Newt Doesn't Love You, Either.

Newt Gingrich [1]

In another snub to Aussie conservatives, Republican presidential candidate hopeful Newt Gingrich considers that the Moon could be the 51st State of the Union.

Speaking to a crowd of some 700 people, in Florida, Gingrich is reported as saying:

" 'By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the Moon and it will be American' (...)
" 'We will have commercial near-Earth activities that include science, tourism and manufacturing, because it is in our interest to acquire so much experience in space that we clearly have a capacity that the Chinese and the Russians will never come anywhere close to matching,' he said". (See here)

Furthermore, according to dispatch by The Sydney Morning Herald/The Telegraph (London), "he even proposed that, when the colony's population reached 13,000, it could apply to become the 51st State of the Union."

Observers further said that Texan Republican nomination candidate, Ron Paul, although initially reluctant, perhaps could be made to support Gingrich's lunar colony initiative. Asked during a recent televised debate, Paul said: "I'd like to send some politicians up there".

Local reactions.

Local observers had mixed reactions to the Gingrich announcement.

"The new colonists could even call themselves lunatics", said local space exploration enthusiasts, who eagerly support the initiative.

Coming weeks after Gingrich's contender for the Republican nomination, Rick Santorum, ruled out "Australian school" economists in his advisory team, some observers, however, saw this as another snub to Aussie right-wingers and free-marketeers.

"Now, ANZUS or no ANZUS, even the Moon comes before Australia", said a distraught observer who opposes the Gingrich proposal and who asked his identity to be withheld.

Nevertheless, not all hope is lost for local right-of-centre fans, said the analyst.

Mitt Romney, leading candidate for the nomination, during the subsequent televised debate ruled out the project:

"I've spent 25 years in business. If I had a business executive come to me and said they want to spend a few billion dollars to put a colony on the Moon, I'd say you're fired."

Romney is known for enjoying firing people, in the best Donald Trump style.

Photo Credits:
[1] Newt Gingrich. Wikipedia.

Atlas' Happy Days.

Alan Greenspan. 2005 [A]

"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders (...) what would you tell him to do?" (Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged).






The transcriptions of the Fed's Federal Open Market Committee 2001-06 meetings were released last Thursday January 12, 2012. (See here)

This is how mainstream media chronicled these meetings:

The New York Times (12-01-2012):

"As the housing bubble entered its waning hours in 2006, top Federal Reserve officials marveled at the desperate antics of home builders seeking to lure buyers.
"The officials laughed about the cars that builders were offering as signing bonuses, and about efforts to make empty homes look occupied. (...)
" 'We are getting reports that builders are now making concessions and providing upgrades, such as marble countertops and other extras, and in one case even throwing in a free Mini Cooper to sweeten the deal,' George C. Guynn (...) said at the June [2006] meeting." (See here)

The Washington Post (13-01-2012):

"The year began with adulation all around for [Alan] Greenspan. In that January [2006] meeting, Roger Ferguson (...) called Greenspan a 'monetary policy Yoda'." (See here)

All that's good and well, but it fails to capture the mood prevailing in those august meetings, where monetary policy for the US (in extension, for the free world) is decided and where the Great Moderation was generated. The Economist (Free Exchange) and DealBreaker contain a selection of witticisms, jokes, and happy anecdotes, as one would expect from Übermenschen in the best Randian/Nietzchean tradition.

But The Daily Stag Hunt went one step further and quantified it (the transcripts dutifully noted their laughter).

So thanks to that site's generosity, I'll give you without further comment:
 

Well, bear with me, one little comment: that blue dot corresponds to the meeting where these immortal words were uttered:

"VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER.  Mr. Chairman, in the interest of crispness, I've removed a substantial tribute from my remarks.  [Laughter]
"CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN.  I am most appreciative.  [Laughter]
"VICE CHAIRMAN GEITHNER.  I'd like the record to show that I think you're pretty terrific, too.  [Laughter]  And thinking in terms of probabilities, I think the risk that we decide in the future that you're even better than we think is higher than the alternative."

I haven't thought yet how I would answer Rand's question, opening this post. That is, assuming the Maestro Atlas Alan Greenspan stopped laughing and that I could be heard over the sounds of boots being licked.

Photo Credits:
[A] Former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, receiving a Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005. 09-11-2005. Wikipedia

Einstein and Socialism.

Albert Einstein. [A]

Albert Einstein (1879-1955) needs no presentation.

Better known for his theoretical work in physics and as a teacher, Einstein also was -- although this tends to be forgotten -- a public intellectual who used his prominence to promote ideas he considered worthy: pacifism, a Jewish homeland in Palestine where Jews, Muslims and Christians would co-exist peacefully with equal rights, and socialism.

But Einstein wasn't simply a socialist, without any other adjectives. In my reading, he was a Marxist.

The first issue of the Monthly Review magazine, published in May 1949, included Einstein's "Why Socialism?" essay.

Written in a precise and direct language, without losing the warmth and intellectual honesty usually associated to Einstein's name, the piece has the feeling of an introductory lecture on Marxism and I highly recommend it to both, those who are already somewhat familiar with Marxism and those who are not.

The fragment below closes the essay and was extracted from "Why Socialism?", generously made publicly available by Monthly Review:

"Why Socialism", by A. Einstein.

"This crippling [of social consciousness] of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career.
"I am convinced there is only one way to eliminate these grave evils, namely through the establishment of a socialist economy, accompanied by an educational system which would be oriented toward social goals. (...)
"Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralization of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured?
"Clarity about the aims and problems of socialism is of greatest significance in our age of transition. Since, under present circumstances, free and unhindered discussion of these problems has come under a powerful taboo, I consider the foundation of this magazine to be an important public service."

Photo Credit:
[A] Albert Einstein during a lecture in Vienna in 1921, photographed by Ferdinand Schmutzer. Wikipedia.

On Folly, Master Chefs and Bonhoeffer

 Dietrich Bonhoeffer. [1]

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945) was a German pastor and theologian. Arrested for his participation in the 1944 plot to kill Hitler, Bonhoeffer was executed in April, 1945 in the Flossenburg concentration camp, after being convicted by a Nazi kangaroo court.

While in prison Bonhoeffer wrote diverse texts. This is one of them:

"Of Folly", by D. Bonhoeffer.


"Folly is a more dangerous enemy to the good than malice. You can protest against malice, you can unmask it or prevent it by force. Malice always contains the seeds of its own destruction, for it always makes men uncomfortable, if nothing worse. There is no defense against folly. Neither protests nor force are of any avail against it, and it is never amenable to reason. If facts contradict personal prejudices, there is no need to believe them, and if they are undeniable, they can simply be pushed aside as exceptions. Thus, the fool, as compared with the scoundrel, is invariably self-complacent. And he can easily become dangerous, for it does not take much to make him aggressive. Hence, folly requires much more cautious handling than malice. We shall never again try to reason with the fool, for it is both useless and dangerous.
"To deal adequately with folly it is essential to recognize it for what it is. This much is certain, it is a moral rather than an intellectual defect. There are men of great intellect who are fools, and men of low intellect who are anything but fools, a discovery we make to our surprise as a result of particular circumstances. The impression we derive is that folly is acquired rather than congenital; it is acquired in certain circumstances where men make fools of themselves or allow others to make fools of them. We observe further that folly is less common in the unsociable or the solitary than in individuals or groups who are inclined or condemned to sociability. From this it would appear that folly is a sociological problem rather than one of psychology. It is a special form of the operation of historical circumstances upon men, a psychological by-product of definite external factors. On closer inspection it would seem that any violent revolution, whether political or religious, produces an outburst of folly in a large part of mankind. Indeed, it would seem to be almost a law of psychology and sociology. The power of one needs the folly of the other. It is not that certain aptitudes of men, intellectual aptitudes for instance, become stunted or destroyed. Rather, the upsurge of power is so terrific that it deprives men of an independent judgement, and they give up trying - more or less unconsciously - to assess the new state of affairs for themselves. The fool can often be stubborn, but this must not mislead us into thinking he is independent. One feels somehow, especially in conversation with him, that it is impossible to talk to the man himself, to talk to him personally. Instead, one is confronted with a series of slogans, watchwords, and the like, which have acquired power over him. He is under a curse, he is blinded, his very humanity is being prostituted and exploited. Once he has surrendered his will and become a mere tool, there are no lengths of evil to which the fool will not go, yet all the time he is unable to see that it is evil. Here lies the danger of a diabolical exploitation of humanity, which can do irreparable damage to the human character.
"But it is just at this point that we realize that the fool cannot be saved by education. What he needs is redemption. There is nothing else for it. Until then it is no earthly good trying to convince him by rational argument. In this state of affairs we can well understand why it is no use trying to find out what 'the people' really think, and why this question is also so superfluous for the man who thinks and acts responsibly. As the Bible says, 'the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom'. In other words, the only cure for folly is spiritual redemption, for that alone can enable a man to live as a responsible person in the sight of God.
"But there is a grain of consolation in these reflections on human folly. There is no reason for us to think that the majority of men are fools under all circumstances. What matters in the long run is whether our rulers hope to gain more from the folly of men, or from their independence of judgment and their shrewdness of mind." (Emphasis added. See here.)

Written by a Lutheran theologian imprisoned by the Nazis over sixty years ago, these thoughts are surprisingly relevant to the current economic policy debate in Australia.

Here I offer one example; I am sure readers (like my friends PeterC and Stubborn Mule) could easily relate:

"In short, expect unemployment to rise, job insecurity to rise, union power to increase and the federal bureaucracy to expand for the duration of the Labor-Greens-Windsor-Oakeshott government, while it blames everyone but itself." (See here)

And that catalogue of real or imaginary calamities, if you believe Paul Sheehan's unlikely narrative, will befall upon Australia because the underpaid hospitality workers want to be paid something extra for working on weekends, while some wealthy celebrity restaurateurs, who employ them and on whose behalf Sheehan seems to speak, don't want to: after all, every dollar they pay their workers is one less dollar they can deposit in their accounts.

The thing is so terrible that some of these celebrities might even have to work themselves! Imagine the outrage.

Unfortunately, I am an agnostic, skeptical about spiritual redemption. We better find another way. You know, just in case.

Image Credit:
[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Wikipedia.

Update:
Brilliant blog post by Matt Cowgill debunking dodgy claims that Fair Work is strangling Australian businesses.