Tuesday, March 02, 2004

Clinton for VP, since it's legal Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 10:02:28 PM     I love it when i feel really stupid - because there is a chance to learn. Some things ought to be obvious - at least as good questions. Consider ith John Edwards's decision to quit the race, expected to be announced officially today, John Kerry's nomination as the Democratic candidate for president is secure. Speculation about his choice for vice president can now begin in earnest. Mr. Edwards himself is an obvious choice: a skilled campaigner, he would also attract Southern voters. Other possibilities include Govs. Evan Bayh of Indiana and Bill Richardson of New Mexico, who have both regional appeal and executive experience, and dark-horse candidates like former Senator Sam Nunn of Georgia. Amid this conjecture, however, one name is conspicuously absent: Bill Clinton ********

Tax and small business Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 3:42:51 PM     Economic reporting review Washington Post, February 24, 2004, Page A4 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A488-2004Feb23.html         This article reports on IRS data that show, contrary to claims by President Bush, that the vast majority of small business owners are not in the top tax brackets. While the President has repeatedly stated that his tax cuts have been motivated by a desire to help small businesses, data from the IRS show that less than 4 percent of small business owners have incomes in excess of $200,000 a year. ********

Pakistan, Khan and the US deal. Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 2:44:32 PM     It's like the world has leukemia, and we need to detox slowly and carefully. The interplay between business and military has led to a world where corruption and adaptation are all mixed up. the result is, it is all too dangerous.  the new article by Hersh in the New Yorker points to what has been my view for quite a while, the real problem is Pakistan. It is like the old story, "The know now what web they weave, when once they begin to decieve.." http://newyorker.com/printable/?fact/040308fa_fact ********

Finances short and long term Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 10:33:02 AM     Good financial summary. I'd only add that short term thinking says the dollar and the economy are down. Long term, the world either embraces tech inn a major way, or gets into real trouble, so the long term (five years plus) says the econimy should do well. So strategy is short term caution, with careful picking, with an eye towards tech infrastructure atht will thrive, including bio tech and nanontech. The political implications are, that it doesn't make much difference. But the problem is, we live each day in the short run, and quality of life is a NOW experience. Indeflation. That is the word we have given to this curious creature in front of us. Neither inflation nor deflation... indeflation is a ghastly unnatural hybrid, with rising consumer prices (caused by a drop in the dollar, not by economic growth) in the middle of a long, drawn-out Japanese-style slump. Presently copper and oil, for example, are going up - typically, signs of inflationary pressure. Copper is at an 8-year high. And gasoline rises about 3 cents every week. Copper is often referred to as "Dr. Copper... the metal with a Ph.D. in economics" because it is said to predict trends. When copper goes down, the economy follows. When it goes up... the economy soon gets "overheated," with rising consumer prices. But the bond market is no dope either, and it continues to forecast (with low and falling yields) a sluggish economy with declining prices. Who's right? Could it be they both are... or, that both are heralds of this new indeflation we're worrying about? For several years now, we have noted the way in which the U.S. economy seemed to follow the Japanese model - with a 10-year lag. Asset prices rose on Wall Street throughout the '90s... and peaked in January or March of 2000... .just as they had in Japan 10 years earlier. Even the 'recovery' that we see today still looks a lot like the 'recovery' in Japan in 1994... just before the stock market headed down again, and the nation slipped into deflation. Of course, America isn't Japan - in one especially potent particular. Savings rates in Japan never fell below 10%. And, 10 years ago, Japan was still the world's biggest creditor. America enters its decline with savings rates near 1%... and as the world's biggest debtor. For most economists, this nuance is not only telling, it is conclusive. Ben Bernanke and the Fed have already pledged to do what they have to do to save a nation of debtors from getting what they deserve. They've announced that they will inflate the nation's money supply as much as necessary to avoid Japan's 10-year-long deflationary slump. Almost everyone takes them at their word. Besides, America can't stand deflation, they point out. But wanting isn't getting, we counter. Every debtor in America may crave inflation... but that doesn't mean they will have it. The world is even stranger than it seems. What is said to guarantee inflation - America's lack of savings - may be what actually seals the deal for deflation... or this new indeflation we have been describing. The Japanese did not have to borrow from abroad to fund their businesses, households or government. They 'owed it to themselves' and could simply hunker down - even for 10 years - until the mistakes were gradually written off and cast away. But America depends on the kindness of strangers in order to pay for its War on Terror, its big screen TVs... even for drugs for its old people. The nation and its currency are vulnerable to foreign lenders in a way Japan never was. The dollar has lost 40% against the euro already. As kindness becomes more costly for them, you can expect even the nice Japanese and Chinese to turn away from it. There is no law that says the dollar has to fall further... but with an unresolved current account deficit of nearly 5% of GDP and the U.S. national debt rising by about $2 billion every business day... the dollar could still lose 50%... or more... of its value. A falling dollar increases prices for imports - notably oil - and thereby increases Americans' cost of living. It has the probable additional consequence of destroying the U.S. economy... which lowers employment and many domestic prices... while collapsing stock and real estate markets. Indeflation, in other words. ********

Conference on fascism Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 8:53:36 AM     Conference. The history of fascism is so important because of the comparisons to today. The normal view is that the post ww2 period is different, but there is a good possibility that it merely continues the forces that led to ww1 and ww2. Call for Papers for Volume 21 of "Beiträge zur Geschichte des Nationalsozialismus" (Contributions to the History of National Socialism) (URL: http://www.beitraege-ns.com) Topic: Comparative Research on Fascism Concept: The intention of this book is to present new methods of comparative research on fascism. The starting point is the observation that – while German research on National Socialism in the last decade has generated a significant increase of empirical knowledge – this knowledge has to date only scarcely been used to develop theoretical models. Questions addressing the possibilities and boundaries of a comparative perspective – almost entirely neglected in previous research – can especially be expected to provide further insight into the European dimension of facism. In the last decade, Anglo-American research on fascism has brought forth interesting studies on comparative analyses of fascist movements and regimes that allow for comparative analyses of National Socialism from a social and cultural historical perspective. This research has hereby distanced itself from a monocausal explanation of fascism as an expression of conflict-ridden capitalism or of bourgeois society. Instead of considering fascism as an epiphenomenon, as secondary to its ‚actual’ causes, fascist movements and regimes are taken seriously in this new research as independent political forces. A developmental history of fascism places the actions and social practices of fascism in the forefront of its analysis. The structural contexts as well as ideological elements of fascism are hereby discussed and considered together. The conduct and self-perception of its protagonists prove to be two intertwined elements of a genuine fascist way of life. Such a focus provides the opportunity to combine two directions of fascist research that have – for the most part – been viewed separately: The social historical studies on membership profile and the institutional contexts of fascism on the one hand and a cultural historical oriented political history of fascist behaviour and its values on the other [1]. ********

King and Candadates for.. Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 8:07:48 AM     What's a possible interpretation of  this picture? Thoughtful vs charming?   ********

Kerry and Bush. Posted here Tuesday, March 02, 2004 at 7:50:11 AM     The issue facing many of us is, is there a real opportunity to shift the country towards sanity, meaning nbalance of social benefits, multilateral security, wise bsuiness development strategy?  Kerry may out stroke the president on the way to the end of the next lap in the current pool: more military, more security, rathe than root causes and dealing with the main issues that actual face us. As the Foreeign Affiars book reviews point out, the west is not about to collapse to Islam. Our real issues are the nature of bsuiness, tech  income and the environment. the res can be seen as distraction from the concentration of money and power that ontinues so strongly. See Krugman in today's nyt. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/02/opinion/02KRUG.html?hp where he dissects Greenspan's protection of te admin and more on social security. He is not as radical as the article posted earlier from Counterpunch, but in the direction. Social security is being used to pay normal expenditures, thus being a very regressive tax. On Kerry see Balkin for sunday at http://balkin.blogspot.com/ John Kerry Discovers the Winning Meme From a speech delivered on Friday, February 27th: I do not fault George Bush for doing too much in the War on Terror; I believe he’s done too little. Here is Kerry's preliminary list of reforms: Kerry promises to add 40,000 troops to active duty, reform intelligence gathering services to prevent a replay of the WMD debacle, streamline the national terrorist watch list, work to cut off the flow of terrorist funds, particularly from Saudi Arabia where the Bush Administration has feared to tread, coordinate with other countries to track and prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, retrain the Iraqi security force and stay in Iraq until the job is done, embark on a ten year program to make the U.S. energy independent of Middle East oil, fund homeland security programs that were promised funding by the Bush Administration but never got it, and improve technology at ports for screening for dangerous weapons ********