Recommended Reading & Viewing
Top Billing! John Fonte (FPRI) – Sovereignty or Submission: Liberal Democracy or Global Governance?
Hudson Institute scholar John Fonte critically analyzes how the ideology of “global governance” and R2P erodes American sovereignty as well as liberal democratic norms. Normally, I give the “top billing” post a generous excerpt, but FPRI copyright mandates posting in it’s entirety, which is not feasible given the length of the essay. However, I give it a strong recommendation to be read in full ( Hat tip to Col. Dave and Bruce Kesler).
Global Guerrillas –AMERICA IS BROKEN, WHAT NOW?
The US is broken. In the years after WW2 the US made tangible the American dream. It did so through by connecting incomes to improvements in productivity. Simply: If you do more work per hour, your income should go up (see chart).
The result was a decentralization of economic decision making on a scale never seen before in the history of the world.
It was AMAZING. Tens of millions of financially prosperous households making decisions on what they should buy and invest in. Most of what America still is today was built during that period….
Bruce Kesler –Critique of Cordevilla’s “The Lost Decade”
….There are two core arguments in Cordevilla’s almost 8,000 word essay, a self-serving, misfocused and exclusionary US elite that failed to identify or act against domestic and foreign threats. Instead, they enriched themselves and intruded into all Americans’ freedoms with the overly expensive and expansive, ill-suited to US liberties, feeble Homeland Security, and got bogged down in self-limited wars of illusory nation-building that distracted funding from the major weapons systems necessary to US strategic superiority and failed to confront real enemies. Combined with irresponsible profligate domestic spending and programs that have led to our deep ongoing recession, our means and will to continue our foreign engagements or rebuild our needed future weaponry and military has deteriorated. No wonder most Americans distrust these elites and the federal government.
….Cordevilla’s essay first sentence says, “America’s ruling class lost the war on terror.” Cordevilla looks below tactical disagreements to say of this class of Democrat and Republican leadership, “It is more or less homogeneous socially and intellectually.” Democrat and Republican elites created a public-private industry that expanded their own powers over our lives while not focusing on the root of our adversaries’ antagonism toward our way of life, Moslem societies dysfunction and anti-Western propaganda, that was further encouraged by our feeble reactions. “But U.S. policy has made things worse because the liberal internationalists, realists, and neoconservatives who make up America’s foreign policy Establishment have all assumed that Americans should undertake the impossible task of changing such basic facts, rather than confining themselves to the difficult but vital work of guarding U.S. interests against them.”
Here’s where I have reservations on Cordevilla’s analysis and prescriptions….
The Atlantic (Howard French) –E. O. Wilson’s Theory of Everything
Studies in Intelligence (Dennis C. Wilder) –Improving Policymaker Understanding of Intelligence *An Educated Consumer Is Our Best Customer [95.7KB**]
Recommended Viewing:
Nassim Nicholas Taleb on Occupy Wall Street
Richard Resnick: Welcome to the Genomic Revolution
“China is winning the race to the new moon”
Conversations with History – Philip Bobbitt
October 24th, 2011 at 11:46 am
Hi Mark –
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I’ve been looking around at writing on R2P, of which there is quite a bit. I’m beginning to get the sense that Anne-Marie Slaughter’s take on it is fairly idiosyncratic, and that a lot of people are looking at it in a number of different ways.
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I note that the paper you link contains a lot of references to her work. It’s worth refuting, but I am beginning to wonder how representative it is of the R2P discussion generally.
October 24th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
The Taleb video is spot-on! Thanks for sharing!
October 24th, 2011 at 3:14 pm
The Taleb video is interesting. Odd though that the OWS protesters are being considered a potential Marxism 2.0—but that government ownership of the banking industry, or at least of those banks who receive or will receive bailouts, is not being labeled Communism 2.0.
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There are times (and I’m hefting my shield above my head in anticipation of arrows) that I think China’s system of centralized controls, 5-year plans (or plans of longer duration), will win out in the end.
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I believe there is some current problem w/ the fundamental structure of the banking system in America, problems w/ the idea of usury altogether—although I don’t need to go back hundreds of years to highlight the problems of usury. OTOH, taking Taleb’s consideration of risk-reward analysis, we might go back to Ham.’s code. One of the essential strategies of a capitalist system, at least one used by the very successful, is to limit risk as much as possible while increasing earnings. Naturally, such a strategy can be used by tyrants and the welfare class as equally as by the top tier of bankers and other industry leaders; the largest difference between all groups is the degree to which each group (or any individual) comes to an accurate assessment of risks. Guaranteed government bailouts, for the banks OR for the welfare class, present an easy out: easier assessment of risk. At least until the whole system collapses or some new, viral (or at least virile) political movement forms.
October 24th, 2011 at 3:23 pm
As a side note, on usury: The ability to "create wealth" from nothing, or not tied to production, may be another way to "limit risk"….? Is this not so? That imaginary surplus of capital becomes a buffer…..But this might be too granular. Granted, the key to limiting the formation of destructive bubbles (which may be created by the creation of imaginary capital) might be competition—as a risk factor, on top of other risk factors. And yet, it’s competition that might lead some to create bigger buffers, buffers in the form of bubbles.
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There really ought to be some fiduciary-relevant laws, or stronger laws, regarding the top-level skimmers/schemers who may well drive a business into the ground, may well help drive a nation into the ground, but who, themselves, get to leave the mess w/ a nice golden parachute etc….
October 24th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
This may be a silly suggestion, but it’s one that I’ve carried ever since my first finance class. Why is the home loan amortized? If we really want to push wealth back to the people, then why don’t we just switch mortgages to a normal rate where 90% of the payment would go towards principle instead of interest? The banks still make a fair profit, and the consumer actually pays off his debt.
October 24th, 2011 at 3:32 pm
Besides centralized planning and open market, another metaphor is that wallstreet is a very dark market.
Having done work on what is now called “electronic commerce” and some open financial transaction standards … in the late 90s, I was asked in to NSCC … this was before it merged with DTC
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depository_Trust_&_Clearing_Corporation
to do some work on improving integrity of trading transactions. After putting in some work on the effort … I was told that it was suspended because a side-effect of the integrity work would have vastly improved the transparency and visibility … which appears to be antithetical to wallstreet culture
In the congressional Madoff hearings, the person that had tried unsuccessfully for a decade to get the SEC to do something about Madoff, was asked if new regulations were required. His reply was that while new regulations might be required, much more important was (changing to) transparency and visibility.
past reference to dark market activity is widespread and traders have no worry that SEC will do anything about it
http://www.nypost.com/seven/03202007/business/cramer_reveals_a_bit_too_much_business_roddy_boyd.htm
the DTCC wiki article also references DTCC not releasing trading details that might show the underbelly of dark market activity
There is recent report out of germany that looked at institutionalized psycopaths and wallstreet traders and concluded that wallstreet traders are worse than the institutionalized psycopaths. Earlier there were studies classifying large percentage of wallstreet traders and investment bankers as sociopaths. a couple past posts mentioning sociopath
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#77 Madoff Whistleblower Book
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011b.html#59 Productivity And Bubbles
October 25th, 2011 at 2:37 am
Hi Cheryl,
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I think you are correct that AMS may be putting her own twist on R2P that may be out of sync with some other R2P advocates. However, I suspect she is more influential with this administration than all the rest combined, which means her spin has a good chance of carrying the day, particularly when supported by Rice and Powers.
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Hi Curtis,
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"5 year plans" is probably not a good way to describe the role of central authorities in China’s economy – provincial party apparatchiks and entrepreneurial bigwigs with Party patrons carry a lot of weight, and sometimes defy Beijing on noncritical issues. There seems to be a lot of latitude for wheedling/negotiating/passive-aggressive posturing in the system so long as Beijing’s ultimate supremacy is not directly challenged and local leaders (party and private) are delivering economic growth. That said, I am not a Sinologist and an willing to defer to the serious China-watchers