Being Who We Are

by David Brooks

JAN. 30, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/opinion/david-brooks-being-who-we-are.html?comments#permid=13981352

Oh my gosh! Can analysis of the Middle East get any more simple-minded than this. Mr. Brooks (and Sen. McCain) talk as if there was no Afghanistan or Iraq. US military intervention has only served to destabilize that region - it is/was not Assad who destabilized the Middle East, it was the brain-dead Bush/Chaney "axis of evil" nonesense which destroyed countries and killed 10's of thausends of people, and served to focus what is essentially an inner-Islam power battle on the US.

It may have escaped Mr. Brooks, but the US has no "moral authority" left. Our activities in Afghanistan and Iraq in general, and the "enhanced interrogation" and Abu Graib/Guantanamo atrocities should cause Bush, Chaney and their kabal to be extradited to the International Court in Den Hague.

It should also be obvious by now that our huge military power is completely ineffective in dealing with the "asymmetric" conflicts typical of today's world. Anyone who claims we can distinguish the good guys from the bad guys in this region has been asleep at the wheel for almost two decades, notwithstanding the brainless neo-con editorial page of the WSJ.

Europe’s Greek Test

by Paul Krugman

JAN. 30, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/opinion/paul-krugman-europes-greek-test.html?comments#permid=13981650

"Although nobody knows it, Greece has actually made great progress in regaining competitiveness; wages and costs have fallen dramatically, so that, at this point, austerity is the main thing holding the economy back."

I wonder if Prof. Krugman could pause his self-righteous moralizing long enough to think about the implication of that statement. Would Greece, without the pressure put on it by the rest of the Euro zone, have implemented the structural changes necessary to improve its competitiveness to the point it has - what was the term - a structural budget surplus? Of course not.

The real underlying problem is that the moneyed elite in Greece (just as in the US) has been plundering the country at the expense of the 90% for decades. It is unfortunately true that this has been happening with the tacit collusion of other countries, which were happy to close their eyes to the problems as long as their own elite (front and center, the financial industries) were making a handsome profit at the expense of European tax payers.

If the new, nominally "socialist", government of Greece is true to social principals, it will refocus the "structural changes" still needed away from cutting jobs and social services for the 90% and towards curtailing the power of the moneyed elites, who, like in the US, pay little or no taxes and receive huge amounts of government transfers. These economic eletes receive support from the insane "economic theory" of free markets evangelized by Krugman.

Does Political Correctness Work?

by Russ Douthat

JANUARY 30, 2015 11:28 AM

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/30/does-political-correctness-work/?comments#permid=13982072

I find it fascinating that a conservative pundit, like Mr. Douthat, is complaining about "the left" trying to shut down free speech with "political correctness", when Conservatives like Mr. Douthat, have been using the granddaddy of "political correctness", religious doctrine, to shut down debate on significant social issues, such as same-sex marriage, homophopia in general, birth control, and abortion as a legitimate option instead of back-alley procedures.

I am not a big fan of "political correctness", which tends to arbitrarily pervert language and the "meaning" of words and phrases, to the point where we feel obliged to "edit" classic literature such as Huck Finn to satisfy some perverted sense of what is acceptable. However, "free speech" does have its limits. As someone born in Germany, I am constantly reminded of that in the delicate dance German politics has to perform between free polical expression and being congiscent of its dark Nazi political past. The current "PEGIDA" demonstartions in Germany are a case in point.

Similarly, the US needs to be cogniscent of its past supression of African Americans (Blacks?), which still demand its own limits on "free speech" via political correctness. How we draw the lines there in, for example, the current discussion about "police brutality" against blacks on the one hand (which undoubtably occurs) and demonizing the police in general as "baby murderers", will be interesting. Dauthat's piece offeres nothing in that regard.

Internal Devaluation in Greece

by Paul Krugman
JANUARY 26, 2015 7:49 AM

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/internal-devaluation-in-greece/?comments#permid=13937855

Interesting choice of words - "[Greece] has ACHIEVED a relative drop in wages".

When "austerity" and hard times are brought about by "market forced", it is called an "achievement". When austerity is a by product of trying to live within your means as a country , it is called a "nightmere".

The "achievement" of "internal/wage deflation" in the US is causing a further erosion of the Middle Class (see article in today's NYT)- I'm sure the people affected cannot distinguish the cause of their suffereing between the "achievement of wage deflation" or the "nightmere of austerity". We can't use Germany as a scapegoat or the fact thawe cannot control our own currency. But for the people affected, what the heck is the difference.

How to Leave a Mark

by David Brooks

JAN. 27, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/27/opinion/david-brooks-how-to-leave-a-mark.html?comments#permid=13949593

As so often with Mr. Brooks' commentaries, there are so many things wrong with his propositions that one hardly knows where to begin.

"Government is an ever more rigid and ineffective tool to address market failures." - as much as I dislike many of the things "the government" did in response to the meltdown caused by the "self optimizing" and "self-correcting" invisible hand of market economics, these government programs did indeed stave off complete desaster.

"Impact Investing", as nice as the idea sounds, will NEVER solve, or even mitigate the desasterous social effects of laissez-fair market economies, mainly because the underlying rules will always favor the ruthless greed of unfettered market economy. What is needed is for the rules to chanage - after all, market economies can only exist in the framework of a legal and social (i.e. political) framework, which enables it to exist in the first place. The rules set up by politics to enable market economies must be changed to enable a socially responsible form of market economics, along the lines of the "social market economies" of Western Europe.

For example, by insisting that business, and corporations, have an obligation not only to their shareholders and owners, but also to their employees and society in general, the hyper rapacious nature of corporations can be tamed to a degree - similar to the "Mitbestimmungsrecht" of Germany, which VW tried to implement in its US plants, causing a hue and cry of local politicians.

Ending Greece’s Nightmare

by Paul Krugman

JAN. 26, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/opinion/paul-krugman-ending-greeces-nightmare.html?comments#permid=13938184

I'm not a fan of IMF and World Bank "rescue packages" and as a "social democrat" myself, I welcome the poll victory of the socialist in Greece. 

The conservative establishment in Greece, which was responsible for implementing the restructuring and austerity, where beholden to and indeed part of the moneyed upper classes in Greece. Thus, their programs focused on cutting wages and benefits and social services, while dragging their feet and only paying lip service to the other part of restructuring - getting Greeks, especially the upper crust to pay their "fair share" in taxes, indeed in many areas, getting all Greeks to pay any taxes at all.

I know from personal contacts in Greece that tax avoidance and government benefits fraud is very common, like a national pasttime, in Greece. The kind of "restructuring" that will put and end, or at least significantly curtail those activities, is an absolute necessity, and it will entail "austerity". Hopefully the new socialist government in Greece will shift the focus of austerity to that area and relieve some of the suffering caused by one-sided cuts in benefits for the poor. However, if the new government makes only promises in order to get relief from their debt and still curries favor with the moneyed class, and does not follow through on real reforms, then Europe should write off their Greek debt, remove them from the Euro and let those wonderful market forces, which Mr. Krugman claims to understand, take over.

State of the Union, State of the Presidency

by Ross Douthat

JAN 21 11:08 AM

http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/state-of-the-union-state-of-the-presidency/?comments#permid=13893566

This post is interesting not for its substance - there is none - but for the very clear indication that even Mr. Douthat seems to have given up on the Republican Party. Although there is still some gloating over the resounding mid-term victory - understandibly - Mr. Douthat concedes that the GOP has virtually no cohesive policy agenda on any of the issues facing the country. He acknowledges, for example, that after almost two decades of Middle Class decline, the GOP has no descernable policy in that area - the luke-warm proposals by his hero, Lee, notwithstanding.

The GOP response to the State of the Union really showed that they are still in the "repeal ObamaCare" mode, and the focus on "Keystone Jobs Program" as a solution to the Middle Class dilemma is quite pathetic.

The GOP victory in the mid-terms was, in my view, the result of disenchantment with Democrats and Obama (much of which I share) and NOT the result of a convincing policy alternative by the GOP. If they do not manage to extricate themselves from the persistant image as "the party of NO", there will be a huge backlash in 2016.

Can Capitalists Save Capitalism?

by Thomas B. Edsall

JAN. 20, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/opinion/can-capitalists-save-capitalism.html?comments#permid=13893903

There is a working and tested model for "inclusive capitalism" which has been quite sucessful in most market economies outside of the US - it is the "social market economy" model practiced in much of Europe. Unfortunately, virtually all US politicians and most US economists write off this model of "social market economy" as "bankrupt socialist/communist regimes".

For example, most US proposals for stemming the extreme polarization of income and wealth attempt to use the tax system and thus open themselves to the conservative bug-a-boo critique of "communist style redistribution". What is needed is a complete refocus of the role of business and corporations not just to enrich the "owners of the means of production", but that these businesses and corporations also have a real responsibility for their employees and for society in general - I'm thinking here of the German principal of "Mitbestimmung", the right of employees to have a say in setting the policies of the corporations they work for.

To make "Capitalism" work in the future - I hate that term, because it alone sets the wrong framework, that "Capital" should be the driver of everything - we need to realize that we are no longer in the age of "rugged individualism" where all people are "masters of their own destiny" and the only limit is their willingness to work and take risks. Today's globalized market economies ensure that the individual is, for the most part, just a small cog in a huge, complecated structue.

Say It Like It Is

by Thomas L. Friedman

JAN. 20, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/21/opinion/thomas-friedman-say-it-like-it-is.html?comments#permid=13888927

Not to be insulting to Mr. Friedman, but the topic and theme is eerily similar to an Op-Ed piece by Marine Le Pen, which appeared in the NYT earlier this week.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/marine-le-pen-france-was-attacked-by-islamic-fundamentalism.html

The real problem is that we in Western countries cannot solve the schisms in Islam, which are at the root of jihadism. All we, especially the US, have managed to do by destroying a number of Middle East countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, and to a lesser extent Libya) is to give the jihadist an excuse to target western countries in an effort to gain media attention.

Once that genie was out of the bottle, and showed just how effective this media attention getting was, it is impossible to put it back in the bottle. All we can do now is to try and isolate ourselves as best we can from the jihadist's ability to export their terror to us - we cannot solve the problems of Shia-Sunni and other intra Islam conflicts in Muslim countries, but we can reduce the ability to export that conflict to us by:
- stopping our misguided efforts to"stabilize" and "democratize" Middle Eastern countries, which has only served to destabilize their tenuous political and social structures.
- working on better integrating Muslim minorities in western countries so as to reduce the likelihood that they are recruited into jihadist terror cells.

We, "the West", cannot modernize Islam and bring it into the 21st century - that can only be done from the inside. Certainly our two "wars of liberation" in Iraq and Afghanistan have been counter-productive.

How Expensive It Is to Be Poor

by Charles M. Blow

JAN. 18, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/charles-blow-how-expensive-it-is-to-be-poor.html?comments#permid=13873490

Having lived and worked many years in Europe (mostly Germany - back in the 80's, with high unemployment, when it was not doing as well as it is today), I always marveled upon returning to the US how much better off the "average person" seemed to be in Germany. 

Even in Seattle today, which is a relatively well-off area, with Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, Starbucks and others providing for relatively high employment, it seems in many respects like a third-world city, compared to, for example, Munich. Living in downtown Seattle, I see many, many homeless sleeping in doorways on my morning walk, and there are little tent encampments for homeless all over the city. 

The "rugged individualism" so prized by most Americans may have been effective in the 19th Century, but starting with the Industrial Revolution, and especially now with the hyper-interdependent economy under "Globalization", most people are NOT masters of their own destiny, they are small players in a complex structure which no one really understands fully - even academic economists, who claim to "know how the economy works" - and which is controlled by a tiny minority of the population ( the infamous 0.1%).

We are de-facto back in a feudal age, where the "ruling aristocracy" of old has been replaced by the super-rich, and thus super-powerful 0.1%.

Europe has dealt much better with this phenomenon - notwithstanding the phony measure of GDP - by rejecting laissez-fair market economy in favor of "social market economy".

Some specific examples of social market policies which tend to reduce the abject poverty so common in the US:
- Universal Health Care: only a tiny minority of Germans are not covered by universal health care. This takes a huge burden off the poor.
- Free university education: admission is highly competitive, but those who do not find a slot in a German university often go to another European country. The result is that today Europe has much greater "upward mobility" than the US
- Better, more differentiated public education: American public education, with the "equality" ideal that everyone should finish high school, with the result that a high school diploma is virtually useless today. The European public education systems are more differentiated, acknowledging different talents and differing academic aptitudes. "Trade schools" in Germany, combined with state-supported apprenticeships, lead to highly lucrative and successful careers. The US tends to put all its bets on the college/university degree, with lots of college graduate flipping burgers.
- Social Services which acknowledge the obligation of society ("the Government") to ensure a minimum existence level income.
- Relatively strong labor unions, with the acknowledgement that employees should have a say in how corporations are run, i.e. employers have an "obligation" not just to their shareholders/owners, but also to their employees.

The pat answer in the US is that "we cannot afford" such programs. Germany chooses to.

To Call This Threat by Its Name

Marine Le Pen: France Was Attacked by Islamic Fundamentalism

By MARINE LE PENJAN. 18, 2015

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/19/opinion/marine-le-pen-france-was-attacked-by-islamic-fundamentalism.html?comments#permid=13872365

At the root of home-grown radicalism, whether in France or any other country, are economic and social discrimination. France's problems with Muslim monitories is a direct consequence of its colonial era, in which a geographically, ethnically, religiously and socially "foreign" country was declared to be part of "France". The fact that today France has the largest Muslim population in Europe is NOT the result of Europe's open borders or the EU's liberal political asylum policies - it is a result of its own misguided policies, both in the past and the present (continued neglect in assimilating the Algerian-French into French society).

The Paris "terrorists" were only coincidentally jihadists, they were primarily disaffected French youth, who early on got into trouble with the law, and from there were willing recruits to something that gave their lives "meaning".

Yes, "western" societies must protect themselves against this kind of religious fanaticism-based murder and terror, and in the short run, unfortunately, this will have to rely on the police. But in the long run these problems can only be solved by making good on the rhetoric of multi-cultural societies based on economic equality and mutual respect.

In our own country, the US, idiotic proposals such as those by McCain, that these terror attacks can only be fought by additional military attacks in the Middle East, show a complete ignorance of the limits of military power and its negative side effects.

The Future of France

by Russ Douthat

JANUARY 13, 2015 1:03 PM

So what is the point of all this blather - Sunday and today combined?

France was the leading mover and shaker in the creation of the "European idea", initially for very practical and historically rooted reasons - to "control" Germany - even as someone born in Germany, I was all in favor of that goal.

Intellectually, technologically and politically, France has always been a leader in Europe (and the world). Like Great Britain, it is still grappeling with the demise of its colonial empire and the "Grand Nation". For the past few decades France has also suffered from a certain scellorosis and "in-breeding" of its political elite.

France is vehemently secular in its approach to politics and the influence of religion in general, and Catholicism in particular, is and will be minimal. However, Christian social values play a large role in the implementation of "social market economies" throughout Europe - even "conservative" political parties in Germany and France would be considered "socialst" by US standards.

Ultimately the "Muslim" problem in Europe is an economic problem - if Muslim communities become integrated in terms of economic advantages, even if they do not "integrate" into western/christian values, then the propesity for jhihadist activities within Europe will decline.

Ultimately, as Mr Friedman indicates in his column today, the battle is more among different strains of Islam. Unfortunately, US foreigh policy has been instrumental in the spillover of that conflict.


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See
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/14/world/europe/germanys-history-resonate...
for an interesting counterpoint to Mr. Douthat's column.


Personally, as someone born in Germany, I was and am much more confortable with Germany being in France's shadow in terms of a Leadership role" in Europe. Ever since Germany's resurgence as an economic power in Europe since the eraly 2000's, and its dominant role in the Euro crisis, the often vicious claims that Germany was only bent on establishing its dominance by economic power, which it failed to accomplish with military force, even as western powers encouraged and even tried to shame Germany into assuming a more assertive role, has been very unsettling. In these situation a focus on Germany's recent history (understandably) quickly dominates the discussion, rather than the "long term view" taken by the exhibit at the British Museum.