PROSPERITY LUCK FOR THE US, WON'T WORK NOW,

NONE OF THIS, NOW, CAN GET US OUT OF THE GATHERING

GLOBALIZATION TRAP

WE HAVE LONG DUG FOR OURSELVES BY OUR SYSTEM.

THIS INTENTIONALLY HOBBLED SYSTEM NEEDED TO BE FIXED BACK IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY, ALREADY QUITE OUTMODED, AND WAY TOO CUMBERSOME, EVEN BY MID 19TH CENTURY.

BUT TOO MANY KINDS OF DEVELOPMENTS, PLUS BLIND LOYALTY TO OLD OR NEW RITUALS, ESTABLISHED OR ESTABLISHING VESTED SECTIONAL OR CLASS INTERESTS, PREVENTED POLITICAL REFORM, WHAT I WOULD CALL POLITICAL RATIONALIZATIONS, FROM HAPPENING.

NOW IT IS, I THINK, TOO LATE.

See also: Jordan Roy-Byrne, Nov 3, 2010 article........

RE PHILOSOPHERS THROUGH THE LENS NYT EDITORIAL

One might take a look at The Pictorial History of Philosophy, if you can find a copy, by Dagobert Runes. An old book now.

Mis en scene US security umbrella square dance

One might show a number of Asian characters warily circling each other in a boxing ring.

Each has aloft, in one hand, a different umbrella, marked Made in China, Made in Korea, Made In Japan, Made in Taiwan, Made in Russia, Made in Singapore, Made In Malaysia etc.

The other hand has a boxing glove.

The caption:

US Security Umbrellas distributed Laissez Faire

Mis en scene security umbrella cartoon

Why not show Mrs Clinton, as Mary Poppins, descending serenely with umbrella engaged, suitcase in hand, from about 15 feet above the ground. It could be onto numerous contested islands, or onto Japan or South Korea.

No one else is in sight.

Background music Chim Chim Cheree.

The caption above:

US Security Umbrella Engaging

KURIL ISLANDS DISPUTE JAPAN RUSSIA ADDING SPICE TO THE ASIAN DO SI DO mise en scene

Some people think no war on the horizon,

'smooth sailing' all around here.

Although I hope they are right, I am not one of those.

It might be worthwhile to speculate on a cartoon illustrating the US Security Umbrella some of these rascals can hope to expect in the event of rain.

It will have some holes in the umbrella here and there, no doubt, be rather rickety, and probably be held blithely aloft rather askew, by a very Robert Macaire looking Maverick Executive, but wearing the signature smoker. He can be standing on a large rock in the sea marked Kuril.

He will be mumbling something about "only clear blue skies as far as the eye can see; no real need for this old thing anyway!".

None of his companions, of various Asian descriptions, have yet joined him under the umbrella, but large storm clouds are gathered behind him, say, identifiable Mount Fuji in the distance for effect.

RE GLOBALIZATION TRAP: DEFICIT SPENDING TARIFFS DEBT

Some pundits now talk about an Economics Trap, or Liquidity Trap, or other kinds of terms for the same thing.

Economics certainly has been a 'trap' for the unwary.

I would call the current situation a 'Globalization Trap', for a few choice reasons:

1. When you are in a globalization trap, increased government spending tends to find eager foreign sellers (alleged bad fit between labor market and jobs, even new government ones).

Not so many domestic producers hoping to participate.

2. Tariffs don't work so well because of lack of preponderant domestic production, for similar reasons. Why put up high barriers to protect something you no longer have, an industrial base?

3. Increasing government spending means government borrowing from the very lenders whose trade is fed on globalist regimes like ours.

4. Can't raise interest rates, because that ultimately raises cost of borrowing and growth even more.

5. QE or QE2: 'everybody's doing it. So this will be no solution, in a globalized fiat currency world.

Thus, a GLOBALIZATION TRAP.

CONTRARY TO OTHER KINDS OF 'TRAPS', YOU CAN'T 'ECONOMICS' YOUR WAY OUT IT.

RE CHINA'S FAST RISE LEADS NEIGHBORS TO JOIN FORCES cartoon mise en scene

What a ridiculous gloss over a ludicrous economic and diplomatic past this article is.

See prior posts re fattening things up, square dance cartoon, etc.

It might be worthwhile to pose Mahbubani waltzing around a ballroom floor with say a large Chinese sumo wrestler, singing the praises of the Asian Century.

Mrs. Clinton might be also out there, cavorting with a japanese partner.

The caption above might read

"Civilized behavior"

She might be requesting of her partner

'A Singapore Sling Please'

Re Macro

My professor of macro at BU GSM, Phil Friedman, a good teacher of a bad course, still actually teaches, at GGU, Ageno School of Business.

Who knew?

RE MAHBUBANI: THE IRRESISTIBLE SHIFT

An example,

what has been happening in broad daylight, going on for decades now,

while Americans expanded Asian trade,

went to their sports fan sporting events,

fought debilitating and diverting little wars, Korea to Viet Nam to Afghanistan,

and agonized over arcane domestic ethical issues.

Americans frittered away their advantages.

THEME VIDEO FOR THE WEEK

CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON

This is dated a few years, but hey.

Interestingly, Ang Lee also directed Emma Thompson's

version of Sense And Sensibility, what.

Thurston Robert Macaire Howell p 16

This was from around 06:

"Yet, it turns out that even the magnitude of the threat driving cold war military spending and trade concessions may have been exaggerated.[1]

American policy makers have compartmentalized decisions on foreign and military policy from trade, industry, urban economics, and the general welfare, and have subordinated the latter to the former, because of weaknesses in our system which require or allow such compartmentalization, on which foreigners and multinationals have been able to game.[2]

Is it now too late, for our cities, industries, and safety, for Americans to see that social, economic, and military strength hang together?[3] Is it too late to adopt producerism rather than consumerism? To promote a middle class, the general welfare, to adopt a 21^ST Century version of the American System?"[4]

---

[1] T. Gervasi, The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy, Harper & Row, 1986.

[2] See: Johnson, Japan: Who Governs?, p. 106:”’If Japan told Washington it would no longer sell computer chips to the United States, the Pentagon would be totally helpless….Japan now has a decisive technological advantage.’” Bobbitt, Shield, p. 702. When Congress has had to make trade-related sausage, it has usually been foreign sausage.

[3] Peter Paret, Understanding War, Essays On Clausewitz and the History of Military Power, “The New Military History”, Princeton, 1992, p. 209.

[4] Or perhaps it is time for Francis Fukuyama’s, The End Of History And The Last Man(?) Free Press, 1992. (If the last man had had nationality, religion, economics, and politics, what would they have been: German, Protestant, British System, Whig?)

See also: Our Posthuman Future, Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2002. “… capitalist liberal democratic institutions have been successful because they are grounded in assumptions about human nature that are far more realistic than those of their competitors.” Our Posthuman Future, p. 106. See however Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation Of History, and Johnson, Japan: Who Governs; Miti, for an antidote to Fukuyama.

RE DAVID SHAMBAUGH CHINA EXPERT

It's uncanny how he physically resembles, somewhat, the fictional British diplomat, who tried to defect to China, via Greece, in the "It's Up To The Lady' episode of Secret Agent, the early 60s television series.

Just a coincidence......I wonder if Shambaugh ever even heard of the program?

RE DIVIDED WE FALL KRUGMAN NYT EDITORIAL

Re be afraid, he is right.

"Fragmented from the beginning, we long since have fallen"

might be a better way to put it.

Re, "When Republicans took control of Congress in 1994, the U.S. economy had strong fundamentals", unfortunately he has date and terminology wrong.

The last time the US had a 'strong,' but declining, 'domestic economy' (the only one that counts when it hits the fan) was in the early 70s.

Civilizational Advantage was already shifting at that point, say around the time of the Nixon Shock.

The USA intentionally did not have a strong government, then or before or now.

RE KRUGMAN ON FRIEDMAN ON JAPAN JAMES GRANT CHINA AND THINGS BEYOND COMPETITION

Printing more money, a monetarist device ends up as a species of government corruption. Banks are not necessarily under control of this device.

Fiat money itself enables misconduct.

Economists tend to see their postulates as applicable across the board of all countries. All countries behave according to these immutable globalizing laws.

It is useful to find examples of behavior inconsistent with these postulates, 'globalizers' who nevertheless do not share rare earths, or (perhaps even now or in the near future) gold or silver, if they can help it.

Maybe that is the greatest good for the greatest number of Chinese, a new economic mercantilist theme.

Perhaps this is another economics counterexample:

James Grant, an astute economic thinker, publisher, and pundit, who used to show up on Louis Rukeyser's Wall Street Week, was apparently surprised, according to his comments in a recent video, when his group tried to 'value invest' in Japan, some years ago.

The Japanese have supposedly been working on products or materials for which there can be no 'competition'. That is an impossibility almost for the economists; the closest analogy may be the 'natural monopoly' I guess.

Theme music for this new item, 'Can't Touch This'.

RE EXCHANGE RATE WARS INTEREST RATE WARS TRADE WARS AND JUST PLAIN WARS TO COME

Economists everywhere are advising their patrons to devalue their currencies, in order to better wage the trade wars at hand.

They never talk much really about better, more, substantial ways to improve their countries absolute positions, by import substitutions, by subsidies and other measures, which might benefit their working classes rather than their monopolists rather than 'export substituting' their working classes to Asia.

Mere currency wars play into the hands of developing countries, which want to see closer currency values anyway rather than rich nation currencies versus poor nation currencies. Maybe some bright economist out there can correct this skewed notion.

There was a time when strong currencies tied to a determinable hard asset, could not be touched by weak currencies, and trading was a tertiary activity in that regard.

Another implication, not drawn by pundits in NYT, although both articles are there today, is that these developing nations are sucking investors' money out of the developed world, and its domestic businesses, and into their higher growth economies, by raising their interest rates while those elsewhere are at or below zero.

The other day, foreign regulators were warned about financial shenanigans in China, and perhaps India, blithely glossing over the other implications of this ongoing trend in huge investments by but away from the developed world.

Filling the Gap Between Farm and Fair Trade

Re Filling the Gap Between Farm and Fair Trade Editorial:

Americans need, or soon will need, a domestic version of this kind of reagriculturalization.

RE THE GLOBALIZATION PANDER AGAIN NYT FRIEDMAN

Friedman in NYT today has some good criticisms.

Unfortunately, this accusation, of a Republican plank, while truly a plank, is not a good criticism of them, any more than it would be a good criticism of Democrats with similar views:

"Let’s oppose the free-trade system that made us rich."

The reason is that this system did not make 'us' rich.

He also does not appreciate his call for greater regulations of subjects he favors, and the repudiation of government regulation implicit in his globalism. it is a species of hypocricy.

re rattling the saber of war before an election

Unfortunately, this is one of the old tricks of weak regimes like ours.

There is no stronger method for bringing the electorate behind some ill advised adventure than this,

while the day to day lazy fare politics have lead in the obvious direction, actually building toward such a confrontation, for decades, through multiple administrations, in any event.

It is sad to see such a system grind on (only seemingly) interminably.

RE TAKING HARDER STANCE TOWARD CHINA EDITORIAL NYT G20 AMERICA SHOULD HAVE SMELLED THE COFFEE 50 YEARS AGO NO EMBARGO NO CURRENCY OPTIONS OPEN

"This administration came in with one dominant idea: make China a global partner in facing global challenges,” said David Shambaugh, director of the China policy program at George Washington University. “China failed to step up and play that role. Now, they realize they’re dealing with an increasingly narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country.”

In 2010, 2010, they realize the're dealing with.........

Ridiculous, really. Anyone with just a smidgen of history can see what a truly pathetic situation this is, and will be.

The US off shored most if its bric a brac and much other manufacturing over there, to its 'strategic' partner.

What could make anyone think that other Asian spaghetti republics would be closer to the US? Only a delusional diplomatic mind set.

And when one reads such as:

'this administration came in with one dominant idea............................'

it says something about the simplicity, paucity, and narrowness, of ideas at the diplomatic and political top.

Hello: guess what America also is:

'a narrow-minded, self-interested, truculent, hyper-nationalist and powerful country'.

All that Cobdenist peace loving free trade development, throughout Asia, is now coming home to roost.

Who do you think their new economic and military rival will be; might it be their favorite erstwhile peaceful trading partner?

Wonder how that happened, not enough open markets for them? Not enough technology transfer, or joint projects? Not enuf lazy fare?

What is a 'harder stance', imposing 'sanctions', e.g. say reducing the ENORMOUS trade deficit with China by, say .5%?

Embargo? How do you embargo your major source of goods?

Another good question:

How do you slap the hand that is feeding you?

What military options are open to a country which has blithely placed its manufacturing sources in the home of its new enemy?

See some prior posts re fattening things up, Trading Places, Trading American Interests, Japan Who Governs, Thurston Robert Macaire Howell, lazy fare, laissez faire, CIVILIZATIONAL ADVANTAGE, and various cartoon mises en scene, etc.

Things may be heating up, as I had poetically taken a wild guess, along with Rumpole, ..........no birds,

No vember.

In geopolitical, civilizational, terms, which I have used before, which even many Americans can kindof understand,

'Game Over'.

RE 48TH IS NOT A GOOD PLACE

What has long been striking is the extent to which American higher educational institutions have been allowed to cater to, and to have been subsidized by, foreign powers and interests, even in relatively technical areas and subjects: research projects, institutes, etc. Much of this research has been made available wholesale, or to its specific sponsors, whoever they have been.

The authors mention and discuss patents; another editorial recently exhorted greater American R&D and patent activity (though ideas are now quickly pirated in many places because of weak regimes everywhere to prevent this).

There will be a lot of excuses made for this longstanding educational state of affairs; not enough qualified Americans, demand outstripped domestic talents, etc, etc.

The authors note that while these foreign students used to stay here (an ostensibly good thing); now they are increasingly going back home, wherever that is.

This heavy advanced education of foreign nationals, who end up in competition with directly, or employed by MNCs which have no nation's interests at heart, has only exacerbated the excess capacity of multiple developed competitor regimes around the globe, each always clawing for limited resources and opportunities in a world rapidly shrinking in both.

JAPAN PROTESTS OVER CHINESE BOATS NEAR DISPUTED ISLANDS

Re previous posts eg Fattening Things Up, some cartoons, and so forth:

Now, having been sufficiently fattened up over several decades, these behemoths need to square off hard over some things.

Frankly, however, on the other hand, with Friedman, I believe they need a few more globalizational joint projects, say projects to maximize usefulness of Australia and New Zealand ores and coal, on top of the mega deals they already now have; give them something useful to think about.

RE MY DEAR LATE UNCLE GAC AND THE REAL ESTATE GAME

I can't help but think, here in the midst of the shenanigans of the mortgage debacle, the banks now taking a hard line on their depressed and frankly title tarnished assets,

BORROWERS ALSO SNAKE OIL OPERATORS, FLIPPERS, THEMSELVES, IN MANY CASES,

of my uncle, my favorite Maverick Executive, near the top of GAC, back in the heady days of the Florida Arizona and elsewhere fraudulent RE BOOM, swamp and desert land boom of the 60s and early 70s, until it exploded on him and all of them.

I believe it is all going to get a lot uglier and less certain going forward than most pundits assert.

Real estate titles and values in US will never be the same.

Kind of a wake up call for greater government regulation, but that's not happening until a little bit later; and then, not in a great kind of way.

Here was some late 'winding down' of the fiasco. It had been going on since the early 70s:

Article: GAC Liquidating Trust, the bankruptcy trustee for GAC Corp.,settles lawsuit by selling undeveloped land in Collier Country, Fla. for $5.25 million. (1986)

RE LAZY FARE VERSUS PROTECTIONISM

A propos a comment by TOF on David Kaiser's blog re Anti Intellectualism Again, on the topic of economists' contradictions and the clear advantages of free trade over protectionism, one needs to review the history of industrialization in America in the 19th Century, and the crucial role protectionism played in that industrialization.

Protectionism was copied, largely through Friedrick List's program, in Germany, at roughly the same time, for very similar reasons, and to counteract mainly the same laissez faire industrial monopolist, the first such one, Britain.

Thomas L Friedman Globalization Pander

The well advised reader is well advised not to bother to read his nonsense.

He is like the doctor, for a patient of megaglobalization, a disease his previous treatment promoting globalization, has caused.

His inevitable solution for globalization is more globalization. And so on.

Here are some thoughts along these lines:

Why not some good joint globalization projects, say some between Arab groups and Israel.

We could also have some useful globalization projects, promoting greater trade, aggressive commerce, and good relations between say Iran and Iraq.

Let's throw in some Balkan projects into the mix, to get the full benefits of globalization.

Why stop there, Japan and China and Taiwan are crying out for globalization joint projects.

Re David Kaiser's Coming To A Theater Near You post Michael Lewis' Liar's Poker and education

Just an example here, of my remarks, connecting e.g. finance and education crises, on David Kaiser's blog, re his post above, although he was talking about primary and secondary education;

and Lewis' comments, also in his recent book, re how he had thought back in the 80s, that college students of management or finance would take his book, Liar's Poker;

and how surprised, and disappointed, he had been at the actual response (not that it should have been all that surprising).