Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
unbelievable
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/24/business/economy/24panel.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
Alan Greenspan just explicitly stated that the fundamental principle that the Republican party bases their economic policies on is faulty, in unequivocal terms.
Alan Greenspan just explicitly stated that the fundamental principle that the Republican party bases their economic policies on is faulty, in unequivocal terms.
blast from the past
For those of you who haven't seen this, or haven't seen it in awhile. Saw it recently, and it reminded me of back when no one thought a black guy named Barack Hussein Obama could win an election in the United States. The conventional wisdom was he didn't stand a chance in hell. Some of us worked our asses off for him despite the fact that we didn't think he stood a chance (I know I didn't think he did). That's the difference between what is, and what could have been. And that's why everyone should be asking themselves "what am I doing to help Barack Obama over the next couple of weeks"? Because it's not over until it's over, and now is not the time to become complacent. Anything can happen... but we all have the ability to contribute to affecting the outcome. Go to barackobama.com, and look for events in your area to get involved. And most of all......
VOTE!
Thursday, September 18, 2008
it's personal (updated once)
Around a year ago, I learned that when investing for a long time horizon (like retirement), someone my age should put everything in mutual funds because the stock market has historically given an average annual rate of return of 10%. I took what retirement savings I had, and invested them in mutual funds. Around that same time, I bought a condo.
Perfect timing, apparently. So through no fault of my own, between the housing market crash and the stock market crashes, the markets have fucked me. Now, complaining about that is not fair. Whenever the economy suffers, people feel real pain on a level that I can only imagine. The 2.2 million people who have lost their jobs this year... every one of those people is someone whose life has been turned upside down. 2.2 million is a big number to wrap your head around. But just think about how much it would suck for you to lose your job, or for your parents to have lost their jobs when you were growing up, and then imagine that happening 2.2 million times.
Now, the point is this. Competition in free markets is the most incredible and efficient mechanism ever devised to improve the quality of lives of people by generating wealth. Before 1800, over 85% of the world lived in what we would consider to be extreme poverty. Now, less than 15% lives in extreme poverty. A combination of technology, and the magic of free markets is to thank for that.
However, markets can fail, markets have failed (see: Great Depression), and because of this people need to be protected from such catastrophic failures. The mechanism to do this is regulation. After the Great Depression, the government insured bank deposits in order to restore the trust necessary to keep the banking system functioning. Since the government was putting its ass on the line by guaranteeing your bank deposits, in return they required that banks submit to a certain level of regulation. After all, it would be dumb for the government to insure banking deposits if there was no way to prevent banks from taking unreasonable risks.
Over the years, all sorts of investment banks and the like have popped up, which do not fall under the scope of existing regulations. Unfortunately, the political party that has been in the White House for the last 8 years and in control of Congress for 6 of the last 8 years has an ideological opposition to even the concept of regulation. Republicans in Congress have been blocking efforts by Democrats to tighten regulations on lenders in the housing market, which led to more predatory lending and loose standards for mortgages. Clearly, this lack of sufficient regulation is part of what led the housing market to collapse.
Republicans have also fought against regulation in just about every other areas, such as extending reasonable regulations to investment banks. Now, you can argue that since the government does not insure investments at an investment bank, why should those banks submit to tighter regulation? They can do what they want with their money. Well, as we have seen recently, these investment banks have gotten so huge that the government cannot let them fail. To do so would be to allow the economy to collapse. That means that the government, meaning taxpayers, meaning you and me, is forced to bail them out when they are about to fail. And what this does is provide such banks with an incentive to act irresponsibly, and you're the one that gets fucked.
You would think, in light of all this, no one would consider voting Republican this year. I'll end with an anecdote. I don't like anecdotes in general, but this one perfectly summarizes what is wrong with the Republican party's cluelessness about the economy. I was listening to a Senate committee hearing on C-SPAN where they were debating whether or not to bail our Bear-Stearns, and some Republican Senator takes the floor. He goes on and on about how bailing out Bear-Stearns is socialism, and how the invisible hand of the market will take care of everything. Well great. I'm glad Mr. Dumbfuck Republican Senator has worked for his entire career to contribute to this crisis by blocking any reasonable regulation, and now when the crisis is upon us, he's so consumed by his free-market ideaology that he can't even bring himself to do what it takes to solve the problem. What a fucking dumbass. Please. Please don't vote Republican this year. For the sake of your job, for the sake of your retirement. For the sake of all the people who are suffering from the loss of a job, all the people suffering from their retirement going up in smoke, for the sake of your future, for the sake of your childrens' future. Just don't be a dumbass.
UPDATE
Well, it looks like the initial proposal is a $700 Billion dollar bailout with taxpayer money. Nearly a trillion dollars. Think about this. The Republican party has allowed an unregulated environment where rich investors have been having a field day for years, earning massive profits on their investments and getting extremely rich(er). When it all spirals out of control, WE have to pony up $700 billion in the hopes that that will be enough to prevent the economy from utterly collapsing. That's approximately $2300 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. And I haven't even said anything about how our long-term security is harmed by going almost a trillion more dollars into debt.
Perfect timing, apparently. So through no fault of my own, between the housing market crash and the stock market crashes, the markets have fucked me. Now, complaining about that is not fair. Whenever the economy suffers, people feel real pain on a level that I can only imagine. The 2.2 million people who have lost their jobs this year... every one of those people is someone whose life has been turned upside down. 2.2 million is a big number to wrap your head around. But just think about how much it would suck for you to lose your job, or for your parents to have lost their jobs when you were growing up, and then imagine that happening 2.2 million times.
Now, the point is this. Competition in free markets is the most incredible and efficient mechanism ever devised to improve the quality of lives of people by generating wealth. Before 1800, over 85% of the world lived in what we would consider to be extreme poverty. Now, less than 15% lives in extreme poverty. A combination of technology, and the magic of free markets is to thank for that.
However, markets can fail, markets have failed (see: Great Depression), and because of this people need to be protected from such catastrophic failures. The mechanism to do this is regulation. After the Great Depression, the government insured bank deposits in order to restore the trust necessary to keep the banking system functioning. Since the government was putting its ass on the line by guaranteeing your bank deposits, in return they required that banks submit to a certain level of regulation. After all, it would be dumb for the government to insure banking deposits if there was no way to prevent banks from taking unreasonable risks.
Over the years, all sorts of investment banks and the like have popped up, which do not fall under the scope of existing regulations. Unfortunately, the political party that has been in the White House for the last 8 years and in control of Congress for 6 of the last 8 years has an ideological opposition to even the concept of regulation. Republicans in Congress have been blocking efforts by Democrats to tighten regulations on lenders in the housing market, which led to more predatory lending and loose standards for mortgages. Clearly, this lack of sufficient regulation is part of what led the housing market to collapse.
Republicans have also fought against regulation in just about every other areas, such as extending reasonable regulations to investment banks. Now, you can argue that since the government does not insure investments at an investment bank, why should those banks submit to tighter regulation? They can do what they want with their money. Well, as we have seen recently, these investment banks have gotten so huge that the government cannot let them fail. To do so would be to allow the economy to collapse. That means that the government, meaning taxpayers, meaning you and me, is forced to bail them out when they are about to fail. And what this does is provide such banks with an incentive to act irresponsibly, and you're the one that gets fucked.
You would think, in light of all this, no one would consider voting Republican this year. I'll end with an anecdote. I don't like anecdotes in general, but this one perfectly summarizes what is wrong with the Republican party's cluelessness about the economy. I was listening to a Senate committee hearing on C-SPAN where they were debating whether or not to bail our Bear-Stearns, and some Republican Senator takes the floor. He goes on and on about how bailing out Bear-Stearns is socialism, and how the invisible hand of the market will take care of everything. Well great. I'm glad Mr. Dumbfuck Republican Senator has worked for his entire career to contribute to this crisis by blocking any reasonable regulation, and now when the crisis is upon us, he's so consumed by his free-market ideaology that he can't even bring himself to do what it takes to solve the problem. What a fucking dumbass. Please. Please don't vote Republican this year. For the sake of your job, for the sake of your retirement. For the sake of all the people who are suffering from the loss of a job, all the people suffering from their retirement going up in smoke, for the sake of your future, for the sake of your childrens' future. Just don't be a dumbass.
UPDATE
Well, it looks like the initial proposal is a $700 Billion dollar bailout with taxpayer money. Nearly a trillion dollars. Think about this. The Republican party has allowed an unregulated environment where rich investors have been having a field day for years, earning massive profits on their investments and getting extremely rich(er). When it all spirals out of control, WE have to pony up $700 billion in the hopes that that will be enough to prevent the economy from utterly collapsing. That's approximately $2300 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. And I haven't even said anything about how our long-term security is harmed by going almost a trillion more dollars into debt.
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
from the front lines
The following email was sent to my second cousin by her friend who is working in Uganda as some sort of medical worker. It was a powerful and sincere message, and while not directly related to the point I will be making, is a good lead-in to that point:
Dear Loved Ones:
I can’t keep silent.
Writing to you from the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic-
Sub-saharan Africa- I have to tell you what I’ve
witnessed.
In remote parts of rural Uganda, patients are literally
wasting away in my arms- admitted into the hospital only to
die. Food, toileting and laundry services must be provided
by the patients’ family. Most drugs are out of stock. Most
doctors are disillusioned. Most people are hopeless.
I greet a relief worker from Darfur at a café in Kampala.
Ahmed describes how happy he is to have come down with
malaria- so he can leave the chaos and genocide just for one
day.
A Zimbawbe couple with two small children describe how they
have fled the political violence and economic depression
that is Harare. Inflation has risen to the point that money
has no value. Better to use it to wipe your bottom- they
insist.
Let me tell you what ties these stories together- the
policies of our government the last 8 years.
We cannot make headway on poverty alleviation- we cannot
foster democracy in Africa- we cannot convincingly denounce
atrocities since squandering our money on two wars and tax
cuts for the wealthy, shaming ourselves with Abu Ghraib and
Gitmo and unflaggingly supporting totalitarian regimes (e.g.
Saudi Arabia) as long as they sell us oil.
ENOUGH!
Patients, who are literally dying in my arms, hear my
American accent- and want to know just one thing…Will I
vote for Barack Obama?
The only way to show our sisters and brothers abroad that
we recognize the hell these last 8 years have been - to say
that we are ashamed of the behavior of the US in the world-
is to change our country's leadership.
Trust me: the whole world is watching, the whole world is
praying, the whole world is counting on you.
Love,
Marcy
There are many reasons to vote for Obama. But I really believe that the most urgent reason to vote for him is because our goal, as a society, should be to ensure the stability of human civilization so that it continues to exist into the future. Now, I'll explain.
The United States plus Europe is currently just over 50% of the global economy. The consensus view amongst economic scholars is that the US plus Europe will be less than 25% of the global economy in fifty years, with Asia growing by a HUGE amount. Anyone who thinks that the United States will be able to remain a superpower over that time frame is smoking something, if only because our impact on the global economy will diminish dramatically. And anyone who thinks the United States can use its military superiority to remain a superpower over that time frame, with our share of global wealth shrinking relative to places like Asia, is quite frankly insane.
So I come to the reason why this election is so critical. The reputation of the United States has suffered tremendously through the Bush Administration. Our influence to foster stability in the world is essentially gone. But to a lot of people around the world, Barack Obama represents a clean break from the last 8 years. We still have some years left where we can have great influence over the course of global events if we can turn our reputation around and if we have the right leadership, but after that, it's inevitable our influence will fade. When our influence fades, we NEED to be living in a world that doesn't scare the shit out of us.
As a global society we are, or will soon be, facing several unprecedented crises such as human induced climate change, overpopulation, resource depletion, as well as the crisis of poverty traps in much of the world which will become an unprecedented crisis if nuclear material/technology is allowed to continue to proliferate. We need to create a world with less disparity between rich and poor, because poverty and perceived economic injustice is the root cause of terrorism. The less stable the world, the less safe we will be, and the less certain the future of humanity is.
The Neoconservative worldview, which McCain subscribes to, is antithetical to these ideas. It says we can use our military strength to shape the world to our benefit. Well, that could work great in the short run, in theory. But when you find you're spending more and more of your wealth to finance your debt to China, that situation becomes unsustainable really quickly. Is it any wonder why people peddling this thinking which is logically faulty on a strategic level, like Bush and McCain, have trouble even carrying out this plan in the short term on a tactical level, like when they fucked up Iraq? The McCain/Bush view of the world is quite simply irrational and naive, and extremely dangerous. And it speaks volumes to their judgment and ability to achieve the outcomes they desire on a whole host of issues that I will not get into right now.
It is not an exaggeration to say that a vote for McCain is a vote for a much less safe world in the long run, and weaker America, and a vote for Obama is a vote for our best chance at a world that will be safe for America and for future generations.
Dear Loved Ones:
I can’t keep silent.
Writing to you from the frontlines of the AIDS epidemic-
Sub-saharan Africa- I have to tell you what I’ve
witnessed.
In remote parts of rural Uganda, patients are literally
wasting away in my arms- admitted into the hospital only to
die. Food, toileting and laundry services must be provided
by the patients’ family. Most drugs are out of stock. Most
doctors are disillusioned. Most people are hopeless.
I greet a relief worker from Darfur at a café in Kampala.
Ahmed describes how happy he is to have come down with
malaria- so he can leave the chaos and genocide just for one
day.
A Zimbawbe couple with two small children describe how they
have fled the political violence and economic depression
that is Harare. Inflation has risen to the point that money
has no value. Better to use it to wipe your bottom- they
insist.
Let me tell you what ties these stories together- the
policies of our government the last 8 years.
We cannot make headway on poverty alleviation- we cannot
foster democracy in Africa- we cannot convincingly denounce
atrocities since squandering our money on two wars and tax
cuts for the wealthy, shaming ourselves with Abu Ghraib and
Gitmo and unflaggingly supporting totalitarian regimes (e.g.
Saudi Arabia) as long as they sell us oil.
ENOUGH!
Patients, who are literally dying in my arms, hear my
American accent- and want to know just one thing…Will I
vote for Barack Obama?
The only way to show our sisters and brothers abroad that
we recognize the hell these last 8 years have been - to say
that we are ashamed of the behavior of the US in the world-
is to change our country's leadership.
Trust me: the whole world is watching, the whole world is
praying, the whole world is counting on you.
Love,
Marcy
There are many reasons to vote for Obama. But I really believe that the most urgent reason to vote for him is because our goal, as a society, should be to ensure the stability of human civilization so that it continues to exist into the future. Now, I'll explain.
The United States plus Europe is currently just over 50% of the global economy. The consensus view amongst economic scholars is that the US plus Europe will be less than 25% of the global economy in fifty years, with Asia growing by a HUGE amount. Anyone who thinks that the United States will be able to remain a superpower over that time frame is smoking something, if only because our impact on the global economy will diminish dramatically. And anyone who thinks the United States can use its military superiority to remain a superpower over that time frame, with our share of global wealth shrinking relative to places like Asia, is quite frankly insane.
So I come to the reason why this election is so critical. The reputation of the United States has suffered tremendously through the Bush Administration. Our influence to foster stability in the world is essentially gone. But to a lot of people around the world, Barack Obama represents a clean break from the last 8 years. We still have some years left where we can have great influence over the course of global events if we can turn our reputation around and if we have the right leadership, but after that, it's inevitable our influence will fade. When our influence fades, we NEED to be living in a world that doesn't scare the shit out of us.
As a global society we are, or will soon be, facing several unprecedented crises such as human induced climate change, overpopulation, resource depletion, as well as the crisis of poverty traps in much of the world which will become an unprecedented crisis if nuclear material/technology is allowed to continue to proliferate. We need to create a world with less disparity between rich and poor, because poverty and perceived economic injustice is the root cause of terrorism. The less stable the world, the less safe we will be, and the less certain the future of humanity is.
The Neoconservative worldview, which McCain subscribes to, is antithetical to these ideas. It says we can use our military strength to shape the world to our benefit. Well, that could work great in the short run, in theory. But when you find you're spending more and more of your wealth to finance your debt to China, that situation becomes unsustainable really quickly. Is it any wonder why people peddling this thinking which is logically faulty on a strategic level, like Bush and McCain, have trouble even carrying out this plan in the short term on a tactical level, like when they fucked up Iraq? The McCain/Bush view of the world is quite simply irrational and naive, and extremely dangerous. And it speaks volumes to their judgment and ability to achieve the outcomes they desire on a whole host of issues that I will not get into right now.
It is not an exaggeration to say that a vote for McCain is a vote for a much less safe world in the long run, and weaker America, and a vote for Obama is a vote for our best chance at a world that will be safe for America and for future generations.
UPDATE
Hmmmm... looks like the intelligence community has been reading my blog :)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/09/AR2008090903302.html?hpid=sec-nation
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