Less Government Regulation Series: Drugs (March 2, 2009)

Posted in Crime/Punishment, Drugs, Less Government Regulation Series on March 2, 2009 by e-commentary.org

“Can any policy, however high-minded, be moral if it leads to widespread corruption, imprisons so many, has so racist an effect, destroys our inner cities, wreaks havoc on misguided and vulnerable individuals and brings death and destruction to foreign countries.”

Milton Friedman, Recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics

“Eighty-five million Americans have experimented with illegal drugs.  Since the object of criminal law is to detect and punish the wrongdoer, should we reason that 85 million of us should have spent time in jail.”

William F. Buckley, Jr., Founder of the magazine “National Review”

One in every hundred American citizens is now in prison.  The War on Drugs is really the War on the Populace.  Once again, because victory is impossible, declare victory and call off the war.

Bumper sticker of the week:

There oughta not be a law

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Close the Harvard Business School (February 23, 2009)

Posted in Crime/Punishment, Education, Law, PATRIOT Act, Schooling, USA PATRIOT Act on February 23, 2009 by e-commentary.org

The government is closing the prison at Guantanimo.  Problematic yet necessary.  Any change should be purposeful and careful.

The government should close the Harvard Business School, America’s madrossa for economic terrorists.  The USA PATRIOT Act provides one legal vehicle.  Convert the structure into a youth hostel for the young and old.  Many if not most of today’s political and social problems originate or are exacerbated in the schools.  If we do not close a school, it may be time to revisit the curriculum.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Crime should be punished

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Global Environmental Something (February 16, 2009)

Posted in Global Climate Change on February 16, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Something is going on.  Global economics is far easier to understand than global climate change.  Everyone has an opinion; one’s opinion is revealing.

Field research is critical.  In his annual Fall foray, Nimrod notes that the flowers, bushes and trees have moved up the hill about fifty feet and provided more and different cover for the critters over the last fifty years.  And stream research.  Rod carefully chronicled the dates the ice came and went on the lake over the last forty years.  The ice fishing season is at least three weeks shorter than two score years ago.  Diana is still making sense of it all.

Warmer.  Colder.  Colder because it is getting warmer.  Phenomena described as “Little baby boys” and “Little baby girls.”  Some are even convinced that it is too late for the globe to rebound, sort of like the economy.  Some are not convinced and do not want to make any changes.  Something is going on.

Bumper sticker of the week:

What it is isn’t exactly clear

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1000 AUSAs (February 9, 2009)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Crime/Punishment, Economics, Economics Nobel, Law on February 9, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Some commentators are suggesting that the current economic crisis is a result of amnesia.  Too many years have passed since the failure of Long-Term Capital Management, a business that pursued a short term business scam, they say.  LTCM followed an economic formula developed among others by Robert Merton and Myron Scholes who both won the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 1997.  They won for “a new method to determine the value of derivatives.”  Derivatives are a steal for those who do the stealing and costly for the taxpayers who ultimately bail them out.  Their “value” to society:  pricey.  Does the Nobel Committee ever revoke its prize?

The problem, so the thinking goes, is that everyone simply forgot.  No one needs to remember.  Business types respond to current incentives and disincentives not to moral intoning or calls to virtue.  The message being sent today is simple and straight forward:  Crime pays.  Not only the criminal act itself but the cost of remedying the criminal act.

The Justice Department should hire 1000 new Assistant United States Attorneys (AUSAs) to prosecute the massive fraud that has been perpetrated on Wall Street for the last half dozen years.  This is not some undigested populist anger.  Without the restoration of the rule of law, the economic culture of the country will continue to rot.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Crime pays in the US of A.

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Seeding Pollution From The Heavens (February 2, 2009)

Posted in Aviation, Gas/Fossil Fuel, Global Climate Change on February 2, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Geopolitical changes opened the northern polar routes to regular commercial air travel.

Commercial aviation cross-hatches the northern skies and deposits exhaust particles from on high.

Exhaust particles create a black shroud on the white snow and clear ice.

The black exhaust particles absorb the sun’s heat and melt the snow and ice rapidly.

The next day, planes fly over and do it again.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Better to be on the ground and wish you were in the air

Than to be in the air and wish you were on the ground

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A New Day (January 26, 2009)

Posted in Elections, O'Bama on January 26, 2009 by e-commentary.org

There is real joy in watching others experiencing joy.  A great speech?  Perhaps.  Sacrifice was mentioned.  Some truths were uttered.

Geithner is problematic.  He will be confirmed.  His tax obligation was simple.  He was obligated to pay.  There were no buts, ands or ifs.  He did not pay.  When he was to directed to pay, he did not.  The statute of limitations provided a convenient defense.  Now he finds religion and pays.  Perhaps every taxpayer should be nominated to be Secretary of the Treasury for fifteen minutes.  The bigger concern is that he did not tell “. . . the whole truth . . .” to the Senate when the members asked for an explanation.  Business as usual.  [See the e-ssay dated February 20, 2006 entitled “Perjury, the American Way.”]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Our long national nightmare is not over.

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Hope

Democrats Behaving Like Republicans

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The TARP Is A Trap (January 19, 2009)

Posted in Bailout/Bribe, Economics, TARP on January 19, 2009 by e-commentary.org

No one has offered a plausible explanation of or justification for the continuing Bailout/Bribe know as TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program).  [See the e-ssay dated October 6, 2008 entitled “A Bleak Day: The Trillions Dollar Tragedy”].  What was the problem in September, 2008 that had not been there for years and continues unabated today?  A “credit crunch”?  For the first time in years, the availability of credit was at a rational level.  Those who were creditworthy were able to obtain credit; those who were not were not.  We burned more money and more daylight while the underlying conflagration continued to rage.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Pouring water into a watering can does not water the plant; pouring water around the roots of the plant waters the plant.

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The Odd Couple – China & The U. of S.A. (January 12, 2009)

Posted in China, Economics, Foreign Policy on January 12, 2009 by e-commentary.org

Felix “China” Unger and Oscar “Uncle Sam” Madison are living together in a symbiotic/parasitic relationship.  In recent years, some pundit types said that the economies of the world are “decoupled” from the United States.  Some other types were skeptical.  The economies always seemed “coupled.”

Those who argued that the U.S. no longer produces any goods for export do not recognize the toxic commercial instruments foisted on the world over the last half dozen years.  And the world bought it.  And bought them.

China produces the goods and the money to buy the goods.  The U.S. consumes the goods and the money to acquire the goods.  Projections about the Trillion dollar domestic bailouts spurring enough economic activity to drive the American economy and begin satisfying the growing national Debt are delusional.  The U.S. will never pay off its national Debt.  [See the e-ssay dated January 17, 2005 entitled “America the Bankrupt:  Economics 210 in the Land of the Freeway and the Home of the Wave.”]

How will China (and Japan, England, and other creditor countries) respond?  Is the U.S. “too big to fail” or more subtly “too intertwined to fail.”  What if no other country or consortium of countries is in an economic position to rescue the U.S. economy or forgive its debt in later years?

Bumper stickers of the week:

We are all in this alone together

China – Shop (and let your currency float)

USA – Stop (shopping despite what others command)

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The Millennium To Date (January 5, 2009)

Posted in Congress, Presidency, Supreme Court on January 5, 2009 by e-commentary.org

When presented with a defining challenge this Millennium, each branch of government failed.

2000 – Judicial.  Eight years ago, the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore decided that it not the voters will decide who is to be President.  The Supreme Court elected to appoint the President and preempt the voters.  The court issued a special decision to benefit one person.  An unprecedented decision has set a bad precedent.  The composition and ideology of the Supreme Court is even worse today.

2001 – 2003 (and continuing) – Executive.  Bush and Cheney came into office committed to invading Iraq.  After being warned in a daily briefing in August, 2001 that “Bin Laden Determined To Strike In U.S.,” no one thought to interpret the report to suggest that Bin Laden was determined to strike in U.S.  Bush left for Crawford to clear bush and brush.  When 9/11 occurred, the pretext for invasion arose even though neither Iraq nor any Iraqis were involved in the planning, implementation or funding of the 9/11 attacks.  His decision to invade lit a fuse that will be seen to have triggered the start of World War III.  Now Bush/Cheney are seeking to rewrite history to suggest that the intelligence that they and others actively distorted was provided by others.  For its part, Congress cravenly went along enough to provide Bush with political cover.

2007 – Legislative.  The Bailout/Bribe Bill was predictable and predicted.  Scare the public and you can get anything.  Paulson appointed himself King, raided the fisc, and gave money to fiends and former colleagues.  The Debt is exacerbating intermediate and long term economic problems in ways that the business and economic commentators do not seem to understand.  Bush more than any other person is responsible for the “Bush/Greenspan/Gramm Depression.”  Nonetheless, Congress has been a co-conspirator and an economic enabler.

One hopes that Clio is taking careful notes.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Blind faith in bad leaders is not patriotism.

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The Big Swap (December 29, 2008)

Posted in Economics on December 29, 2008 by e-commentary.org

. . .

“Have you ever read the Master Agreement of 2002?”

“Not exactly.”

“The International Swaps and Derivatives Association Master Agreement of 2002.  It is a masterpiece of dishonesty and deception.”

“He said over and over that we could not lose.”

“The proposed Agreement is an integrated contract.  That does not mean that Blacks and Whites can swim in the same pool.  The Agreement states that any and all verbal agreements are superseded by the written terms of the Agreement.”

“He said there is no risk.”

“You are playing in the big league.  Who are these guys?  They don’t have any understanding of the market for left-handed rutabagas.”

“He says that they don’t need to know anything about the industry.”

“This is an airtight agreement, you aren’t allowed to breath.  The forum selection clause clearly states that any action must be brought in the courts of New York.  The choice of law section states that New York law applies without regard to its choice of law provisions.  You are the away team.  The Agreement might as well say that the home boys in New York win. ”

“That’s what they require us to sign.”

“Even if you can find a local boy with enough experience and connections, you won’t encounter merely ‘home cooking,’ you will encounter ‘home boiling.’”

“If it works, we make a small fortune.  I make more in this one deal than I have made in five years.”

“It’s a bad idea.”

“We can’t lose.”

“This is way too risky for me.  I must back away.  This thing will collapse on someone.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

Greed = God

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