Raking the Social Latrines for Alms for California. Another NYT Scheme for Indebtedness.

Abstract: The New York Times has identified some ‘academic’ with a new plan to save California from bankruptcy at NO COST to the federal government or California taxpayers. The state could borrow money from the Treasury as an ‘advance’ on current federal matching funds and spend that to hasten the “recovery.”  This would cost the Treasury nothing except some minor administrative costs. This would transpire with no risk of default and the money would be paid back with interest. Again, we must read more of the debunked Keynesian stimulation policies that currently are crashing much of Europe in debt and inevitable default. Any prattle we can conjure is appropriate for California to beg for alms.

We can estimate the level of panic and angst for ants, dogs and panhandlers by their frenzied physical antics, some persistent foam at a key orifice or two and other attributes such as screaming. Frequent bouts of whooping signal us that something important is to be set up on the pergola as the new idea. Those who have fallen in esteem by some now-outdated moral standards in our society are habitually idolized and held up as heroes in the pages of the New York Times. Any person who is a criminal, a debtor, pervert, drug addict or Islamo-Fascist or is even in bankruptcy is a likely candidate for a brief but starry op-ed piece hastily primed with the recurring notion that our ‘system’ (read the Republicans or capitalism) is  responsible for their sorry plight.  We routinely witness this narrow ragzine mentality in  a variety of writers[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8] and staff[9] that may appear to have spent some time thinking and analyzing the news and have arrived at a fresh and objective opinion after ‘reviewing the facts.’  There is fame and fortune in this reporting and commentary business if they can rise above the rubble of yellow journalism and launch some New Leftist concepts or perhaps discover some hidden secrets behind some tragic event and unleash them upon the public in a brilliant op-ed replete with noisy flourish and kazoo fanfares.  Many must thrash about in a contest of ideological rivalry to see if any are noble enough to match the elegant essays of their honored Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty,[10] but most fail. When things run a bit stale the NYT trolls the academic scene for new ideas. Today, we are treated to a wonderful new idea that ‘solves’ the California[11][12][13] debt/spending problem with no cost to the federal government. And we thought we ran out of miracles in finance!

How to best read my blogs:

[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]

Wonderfulness now begins:

“HERE in California, where people tiresomely boast that the state’s gross domestic product exceeds that of all but seven nations, I keep expecting a ballot initiative demanding admission to the Group of 8 industrialized nations. I’d consider voting for it, too; then maybe Washington would work as hard to synchronize its economic policy with Sacramento as it does with Tokyo and Bonn. The lack of coordination within the United States — and, equally important, the failure to recognize the states as macroeconomic players — helps explain our sluggish recovery.”[14]-- Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley Jr. Op-Ed Contributor Published: July 7, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

I think some of us recall that California has 11% of the population and a booming drug and prostitution business and that this sums a bit higher than the GDP of Luxemburg. Greece is a “macroeconomic player” too and so is Spain, both to soon crash in a whirlwind of debt and defaults from foolish spending. We are somehow left hanging for the linkage between recognition and sluggishness, but we need to read on. The first part of this piece is just pulp that is apparently written to grease the skids of the lower reaches of our society at least in financial and moral terms. Big must be beautiful we learn here—not goodness just bigness.

This next sentence is a stunning example of illogic, pandering and obfuscation.

“To make matters worse, several states have country-sized G.D.P.’s, but none has the macroeconomic tools of an independent country. Every state except Vermont has some sort of balanced budget requirement that prevents it from weathering a recession by running up big deficits to keep teachers employed, students in college, welfare payments flowing and construction humming. Nor can New York and California stimulate their economies by, say, printing more currency. Instead, states are managing huge budget crises with the only tools they have, cutting spending and raising taxes — both of which undermine the federal stimulus.”--Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley Jr.

We should have to read not much further to recognize this was written in Berkeley, Calif. Or Bezerkely as David Horowitz calls it. The idea of a balanced budget is trashed here. Here, in the best traditions of propaganda, we find embedded in this paragraph the Keynesian Nostrum that massive government spending can usher a sorry state over a terminal financial hurdle. The central issue in this piece is that states cannot, as yet, print their own money and that they might have to cut spending and furlough some of their socialist workers. He omits the salient fact that raising taxes in California is not an option as it takes some 2/3 majority by the elected officials in Sacramento to hike taxes and the governor’s signature. He omits the other fact that certain debt is prohibited or was. This is how Spain and Greece came to peer over the yawning crevasse that they will soon careen over into financial oblivion. Stay tuned, this gets funnier as it progresses in word count.

The New Idea~!!

“That’s why the best booster shot for this recovery and the next would be to allow states to borrow from the Treasury during recessions. We did this for Wall Street and Detroit, fending off disaster. It’s even more important for states.”--Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley Jr.

Now, why didn’t we think of this sooner? How about a Nobel Prize in Economics for this inspiration? The money chucked into the Wall Street nooks and crannies was not necessary and we should have let these businesses crash but the event served as a point of inspiration to those who can do little but beg for alms or write fanciful financial pieces for the NYT.[15] California’s budget is out of control and their debt is massive and there is no mention of the 500 bln needed to ‘fund’ the California retirement monster.  If they spend more they will recover we learn today.

A slip in time gains nine:

“Here’s how this would work. States already receive regular federal matching grants to help pay for Medicaid, welfare, highway construction programs and more. For instance, the federal government pays a share of state Medicaid costs, from 50 percent to more than 75 percent, depending on a state’s wealth. The matching rates were temporarily sweetened by last year’s stimulus.

But Congress should pass legislation that would allow a state to simply get an “advance” on these future federal dollars expected from entitlement programs. The advance could then be used for regional stimulus, to continue state services and to hasten our recovery.”--Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley Jr.

Wimpy would always promise to pay you back for the loan of some urgent hamburger money on Tuesday. This is like offering a drunk some more Tokay so that he will be in better shape to drink some more or like providing a crack addict with a few extra vials so he or she can turn better tricks and earn more dope money. California already has a credit rating down in the lower reaches that match Zimbabwe and this author suggests that this can be paid back? At what interest rate? Oh, the current 1.5%??

The soundness of this measure is now showered upon us:

“The Treasury Department, which writes the checks to the states, could be assured of repayment (with interest) by simply cutting the federal matching rate by the needed amount over, say, five years. Of course, when Treasury eventually collected what it was owed, the state would have to cut spending or find new revenue sources. But that would happen after the recession, when both tasks would likely prove easier economically and politically.”--Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley Jr.

We can just borrow from the future! Wow! We can just pour money from one bucket into another for a Zero Sum Game spectacular. S0, we just spend more and wait until the ‘recession is over’ and that might be 5 years. And, later the state would have to cut spending or find new revenue sources. How about a perpetual loan from Treasury so they can become even more prosperous? California will cut spending? Look at their record. New revenues sources? Their current idea is to legalize, nurture and sell marijuana and tax that at 30% as if the criminals who grow this stuff would be so kind as to report their sales to the state.  What happens if California defaults on these loans as they are certainly going to do with their other obligations?

The author[16] is a minority from Harvard who worked for Peanut Jimmy for a time.  His eternal theme has been ‘social justice,’ a euphemism for reversed racism, contempt for capitalism and wealth redistribution mandates for minorities. This nonsense is exactly what tokens were taught when they were admitted to universities with low SAT scores and given cookie courses to keep their grades above the D level. He must assume that a move from Harvard to Bezerkeley is some form of up. The implicit theme here is to grab money in any way shape or form from anywhere and simply give it to blacks and others who cannot cope with our society. I wonder why his scheme didn’t include a reparations legacy in proportion to the number of black citizens in California. That would rate some praise and more votes.

And, all this at NO COST!!

“What would this cost the federal government? Nothing. There would be zero risk of default, and a guarantee of full repayment plus interest equal to what Treasury pays in the bond markets to borrow. Congress would need only to appropriate the administrative costs of this program, which would be minimal.”--Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley Jr.

“Indeed, our best shot at devising United States economic policy may be to give the states the role of creating and carrying out the economic stimulus we so desperately need.”--Let Treasury Rescue the States By Christopher Edley, Jr.

This essay is a bit more than pathetic. It sounds like some Hurdy-gurdy grinder’s tune that attracts benevolent givers to plunk a few shekels into the tin cup to feel oh so good.  California is in a terminal swoon and probably cannot recover so the idea is to hike up the debt. It seems that our liberal soothsayer depends on the idea that printed money from the Treasury is somehow ‘free’ and that there is no limit to how much paper they can print before Fitch or Moody’s downgrades our AAA credit rating to junk. The IMF warned the US this very day to cut spending.[17]

And we once thought Harvard actually trained their students in finance, logic or thinking. This essay refutes that sorry notion. Let us train some more minorities in the legal arena and hope we can produce one with more competence than this specimen.

rycK [a 5^th generation Californian in exile]

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com

Debt Might Drive Us away from Democracy? Socialism is Responsible for Most of this Debt.

Abstract: The horrors of Fascism, or worse, are now brightly ensconced in the diminutive minds of greedy and incompetent politicians that are frantic to preserve their power in the face of a public revolt against massive debt. An article by Jason Groves surveys the narrow view that any other form of government is evil and must be rejected even though the ‘democracies’ in place in the European Union have spent their futures into the abyss of unrecoverable debt.

We live in a world full of carefully sealed doors that we may not dare open as they contain known Evils that can consume us or so we are told by politicians and their lackeys in academia.  We have traveled these roads and found them unacceptable they pronounce at great length and with somber tones and the literature is full of incidents to prove this elementary fact. The fruits of an ‘education[1]’ currently contain stories of evil intent and the construction of totalitarian governments who oppressed the citizens and keep the gulags and reeducation camps full right up to the very edge of the barbed wire enclosures. If we inspect a few historical episodes that ended in war, financial ruin, poverty, chaos or a combination of these [e.g. Germany, Russia, USSR, France, Spain, Greece, etc.] we experience the strange sensation that most of these initial frameworks were initially wildly supported by ‘voters’ or ‘the masses’ crusading in some form of a political movement or a similar loose ensemble of angry citizens.  They wanted change and they got exactly that. Eric Hofer[2][3] surveyed all this and made the important observation that leaders of mass movements didn’t launch their hoards ab initio against what was then the current offensive establishment but that the movement was already underway and such leaders were essentially opportunistic and managed to get pushed into action and endowed with political power from behind. The threat that peoples might swing too far to the right is an eternal precept that must not even rate some serious thinking or even consider the slightest case of experiment with this horror. In academia, the opposite view of this notion is not tolerated. Those who oppose the far left socialist outlook are termed anti-Communists and must be scorned in such a way that their ideological hatred for anything to the right is not perceived as overtly supporting communism.

Ronald Reagan, who never budged a millimeter in his eternal war against Communism, and whose heroic efforts are detailed in a book entitled Reagan’s War won out against the Red Tide.[4]  He is still the foremost eternal target of the anti-anti Communists [even moderate liberals and all to the left].[5] There is much to be learned about keeping faith with your views and many politicians seem to still believe that they can shift and bob and weave and tell the suckers who vote ‘what they want to hear.’ An excellent example of this myopic political mentality is the use of the term McCarthyism[6] which first justifies and then reverses the direction of the smear tactics used against the 50s era senator and is now universally used in a blanket mode to reproach criticism of the left or as a attack mechanism against their right-wing enemies. McCarthy was first smeared and then labeled as the smearer. McCarthyism was an expeditious political construct designed to stop his investigations of the Executive Branch, mostly the Department of State. He terminated the careers of several communist sympathizers[7] and was a threat to both Republicans and Democrats of the Eisenhower and Truman administrations.  All this is outlined in the book Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies by M. Stanton Evans. Baboonish stooges like the fallen Maryland senator Millard Tydings [8] manufactured a hoax whereby one of McCarthy’s speeches was recorded on a record he brandished before Congress. He later testified, under oath, that the record was blank. Such a crass action is not even condemned by liberals even today.

These views are stilted and condensed from both fictions and facts and tend to form a foundation of fear of any alternative that merely questions the status quo for the current status of liberal government across the globe, which is mostly socialism or an admixture of capitalism and socialism. The European Union is such a place and many of those community members have recently spent their way into financial oblivion. Pure far-left socialist states are complete failures [North Korea, Cuba, many places in Africa and soon perhaps Venezuela] but are signaled as outstanding examples of governance by ‘scholars.’ There have been many revolutions against diverse political systems so we wonder why the citizens howl for a change in not only the leadership but the organizational style of their governments. If socialism is so very good then why would those citizens who were raised in that system want to change it? It must be because the current mechanism of socialism has failed in several aspects. We can count the number of stable socialist states on one hand and most have some unique source of funding such as the Swedes who dealt in the dirty gun and explosive business for 150 years while offering to be brokers of peace and entertaining tourists or perhaps the Swiss who readily squirrel away vast sums of money from criminals, despots and tyrants and keep those accounts secret and free of taxes. Most of the media drones today are advocates who leap upon any tidbit of news to ruffle up the fears of the Nazis and howl in chorus to startle and mobilize the voters to reject them and their philosophy.

Currently, the European Union, substantially socialist in operation and theme, is collapsing from debt. It is strange that this is happening considering the vast number of university-trained administrations and esteemed cauldron stirrers in the sixteen member coalition of member countries who advocated this union and its manifold wonderfulness.  After all, they ‘teach’ this stuff so why didn’t it work out? Is this sorry outcome a reflection of some basic flaw in the socialist methods or can we blame capitalism again? You cannot extract such a comment that might cast a sallow pallor upon their union from any academic in Europe without excessive pressure but, then, the citizens are unhappy about something and threaten their respective governments in with riots in several cases. If they are mired in terminal debt and angry then who is to blame for their plight other than their governments? The blame will not be squarely placed upon those who suggested that the formation of a monetary union was a dumb idea in the first place so the trust to maintain this collective circus runs forward at full speed. There is even an expansionary nostrum afloat that would form come governmental body dictating government to the entire group. This is fanciful.

How to best read my blogs:

[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]

Here are some urgent and alarming warnings from the former prime minister of Portugal:

“Democracy could ‘collapse’ in Greece, Spain and Portugal unless urgent action is taken to tackle the debt crisis, the head of the European Commission has warned.

In an extraordinary briefing to trade union chiefs last week, Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso [former prime minister of Portugal and leftist radical turned Thatcherite-e.d.] set out an ‘apocalyptic’ vision in which crisis-hit countries in southern Europe could fall victim to military coups or popular uprisings as interest rates soar and public services collapse because their governments run out of money.”[9]--Nightmare vision for Europe as EU chief warns 'democracy could disappear' in Greece, Spain and Portugal By Jason Groves 15th June 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

The word democracy is deliberately snarled with several obscure meanings and as an example we can cite the U.S. which is not a democracy but a federal republic and the United Kingdom which is a limited monarchy but the masses think they practice democracy in some form so they are democracies if that makes sense in the common circular idiom. For a top of the hat laugh we find that North Korea is a democratic republic as was the USSR where everybody had the right to vote.  So, the notion that these EU governments might fall by some mechanism other that the ballot box is not so far fetched given the elastic definition of democracy and those who vote with rocks and Molotov cocktails in the streets. To mollify some of the debts, bailouts for Greece and Spain may reach 1 trillion euros or more as the debt process continues to consume their societies like a virulent tumor. That is a lot of money anywhere except the United States whose leaders are not concerned with spending a trillion here and a trillion there.[10] Note that this money is a zero-sum exercise in arithmetic since somebody in the EU must put up most of the financing of bailouts except for the IMF and then many of those same community members also contribute to this questionable slush fund. The Germans and French have been given the privilege of underwriting the debts of several of the PIIGS[11] as they are known. This comes at an obtuse time when even the engines of the EU are having some budget difficulties. The concept of paying back sovereign loans has apparently been abandoned.

It is interesting that any known country in the universe seems to think they can grow out of their debts by exporting their goods and services to other countries, many of which are thinking the same thing. South Korea actually did this. This nostrum soars beyond absurdity as the net effect is that many debtors will be trying to peddle their stuff to other debtors. But, this logic prevails and must be called government.

History might repeat itself.

“Greece, Spain and Portugal, which only became democracies in the 1970s, are all facing dire problems with their public finances. All three countries have a history of military coups.” --Nightmare vision for Europe

This is not the place to dive deep into the history of these three states, but Italy’s period of dictatorship occurred because of the threat of Bolshevism, which has not turned out well in every instance you might want to examine since 1919. This is not an endorsement of Fascism but an observation. What we should look for here is the answer to the question: did a violent change away from democracy, a kingdom, duchy or socialist state provide a better living for the respective citizens after the commissars were finished with their process? Spain, currently one of the PIIGS fought off Bolshevism in 1936 with Fascism and that worked for a while although with much street fighting, a dictatorship but they avoided a fateful entry in a world war. We might state with some fairness that Italy is a bit better off than North Korea at this time although that might be temporary.

We need t0 think about China, Cuba, and Russia and wonder why we should just accept Marxism, an offshoot of socialism or one of its congeners as the proper system of governance to be endorsed anywhere. The German citizens willingly voted in Hitler [democracy in action?] as a dictator because he promised prosperity and delivered that promise for a while until he went too far into militarism and revenge against the French. Hitler’s political power was propelled by the Treaty of Versailles that sought to crush the German state and render it helpless against not only aggressive intent but the defense of her own soil. What was the alternative here since the French wanted to knock Germany down to some groveling peasant nation and extract every bit of wealth they could for a few dozen years to pay reparations for the German war with France? It is difficult to imagine the outcome of Russia from Lenin forward to Brezhnev if we could reverse history and set up a capitalist system [or other system] there that could have utilized the vast natural resources in that country to benefit all the citizens. Communism, after 74 years and some 35 million dead bodies didn’t work out very well as we saw in 1989 when the system collapsed and the ruble was essentially worthless.  Maoism was a failure too. Then, there is Africa.

Reminiscence to the horrors of Fascism is echoed in this comment:

“Mr Monks yesterday warned that the new austerity measures themselves could take the continent ‘back to the 1930s.’”--Nightmare vision for Europe

Now, a conundrum is injected into the fray: If a government spends too much, incurs debt with ugly interest rates that hobble the economy and the remedy to part of that problem is to cut government spending and that forces austerity then what is the alternative? Default on sovereign debt? An exit from the EU? A gift from some other nation? Loans solicited from those countries too ignorant to see that they will never be repaid? An exercise in simple accounting shows that entities that run deficits, have excessive debts [nearing 70-120% of their GDP], have high spending rates  and low tax revenues because of high unemployment or other reasons, turns up only financial solutions that use imaginary numbers. You must throw in some money from somewhere or print it up yourself to make this elementary balance sheet balance out. It seems that although this is rudimentary accounting nobody can seem to accept or acknowledge the answer. Austerity is obvious in all cases of the PIIGS and other nations that will soon be rated in this class and that is not acceptable we learn.

The warning:

“Mr Barroso’s warning lays bare the concern at the highest level in Brussels that the economic crisis could lead to the collapse of not only the beleaguered euro, but the EU itself, along with a string of fragile democracies. But it risks infuriating governments in southern Europe which are already struggling to contain public anger as they drive through tax rises and spending cuts in a bid to avoid disaster.”--Nightmare vision for Europe

So far, this article does not tell us anything since we could have predicted all this with only our own starting list of countries and their debt to GDP ratios as the story is always the same and apparently those who planned these messes believed that “this time will be different” as the title of the new book[12] by Reinhart and Rogoff so elegantly details. The times are never different. Debt is debt. The EU cannot hold together for numerous reasons.

The local bean counters weigh in:

“Yesterday the European Commission and the statistics authority Eurostat met to consider Spain‘s plight as many EU countries consider the austerity package proposed by the Madrid administration insufficient to deal with the country‘s problems.”--Nightmare vision for Europe

So, their own bean counters have failed to find a way to refill the bean sacks.

So, no austerity programs for these states? Here is another view from a Brit:

“Il Sole has published a letter by 100 Italian economists warning that the austerity strategy imposed by Brussels/Frankfurt risks tipping Europe into a self-feeding downward spiral. Far from holding the eurozone together, it will cause weaker countries to be catapulted out of EMU. Others will leave in order to restore sovereign control over their central banks and unemployment policies.”[13]--The euro mutiny begins by Ambrose Evans-Pritchard of The Telegraph June 16th, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

I guess 100 Italian economists must be right.  We can recall the 1927 song "Fifty Million Frenchmen Can't Be Wrong[14]" as well.

Ambrose Evans-Prichard goes on with some quotes and this analysis seems to be exact if not quite long:

“The fundamental point to understand is that the current instability of monetary union is not just the result of accounting fraud and over-spending. In reality, it stems from a profound interweaving of the global economic crisis and imbalances within the eurozone …..

It blames the crisis on the “deflationary economic policies” of the richer states. “Especially Germany, geared for a long time to holding down salaries in relation to productivity, and to the penetration of foreign markets, gaining European market share for German companies…

They say the policy has led to growing surpluses in Germany, offset by growing debts in Southern Europe. The adjustment mechanism has not only failed. Matters have got worse, and worse.

“This is the deeper reason why market traders are betting on a collapse of the eurozone. They can see that as the crisis drags on this will cause tax revenues to fall, making it ever harder to repay debts, whether public or private. Some countries will progressively be pushed out of the eurozone, others will decide to break away to free themselves from a deflationary spiral… It is the risk of widespread defaults and the reconversion of debts into national currencies that is really motivating bets by speculators.”-- The euro mutiny begins

One way to default, explained in detail in the Reinhart-Rogoff book is to switch the denomination currency in a give debt instrument to one that is worth much less or is inflating thus debasing the debt. Greece, for example, and following Argentina, might break out of the EU, issue a New Drachma, switch the payment currency to the new Greek paper and print off some worthless paper that ‘satisfies’ the debt. This is not amusing in international finance.  Germany here is the goat because they wisely held wages within limits and stressed exports and that wage suppression was the very reason the country is prosperous and debt free. What we see is that the very example of success in their midst is now blamed for the plight of the other members and that must indicate that wages should be raised for Germany and all others in some tormented nightmare. This criticism is the sour grapes of envy and failure.

The most interesting point in all this is not that 1000 years of living has taught the Europeans how to count beans, but the salient nostrum that whatever the outcome they need to keep some phony paste-up Marxian union system together is paramount. This invites the circus notion that they will be happier in mutual poverty in some struggling ‘union ’than risking an adventure back into the open world and its probably good outcome, as in Germany,  for some or all of the states. The EU cannot tolerate success so something has to break. If Germany leaves the rest of the sorry sisters will collapse in inflation and poverty. If Germany stays and kicks out some of the weak sisters the system has some chance to survive. If the EU takes on come ‘cetnral government’ with delegates from all members they this form of ‘democracy’ will resemble California where the low class can only seem to vote money to themselves.  I now invest in  Asia and I think avoiding Europe is good business.

rycK

Comments: ryckki@gmail.com

The NYT Shows Unbridled Anger over The Very Angry Tea Party and Other Propagandistic Elements.

 Abstract: The NYT recruits some propagandist to fill in the fluff lines in one of their mandated political articles. Beginning from a lofty perch in philosophy, the article launches off with ethereal authority against the Tea Party and then progressively degenerates into wild name-calling, false statements and pedestrian-grade nattering. Every identifiable element of the Tea Party is overblown with soaring negativity and many key elements are even fabricated in this pitiful attempt at informing the public of some impending doom. The author either lost control of his emotions or foamed over his keyboard in frustration as he drew to a close or perhaps the monitors at the NYT fell asleep or just glossed over this screed. This rant is classic leftist propaganda. It has no academic merit.

As masters of propaganda agree, it is important to construct some obvious tenets, grant them some mystical or supreme powers, and then proceed to analyze the targeted opposition [Tea Party in this case] using these same very synthetic elements to destroy or mortify them. This is classic circular logic in motion. Pure truth is never a necessity for a good low punch, but the invocation of some apparent truth, a limited concession or two to feign objectivity or even something that strokes the inner souls of frustrated onlookers are all helpful. There is no better source of propaganda outside Pravda than the near-bankrupt New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers.[1][2]  Wisdom resides there we are told by liberals and their lackeys and here they will find hope if not the truth.

Today we are treated to an elegant exercise in propaganda that seems to manipulate all the usual levers and we must conclude, based upon some brief meditations at the end of this tome, that the Evil Ones have been identified, tried and convicted upon the Anvil of Leftist Reason hence condemned. Frequently, the surgical point of much of such an article is directed toward the members of the opposing political community so as to shame them into recoiling from their own group. They are thus being tempted to seek enlightenment in the propaganda spheres of the far left and after conversion to remain loyal level pullers at the ballot box.  So, we are to be pummeled if our political perch is shaded by right-wing politics and we must scurry off with a short list of complaints including but not limited to anger, dependency, Hegel, individual liberty, metaphysics, politics, rage, tea party and violence inter alia to defend. This episode is categorically phony and is hereby exposed as a mere chum-chucking exercise in elementary leftist harangue bleating, so, in our analysis today, I am essentially unchucking[3] the chum so to speak. This piece is a disgrace, but there is plenty to laugh at.

How to best read my blogs:

[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]

We begin our session on abuse:

“Sometimes it is hard to know where politics ends and metaphysics begins: when, that is, the stakes of a political dispute concern not simply a clash of competing ideas and values but a clash about what is real and what is not, what can be said to exist on its own and what owes its existence to an other.

The seething anger that seems to be an indigenous aspect of the Tea Party movement arises, I think, at the very place where politics and metaphysics meet, where metaphysical sentiment becomes political belief.  More than their political ideas, it is the anger of Tea Party members that is already reshaping our political landscape.”[4]— NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party By J.M. Bernstein June 13, 2010, 5:15 PM

This opening covers a lot of territory and spans two or three centuries and thusly brings up some interesting [and probably nonexistent] cornerstones of leftist political thought. Here we are brought into the tent, Coney Island style, for a demonstration of what is real and what is not. The  delineative process used here is, of course, political and  is derived  from this writer’s own common-place unconscious mental filters[5] that reflexively oppose any challenge to the left [in his case] and our good Dr. Bernstein ought to be keenly aware of  this trap as he purports to  teach Immanuel Kant. His little corner of philosophy has not been acclaimed as the Seat of Reason. If Kant is correct, our writer is as blind as the next guy. Thus, we may expect our writer to artificially transport us across the boundaries of simulated reason as he circles the rim of the metaphysical abyss picking up ideas while polemically hacking away at ‘untruths’ as he flies along. This peremptory nonsense is grounded in the practice of rudimentary philosophy, a crude intimidation mechanism invented by the Greeks to ‘explain’ the world and its ‘truths’ to the ignoranti, particularly if they vote.  This is the very basis of politics and its only utility is piercing persuasion. Let us be very clear that the arena of philosophy had many strong players, but there is no consensus on whose view is rigidly correct and, strangely, any new advance in philosophy begins with an attack on one or more giants in the field if we can imagine that form of organizational chaos.[6] Rodents ‘plan’ impromptu banquets by a similar process. Thus, nothing is actually known except the fact that the quest for the definitive version of philosophy is so far lacking, but that does not hinder the propaganda process in the least. So, the modern polemicist scrapes off as much scale as he can from an assortment of tangled philosophies and tosses them into his works. Today’s piece is a hurried collage peeled from the massive remnants of illogic, a word that more properly defines philosophy. Sophistry and delusion are perhaps better words.

Here is some more:

“It would be comforting if a clear political diagnosis of the Tea Party movement were available — if we knew precisely what political events had inspired the fierce anger that pervades its meetings and rallies, what policy proposals its backers advocate, and, most obviously, what political ideals and values are orienting its members.”—NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party By J.M. Bernstein

This caveat expands the argument whereby the writer can skirt the outer corners of this arena since he operates in a self-designed philosophical vacuum without the need of some firm truths on his side. He can just make up things since a clear rebuttal of his charges cannot be substantiated. This is the usual case for those who would be philosophers, but here he also plays the character of a keen political translator and content edifier and can broaden his mighty sword because the edges of his target are a bit fuzzy. Translated, this means he can rant and mumble at will. The applause machines at the NYT will then answer his every word.

We have yet to read some content as he emerges from his cave:

“When it comes to the Tea Party’s concrete policy proposals, things get fuzzier and more contradictory: keep the government out of health care, but leave Medicare alone; balance the budget, but don’t raise taxes; let individuals take care of themselves, but leave Social Security alone; and, of course, the paradoxical demand not to support Wall Street, to let the hard-working producers of wealth get on with it without regulation and government stimulus, but also to make sure the banks can lend to small businesses and responsible homeowners in a stable but growing economy.”— NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party By J.M. Bernstein

This is a reasonable list but each item in his string seems to have its own double standard tethered beforehand. On balancing the budget without raising taxes the task is obviously doable if government cuts personnel, spending and lowers taxes for corporations who hire people who can contribute to the economy. Government people are all too often malicious intimidators [and liberals with a foundation] with some narrow political views such as the myopic zombies in the drug-crazed environmental groups. Social Security was a Ponzi Scam from the beginning, is going broke and will default and should be phased out gradually so that it doesn’t experience a bubbly burst. Nobody in the Tea Party advocates just trashing this entitlement—they want to fix it up. A new retirement program is obviously required and we need one that is NOT run by our parasitic government and overrun with micromanagers. But, such failed and costly programs are the unholy grail of the socialists. Social Security will continue to rot down to its underpinnings and all the forces of the far left will be mustered to counter any private options that might skirt around Social Security. SS is merely a leprotic attachment to the polis. The nostrum that the Tea Party does not support Wall Street is folly.

Our hero cites a book[7] and parrots some interesting conclusions by that author:

It is common to enlist the correlating notions of the topic at hand with an input of some advice of ‘experts’ so as to give a heavy weight to the argument:

“It is not for the sake of acquiring political power that Tea Party activists demonstrate, rally and organize; rather, Lilla [the disgruntled author e.d.] argues, the appeal is to “individual opinion, individual autonomy, and individual choice, all in the service of neutralizing, not using, political power.”  He calls Tea Party activists a “libertarian mob” since they proclaim the belief “that they can do everything themselves if they are only left alone.”  Lilla cites as examples the growth in home schooling, and, amidst a mounting distrust in doctors and conventional medicine, growing numbers of parents refusing to have their children vaccinated, not to mention our resurgent passion for self-diagnosis, self-medication and home therapies.”—NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party By J.M. Bernstein

Here, the author solicits similar conclusions that merely dovetail with his own political notions.

Could we call the union movement a Marxist mob or perhaps some Fascist group? How about the old Black Panthers, SEIU, ACORN or the New Black Panthers? We wonder if they were criminals or threatening or just shouting nothings at raucous rallies.  The home schooling actions arise as a viable alternative to having their children taught leftist politics and blaming the US for every evil in the known world. American Exceptionalism is denied and despised by the left. It is important to teach our kids that many ‘teachers’ are just hack political slobs with cushy jobs. The distrust of doctors is interesting, and false in my view, and appears to be a gloss to cover over the anger about the Health Care mess we just created.

After plodding through this bundle of fluff our author finally gives his expert opinion on the composition and beliefs of the Tea Partiers:

“Tea Party anger is, at bottom, metaphysical, not political: what has been undone by the economic crisis is the belief that each individual is metaphysically self-sufficient, that  one’s very standing and being as a rational agent owes nothing to other individuals or institutions. The opposing metaphysical claim, the one I take to be true, is that the very idea of the autonomous subject is an institution, an artifact created by the practices of modern life: the intimate family, the market economy, the liberal state.  Each of these social arrangements articulate and express the value and the authority of the individual; they give to the individual a standing she would not have without them.”— NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party By J.M. Bernstein

This tortured explanation is apparently designed to cement in place the idea that a ‘liberal state’ or any other ‘government’ actually gives the angry partiers what they believe is intrinsically important.  This is ignorance on the part of the Tea Party. Big government somehow now empowers individualism [or the individual] in more particular terms. Bernstein fashions an essential fulcrum in the form of an economic and financial event like the current financial crash[8] as some kind of prime mover that sets these people off in the wrong direction [that means anywhere away from the goals of big government]. He then drags out the most elliptical view of big government and turns it inside out with this nostrum: “these social arrangements articulate and express the value and the authority of the individual; they give to the individual a standing she would not have without them.” This is the hammer blow and conclusion of this piece. Liberalism is intrinsically good for all. Here we find that the individual, who errantly wants to make his own decisions, is better off [or has more standing] with mobs of government overseers dictating his ‘rights’ down to the very last electron or drop of gas. Control is the essence of socialism.

Here is the clincher:

“The great and inspiring metaphysical fantasy of independence and freedom is simply a fantasy of destruction.”— NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party

Well, here you have it. We need the gentle guidance of big government so we can avoid destruction! I wonder how many big left-leaning governments participated in World War 1 and 2? Were they successful in guiding their respective citizenry through a stable lifetime? Where was the individualism--in the wet trenches? If you look for some consideration for the unit citizen in all the banter and pomp during the summer of 1914[9] it is difficult to pick out any reflection about the citizens who would soon give their lives [51, 000,000 or so did] for war and the utter destruction of several nations.[10] And, we are expected to learn and believe in the socialism of the Europeans? Their society is crashing in debt.[11][12]

Bernstein now conjures up a domestic scene of two lovers about to sever their relationship:

“This is the rage and anger I hear in the Tea Party movement; it is the sound of jilted lovers furious that the other — the anonymous blob called simply “government” — has suddenly let them down, suddenly made clear that they are dependent and limited beings, suddenly revealed them as vulnerable.  And just as in love, the one-sided reminder of dependence is experienced as an injury.  All the rhetoric of self-sufficiency, all the grand talk of wanting to be left alone is just the hollow insistence of the bereft lover that she can and will survive without her beloved.  However, in political life, unlike love, there are no second marriages; we have only the one partner, and although we can rework our relationship, nothing can remove the actuality of dependence.  That is permanent.”—NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party

He hears things that are not there like little voices. Maureen Dowd, the Old Red Lady [13][14][15]of the Old Gray Lady, has conveniently provided us with her ‘Unspoken Words Theorem.’ She has the supernatural but politically stimulated facility to hear what is not spoken and provide us with an analysis. Apparently, our author has acquired this rare gift.

Now, we wander off into theater. Apparently, the polis is not to be upset when their idiot governments make colossal blunders and deplete the treasuries. Such a proposal of leftist governmental permanency is a hallmark of the dedicated sophist; there is only one answer to all social problems. Given the numerous examples of failed governments on our planet [almost 150 Marxist dictators in Africa since 1950?], numbering almost a dozen so far in contemporary Europe, a bastion of socialism, we must cast away our independence and meld our groups into some solidarity of dependence. The government always knows best paraphrasing a famous but excoriated TV show of the 50s.

Bernstein concludes:

“In truth, there is nothing that the Tea Party movement wants; terrifyingly, it wants nothing.  Lilla calls the Tea Party “Jacobins[16]”; I would urge that they are nihilists.  To date, the Tea Party has committed only the minor, almost atmospheric violences of propagating falsehoods, calumny and the disruption of the occasions for political speech — the last already to great and distorting effect.  But if their nihilistic rage is deprived of interrupting political meetings as an outlet, where might it now go? With such rage driving the Tea Party, might we anticipate this atmospheric violence becoming actual violence, becoming what Hegel called, referring to the original Jacobins’ fantasy of total freedom, “a fury of destruction”? There is indeed something not just disturbing, but frightening, in the anger of the Tea Party.”— NYT Opinionator: The Very Angry Tea Party

This is a bald lie and typical of the left. He deliberately paints the perceived identity of the Tea Party group as nihilist,[17] an improper and implausible description of this group that seeks a firm moral grounding for government. It appears that he deliberately distorts the group’s identity with this selective and offensive pejorative since he ought to know all about nihilism as he teaches all about it. This is a vicious rant typical of some warped[18] intellectual who sees a direct threat to his political beliefs. They make their little points along the tattered pathway strewn with clichés and platitudes and then jump off the bridge into the all-consuming flames of some final predetermined conclusion. The Tea Party movement simply wants liberals and radicals to get out of government. The liberals have sunk us in debt.  You don’t have to be steeped in the tea to know that our economy is crumbling, our debt is insurmountable and our borders are being overrun with illegal aliens and terrorists. And we all know who structured and support this mess. It is the liberal establishment that caused the housing bubble[19] with the phony CRA act[20] that mandated subprime loans to people with no job or credit as a sop for their votes. We want an end to this insane spending[21] on the part of the radical left[22] and some way to protect our currency from utter debasement from inflation.[23]

If Bernstein was really in favor of big liberal government and could offer us some example of good big government [he does no such thing in this little propaganda piece], then he might show us how wonderful entities like California[24][25][26] New York, New Jersey and Michigan are doing lately. They are all bastions of liberalism and rapidly going broke in more than the mere financial meaning of this word. All these places carry the salient degenerative elements he barks about that will ensure that the citizens will have good and plenty and be carefully guided by their government leaders. The opposite is true. Theses places are going bankrupt from excessive spending and political power excursions. The liberals have ruined these places.

Bernie seems to focus too much on interrupting political meetings as an outlet as if he has not listened to common examples recorded for Parliament in the U.K. or perhaps Code Pink as they try to get into everybody’s face on street corners. Being English or sorts he must not be aware of the imams that daily call for the destruction of England in the streets of London. I wonder if he realizes that he is the infidel. That same Islamic group would put to death most of the members of the governing bodies of San Francisco for their obscene acts as barbarians. We see this essay rotting from the base as the intended rigid carriage of an objective intellectual is corrupted in a progressive manner similar to leprosy as the ramblings proceed to his predetermined conclusion.

He concludes with the teary-eyed plea for safety and liberal justice usually stated as “I am scared” with his terminal sentence:  indeed something not just disturbing, but frightening, in the anger of the Tea Party. This is similar to the older winky squeak speak, the unhygienic common language of the marijuana-crazed San Francisco street urchin and ex ‘students’ now rewarded with a high chair in the Social Sciences at Berkeley and a classroom full of adoring groupies. Their first reflexive reflex was to sob and bawl.

This is typical propaganda of the crudest sort. We see nothing but left-liberal canned prattle and wheezing. The noisy whooping and carnival atmosphere accompanying this prattle are not the least bit novel or even inspiring. What this article tells us, if anything, is the new power of the Tea Party is frightening to the left and will make some major impact in the next election and all hands must appear on deck to fight this menace and that means philosophers as well.

rycK [a 5^th generation Californian in exile]

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com

The Babbling Brooks of the NYT Advocates Liberal Arts Studies and Knowing The Big Shaggy to Cope in our Society.

Abstract: David Brooks soars off into some mental swamp with noisy laments on the current financial outcomes of those who studied the liberal arts. We learn that only those who dived deeply into Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon can attain the nirvana of a close relationship with their Big Shaggys. I read Gibbon’s Fall and Decline of the Roman Empire in high school and was bored to tears. [What happened to Aristotle? Or, Roger Bacon?] We learn that we all carry around a Big Shaggy that is impervious to penetration or even conscious self-awareness without a detailed grounding in college courses that stir the emotions. Technical types like me are apparently unable to construct a proper declarative sentence. An ignorance of such literature as David lists apparently prompts “self-destructive overconfidence” and was the probably root cause of the current BP oil spill in the Gulf. Perhaps Tony Hayward, CEO of BP, should have read Chaucer or Byron instead of geology.

How to best read my blogs:

[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]

Introduction to Incoherent Babblings and the New York Times:

In times of stress and turmoil, many in our society call for more soak time in the liberal arts cold tub to sooth their emotional sores and help them struggle to cope with modern life in a capitalist society.  Some must work for a living however repellent that concept is for the left.  So they read more literature seeking diversions or take more drugs and anxiously seek counsel from the far left writers at the near-bankrupt New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers.[1][2]  Wisdom resides there. Here, they will find hope if not the truth. This newspaper, possessing a discernible ranking that scores only a bit above a crude pamphleteer’s production of pulp political sloganeering or perhaps a wheezy maudlin ragzine on politics, continues to produce little other than new theorems on unfinished racial bias, the crafting of some new amoral litany immersed in reversed racism and all sorts of other projects designed  to increase our taxes, but they have yet to rechart the course for their dedicated readers toward a modern understanding  of the business world.  All they can ever seem to find are ways to increase the size of government via higher spending and taxes. They love other people’s money. The readers who studied the liberal arts are now gauged as being stuck with having to work for a living unless they are lucky enough to secure some cushy government job where they can maliciously meddle with the system for good pay and excellent benefits[3] and insulate themselves from reality. Unfortunately they are competing for very few stylitic[4] pedestals where they might cast illuminations and leftist wisdoms upon the ignoranti from a lofty height. They prefer to wallow in misery and celebrate the self-inflicted horrors of the life of True Believers[5] and through propagandistic means attempt to broaden the path to socialism although this requires some social crutches so today the NYT offers some balm for this deficiency.  

So, today our Chief Babbler David Brooks[6][7][8][9][10][11][12] invents new vistas in the politically unhygienic topic of ‘education.’ He suddenly realizes that students need to study and master some different [and hostile] elements of ejukashon[13] as that may lead to real jobs. He must also reflect on the rage from the far left as directed against Nancy Pelosi[14] by hecklers who were enraged by the absence of some key public assistance legislation and the fact that the State of Israel still exists. Carbuncles like this need a soothing poultice and David Brooks will hopefully help to distract them with fluff pieces like today’s piece.

He begins:

“When the going gets tough, the tough take accounting. When the job market worsens, many students figure they can’t indulge in an English or a history major. They have to study something that will lead directly to a job.”[15]--History for Dollars  By David Brooks Op-Ed Columnist Published: June 7, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

How sad. No openings for basket weavers or business diversity inspectors?

“So it is almost inevitable that over the next few years, as labor markets struggle, the humanities will continue their long slide. There already has been a nearly 50 percent drop in the portion of liberal arts majors over the past generation, and that trend is bound to accelerate. Once the stars of university life, humanities now play bit roles when prospective students take their college tours. The labs are more glamorous than the libraries.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

After having studied engineering, math, chemistry and spent a mere 30 years on the lab bench, inter alia[16], I wonder how those liberal arts majors even got jobs other than as sex workers, government employees, chancre mechanics  or dumpster divers. I am not sure than drug addicts have ‘jobs’ in the usual sense, but I might be wrong if they deal drugs on the side.

The buggy whip nostrum now arises:

“But allow me to pause for a moment and throw another sandbag on the levee of those trying to resist this tide. Let me stand up for the history, English and art classes, even in the face of today’s economic realities.”--History for Dollars By David Brooks

The best sources of ‘art’ are clearly Good Will or the Salvation Army. Evidences of some remote association with the fine arts lay in heaps on the floors of these establishments where the buyers first look at the frames for value. Then, there is ‘journalism’ or communication. Does anybody really believe the rants in the New York Times?

“Studying the humanities improves your ability to read and write. No matter what you do in life, you will have a huge advantage if you can read a paragraph and discern its meaning (a rarer talent than you might suppose). You will have enormous power if you are the person in the office who can write a clear and concise memo.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

This comment is one of those only-one-way theorems so cherished by the left. I wonder what a liberal would conclude after reading a few paragraphs of the Constitution and reporting back to the therapy room with a discernment of its meanings.  Could its deep meaning ever be untangled by the left? Here, we must bust into some engineering classes at UCLA or maybe a chemistry lecture at SUNY and demand some proficiency in English from those majors who errantly study something valuable in the market place. It was my experience that many such technical students could have gone into history, art or basket weaving or even journalism, and many should have, but chose a more interesting life other than recycling political slogans in snappy prose. Business courses are omitted from scrutiny here and if liberals could read a few thousand intra-corporation e-mails they might get a better understanding of modern communication. I can just imaging G. Bernard Shaw[17] as a new hire writing a memo to manufacturing requesting the making of 10,000 new gizmos in the computer world.

What we missed:

“Studying the humanities will give you a familiarity with the language of emotion. In an information economy, many people have the ability to produce a technical innovation: a new MP3 player. Very few people have the ability to create a great brand: the iPod. Branding involves the location and arousal of affection[18], and you can’t do it unless you are conversant in the language of romance.”-- History for Dollars By David Brooks

Brooks might be obliquely referencing the strange career of Steve Jobs who was in technical fields in his youth but was attracted to new ideas by accidentally auditing a course in calligraphy and then became a Buddhist and broadened his mind with psychedelic drugs.[19] Those sound like proper attributes for success on the left.

After stumbling through a mangled essay on analogies and citing works by Thucydides, Herodotus and Gibbon he cobbles this together:

“Let me try to explain. Over the past century or so, people have built various systems to help them understand human behavior: economics, political science, game theory and evolutionary psychology. These systems are useful in many circumstances. But none completely explain behavior because deep down people have passions and drives that don’t lend themselves to systemic modeling. They have yearnings and fears that reside in an inner beast you could call The Big Shaggy.”-- History for Dollars  By David Brooks

Wasn’t this similar to the Id [Id, iPod…they sorta rhyme…] of several decades ago by Freud as his mind was collapsing?[20] This run for the swamp is a favorite theme in the liberal glubberance[21] theory. The proof of this statement is that we cannot understand some process and because it is intractable then we need to slither sideways or resort to dumpster diving or other frivolities to broaden our intellectual vision. Not knowing the answer to perplexing problems is so enlightening for some.

“You can see The Big Shaggy at work when self-destructive overconfidence overtakes oil engineers in the gulf, when go-go enthusiasm intoxicates investment bankers or when bone-chilling distrust grips politics”-- History for Dollars  By David Brooks.

How about other examples like the failed mission of Barrack Obama, the outcome of Social Security from politicians or even Greek state financing? Brooks keeps his examples tightly bound to his political opponents.

“The observant person goes through life asking: Where did that come from? Why did he or she act that way? The answers are hard to come by because the behavior emanates from somewhere deep inside The Big Shaggy.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

Ah, a conundrum![22] Brooks sums up here with the expected conclusion strained from this mush:

“Technical knowledge stops at the outer edge. If you spend your life riding the links of the Internet, you probably won’t get too far into The Big Shaggy either, because the fast, effortless prose of blogging (and journalism) lacks the heft to get you deep below.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

Technical and business people are simply louts.  Journalism is effortless? Probably true if you have a short stack of political clichés to guide your reasoning and written work as in the case of Frank Rich.

David Brooks runs out of clichés and concludes that ignorance of The Big Shaggy will eat you up.

“Few of us are hewers of wood. We navigate social environments. If you’re dumb about The Big Shaggy, you’ll probably get eaten by it.”--History for Dollars  By David Brooks

This scary scenario works for rodents and leprosy too. This current op-ed would make a good theme for a children’s fairy tale book or a new character for a Dora the Explorer episode. [23] Brooks fanaticizes that he has found the door to the Fourth Wall[24] [late 18^th century philosophy now discarded]  and can peer inside whenever he wants. I think he is merely lost.

I presume those of us who studied science, engineering and business are lame-brained zombies who stumble through life in blissful ignorance of what great activities and achievements we have missed. The odd part of this observation is that we who have mastered science or business seem to detect the heavy jingle of coins in our pockets—the absence of which appears to fester in the limited neuronal sets of most liberals. They want our money. On the other hand, this essay by David Brooks might just be a parody on “…watching the old senile dribbler who wanders about in a quest for the origin of the stench of stale urine. It seems to be everywhere he reasons.”[25]  On the other hand, maybe Brooks laments for the liberals who missed out on much of life and are perpetually broke and need to embrace parasitism to keep up their appearances and their caloric intake.  That situation does offer more time to explore the mysteries of Allen Ginsberg.

I think I will take up the lute, study astrology, shave my head like Jobs did and become a hermit until I enlighten myself with a personal knowledge of my own Big Shaggy. A fortuitous reincarnation might allow me to continue on with more important works that I missed in this life.

rycK [a 5^th generation Californian in exile]

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com

The Babbling Brooks of the NYT Insanely Races to Liberal Sanity with Our Tax Monies in Education. Pay Raises for Incompetent Teachers!

Abstract: David Brooks inspects the current educational system and discovers a new and wonderful attitude about reforming poor schools in our nation.  In his quest for solutions to the problems he finds a “pretty good foundation for a political philosophy” from a recent Obama speech. Here, $4.5 billion of our tax monies has been placed on the block to attract schools to “… hang [my word][1]  tough, demanding real reform in exchange for dollars. The example given for this ‘get tough’ mentality was a poor school in Central Falls, Rhode Island, where all teachers were fired. After a few circus performances featuring  the unions, President Obama and Frances Gallo, the ‘solution’ to the problem was that the teachers would all get a raise and a chance to be rehired by the end of the school term, probably about now.  True to form, all the teachers were hired back with pay raises for their needed ‘extra’ work and a promise not to sue the school system.  There are apparently no standards or metrics demanded of the teachers for this next round. Our school system will now become progressively worse and any attempt to fire incompetent teachers will result in pay raises as a reward for their ineptitude. That is the kind of “education” that makes us noncompetitive with Asia, the rising economic tide of this planet as we can forget Europe because their system is not much better than ours and they are going broke and will experience defaults and more unemployment. To keep the liberals sane we need to just spend more money on ‘education,’ clearly an undefined political term.

The New York Times: The Swamp Siren of the Hopeless

The self-inflicted mental  torments celebrated by the far left in the near-bankrupt New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers[2][3]-- have produced nothing but new theorems on racial bias, reversed racism and all sorts of projects to increase our taxes but they have yet to  redirect their course to enlightenment.  They love to wallow in misery and, apparently, anguish is such beautiful sorrow.  They managed to win some seats and the White House over some inept politicians in the last round and got to print money without limits so now we are bankrupt.[4] But that is no reason to cast away reason and think of new financial adventures of this government—it is time to spend more! We can spend our way out of debt!

The net consequence of the last election was to animatedly endorse government spending and even more spending and hike our astronomical national debt[5] to almost the sum of a year’s GDP[6] and this has become the very favorite non-debatable subject of the Times. Keynes is now the craven image that they sacrifice their futures upon with our tax monies and debt, but today our Chief Babbler David Brooks[7][8][9][10][11][12] broaches the outer walls of the already politically polluted topic of ‘education.’ This nostrum is also known as the welfare rip-off circus and sometimes even branded as ejukashon[13] as it might be more colloquially pronounced in places like California[14][15][16]  and all this inspires our leaders to spend more money.  

How to best read my blogs:

[I offer extensive quotes in this blog so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]

More spending in ‘education’ is Sane we learn:

“Sometimes it seems as if we’re doomed to fight a new culture war between orthodox liberals who have lavish faith in the power of government and orthodox conservatives who have almost no faith at all.”[17]--Race to Sanity By David Brooks Op-Ed Columnist Published: June 3, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

This comment makes me wonder if Brooks spends most of his intellectual time off world or in the mystic past studying some Eastern religion. We have been in a constant war with the socialists since the 1890s. But, maybe Brooks needed some puffy fluff to open his screed with.

Brooks envisions a new vision:

“But occasionally a politician comes along with a more measured vision of a limited but energetic government. Recently, for example, I read a speech by a politician who gave examples of both when government had failed (the old welfare system) and when it had succeeded (the railroad legislation under Lincoln, the bank reforms under F.D.R. and the highway system under Eisenhower). “Our government shouldn’t try to guarantee results,” this politician said, “but it should guarantee a shot at opportunity for every American who’s willing to work hard.”” --Race to Sanity

The idea of opening up the West with the rail system was not novel and certainly not new to Lincoln. The Brits started up the rail system in the 1820s. The reference to ‘bank reforms’ under F.D.R must not include his bank holidays blunder and the way he selected those banks  that would reopen  [it was random] or the way in which he increased the price of gold and debased our currency with the increase sum of 21, which was a lucky number since it was three sevens. He must have had a dozen strokes before he gave Europe off to the Communists with, of course, the able help of the slimy Communist-paid traitor Harry Hopkins, yet another good liberal Democrat.

Some traitors:

“It was okay for John Kerry [18]to talk with the Communists in Paris and try to defeat the US in the Vietnamese war.  It was okay for Harry Hopkins to be a paid Soviet Stooge for the Russians and sell of Eastern Europe to Stalin or for the Rosenbergs[19] to be paid Soviet spies [his code name was ‘liberal’—how fitting!] who then sold our nuclear secrets to the Communists. That is okay. It is fine that Mumia is a cop killer and can have routine radio broadcasts from his cell.[20][21][from a previous blog[22]].

All this hashed up lingo from Brooks apparently sets us up for spending more money without the guarantee or even the intent of success. If true, that is the most intelligent remark he has made in years. This model allows the liberals to spend and prevents criticism when they go back on their promises as this echo from one of President Obama’s case stooges:

“"Read my lips," Biden said, using Bush's famous phrase while referring to a Barack Obama administration.”Nobody, nobody making less than $250,000 is going to see a penny of their taxes go up."[23]—Biden[24] in an incoherent rant at some county fairgrounds near the campus of Ohio University in Athens on Oct 15, 2008.

Brooks now bases our future on this speech:

“That sentence struck me as a pretty good foundation for a political philosophy. It was delivered by President Obama at the University of Michigan commencement last month.

Obama administration policies haven’t always hewed to this limited but energetic approach. But there is one area where they sure have: education. The Obama approach to education could serve as a model for anybody who wants to build a center-out governing majority.” --Race to Sanity

I am certain that Brooks suspects that Obama has speech writers.  I wonder who wrote his comment, parroted by Plugs above, about taxation above the level of $250,000? The terms center-out are undefined here but must relate to propaganda induced citizenry.

Now, we have some contest:

“First, Obama and the education secretary, Arne Duncan, set up a contest. They put down $4.5 billion in Race to the Top money. They issued some general guidelines about what kind of reforms states would have to adopt to get the money. And then they fired the starting gun.

Reformers in at least 23 states have passed reform laws in hopes of getting some of the dough. Some of the state laws represent incremental progress and some represent substantial change. The administration has hung tough, demanding real reform in exchange for dollars. Over all, there’s been a tremendous amount of movement in a brief time.” --Race to Sanity

“This is not heavy-handed Washington command-and-control. This is Washington energizing diverse communities of reformers, locality by locality, and giving them more leverage in their struggles against the defenders of the status quo.” --Race to Sanity

The status quo, not defined here, coupled with the comment about struggles reads like some Lenin letter from around the turn of the last century.  This paragraph gives no clue about what the ‘reforms’ might be about. Whatever they are, there is money on the drum for them.

Here, we focus in a bit and filter some of Brooks’ contorted new-speak and center in on the objections:

“Second, the Obama administration used the power of the presidency to break through partisan gridlock. Over the past decade, teacher unions and their allies have become proficient in beating back Republican demands for more charters, accountability and choice. But Obama has swung behind a series of bipartisan reformers who are also confronting union rigidity.” --Race to Sanity

This is the core of his message, no so much disguised and washed with gooey leftist clap trap as in the above paragraphs. The ugly facts are that: [1] certain minorities cannot compete in any equal academic setting, [2] that this cluster of deficiencies that prevent them from having an equal outcome is highlighted by the publication of standardized test scores and these results spur on the quest for charter schools to escape the horrible conditions of the union-dominated ‘school’ system and we now want some system where accountability is not a factor. Is too bad the IRS doesn’t offer this much latitude in interpreting the tax codes. In other words, we will just spend more and more money on the minorities who have little or no chance of attaining par with others [even at the Supreme Court[25] ] and will not subject them to group metrics that might illustrate their manifold deficiencies. In modern parlance this must be something like blackwash. This battle has been going on for 50 years now since Brown v. Board of Education.

The much maligned book The Bell Curve[26], sometimes accused of actually causing the ‘problem’ of cognitive distribution in the US, actually states the blunt facts about our societies and the distribution of mental skills. This salient fact that half the people who take the standardized test will score below the median is the rallying point for ‘change’ in ‘education.’[27] That is not fair. Society must be equalized.[28] Thus propaganda must replace education.

The tragedy of our educational system is that efforts to help certain minorities gain par with the broad majority of other citizens have failed and programs like affirmative action, set-asides and quotas have been conjured to attain not equality but an ‘equal outcome.’ Such measures sometimes consisted of race norming, demanding new tests and other measures of obfuscation. Standardized tests will always highlight these deficiencies thus they are politically incorrect and need to be avoided. President Obama was against more testing.[29] The German testing tuition system of Arbitur[30] [the "Begabtenprüfung" or "test of aptitude"] actually is a fair plan  and it works very well in  Finland too, but does sort out students by IQ and this in unacceptable in a progressive society like ours because it leads to inequality.[31] What else does and IQ test do other than rank test scores by cognitive ability?

One school in New England attempts to fire some teachers:

 “In Rhode Island, the Central Falls superintendent, Frances Gallo, fired all the teachers at one failing school. The unions fought back. Obama sided with Gallo, sending shock waves nationwide. If the president had the guts to confront a sacred Democratic interest group in order to jolt a failing school, then change was truly in the air. Gallo got the concessions she needed to try to improve that school.” --Race to Sanity

This sounds tough but all the teachers could reapply for jobs at the end of the school year.[32] The high school is one of the lowest performing in the state. Only 48 percent of the students graduate. They reached an ‘agreement’ with the expectation that all teachers will be rehired at higher pay. They wanted $90/hr to work after the union-specified work period that might help the students.

Here is the catch:

"So if a school is struggling, we have to work with the principal and the teachers to find a solution," Obama said. "We've got to give them a chance to make meaningful improvements. But if a school continues to fail its students year after year after year, if it doesn't show any sign of improvement, then there's got to be a sense of accountability."[33]—Obama quote.

Nobody seems to know what this accountability might be. Higher pay for teachers?

 “Fourth, the administration has encouraged local officials to raise educational standards. The feds are not imposing national standards. But the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers have come up with blueprints of what kids should be learning in math and English. According to the Thomas Fordham Foundation, an authoritative source on these things, these new standards are tough, rigorous and practical. The feds are offering incentives to states to embrace these goals.”--Race to Sanity

Raise standards to what standard. This process is made moot and absurd by the very fact that the verification process [testing]  is not allowed.

“Fifth, the administration is opening the door for more fundamental reform. Andy Smarick of the American Enterprise Institute and others have piled up data showing that it’s nearly impossible to turn around failing schools. Once mediocrity infects a school culture, it’s nearly always best to simply replace the existing school with another. The administration has a program called School Improvement Grants, which is helping a few remarkable local reformers, like Joel Klein of New York City, to close miserable schools and put new ones in their place.

In short, Obama’s activism isn’t overbearing. It’s catalytic. The administration hasn’t defeated the forces of the status quo, but in state after state, you’re seeing reformers moving forward.” --Race to Sanity

This all sounds good on the front page. But, we must inquire if merely exiting the bricks and mortar and moving poorly-performing students and questionable teachers to new digs just repeats the failed elements of the projects, known in the 60s as high rise slums or is a mirror of the school they just left.  A while back, [Jan 2009] I wrote a blog on the Obama Metrics.[34] The point here was to find some quantitative way to measure progress in his administration.  Here is a portion of that blog:

High School Dropout Rates:

We find that “almost half of all public high school students in the US’ fifty largest cities fail to graduate”[35] and the difference between success and failure at the suburbs [right next to these cities] is immense:

The City-Suburb Graduation Rate Split for Several Large Cities.[36]

Ref: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/apr2008/scho-a03.shtml

Note that the trend is everywhere. We should expect to see places where blacks graduate at higher rates than whites if there were no cognitive differences among these two groups and if there were sufficient monies to encourage better minority education as in Washington, D. C.  For a spending rate per student that is nearly double the average for whites in America, the D. C. School System is by far the worst in American. Barack Obama is not sending his children to public schools there.  Why is that if he believes in education? There are essentially no examples of any school district where about half the students are black and the others white and where the blacks score significantly higher than whites in academics. We would expect that to be the case particularly in affluent black areas and we do not find that anywhere. This is a structural problem and solutions like the Germans have for their citizens who have different skills is not a possibly.  The minority problem is further complicated by the fact that Asians generally score about 1-2 points higher than whites in standardized IQ tests. [Whites = 100, Asians = 101-102]

David Brooks sums up with a question:

“So why don’t we use a similarly light but energetic, decentralized but forceful reform approach when it comes to health care, transportation, energy or environmental policy? Good question.” --Race to Sanity

I didn’t even bother to think about this horror unless the ‘decentralized approach’ might include vouchers for home schooling, school choice and more charter schools.

Conclusion:

The fact is that nothing happened here. A school system, typical of inner city schools as given in the chart directly above, was perturbed by the threat of discharging all teachers. Some meetings were held, President Obama intervened, a ‘solution’ was found and the net result was this:

[1] They identified a lousy school but this was not news.

[2] The teachers were threatened with discharge and rebelled.

[3] The unions and school administrators ‘agreed’ that the teachers needed a pay raise.

[4] The Obama notion of  “a sense of accountability” has meant nothing other than to continue on with this farce.

[5] Not a single poor teacher was either identified or fired.

[6] The same teachers and staff occupy the same building with the same students less those who might graduate this June or drop out.

Exactly nothing happened except the costs of that school system went up and the taxpayers got stuck again. All teachers got their jobs back with pay raises and the promise not to sue the school district.[37]

This is typical liberalism—failure oriented to a fault.  There is NO WAY any incompetent teacher in a union is going to be fired for any reason particularly incompetence. This trashing of our school system, perpetuated by federal tax monies derived from deficit spending, will continue on until businesses refuse to hire these students for any job and our unemployment rate soars up to the 20 percent level that it deserves.

Our lousy school system now has a financial impetus to become lousier.

rycK [a 5^th generation Californian in exile]

Comments to: ryckki@gmail.com

The NYT Instructs Germany How To Behave and Save Europe: Spend and Loan More!

Abstract: The New York Times advises Germany to continue to lend to the beggars in the European Union. The best option is for Germany to opt out of this wreckage as the debt levels are so high that many members of the EU cannot recover and must default. It is terminal this time.

When we read politically predisposed essays we are obliged to translate the words into clearly explicable parts so we can obtain a clear and broad view on how and why the statements appear as they do. This requires some background research into the subject matter, the authors and an assessment of the direction by which the political organization that created this missive is directing our attention to. Simplifying this task, we can start out with the provable knowledge that the bankrupt[1] New York Times—aka the Walter Duranty Papers[2][3]-- has steadfastly echoed the elements of socialism or world government anywhere and everywhere on this planet for some 7 decades or more.  And, what do we expect today? Anything different?

As for background, we need to merely inspect the basic elements of what happened in Europe since the 1870s to see that Germany is both the growth engine and the most warlike element in the current shaky European Union, which is not so European, certainly not a union but a hurried assemblage of mostly weak sisters who huddle together to prevent another world war. Peace must be sustained at all costs.

To analyze the text, we have to highlight certain words or slogans that define the ultimate fire wall of the political group and these give us the translation we need. Thankfully Maureen Dowd, the Old Red Lady [4][5][6]of the Old Gray Lady, has conveniently provided us with her ‘Unspoken Words Theorem.’ She has the supernatural but politically stimulated facility to hear what is not spoken and provide us with an analysis and we might borrow this method to print herein what is not mentioned in this op-ed today. We can thus extract the exact meaning in a given text.

How to best read my blogs:

[I offer extensive quotes in this blog/essay so that the reader can view the exact language and can be confident that nothing was taken out of context or that nobody was misquoted. The easiest way to take in the salient points is to read the emphatic points in the quotes and then peruse my comments. Comments on my comments are always welcome: ryckki@gmail.com.]

Starting off, we look at the opening salvo from this little piece and highlight the buzz words, slogans and themes:

“Germany’s commitment to the European Union has been central to its postwar rehabilitation and its economic success. For years, Germany played the role in Europe that America so frequently plays globally — the locomotive whose dynamism and demand helps turn around recessions before they deepen into depressions.”

“Now, at the worst possible moment, Germany is turning to nationalist illusions. Europe’s past economic successes are now viewed as German successes. Europe’s current deep problems are everyone else’s except Germany’s. That is neither realistic nor sustainable. But German politicians and commentators are callously and self-destructively feeding these ideas.”[7]-- Germany vs. Europe By the Editorial Staff Published: May 26, 2010 [Emphasis is mine in all quotes.]

The first word here [rehabilitation] is a 60 year old catch word that is daily reiterated to remind us of German militarism dating back to Frederick. The Russians are never mentioned in such a comparative  context even though they murdered 50 million souls since 1917 and dominated most of Europe for half a century with disastrous results. So, we begin with a reproof of previous actions in Europe that really date back some 25 centuries but the payoff is that the political focus is made current for us and stripped bare of any tinsel or spangles.  This word is intercalated with the derogatory terms nationalist illusions that immediately remind us of Fascism.  Fascism bad—Marxism good. The comment about everyone else in the EU cluster is a crude gloss and an unveiled but persnickety condemnation that clearly states that Germany can adjust to many political climates and continue to remain prosperous. This is clearly not the outcome that most liberals and especially their Neo-Marxist brothers in liberalism wanted to see. They wanted Germany to be a common player in this socialist game and not rise above the hated median[8] that exposes the losers from the rest of the pack. The words “callously and self-destructively feeding these ideas” are merely wandering around the central argument of this piece and are avoiding the direct accusation that Germany is the best of the best and they know it.