From jeffbates at wwdb.org Mon Jun 1 23:11:21 2009 From: jeffbates at wwdb.org (Jeff Bates) Date: Mon, 01 Jun 2009 23:11:21 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> Interesting... http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/ Is this for real? It talks about the demise of the USA. -Jeff From ignatz at dminet.com Tue Jun 2 08:21:27 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2009 08:21:27 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> <200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> Message-ID: <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com> On Mon, Jun 01, 2009 at 11:11:21PM -0500, Jeff Bates wrote: > Interesting... > > http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/ > > Is this for real? It talks about the demise of the USA. Is the article a real article? Sure. Pravda can have its editorials, and that's where I place this--it's interesting to see the venerable Pravda propagandistic style isn't dead--and if you're a Russian, living out your own hard times and missing your previous primacy as a world power, you'd have to be dead not to take some schadenfreude in the pickle the US is in. Are the premises and conclusions real? That's being argued in this country. Certainly the bozoids in Washington the past 8 years and the criminal morons on Wall Street have dug a pit that's going to be hard to fill, and many--self included--are more than worried about the huge number of unbacked dollars being printed. Well, we'll know in our lifetimes--and I do think we're living in interesting times. (That's not a good thing.) -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From bentley at crenelle.com Thu Jun 4 09:10:14 2009 From: bentley at crenelle.com (Michael Brian Bentley) Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2009 07:10:14 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com> References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> <200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com> Message-ID: The Pravda author appears to have been born yesterday. From SteveG at swhi.net Fri Jun 5 14:57:04 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 14:57:04 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net><4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> <200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> Message-ID: <50A6965B20EB489CBBF1F4F0EE03AE92@StevePC> Jeff Bates says: > http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/107459-0/ > > Is this for real? It talks about the demise of the USA. Is this a serious question? The article is a series of highly colorful characterizations of mainly well-known facts. It sounds a lot like some comments I've seen from Republican fanatics, but in this case it's from an overseas one instead. What are you asking? - Steve G From SteveG at swhi.net Fri Jun 5 16:14:56 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:14:56 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com> References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net><4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com><200906020411.n524BXja003855@mail.zarquon.net> <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com> Message-ID: <4BE7CF7B188B4059A89CBAA6B927544B@StevePC> Dave Ihnat says: > and many--self included--are more than worried about the huge > number of unbacked dollars being printed. What are you referring to? AFAIK this is not happening in the US. Large amounts of debt that will be hard to repay, yes. "Unbacked dollars being printed," no, except in the sense that most US money has not been "backed" by gold or silver since 1971. - Steve G From ignatz at dminet.com Fri Jun 5 16:57:59 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 16:57:59 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <4BE7CF7B188B4059A89CBAA6B927544B@StevePC> References: <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com> <4BE7CF7B188B4059A89CBAA6B927544B@StevePC> Message-ID: <20090605215759.GA16583@dminet.com> On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 04:14:56PM -0500, Steve Gruenwald wrote: > What are you referring to? AFAIK this is not happening in the US. > Large amounts of debt that will be hard to repay, yes. "Unbacked > dollars being printed," no, except in the sense that most US money > has not been "backed" by gold or silver since 1971. Yes, it is. Where do you think those billions of dollars that are being printed come from? They're fiat currency, nothing behind them except the surety of the U. S. Government--*not* credit money, as you're implying. And fiat money is only as good as the reputation of the country printing it. With the U. S. Government printing and putting into circulation billions of new dollars, with no fundamental expansion of the economy to back it--indeed, an economy in recession--I'm worried. And so are a lot of economists. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From SteveG at swhi.net Fri Jun 5 19:30:18 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 19:30:18 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <20090605215759.GA16583@dminet.com> References: <20090602132127.GC13559@dminet.com><4BE7CF7B188B4059A89CBAA6B927544B@StevePC> <20090605215759.GA16583@dminet.com> Message-ID: <6CF6CD00BA224DBBAAB23E2E10B6BC66@StevePC> Dave Ihnat says: > On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 04:14:56PM -0500, Steve Gruenwald wrote: > > What are you referring to? AFAIK this is not happening in the US. > > Large amounts of debt that will be hard to repay, yes. "Unbacked > > dollars being printed," no, except in the sense that most US money > > has not been "backed" by gold or silver since 1971. > > Yes, it is. Where do you think those billions of dollars that are > being printed come from? They're fiat currency, nothing > behind them except > the surety of the U. S. Government--*not* credit money, as you're > implying. Maybe I'm missing some big point here, but I don't think so. It has all been nothing but "fiat money" across the board since 1971, when it was officially delinked from gold or silver specie. (Actually 1968 for US purposes, I believe, 1971 for the international market). And some of the money supply has been only "fiat money" starting in 1933, when Federal Reserve notes could no longer be redeemed by citizens for gold or gold certificates upon presentation. I'm implying nothing else. Since then, whenever the government has (relatively) decreased the outstanding debt by buying it back, it has done so by "printing (unbacked) money." China has been aggressively criticizing the US for "printing money," e.g. in order to buy back future obligations such as bonds. Yes, of course we are printing money. That is not new. The issue is how much. I'm not implying that there is no problem. Of course there is a problem: there is a significant and increasing risk of inflation, and a probably small but increasing risk of hyperinflation. There is a correlative risk that the amount of money put into circulation will not, eventually, be matched by the ability of the economy to generate wealth (and thus tax revenues). This has long been a risk. It is debatable at what point these risks are too large and/or worse than the risk of credit collapse and depression that the current policies are meant to avoid. My point is that while things are bad, AFAICT there is no qualitative change from "not printing money" to "printing money" or anything of the sort. I don't know what you are saying has changed suddenly and/or qualitatively. Since 1862, I think it was, some money has always been printed to convert future liabilities to current "money supply" cash. This was not a serious issue when it was "hard money," backed by gold (or anything of intrinsic value). Since 1971 (and arguably to some extent before, back to 1933 or so), it has been more of an issue: whatever money has been printed has increased the extent to which the money supply is dependent on "the full faith and credit of the United States." This has been more and more an issue as the national deficit and debt have continued to climb. The extent to which it was "backed" in the sense I gather you mean, i.e. by the foreseeable ability of the national economy to provide an expectation that all debts would eventually be paid, has *always* been highly subjective. What that is different now is, AFAICT, incremental change - just how large is debatable - in the level of the *risk* of eventual default, or (directly related) loss of faith and willingness to invest on that basis. That risk is what has economists worried. They are specifically saying they would be much more worried *if* the US started printing money with *neither* backing by actual value in the vault, *nor anything of apparent value exchanged for it,* as some nations are doing - but the US has so far refused to do. Once you start that, there is no recovery without going through hell first, except by a miracle like the one the Weimar Republic pulled off. (And while there are close parallels, I'm not suggesting that we can go down that slope and then pull the same cat out of the bag.) What we are doing is risky, but it's not as near-certain a doom as that. - Steve G From ignatz at dminet.com Sat Jun 6 01:46:09 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 01:46:09 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <6CF6CD00BA224DBBAAB23E2E10B6BC66@StevePC> References: <20090605215759.GA16583@dminet.com> <6CF6CD00BA224DBBAAB23E2E10B6BC66@StevePC> Message-ID: <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com> On Fri, Jun 05, 2009 at 07:30:18PM -0500, Steve Gruenwald wrote: > Maybe I'm missing some big point here, but I don't think so. Maybe, maybe not. > It has all been nothing but "fiat money" across the board > since 1971, when it was officially delinked from gold or > silver specie. (Actually 1968 for US purposes, I believe, > 1971 for the international market). And some of the money > supply has been only "fiat money" starting in 1933, when > Federal Reserve notes could no longer be redeemed by > citizens for gold or gold certificates upon presentation. Yes. > I'm implying nothing else. Since then, whenever the > government has (relatively) decreased the outstanding debt > by buying it back, it has done so by "printing (unbacked) > money." Yes. > China has been aggressively criticizing the US for "printing > money," e.g. in order to buy back future obligations such as > bonds. Yes, of course we are printing money. That is not > new. The issue is how much. Yes. Yes. Yes. > My point is that while things are bad, AFAICT there is no > qualitative change from "not printing money" to "printing > money" or anything of the sort. I don't know what you are > saying has changed suddenly and/or qualitatively. There has, indeed, been a change--we suddenly and abruply have started printing millions, if not billions, of of dollars for the various bailout schemes, with not only no fundamental improvement in the economy to back it, but in the midst of a recession--I would be very willing to call it a depression, by traditional measures. When you're dealing with fiat currency, that's a big, red danger flag. > Since 1862, I think it was, some money has always been printed to > convert future liabilities to current "money supply" cash. There's a HUGE difference between "some" and "so much that it is a major increase in the national debt" quantities. > What we are doing is risky, but it's not as near-certain a doom as that. Well, that's the question, isn't it? It's more than risky--all it takes for the house of cards to fall is loss of confidence in the ability of the US Government to back all that fiat money it's now printing. I think that loss of confidence is, for various reasons, being evinced by various influential world governments. That, I think, is a major cause for alarm. Cheers (or not), -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From SteveG at swhi.net Sat Jun 6 07:46:20 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 07:46:20 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com> References: <20090605215759.GA16583@dminet.com><6CF6CD00BA224DBBAAB23E2E10B6BC66@StevePC> <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com> Message-ID: <01497AAAD2DE4A32AA3BD133C74634C9@StevePC> Dave Ihnat says: > It's more than risky--all it takes > for the house of cards to fall is loss of confidence in the ability of > the US Government to back all that fiat money it's now printing. OK, so we are indeed talking about degree. Arguably the current policies have increased the level of risk past a significant threshold, even if an arbitrary one. I can accept that. > I > think that loss of confidence is, for various reasons, being > evinced by various influential world governments. - which is an intriguing aspect of the situation. The only truly "influential world government" I know of that is in a position to criticize at all is China's - which has no significant history as a successful free-market economy. AFAIK no government that has been dealing with monetary issues reasonably successfully in a competitive environment for more than a couple of decades is doing substantially better than the US, and many are doing worse. And it is far from clear, I think, whether China's current "right to criticize" springs from something fundamental or mainly from the luck of timing. - which should lead to some interesting analysis by the experts (if you believe there are any), but I haven't seen it. Specifically: the US (specifically Nixon) more or less unilaterally converted the western world's linked economies to dependence on international credit and on fiat money in 1971. (I'm not suggesting that this was a reckless decision - it was more nearly recognition of a long-building trend.) The economies *not* very directly affected by this were the (mainly communist) isolationist ones, which had their own class of problems. What else happened about that time? Nixon opened relationships with China, starting it on its gradual and cautious road to becoming an economic force in the world. This seems to mean something, but it's probably something too complicated for me. It seems to suggest that there is indeed value to governments keeping tight constraints on capitalism, while not completely ignoring its benefits. That conclusion would not surprise me at all, but only because it's consistent with my preferences and with a variety of other observations - not implying that it results from hard data and/or any tight logic. - Steve G From ignatz at dminet.com Sat Jun 6 09:59:22 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 09:59:22 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <01497AAAD2DE4A32AA3BD133C74634C9@StevePC> References: <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com> <01497AAAD2DE4A32AA3BD133C74634C9@StevePC> Message-ID: <20090606145922.GA27622@dminet.com> On Sat, Jun 06, 2009 at 07:46:20AM -0500, Steve Gruenwald wrote: > OK, so we are indeed talking about degree. Arguably the current > policies have increased the level of risk past a significant threshold, > even if an arbitrary one. I can accept that. Well, yeah, kind of. I entertain my own concerns about currency not linked to anything more substantial than trust in the government that issues it, and those concerns have been aroused by the current situation. But there's no viable way to change that--short-term, certainly, long-term, probably. > - which is an intriguing aspect of the situation. The only > truly "influential world government" I know of that is in a > position to criticize at all is China's - which has no > significant history as a successful free-market economy. What's that matter? We're talking about acceptance of the US dollar as the _de facto_ world currency. Yes, China has been pushing for a "world currency"--and has been amassing gold. You will recall that China had, for the past several decades, been amassing US dollars. There are also proponents of the Euro as a replacement currency; I don't know if that's got any legs. Meanwhile, more than one economist has been talking up oil and oil futures as the new currency, and I believe I recall a financial news item where the Saudis were floating this idea. Other than those two, there have been more general rumblings coming out of the EU--even if not backing the Euro, the concern for the value of the dollar is there. It isn't any _one_ government; even if a number of small players start caviling at trusting the dollar, in aggregate the effect can be deleterious. > AFAIK no government that has been dealing with monetary issues reasonably successfully in a competitive environment for more than a couple of decades is doing substantially better than the US, and many are doing worse. Frankly, so what? They don't count. Their money hasn't been the accepted world currency. It's the perceived value of the dollar that's the matter of concern. > And it is far from clear, I think, whether China's current "right > to criticize" springs from something fundamental or mainly from > the luck of timing. There's no "right to criticize"; simply being a significant economic player makes China's decisions of importance. And I've said it before, and I'll say it again--China is not a friend of the US. > It seems to suggest that there is indeed value to governments keeping > tight constraints on capitalism, while not completely ignoring its > benefits. I think that lesson is plain, after the excesses on Wall Street that resulted after Shrub removed oversight and regulation. Unbridled capitalism has no end other than acquisition of wealth--and that can, and will, come at the expense of concerns other than those acquiring the wealth, be it the environment or the national weal. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From ben at bl.com Sat Jun 6 19:23:38 2009 From: ben at bl.com (Ben Liberman) Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2009 19:23:38 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: <20090606145922.GA27622@dminet.com> References: <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com> <01497AAAD2DE4A32AA3BD133C74634C9@StevePC> <20090606145922.GA27622@dminet.com> Message-ID: At 9:59 AM -0500 6/6/09, Dave Ihnat wrote: >... We're talking about acceptance of the US dollar as >the _de facto_ world currency. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_currency Nice chart there "Currency composition of official foreign exchange reserves", and a bit of history. -- ------------------------------ ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman ------------------------------ From bentley at crenelle.com Sun Jun 7 02:08:17 2009 From: bentley at crenelle.com (Michael Brian Bentley) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 00:08:17 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: References: <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com> <01497AAAD2DE4A32AA3BD133C74634C9@StevePC> <20090606145922.GA27622@dminet.com> Message-ID: The size of the number in dollars in circulation was already huge, and owned by countries like China. It is likely that the US economy has bottomed out, ahead of many other countries, and is starting what will likely be a very slow recovery requiring several years. For the recovery to have any teeth, the stimulus fund in addition to a large chunk of the debt amassed during the last few years must be retired. It would be a whole lot easier to retire that debt if we are able to export goods and services, but we've just spent the last couple decades importing goods and services, and I don't think we're going to suddenly become less frugal any time soon. Which means that the other countries we had been importing from are less likely to recover soon. The more belligerent oil trading partners are anxious to dump the dollar and switch to another currency, but no other currency exists yet that can do the work. The dollar's "mass" makes it considerably more stable. All the partners who are likely interested in causing grief with dollars have too many of them right now. And you can't just pull out of a multibillion dollar position in exchange for a multibillion yen position, you have to have a willing buyer and a willing seller, both of which expect to benefit from each deal. The US is talking up a storm about becoming much less oil dependent. Which is brilliant. I wonder if the solution to this problem is for OPEC etal to simply ratchet up the price of oil anyway? I don't think that can work if demand continues to stay low, but perhaps Chinese and Indian usage is back on the upswing? My guess is that government spending is about to begin a decade-long planned decline, tracked by taxes on a delayed schedule. From rrostrom.21stcentury at rcn.com Sun Jun 7 03:27:58 2009 From: rrostrom.21stcentury at rcn.com (Rich Rostrom) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 03:27:58 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] SCOTUS: Sonia Sotomayor In-Reply-To: <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: >Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote >Steve Gruenwald wrote: >> >> One odd tidbit I picked up somewhere: on the issue of >> whether (if confirmed) she will be the first Hispanic SCt >> justice. >I've been hearing the first hispanic woman. (or first Latina) Something which has been frothed about a great deal. Wehn Albert Gonzales became the first Latino Attorney General, there was not one word about this "historic moment". -- | Rich Rostrom rrostrom.21stcentury at rcn.com | | | | A lot of organic chemistry would be pretty unspeakable | | if molecules had feelings. -- Derek Lowe | From mbcrui at gmail.com Sun Jun 7 08:57:19 2009 From: mbcrui at gmail.com (Mary Cruickshank Peed) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 09:57:19 -0400 Subject: [Goglog] SCOTUS: Sonia Sotomayor In-Reply-To: References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A2BC73F.9070008@gmail.com> Rich Rostrom wrote: > Wehn Albert Gonzales became the first Latino Attorney > General, there was not one word about this "historic > moment". > Yes, there was. Mary -- -- Mary Cruickshank Peed We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong. - Sir Arthur Eddington From SteveG at swhi.net Sun Jun 7 09:34:27 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2009 09:34:27 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] SCOTUS: Sonia Sotomayor In-Reply-To: References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net><4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <58A5D85DAA424FB9A027DDE0C4F825C3@StevePC> Rich Rostrom says: > Wehn Albert Gonzales became the first Latino Attorney > General, there was not one word about this "historic > moment". I have not heard anyone call this an "historic moment," but yes, there was plenty of talk about it; no less than there has been about this time, and IIRC, more. - Steve G From jazz at qnet.com Sun Jun 7 09:06:12 2009 From: jazz at qnet.com (Bill Taylor) Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2009 07:06:12 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] SCOTUS: Sonia Sotomayor In-Reply-To: References: <309509.18120.qm@web110711.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <42479.144.183.224.2.1243361191.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A1C7EFA.6000305@gmail.com> Message-ID: <200906071446.n57Ekdm6002209@mail.zarquon.net> At 03:27 6/7/2009 -0500, Rich Rostrom wrote: > >Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote > > >Steve Gruenwald wrote: > >> > >> One odd tidbit I picked up somewhere: on the issue of > >> whether (if confirmed) she will be the first Hispanic SCt > >> justice. > >I've been hearing the first hispanic woman. (or first Latina) > >Something which has been frothed about a great deal. > >Wehn Albert Gonzales became the first Latino Attorney >General, there was not one word about this "historic >moment". Maybe you just weren't listening. I heard quite a bit about how Gonzales had met Bush in Texas, how Bush had wanted to make friends and contacts in the Hispanic community there as governor, and how as president he has a more diverse cabinet than even Clinton did. And how Gonzales was the first Hispanic. I just didn't here anyone using it as a negative. It wasn't a point of controversy. http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/10/bush.cabinet/index.html?iref=newssearch http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,138160,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,172817,00.html http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,144793,00.html From jazz at qnet.com Tue Jun 9 09:12:58 2009 From: jazz at qnet.com (jazz at qnet.com) Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2009 07:12:58 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? Message-ID: <1244556778.4a2e6dea60836@webmail.qnet.com> I'm not quite sure how I got on this mailing list, but they asked to spread the word so I am. Do you care about the Minnesota senatorial race? Let them know about it. Or not. I suppose it is good to keep the newsies motivated to report reali-ish news. If you don't keep them focused, they'll start reporting the latest color of Jessie Ventura's boas. Bill Taylor ----- Forwarded message from Minnesota Public Radio ----- Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:59:24 -0700 From: Minnesota Public Radio Reply-To: publicinsight at mpr.org Subject: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? To: jazz at qnet.com Franken v. Coleman: Do you care? Seven months since election day and Minnesotans still waiting for their second senator to be named. But an end to the waiting may come soon. The oral arguments in front of Minnesota's Supreme Court have wrapped up and a decision is expected by the end of the month. As someone who doesn't live in Minnesota, are you following the race? And if so -- why? Please click here to share your insights: http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=av19,gnna,kr,cqpe,jo1z,ki5o,cxdb Your response will help us as we look at the impact of the Supreme Court's decision nationally. And please forward this email to others who may be following the race. We look forward to hearing from you. Many thanks, Molly Bloom Analyst, Public Insight Journalism Minnesota Public Radio News mbloom at mpr.org *** The Public Insight Network is a group of thousands of Minnesotans who occasionally share their insights to help us cover the news. The network is a key part of MPR News' commitment to learning from our audience to make our news coverage stronger. http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=av19,gnna,kr,kezw,hfb2,ki5o,cxdb *** Do you know anyone who would like to be part of the Public Insight Network? Send them here: www.mpr.org/publicinsightform *** You received this e-mail because you gave Minnesota Public Radio permission to contact you. To unsubscribe, send an email to: unsubscribe-506781 at elabs7.com with the address: jazz at qnet.com in the subject line. *** To update your e-mail address, please follow this link: http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=av19,gnna,kr,gwqt,ag9i,ki5o,cxdb *** If you are having trouble viewing this e-mail, let us know at publicinsight at mpr.org. ----- End forwarded message ----- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.zarquon.net/pipermail/goglog/attachments/20090609/d3037c21/attachment.htm From SteveG at swhi.net Wed Jun 10 20:02:00 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 20:02:00 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] "The Article" (Pravda) In-Reply-To: References: <20090606064609.GA26951@dminet.com><01497AAAD2DE4A32AA3BD133C74634C9@StevePC><20090606145922.GA27622@dminet.com> Message-ID: <561B5D11F4F147AFB63CF5FEE87E0F12@StevePC> Michael Brian Bentley says: > It would be a whole lot easier to retire that debt if we are able to > export goods and services, but we've just spent the last couple > decades importing goods and services, and I don't think we're going > to suddenly become less frugal any time soon. "Less frugal" or not, it's going to be pretty darn hard to go back to anything much of a manufacturing (or raw materials) economy again. Part of the extreme interest in saving institutions like Chrysler and GM come out of the fear that that capacity is almost entirely gone - not to say Chrysler and GM are viable long-term countermeasures, of course. > The more belligerent oil trading partners are anxious to dump the > dollar and switch to another currency, but no other currency exists > yet that can do the work. As far as I've heard, those particular parties are suggesting no other currency per se, but rather oil itself as a standard against which to measure currencies. Hmmm. Just like gold - it comes out of the ground, right? Makes sense. > My guess is that government spending is about to begin a decade-long > planned decline, tracked by taxes on a delayed schedule. In absolute dollars, likely. As a percentage of GDP, I doubt it. One thing I find interesting about the current public debate (related to this article) is how much it focuses on "socialism" as a catch-all label. People keep talking about how the current administration's plans - that is, *any* plans that involve a lot of government spending, regardless of why or for what - are obviously tending toward rampant socialism. Then they throw in comments about how socialism has failed in Europe, and why would we be stupid enough to follow their lead? But AFAICT this is a simplistic and deceptive observation. What failed in Europe was (a) socializing the wrong things, and (b) doing it foolishly. That is, there's a big difference between increasing Government participation in (say) health insurance or even hospital care and taking over an airline. There are some things that a government can do fairly well - or at least that private industry has a record of screwing up just as badly! - and others that are best left to competition and the marketplace. And there's a big difference between taking over essential health care and deciding that every kind of elective surgery someone says is psychologically significant or otherwise made a "right" has to be fully covered. "Socialism" as an economic system and "socialism" as an attitude that everyone is entitled to everything are two totally different things. Look at China: not that I'd ever want to live there, but they did not fall in to the same traps as much of Europe did in this respect. Socialism seems to make a lot more sense when applied mainly to necessities, especially in an economy that has little room for anything but. And of course there's a big difference between saying every employer must permit unions - which as a principle does not logically flow from socialism as an economic theory at all, but historically has always been inextricably linked with it - and saying you have to give in to union pressures that will predictably, measurably destroy economic efficiency. The "socialist" states of western Europe, in their reaction against fascism, have tended to go overboard in all of these areas (and probably others I'm not thinking of). So now all their failings become synonymous with socialism, and anything that fits somehow within the theory of socialism - as merely distinguished from total uninhibited free-market capitalism - becomes synonymous with softheaded liberal fuzzy thinking. - Steve G From jeffbates at wwdb.org Wed Jun 10 23:35:14 2009 From: jeffbates at wwdb.org (Jeff Bates) Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2009 23:35:14 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? In-Reply-To: <1244556778.4a2e6dea60836@webmail.qnet.com> References: <1244556778.4a2e6dea60836@webmail.qnet.com> Message-ID: <200906110435.n5B4ZMPv030459@mail.zarquon.net> Colman was just told to pay Franken for a bunch of court costs because the first legal action taken didn't change the outcome of the recount. Doesn't take into account that the opinion is being appealed to the MN Supreme court (did I say that correctly?) As a casual observation, it does seem that the Franken side is pretty animated about having Colman give it up, and let Franken take the senate seat, while the Colman side may be just as adamant, they don't seem to be as vocal about it. One thing both sides are not saying - or more accurately, not bringing attention to - is that which ever the current tally favors, it is still a very small percentage of the total votes cast. In other words, essentially half the MN population voted against the half that "you" support (whichever side you belong to). Another observation, this issue is never far from "page 1" news. If anything happens, it peculates up in the news. Otherwise, we have to sit and wait for the judgements like everyone else. -Jeff At 09:12 AM 6/9/2009, you wrote: >Replies are directed to the list. >If you wish to respond only to the sender, please edit the To: line! >____________________________________________________________ > >I'm not quite sure how I got on this mailing list, but they asked to >spread the >word so I am. > >Do you care about the Minnesota senatorial race? Let them know about it. Or >not. I suppose it is good to keep the newsies motivated to report reali-ish >news. If you don't keep them focused, they'll start reporting the >latest color >of Jessie Ventura's boas. > >Bill Taylor > >----- Forwarded message from Minnesota Public Radio >----- > Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2009 14:59:24 -0700 > From: Minnesota Public Radio >Reply-To: publicinsight at mpr.org > Subject: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? > To: jazz at qnet.com > >Franken v. Coleman: Do you care? > >Seven months since election day and Minnesotans still waiting for their second >senator to be named. > >But an end to the waiting may come soon. The oral arguments in front of >Minnesota's Supreme Court have wrapped up and a decision is expected >by the end >of the month. > >As someone who doesn't live in Minnesota, are you following the >race? And if so >-- why? > >Please click here to share your insights: >http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=av19,gnna,kr,cqpe,jo1z,ki5o,cxdb > >Your response will help us as we look at the impact of the Supreme Court's >decision nationally. > >And please forward this email to others who may be following the race. We look >forward to hearing from you. > >Many thanks, >Molly Bloom >Analyst, Public Insight Journalism >Minnesota Public Radio News >mbloom at mpr.org > >*** > >The Public Insight Network is a group of thousands of Minnesotans who >occasionally share their insights to help us cover the news. The network is a >key part of MPR News' commitment to learning from our audience to >make our news >coverage stronger. > >http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=av19,gnna,kr,kezw,hfb2,ki5o,cxdb > >*** > >Do you know anyone who would like to be part of the Public Insight Network? >Send them here: www.mpr.org/publicinsightform > >*** > >You received this e-mail because you gave Minnesota Public Radio permission to >contact you. >To unsubscribe, send an email to: unsubscribe-506781 at elabs7.com with the >address: jazz at qnet.com in the subject line. > >*** > >To update your e-mail address, please follow this link: >http://www.elabs7.com/ct.html?rtr=on&s=av19,gnna,kr,gwqt,ag9i,ki5o,cxdb > >*** > >If you are having trouble viewing this e-mail, let us know at >publicinsight at mpr.org. > >----- End forwarded message ----- > > > > > >_______________________________________________ >Goglog mailing list >Goglog at mail.zarquon.net >http://mail.zarquon.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/goglog From SteveG at swhi.net Thu Jun 11 16:55:51 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:55:51 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? In-Reply-To: <200906110435.n5B4ZMPv030459@mail.zarquon.net> References: <1244556778.4a2e6dea60836@webmail.qnet.com> <200906110435.n5B4ZMPv030459@mail.zarquon.net> Message-ID: <154859A419A04915AC8CF250AA76CF7A@StevePC> Jeff Bates says: > Another observation, this issue is never far from "page 1" news. If > anything happens, it peculates up in the news. They can't peculate until they're in office. - Steve G From jeffbates at wwdb.org Mon Jun 15 07:28:30 2009 From: jeffbates at wwdb.org (Jeff Bates) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:28:30 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? In-Reply-To: <154859A419A04915AC8CF250AA76CF7A@StevePC> References: <1244556778.4a2e6dea60836@webmail.qnet.com> <200906110435.n5B4ZMPv030459@mail.zarquon.net> <154859A419A04915AC8CF250AA76CF7A@StevePC> Message-ID: <200906151229.n5FCTPTU005574@mail.zarquon.net> Hmm... A "new old saying" comes to mind: "One should not try to type when it is late at night and one's wits are not fully intact, lest one exposes just how fat his fingers really are." percolate, as in percolate up! (aarrggghhh) At 04:55 PM 6/11/2009, Steve Gruenwald wrote: >Replies are directed to the list. >If you wish to respond only to the sender, please edit the To: line! >____________________________________________________________ > >Jeff Bates says: > > > Another observation, this issue is never far from "page 1" news. If > > anything happens, it peculates up in the news. > >They can't peculate until they're in office. > > - Steve G > >_______________________________________________ >Goglog mailing list >Goglog at mail.zarquon.net >http://mail.zarquon.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/goglog From jeffbates at wwdb.org Mon Jun 15 07:28:30 2009 From: jeffbates at wwdb.org (Jeff Bates) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 07:28:30 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Are you still following the Franken-Coleman showdown? In-Reply-To: <154859A419A04915AC8CF250AA76CF7A@StevePC> References: <1244556778.4a2e6dea60836@webmail.qnet.com> <200906110435.n5B4ZMPv030459@mail.zarquon.net> <154859A419A04915AC8CF250AA76CF7A@StevePC> Message-ID: <200906151229.n5FCTPrF005575@mail.zarquon.net> Hmm... A "new old saying" comes to mind: "One should not try to type when it is late at night and one's wits are not fully intact, lest one exposes just how fat his fingers really are." percolate, as in percolate up! (aarrggghhh) At 04:55 PM 6/11/2009, Steve Gruenwald wrote: >Replies are directed to the list. >If you wish to respond only to the sender, please edit the To: line! >____________________________________________________________ > >Jeff Bates says: > > > Another observation, this issue is never far from "page 1" news. If > > anything happens, it peculates up in the news. > >They can't peculate until they're in office. > > - Steve G > >_______________________________________________ >Goglog mailing list >Goglog at mail.zarquon.net >http://mail.zarquon.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/goglog From ignatz at dminet.com Mon Jun 15 17:29:32 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:29:32 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Economy Message-ID: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Ok, I'm starting this here because I have every doubt it'll stay a dispassionate discussion of economics. The U.S. issues "fiat currency"--fiat money that is simply declared by the US government to be legal tender--"backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government", not bound to any underlying obligation to be backed by specie (e.g., you can't go in and ask for $1 worth of gold, silver, uranium, or any other real commodity.) Essentially, I'm very concerned that our fiat money that we're printing by the boatload to provide "stimulus" is going to result in really significant inflation; effectively, confidence in the value of a USD is going to be eroded by the awareness, both domestically and externally, of the staggering debt load being incurred by this action. A lot of economists seem to echo this concern. In a discussion at Duckon, one of us--if he wants to chime in and identify himself, he's welcome--calmly made the argument that the U.S. has so many resources to back the value of the currency that this isn't going to happen. The U.S. owns its land, infrastructure, etc., and this intrinsic value, plus our political stability, lend credence to our money. So what's the groupthink on this issue? Of course, we'll find out the hard way--by living through the upcoming months and years--but I know there are a goodly number of intelligent folk here who surely have informed opinions. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From SteveG at swhi.net Mon Jun 15 18:55:57 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:55:57 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: Dave Ihnat says: > Ok, I'm starting this here because I have every doubt it'll stay a > dispassionate discussion of economics. Well, since this list is allowed to argue politics, social theory, religion, etc., and get aggressive and angry (to a point), it probably will stay relatively dispassionate. > The U.S. issues "fiat currency"--fiat money that is simply > declared by the > US government to be legal tender--"backed by the full faith and credit > of the U.S. government", not bound to any underlying obligation to be > backed by specie (e.g., you can't go in and ask for $1 worth of gold, > silver, uranium, or any other real commodity.) Which *in theory* should mean it should keep its value as long as "the full faith and credit of the U.S. government" is good - but traditional thinking is against even that. That is, AFAIK most economists (and most people who actually influence the economy) want something a good deal more, even if they do believe there is no real risk of the Government defaulting on its debts. Since I am not a Nobel-winning economist (or any kind), I defer to the collective wisdom as far as that goes. > Essentially, I'm very concerned that our fiat money that > we're printing > by the boatload to provide "stimulus" is going to result in really > significant inflation; effectively, confidence in the value > of a USD is > going to be eroded by the awareness, both domestically and externally, > of the staggering debt load being incurred by this action. A lot of > economists seem to echo this concern. > In a discussion at Duckon, one of us--if he wants to chime in and > identify himself, he's welcome--calmly made the argument that the > U.S. has so many resources to back the value of the currency that this > isn't going to happen. Hmmm. "Calmly" is good, but I was wearing a "politics-free zone" ribbon at Duckon (a gift - so to speak - from Bill Roper at a past con), and consciously stuck by it, so I missed that one. > The U.S. owns its land, infrastructure, etc., > and this intrinsic value, plus our political stability, lend > credence to our money. It seems to me this *could possibly* mean a lot but it's very chancy. That is, to start with, AFAICT there is no easily determinable value for all the stuff the Government owns; the books are not kept on a "mark to market" basis. But it should be quite a lot *if* it could be sold for what you might establish as fair market value for each separate parcel here and now, or in the recent past, on an open and willing market for all of it. But that's a big, big IF. OK, let me try to be clearer. Let's say the Government owns a parcel of land of over 2.2 million acres of almost pristine wilderness, in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho - almost unpolluted, significant natural resources, and right near Yellowstone National Park. That should be worth a pretty penny per acre for residential and related development. Only problem is, it *is* Yellowstone National Park. Why is that a problem? It won't sell for nearly that price, because once it's sold, it won't be near a protected national park any more. Also, we're necessarily talking about selling in a depressed market - how depressed we don't know, but probably pretty badly if you start trying to sell off national parks. Even if two years ago you could find enough buyers who can afford to buy a sizeable part of it for what it was worth per acre then, you won't nearly as many willing to buy for the same price now, and it will be far worse. So how in the world can you put a meaningful value on it? One might say it is worth far more as *potentially* for sale than it could ever actually be sold for. I suspect some similarly depressing imponderables apply to a large part of the Government's assets. A lot of our other land, especially of the part that is already deemed "excess," is polluted, and we have policies requiring that it be cleaned up. We have lots of secondhand but usable armaments, but strong policies against selling most of them to most customers who would pay the highest prices. We have - no, forget it, we don't have vast reserves of specialty metals and other raw materials any more. We sold those already. Anyway, we have policies against selling in ways that will be anti-competitive, and selling to people with criminal or other unsavory records, or selling in ways that will disadvantage small business or cause pollution or economic dislocation. And I'm not suggesting that any of these are clearly bad policies, but they do interfere with realizing the highest cash value most marketers would put on a lot of the assets. And all that's aside from the general effect on the market of a huge sell-off by one of the biggest property owners there is. We're talking fire sale prices, I think. Even when the policies are favorable to making money, they are not carried out. The basic law on disposing of excess real estate in general *requires* that the Government get fair value for it. This was true, for instance, under the Base Realignment and Closure Act, under which many, many valuable acres of former Defense facilities have been disposed of. I know of none that were actually sold for anything remotely approaching fair value. Political deals were cut under which one bizarre alternative to actual cash value or another was inserted in the transactions. Assets were given free to local communities on the ostensible basis that closure of the base was going to cause economic hardship, in cases where the opposite was demonstrably true. We threw away hundreds of millions that I know of (or think I do), and I don't know most of it. Again, I'm not saying that there was no legitimate "public good" involved - arguably there was - but the result as I saw it was that the Government did not get a fair return (as measured in dollars) even when the law said to. Now, does this mean the scope of the Federal resources is not large enough to prevent inflation on the basis of nothing but "full faith and credit"? No, I would think it still might, *if* investors believe that when push comes to shove the Government will truly get serious about its own financial best interests. Confidence is the key, not reality, right? So all we have to do is point out to people that a liberal Democratic majority in all branches of Government is likely to result in hard-nosed, tight-fisted, money-grubbing policies on disposition of public resources . . . . What was the question, again? Maybe someone else had better have a shot at it. - Steve G From drsulak at zarquon.net Mon Jun 15 19:55:49 2009 From: drsulak at zarquon.net (Dale Sulak) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 19:55:49 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: <4A36ED95.60407@zarquon.net> When I hear "full faith and credit", I hear: - The value of everything everybody owns/controls. The government is us! The dollar is backed by how we are willing/able to use those total assets. We were in a great depression, yet we were able to mobilize as a country to provide overwhelming amount of people and material for WWII. Were we fully tapped out for WWII, or could we have done more? Is this a worse crisis? Can we squander vast amounts of resources? Yes we can. But if we assume our leadership isn't completely devoid of ability, we will be ok. Dale. From jazz at qnet.com Mon Jun 15 22:34:06 2009 From: jazz at qnet.com (Bill Taylor) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:34:06 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: <200906160334.n5G3YLnP009956@mail.zarquon.net> At 17:29 6/15/2009 -0500, Dave Ihnat wrote: >Ok, I'm starting this here because I have every doubt it'll stay a >dispassionate discussion of economics. > >The U.S. issues "fiat currency"--fiat money that is simply declared by the >US government to be legal tender--"backed by the full faith and credit >of the U.S. government", not bound to any underlying obligation to be >backed by specie (e.g., you can't go in and ask for $1 worth of gold, >silver, uranium, or any other real commodity.) > >Essentially, I'm very concerned that our fiat money that we're printing >by the boatload to provide "stimulus" is going to result in really >significant inflation; effectively, confidence in the value of a USD is >going to be eroded by the awareness, both domestically and externally, >of the staggering debt load being incurred by this action. A lot of >economists seem to echo this concern. > >In a discussion at Duckon, one of us--if he wants to chime in and >identify himself, he's welcome--calmly made the argument that the >U.S. has so many resources to back the value of the currency that this >isn't going to happen. The U.S. owns its land, infrastructure, etc., >and this intrinsic value, plus our political stability, lend credence to >our money. I think the "problem" so to speak, is a slippery slope argument. Or perhaps a warning track argument. I'm a bit unsure which metaphor is more appropriate. The real underlying problem that is of great concern would be that so much currency would be in circulation that no one found it to be of value. That So Much amount is unspecified, but it seems to exist out there, somewhere short of infinity, at least by argument. We know that we are definitely short of that value now. We know that because people still treat currency as if it were valuable and don't treat it trivially. Things are pretty stable now, so we could have a bit more and still be in the valuable range. But if we had a lot more, we'd be in the trivial range. Bad news for the money. So, when do we cross from Here to There? And how to know in advance we're about to do it, so as to stop short of it? That is where the practical argument lies. No one wants to go there, so the safest thing is to stop now. Perhaps retreat a bit, just to be sure. But stopping now would mean having a smaller money supply, a generally more sluggish economy, a slower recovery, and more economic pain spread over more people. Usually situations to be avoided, at least politically. Injecting the money loosens things up, gets activity up, and generally...uh... stimulates a faster recovery. At the price of a somewhat devalued currency for some period of time. The trick then is to remove the equivalent amount at some point in the future, so that the recovery can be restored to the true value it would have had without the stimulus. So you hear the voices that say to stop, but over caution can kill you as surely as recklessness. And we know that over caution can cause a real problem in the near term, whereas any problems from recklessness are in a relatively far future. But saying true value, or even devalued currency, really has its roots in that phrase "full faith and credit of the United States". To the extent people believe the United States government and economy is worth anything, the money is worth something. When that belief or faith shrinks or disappears, the money goes with it. Backing it with gold or diamonds or chocolate covered bamboo is just shifting the same problem to new ground. If you don't care about it, it is valueless. Choosing something of widespread acceptance is a good, but far from perfect solution. How is it different to say one hundred US dollars to one ounce of gold to one hundred euros vs one thousand US dollars to one ounce of gold to one hundred euros. Pull the gold out and you still have an equivalency. There is an opportunity to buy the gold, wait for the shift and sell and thus profit. But currency traders do that today, without the gold. Its just a McGuffin. Something to point at and reference, but not particularly valuable or otherwise necessary. When it fades away, the motivations of the actors stays largely the same. In the end, I do care about the downside. But titrating the economy to somewhere short of the tipping point seems to me to be a doable thing. The economy will recover, and recover faster this way. But then greed takes over, and the caution of restabilizing by shrinking the money supply in good times will be delayed. They will say, "Not now, let us go a bit further". That is the time I fear. We'll run up a debt now, and not choose to repay it when we can. Then another crash will happen and we'll be well and truly sunk. From jazz at qnet.com Mon Jun 15 22:34:06 2009 From: jazz at qnet.com (Bill Taylor) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:34:06 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: <200906160334.n5G3YLS8009957@mail.zarquon.net> At 17:29 6/15/2009 -0500, Dave Ihnat wrote: >Ok, I'm starting this here because I have every doubt it'll stay a >dispassionate discussion of economics. > >The U.S. issues "fiat currency"--fiat money that is simply declared by the >US government to be legal tender--"backed by the full faith and credit >of the U.S. government", not bound to any underlying obligation to be >backed by specie (e.g., you can't go in and ask for $1 worth of gold, >silver, uranium, or any other real commodity.) > >Essentially, I'm very concerned that our fiat money that we're printing >by the boatload to provide "stimulus" is going to result in really >significant inflation; effectively, confidence in the value of a USD is >going to be eroded by the awareness, both domestically and externally, >of the staggering debt load being incurred by this action. A lot of >economists seem to echo this concern. > >In a discussion at Duckon, one of us--if he wants to chime in and >identify himself, he's welcome--calmly made the argument that the >U.S. has so many resources to back the value of the currency that this >isn't going to happen. The U.S. owns its land, infrastructure, etc., >and this intrinsic value, plus our political stability, lend credence to >our money. I think the "problem" so to speak, is a slippery slope argument. Or perhaps a warning track argument. I'm a bit unsure which metaphor is more appropriate. The real underlying problem that is of great concern would be that so much currency would be in circulation that no one found it to be of value. That So Much amount is unspecified, but it seems to exist out there, somewhere short of infinity, at least by argument. We know that we are definitely short of that value now. We know that because people still treat currency as if it were valuable and don't treat it trivially. Things are pretty stable now, so we could have a bit more and still be in the valuable range. But if we had a lot more, we'd be in the trivial range. Bad news for the money. So, when do we cross from Here to There? And how to know in advance we're about to do it, so as to stop short of it? That is where the practical argument lies. No one wants to go there, so the safest thing is to stop now. Perhaps retreat a bit, just to be sure. But stopping now would mean having a smaller money supply, a generally more sluggish economy, a slower recovery, and more economic pain spread over more people. Usually situations to be avoided, at least politically. Injecting the money loosens things up, gets activity up, and generally...uh... stimulates a faster recovery. At the price of a somewhat devalued currency for some period of time. The trick then is to remove the equivalent amount at some point in the future, so that the recovery can be restored to the true value it would have had without the stimulus. So you hear the voices that say to stop, but over caution can kill you as surely as recklessness. And we know that over caution can cause a real problem in the near term, whereas any problems from recklessness are in a relatively far future. But saying true value, or even devalued currency, really has its roots in that phrase "full faith and credit of the United States". To the extent people believe the United States government and economy is worth anything, the money is worth something. When that belief or faith shrinks or disappears, the money goes with it. Backing it with gold or diamonds or chocolate covered bamboo is just shifting the same problem to new ground. If you don't care about it, it is valueless. Choosing something of widespread acceptance is a good, but far from perfect solution. How is it different to say one hundred US dollars to one ounce of gold to one hundred euros vs one thousand US dollars to one ounce of gold to one hundred euros. Pull the gold out and you still have an equivalency. There is an opportunity to buy the gold, wait for the shift and sell and thus profit. But currency traders do that today, without the gold. Its just a McGuffin. Something to point at and reference, but not particularly valuable or otherwise necessary. When it fades away, the motivations of the actors stays largely the same. In the end, I do care about the downside. But titrating the economy to somewhere short of the tipping point seems to me to be a doable thing. The economy will recover, and recover faster this way. But then greed takes over, and the caution of restabilizing by shrinking the money supply in good times will be delayed. They will say, "Not now, let us go a bit further". That is the time I fear. We'll run up a debt now, and not choose to repay it when we can. Then another crash will happen and we'll be well and truly sunk. From mhagerman at worldnet.att.net Mon Jun 15 23:15:47 2009 From: mhagerman at worldnet.att.net (Mark Hagerman) Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2009 23:15:47 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: <4AEDD073-A55E-4137-AD36-8B4248CEDB28@worldnet.att.net> On 2009-Jun-15 , at 17:29, Dave Ihnat wrote: > Essentially, I'm very concerned that our fiat money that we're > printing > by the boatload to provide "stimulus" is going to result in really > significant inflation; effectively, confidence in the value of a > USD is > going to be eroded by the awareness, both domestically and externally, > of the staggering debt load being incurred by this action. A lot of > economists seem to echo this concern. Terminology first. "Inflation" is defined as an increase in the amount of money in circulation. Inflation is correlated (strongly, most of the time) to general price levels, so inflation (of the currency) usually leads to "price inflation", which is what most people think of as "inflation". I haven't been keeping track of the various measures of the money supply. I'm assuming you've checked, and that there's an actual increase. (And I'm hardly surprised, given recent government actions.) In my macro econ course, we were told: PQ = MV That is, the general price level (P) times the quantity of goods available (Q) must equal the amount of money (M) times the velocity of money (V). (I gather V is something like "the number of times the average dollar goes through a transaction per year.) Let's say (arguendo) that M has been doubled. V has likely decreased somewhat, as frightened consumers (ME!) have started accumulating reserves against possible job loss, etc. But V likely hasn't decreased to 1/2 its old (early 2007?) value. Q, I judge, hasn't changed much...if anything, it's likely contracted. The net result should be an increase in general prices. As the economy starts to recover, the fear factor declines, and V rises, pushing P still higher...unless we can boost overall productivity by the same factor as the increase in money (Q'/Q = M'/M), which seems unlikely to me. In short, my opinion is that the purchasing power of the dollar will drop drastically over the next five to ten years. If BHO continues on this course, we may get a Weimar-type hyperinflation (spend your money now; by nightfall it will lose half its value). Mark Hagerman From ben at bl.com Tue Jun 16 02:39:45 2009 From: ben at bl.com (Ben Liberman) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 02:39:45 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: At 5:29 PM -0500 6/15/09, Dave Ihnat wrote: >Replies are directed to the list. >If you wish to respond only to the sender, please edit the To: line! >____________________________________________________________ >Ok, I'm starting this here because I have every doubt it'll stay a >dispassionate discussion of economics. > >The U.S. issues "fiat currency"--fiat money that is simply declared by the >US government to be legal tender--"backed by the full faith and credit >of the U.S. government", not bound to any underlying obligation to be >backed by specie (e.g., you can't go in and ask for $1 worth of gold, >silver, uranium, or any other real commodity.) > >Essentially, I'm very concerned that our fiat money that we're printing >by the boatload to provide "stimulus" is going to result in really >significant inflation; effectively, confidence in the value of a USD is >going to be eroded by the awareness, both domestically and externally, >of the staggering debt load being incurred by this action. A lot of >economists seem to echo this concern. > >In a discussion at Duckon, one of us--if he wants to chime in and >identify himself, he's welcome--calmly made the argument that the >U.S. has so many resources to back the value of the currency that this >isn't going to happen. The U.S. owns its land, infrastructure, etc., >and this intrinsic value, plus our political stability, lend credence to >our money. There was Scotch involved. I said two things. The first was in relation to the possibility of a change of reserve currency to the Euro. This I deemed highly unlikely for many reasons, one of which is that the European countries use a different accounting practice in calculating their national debt. When we build a battleship or a highway we count it as money spent and it goes off the books. In Europe they count it as a capital asset and use it to offset government debt. They have long been in far worse shape than we are in that regard. The second thing that I said was that I was not very worried about inflation, and I meant price inflation. Most of the stimulus spending will end up retiring corporate and personal debt, which means that we will NOT have more dollars chasing the same available goods. Some of the stimulus dollars have been put into the banking system to provide liquidity to the lending market to try to increase money velocity. Decreased velocity, while temporary, does mean a shrinking effective money supply, which would be deflationary over the long haul if it were allowed to continue over the long haul - not very likely. Many banks were forced to take stimulus money, which they are now asking permission to repay. The reasoning was that if every bank got stimulus cash then people would not be able to tell which ones needed it and wouldn't move their funds away to other banks. This was to prevent herd behavior from causing bank failures (even if some of those mismanaged banks really should have been reorganized) -- ------------------------------ ben at BL.COM Ben Liberman ------------------------------ From ignatz at dminet.com Tue Jun 16 08:45:22 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 08:45:22 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: <20090616134522.GA25651@dminet.com> On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 02:39:45AM -0500, Ben Liberman wrote: > There was Scotch involved. A very small amount. Really. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From mbcrui at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 09:21:45 2009 From: mbcrui at gmail.com (Mary Cruickshank Peed) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:21:45 -0400 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> Message-ID: <4A37AA79.5040906@gmail.com> Steve Gruenwald wrote: > Let's say the Government owns a parcel of land of over 2.2 > million acres of almost pristine wilderness, in Wyoming, > Montana, and Idaho - almost unpolluted, significant natural > resources, and right near Yellowstone National Park. That > should be worth a pretty penny per acre for residential and > related development. Only problem is, it *is* Yellowstone > National Park. But you don't have to sell the land. The state and national parks up here often sell off the timber or other national resources. If you sell Yellowstone by the acre, you're going to screw the market. If you sell the lumber off a couple of hundred acres of Yellowstone and it's harvested in a sustainable manner, no one is going to notice (well, except the protesters who believe all logging or mining is wrong.) Which has nothing to do with the economic discussion, of course, other than to point out that the United States Government owns a LOT of harvestable natural resources. A LOT. If you took Hiawatha National Forest here in the UP -- about 100,000 acres, and clear cut the timber off all of it (it's been done before, this is second growth forest planted by the CCC) and sold it on the open market, think of the money you'd make! (Of course you'd also devastate 100,000 acres again. And it'd take 70 to 80 years to renew and I'd be one of the first to be out there protesting, but it's as likely as selling Yellowstone. However, I have no problem with a sustainable harvest in national forests... even Yellowstone. Mining is more problematic... I need more coffee, I'm rambling... but my point (and I do have one:) is that the national debt is nowhere near the value of JUST the national resources the United States owns. I'm not particularly worried about inflation at this point. I'm more worried about my own debt and the ability to pay it. Mary -- -- Mary Cruickshank Peed We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong. - Sir Arthur Eddington From steveg at swhi.net Tue Jun 16 10:04:12 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:04:12 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <4A36ED95.60407@zarquon.net> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> <4A36ED95.60407@zarquon.net> Message-ID: <10364.144.183.224.2.1245164652.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Dale Sulak wrote: > When I hear "full faith and credit", I hear: > - The value of everything everybody owns/controls. The government is us! Only to the extent that "us" put up the resources. The "full faith and credit" only includes "the value of everything everybody owns/ controls" if the Government is able to get its hands on it, through taxation or otherwise. > We were in a great depression, yet we were able to mobilize as a country > to provide overwhelming amount of people and material for WWII. We did this mainly by tapping into existing domestic industries that were willing and able to manufacture and sell vastly increased amounts of hardware *for a profit.* A big part of the issue here is the apparent lack of such industries. And we did it as a result of a world war. People worked overtime, donated any scrap metal ("scrap" meaning anything they could do without), and made other sacrifices because they thought it was the right thing to do to fight the enemy. Somehow I don't see that happening again when the enemy seems to be our own banking, financial, and other domestic industries. We also did it by tolerating a big increase in national debt. In 1929, the national debt was $199,189,276,283.53 (all figures normalized to 2006 dollars). In 1939 it was $586,080,179,871.16. By 1945 it was $2,906,541,431,572.25 - more than 10X the 1929 figure. (It went up some 78% in 1943 alone!) It then went down to a first postwar low of $1,932,470,054,166.50 in 1958, and a second low of $1,931,868,265,364.22 in 1970 - still almost 10X the 1929 figure - and has climbed pretty steadily since then. In 2008 it was $8,822,383,322,490.19 - 3X the high at the end of WWII, and 44X the 1929 figure, in constant dollars. That's $28,767.39 per resident, taxpayer or not. So let's assume we can *repeat* the success we had last time we fixed a depression, and somehow do it without the moral support of a world war . . . would that be a good thing? > Were we fully tapped out for WWII, or could we have done more? Look at the numbers. You decide. - Steve G From steveg at swhi.net Tue Jun 16 10:37:40 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 10:37:40 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <4A37AA79.5040906@gmail.com> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> <4A37AA79.5040906@gmail.com> Message-ID: <56116.144.183.224.2.1245166660.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote: > But you don't have to sell the land. The state and national parks up > here often sell off the timber or other national resources. Yes, they already do. AFAIK it doesn't earn that much. > I need more coffee, I'm rambling... but my point (and I do have one:) is > that the national debt is nowhere near the value of JUST the national > resources the United States owns. I seriously doubt that (not the coffee part). Do you have any numbers for the value of renewable resources on Federal land? - Steve G From mbcrui at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 11:34:01 2009 From: mbcrui at gmail.com (Mary Cruickshank Peed) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:34:01 -0400 Subject: [Goglog] Economy In-Reply-To: <56116.144.183.224.2.1245166660.squirrel@www.swhi.net> References: <20090615222932.GA9680@dminet.com> <4A37AA79.5040906@gmail.com> <56116.144.183.224.2.1245166660.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Message-ID: <4A37C979.4050904@gmail.com> Steve Gruenwald wrote: > Yes, they already do. AFAIK it doesn't earn that much. > Because they sell it WAY THE HELL under market value. And they sell a set, limited amount. And there are a million regulations you have to follow. And yet, the guys who manage to get the contracts to harvest on federal land make a LOT of money from it. Because they buy the trees way the hell under market value. I have anecdotal evidence from having coffee with the loggers :) > I seriously doubt that (not the coffee part). Do you have > any numbers for the value of renewable resources on Federal > land? > I don't. But I know that grazing rights on federal lands in the west were way under market value, there's been argument about it for many years. I also know that the timber sold from the national forests up here is sold way under market value just by talking to the lumber harvesters. That I might be able to get numbers on, let me talk to a few people. Here's something interesting. Using the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act, the US government made $95 million dollars selling federal lands isolated by surrounding private properties, or lands that have clear residential or commercial worth as of Nov 2007. http://www.landreport.com/2007/11/bureau-of-land-management-makes-push-to-buy-western-land/ http://www.landreport.com/2007/10/north-dakota-badlands-sale-draws-ire-of-locals/ -- ok, they're not selling Yellowstone, but apparently the federal government makes deals to see off it's land on occasion. -- -- Mary Cruickshank Peed We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong. - Sir Arthur Eddington From steveg at swhi.net Tue Jun 16 14:32:54 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:32:54 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] Economy Message-ID: <17621.144.183.224.2.1245180774.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote: >> Yes, they already do. AFAIK it doesn't earn that much. >> > Because they sell it WAY THE HELL under market value. As I said. And that's in part because - > there are a million regulations you have to follow. > And yet, the guys who manage to get the contracts to harvest on > federal land make a LOT of money from it. Right - they do, we don't. > I also know that the timber sold from the national forests up > here is sold way under market value just by talking to the lumber harvesters. That I might be able to get numbers on, let me talk to a few people. If you can get something reasonably honest and well-informed on what it's really worth, that would be interesting. > Here's something interesting. Using the Federal Land Transaction Facilitation Act, the US government made $95 million dollars selling federal lands isolated by surrounding private properties Yes . . . land worth how much? And how does $95 million compare to the national debt? I did not see a dip after 2007. I'm not saying it can't be done right. I'm just saying (a) it's unlikely it will, and (b) if it were, I have no confidence that it would dig us well out of our hole. - Steve G From mbcrui at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 14:44:34 2009 From: mbcrui at gmail.com (Mary Cruickshank Peed) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:44:34 -0400 Subject: [Goglog] [Fwd: Re: Economy] Message-ID: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> Sorry, somehow that only went to Steve. Steve Gruenwald wrote: >> And yet, the guys who manage to get the contracts to harvest on >> federal land make a LOT of money from it. >> > > Right - they do, we don't. > And if the timber were sold at a fair market value, then we would. The system is rigged... and the guys who buy the grazing rights and timber rights and mining rights like it that way... and it's not going to change until there are more people paying attention. A chunk of Hiawatha National Forest was going to be sold (or leased? I was in Chicago and don't recall exactly) to James River Corporation to put a lumber mill on... A bunch of local people got pissed off, organized, and "magically" the sale fell through... too much public pressure. I have a call into one of my cousins who does timber land estimations (you own land, they come and tell you how much the timber on it is worth). I'll let you know what comes of that. > I'm not saying it can't be done right. I'm just saying (a) it's > unlikely it will, and (b) if it were, I have no confidence that > it would dig us well out of our hole. > I never imagined it would. However, if we're down to selling Yellowstone by the acre, we'd make more money from selling the timber and renewable resources than from selling the land. -- -- Mary Cruickshank Peed We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong. - Sir Arthur Eddington -- -- Mary Cruickshank Peed We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong. - Sir Arthur Eddington From Cougar at CasaDelGato.Com Tue Jun 16 14:49:13 2009 From: Cougar at CasaDelGato.Com (John G. Lussmyer) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:49:13 -0700 Subject: [Goglog] [Fwd: Re: Economy] In-Reply-To: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> References: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A37F739.6070309@CasaDelGato.Com> Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote: > I never imagined it would. However, if we're down to selling > Yellowstone by the acre, we'd make more money from selling the timber > and renewable resources than from selling the land. > I can just see getting homeowners insurance for a house built on that land. Lets see, you want insurance for a house built on a giant volcano? Yeah, right... -- -- John G. Lussmyer mailto:Cougar at CasaDelGato.Com Electric Vehicle Battery Monitoring Systems, http://www.CasaDelGato.com From steveg at swhi.net Tue Jun 16 14:51:46 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:51:46 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] [Fwd: Re: Economy] In-Reply-To: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> References: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> Message-ID: <40372.144.183.224.2.1245181906.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote: > However, if we're down to selling > Yellowstone by the acre, we'd make more money from selling the timber > and renewable resources than from selling the land. That should not be true. The selling price on the open market should include the present value of the timber, minerals, and/or whatever else is the "highest use" of the land. If timber is it, then the two should be equivalent, depending only on whether we have more need of the cash in hand or the long-term revenue stream. If someone else can farm the land for timber more efficiently than the US can, then by any measure we should make *more* money selling the land than only selling the timber. - Steve G From steveg at swhi.net Tue Jun 16 14:56:42 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 14:56:42 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] [Fwd: Re: Economy] In-Reply-To: <4A37F739.6070309@CasaDelGato.Com> References: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> <4A37F739.6070309@CasaDelGato.Com> Message-ID: <20351.144.183.224.2.1245182202.squirrel@www.swhi.net> John G. Lussmyer wrote: > I can just see getting homeowners insurance for a house built on that land. > Lets see, you want insurance for a house built on a giant volcano? > Yeah, right... Ask the underwriter if his claim history for the area covers more than 60,000 years. - Steve G From mbcrui at gmail.com Tue Jun 16 15:27:14 2009 From: mbcrui at gmail.com (Mary Cruickshank Peed) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:27:14 -0400 Subject: [Goglog] [Fwd: Re: Economy] In-Reply-To: <40372.144.183.224.2.1245181906.squirrel@www.swhi.net> References: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> <40372.144.183.224.2.1245181906.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Message-ID: <4A380022.1090603@gmail.com> Steve Gruenwald wrote: > Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote: > >> However, if we're down to selling >> Yellowstone by the acre, we'd make more money from selling the timber >> and renewable resources than from selling the land. >> > > That should not be true. The key being the "renewable" part. We can sell the timber on it many many times. We can only sell the land once. So while we'd probably get more money in the short term from selling the land and the valuable assets, we'd make more money in the long run (and the government should be in it for the long run) by selling the renewable resources. Mary -- -- Mary Cruickshank Peed We are bits of stellar matter that got cold by accident, bits of a star gone wrong. - Sir Arthur Eddington From steveg at swhi.net Tue Jun 16 16:07:19 2009 From: steveg at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 16:07:19 -0500 (CDT) Subject: [Goglog] [Fwd: Re: Economy] In-Reply-To: <4A380022.1090603@gmail.com> References: <4A37F622.6020003@gmail.com> <40372.144.183.224.2.1245181906.squirrel@www.swhi.net> <4A380022.1090603@gmail.com> Message-ID: <31729.144.183.224.2.1245186439.squirrel@www.swhi.net> Mary Cruickshank Peed wrote: > The key being the "renewable" part. We can sell the timber on it many > many times. So can the buyer. The land will be priced accordingly. > So while we'd probably get more money in the short term from selling the > land and the valuable assets, we'd make more money in the long run (and > the government should be in it for the long run) by selling the > renewable resources. The Government would *not* be in it for the long run if the reason for the sale is to buy our way out of impending hyperinflation. - Steve G From sarahksmom at yahoo.com Tue Jun 16 17:44:32 2009 From: sarahksmom at yahoo.com (sarahksmom) Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2009 15:44:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [Goglog] Economy Message-ID: <329315.39938.qm@web58705.mail.re1.yahoo.com> I am not an economist, either. I also haven't read all the messages in this thread, so maybe my ideas have already been expressed by someone else or even refuted before I get them out. I've read Steve G.'s and Dale's initial responses. But neither of them mentioned agrarian policy. I think divesting ourselves massively of food production is even stupider than off-shoring manufacturing. We can't eat subdivisions, although the inhabitants thereof may prove tasty. Dale mentioned the competence of leadership, but for me that begs the question: who are the real leaders of this country? I foresee a protracted battle for true leadership between the government and corporate, that is if we can keep people who think along the same lines as Pres. Obama in elected office. I don't know if I always prefer govt. to corp., but in situations like this, and like the previous Great Depression, govt. was the inspired actor. Govt. reined in the excesses of corp. Will corp. let any of this happen? Does anybody in corp. have an attention span that goes beyond the next quarterly report? The only way I can see corp. coming around is by massive education and activation of stockholders. I think stockholders should be the logical arbiters of executive pay, not just token advisers without any real power to decide. I also like the shift govt. is trending toward now of treatment over punishment for drug addicts. This all affects the economy. The more we can make our people into real resources rather than drains on the economy, the better off we will all be. This includes investment in education, health care (including family planning and disease prevention), Is there really a market for selling parcels of govt. owned land? God, I hope not. I'd like more localities to look at the Portland, OR model of development as a means of restoring our agrarian base and creating livable cities. I'd like to see a moratorium on subdivisions, or, if not that, a requirement for a percentage of acreage to be devoted to food cultivation, or at least natural (as opposed to chemically enhanced) green space. I'd like to see premium subsidies (or tax credits) for organic farming and a reduction in subsidies for non-organic farming. This would provide a health and economic benefit. The healthier we are, the less we will have to spend on treating preventable disease. The more food we produce and consume locally, the less fuel we use for transport to distant markets. It seems to me that Pres. Obama and his advisers are kindly disposed to rethinking how the economy runs, and that none of these ideas is considered too far-fetched or unworkable, in and of itself. The obstructionist positions of the previous administration that had rendered them effectively unworkable are being dismantled. Miriam Solon "Things are not as they seem; nor are they otherwise." --Shakyamuni Buddha, "Lankavatara Sutra" --- On Mon, 6/15/09, Dale Sulak wrote: > From: Dale Sulak > Subject: Re: [Goglog] Economy > To: "The Demagogue Dialogue Mailing List" > Date: Monday, June 15, 2009, 7:55 PM > Replies are directed to the list. > If you wish to respond only to the sender, please edit the > To: line! > ____________________________________________________________ > When I hear "full faith and credit", I hear: > - The value of everything everybody owns/controls. > The government is us! > > The dollar is backed by how we are willing/able to use > those total assets. > > We were in a great depression, yet we were able to mobilize > as a country > to provide overwhelming amount of people and material for > WWII. Were we > fully tapped out for WWII, or could we have done > more? Is this a worse > crisis? > > Can we squander vast amounts of resources? Yes we > can. But if we > assume our leadership isn't completely devoid of ability, > we will be ok. > > Dale. > _______________________________________________ > Goglog mailing list > Goglog at mail.zarquon.net > http://mail.zarquon.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/goglog > From mhagerman at worldnet.att.net Thu Jun 18 19:26:51 2009 From: mhagerman at worldnet.att.net (Mark Hagerman) Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:26:51 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Sosa...and a bigger issue... References: <20090618140844.GA25014@dminet.com> Message-ID: <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> Begin forwarded message: > From: Dave Ihnat > Date: 2009-June-18 09:08:44 (CDT) > To: GT > Subject: Sosa...and a bigger issue... > Reply-To: gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org > > > > As I've heard the reports, "some lawyers" released the information, > but > didn't want to be identified. Understandable, since they violated a > court order. But I haven't noticed any hooraw about THAT. > > It seems a flagrant violation of both the law and professional ethics. > Why aren't these bozos names being bruited about, and why aren't they > all in the process of being disbarred? The damage this does to > trust in > the legal system is immense--I certainly can't trust that any > information > entrusted to the legal system will be protected. I'm putting my reply in Goglog, because the (well, my) answer leans that way. The U. S. has been drifting further from "law" every year, in the direction of "personal conscience". Look at the current Supreme Court nominee; her past statements, and Obama's reasons for nominating her, demonstrate (to me) that she has no interest in the text of the Constitution, nor in the original intent of the writers. She just wants to make the world a better place, even if that means gutting the Constitution. Look at the recent "bonuses for executives of failed banks" brouhaha. Those bonuses were a matter of contractual obligation, but our Congresscritters don't care a damn about keeping contractual promises. These lawyers doubtless "felt" that a "higher purpose" was being served by releasing confidential information. Mark Hagerman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.zarquon.net/pipermail/goglog/attachments/20090618/68a2f0fe/attachment.htm From ignatz at dminet.com Fri Jun 19 10:28:19 2009 From: ignatz at dminet.com (Dave Ihnat) Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2009 10:28:19 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Sosa...and a bigger issue... In-Reply-To: <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> References: <20090618140844.GA25014@dminet.com> <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: <20090619152819.GA27637@dminet.com> On Thu, Jun 18, 2009 at 07:26:51PM -0500, Mark Hagerman wrote: > I'm putting my reply in Goglog, because the (well, my) answer leans that > way. Ok. > The U. S. has been drifting further from "law" every year, in the > direction of "personal conscience". This is cyclic. > Look at the current Supreme Court nominee; her past statements, > and Obama's reasons for nominating her, demonstrate (to me) that she > has no interest in the text of the Constitution, nor in the original > intent of the writers. She just wants to make the world a better place, > even if that means gutting the Constitution. Hmm...have you actually looked up her creds? However, it doesn't really matter, for a couple of reasons. Activist judges are nothing new--they tend to be promoted by Democratic administrations, yes. The keynote isn't what their personal views may be--they can't unilaterally force decisions on the SCOTUS. And their decisions, when reviewed against the Constitution, still have to be--well, Constitutional. Another interesting item is that, once judges are seated on the SCOTUS, they tend to be disappointing to their proponents. Something about being no longer beholden to their patrons makes them less "party line". However, I'll also point out that the past 8 years, the Bush administration was the champ at gutting the Constitution--they did end runs evey which way they could, and with their overwhelming control of the government for most of that time, it was pretty horrific. It will be decades before we repair that damage, if we ever can. > Look at the recent "bonuses for executives of failed banks" brouhaha. > Those bonuses were a matter of contractual obligation, but our > Congresscritters don't care a damn about keeping contractual promises. That really depends--if the contract is crooked, it shouldn't be honored. Many of these were inside "good ole' boy" contracts. You can't call these into the conversation just because they've been found out. HOWEVER--what SHOULD be called in is that Congress has no right to get involved. These contracts should have been brought to court and decided based on existing laws and regulations. > These lawyers doubtless "felt" that a "higher purpose" was being served > by releasing confidential information. And a higher purpose will be served by their being disbarred and brought up on charges for violating a court order. It doesnt' matter what someone believes--the Constitution spells it out: o Legislative passes laws. o Executive sees to it they're carried out. o Judicial determines if they are actually Constitutional (at the highest level). An activist SCOTUS is no problem--as long as its decisions are actually based on the Constitution. But in *any* case, if they make a decision the Legislative branch doesn't like, they are free to write a new law. Cheers, -- Dave Ihnat ignatz at dminet.com From SteveG at swhi.net Sun Jun 21 10:21:59 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:21:59 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Sosa...and a bigger issue... In-Reply-To: <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> References: <20090618140844.GA25014@dminet.com> <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: <9C5A3FE37ABA49E4A31BA7F5FA59FD12@StevePC> Mark Hagerman says: The U. S. has been drifting further from "law" every year, in the direction of "personal conscience". Hardly. In a general way, as Dave says it's cyclic - not to say regular, but comes and goes. On a long-term view, we have had FAR more lawless periods at almost any level - in fact, most of our history. Over roughly the past century especially, the trend has been fairly continually toward MORE law instead of reliance on personal conscience. Look at antitrust laws, civil rights laws, consumer protection laws, environmental protection laws, securities trading laws, child protection laws, labor laws, education law, public safety laws, media laws, etc. A huge number of areas formerly left to personal conscience are now deemed matters requiring Federal control. Personal conscience is being taken more and more out of the picture. In some cases this is a good thing, in others arguably not, but it is clearly the trend. On a short-term view, also clearly incorrect. The most recent administration flouted the laws left and right. It refused to comply with court and Congressional subpoenas, did not (and openly stated that it would not) adhere to some treaties, and evaded the law in surreptitious ways when it was unwilling to do so openly. The perception that this incident, of some unknown individuals alleged to be lawyers giving out limited snippets of information from drug tests of professional baseball players, is particularly egregious and newsworthy, comes of nothing but (a) our incredible national preoccupation with sports figures, and (b) out increasingly low tolerance for violations of privacy specifically - not all law, but privacy. In this regard, look at the substance of the issue and the news reporting. Everyone says it's outrageous that this information was given out: (a) because it was done by lawyers. Of course no one knows this for sure, because the sources have been kept strictly confidential. If they were in fact lawyers, which lawyers? As far as I know in this context "lawyers" could mean anything from a District Court judge to a lawyer for MLB or the players' union, or a Department of Justice prosecutor who may have breached Grand Jury secrecy, or a lawyer for the drug lab, or a lawyer hired by the New York Times to negotiate with a computer technician who had access to the files. All the New York times said in explaining its source was "according to lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year." Yet despite no one knowing which lawyers - if any - were involved, the public outcry focuses on this. Never before have I seen any such general public shock that some lawyers are no more scrupulously honest than the average person. Should they be? Yes. But when did anyone ever suggest before that they are or express outrage that some unknown ones of them aren't? I don't get it. (b) because it was subject to a court order. What court order? Has anyone told you what it was? I can find no explanation of how the disclosure violated a specific court order except a highly speculative one. The only relevant one I know of was in the context not of the compilation of the records themselves, but a seizure of them by DOJ. Apparently there was a grand jury subpoena, resulting in a search warrant authorizing seizure of records on tests of ten specific players from the testing lab. The search resulted in a seizure of a computer file containing the test results on all 104 players who participated. The lab, and/or other affected parties, challenged the seizure. The courts issued a series of orders relating to how the file should be handled, whether it needed to be returned untouched, data on the 10 extracted, etc. In this context there was a court order that the file constituting the return on the search warrant - i.e., the stuff seized - be sealed. That order would (I assume) have been directed to the Department of Justice and the attorneys for the Baseball league, and only covered those files and only in that context. No one else in the world who happened to have access to the original test data would have been addressed by that order. The possibility that the leak came from the search warrant files and someone subject to that order is being investigated. The judges involved say if there was a leak in violation of the order, action will be taken. The implication of the news stories I've seen (and I've read a sampling only because of the discussion here) is that the original deal between MLB, the players, and their union to to the test and collect data was somehow assured of confidentiality by a court order. I'll believe that when I see it. It is amazing to me that people are so up in arms about this, in view of the thousands of instances of fraud and misconduct by people in the legal profession that we've all heard of, or, FTM, assuming the worst, that this was actually done by someone in DOJ in clear violation of a court order that actually applied to him/her, in view of the far worse misconduct by people in DOJ in the past and in recent years. If anything this is an example of how, despite all the evidence of history, people always seem to think past violations were an aberration, and from now on of course our Government and everyone in it will always obey the law. Where is the outrage over the past unauthorized disclosures of personal travel documents showing misuse of public funds? Where was the outrage over the unauthorized disclosures by "Deep Throat" leading to the Watergate investigation? Who is going to be held accountable for leaking documents revealing a conspiracy to commit kidnapping and torture? Drug use by baseball players! - and someone dared reveal the facts! - now there's a scandal that shakes the roots of our democracy. Look at the current Supreme Court nominee Aha, that's different. You don't mean "look at the current Supreme Court nominee" as one example of how "the U. S. has been drifting further from law every year," but only as an example of Supreme Court nominees. her past statements, and Obama's reasons for nominating her, demonstrate (to me) that she has no interest in the text of the Constitution, nor in the original intent of the writers. I think you need to read her actual opinions rather than the political characterizations of her views. But in any event, this is in no way new either. The entire history of the Supreme Court - from its earliest days - is replete with far more egregious examples of Justices who wanted to follow their own consciences or even strictly their own political preferences than the words of the Constitution. As a general principle I don't like this,* but you can't point to any decision of Sotomayor that is half as "political" or based on personally held values as many of those in history. * And BTW, not that it helps, note that many of our most important and time-honored decisions are hard to justify on the basis of strict reading of the Constitution. No, I'm not suggesting that this means it's OK, but it's a hard problem. She just wants to make the world a better place, even if that means gutting the Constitution. Any actual examples of "gutting the Constitution"? You mean like the Hayden voting rights case, where the majority ignored the plain text of the Voting Rights Act and the minority judges - including Sotomayor, very explicitly - relied on a strict reading of both? Or the Ricci firefighters' discrimination case, in which ruling either way could as rationally be viewed as permitting race-based discrimination, and the question was which had the better factual support? What? Is there anything? Look at the recent "bonuses for executives of failed banks" brouhaha. Those bonuses were a matter of contractual obligation, but our Congresscritters don't care a damn about keeping contractual promises. I know of no instance in which Congress has overridden a contract. This was a high-stakes negotiation and the companies had choices. If the companies or other contractual parties (the executives, I gather) wanted to object they could have gone to court - and would have won. (And BTW, why should Congress care about keeping someone else's contractual promises? Contractual promises are often unconscionable. There is a legitimate (although not absolute) limit on Congress' power to "impair the obligation of contracts," i.e. to preclude the parties from carrying them out, and I know of a few instances over the years (including recent decades) in which Congress has foolishly gone ahead and done that. As far as I know this isn't one. These lawyers doubtless "felt" that a "higher purpose" was being served by releasing confidential information. Maybe, or maybe greed, or a thirst for notoriety, or maybe they were just dumb. Again, what has this to do with the statement "the U. S. has been drifting further from law every year"? Whoever it was who gave out confidential information - whether they turn out to be lawyers, or judges, or union officials, or laboratory technicians, or someone else - are you under the impression that this is something like a new low? Where have you been? - Steve G -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mail.zarquon.net/pipermail/goglog/attachments/20090621/84543fdb/attachment-0001.htm From SteveG at swhi.net Sun Jun 21 10:29:53 2009 From: SteveG at swhi.net (Steve Gruenwald) Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 10:29:53 -0500 Subject: [Goglog] Fwd: Sosa...and a bigger issue... In-Reply-To: <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> References: <20090618140844.GA25014@dminet.com> <9379B6E8-069E-47FB-B957-9630AF7EAC2A@worldnet.att.net> Message-ID: <5E938A4C445F4F9CB6D0573D4BBF51CD@StevePC> Mark Hagerman says: > The U. S. has been drifting further from "law" every year, in the direction of "personal conscience". Hardly. In a general way, as Dave says it's cyclic - not to say regular, but comes and goes. On a long-term view, we have had FAR more lawless periods at almost any level - in fact, most of our history. Over roughly the past century especially, the trend has been fairly continually toward MORE law instead of reliance on personal conscience. Look at antitrust laws, civil rights laws, consumer protection laws, environmental protection laws, securities trading laws, child protection laws, labor laws, education law, public safety laws, media laws, etc. A huge number of areas formerly left to personal conscience are now deemed matters requiring Federal control. Personal conscience is being taken more and more out of the picture. In some cases this is a good thing, in others arguably not, but it is clearly the trend. On a short-term view, also clearly incorrect. The most recent administration flouted the laws left and right. It refused to comply with court and Congressional subpoenas, did not (and openly stated that it would not) adhere to some treaties, and evaded the law in surreptitious ways when it was unwilling to do so openly. The perception that this incident, of some unknown individuals alleged to be lawyers giving out limited snippets of information from drug tests of professional baseball players, is particularly egregious and newsworthy, comes of nothing but (a) our incredible national preoccupation with sports figures, and (b) out increasingly low tolerance for violations of privacy specifically - not all law, but privacy. In this regard, look at the substance of the issue and the news reporting. Everyone says it's outrageous that this information was given out: (a) because it was done by lawyers. Of course no one knows this for sure, because the sources have been kept strictly confidential. If they were in fact lawyers, which lawyers? As far as I know in this context "lawyers" could mean anything from a District Court judge to a lawyer for MLB or the players' union, or a Department of Justice prosecutor who may have breached Grand Jury secrecy, or a lawyer for the drug lab, or a lawyer hired by the New York Times to negotiate with a computer technician who had access to the files. All the New York times said in explaining its source was "according to lawyers with knowledge of the drug-testing results from that year." Yet despite no one knowing which lawyers - if any - were involved, the public outcry focuses on this. Never before have I seen any such general public shock that some lawyers are no more scrupulously honest than the average person. Should they be? Yes. But when did anyone ever suggest before that they are or express outrage that some unknown ones of them aren't? I don't get it. (b) because it was subject to a court order. What court order? Has anyone told you what it was? I can find no explanation of how the disclosure violated a specific court order except a highly speculative one. The only relevant one I know of was in the context not of the compilation of the records themselves, but a seizure of them by DOJ. Apparently there was a grand jury subpoena, resulting in a search warrant authorizing seizure of records on tests of ten specific players from the testing lab. The search resulted in a seizure of a computer file containing the test results on all 104 players who participated. The lab, and/or other affected parties, challenged the seizure. The courts issued a series of orders relating to how the file should be handled, whether it needed to be returned untouched, data on the 10 extracted, etc. In this context there was a court order that the file constituting the return on the search warrant - i.e., the stuff seized - be sealed. That order would (I assume) have been directed to the Department of Justice and the attorneys for the Baseball league, and only covered those files and only in that context. No one else in the world who happened to have access to the original test data would have been addressed by that order. The possibility that the leak came from the search warrant files and someone subject to that order is being investigated. The judges involved say if there was a leak in violation of the order, action will be taken. The implication of the news stories I've seen (and I've read a sampling only because of the discussion here) is that the original deal between MLB, the players, and their union to do the test and collect data was somehow assured of confidentiality by a court order. I'll believe that when I see it. It is amazing to me that people are so up in arms about this, in view of the thousands of instances of fraud and misconduct by people in the legal profession that we've all heard of, or, FTM, assuming the worst, that this was actually done by someone in DOJ in clear violation of a court order that actually applied to him/her, in view of the far worse misconduct by people in DOJ in the past and in recent years. If anything this is an example of how, despite all the evidence of history, people always seem to think past violations were an aberration, and from now on of course our Government and everyone in it will always obey the law. Where is the outrage over the past unauthorized disclosures of personal travel documents showing misuse of public funds? Where was the outrage over the unauthorized disclosures by "Deep Throat" leading to the Watergate investigation? Who is going to be held accountable for leaking documents revealing a conspiracy to commit kidnapping and torture? Drug use by baseball players! - and someone dared reveal the facts! - now there's a scandal that shakes the roots of our democracy. > Look at the current Supreme Court nominee Aha, that's different. You don't mean "look at the current Supreme Court nominee" as one example of how "the U. S. has been drifting further from law every year," but only as an example of Supreme Court nominees. > her past statements, and Obama's reasons for nominating her, demonstrate (to me) that she has no interest in the text of the Constitution, nor in the original intent of the writers. I think you need to read her actual opinions rather than the political characterizations of her views. But in any event, this is in no way new either. The entire history of the Supreme Court - from its earliest days - is replete with far more egregious examples of Justices who wanted to follow their own consciences or even strictly their own political preferences than the words of the Constitution. As a general principle I don't like this,* but you can't point to any decision of Sotomayor that is half as "political" or based on personally held values as many of those in history. And BTW, not that it helps, note that many of our most important and time-honored decisions are hard to justify on the basis of strict reading of the Constitution. No, I'm not suggesting that this means it's OK, but it's a hard problem. And BTW, how would "Obama's reasons for nominating her" be particularly good evidence of what she does or doesn't have interest in? > She just wants to make the world a better place, even if that means gutting the Constitution. Any actual examples of "gutting the Constitution"? You mean like the Hayden voting rights case, where the majority ignored the plain text of the Voting Rights Act and the minority judges - including Sotomayor, very explicitly - relied on a strict reading of both? Or the Ricci firefighters' discrimination case, in which ruling either way could as rationally be viewed as permitting race-based discrimination, and the question was which had the better factual support? What? Is there anything? > Look at the recent "bonuses for executives of failed banks" brouhaha. Those bonuses were a matter of contractual obligation, but our Congresscritters don't care a damn about keeping contractual promises. I know of no instance in which Congress has overridden a contract. This was a high-stakes negotiation and the companies had choices. If the companies or other contractual parties (the executives, I gather) wanted to object they could have gone to court - and would have won. (And BTW, why should Congress care about keeping someone else's contractual promises? Contractual promises are often unconscionable. There is a legitimate (although not absolute) limit on Congress' power to "impair the obligation of contracts," i.e. to preclude the parties from carrying them out, and I know of a few instances over the years (including recent decades) in which Congress has foolishly gone ahead and done that. As far as I know this isn't one. > These lawyers doubtless "felt" that a "higher purpose" was being served by releasing confidential information. Maybe, or maybe greed, or a thirst for notoriety, or maybe they were just dumb. Again, what has this to do with the statement "the U. S. has been drifting further from law every year"? Whoever it was who gave out confidential information - whether they turn out to be lawyers, or judges, or union officials, or laboratory technicians, or someone else - are you under the impression that this is something like a new low? Where have you been? - Steve G