Andrew Bacevich and the limits of power

H.D.S. Greeway writes an excellent column in the Boston Globe, today, covering the ideas of a writer that looks to be very much up my alley, soldier-scholar and Boston University professor Andrew Bacevich, and his new book, The Limits of Power, the End of American Exceptionalism

The grand illusion of American power

Bacevich and I look to be very much eye to eye on quite a bit and I'm looking forward to reading his new book.

Here's a teaser from Greeway's column:

"Niebuhr warned against 'dreams of managing history,' a combination of arrogance and narcissism that posed a moral threat. That's why Niebuhr is often held in contempt by neo-conservatives for whom power is everything. Bacevich's concern is that the dream has become a physical threat that could lead to America's inevitable decline.

There is a mythical American narrative, according to Bacevich, that the United States is a nation "providentially set apart in the New World and wanting nothing more than to tend to its own affairs," only grudgingly responding to calls for global leadership "in order to preserve the possibility of freedom." In reality, the United States has sought expansion, first by pushing west until it reached the sea, then through a brief period of direct colonialism, and more recently through a ruthless if indirect imperial policy of control. It worked spectacularly. The United States became a great power replete with material abundance.

Right around the time of the Vietnam War, Bacevich argues, this began to unravel. Trade imbalances, federal deficits, "mushrooming entitlements, plummeting savings rates, and energy dependence" led us to become a debtor nation, counting on others to foot the bill. "The positive correlation between expansion, power, abundance, and freedom began to become undone . . . Further efforts at expansionism have led to the squandering of American power," according to Bacevich.

The actions of the Bush administration after 9/11 may have been designed to make the United States safe from another attack. But the chosen method was nothing less than to "assert American power throughout the Greater Middle East . . . to transform this region, to employ American power, both hard and soft, to impose order while ensuring stability, order, access, and adherence to American norms - in essence to establish unambiguous US hegemony so that the Islamic world will no longer serve as a breeding ground for terrorists who wish to kill us."

The grand illusion of American power as a transformative agent is evident in what Bush's lieutenants had to say. "We have a choice," said Donald Rumsfeld in September, 2001. Either we change the way we live, "which is unacceptable," or we "change the way they live, and we chose the latter. " Or as Douglas Feith would later put it: America's purpose was to "transform the Middle East and the broader world of Islam generally."

This grand imperial overreach never had a chance. Transforming Islam can only be done by Muslims themselves, in their own due time. The new "liberated" Iraq has not changed the Middle East. The passions of the Middle East have transformed Iraq, perhaps more stable now than a year ago but in no way destined to achieve what Bush, Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, et al wanted and expected.

The net result is that much of the world now looks on the Bush administration's resurrection of Woodrow Wilson's ideals and the expansion of democracy as a cover for coercion and bare-knuckle dominance. As Bacevich says, Bush always confused strategy with ideology.

Militarily, we threw containment and deterrence out the window, banking on the "shock and awe" of preventive war. It hasn't worked. We are bogged down in two wars with an end to neither in sight.

Bacevich doesn't see the November election as necessarily producing a beneficial change. John McCain touts the stalemated Iraq war as a success, while Barack Obama calls for more effort in Afghanistan. In Bacevich's view, it is the entire doctrine of preventive war that has proved a failure. There has to be a better way than occupying Muslim countries."

Looks like great stuff. Highly recommend checking this book out. I know I will.

The limits of power

Apparently Indians have found a way to deal with foolish regulations they don't like. Ignore them.

Shrugging off Smoking Ban

Not a bad idea, frankly. If I didn't value my honesty and integrity with my colleagues and folks I have to work with, I'd chip in. As it is, I'll be working on honestly persuading them of the foolishness of this route of everyone pretending like regulation solves more than it does when people are not genuinely on board and when their consciences are not in line with whatever rules are enforced.

In the meantime, India does reflect the very serious limits of enforcement. People do have to cooperate. If they don't, you are fucked. I don't care how much power you have.

If you doubt that, I hear there's an Asian subcontinent who could use some help getting people to give up the tobacci.

What liberal elitism?

I love how Paul Krugman always thinks he knows my interests or Joe the Plumber's interests better than me or Joe, for ourselves.

The real plumbers of Ohio

Joe and I both earn less than $50,000 a year. So a millionaire economist like Paul Krugman must know what is best for us even if we don't, right? Don't liberal Nobel-prize winning economists always know my interests better than me?

It's good to know that liberal elitism is really just a myth, in'it?

Glad that Paul has alerted me that it is "Republican plutocrats", and not Paul Krugman, who are condescending the average Joe.

For their own good, of course.

Say hi to your mother for me, ok?

I don't care how much Mark Wahlberg wets his little cotton panties, this is fuckin' funny.



Mark Wahlberg needs to stop being such a little girl and quit his fuckin' whining.

And on the off chance that he says anything to Andy in my vicinity, I will talk to you nice, Mark, about the benefits of having a sense of humor. And I then and Andy Samberg will beat your cryin' bitch ass if you try anything funny, Funky Bunch.

Say hi to your mother for me, alright?

Wise up

One of my favorite songs from one of my favorite artists.



Sing it, Aimee.

Wisdom

When I was 18 years old, my two most important aspirations in the world were to find wisdom and to be a great dad. I'm working on both.

And my experience in the world has taught me that wisdom is not something we seek out for ourselves only.

Wisdom is often a consequence of people looking out for others and ourselves despite ourselves.

It is a function of our mistakes and our lessons learned as it is of knowledge in advance of our failings. Wisdom grows out of failures as much as our success. Wisdom is not always so wise. Often we find it tripping over ourselves. Our failure to acknowledge that has cost us much over the course of human history. And our honest acknowledgment of that fact has much good to offer to the world.

We most assuredly need the serenity to accept the things we cannot change. And it takes much courage to change the things we can.

God grant us to wisdom to know the difference.

Nobody's fault but mine

Sing it, Nina.



And the song, for good reason, that I know her for.



True dat, Nina. True dat.

The truth will set you free

The real test of strong ideas is how they fare when nobody likes them.

What Would Milton Friedman Say?

I think Uncle Milt would find it kind of funny that people would think that the most important idea of the enlightenment and in human history - the marketplace and the ideas that it produces - could possibly ever be defeated or brought to an end.

The era of markets is the era of the most serious, consistent, and dramatic progress in human history. The idea that it would be at an end is as irrational as it is wrong.

I think Professor Friedman would have found it kind of amusing that anyone would be rooting for or predicting its demise any more than they would promote or predict the end of democracy, education, scientific development, a reliable food supply, or clean water. As if we would give up any of these contributions to our lives and more genuine measures of progress because someone in power says so.

Gotta wish Democrats good luck with that. I can't imagine anything more futile or foolish. How ironic that those who promote a progressive ideology would so clearly undermine, and in doing so, so clearly signal the more honest direction for real progress.

Truth is often stranger than fiction, it's true.

But the thing about truth is that it's the only thing that's true.

And what is that old saying about truth?

It most certainly wasn't that it will force you to do a goddamn thing.

But it sure as hell will set your free.

And it is freedom that is the only honest consequence of truth.

Warren Buffet's advice

The Sage of Omaha offers some rare financial advice in today's New York Times:

My Money and Mouth Say Equities

From that article (my italics):

"A simple rule dictates my buying: Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful. And most certainly, fear is now widespread, gripping even seasoned investors. To be sure, investors are right to be wary of highly leveraged entities or businesses in weak competitive positions. But fears regarding the long-term prosperity of the nation’s many sound companies make no sense. These businesses will indeed suffer earnings hiccups, as they always have. But most major companies will be setting new profit records 5, 10 and 20 years from now.

Let me be clear on one point: I can’t predict the short-term movements of the stock market. I haven’t the faintest idea as to whether stocks will be higher or lower a month — or a year — from now. What is likely, however, is that the market will move higher, perhaps substantially so, well before either sentiment or the economy turns up. So if you wait for the robins, spring will be over.

A little history here: During the Depression, the Dow hit its low, 41, on July 8, 1932. Economic conditions, though, kept deteriorating until Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in March 1933. By that time, the market had already advanced 30 percent. Or think back to the early days of World War II, when things were going badly for the United States in Europe and the Pacific. The market hit bottom in April 1942, well before Allied fortunes turned. Again, in the early 1980s, the time to buy stocks was when inflation raged and the economy was in the tank. In short, bad news is an investor’s best friend. It lets you buy a slice of America’s future at a marked-down price.

Over the long term, the stock market news will be good. In the 20th century, the United States endured two world wars and other traumatic and expensive military conflicts; the Depression; a dozen or so recessions and financial panics; oil shocks; a flu epidemic; and the resignation of a disgraced president. Yet the Dow rose from 66 to 11,497.

You might think it would have been impossible for an investor to lose money during a century marked by such an extraordinary gain. But some investors did. The hapless ones bought stocks only when they felt comfort in doing so and then proceeded to sell when the headlines made them queasy.

Today people who hold cash equivalents feel comfortable. They shouldn’t. They have opted for a terrible long-term asset, one that pays virtually nothing and is certain to depreciate in value. Indeed, the policies that government will follow in its efforts to alleviate the current crisis will probably prove inflationary and therefore accelerate declines in the real value of cash accounts.

Equities will almost certainly outperform cash over the next decade, probably by a substantial degree. Those investors who cling now to cash are betting they can efficiently time their move away from it later. In waiting for the comfort of good news, they are ignoring Wayne Gretzky’s advice: 'I skate to where the puck is going to be, not to where it has been.'

I don’t like to opine on the stock market, and again I emphasize that I have no idea what the market will do in the short term. Nevertheless, I’ll follow the lead of a restaurant that opened in an empty bank building and then advertised: 'Put your mouth where your money was.' Today my money and my mouth both say equities."

I sincerely doubt that either fear or greed figure as much as a sound intellectual framework in Warren Buffet's active investing. If you read Benjamin Graham's Intelligent Investor you will get a better idea of why it is wise to look for bargains in a bear market and to be cautious in a bull market. Warren Buffet gleened much wisdom from Ben Graham. And he's got the dollars to prove it.

What Warren Buffet is really saying in this article is: Chill. Look for bargains in the market when things are sour. Have some confidence in the market, long run. Don't get so scared or so excited about any short run, even when everyone around you is scared or excited. Don't believe the hype. The market's going to be fine. Find some good quality stocks at good prices and have some confidence that they will perform well, generally, over time.

But most of all: Chill. The market is going to be fine. The country is going to be fine. And with a sounder understanding of the market and the world, life looks much better than you think.

Now go get 'em. Me too.

Why Paul Krugman is a moron

Paul Krugman demonstrates in his first column post-Nobel why I think he was such a remarkably poor choice for that award.

We Need to Increase Government Spending

America is now more than $10 trillion dollars in debt. With Medicare, Social Security and other unfunded obligations added to that mix, our debt stands at $59.1trillion dollars. We spend about a third of that money, around $3 trillion dollars, estimated conservatively, for interest on that debt.

We have a banking crisis as a function of banks engaging in similar behavior, spending and investing money beyond what they could generate in revenue. And the Federal government just added almost $700 billion dollars to that budget deficit to pick up the pieces from that unsustainable spending and investment on the part of banks.

And instead of making choices that might responsibly ensure financial health for the Federal government in the same way that Mr. Krugman would, presumably, want major banks to make to for the sake of their own financial health, focussing on an honest accounting of revenues that the government will take in, making cuts in spending and tradeoffs America needs to make to spend within that budget and to be able to afford whatever government may spend that money on, instead of spending more than $3 trillion of that money on servicing a budget deficit, Paul Krugman's response is to ignore that much more unsustainable and serious financial situation for the U.S. government and to ask the Federal government to spend more, amidst a record-breaking period of financial mismanagement on the part of the U.S. government.

And this is the asshole who just got the Nobel prize for economics.

This world has been turned upside-down by politics.

And Paul Krugman is case-in-point numero uno of just how mad people all over the world have gone to rationalize power.

This is not fiscal sanity that Paul Krugman is proposing. It is politics, as usual. And it is the kind of politics that has made of mess of liberal democracies. And we will continue to deal with that mess and all of the lying that makes it so until we face how foolish we have become.

Sooner rather than later, I hope.

The Democrats' downfall

Ron Brownstein asks the question that many ideological stalwarts in the Democratic party are asking themselves, right now.

The End of the Reagan Era?

It is the strongest source of Democratic hubris. And it will be their downfall, regardless of how much power they secure this election.

I am concerned about Democratic control of the Presidency and the Congress. But, regardless, this election is likely to be a moment of Democratic overreach and arrogance of power that demonstrates the poverty of ideas among Democrats, right now. It will also be their downfall, in a very similar way that the Bush Administration's abuses of power undermined the Republican party.

You can already see it in that interview of Joe the Plumber. What most people in power don't see, yet, is that most people want government out of their lives. No matter how much partisans romanticize otherwise. And that desire will not reverse itself to satisfy either Republican or Democratic victories. Republicans and Democrats will adapt themselves to what Americans want their government to do.

And that more fundamental reality - that those who aspire to govern in a liberal democracy must either lead with better ideas or follow the lead of citizens who want to determine their own lives - will determine the fate of liberal democratic politics over the next century and beyond, not the other way around.

And no Administration, Democratic or Republican, is immune to that more fundamental reality.

Americans love freedom

I think a lot of liberals are underestimating, right now, just how intuitively this argument makes sense to Americans.



Should make more sense to everyone, I think. It's the logic that has made so much of the opportunity we take for granted in America possible.

I hope, one day, my kids can grow up in a world where we take that freedom and its opportunities less for granted. It'd be nice for America to live up to its name as a land of freedom and opportunity.

I can't think of a better future to offer my children.

Progress

The Economist has a very nice sum up of the last Presidential debate of the 2008 season.

The last word

"Mr McCain drew sharp contrasts with his opponent. He insisted that Mr Obama believes that the government has the answers to America's problems whereas Mr McCain puts his trust in ordinary people (in one amusing slip of the tongue he seemed to address Mr Obama as “Senator Government”). He dwelt at length on an offhand comment that Mr Obama made to a small-businessman called Joe the Plumber about “spreading the wealth around”, instantly turning Joe into the most famous plumber since the operatives who broke into the Watergate complex.

Mr McCain managed to land some good jabs on his rival. He pointed out that he had broken his promise to take public financing for his campaign (and thus limit campaign spending). He noted that Mr Obama's solution to every problem is to spend more money. He attacked Mr Obama for (unfairly) pretending that there is no difference between him and the present incumbent. “I am not President Bush”, he said at one point. “If you wanted to run against President Bush you should have run four years ago.”

All good stuff. But Mr McCain also made two big mistakes. Bringing up Mr Obama's association with Bill Ayers, a former terrorist, made him look petty on a day on which the Dow Jones had lost 8% of its value and people have much bleaker issues on their minds. The second—and more serious—lay in his body language. Mr McCain let his contempt for the younger man shine through, harrumphing, grimacing, smirking and goggling his eyes whenever Mr Obama got a chance to speak. The whole performance was reminiscent of Al Gore's sighing in his debate with George Bush in 2000, which many people think contributed to his defeat.

Mr Obama's performance during all this was remarkable. He remained calm and unflustered. He listened respectfully to his opponent. He took every opportunity to change the subject to economics and the woes of the average American. He even turned Mr McCain's assertion that he associated with Mr Ayers to his advantage, claiming that the people he associates with, on economic issues, are Paul Volcker and Warren Buffett. If many of his arguments were weak—he gave no sense of how he would reconcile his spending plans with America's giant deficits—his body language was impeccable.

The instant polls all gave a big victory to Mr Obama. Mr McCain made the debate exciting, but Mr Obama got the better of the evening, surely increasing his already high chances of victory in November."

It does look like I will be voting for Barack Obama, at this point. Last night's debate, and the comparison of temperament and intellect that it offered, I think sealed the deal for me.

But I was very glad that John McCain was there, last night, to offer some important contrasts in policy options, especially on matters of markets, health care, and education, all areas where I think McCain has generally stronger policy positions.

One of the values of debate is to expose our weaknesses as well as highlight our strengths. Most of us who debate policy probably do not appreciate that purpose as well as we might and should. I know I didn't as a debater in high school and college. And I'm sure I don't appreciate it enough, at this point in my life, either. All of us want to have all the answers. I am no exception. I'm probably more guilty of it than most, in all likelihood. And even good men and women need the contrast, the clash, the comparison, and the healthy sense of competition to improve our thought processes and our more fully developed ideas and arguments about how we think the world is.

The beauty of debates like the one last night is that it reminds us that our thinking about how the world is is just that: it is our all too limited thinking. Our minds are not and never will be complete maps of the world and all of its complex realities. Our minds are, at best, incomplete, and always developing maps of the territory of existence. There is no one person, no one candidate, no one party, no one ideology or religion, no one group or government. There is no one who has all of the final answers about anything. Nothing. No matter how genius and no matter how important those answers and the challenges they address might be.

Humility, more than final answers, is one of our most important assets when approaching our most serious problems, especially those problems that affect all of us or large numbers of us, those we call political.

Debate and discussion, shared reflection, open-minded liberal democratic engagement is our most valuable tradition, I believe, especially in liberal democratic discussions, for addressing and sorting out our most serious challenges.

Our ability to substantively address challenges based on reasoned reflection and communication is what distinguishes modern liberal democracies from the barbarism of the largest bulk of human history. It is our ability to reason and to engage one another that allowed modern liberal democratic societies to thrive while others struggled more to address similar problems. It is our free exchange of ideas that makes us stronger and better individuals and societies, over time. There are no guarantees that we will have all the answers we need. But free exchange makes it more likely.

And last night's debate, more than the rest of the election, illustrates the strength of liberal democracies: our capacity for engaged and substantial thought on the most serious matters we face, in lieu of aggression and violence to solve problems it cannot possibly solve.

It is a value that we clearly take for granted. And we are clearly foolish to do so.

And progress is what occurs when we take this much more fundamental liberal democratic value more seriously.

Faith

I think I've lost all faith in anyone to make decisions for my life other than me.

That's what progress looks like: me taking responsibility for my life and with no presumption that anyone can take better responsibility for me other than me.

I don't have any more faith in Congress, bosses, my professors, my colleagues, friends, family, anyone to know how to live my life better than me.

I will work with all of these people. But as long as they compel my cooperation, it will always be half-hearted. That is the consequence of depending on force rather than more honest liberal democratic values for relating to one another.

I will now, forever, and only give my whole heart to that which I choose freely. I can only love that which allows me to be free to love. Everything else is bullshit. And if anyone is wondering why they are not happy with their jobs, their relationships, and their lives, this is likely the source.

And I could give two shits about anyone's excuses for why they will not end this bullshit, anymore.

I have lost faith in the excuses and in those who cannot find the courage to face the failures that power has wrought.

"Progress"

The Economist has a nice feature on the man whose psychological work is foundational to my own thinking, Abraham Maslow, in their October 10th, 2008 edition.

Abraham Maslow

This line from the article struck me:

"Maslow was described by Peter Drucker as “the father of humanist psychology”. But Drucker took issue with Maslow’s hierarchy, complaining that he had not seen that “a want changes in the act of being satisfied”. Hence “as a want approaches satiety its capacity to reward, and with it its power as an incentive, diminishes fast”. And so (as we now know well) top executives can never be paid enough for them to be satisfied."

Maslow actually does account for Drucker's criticism. He just regarded such people as insecure or D-value motivated people. Meaning, Maslow argued, correctly, I believe, that such people are trying to satisfy higher needs with lower need motivators. They are trying to be important and have more money and stuff when really what they want and need is more respect and appreciation of their efforts. They keep trying to use money to feel more important or appreciated than they really are or feel. And, sadly, all it serves to do is increase the level of envy and frustration that others have with them.

More than that, the current situation seriously undermines my confidence in either those executives or our political leaders to be responsible in situations like these financial hard times and the capacity for money to motivate real responsibility.

All those banking executives make all that money and they can't even manage their own businesses when they are failing, as much as when they are succeeding?

Pathetic.

And a sign of how little power or money really correlates with real responsibility or the courage to take it.

I work for a local school district and have to follow fairly prescriptive mandates from my state and Federal governments, and those assholes can't find the money to contribute money they've already promised and has already been legislated for special education? Those assholes can't find the 40% of special education expenses they've promised versus the 9% they've delivered (the last I saw numbers), but they can find fucking $700 billion for bankers who made shitty investments? I work much more directly for the Feds, and they can't find the money to pay for contributions or for those of us in my field, but they can find fucking $700 billion dollars to make sure that these banking executives get to take home their golden parachutes all in one piece and noone has to eat the fucking costs of mistakes that, to be fair, do lay at the feet of many of those in the Federal government, but, ultimately, lay at the feet of those who made the bad investments?

It's one of the biggest loads of shit I have ever had to watch in national politics in my entire fucking life.

I wish someone would pay me all that money to watch my business fail, not take any responsibility, and have the government step in keep me afloat.

I won't hold my breath.

But, apparently, according to folks in Washington, this is how the world is supposed to work.

Because they're all fucking lame is why. Scared little children looking around for Papa Government to come in and save them. No matter how much power folks in Washington have, they can never take responsibility. And no matter how much money folks on Wall Street have, they can never do the same.

Much of that has to do with how we treat people when they try to take honest responsibility for their mistakes. But, to be fair, many of these same people who are not willing to take responsibility are the same folks who advocate the kind of punitive treatment that makes people less willing to take responsibility more publicly and openly.

What Papa Government needs to do is to stop trying to nail people for their mistakes, except when a clear and present danger presents itself to the physical well-being of others - to avoid using force unless force is involved and there are no alternatives to stop it - and to get the hell out of the way and let his children fail and learn their lessons. And to stay out of their way, as much as possible, in the future.

But we're too scared to be that kind of grown-up.

So we let all those executives make off with millions while their businesses fail and let taxpayers pick up the tab. Government takes on a substantial proportion of the economy, Congress bets with our money that businesses will turn around, and if they don't, we eat the costs and those executives still get paid.

Congress and the President makes taxpayers take "ownership" (I say that in quotes, since it is pretty clear that Americans do not want to take on this venture), executives take none, they still get paid, whether the company fails or succeeds, and they do so in the name of steering their ship to higher tides.

No wonder kids would look out into this world and say to themselves, "This place is fucked up. And everyone looks prepared to keep it that way."

It backasswards, is what it is.

It is all kinds of good intentions with noone taking responsibility. It is the opposite of what a liberal democracy is supposed to be. But as long as peoples' pockets are being lined and politicians get to rationalize their power, it is all good, apparently.

Except it's not. It's a big fat lie, is what it is.

And I, for one, am tired of watching this poor excuse for a liberal democracy pretend like it is moving in the direction of "progress."

Progress is when we call out this bullshit for what it is. And stop making excuses for what self-centered lameasses the world has resigned itself to being. Progress is when we stop being self-centered shitheads and lameasses and start taking responsibility for ourselves and our actions and their consequences in a spirit of more genuine and collaborative community.

Progress is when we treat one anther better. All of us.

That is the standard for progress. And no amount of bullshit will ever compensate for that reality.

Demetri Martin offers a little clearification

Funny stuff.

See more Demetri Martin videos at Funny or Die

And somewhat relevant to my overachieving as of, late.

See more Demetri Martin videos at Funny or Die

You'll have to check out his website, Clearification.com to see more episodes. Somewhat clarifying for me, right now. Funny stuff, in the meantime.

Makes me want to skip teaching and make up some pie charts. Nothing like laughing your ass off while someone is fucking with you with graphs.

Letting the market do its job

Princeton law professor Jonathan Macey writes an excellent account of responsibility and correction for the problems in the current market in an October 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal piece.

The Goverment is Contributing to the Panic

Macey argues (with my italics):

"Despite all the hard work and good intentions on the part of our public officials, when economists and historians look back on the current financial crisis they are likely to conclude that government intervention prolonged and deepened it. In particular, officials at the Federal Reserve, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Treasury Department are to blame for publicly losing confidence in the very economic system they are supposed to protect.

The Fed, the Treasury and the SEC appear to be in a state of panic. A crisis mentality led the custodians of the U.S. capital markets publicly to jettison their lifelong commitments to the capital markets in favor of a series of short-term regulatory quick fixes. Even more troubling, for the past several months the doyens of U.S. fiscal and monetary policy have ignored the most fundamental principle of central banking, which is that the primary responsibility of central bankers is to promote stability and to maintain confidence in the capital markets. Our central bankers appear to have suddenly lost confidence both in their own abilities and in the standard tools of fiscal and monetary policy.

The original Treasury plan -- which called for the transfer of virtually unlimited taxpayer dollars and unlimited spending discretion to Treasury with no judicial or congressional oversight -- sent a very bad signal to the markets. Instead of restoring confidence, this approach to the crisis instilled more fear and panic in the markets...

...On Feb. 14, just one month prior to the Bear Stearns bailout, Mr. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified before the Senate Banking Committee. Both officials told the senators that the Fed's interest-rate cuts and the $170 billion economic-stimulus package signed into law the previous week would prevent a recession. They also testified in February that they were not concerned about bank failures because the banks were both adequately capitalized and had ready access to additional outside capital. In just over a month these regulators had completely reversed course about the state of the economy and about their own capacity to deal with the problems facing the capital markets. The regulators also changed course by losing their confidence in the strength of the free-market system and in the ability of the nation's capital markets to self-correct if provided with sufficient liquidity by the central bankers in traditional ways.

The government also wrongly abandoned market solutions when it temporarily banned short-selling. Asserting that "unbridled short selling is contributing to the recent, sudden price declines in the securities of financial institutions unrelated to true price valuation," the SEC temporarily forbade short-selling in financial institutions. The ban lasted from Sept. 17, until 11:59 p.m. Oct. 8, and was lifted only when the Treasury bailout was passed.

By the time the bailout package was passed, market sentiment had darkened to mirror the government's own pessimism about the ability of markets to play a salutary role in repairing the fractured capital market. The notion that the government rather than the private sector can create a market for distressed bank assets seems particularly misguided.

The solutions being implemented also send the message that resources devoted to risk management are wasted. All of these plans reward the financial institutions that acted like lemmings by chasing the mortgage-related debt bubble rather than rewarding the financial institutions that exercised restraint and risk avoidance and independent thought and action. This unfortunate "heads Wall Street Wins, tails America loses" economic policy is wholly inconsistent with the principles of personal and corporate responsibility that are essential to a functional free market.

Firms like Merrill Lynch that took decisive steps to deal with their problems now look like suckers, as do banks that watched their leverage ratios and paid diligently into a deposit insurance program that offers protection on a far smaller scale than their investment banking rivals are getting for nothing.

If the SEC had done half the job in ferreting out fraud and funny accounting that short-sellers have done, our capital markets would not be imploding. Now short-sellers, like other market participants, are threatened with new restrictions on their activities as Congress begins to hold hearings on the crisis in the capital markets and politicians and regulators turn their focus to the shibboleth of market manipulation.

Of course, market manipulation does exist, but federal regulators deserve much of the blame for this form of market abuse. For years the SEC has hampered companies' ability to protect themselves from manipulation by short-sellers. The most effective way for a company to respond to an attempt to manipulate its share prices is simply to repurchase its own shares, simultaneously "squeezing" the short positions and sending a clear signal of financial health to the capital market.

However, companies have long felt vulnerable to being charged by the SEC with manipulation whenever they go into the market to make share repurchases. The SEC finally acknowledged this problem after the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman when it stated publicly that "historically, issuers generally have been reluctant to undertake repurchases" when faced with manipulative short-sellers because of the massive amount of uncertainty about whether the SEC would sue them for trying to manipulate the market.

The Bear Stearns bailout, the restrictions on short-selling and the government's new $700 billion commitment to buy toxic mortgage-based assets all share the same fundamental flaw: They prevent the market from imposing discipline on banks guilty of massive over-leveraging and excessive risk-taking. Moreover, they punish prudent managers who invested conservatively, kept their companies' debt at reasonable levels and worked hard to raise new capital when necessary. The SEC's attack on short-selling punishes savvy traders who invested resources and effort in identifying companies with too much debt and unrealistically valued assets.

Letting markets work is messy and costly. Nevertheless, the only sensible way to deal with the current crisis is to force the companies who created the mess to bear at least some of the costs of their mistakes. Most of all, if the markets are to get back on track our regulators must put an immediate stop to their current practice of publicly demonizing the markets and work to restore confidence in the system."

There has been and is too much condifence in regulators to anticipate events that Professor Macey makes clear that they did not and, generally, cannot anticipate and correct for.

Bad things happen. It is not ideal. Neither is government always or even generally the most informed or better positioned player to resolve problems. We assume they are because we are afraid, not because they generally do a better job. There are important jobs for government to perform. But public confidence in the government to perform its essential jobs is undermined when we crow for and government responds with efforts that it is ill-equipped to tackle. We are better, generally, to allow government to do the jobs that it is best-suited to.

Correcting the market is not one of those jobs.

And Professor Macey makes a very good argument for why, in this case, that is likely true.

What created the financial meltdown?

I'm still researching the financial meltdown and all the original causes of this mess.

Lending discrimination suits by the Clinton Administration and community activists to force banks to offer loans to people who could not otherwise qualify. Securitization of mortgages my Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae with a false AAA credit rating. Credit default swaps, what may have been paper insurance not backed by real assets, for these bundled securities. Perhaps greed and confusion, given these very complicated realities, on the part of bankers.

Many people are likely responsible. Bankers must take responsibility for the debt because it was debt they assumed. I will not hold my breath for community activists and government officials who may have been responsibile for this situation to take responsibility. They just don't do responsibility. It's not their thing. That's the beauty of politics. There's always someone else to blame.

And though they don't take responsibility readily, this video and article by Ed Morrisey of Hotair does seem to make a pretty good case that discrimination lawsuits and Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae securitization may have been one of the original problems that caused this mess.

The quotes that explain the entire financial meltdown

And here's the video of Andrew Cuomo unknowlingly giving us all a peek into the beginnings of the country's financial problems.

Andrew Cuomo: Subprime Loans "Affirmative Action"



I'm still researching, so I'm not ready to point fingers, yet. But this does look like the most convincing theory to me, at this point, given what I've seen.

Unintended consequences. They are abundant in political and economic life. And we are often so quick to defend our intentions that we very often will not take responsibility for these consequences we did not anticipate.

The beauty of the market is that someone has to take responsibility. And there is a better opportunity for people to learn the lessons. The downfall of political solutions is that people are constantly shifting blame and noone wants to take it because it is so easy to escape it, given how irrationally we function in the political world.

This was exactly Terry Moe and John Chubb's point in their book Politics, Markets, and America's Schools and why they and I favor school choice and creating a non-profit and for-profit market for schools instead of the increasingly multi-layered government driven public education that you see today. People will always make mistakes. That cannot be escaped. What we must be concerned with is in what situation are they more likely to take responsibility for their mistakes and make corrections for their failures.

Markets are a better environment for people taking responsibility for those mistakes, long-term, I am convinced. And politics creates every incentive for people to avoid their mistakes and enforce them on others.

I'll keep researching this mess. In the meantime, I am deeply concerned about those who may have played a serious hand in creating this mess making economic policy for the next 4 years.

Thank goodness there are enough more thoroughly thoughtful and informed people in the market to not confuse politics with substantial knowledge about the market and the economy. We are going to need them.

No sadder fate

You know why money and fame, power and lust, and all the rest don't have any serious hold over me?

Because of this.

Hugh Hefner: Holly Left But New Girls Are Lined Up

Because I cannot possibly imagine a life any more sad and useless than one where someone would confuse any and all of those things with real love.

How incredibly sad and foolish.

Hugh Hefner needs to listen to the Magnetic Fields. And to more love songs, in general.

How sad that anyone would confuse love with any of those other options. How sad that anyone would pretend that the fact that everyone takes love for granted somehow means that love really doesn't matter.

How sad that all of us act as if love is weakness.

Instead of, as Hugh Hefner's sad life demonstrates, our greatest strength.

Understanding in lieu of fear in matters of the market and life at large

Jason Zweig, the Money magazine editor who updates and comments in the newest editions of Benjamin Graham's Intelligent Investor - the book that Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world, worth nearly $62 billion dollars, the last time I saw reports on his wealth, credits for his wealth - has the best article on current market conditions and our likely future stock market fate I have read this entire period.

What History Tells Us About the Market

I hope Jason and the Wall Street Journal do not mind me reprinting that article, here, in toto, with no financial advantage to myself and with a single concern of getting out the word on a much more thoughtful and sound assessment of the current market.

"July 9, 1932 was a day Wall Street would never wish to relive. The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 41.63, down 91% from its level exactly three years earlier. Total trading volume that day was a meager 235,000 shares. "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," was one of the top songs of the year. Investors everywhere winced with the pain of recognition at the patter of comedian Eddie Cantor, who sneered that his broker had told him "to buy this stock for my old age. It worked wonderfully. Within a week I was an old man!"

The nation was in the grip of what U.S. Treasury Secretary Ogden Mills called "the psychology of fear." Industrial production was down 52% in three years; corporate profits had fallen 49%. "Many businesses are better off than ever," Mr. Cantor wisecracked. "Take red ink, for instance: Who doesn't use it?"

Banks had become so illiquid, and depositors so terrified of losing their money, that check-writing ground to a halt. Most transactions that did occur were carried out in cash. Alexander Dana Noyes, financial columnist at the New York Times, had invested in a pool of residential mortgages. He was repeatedly accosted by the ringing of his doorbell; those homeowners who could still keep their mortgages current came to Mr. Noyes to service their debts with payments of cold hard cash.

A view of the New York Stock Exchange, taken by Berenice Abbott in 1933
Just eight days before the Dow hit rock-bottom, the brilliant investor Benjamin Graham -- who many years later would become Warren Buffett's personal mentor -- published "Should Rich but Losing Corporations Be Liquidated?" It was the last of a series of three incendiary articles in Forbes magazine in which Graham documented in stark detail the fact that many of America's great corporations were now worth more dead than alive.

More than one out of every 12 companies on the New York Stock Exchange, Graham calculated, were selling for less than the value of the cash and marketable securities on their balance sheets. "Banks no longer lend directly to big corporations," he reported, but operating companies were still flush with cash -- many of them so flush that a wealthy investor could theoretically take over, empty out the cash registers and the bank accounts, and own the remaining business for free.

Graham summarized it this way: "...stocks always sell at unduly low prices after a boom collapses. As the president of the New York Stock Exchange testified, 'in times like these frightened people give the United States of ours away.' Or stated differently, it happens because those with enterprise haven't the money, and those with money haven't the enterprise, to buy stocks when they are cheap."

After the epic bashing that stocks have taken in the past few weeks, investors can be forgiven for wondering whether they fell asleep only to emerge in the waking nightmare of July 1932 all over again. The only question worth asking seems to be: How low can it go?

Make no mistake about it; the worst-case scenario could indeed take us back to 1932 territory. But the likelihood of that scenario is very much in doubt.

Robert Shiller, professor of finance at Yale University and chief economist for MacroMarkets LLC, tracks what he calls the "Graham P/E," a measure of market valuation he adapted from an observation Graham made many years ago. The Graham P/E divides the price of major U.S. stocks by their net earnings averaged over the past 10 years, adjusted for inflation. After this week's bloodbath, the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index is priced at 15 times earnings by the Graham-Shiller measure. That is a 25% decline since Sept. 30 alone.

The Graham P/E has not been this low since January 1989; the long-term average in Prof. Shiller's database, which goes back to 1881, is 16.3 times earnings.

But when the stock market moves away from historical norms, it tends to overshoot. The modern low on the Graham P/E was 6.6 in July and August of 1982, and it has sunk below 10 for several long stretches since World War II -- most recently, from 1977 through 1984. It would take a bottom of about 600 on the S&P 500 to take the current Graham P/E down to 10. That's roughly a 30% drop from last week's levels; an equivalent drop would take the Dow below 6000.

Could the market really overshoot that far on the downside? "That's a serious possibility, because it's done it before," says Prof. Shiller. "It strikes me that it might go down a lot more" from current levels.

In order to trade at a Graham P/E as bad as the 1982 low, the S&P 500 would have to fall to roughly 400, more than a 50% slide from where it is today. A similar drop in the Dow would hit bottom somewhere around 4000.

Prof. Shiller is not actually predicting any such thing, of course. "We're dealing with fundamental and profound uncertainties," he says. "We can't quantify anything. I really don't want to make predictions, so this is nothing but an intuition." But Prof. Shiller is hardly a crank. In his book "Irrational Exuberance," published at the very crest of the Internet bubble in early 2000, he forecast the crash of Nasdaq. The second edition of the book, in 2005, insisted (at a time when few other pundits took such a view) that residential real estate was wildly overvalued.

The professor's reluctance to make a formal forecast should steer us all away from what we cannot possibly know for certain -- the future -- and toward the few things investors can be confident about at this very moment.

Strikingly, today's conditions bear quite a close resemblance to what Graham described in the abyss of the Great Depression. Regardless of how much further it might (or might not) drop, the stock market now abounds with so many bargains it's hard to avoid stepping on them. Out of 9,194 stocks tracked by Standard & Poor's Compustat research service, 3,518 are now trading at less than eight times their earnings over the past year -- or at levels less than half the long-term average valuation of the stock market as a whole. Nearly one in 10, or 876 stocks, trade below the value of their per-share holdings of cash -- an even greater proportion than Graham found in 1932. Charles Schwab Corp., to name one example, holds $27.8 billion in cash and has a total stock-market value of $21 billion.

Those numbers testify to the wholesale destruction of the stock market's faith in the future. And, as Graham wrote in 1932, "In all probability [the stock market] is wrong, as it always has been wrong in its major judgments of the future."

In fact, the market is probably wrong again in its obsession over whether this decline will turn into a cataclysmic collapse. Eugene White, an economics professor at Rutgers University who is an expert on the crash of 1929 and its aftermath, thinks that the only real similarity between today's climate and the Great Depression is that, once again, "the market is moving on fear, not facts." As bumbling as its response so far may seem, the government's actions in 2008 are "way different" from the hands-off mentality of the Hoover administration and the rigid detachment of the Federal Reserve in 1929 through 1932. "Policymakers are making much wiser decisions," says Prof. White, "and we are moving in the right direction."

Investors seem, above all, to be in a state of shock, bludgeoned into paralysis by the market's astonishing volatility. How is Theodore Aronson, partner at Aronson + Johnson + Ortiz LP, a Philadelphia money manager overseeing some $15 billion, holding up in the bear market? "We have 101 clients and almost as many consultants representing them," he says, "and we've had virtually no calls, only a handful." Most of the financial planners I have spoken with around the country have told me much the same thing: Their phones are not ringing, and very few of their clients have even asked for reassurance. The entire nation, it seems, is in the grip of what psychologists call "the disposition effect," or an inability to confront financial losses. The natural way to palliate the pain of losing money is by refusing to recognize exactly how badly your portfolio has been damaged. A few weeks ago, investors were gasping; now, en masse, they seem to have gone numb.

The market's latest frame of mind seems reminiscent of a passage from Emily Dickinson's poem "After Great Pain a Formal Feeling Comes":

This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go.

This collective stupor may very likely be the last stage before many investors finally let go -- the phase of market psychology that veteran traders call "capitulation." Stupor prevents rash action, keeping many long-term investors from bailing out near the bottom. When, however, it breaks and many investors finally do let go, the market will finally be ready to rise again. No one can spot capitulation before it sets in. But it may not be far off now. Investors who have, as Graham put it, either the enterprise or the money to invest now, somewhere near the bottom, are likely to prevail over those who wait for the bottom and miss it."

You'll have to go to the Wall Street Journal link to get the numbers, graphics and other goodies that they offer with this article.

But it is nice to see a sober and thoughtful assessment of the current financial situation without the shrill cries of those who might substitute panic for understanding.

We owe much more to people like Jason Zweig, Benjamin Graham, and his most famous student, Warren Buffet, than to any of the well-intentioned but ultimately poorly conceived efforts by Henry Paulson, President Bush, John McCain, Barack Obama or any of our political leaders making good faith but failing and poorly considered efforts to fix the credit crisis at this point.

If you want a better understanding of why the market is likely to correct itself and how that process operates, I would highly recommend reading any of Jason's commentaries in any of the most recent editions of Benjamin Graham's Intelligent Investor, and to benefit your own understanding of the market and your own ability to be profitable even in these very uncertain times.

Much thanks to Benjamin Graham, Jason Zweig and all of those who would offer us understanding rather than fear in this time of market uncertainty.

It is such understanding that serves all of us better, in all matters. And thank goodness that people like Benjamin Graham dedicated their lives to making that stronger understanding available to us. We would be, literally and figuratively, much poorer without their contributions.

What Americans need to hear

Rod Dreher has an excellent article in Thurday's Dallas Morning News that captures well what Americans and the world most needs to hear this election season that has been so desperately missing in our national and international democratic conversation.

The speech John McCain should give

From that speech:

"My friends, I am neither young nor eloquent, handsome nor smooth. But I have lived a long life, much of it in service to America in war and in peace. And I have always stood for straight talk. There has been no time in our nation’s recent history when the American people more needed to hear the plain truth from their leaders. A fundamental reason our country faces economic catastrophe is that we have built our lives around running from truths about the American way of life.

Washington has run from the truth. Wall Street has run from the truth. And if we’re honest with ourselves, all of us have, in one way or another, run from the truth.

We have accepted the lie that we can live exactly as we want to live, with no concern for the consequences. We have taken the blessings of liberty and prosperity and turned them into a curse of debt slavery - bondage that will be visited on our children, and our children’s children, if we don’t change.

Everybody has a theory about how we got into this mess, and it’s usually one that absolves them and their party from blame. My friends, I’m here to tell you that this crisis is the Republicans’ fault. It’s the Democrats’ fault. It’s the fault of every one of us who believed in the fairy tale of a free lunch.

It’s time for all Americans to take responsibility for what we’ve done. It’s time for all Americans to pull together to help our families, our neighbors and our country through hard times.

I will not lie to you and tell you that the road ahead will be easy. I will not insult you by giving you simple villains, simple heroes or simplistic solutions. As the song says, everybody wants to get to heaven, but nobody wants to die. My fellow Americans, all of us must sacrifice to endure the trials that history sends our way and to rebuild our nation on a solid foundation of honor, truth and plainspoken virtue.

I know something about sacrifice. And I know something about the way life can break your pride. I was a cocky Navy aviator who thought he was invulnerable. Then I was shot out of the sky and spent five years in prison. That experience did not kill me. It made me stronger. It taught me how much I loved my God, my family and my country - and what trials I could endure for the sake of that love.

I am a patriot. I believe we are a nation of patriots, of men and women who are ready and willing to put country first. But over the years, our leaders, Republican and Democratic, have asked us to do little more than to go shopping, to vote for them and to blame other people for what’s wrong with America. Anything to keep us from facing the truth and changing our ways.

As your president, I will ask you to do hard things. I, too, will do hard things for the good of this great nation. Serious times call for serious leadership. In his first speech as prime minister, with his free nation facing the might of Nazi Germany, Winston Churchill refused to mislead the British people about the gravity of their situation. We remember today his words to them: 'I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat.'

Churchill did not give cheap optimism. He, too, had fought and suffered for his nation, both on the battlefield and in Parliament. He had known the joy of victory and the humiliation of defeat. What Churchill, from his incomparable experience, could offer his people was the gold standard of hope. Hope is the conviction that whatever suffering we must go through, goodness and right shall prevail.

Today, when I survey the gathering storm, I am certain that if we, the people, stand together without fear or favor, victory will be ours. I ask you to give me the privilege of leading this great nation in a time when heroes will be made, and all good men and women must come to the aid of their country.

Thank you, and God bless America."

When the world gets a little overwhelming

Force as a governing philosophy as a logical fallacy

Aside from the limited circumstances in which force is necessary to intervene when harm is imminent from the aggression of others, force is not just counterproductive, often challenging others and leading to the very kind of behavior that one is trying to avoid, but as a general governing philosophy it is a logical fallacy.

The notion that force, or in modern parlance, regulation, can be used to avoid even very serious mistakes is not a logical possibility. Mistakes are made as a regular matter of judgment, as and until our judgment improves, often by our mistakes.

The notion that even very serious mistakes can be avoided by the use of force is not only contradicted by a long human history of often unparalleled and tragic mistakes, often with and around the use of force, it is not even a logical possibility given the nature of choices by human beings made always and without end with limited understanding and certainty. Mistakes are an important part of our learning process. And the notion that we can force them away assumes that we can learn without them. Which is not possible as a matter of fact of human existence.

Regulators, themselves, lawmakers, themselves, rule-makers, themselves, are subject to this often very serious mistake. In fact, many if not the most serious mistakes made over the course of human history have been made by those in power and around the use of power and the ways that it is wielded over people.

None of this can be eliminated by regulation or the use of force. The one and only source of our choices, our mistakes, our good judgment, our successes and our failures over the course of humanity has been independent conscience and judgment, informed, of course, by the independent consciences and judgments and other signals for behavior of others. This is and always has been and always will be the sole source of our choices, good and bad.

What force has often done is made much human decision-making that does not involve the immediate physical safety of others much, much more complicated and difficult to sort out, especially the way that it distorts communication and understanding by encouraging dishonest communication and understanding to cover for mistakes that might otherwise be punished or lead to harm to individuals.

Force is a tool that is only useful in very limited circumstances in the relationships we have with one another. It can prevent immediate physical harm. Otherwise, it very much complicates and often undermines our relationships and the goals we seek. And one of the most important ways that it does so is in undermining the honest communication and learning curve that people need to learn from mistakes, which are inevitable, and make better choices, with experience and understanding over time.

We are not just romanticizing a governing philosophy that has been the source of the bulk of the most serious tragedy over the course of human history and the 20th century, from which we are emerging, we are romanticizing a governing philosophy that is not literally possible as a means of preventing the kinds of mistakes and problems that we seek for it to prevent. It is not a possibility as a matter of fact, not as a matter of ideology, politics, religion, philosophy, or any other source of governing ideas.

It is not possible to force away even our most serious mistakes. We must learn from our mistakes and make better choices in the future. Learning, facilitated primarily by debate and discussion and other similar sources of serious engagement, can help us understand choices to avoid. But, ultimately, we learn from our choices and such learning and no amount of force can replace that development of independent conscience and judgment by learning, experience and understanding.

We are the most mature liberal democracy in the world. And we are governing by a logical fallacy, at this point. It is a fallacy that is reinforcing the ugliest impulses of the ugliest, most repressive regimes around the world, right now, who are looking to our debates and discussions as justification and reinforcement of their own repression and use of force for their own ugly ends.

And there is most definitely someone who is responsible for this mess. It is me. It is you. It is each of us who, in whatever way we are responsible, have reinforced this fallacious and ugly governing philosophy that has plagued humanity as likely its most serious and repeated tragedy since the dawn of humanity as an aggressive and predatory animal, who evolved into a more intelligent and civilized version of this predator, but carried with us the same aggressive instincts that undermined our most important ability and advantage in nature: our intelligence and the understanding it yields.

The kids and I talk all the time about how homo sapien's most serious predator, outside of bacteria and disease, has always been other homo sapiens. And it is the use of force and the failures of our reasoning and honest responsibility around our more predatory and aggresive instincts that is responsible for this failure more than any other.

The idea that we would romanticize this instinct as the solution for all of our most serious problems is comedy and tragedy embodied.

Our only hope is that we can learn despite ourselves on this matter.

That is how we have always make genuine progress.

Perhaps we are capable of the same today.

Force as a governing philosophy, for real

This guy, this Egyptian Islamist Tal'at Rmeih, is right. The West are such pussies. We don't understand what force as a governing philosophy really looks like. Al Queda does. We're fuckin' amateurs.

Arab-American Psychiatrist Wafa Sultan Clashes with Egyptian Islamist Tal'at Rmeih

We're such morons. We have all this freedom. It's the basis for all of the most serious contributions to our quality of life. And we still romanticize this nonsense.

We're not hopeless. It's not a biological disorder. We are just some serious dumbasses. And this guy makes it clear why.

At some level, we need to choose: are we going to be more like this guy? Or are we going to be more like ourselves and our own liberal democratic values?

I know my choice. If we weren't all rationalizing like this asshole, we all would, I think.

Listening to this guy should make our choice clearer.

Bullshit doesn't make the mare go

The real challenge in human affairs now and always is cutting through the bullshit. It's the biggest challenge for kids, too, as they're growing up.

We lie. A lot. To ourselves. To one another. We're constantly lying. It helps us save face. It helps us look better to ourselves and to one another. It keeps us out of trouble. It defends us when we're in trouble. It helps us preserve one anothers' feelings. It helps us get along.

We lie. A lot.

And the biggest challenge for people is cutting through their own bullshit and the bullshit of other people. To be able to see the truth through the lies.

It is the single biggest challenge in politics, because the lies are so fast and furious and so dominate substantive discussion as long as people pretend in the biggest lie of all: that substantive understanding and working in good faith to share it and use it for good doesn't matter.

And then we tell our chidlren: don't worry kids, we've got it all under control.

It's kind of stupid and funny, all at once.

The single biggest challenge in human affairs is telling the difference between lies and truth, stuff that matters from stuff that doesn't, honest and dishonest, good and bad.

It's not just in politics. What Benjamin Graham does really well in Intelligent Investor, the book that Warren Buffet credits with his wealth, is to distinguish foolish notions of the market and more honest and substantial notions of the market and investing in it. It's the biggest problem for people in the money world. Keeping themselves and one another honest. And it is the single biggest problem in the political world, too.

And, in both worlds, you have these major assholes going through and lying their asses off to themselves and to one another about how honest or not they are or how much or not they should be trusted.

And the hard part is recognizing, "When this guy or gal says that he or she should be trusted, should he or she really be trusted?"

Often, the answer is no, in both worlds.

And, hence, the heart of why human affairs are so complicated to understand.

And, also, hence, why people need some understanding and compassion as they try to navigate all of our and their own lies and truthes and make some sense of the world.

The brilliance of someone like Mark Twain is helping us to see that better.

But the truth is that our challenge is seeing that better for ourselves with or without Mark Twain at our side. That is the essence of integrity. And we can only do it with some genuine understanding and forgiveness for what lying assholes we often are in the meantime.

If there is a fundamental fact of humanity that might center all of our theological, ideological, philosophical, and other outlooks on the world, this is the one, I think.

We're kind of shitheads, much of the time. But without us being better, that's all we got. Until we learn how to be better, that is.

And we're gonna need some space and some understanding to make that happen. In fact, it is the only thing that makes that happen.

Everything else is so much more bullshit.

And, at some point, bullshit just doesn't make the mare go. It doesn't get the job done. It never does. No matter how much we indulge in it.

The whole lot of us

I teach juvenile delinquents.

There are days when I could care less if these kids I teach go to jail or not. And this was one of them.

When you're an asshole, noone gives a shit if bad shit comes your way. It's a hard and valuable lesson of life that I'm becoming convinced that my kids need to learn. Some of them need to take some really hard falls before they are going to figure out just how lucky they were to have such decent people looking after them in this school. And, until then, I will not be crying when they take the lumps they deserve in life.

My experience is that punishment does not generally teach lessons to anyone except those who want to learn. Those who don't want to learn the lesson learn about as well as before. They learn to behave themselves in the face of immediate harm. But they go back to their old ways as soon as they can get out of the gaze of their keepers.

The most reliable way for such people to learn their lessons is to fall on their faces. In school. In life. Anywhere they might get the chance to learn that being a jackass has one most serious consequence: noone gives much of shit about you when you take a fall.

Sometimes taking a fall is a good thing. There are some investment banks who need such falls, right now, to learn their lessons. And the kids I teach very badly need to take some falls and learn some hard lessons in life that their jackass adolescent minds have not figured out yet.

In some cases, I look forward to that moment. Not because I want them to be hurt. But because it's the only thing that's going to teach some of them the lessons they need to learn.

If you can't learn things the easy way, which is what school offers, then there is no option but to learn your lessons the hard way.

A lot of ignorant dumbasses still blame their teachers for that fact.

But the only people we have to blame, honestly, is ourselves.

The whole lot of us.

Assholes and liars

I am becoming convinced that we are, and, to some degree, every generation always will be, a species of unrepentant assholes and liars. At least for awhile. Until we face up.

And I don't mean that in a "Humanity is irredeemable and doomed," kind of way.

What I mean is that we are all so obsessed with our uglier impulses, that we can't even admit we have them or that they are behind much of our uglier rationalizations for how we live life.

We keep using the excuse that the world is full of assholes to rationalize what assholes we are.

But here's the secret on that one: when you do that, you're still an asshole, asshole.

And the person you should be worried about being an asshole is you.

Most of the assholes we need to worry about today are us. They are not found in some boogeyman notion of humanity we have. It is numero uno. Moi. Me, myself, and I. Not some asshole lurking in another political party or under the darkness of night.

The asshole we should all be concerned with, as my man Jesus used to say, is the one in our own beds. The one who sleeps on our pillows. The one whose words keep being used to justify what fuckin' assholes we are.

You know the one, right? I'll give you a clue. It ain't George Bush. It isn't even Osama Bin Laden. Although I will grant you that both of these guys are grade A asswipes, the second more than the first, obviously.

It's you. It's me. It's all of us. Until we face up.

And no amount of lying makes up for the truth on that one, no matter how you spin it.

You don't want people to think you're an asshole?

Stop being a fuckin' asshole, asshole.

That goes for all of us. Me too.

You doubt that I'm an asshole. Ask my kids.

I've got work to do. To be a better man, that is.

You reap what you sow

It's a pretty simple fact of life. And it is a fact of life in politics as much as in the rest of life.

Rod Dreher offers some really poignant observations on this fact of life, today, in his column, And It Was Written, Our Blame.

"Complex financial instruments come and go, but the hearts of men remain the same. Greed, vanity and hubris we always have with us, as well as a weakness for the soft sophisticated lie over the hard plain truth. About human nature, tradition – the accumulated wisdom of mankind – is never wrong. True conservatives – as opposed to those who confuse mammon-worship with moral and intellectual principle – know that a tolerable order can only exist when most people live by the moral laws articulated in time-worn banalities.

So, send the tumbrels into the streets to carry off the heads of sophisticates who believed that we had repealed the laws of economics and human nature by our cleverness. The Gods of the Copybook Headings demand propitiation. We shall offer them scapegoats and try to forget our own complicity in the coming catastrophe.

After all, these scoundrels did not elect themselves, nor was there an outcry heard in the land against Wall Street rapacity and recklessness when our 401(k)s were rising, and all but the lowliest plebeian was moving into his very own McMansion.

Along those lines, there's one proverb that we will all become painfully acquainted with in the years to come: You reap what you sow."

I try to take a lighter view on things that Ron does here. But I have to say that I'm a little disgusted, today, watching Wall Street folks who fucked up getting a handout while the average folks who lost in this most recent round of the the hot-then-cold housing market get to eat their mistakes themselves.

It's kind of bullshit, really. Whole fuckin' political world is kind of bullshit, really. And then they all go pat themselves on the back on avoiding the Depression that was sure to come one quarter following 3.3% growth. And while liberals are scaring us all with Depression talk, conservatives are out scaring us with talk about how Hitler is around every corner.

It's all so bullshit and dishonest I can hardly stand it. I'm sure these morons honestly believe their bullshit. But they do so avoiding debates with one another and with those who could distinguish Depressions and Hitlers from stuff that they don't even closely resemble.

And then they tell themselves, "See. Those smarty-pants professors didn't know what they were talking about. You don't have to be a genius to make a fortune or build a power base. You just need to believe in your own bullshit enough that you never have to even question it, you're so goddamn sure of how right you are."

The only solace I have watching this load of shit unfold is exactly what Rod Dreher concludes with:

We reap what we sow.

There is no law that human beings always follow. But there are some facts of life that always show up.

And this is one of them.

It will not be the last. No matter how much we try to bullshit ourselves otherwise.

The Debate

It was a strong debate. At least relative to the mindless election we have been subjected to this season.

The irony, for me, is, contrary to the babbling of pundits, the Democrat is the stronger foreign policy choice, this season - save for his talk about withdrawal from Iraq - and the Republican is the, by far, better economic candidate, this election.

McCain had a much stronger handle on economic issues than I expected and understands the fundamentals of the economy better than Obama, who is, otherwise, I believe, the smarter candidate. Obama's understanding of foreign policy issues - including his much stronger understanding of the situation between Russia and Georgia - and the value of diplomacy, generally, as a sign of strength rather than weakness - were highlighted tonight.

I think the foreign policy challenges we face are a higher priority than our economic challenges, where, as McCain rightly argued, our fundamentals are, indeed, strong. Consequently, I, very marginally, give Obama an edge for my vote, at this point. Though his promises to withdraw troops seriously concern me and could lose him my vote if I continue to hear such threats and I have reason to think he will carry them out, neither of which I take seriously today.

But this debate did exacly what it needed to do, tonight. It highlighted strengths. It challenged candidates to defend positions. And, most importantly, for me, given the arrogance and lack of substance of this election, this debate highlighted weaknesses for each candidate to face both during the election and while in whichever office each candidate wins (one of these men will, presumably, still be a Senator after they have lost the Presidential race, unless I am completely out of the electoral loop, which is very likely).

These candidates need to face a much more fundamental fact of this election: they do not know enough about the world to lead it, yet. And the only way that they will know more is if they must engage in substantive debate and discussion that is not distracted by the mindless drivel that passes for Presidential campaigns in America.

We can correct for that. We can expect more.

And, tonight, these two candidates did a better job of delivering more substance. They should be acknowledged for that. And they have a long way to go before they are ready to lead America. And Americans should make that clear by talking about the substance of this campaign, and by ignoring and being openly critical of the senseless and generally baseless personal attacks.

America and the world should expect an American leader who does not insult our intelligence, who expects as much out of us as we expect out of him or her, and who is willing and able to debate and discuss honestly and substantively with those who can identify his weaknesses as well as support his strengths.

Candidates who expect anything else are not worthy of the office. And we should no longer accept anything less than leaders who expect the best from themselves and from the American people.

"Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

It is a spirit that America has lost in the early 21st century in our contemporary politics. And the loss of that spirit is reflected in the bulk of our most serious challenges.

And it will take leadership that asks Americans to expect more of themselves and their leaders that will get us back on track.

May the best man win.

The American way

Preach on, Brother Ross. Preach on.

An Election About Nothing

This is why politics and people involved in it are so endlessly stupid. Why, again, are we looking to such morons to tell us which directions to take with our lives and with the country? Why should I trust such idiots to know how to handle the most serious problems America and the world has to face? I shouldn't, is the obvious answer to that really pretty self-evident question.

And if the goal is to convince me that the folks in Washington - politicians, activists, the press - are unworthy of that trust, this election is quite the validation of that notion.

The more you talk about nothing, the more people realize you really have nothing to say or offer. And, over time, the less they trust you and the more they seek out their own answers.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how progress takes place in a democracy.

Despite us

The more life I live, the more I begin to wonder, "Is it possible, sometimes, that maybe people just won't make the really important changes in their thinking and their lives that will move us forward?"

It's not that we can't. It's that people resist every effort that challenges them to think different and bigger than their current thinking and circumstances.

And, obviously, at some level, that is because some people have to think of more serious and honest ways out of problems before other people can, slowly, get things figured out, better.

But I am beginning to believe that, perhaps, old people, in particular, are doomed to stick to whatever foolish, stubborn habits of thought they have picked up, over the years, and then pretend like those habits of thought are the only ones that younger people could possibly imagine adopting themselves.

The arrogance of older folks of all stripes is often matched by the stupidity and arrogance of younger people.

But the big question is that with so many stupid, arrogant, and fallible folks, what business do any of us have thinking that if we just exert our will over one another then and only then will the world be right?

It's goddamned foolish, is what it is. And the fact is that I have far fewer younger people, in my life, trying to "take charge" with me, in such ways, as I do older people. And those who do often look very, very foolish to me. Which makes me all the more wary of why I am being asked to follow their leads.

The two Presidential candidates, Congress, and most of the political class in Washington could not be a better illustration, right now, of such arrogance as it becomes increasingly clear that they are tilting in the winds hoping that they have better answers which they impose with certitude that they just cannot have honest warrant to assert other than because they said so.

And most Americans who follow this lead do so because they don't know any better.

It would be funny if it weren't so foolish.

We definitely can have more honest reasoning at the core of our politics and our lives. But we often choose, stubbornly, to ignore such reason because doing so, honestly, means admitting so many things that only such honesty would allow as to acknowledge that we just could not possibly know. But that kind of humility would involve a challenge to our egos that most of us just don't think we can handle. Because it might mean admitting shortcomings that we just cannot bring ourselves to admit that we might have. And round and round and round that bit of infuriating circular logic.

We definitely can wind our way out of this circular nonsense. The question is will we. And if we won't, what consequences will this world have to continue to deal with until we can face up to our stupidity.

Much nonsense, if history is any guide.

Most of history's most serious tragedies are bound up in such stubborn stupidity. Perhaps it is stupidity that we will refuse to escape.

In which case, maybe our children will make progress despite us rather than because of us.

Maybe this is how progress has always worked.

Grown-up music

My music tastes have definitely mellowed as a grown-up. That's a good thing, I think. More beauty. Less pop and shock value.

This song has particularly stood out as a favorite, these days.



Harry Connick is quite the catch. Beautiful voice, rich, and not bad on the eyes for the ladies. And he makes music that touches the soul.

I don't always want to listen to grown-up music. But I do prefer it, more and more, these days. Lots of jazz in my musical interests, these days. Anything beautiful and classic.

And anything that reminds me of nice things in life when I'm being treated shitty all day.

Love is my favorite, I must admit.

What we need in the world is more of it, not less, even as we romanticize otherwise.

Be nice if people finally grew up and took it seriously.

As another jazz great, Louis Armstrong, once said:

"Love baby, love. That's the secret, yeah. If lots more of us loved each other, we'd solve lots more problems. And then this world would be better. That's wha' ol' Pops keeps saying."

It's really not more immensely complicated than all that. And, in the meantime, I wouldn't settle for any other kind of life.

So sad that so many people choose otherwise.

My new favorite band

With all the shit on commercial radio aspiring for nothing, these days, its refreshing to see kids who sing because they love it and not out of greed or other base purposes for commercial music, these days.

Hence, my new favorite band. DeCadence, out of University of California, Berkeley. It has zero to do with politics. It's just nice to see kids sing because they love it and sing songs that I love too.

This is my favorite DeCadence tune. Their cover of Ben Folds' cover of Dr. Dre's Bitches Ain't Shit.



But Pop Nightmare is pretty fun, too.



And a medley of one of my favorite bands from high school and college, The Cranberries.



Be nice to be able to trust that more of the music I heard, these days, was being made because people loved the music more than the music business, and the bullshit that comes with it.

Nothing wrong with business. Nothing particularly noble about it, either.

It's nice to know when some people have their priorities straight.

Democratic politics, 21st century-style

See more funny videos at Funny or Die

It's not just Sara Palin. It's the whole fuckin' lot of us.

Me get power. Me solve all world's problem with power. Power good. Me smash what makes me and you afraid. And threatens my power.

Lord Acton pussy no understand power solve all. Me smash Lord Acton and pussy liberty-loving hippy friends. World safe for good.

If only human beings could reason more like gorillas and bears, only then would we all finally be safe. Or something like that.

Why didn't we think of this before? Oh wait. We did. It's the whole fuckin' dumbass history of humanity.

Only, this time, the gorillas mean business. We should be so proud of ourselves.

Power and responsibility

This is what I love about power. All the weaseling.



Tony Blair used to be a democratically-elected leader I could really respect. But watching this interview, I think I realize, now, that power now and forever means never having to admit when you are wrong or even that you might be wrong. I have no more faith in this process or these people, except to look after their own asses every single time. I am seriously considering not voting this election, I am so disgusted with how dishonest this process is, at this point.

The only saving grace is that all of these folks eventually fall. And until they give up the obsession with power to solve all of our problems, they will fall hard.

Little bit of justice in that thought.

We could do better. But we'd have to stop being such pricks.

Until then, instant karma's gonna get you.

No matter how much power you grab.

A good man

I'm grading and watching Jerry Maguire, tonight.

And as I watch the lovemaking scene - which is so incredibly sexy, by the way; I know, I'm such a chick - and as I reflect on the movie and the big fall that Jerry takes and a similar big fall that I've taken in my life - and also been similarly and strangely blessed, as a consequence - I'm reflecting some on my own ego and what I've needed to face, in my own life, to be a good man, and the only kind of man I would ever settle for.

I aspire for greatness. But it's taken this time alone and taking some falls in life to recognize that who I am and who I aspire to be are not the same. It takes time to be what we aspire to be. And, in the meantime, I've had an enormous ego to let go of to be something more.

I aspire for greatness. And, by definition, I've been mediocre and a big lump of ego, in the meantime. I'm not proud of that. And it's part of the learning curve and the process, in the meantime, I'm convinced.

But I'm tired of my ego overwhelming my potential.

I want to be a great dad. I want to be a great lover and husband to my wife. I want to be a great teacher. A great thinker and writer. And maybe, amidst all of that, I want to be a great guy.

But I got work to do. I've got an ego to let go of. I've got effort to make. I've got love to give. I hope I have some wisdom and other strengths to offer.

But, mostly, I've got an ego to let go of as well as a notion that my life is about anything other than loving and caring for my family, my friends, my students, my colleagues, my neighbors, my friends from the old neighborhood and every kid who has ever grown up afraid that they won't be able to make something of their lives, and generally my fellow man, and woman, and kids, and everyone who I can offer something of my heart and mind. I aspire to do great things. And I don't forget where I came from. And I want to offer something that everyone can benefit from, not just myself.

And, one day, perhaps, when I might be a good man, and maybe a great man, I can look back at all of this ego and immaturity, foolishness and frailty, maybe then I can feel some satisfaction that my life has not been in vain or only to serve my own selfish ends.

In our hearts, we all know that is who we need to be, when we are not stoking the flames of our own egos. I forget. Often. I need reminding. Often. I aspire. Often. I fail. Often. I'm proud, at times. I'm disappointed, often.

But that, I am convinced, is the only true route to being a good man, even a great man. Or woman. Or even being a great kid, for those kids who care enough to aspire.

Everything else is, and always has been, ego, I am convinced, at this point. No matter the protestations to the contrary.

And I want to live a life that is honest, as well as aspiring for greatness, and to be a good man. Humanity has had quite enough of the lies of men and women of ego conspiring for their own petty and self-centered purposes.

It is time for humanity to walk on its own two feet. And, to do that, we will, each of us, need to give up our search for perfect men and women, whom do not and never have existed, or worse, brutal men, people who use aggression to somehow compensate for their own and all of our own failings. It is time that we gave up this foolish and destructive tendency.

It is time that we each aspired for goodness and greatness of our own choosing and on our own merits and stopped relying on the flattery of those who would stroke our egos for their own self-centered purposes.

And, to do that, each of us must face ourselves honestly. Our strengths and our failings. I have not enough of the first and too many of the latter. And recognizing that is the only path to doing and being good in the world. Anything else is a lie, to ourselves and to others.

I have lived that lie enough in my life. I need something better. So does everyone else in my life. And that is the only honest path to being and doing good in the world.

In a world where there is and always has been much to flatter the ego and deceive ourselves and others about our truest natures, to be a good person necessitates that kind of honesty and effort. It is available to us. It is available to all of us, no matter the worst lie that too many of us tell ourselves and one another - that there is no such thing as such goodness and greatness, for real, because of our own failure to face our own failings and frailties - if only we will do the work of facing ourselves honestly and correcting what needs correction to do well by our fellow man, woman, and child that every life offers.

Some people never seriously aspire. But everyone, generally, aspires, better, in my experience, the better those around them aspire. Each of us have a role in setting that standard for ourselves and for one another. And each of us does better the better each of us take that responsibility seriously.

Tonight, I reflect on my own efforts and failings. I find myself falling short too often to ignore. But my efforts are honest, even as I fail.

And letting go of my ego, one choice at a time, offers me the most honest route to doing and being good, in this world, for real, and being the kind of father, lover and husband, son, brother, uncle, friend, coworker, teacher, thinker and writer, and neighbor to my fellow man that I can possibly be.

When I think about my own family - my wife and children - and the kind of example that I set and love I have and need to offer for them, I remember what that kind of man looks like more clearly.

And I'm proud of that man. If I ever learn to live the kind of love, decency and greatness I think he might have to offer.

I keep working. And I hope I'll have that to offer to a woman and children, one day. And perhaps to the rest of my family, my students and colleagues, my friends and neighbors, and all of the people I love in my life.

And it is the fact of that long and winding journey to being a good man, a good woman, and good and decent human being, that makes love the highest priority in a world that too often takes ego more seriously. Thoughtfulness and being worthy of others' trust also matter. But love makes it all possible, given our inevitable failures and disappointments on that path.

That is my reflection on being a good man and giving up the vanities of ego, tonight, on a night of, perhaps, too little grading and too much reflection, and plenty of Jerry Maguire, the Muppet Movie, and other various cheesiness on a refreshingly grounded and wholesome Saturday night for a single guy looking for love.

Now I have work to do. And to find someone to share that life with who has similar love to offer.

It's the only life worth living, as far as I am concerned. Everything else would be an enormous waste. For myself and for everyone in my life.

I only hope that I honestly make the best of it.

Love,
Ben