have an acquaintance, normally a very calm man, who is known to scream at his television these days. I’m told he saves his special imprecations for recently retired Fed Chief, Alan Greenspan.
I am only able to infer that my once calm friend’s retirement accounts are not doing quite so well. He is a man who has lived for his retirement years, forsaking all else to fund them. Watching the money shrink, I am sure, is a devastating experience.
But why yell at Greenspan? Sputtering, my friend once answered me, “it was his policies that led us into this mess. He did it! It’s all his fault!”
No. He did not. It is not. Perhaps he deserves a bit of censure for a touch of cowardice. But, after all, Mr. Greenspan was a public servant. In a Democracy, like ours, he ultimately represents the voters and he must bend his policies to their will. Mr. Greenspan did just that – he gave my brother-in-law what he wanted, what he insisted upon having.
Do we remember that in 1996 Mr. Greenspan tried to warn us? He spoke up about an “irrational exuberance” in the markets. That’s about as strong language as a bureaucrat better dare use. (I’ve been a bureaucrat. Plain speaking is dangerous. The penalties can be Draconian.) Mr. Greenspan was very clear – and he was clearly heard.
The Japanese market dropped sharply a day later. What happened in America?
When you say something – especially if it is deemed unpleasant to the hearer – there are a variety of responses you may encounter. If they disagree with you, you can argue back, marshal more facts, enlist allies, whatever. Mere disagreement doesn’t have to shut you up.
If they don’t hear or understand you, you can say it louder, try for more clarity – once again the discussion can continue.
But if they laugh at you, snigger, sneer, repeat you with derision in their voices, you had better stop immediately. Laughter is lethal to a public servant of any kind. At best he merely loses all effectiveness once he has been jeered at. At worst he’s out of his job.
When he tried to warn Americans that the markets were becoming too hot to be safe or even real, Mr. Greenspan got laughed at. Raucously.
Alan Greenspan is anything but stupid. He never attempted to warn us again. If we insisted upon being irrationally exuberant, he bent his policies to concur with our wishes. (We are a democracy, after all.) He was also a follower of Ayn Rand, and may well have felt that people were entitled to act as they pleased – even if they injured themselves. Especially after being warned.
Greenspan warned to more, and the American markets continued upward, ever upward, in their irrationally exuberant course. Until, perfectly rationally, they fell.
My friend may scream at his TV all he wishes. He may throw epithets at Alan Greenspan. That’s his democratic right, just as it was his right not to listen to Mr. Greenspan when he actually said a very clear thing (unusual in the extreme for Greenspan).
He just has to accept some of the blame himself.
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Monday, September 8, 2008
Freddie and Fannie
Oh boy. I just owe another hundred billion dollars. And so do you – and you. Our beloved Uncle Sam has just taken over FannieMae and FreddieMac. He estimates that the minimum cost to you and me will be about one third the cost of World War II in non-inflation adjusted dollars. One hundred billion is a large number. How many of us can really grasp it?
Why did Uncle wish such grief on us? Because, he points out, the alternative is simply unthinkable. Fannie and Freddie, between them, hold or guarantee about one half of all American mortgages. (That’s another easily comprehensible figure: Five trillion dollars.) Should, God forbid, that all go to smash, we might just be sucked down the economic drain for a long, long time.
When Jack Kennedy said, “We will shoulder any burden; we will fight any foe”, did he really have this kind of burden in mind? We will likely carry it until the American Empire finally lies on the ash heap of history with Rome, Spain, Persia, Britain and Babylon. What frustrates is that It’s a burden of our own making.
What were we thinking? In the past five years, a developer has slapped up a sixty house development in the woods across the street from me. “Starter homes” Very young couples. Fifteen hundred to 2600 sq feet, loaded with amenities. Many of them sold for zero down and a very low rate adjustable mortgage.
That’s the sort of development Fannie or Freddie bought or guaranteed over the past five years. Those are the kind of bad bets making American banks sell themselves to Arab buyers. As the Arabs stop buying – they’ve reached the worry point – those banks are now being forced to unload gilt edged assets at fire sale prices. The buyers? Investors known interestingly enough as “vultures”.
We didn’t see this coming? A few years ago a friend of mine took a ride through another new development with a real estate agent who had sold many of the homes. “Notice that the blinds are down in most of them,” said the agent.
“Why?’ asked my friend.
“Because after they got in these houses, none of them could afford to buy living room furniture,” explained the agent.
Any sane person would have said that this kind of speculation (and it is speculation, even if you live in one of those houses) cannot go on. It eventually has to topple over of its own weight. Silver did in 1873. Western land purchases did in 1891, stocks did in 1929, savings and loans in the 1980s, high tech in 2001 and, now, real estate. (Let’s not forget Dutch tulips a few centuries ago.)
So how did we delude ourselves once again?
As investors, we’ve always been a nation of binge drinkers. (We’re by no means the only one.) Once we get a little drunk on “appreciation” or “profit”, we can’t stop. Either “appreciation” is the strongest liquor in the world or we have no more resistance to it than the Native Americans had to alcohol. This binge may really give us a hangover.
So what does a binge drinker do to stop injuring himself. Swear off the sauce (the markets)? Go back to letting companies invest our pensions for us? Master the art of temperance, accepting that huge returns in markets or homes are not guaranteed? Cut back on our whole lifestyle?
We should look at our history – and the mess we’re in now – and at least think about it. General Grant, an actual alcoholic kept an officer around to make sure Grant didn’t drink. Is there something comparable we could do with real estate and stock market bubbles?
I advise that we do some soul searching.
At least until we’ve paid off our date with Fanny and Freddie.
Why did Uncle wish such grief on us? Because, he points out, the alternative is simply unthinkable. Fannie and Freddie, between them, hold or guarantee about one half of all American mortgages. (That’s another easily comprehensible figure: Five trillion dollars.) Should, God forbid, that all go to smash, we might just be sucked down the economic drain for a long, long time.
When Jack Kennedy said, “We will shoulder any burden; we will fight any foe”, did he really have this kind of burden in mind? We will likely carry it until the American Empire finally lies on the ash heap of history with Rome, Spain, Persia, Britain and Babylon. What frustrates is that It’s a burden of our own making.
What were we thinking? In the past five years, a developer has slapped up a sixty house development in the woods across the street from me. “Starter homes” Very young couples. Fifteen hundred to 2600 sq feet, loaded with amenities. Many of them sold for zero down and a very low rate adjustable mortgage.
That’s the sort of development Fannie or Freddie bought or guaranteed over the past five years. Those are the kind of bad bets making American banks sell themselves to Arab buyers. As the Arabs stop buying – they’ve reached the worry point – those banks are now being forced to unload gilt edged assets at fire sale prices. The buyers? Investors known interestingly enough as “vultures”.
We didn’t see this coming? A few years ago a friend of mine took a ride through another new development with a real estate agent who had sold many of the homes. “Notice that the blinds are down in most of them,” said the agent.
“Why?’ asked my friend.
“Because after they got in these houses, none of them could afford to buy living room furniture,” explained the agent.
Any sane person would have said that this kind of speculation (and it is speculation, even if you live in one of those houses) cannot go on. It eventually has to topple over of its own weight. Silver did in 1873. Western land purchases did in 1891, stocks did in 1929, savings and loans in the 1980s, high tech in 2001 and, now, real estate. (Let’s not forget Dutch tulips a few centuries ago.)
So how did we delude ourselves once again?
As investors, we’ve always been a nation of binge drinkers. (We’re by no means the only one.) Once we get a little drunk on “appreciation” or “profit”, we can’t stop. Either “appreciation” is the strongest liquor in the world or we have no more resistance to it than the Native Americans had to alcohol. This binge may really give us a hangover.
So what does a binge drinker do to stop injuring himself. Swear off the sauce (the markets)? Go back to letting companies invest our pensions for us? Master the art of temperance, accepting that huge returns in markets or homes are not guaranteed? Cut back on our whole lifestyle?
We should look at our history – and the mess we’re in now – and at least think about it. General Grant, an actual alcoholic kept an officer around to make sure Grant didn’t drink. Is there something comparable we could do with real estate and stock market bubbles?
I advise that we do some soul searching.
At least until we’ve paid off our date with Fanny and Freddie.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Cowboys and Hurricanes
Last Sunday, I tuned in to an internet church based in Texas. (Eagle Mountain International Church) The pastor is a fervent Dallas Cowboy fan and spices his sermons liberally with Texas Ranger Baseball and Dallas Cowboy allusions. His enthusiasm is infection – even for an old Pittsburgh Steeler fan.
Just before the service began, the pastor’s wife – a co-pastor – announced there was business to attend to and took over the pulpit.
Hurricane Gustav was bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Cities and a political convention were about to be affected. New Orleans was emptying out. She stood on the pulpit and she cursed that Hurricane in the name of Jesus. She commanded it to fall apart and do no significant damage. There was real anger in her eyes as she gave Gustav its orders in what she called the “name that is above every name, including that of Hurricane”.
I listened to her, and then I watched Gustav. It came on shore as a tropical storm and quickly dropped to the status of tropical depression.
You’re welcome to all the scientific debate you wish to have about how much effect prayer has on hurricanes or anything else.
But she believed. You could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. She was talking to that storm just as I might yell at a stray dog.
Interesting. In a thoroughly modern, scientific age, she believes in the “supernatural”. She believes she can touch it. She believes she can call upon it to impact the natural – some might even say, real world.
In short she believes in a deity who does things. Who acts. Who shows an interest in human affairs. Who intervenes.
The Greeks, original scientists, would have laughed at her. Huxley – of the1860 London Conference which canonized Darwin – would have sneered, as he did. Psychiatrists might spend a moment identifying the delusion under which she suffers.
Nonetheless she raises an interesting issue. What is the point of getting up, getting dressed, driving to a church building, listening for an hour and dropping five bucks in the plate – all for a lay about deity who never does anything and shows no interest in human affairs? None that I can see.
And most churches I have attended recently absolutely deny or sidestep the question of an active or acting deity. Maybe that’s why the Christian Church is losing members. Maybe that’s a valid reason for scientists to reject the notion of intelligent design when so many Christians insist “He” made the universe but hasn’t done anything significant since.
Maybe the big problem with American Christianity is that so few believe anything anymore. Maybe a few of them should check out Hurricane Gustav. And an angry lady in Texas.
Just before the service began, the pastor’s wife – a co-pastor – announced there was business to attend to and took over the pulpit.
Hurricane Gustav was bearing down on the Gulf Coast. Cities and a political convention were about to be affected. New Orleans was emptying out. She stood on the pulpit and she cursed that Hurricane in the name of Jesus. She commanded it to fall apart and do no significant damage. There was real anger in her eyes as she gave Gustav its orders in what she called the “name that is above every name, including that of Hurricane”.
I listened to her, and then I watched Gustav. It came on shore as a tropical storm and quickly dropped to the status of tropical depression.
You’re welcome to all the scientific debate you wish to have about how much effect prayer has on hurricanes or anything else.
But she believed. You could hear it in her voice, see it in her eyes. She was talking to that storm just as I might yell at a stray dog.
Interesting. In a thoroughly modern, scientific age, she believes in the “supernatural”. She believes she can touch it. She believes she can call upon it to impact the natural – some might even say, real world.
In short she believes in a deity who does things. Who acts. Who shows an interest in human affairs. Who intervenes.
The Greeks, original scientists, would have laughed at her. Huxley – of the1860 London Conference which canonized Darwin – would have sneered, as he did. Psychiatrists might spend a moment identifying the delusion under which she suffers.
Nonetheless she raises an interesting issue. What is the point of getting up, getting dressed, driving to a church building, listening for an hour and dropping five bucks in the plate – all for a lay about deity who never does anything and shows no interest in human affairs? None that I can see.
And most churches I have attended recently absolutely deny or sidestep the question of an active or acting deity. Maybe that’s why the Christian Church is losing members. Maybe that’s a valid reason for scientists to reject the notion of intelligent design when so many Christians insist “He” made the universe but hasn’t done anything significant since.
Maybe the big problem with American Christianity is that so few believe anything anymore. Maybe a few of them should check out Hurricane Gustav. And an angry lady in Texas.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
Let's Mix Oil and Water
The Conventions are over and most of us are back to real life. One bit of trivia: the tail of Hurricane Gustav just broke a three week drought over Michigan. See? Small blessings from great winds can grow.
However my estimation is that Lake Michigan is still about 20 feet below its high in 1984/5. That’s a lot of water down some drain. That’s drinking water for Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and whole lot of other small cities and towns in four states.
We keep hearing about droughts in the west, the southeast, wherever. Not just in this nation – it’s just been reported that Africa’s Lake Victoria will be used up and dry in thirty years. Much of Russia’s huge Aral Sea has become a desert littered with abandoned boats – in little over forty years. Farm irrigation is doing this.
And there’s talk about piping Lake Michigan water to the thirsty lawns and golf courses of our southwest. And our farms.
In short, we’re going through water as if it were oil. There’s six billion of us drinking, farming with, washing in and wasting our fresh water. All this is happening on a planet that is dotted with cities abandoned for one simple reason – loss of water supply. (Look at the large ruins in Afghanistan, Yemen, or our own Pueblos.)
War, famine and disease aren’t the only reasons civilizations fall – lack of water can do the trick just as well.
T. Boone Pickens warns us that we are participating in the greatest transfer of wealth in human history as we buy foreign oil. That’s bad enough – a similar but smaller transfer bankrupted the Roman Empire. But when we run out of water, that will make the oil crisis look like a small disruption in a nursery school.
I don’t hear any of our national campaigns talking about that. They should be. You can come up with options for oil. There is no alternative for water.
However my estimation is that Lake Michigan is still about 20 feet below its high in 1984/5. That’s a lot of water down some drain. That’s drinking water for Green Bay, Milwaukee, Chicago, Gary, Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids and whole lot of other small cities and towns in four states.
We keep hearing about droughts in the west, the southeast, wherever. Not just in this nation – it’s just been reported that Africa’s Lake Victoria will be used up and dry in thirty years. Much of Russia’s huge Aral Sea has become a desert littered with abandoned boats – in little over forty years. Farm irrigation is doing this.
And there’s talk about piping Lake Michigan water to the thirsty lawns and golf courses of our southwest. And our farms.
In short, we’re going through water as if it were oil. There’s six billion of us drinking, farming with, washing in and wasting our fresh water. All this is happening on a planet that is dotted with cities abandoned for one simple reason – loss of water supply. (Look at the large ruins in Afghanistan, Yemen, or our own Pueblos.)
War, famine and disease aren’t the only reasons civilizations fall – lack of water can do the trick just as well.
T. Boone Pickens warns us that we are participating in the greatest transfer of wealth in human history as we buy foreign oil. That’s bad enough – a similar but smaller transfer bankrupted the Roman Empire. But when we run out of water, that will make the oil crisis look like a small disruption in a nursery school.
I don’t hear any of our national campaigns talking about that. They should be. You can come up with options for oil. There is no alternative for water.
Friday, September 5, 2008
A Tale of Two Warriors
McCain and OBama, each a warrior. Each is a very tough, seasoned warrior. Nobody grows up black and successful in America without becoming very, very hardened. Nobody spends five years in a brutal pow camp without becoming very, very hard.
I don't mean that they are nasty or unfeeling -- I just mean to say that both men have a toughness that normal folk would prefer not to run up against.
Both smile a lot. Both will shake your hand, pat you on the back and profess to be deeply interested in your problems and griefs. But just look in their eyes.
Neither Michelle nor Cindy is the kind of women to be attracted to wimps. (For that matter, neither Biden nor Palin is the sort of politician to fit well with a wimp.) In school, they called OBama the "Obomber" for the way he played basketball. His absolutely huge player/coach brother-in-law says Obama never holds back or shows fear on the court. McCain, of course, has flown in the flack and dropped real bombs, mission after mission.
Obama does not hesitate to speak harshly of his opponent's policies and platform. McCain smiles and articulates great respect for Obama the warrior.
Did you listen to McCain's acceptance speech? Two things stood out for me. One, I cannot recall a nomine speaking with such respect for an opponent. Two, I doubt that in the history of the Republic there has ever been such an instance of a nominee taking his own party to task!
"We lost their trust" here; "we lost their trust" there; "we lost their trust ... ."
"We let Washington change us; we didn't change Washington."
That's a subtle old warrior.
Obama hasn't yet learned the skills that come from fighting in the lists -- with warplanes, through torture, in the halls of Congress. (Congressional knives make the stuff they use on the Southside of Chicago look like toothpicks.)
It's quite damning when you can say of a legislator that he has written two autobiographies by age 46 and passed no laws.
The old warrior has passed his laws. His autobiography is best written by the two arms that will not rise beyond his shoulders because of enemy neglect and torture.
OBama is a warrior, true. But he is a young warrior, still inexperienced.
The two men bring to mind the story of the old bull and the young bull. They came over top of a hill and there, below, was an entire herd of attractive heifers. "Oh boy", said the young bull, "let's run down and get one!"
The old bull answered, "Let's walk down and get them all."
Should be an interesting campaign.
I don't mean that they are nasty or unfeeling -- I just mean to say that both men have a toughness that normal folk would prefer not to run up against.
Both smile a lot. Both will shake your hand, pat you on the back and profess to be deeply interested in your problems and griefs. But just look in their eyes.
Neither Michelle nor Cindy is the kind of women to be attracted to wimps. (For that matter, neither Biden nor Palin is the sort of politician to fit well with a wimp.) In school, they called OBama the "Obomber" for the way he played basketball. His absolutely huge player/coach brother-in-law says Obama never holds back or shows fear on the court. McCain, of course, has flown in the flack and dropped real bombs, mission after mission.
Obama does not hesitate to speak harshly of his opponent's policies and platform. McCain smiles and articulates great respect for Obama the warrior.
Did you listen to McCain's acceptance speech? Two things stood out for me. One, I cannot recall a nomine speaking with such respect for an opponent. Two, I doubt that in the history of the Republic there has ever been such an instance of a nominee taking his own party to task!
"We lost their trust" here; "we lost their trust" there; "we lost their trust ... ."
"We let Washington change us; we didn't change Washington."
That's a subtle old warrior.
Obama hasn't yet learned the skills that come from fighting in the lists -- with warplanes, through torture, in the halls of Congress. (Congressional knives make the stuff they use on the Southside of Chicago look like toothpicks.)
It's quite damning when you can say of a legislator that he has written two autobiographies by age 46 and passed no laws.
The old warrior has passed his laws. His autobiography is best written by the two arms that will not rise beyond his shoulders because of enemy neglect and torture.
OBama is a warrior, true. But he is a young warrior, still inexperienced.
The two men bring to mind the story of the old bull and the young bull. They came over top of a hill and there, below, was an entire herd of attractive heifers. "Oh boy", said the young bull, "let's run down and get one!"
The old bull answered, "Let's walk down and get them all."
Should be an interesting campaign.
Thursday, September 4, 2008
A Pitbull with Lipstick
New girl in town. Stand back, she bites. Sarah Palin is not a girl I would have wanted to date -- and I can guarantee she would have had no interest in me. But, back in high school, I would have noticed her.
I loved her line on Barrack OBama's previous career as a "community organizer". She bristled at his contemptuous dismissal of her job as mayor of a small town. She allowed that there were some similarities between "community organizer" and "mayor." But, she said, a mayor "has real responsibilities".
The organizer is essentially a social worker with no authority. He can cajole and inspire; he has no power to implement. Therefor he never gains any real experience in executing a policy or making the theoretical actually happen.
OBama can cajole and inspire with the best -- what will he do when, for the first time in his life, he has to turn the engine on and make the thing go? Will he have any idea? Do we want to wait to find out until after he is elected?
OBama reminds me very much of Kennedy (I'm old enough to remember). I did not vote for Mr. Kennedy and, for the exact same reason, I am not going to vote for Mr. OBama.
Mr. Kennedy had been a senator for eight years, a congressman before that. He had an almost matchless ability to inspire, to cajole. Like OBama he and his family were gorgeous. He made marvelous speeches. Few have been better able to articulate the dreams of his hearers.
But he was very much an absentee senator (illness, often). He had almost no experience in making the Senate work -- like Teddy can.
The only thing he had ever commanded was a PT boat. The whole point of a PT boat is to maneuvre out of the way of whatever the enemy sends after you and take potshots as you skip away. He got his PT boat run over by an enemy destroyer. An understandable accident, but not a great reference for future promotion.
His absolute lack of practical experience showed up vividly in the TV debates of 1960. I came away from them appalled that we had nominated such a neophyte.
But he was glib and we elected him for his glibness.
And then came a series of events that mere glibness could not get him out of. He had to act on the Bay of Pigs. He acted horribly wrongly, inexperience trumped real life. The entire nation was humiliated as Castro demanded ransom for those we had possessed the power to keep out of captivity -- but not the experience or the will.
Khrushev summoned Kennedy to Vienna that summer. I had access to the photo morgues at Newsweek Magazine. You could see, first, the incredulity -- and then the contempt on Khrushev's face as the summit went on.
Having taken the measure of his man, Khrushev went home and built the Berlin Wall (after not have dared to against the last three years of Eisenhower). Kennedy's only response? He flew to Berlin and shouted, "I am a jelly roll." Several Berliners sent him umbrellas because he reminded them so much of the allies at Munich.
After being warned and warned and warned that the Russians were building missile sites in Cuba to counteract our sites in Europe and Turkey, finally Kennedy took notice when the missiles were already there.
At this point we would have no choice but to inflict the kind of humiliation on Russia that often starts a war. We came close. It can be said that Jack Kennedy remains the only American president to very nearly get every living American killed in a thermonuclear exchange. He got out of it alive by giving up the missiles in Turkey and because, in the end, Khruschev was an astonishingly reasonable man.
The Politburo stripped him of his job for botching the Cuban situation two years later.
I don't want that kind of deadly inexperience in the White House now. I don't want to be dependent on the reasonableness of the enemy for my life.
Islamic terrorists have no such compulsion that Khrushev had to remain alive.
Commanders-in-Chief have real responsibilities.
No matter how glib, how inspiring.
I loved her line on Barrack OBama's previous career as a "community organizer". She bristled at his contemptuous dismissal of her job as mayor of a small town. She allowed that there were some similarities between "community organizer" and "mayor." But, she said, a mayor "has real responsibilities".
The organizer is essentially a social worker with no authority. He can cajole and inspire; he has no power to implement. Therefor he never gains any real experience in executing a policy or making the theoretical actually happen.
OBama can cajole and inspire with the best -- what will he do when, for the first time in his life, he has to turn the engine on and make the thing go? Will he have any idea? Do we want to wait to find out until after he is elected?
OBama reminds me very much of Kennedy (I'm old enough to remember). I did not vote for Mr. Kennedy and, for the exact same reason, I am not going to vote for Mr. OBama.
Mr. Kennedy had been a senator for eight years, a congressman before that. He had an almost matchless ability to inspire, to cajole. Like OBama he and his family were gorgeous. He made marvelous speeches. Few have been better able to articulate the dreams of his hearers.
But he was very much an absentee senator (illness, often). He had almost no experience in making the Senate work -- like Teddy can.
The only thing he had ever commanded was a PT boat. The whole point of a PT boat is to maneuvre out of the way of whatever the enemy sends after you and take potshots as you skip away. He got his PT boat run over by an enemy destroyer. An understandable accident, but not a great reference for future promotion.
His absolute lack of practical experience showed up vividly in the TV debates of 1960. I came away from them appalled that we had nominated such a neophyte.
But he was glib and we elected him for his glibness.
And then came a series of events that mere glibness could not get him out of. He had to act on the Bay of Pigs. He acted horribly wrongly, inexperience trumped real life. The entire nation was humiliated as Castro demanded ransom for those we had possessed the power to keep out of captivity -- but not the experience or the will.
Khrushev summoned Kennedy to Vienna that summer. I had access to the photo morgues at Newsweek Magazine. You could see, first, the incredulity -- and then the contempt on Khrushev's face as the summit went on.
Having taken the measure of his man, Khrushev went home and built the Berlin Wall (after not have dared to against the last three years of Eisenhower). Kennedy's only response? He flew to Berlin and shouted, "I am a jelly roll." Several Berliners sent him umbrellas because he reminded them so much of the allies at Munich.
After being warned and warned and warned that the Russians were building missile sites in Cuba to counteract our sites in Europe and Turkey, finally Kennedy took notice when the missiles were already there.
At this point we would have no choice but to inflict the kind of humiliation on Russia that often starts a war. We came close. It can be said that Jack Kennedy remains the only American president to very nearly get every living American killed in a thermonuclear exchange. He got out of it alive by giving up the missiles in Turkey and because, in the end, Khruschev was an astonishingly reasonable man.
The Politburo stripped him of his job for botching the Cuban situation two years later.
I don't want that kind of deadly inexperience in the White House now. I don't want to be dependent on the reasonableness of the enemy for my life.
Islamic terrorists have no such compulsion that Khrushev had to remain alive.
Commanders-in-Chief have real responsibilities.
No matter how glib, how inspiring.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
Good Gray Libertarian
You gotta like Ron Paul. He pulls at American heartstrings that have twanged softly, sometimes not so softly, since at least 1692. He's right. If you read the Constitution as written, he's right -- like the chap in the auto accident who was Dead Right.
In other words, "I had the right of way, but the other guy had a truck."
John Locke in his Treatises on Government (1692) was right the same way. But, as I've often advised students, "If you are going to act on Locke's principles -- which are the bases for the US Constitution, have your will made out and your affairs in order.
Because, fundamentally, no government is going to tolerate being limited by Libertarian principles or by Locke's revolutionary notion that government governs by the consent of the governed. Right here at home, my local township -- some of whose officers live just down the block, isn't going to put up with such nonsense.
If my township wants to put in more water and sewer lines so that more houses can be built and more taxes paid so that it can buy this or that new governmental toy and hire more staff to run it, it is going to ram the pipelines down my throat -- and charge me for the fun -- whether I want or need the service or not.
If I opposed this with a Lockian or Libertarian argument about limited governmental rights, I would at best be considered quaint. If I acted on that argument and, say, did not pay the levy I had no voice in, I would be dealt with as any other enemy of society. Criminal and financial penalties would be imposed. So I pay. So do my angry neighbors.
Congress is no different. Monarchies were no different. Soverign State governments act no differently. None of the above will accept any serious limitation on its actions by citizen voters. Courts they must deal with. Powerful financial interests they may have to bow to. (That's not new to America. Kings and Emporers often faced lobbyists "who must be obeyed".)
Not since the first spear throwing strongman established his own government over the lesser spear chuckers has life been different.
Nor is it likely to be on this imperfect globe.
So we listen to Ron Paul. We like what he says. And we dream ... . But we cannot take him seriously.
In other words, "I had the right of way, but the other guy had a truck."
John Locke in his Treatises on Government (1692) was right the same way. But, as I've often advised students, "If you are going to act on Locke's principles -- which are the bases for the US Constitution, have your will made out and your affairs in order.
Because, fundamentally, no government is going to tolerate being limited by Libertarian principles or by Locke's revolutionary notion that government governs by the consent of the governed. Right here at home, my local township -- some of whose officers live just down the block, isn't going to put up with such nonsense.
If my township wants to put in more water and sewer lines so that more houses can be built and more taxes paid so that it can buy this or that new governmental toy and hire more staff to run it, it is going to ram the pipelines down my throat -- and charge me for the fun -- whether I want or need the service or not.
If I opposed this with a Lockian or Libertarian argument about limited governmental rights, I would at best be considered quaint. If I acted on that argument and, say, did not pay the levy I had no voice in, I would be dealt with as any other enemy of society. Criminal and financial penalties would be imposed. So I pay. So do my angry neighbors.
Congress is no different. Monarchies were no different. Soverign State governments act no differently. None of the above will accept any serious limitation on its actions by citizen voters. Courts they must deal with. Powerful financial interests they may have to bow to. (That's not new to America. Kings and Emporers often faced lobbyists "who must be obeyed".)
Not since the first spear throwing strongman established his own government over the lesser spear chuckers has life been different.
Nor is it likely to be on this imperfect globe.
So we listen to Ron Paul. We like what he says. And we dream ... . But we cannot take him seriously.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)