Friday, October 28, 2011

Comment on: "The Path not Taken", by Paul Krugman

see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/28/opinion/krugman-the-path-not-taken.html
for original piece by Paul Krugman.


It is fascinating that economists always know what should HAVE BEEN done, but their theories and models are useless (and individual economists contradict each other) when trying to formulate a plan of action.
And, let's face it, Mr. Krugman, for all your harping on the slowness and inadequacy of the European response, forcing banks to take a 50% write-down is a little different from giving them $700 Billion with no strings attached...
There is an interesting study out of ETH Zurich about the interconnectedness of international corporations, which reports that about 147 of the largest corporations control, directly or indirectly, a staggering 40% of the world economy. This is the \"99% versus 1%\" gone crazy on a world wide scale...
http://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/wirtschaft/article13681201/Die-globale-Macht-der-Grosskonzerne.html

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Comment on: "A Stunning Fall From Grace for a Star Executive"

see
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/a-stunning-fall-from-grace-for-a-star-executive/?ref=global-home
for original article
=============


"Fall from grace" is an interesting way to describe this. This is the natural consequence of a corporate culture in the world, which has no moral compass and rewards the most irresponsible, high-risk, and even illegal actions. Remember that the high-end business schools in the US refused to sign a pledge to include moral and socially responsible elements in their curriculums. And Goldman Sachs is the world champion in this irresponsible, and now illegal, behavior.
It is frightening to think that over the past several US administrations, executives from this corrupt Goldman Sachs environment have been put in charge of the financial affairs of the US and indeed the world...
Small wonder that the world is teetering on the edge of financial and economic self-destruction.

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Comment on: "How to Fix the Wireless Market",

see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/26/opinion/how-to-fix-the-wireless-market.html
for original NYT Op-Ed


This is an interesting example, even if somewhat innocuous, of government regulations versus the self-regulating, self-optimizing gobbledegook of free-market enthusiasts.
In the \"perfect world\" of the GOP, the government would have allowed the merger between AT&T and T-Mobile and they would ignore the predatory practices of the wireless industry, under the assumption that everyone is making \"rational choices\" with \"perfect knowledge\" and that therefore government intervention is not necessary. The net effect would again be that more wealth and power flows to the 1% and the 99% get screwed.
Now translate this to some really important issues, such as health care, where the free-market (speak the health insurance and pharma industries) are robbing the public blind, for health care results that are among the worst in the industrialized (and even third world) countries, and you start to see the ridiculousness of the GOP position: Free-market capitalism, left to its own devices, serves only to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a very small oligarchy.
There will always be a tug-of-war between the role and power of government and the role of \"free-markets\" - given the pace of change, technological and economic, this will always require a balancing act. But given the evidence of the last 30-40 years, where the role of government has been continually cut back and the power of corporations given ever more scope and freedom, which has resulted in the current economic world-calamity, i think the dogmatic GOP positions of \"get government off our backs\" is demonstrably a complete failure.

Critique of "Euro, Meant to Unite Europe, Seems to Rend It", by STEVEN ERLANGER

My disappointment with the type of reporting (or are these opinion pieces?) produced by Steven Erlanger caused me to write a comprehensive critique of one of his recent pieces -- see below.

If Mr. Erlanger is supposed to do "reporting", then I'm disappointed in the NYT for providing such obviously one sided, biased reporting, and in the NYT fact-checkers for not catching some of the more obvious inaccuracies.

If he is considered on opinion-writer, then a regular contributor with a more balance view on Europe would be good for the NYT.



Here is my critique, embedded in the original article:


============================================================



Euro, Meant to Unite Europe, Seems to Rend It
PARIS — The euro was a political project meant to unite Europe after the Soviet collapse in a sphere of collective prosperity that would lead to greater federalism. Instead, the euro seems to be pulling Europe apart.
The Euro was not primarily a political project, but a monetary and economic project built on top of (portions of) an already existing political union. Although initially conceived as early as 1969 (even earlier, 1929, if you include the early proposals by Gustav Streseman) as part of the discussions of the formation of the European Union, the current Euro was defined by the Maastricht Treaty in 1992. Its goals were primarily monetary (avoid fluctuations among European currencies) and economic (foster trade, free flow of capital among EU members).
As European leaders scramble to present a united front for this weekend’s critical meeting in Brussels, anxiety in Europe is growing, and not just about the euro. The assumptions of 60 years suddenly seem hollow, and the road ahead is unclear, as if the GPS system has gone out of whack.
Lumping the current difficulties with the Euro, which many economists predicted early on, with a dismissal of the goals and assumptions of the European Union ("The assumptions of 60 years suddenly seem hollow") is intellectually unbelievably shallow. As Mr. Erlanger himself goes on to say in the next paragraph, "[o]n the surface, the European Union is an enormous success" - what does "on the surface" mean? The "success" is not real and tangible?
On the surface, the European Union is an enormous success. It has nearly 500 million citizens and a gross domestic product of more than $17 trillion, larger than that of the United States and more than three times China’s or Japan’s. It is America’s largest trading partner by far, and together the two economies account for roughly half the world’s gross domestic product and nearly a third of its trade.
But Europe is in economic and demographic decline as Asia is rising. The European Union’s share of global trade is steadily dropping, especially in exports. Its aging population is placing huge strains on generous social welfare and pension programs and pumping up sovereign debt in an extended period of flat growth.
The economic decline of Europe relative to Asia is relative, as opposed to absolute (whereas the economic decline of the US is absolute, given the decline in income, wealth, education, health care and many other measures among the ever shrinking middle class). The demographic decline is absolute and is shared by most advanced industrial nations. However, just as the declining and aging populations of advanced economies represent a liability for the near- and mid-term, the exploding populations of developing countries, like China and India, represent a time-bomb of potential and real youth unemployment and runaway expectations, which may very well prove to much for these countries to manage.
Technologically, it is behind the United States, but its pay scales are too high to be an easily competitive exporter.
This is a fascinatingly incorrect statement: According to 2010 WTO data, Germany alone within the EU exported almost as much as the US, so if you include all 27 EU countries, the EU exports a lot more than the US. Thus, the EU's technology and its cost structures (including pay scales) must certainly be competitive.
It is such an accepted conventional wisdom that the US is technologically so far advanced, that journalists like Mr. Erlanger seem to repeat it almost like a mantra, without really thinking about it. There is of course some technological innovation which the US excels at - just look at Apple and Google and any number of high-tech companies. But in other technologies, which may matter more for an economy's long term health and survival, the picture is often starkly different. In renewable energy the US is falling behind; in the technology and state of repair of its infrastructure the US is woefully out of step with most EU countries.
The current crisis over the euro has deep roots in the imbalances between north and south, rich and poor, export-led and service-driven economies, tied together by a currency but few rules, and those are rarely enforced.
This is the area where all seem to agree on what the failings of the Euro are, and the fact that the rules, such as they were/are, were routinely broken by even the largest of the EU economies (Germany and France) and that some countries, like Greece, were admitted in spite of common knowledge that they did not meet the criteria, has come back to haunt the Euro.
A fix will require fundamental changes in the functioning of the bloc, with more interference in the workings of sovereign states. There would need to be a fiscal union, with a treasury and a finance minister capable of intervening in national budgets, and more unified tax and pension policies. But it is far from clear that the European Union can gather itself to take these fateful steps away from nationalist identities to a truly European model.
This too is accepted within most countries of the Euro region, and work is actively progressing, if parallel to the admittedly somewhat disjointed efforts to avoid an immediate meltdown, in the direction of a long term solution which will require individual countries to give up additional sovereignty in fiscal and social service matters.
“We are today confronted by the greatest challenge our union has known in its entire history,” said José Manuel Barroso, the head of the European Commission. “It is a financial, economic and social crisis. But also a crisis of confidence — in our leadership, in Europe itself, in our capacity to find solutions.”
There are many who believe that the European Union and its leaders have already been found wanting, and that the European project that brought democracy and peace to the Continent may begin to unravel.
True enough, but this kind of statement is a well-worn journalistic ploy to give "weight" to ones own prejudices. Of course I can find people who predict the demise of the Euro and even the EU (see for example Paul Krugman's column of Oct. 23), but I could make the same statement about the US being in terminal economic and democratic decline -- "There are many who believe …", etc, etc.
What struck me, though, in a recent discussion among members of most political parties on German TV, is how strong and coherent the support for the Euro and the EU is among all these players - with a few notable exceptions, of course. On the super-national front - if you take out Slovakia, where the opposition was more a reflection of internal politicking - support for the Euro and EU is similarly strong. It is of course true, as Mr. Erlanger points out below, that the necessary changes, involving giving up additional sovereignty, will require popular votes in the member nations, and the politicians' mettle will be tested in generating that popular support.
“This crisis is threatening the benefits of 60 years of European integration,” said Nicolas Baverez, a French economist and historian. “All the principles on which the euro zone was built — no state default, no monetary transfers, no bailouts and strict limits on debt — all these principles are dead, and we have no rules to make this work.”
Worse, he said, political leaders underestimate the dangers. “This is not just another recession, but a real and fundamental crisis,” he said. “There is a tension in the political system and doubt about democratic institutions that we have not experienced since the fall of the Soviet Union.”
Built from the ruins of war and expanded generously in the euphoria after the Soviet collapse, the European Union heralded itself as a model, radiating “soft power.” But now the model looks tarnished and flawed.
To paraphrase Mark Twain, the news of the demise of the European Union is premature. Mr. Erlanger seems to equate problems with the Euro with the demise of the EU. Yes, the political process to save the Euro is messy, and yes, the steps needed to stabilize the Euro against future fluctuations in the fortunes of individual member states are complex and will require skill and leadership from Europe's political leaders. However, if one compares the quality of leadership in Europe with the Keystone Cops performance in the American Congress, I would give the EU a better chance of survival than the US.
Leaders seem diminished; local politics trump solidarity. There is a new nationalism degrading the collective responsibility and shared sovereignty that defines the European Union. Euro-skepticism runs from far-right parties that simultaneously detest immigrants, globalism and Brussels to the governing parties of Europe’s most successful countries.
I assume Mr. Erlanger means that "Leaders seem diminished" in the eyes of their electorates, which is probably true. But journalists, in the eyes of the public, are even more "diminished" than politicians, and this kind of "reporting" by Mr. Erlanger does not help.
A European Union of 15 nations seemed coherent and manageable; the Europe of 27, soon to be 28, is almost ungovernable, even by a professional bureaucracy with little connection to voters and whose decisions cause increasing resentment, summarized in the “democratic deficit” that the European Union suffers.
The historical ironies are considerable.
Germany, for example, divided and in ruins after the war it fought to dominate Europe, is reunited and dominating Europe now, but without arms and with deep reluctance.
Nothing gets done in the European Union without German agreement, commitment and money. But in Chancellor Angela Merkel, Germany has a leader who is reactive and uninspiring, while her coalition partners, the Free Democrats, are slumping into irrelevance. Her eye is on Germany’s internal politics, its loose federalism and coalition government, a major contrast to France’s centralized, nearly monarchical state.
France once dominated the European Union, but Paris has now fallen behind booming Germany, one reason that François Mitterrand feared German reunification. Anxious about its own debt, banks and credit rating in the midst of a nasty presidential campaign, France is having a hard time dragging Berlin along.
At the same time, the countries of Eastern Europe are more vibrant economically than many of their western partners. They share much of the German, Dutch and Finnish view about strict fiscal discipline, and are reluctant to join a shaky euro and become responsible for the failures of others.
Britain, always an outlier in the European Union, looks wise to reject the euro, and the mood now is probably more anti-European than even in the days of Margaret Thatcher.
The fundamental changes needed to cope with the euro crisis — particularly the historic step of creating a common treasury — would require a redrawing of the basic treaties, which would require the approval of the voters.
But Europe is unpopular, a local metaphor for globalization, faceless and interfering. It is by no means certain that the voters are ready to leap into a new world of economic integration. Even if they prove to be, the new treaty will be complex and take years to draft even before being put to the electorate for ratification, if there is ratification.
This is a nice summary of the leadership roles of France and Germany, the fact that they have very different traditions and approaches to government, and the energy of the new members in Eastern Europe. But in terms of the current crisis, that is nothing new. The criticism of Germany's "reluctance to lead" has been self-evident from the start and was and is a requirement to assuage the understandable mistrust of Germany's strength, especially after reunification. As a matter of fact, there are regular tirades in the British press, even today, of how Germany has now conquered Europe, not with guns, but with its economic power.
The press's criticism of Merkel as "reactive and uninspiring" and their call for charismatic leaders is completely serf-serving - they tend to sell more papers. But just look at our own charismatic leader, President Obama, who was swept into power by a wave of adulation, especially from the press. He has turned out to be a very ineffectual leader.
It is easy to say that the answer is “more Europe,” not less. That can seem self-evident to Eurocrats and the political elite. But “more Europe” may not be what voters want.
“The only thing that can save the euro in its current form can’t and shouldn’t be done without democratic debate and support,” said Simon Tilford, chief economist for the Center for European Reform, a research institution.
“You need to bring the electorate with you,” he said. Of course, he acknowledged, a real democratic debate “could exacerbate the crisis.” That may be the largest historical irony of all.
Here Mr. Erlanger hits the nail on the head (for a change), even if this is nothing new: the needs to improve and adapt the EU and the Euro are evident to most leaders and politicians, but it is very difficult to sell these ideas to the individual national electorates. Thus the principals of popular democratic governance for changing the various treaties underlying the EU and the Euro will prove to be the biggest obstacles. But that has bee the story of the EU and the Euro from the start - it has been a development lead by some very dedicated visionaries and leaders, who managed to drag the general population along, sometimes willing, more often kicking and screaming.
Mr. Erlanger obviously belongs to the host of EU/Euro doom-sayers (interestingly, most of these come from Anglo-American media and economists -- such as Paul Krugman). Having lived and worked in Europe both before and after the formation of the EU and the introduction of the Euro, I am still impressed by the benefits both have brought to this continent. My hope rests with the young people of Europe, who - based on my subjective, non-scientific impression - are overwhelmingly and completely committed to both the EU and the Euro, not necessarily because they intellectually agree with it (although that too), but because it is the only Europe they have known, and their lives would be dramatically constrained without the freedoms of movement it has allowed them.
==============

Addition: Oct. 27, 2011:
Here a comment from a German reader of Mr. Erlanger's article today on the latest deal to "solve" the Euro crisis - I could not say it better myself...




Germany
October 26th, 2011
4:28 pm
As a european, I am often surprised about the comments about the EU in common and the Euro in special. Since I was never in the US, i am always reluctant to comment on special US issues, for example weapons, rockstars posing as gangsters or pimps, or a party which members think that the earth is flat and only 8000 years old. Since am I not a member of the huge mass of commenters, which holding a PhD in macroeconomics, I am also careful about comments to your Pope Paul K.
So I give only some remarks from a european view.
The EU is a project far from perfect, holding together totally different nations and languages. But at the end we like it.
Today the german Bundestag vote for a support of the EU on a bill auf all partys, exept the comunists. The US senat and house of represantives can not come together on a bill to support your own nation, even you have only two partys in charge.
Even the Slowenen voted for a support, dispite they have a smaller GdP then Greece.
The keyword here is solidarity.
The other keyword abandonment. Most europeans can live with a little bit less, when they can have peace therefore.


Comment on: "The Fighter Fallacy", by David Brooks

see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/opinion/brooks-the-fighter-fallacy.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
for the Brooks opinion piece.


I have read a lot of lame arguments from Mr. Brooks in favor of the Republicans -- even though he often espouses positions which are diametrically opposed to the harsh stands of the GOP.
Government, which the people don't trust, is not just the President and the executive, it includes Congress, and especially the House. Poll after poll shows that the public distrusts the Congress even more than the President.
Candidate Obama did indeed run as the \"Great Compromiser\", promising to get things done in a bi-partisan way. This ran right smack into the Republican dogma of \"the highest priority is to make Obama fail\" -- and to hell with the needs of the American people. Nothing has changed in the attitude of the GOP. To suggest now that Obama should campaign for second term on what you call the \"Grand Bargain\" is completely ludicrous.
I will go out on a limb and predict that Obama will win reelection, especially if he takes the \"hard line\" and uses the campaign to point out the intransigence of the Republicans. The GOP is the protector of the privileges of the 1% against the needs of the 99%. The notion that taxing those making over $1 million more in line with historical averages will hurt job creation is ludicrous. And, most importantly, the GOP candidates currently vying for the nomination are, with one exception, keystone cops. Romney is perhaps the most qualified, but he has changed positions so often to satisfy the GOP base, that no one really knows where he stands.

Friday, October 21, 2011

Comment on: "Party of Pollution" by Paul Krugman

see http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/opinion/party-of-pollution.html for original article.
Traveling in Europe currently and speaking with many people in France and Germany, it is embarrassing, to say the least, to have the topic come up of the completely clueless and witless cast of Republican presidential candidates.
There is a lot of contentious, and sometimes irrational, debate going on in Europe about the EURO crisis, but at least one has the impression that European politicians and commentators are focused on the real issues, rather than competing with each other on how to pander to the most ignorant, uninformed, and intolerant among us -- to get wild applause for a statement that the poor and unemployed are at fault for their predicament is just one of the more obscene signs, as is the wild applause about the number of executions in Texas.
Republicans make much of the benefits of having former CEOs become president -- but even aside the demonstrably reckless, irrational, if not criminal behavior displayed by the managers in some of our largest corporations (which has led the country to the edge of disaster), corporations are not led in a democratic manner, much more like a dictatorship, and these CEO's will be completely clueless on how to deal with a Congress to get anything done.

Commet on: "Who You Are" by David Brooks

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/opinion/brooks-who-you-are.html
for original article by David Brooks.


Very interesting stuff -- just another indication how much economics (also a social science) is stuck in an old rut by continuing to pursue a \"theory\" of economic behavior which assumes all (economic) decisions are rational and \"advantage-maximizing\"..
These completely false basic assumptions are leading our economic and political decision makers to make bad decisions, which are in the process of making the US an economic and political basket case.
European versions of free-market, with much more "social conscience" components, at least takes account of the fact that if you continue to believe in the fictitious rational consumer, and the supposed self-stabilization and resource optimization, it will only serve to concentrate wealth and political power in the hands a few, the most ruthless among us... It is indeed the 99% versus the 1%..

Monday, October 17, 2011

Comment on: "Good news! No Really" by Bill Keller

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/17/opinion/keller-good-news-no-really.html
for article...


I'm not sure why the modern American news media always seem to feel they need to feed us a \"feel good story\", usually at the end of the network newscasts -- it is time we Americans faced the disaster we have created for ourselves.
And the \"good news\" Mr Keller quotes is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, if we have to go to Liberia and Somalia for \"good\" news.
It would be more useful if the Editor of an influential source such as the NYT took an honest and forthright look at the problems and potential solutions we have in the US, and took a non-weasel-out stand on the current \"debate\" in Congress about how to correct the deficit-lack-of-jobs-deteriorating-infrastructure-etc-etc situation which our money-lobby-special-interest driven political system has gotten us into...
\"Fair and Balanced Journalism\" does not mean that you just let each side spout its gobble-de-gook, it means checking what is true, factual and makes sense, and then having the courage to say so....

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Comment on: "America’s ‘Primal Scream’" by Nicholas Kristof

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/16/opinion/sunday/kristof-americas-primal-scream.html?hp
for the original opinion piece by Kristof.
=================================
This is an excellent piece in that it is one of the few instances, news or opinion piece, which has correctly described the odd dichotomy of many Americans - they recognize and empathize when citizens in other countries are oppressed (such as during the \"Arab Spring\"), but (for the most part) they allow themselves to be taken in by the Republican dogma that asking for a more equal distribution of economic and political power in the US is somehow \"class warfare\".
The critique of the 99% vs 1% distribution is absolutely on target: wealth = power in the US form of democracy. And this unequal distribution will ultimately lead to the death of American democracy unless we as a people find the means and the will to reverse the trend of ever more concentration of wealth and power within a smaller and smaller oligarchy.
This deadly trend of concentrating wealth and power in the top 1% started with Reagan and accelerated to unbelievable proportions during the Bush (W) administration. This was the real "class warfare" and it successfully decimated, if not outright killed, the broad American middle class. The Republican intransigence against any form of of tax increases for the top 1% in order to reverse this deadly concentration of wealth and power is the stranglehold which will choke the life out of American democracy.

Saturday, October 15, 2011

Comment on: "Health Law to Be Revised by Ending a Program"

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/health/policy/15health.html
for original article.


Health care, and health care insurance in the US is a joke, and unfortunately President Obama does not understand (or is not willing to admit) that without mandatory coverage, including a single payer plan (for which those with money could add additional private coverage) is needed to make anything work, including long-term health coverage.
By now the statistics about the fact the the US has the highest per-capita expenditures for health care, which gets it somewhere between rank 30 and 40 in terms go \"health care outcomes\" (depending on which measured you choose) should be well known.
In addition, the much ballyhooed \"free-enterprise\" model for healthcare favored by Republicans (at the behest of the health \"industry\" lobbies - just like when they passed Medicare Part D, the biggest give-away in the history of health care legislation) only allows corporate greed to enrich themselves on the backs of the suffering, ill, and elderly -- just like the recent news stories about the \"scarce drugs\", where our wonderful corporate leaders horde scarce but vital drugs in order to jack up the prices by insane margins, apparently up to 600% and more.
While not perfect, the US could do with some advice from other advanced/industrialized countries, ALL of which have national health care plans, and NONE of which allow the disgrace of some 45 million citizens to go without even minimal health care...

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Comment on: "Something’s Happening Here" by Thomas Friedman

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/12/opinion/theres-something-happening-here.html?_r=1&hp
for original article by Thomas Friedman


I vote for Paul Gilding's \"The Great Disruption\" as closer to \"the truth\". Economics and economists have led us to believe that free market capitalism, with its supposed self-correction and optimum resource allocation mechanisms, is the cure-all. However, in order to come up with this \"theory\" of economics and their wonderful economic models, they have had to \"externalize\" and/or abstract almost everything from the real world. They (economists) postulate perfect and complete knowledge when players in the free-market economy, from individuals choosing a new car, to corporations deciding on a new product, make their decisions. That is, of course, complete bunk. For example, marketing/Madison Avenue spends billions to mis-inform us about products and services, using sophisticated psychological techniques, combined with outright lies, to ensure that we do NOT have complete information, and that we do NOT make rational choices. And how complete was the information of financial institutions in defining the real estate based junk products, and how rational were their decision in betting everything on these products, which no one really understood?
Free market capitalism has shown its lethal flaws (ignoring, for example, the environmental impacts, and the social/human impacts, because it cannot be \"priced\"). I do not pretend to know how to fix this, but something will have to radically modify, or even replace, free market capitalism if the world is to survive.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Comment on: "The Milquetoast Radicals" by David Brooks

See
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/11/opinion/the-milquetoast-radicals.html?_r=1&ref=global-home
for the original Brooks column.


Mr. Brooks, it is indeed a 99% vs 1% problem. All the valid policy imperatives you enumerate (\"Do tax reform, fiscal reform, education reform and political reform so that when the economy finally does recover the prosperity is deep, broad and strong\") to get the country out of the doldrums are exactly the steps being blocked by a GOP which has been completely hijacked by a minority of radical conservatives whose only policy goal is the \"ensure that Obama fails\" (as opposed to ensuring that the country succeeds).
The 1% are in possession of the vast majority of wealth, and thus, given the PAC and Lobby-driven nature of the US political system, hold virtually all economic and political power.
The Occupy Wall Street protests are an expression of frustration with the government and the 1% power-elite which controls it, not much different from the Tea Party before it was hijacked by conservative PACs.
Our current political problems are indeed like \"declaring war on some nefarious elite\", just like the American Revolution declaring war on the nefarious British Crown, with actions like the original Boston Tea Party...

Monday, October 10, 2011

Comment on: "Panic of the Plutocrats", by Paul Krugman

For the original piece by Paul Krugman, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/10/opinion/panic-of-the-plutocrats.html


I am surprised by Mr. Krugman's apparent surprise...
Plutocrats and/or Oligarchs always react with panic, and when pushed to the wall, with extreme ruthlessness to any perceived or actual threat to their status and privilege.
Judging by some of the disproportionate reactions from the NYPD to the protesters, the moneyed powers obviously want to crush this in the bud - let's remember that the New York mayor is named Bloomberg, and although I often admire his sometimes liberal policies, he is definitely a member of the Oligarchy.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Comment on: "Where Have You Gone, Joe DiMaggio?

For original Freedman column, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/09/opinion/sunday/friedman-where-have-you-gone-joe-dimaggio.html?_r=1&hp


While I agree with Mr. Friedman's oft stated view:
"To do that, we need to reinvigorate our traditional formula for success — quality education and infrastructure, open immigration, the right rules to incentivize risk-taking and government-financed scientific research",
his assertion that Steve Jobs embodies the kind of leadership qualities we need in politics, however, is ludicrous. There is nothing "democratic" (small d) about successful corporate leaders. They are more akin to dictators, and we want to be careful about a populous longing for a "strong man" or dictator to get us out of our current troubles. It is exactly the fact that Americans, different from most other countries during the last Great Depression, did not succumb to the temptation to turn to a dictator to lead them out of their miseries, which makes America different. All right, I'll grant you that FDR had many of the qualities of a "strong man" leader, some on the Right would even say, a dictator. But we as Americans did manage to keep things within the framework of a democratic government and society.
I agree that leaders like Steve Jobs are important in a free-market, entrepreneurial society, but let's make sure we keep the boundaries between good corporate leadership (generally un-democratic) and good public leadership, clearly defined.