BOOMERBUSTER

BOOMERBUSTER
OLD CELLO

Friday, July 5, 2013

daily audience so far

EntryPageviews
United States

25
China

2
Singapore

2

RE BBC CHINA RUSSIA JOINT DRILLS SEA JAPAN

The inevitable.
Leverage? Not too much.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

daily audience

EntryPageviews
United States

82
China

1
Germany

1
France

1

A BLAST FROM THE PAST SEE ALSO DIAGNOSIS INSUFFICIENT OUTRAGE ABOVE

Since I am looking at Lisa Randall's Knocking on Heaven's door , etc., etc.

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/12/re-professions-experts-specialists-in.html

See also 're diagnosis, insufficient outrage' above, re consolidations running against professions discussed in the post referenced here, especially doctors.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

RE INTERNATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION

This may be a solution for conservatives looking for a cause.

Why not start a large scale program to arm everyone, adolescent or adult, on the planet?

Perhaps the Gates Foundation, NRA, etc., can be of some help with this, cooperative move.

It could even be structured as a very large PPP.

If the right to bear arms is our most fundamental right, why not put our money where our mouth is?

Why send them food or medicine when we can send them something they can use even better?

Let's get those rascals over there in Asia and Africa and subcontinent and South America an assault rifle or handgun per man woman and adolescent, in the interests of global democracy?

Hell, why limit it to personal weapons? Why not give them battleships and submarines to defend their liberties, too?

As even Randall Collins has opined, we are all one, under the skin.....

Incidentally, its good for the weapons industry to boot.

re nyt Gettysburg bound the US into one nation The Accidental Superpower

Emphatically untrue, historically.

The Civil war represents the best example of structural and ideological shortcomings.

But it sells newspapers.

In this, and other senses, natural and human resources, geographic isolation, unencumbered industrialization, wars fought elsewhere, accidents really, 

it is fair and correct, geopolitically, to call the US

The Accidental Superpower.

RE SNOWDEN BOOZ ALLEN MARKET STATE MERCENARIZATION and obamacare

I'm afraid this means his boss definitely needs to be fired, if not already gone.

No big bonus for this exec, or CEO, no doubt Maverick Executives, this year.

No golden parachute.

While exec salaries generally continue to spiral upward, according to the nyt, maybe Booz Allen can now be reined in, but only slightly (notoriously hard to rein in gov contracts).

Funny, coincidentally, the Obama ADMINISTRATION abruptly postponed the deadline for large companies to comply and cover their employees until after the midterm elections.

I am sure there is no connection.

DAILY TRAFFIC SOURCES SITES OR SIREN SERVERS WHO KNOW WHICH

EntryPageviews
27
20
5

RE PRISM AND PRIVACY BBC ARTICLE SPELLS OUT MAIN PROBLEMS FOR MODERN PUBLIC VERSUS PRIVATE DISTINCTION GOING FORWARD

re daily audience US jumping ahead

EntryPageviews
United States

38
Russia

27
Germany

13
Netherlands

2
Taiwan

2
Australia

1
Italy

1
Latvia

1

DAILY AUDIENCE A SORT OF DEAD HEAT AT THE TOP

EntryPageviews
Russia

24
United States

23
Germany

13
Netherlands

2
Taiwan

2
Australia

1
Latvia

1

EU OUTRAGE THEN SUDDENLY EU SUBMISSION

Bolivian jet, its President on Board. 

Think of it, the jet, as a sort of stagecoach, really.

Dusty, with revolver trained, backed up by Goofapflebock, also armed to the teeth, has a few individuals pulled out of the stagecoach, say Gabor Steingart, Marilyn, Jaron Lanier (of all people), cacti and tumbleweeds in the background.

(Dusty's deep voice) to them: "Stick em up." (Only Marilyn fails to comply.)

"Gimme all yur Edward Snowden, an nobody gets hurt. That's yur human rites."

Term search, dusty.

Doubtless Republicans will now seek to impeach the other President over here, sitting on the ground, for all that EU wiretapping. Call it perhaps ' Snowdengate '?

If I were in the Kremlin, which I certainly will never be, I'd be laughing my ass off.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

weekly audience not counting the surreptitious audience out there

EntryPageviews
United States

112
China

2
Germany

2
Italy

2
Netherlands

2
Canada

1
France

1
Hong Kong

1
Latvia

1
Serbia

1

RE BBC SPYING ON THE EU I'M IN A MARKET STATE OF MIND

' These principles are right for all people everywhere. '

Isn't it all really just a great big too big to fail PPP?

Just on the brink of an even bigger US EU umbrella deal book.

Call in Jaron.  Call in Bobbitt.

The EU needs to call Google, Facebook, Apple (being called on the carpet right now for anti competitiveness, of all things), etc. on the carpet too.

They are part of the network, it seems, helping as best they can, patriotically, from the news reports.

In spite of the French attack on Apple, they seem to need to consolidate further for the good of all, to help them help governments, but also stand up to big government. 

I say call the new consolidated entity something like Goofapflebock, something like that.

' I'm in a (NewYork) Market State of mind. '

When you're too big to fail, when you globalize too much, you lose ' leverage ', as I think Hillary put it re China etc.;

you lose room to maneuver politically, as well as commercially, so to speak;

you get out on, so to speak, slippery ice, where there is no traction;

then, pretty soon, it is not only flat ice, but now you are on a slippery slope!

Then, as Wittgenstein put it,

re mathematical logic as a paradigm for thinking in language,
(it's too late to get)

' back to the rough ground '!

Monday, July 1, 2013

FACING THE MUSIC STEINWAY TO KOHLBERG

Can't get enough of that good ole private equity.

RE BBC SNOWDEN SEEKS ASYLUM IN RUSSIA

Maybe he's a socialist.

So many deluded Americans were, thinking the USSR was an ideological panacea.

See
The Haunted Wood.

RE THE EMERGENCE OF LINCOLN NEVINS

Found a used copy of Volume I, having read Ordeal....

RE WHERE WE STAND

DK has a great post on this topic.

Re the rise of corporations, he makes some telling remarks, especially about the Reconstruction era and after, blaming mainly the Republicans for monopolistic tendencies, which the Congress, and then the Court, only belatedly reined in, in the 20th century; and which the Republicans are said to be unwinding recently.

I wonder whether, though, that the Democrats did not also contribute mightily to this corporatist development, over a long period of time, both before and after The Civil War, through  commercial internationalism, imperialism, as well as the evangelism, involved in free trade; and in the view, mid and later 19th Century and after, that international trade worked a peace creating role, call it Cobdenism for short.

Liberal internationalism, also morphed into human rights activism, both successively playing into the hands of corporatist globalist tendencies already well established.

Certainly the Democratic Presidents have lately not been shy to promote globalist corporatist agendas, eg NAFTA, WTO, ETC.
Faux has a nice discussion of Clinton's role here. The problem, for me, re Faux, is that he is a socialist, not my cup of tea; his book, The Global Class War, nevertheless, good to read.

The Republicans became free traders in around 1930, I believe; 

maybe I exaggerate this aspect of American politics.

I believe that this ' liberal internationalism ', liberal international economic order,  became our vital center bipartisan Achilles Heel, certainly since WWII.

RE HONG KONG DEMANDING FULLY DEMOCRATIC ELECTIONS FROM CHINA

See prior post re Zosima's comment. 
What does ' fully democratic elections ' mean?

What does ' fully ' mean?

When is  full ' full '?

Does it now, together, mean, say, ' direct democracy ',
at all levels,
a sort of whig, neo-anarchist, concept, on steroids?
What?

Hong Kongers must think the Chinese leaders, themselves, would somehow know what it means, for them, there....

Sunday, June 30, 2013

re the Drew Pearson Fallacy

This was pretty funny, perhaps only to me, back then:

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/08/re-my-essays.html

One good thing about a cat, or a dog, rather than, say, a parrot, or a journalist, is that with the cat or dog, you can curse them out, and they don't later quote you.

The cat has the added advantage, over the dog, that they don't even know, or if they do know, they don't care.

The parrot has the advantage, over the journalist, that although it too can quote you, it does not know that it is doing wrong.

re WHAT I NOW CALL THE DREW PEARSON FALLACY

An old rant on the topic:

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/08/re-mr-paterson-editorial-same-old-media.html

Unfortunately, people like Snowden are not an appropriate
' antidote ' for the fallacy.

OR WHY NOT RATHER THAN MONGOLIA

The 'greatest good for the greatest numbers' airfield, in extremis,

Casablanca.

RE bbc AUSTRIA PLANS THIRD MAN MUSICAL

A classic opportunity for the third man, otherwise known, alternately, as Robert Macaire, my Thurston character, the Maverick Executive (my versions and iterations), and others.

Could be set in, say, Mongolia.

See this site re the Briton who sold faux bomb detection devices to Iraq and others. A locus classicus of the Maverick market capitalist third man entrepreneur in action.

Term search: many terms, here.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

RE DK's site

Zosima's comment, a very nice capsule summary:

"Even though I majored in history and politics, it took me decades to realize the true nature of the US system. Alfred Stepan says on NPR (6-28-13) that the US has the most difficult to change constitution of any democracy on the planet. Justice Ginsburg says she would not recommend our constitution as a model, and countries that have recently adopted new constitutions have all agreed with her. It’s many essentially undemocratic features reinforce the status quo, thwart change, and fragment responsibility so that no one can be held responsible. America stagnates for decades on end until the greed of the plutocracy results in some kind of crisis that causes a super majority of people to temporarily gain power and implement some reforms, like the New Deal. But the required super majority cannot be maintained for long and the reforms are whittled away over time until the next crisis. It is quite ominous and depressing to realize that America is stuck in this endless cycle of stagnation and crisis, but we are. Thanks to our constitution, the small moneyed segment of the population that benefits from the cycle need only convince 20-30% of the population to go along with them and they can thwart change indefinitely. Read some of the many critics of our constitution, I recommend Daniel Lazare’s, The Frozen Republic."

I would just point out that some manner of Plutocracy was functioning even during the New Deal.

The important point is that events, processes, and agendas, move in important directions, around and within the country, even while the American political system, and its international political system institutional progeny, themselves, churn frostingly on.  

Term search: Nevins, drift.

re NYT After Ruling same old structural problems different day

Diverging state laws.............................

The ruling is not really ' the point '.

Could be any ruling, really; any 'issue politics' issue.

Most people go around with their issue blinders firmly on.

Term search: your state.

Friday, June 28, 2013

Snowden needs to seek sanctuary in the laissez faire market state of

Wikipedia. 

All information is free there.

He might also try Shangri La.

re Bobbitt Terror And Consent

I said here: 
"If everyone were willing to more or less give up their privacy anyway, for internet working identity,
they may have reasoned,
what does privacy really mean, anyway?"


http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2013/06/re-snowden.html

I guess I have to read Terror And Consent.  (I am not that eager, having already spent time reading Shield.)

I opened to this Terror passage tonight:  "But neither do I believe that there is a God-given right to not be burdened with carrying an identity card, or to not disclose to the government information we have
                                                             24
gladly given to private corporations    or that they have collected with our consent." 'Conclusion', p. 541.

WEEKLY AUDIENCE SIREN SERVERS

EntryPageviews
9
6
5
2
2
2
1

A GOOD PURGATIVE FOR NEOCONS RE ONLY GOV AS BAD ACTOR

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/08/hobsons-choice-privatizations-versus.html

THIS WAS A GOOD ONE GOING FORWARD INFLATION DEFLATION

There are some economists, it seems, whatever their
' credibility ', within their little economists' bailiwick,
who agree with me.....

If you are fricking yourself,

who really cares

whether it is inflation,

deflation, 

both,

or neither?

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/08/inflation-and-deflation-both-economist.html

RE THEY LIKE THIS

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/mise-en-scene-of-previous-post.html

Just the other day bought a copy of Harlequin, an old theatre history book,....

RE MORTGAGE SECURITIES AN OLD POST AND REFERENCE


http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-mortgage-backed-securities.html

RE NYT A BILL ALLOWING MORE FOREIGN WORKERS STIRS A TECH DEBATE

Too late, my friends.
Game over.
Smell the coffee.

By about forty years.

Never, in the history of human conflict, has so much been given away to so many, by so few, for so little, so quickly,

without really even knowing it was happening.

The last phrase is really the ' biggie ' here.



Thursday, June 27, 2013

weekly audience Russia Latvia heavy once again

EntryPageviews
Russia

51
United States

14
Latvia

10
Germany

3
Turkey

3
India

2
Spain

1
United Kingdom

1
Greece

1
Italy

1

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

THE CHINESE WALL

Not to worry, private firms always have Chinese walls when they think they need them.

It's the honor system.

Great idea for a cartoon.

Where is Barry Blitt when you need him.

RE BOOZ ALLEN NYT IS THIS ENOUGH LAISSEZ FAIRE PPP SMUGGLER CARTEL ECONOMY FOR YOU OR NOT

Outsourcing nation. PPP has been around for a longish time now. Booz Allen.....smelling the coffee a little late really.

Snowden.

Lazy fare.

Why not make Hong Kong the next state?

A truly open global economy is a pure smuggler economy.

You don't have the rule of law so much as the rule of the highest, or lowest, bidder, where bidding is allowed; or the highest patronage plutocracy.

audience today really big Latvian readership who knew

EntryPageviews
Latvia

12
United States

6
Netherlands

2
United Kingdom

1
Poland

Monday, June 17, 2013

RE BBC EU US BIGGEST EVER TRADE DEAL THE MENU

Hard to get ahead, proverbially delivering similar pizzas to each other, isn't it?

' Endive?
' No, I'll have only anchovies. '

Sunday, June 16, 2013

re China's 12 year plan nyt

The quote of the day a must read.

They would have been better off where they were, going forward; trust me.

Think back to Stalin's agricultural initiatives, as well as those even before.....going back to Lenin.

What an unmitigated fiasco.

Hoover went over and helped out with food aid, after WWI, but it seems like Kennan pointed out that the Bolsheviks turned him down.

Archer Daniels Midland, proud of trying to feed 7 Billion plus.

Saturday, June 15, 2013

re stevefw's comment this part needs to be quoted

Re Syria, etc.:

"... is it realistic to expect the Military Industrial complex to NOT open another market to sell into?"

Great point. 

They are, after all, like others one can name, too big to fail.

re bbc Hong Kong protesters back Snowden

As W, and Woodrow Wilson, said, to paraphrase:  

These ' principles ' are right for all people everywhere.

Maybe the Earl of Shaftsbury said something like this, when he, and Locke, each fled to the Continent?

I kind of doubt it.

RE HAUNTED WOOD AND MITROKHIN ARCHIVE

The Haunted Wood was especially enlightening, had to use that word.

I believe that some Americans should take a look at these, some time.

Most policy makers are generally clueless, and I suspect should remain so.

The OSS was largely a Soviet led secret organization, same with Treasury, way back when.

Most Americans would not believe this, if you told them, even now.

A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF THE DREW PEARSON FALLACY RE PATTON

See Wikipedia (which site I detest, but hey) articles on Drew Pearson, and Ernest Cuneo.

RE THE DREW PEARSON FALLACY

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/08/re-mr-paterson-editorial-same-old-media.html

weekly audience

EntryPageviews
United States

261
Germany

25
Latvia

8
Poland

5
United Kingdom

4
France

2
Netherlands

2
Brazil

1
China

1
Egypt

1

SIREN SERVERS WILL BE CALLING ULYSSES SNOWDEN HOME

Term search Jaron.

I am not a great friend of free and open markets, free trade, free knowledge (such as Wikipedia, and other things discussed here recently), or free and open borders, generally, for most people.

I favor the nation state, rather than the globalist party of Davos state;  am neither an adherent of the socialists, such as Faux, likewise critics of Davos, but who are not nationalists.

I am not a friend of Snowden, or his ilk, for those reasons, and others.

I am not a special friend of Hong Kong, for example.

I don't particularly like Singapore.

The list goes on and on.

I am not thrilled by Indonesia.

SEE RE BBC SNOWDEN ETC

As one might assume, as I mentioned in the post above, the big privates tend toward the big publics.

Here the BBC reports some details:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-22916329

I pointed out this would probably happen, long ago, here.

Term search eg Facebook.

Remember the Russian, nyt, prior post noted, who took a giant stake in Facebook?

RE SENDING US COAL TO CHINA NYT TODAY

Call it just helping good ole cap and trade.

China can now cap and trade within China. (recent article, see blog entry)

Why didn't we think of that,

and cap and trade here,

within even small places, like say within Detroit?

See Klaus Hubacek 's comments, in a prior BBC article, re labor costs.

Friday, June 14, 2013

DETROIT CREDITORS DESERVE ZERO CENTS ON THE DEVALUED DOLLAR

Detroit is far from too big to fail, the test for bailability.

The really big boys, not cities like Detroit,  used to say, 30 or 40 years ago, they had to merge to get big enough to compete in global markets.

Once they got that big, fattened up so to speak, they were then too big to compete in global markets, if competition meant failure.

THE VITAL CENTER OF THE UNENLIGHTENMENT

RE making ignorance chic:

There have been left or right leaning economists, as well as politicians.

There were, unfortunately, certain issues on which both politicians, and economists,

each leaning either way, really,

erroneously agreed,

call it the vital center, after one liberal apostle of the concept, E. J. Dionne:

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2012/04/cf-also-how-nations-fail-editorial-and.html

On the one hand, it is hard for me to call such a process, system, or result, the product or expression of Enlightenment ideas or institutions,

on the other hand, it is hard to call it anything else, really.

Call it ' The Unenlightenment ' or ' The Endarkenment '

RE MAKING IGNORANCE CHIC BLAST FROM THE PAST

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/cinderella-three-penny-opera-marilyn.html

RE BBC LOOKS LIKE GILLIGAN'S OR CATALINA ISLAND

a great place for the Gay 'Lobby' (gross understatement) in the Vatican:

San Domino

RE BBC NEWS TODAY SNOWDEN

"Former CIA contractor Edward Snowden has made new allegations that the US government has been hacking computers in mainland China and Hong Kong for years."

I would have thought that any idiot nowadays, any common or garden Jaron, say, any siren server jockey, really, without any inside information, would have assumed that such a course of conduct has long been under way.

RE MERKEL TELLS YOUNG EUROPEANS TO MOVE TO FIND WORK

Where should they move, East?

What, then will Putin, and others farther East, when the young Europeans get over there, tells their folks, "move West"?

RE SOME LIKE IT HOT an old 2010 post for the summer

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-krugman-today-mortgage-morass.html

RE CHINA AND COLOMBIA BUILDING RIVAL TO PANAMA CANAL THROUGH NICARAGUA

Who could be against a nice, large, Chinese canal down there?

It's not a bomb, after all. Call it a sort of a physical siren server.

It's not another ' Cuban Missile Crisis ' or anything drastic like that, certainly.

You don't want to do anything that might result in a negative impact on, or even slow the growth of, all that good democratic trade.

Smelling the democratic coffee here. Trading, and appeasing oneself away.

Steingart had called it, in The War For Wealth, after a Microsoft marketing campaign appropriately enough, Soft Power. 

Thursday, June 13, 2013

THIS WAS RATHER FUNNY

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/maverick-executive-outlaw.html

I HAD A NICE STRING OF POSTS BACK IN 2010

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2010/10/re-sherrod-brown-for-our-china-trade.html

NYT RE ATONING FOR THE SINS OF EMPIRE CALL IT AN ATLANTIC MUCKRAKER TRADE VERSUS BBC

What a ridiculous position for a so called historian to take. A journalist, of course, one can more easily rationalize it.

I would suggest doing some atoning for the sins of journalism here. His.

Not that I am an apologist for the likes of Ferguson, etc.

Nevertheless, re the British Empire, warts and all, I would say:

Just look around you, and ask yourself, going forward:
Compared to what?

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

RE THE ENLIGHTENMENT WAS AT BOTTOM BASED ON MISTAKEN ANALOGIES

How shall I put this concept? One of the dilemmas of the Enlightenment tradition it seems to me is this.

The enlightenment idea itself was based, in some ways, on what the later Wittgenstein, or someone like him, might have called (a series of) ' mistaken analogies ', which themselves then, over time, coalesced together.

It wasn't mainly religious ideas that were at work in this Witches' Brew (yet they played some part), but preponderantly newer scientific ones, from Newton and others, astronomical discoveries,  the Scottish Enlightenment, and state bureaucratic innovations.

These innovations had relatively little to do with commercial applications, for some time, and certainly started out more mercantilist than what one would now call capitalist.

FOR THE HAMILTONIANS OUT THERE A PROPOS LIBERTY AND EQUALITY AND JEFFERSON FOR ALL

From a prior post:

"In a similar vein, the ideas of the Founding Fathers, as Bailyn has pointed out, owed more to radical Protestantism, and the common law, (one could also add commercial self interests, including, preponderantly, smuggling, tax evasion, and slavery) than to enlightenment ideas per se."

Re Jefferson's commercial interests, in particular, not that they were especially exceptional, I would refer readers to a nice, short, article, (for the attention challenged), in Smithsonian Magazine, Henry Wiencek, "Unmasking Thomas Jefferson", October 2012, p. 40.

RE WUTHNOW'S DISCUSSION OTHER FALLACIES RE ENLIGHTENMENT AND CAPITALISM

"A new vision of the future certainly emerged, but its apostles were to be found among both  nobles and bourgeois---of the famous Philosophes of the Enlightenment most were either born or bought themselves into the nobility---and the first people who tried to translate the enlightenment ideas into practice were members of the government, all of whom, apart from Necker, were nobles."

Communities..., pb, p. 532, quoting C. B. A. Behrens, Society, Government, and Enlightenment: The Experiences of Eighteenth Century France and Prussia, p. 9.

RE FALLACIES ENLIGHTENMENT POPPER WHIG PEARSON ETC

Terms search such terms as:
Why Iowa, your state, Lorch, state and local government, free press, how interesting a state,  speech,  press 

BBC RE CAP AND TRADE CHINA OUTSOURCING WITHIN ITS OWN BORDERS

This has to be the end of the line, so to speak, 

for this ridiculous ' liberal ' environmentalist initiative....

a late stage in global market capitalism's race to the bottom.

Never, in the history of human conflict...........

Sunday, June 9, 2013

RE BBC SNOWDEN

It has been a long time coming. Say 30 years.

If everyone were willing to more or less give up their privacy anyway, for internet working identity,

they may have reasoned,

what does privacy really mean, anyway?

The West and the East converge, from different directions, so to speak,
the one from totalitarian authority,
the other monopoly laissez faire convergence.

Either way, ultimately, they end up at the same point, so to speak.

Large (unfortunately global) private telecom and internet companies have been developing government-like powers, and information, for a long time now.

Why not harvest them, they may have reasoned, now, while the harvesting is still relatively good,

and the access is, ostensibly, not yet for sale,

so to speak, to the highest bidder?

The dark secret, the endgame, so to speak,  of monopoly laissez faire, is a managed totalitarian economy and society,
where the newer, M & A, entities (financial and otherwise) are, now, ' too big to fail '. 

The government siren servers, so to speak,  felt, right or wrong, they needed to step in now, in the West. 

A pivotal moment shall we say.

RE CLEMENT MERIC FRANCE MOVING RAPIDLY IN A DIRECTION CHARTED BY THE NAZIS THEIR ERSTWHILE ENEMIES

Nuf said.

Who can blame them?

They, the French, and most other Europeans, were sold up the river by the EU (US) long ago. 

Pretty soon, the Chinese will be telling them when to go to the bathroom, in France, and elsewhere.

Saturday, June 8, 2013

old post Kennan quote re China

Kennan (1960s re 1900 ish): 


"Out of all these ingredients there was brewed the curious view of China that seems to have animated American statesmanship during the war; the picture of a helpless, deserving nation, for whose virtues we alone, among the great powers, had understanding, whose interests we had to sponsor in the face of Japanese enmity and British callousness, and whose grateful support in the postwar period we could take for granted as a mainstay of the world position we hoped to occupy.  China was, in fact, and on this we insisted with a most extraordinary vehemence, to be one of the future great powers--- one of what F.D.R. called the 'four world policemen'"


"In this highly subjective picture of the Chinese, there was no room for a whole series of historical and psychological realities.  There was no room for the physical ruthlessness that had characterized Chinese political life generally in recent decades; for the formidable psychological and political powers of the Chinese people themselves; for the strong streak of xenophobia in their nature; for the lessons of the Boxer Rebellion; for the extraordinary exploitative talent shown by Chinese factions, at all times, in turning outside aid to domestic political advantage."

"It was this idealized view of the Chinese, rather than any illusions about the relationship between the National Government and the Chinese Communists, which was most damaging to our Far Eastern policy.  We did, to be sure, underrate the depth of the antagonism between these two elements.  Our memories of what had transpired in 1927 were certainly shorter (if they existed at all) than were those of Mao and Chiang and Stalin.  There also seems to me to have been a certain naivete, but nothing worse, in our efforts to bring about a political compromise between these two factions, and to induce Stalin to join us in this effort....".  Russia and The West Under Lenin And Stalin, p 374.

RE WHY OLDER GENERATIONS WERE NO MORE HIGH ACHIEVERS THAN BOOMERS OR LATER GENERATIONS

All of them, over here, rather than over there, were, mainly, just lucky!

Our recent graduates, children of Boomers, have, so far, been lucky, too.

See Michael Lewis' Commencement Address to the graduating class at Princeton a while back.

Kennan has a few poignant passages, about the world over there, after each of the two world wars, for those many millions who survived, but were not so lucky as those then living over here, or, later,  their children, or their children.

See A kindred spirit

David Kaiser's post, some time ago, re Soros, etc.

This was my favorite quote from Soros (in Kaiser's post):
 "Popper’s hidden assumption that freedom of speech and thought will produce a better understanding of reality is valid only for the study of natural phenomena. Extending it to human affairs is part of what I have called the 'Enlightenment fallacy.'"

A great insight. Commenting on Kaiser's current post, one might also call it the Free Press Fallacy, or even, say, The Drew Pearson Fallacy.

I would just call it The Karl Popper Fallacy, and let people wonder how far I mean to go on that.

I would add, to the elements of Soros' Enlightenment Fallacy, a faith in free, open, Smithian, (and eventually global), markets.

Yet, this addition sets me off from Soros and his, otherwise, and in other contexts, quite globalist tendencies.

Most liberals are not nationalists, deep down, but rather anti nationalist globalists, nowadays. It was not always so.

Let's put it this way, the Nazis gave nationalism an unnecessarily ugly rap.

(The Bolshevics somehow avoided this type of bad rap, largely because of the gross ignorance and naivete of Western regimes, and their conservatives, and their liberals.)

I would just advert, momentarily, to a great small book by Butterfield, in the enlightenment context, The Whig Interpretation Of History. (Maybe I'm just stuck, Tory like, on Regius Professors of History, or just stuck on Regius anything.)


In a similar vein, the ideas of the Founding Fathers, as Bailyn has pointed out, owed more to radical Protestantism, and the common law, (one could also add commercial self interests, including, preponderantly, smuggling, tax evasion, and slavery) than to enlightenment ideas per se.

Term search, if so inclined eg: Popper, Lorch

Friday, June 7, 2013

THE EU NEEDS TO DISINTEGRATE RATHER THAN ENLARGE

Countries in queue to join EU

These are generally not good candidates, with the exception perhaps of Iceland,  even for nationalism, much less EU ism.

Call it Austro Hungarian Empire ism. We all know how that turned out, EVEN THOUGH, AS KENNAN POINTED OUT, it was nevertheless better than anything that has come after......

FRANCE JAPAN UK SWITZERLAND AUSTRALIA CHINA etc etc

Divide and conquer.

weekly audience

EntryPageviews
United States

218
Russia

74
Latvia

9
France

6
Croatia

6
Germany

4
Finland

3
Bulgaria

2
Italy

2
Austria

1

BBC TRADING PLACES NOW TRADING FACES HOLLANDE

Verbally confuses China and Japan.

Quite understandable.

This can't hold back a good France Japan trade deal.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

BBC RE UK CHINA TELECOM DEALS SECURITY RISKS ETC ETC

Question: "Why would anyone in their right mind do this?"

Answer: "Western liberal democracies have been making these kinds of decisions for decades now."

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

RE THE BIG SHORT

The same banks, mostly, which created mortgage backed securities, now own the houses.

Because they originally ' lost money ', (but were then bailed out), Michael Lewis had suggested that they were the so called 
' dumb money ' on Wall Street.

If you get bailed out, and then later inherit the collateral anyway, plus claims for deficiencies against the prior home owners, plus much higher interest (judgment rates), compounded, than market interest rates n your claims, and attorney fees and court costs claims,

are you such dumb money after all?

RE BBC NY SUING HSBC ATTACKING LOW HANGING FOREIGN FRUIT

While giving the biggest bank creditors here a pass, re foreclosing now on their investments, based on securitized instruments which they themselves feloniously created

see eg:

The Big Short

See also

http://bozonbloggon.blogspot.com/2013/06/re-related-articles-its-beautiful-life.html

CHINA AND JAPAN NEED TO CLEAN UP AFRICA

Here is a good example of the kind of situation where they are needed to step in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-21126533

Militant Islamists Mukhtar Abu Mansur  and Omar Hammami (R) in Mogadishu, Somalia,  on 11 May 2011

"France has opened the gates of hell [and] has fallen into a trap much more dangerous than Iraq, Afghanistan or Somalia”