Tuesday, June 29, 2010

G-20 Tug-of-War

A lesson from the G 20 so far seems to have gone unlearned. This regular confab among the nations' elites has produced a revealing insight: A central question about the current economic problems has produced complete disagreement. The Americans, true to Keynes, want to continue the flood of federal money to prime dry pumps and create the hitherto undemanding aggregate demand. The German camp, remembering the world altering effects of the last hyperinflation period in Germany, want to cut expenses and deficits and shrink their budgets.

So the basic question of the G 20 is unanswered. Moreover, there is antagonistic disagreement over how to approach the question. The solutions offered by the two camps are diametrically opposed.

The average guy should take this news with some concern. The really big leaders and elites just do not disagree, they completely and totally disagree. Paul Krugman really, really disagrees with the German position. The Austrian economists really, really disagree with the Americans. Now some disagreement within the most heterogeneous of groups is inevitable but a 180 degree disagreement in a leadership group is not. Somehow this schism within the world leadership has not been viewed as anything more than interesting. But it is a lot more. There is no middle ground between these positions, no compromise. There is no "partial pump priming", no "sort of budget control". There is no agreement and no hope for one. The average guy should be plenty worried. There is no solution pending and the leaders not only are stymied, they would not know what to do if they could. One option is disconnection; different countries with different visions could pursue different courses. But that means some will be wrong. Some might lose. And with the vision that we are one world, that solution is anathema.

The average guy probably thought he was in better hands.

G 20

The G 20 has returned, like a winter cold. Or locusts. This time it has settled on Toronto. The meeting to promote economic growth has again shut the host city down, closed the roads--so the guests can travel easily, closed the restaurants to outsiders--so the guests can eat and entertain each other without the irritation of outsiders, closed the entertainment sites--so...so...so. It is so obnoxious and so offensive that it is surprising the average guy tolerates it.

The ruling elite has a lot of chutzpah. They create policies that wreck the economies then they hold unbelievably inconveniencing meetings to redesign the economies they have wrecked. This is all done with the open mouthed respect of the average guy who does not seem to connect the elite with the mini depressions that accompany their trips and meetings. If the elite had any interest in the average guy they would at least stop using their towns for dystopia practice and police training. They should go somewhere like a military base or an aircraft carrier and at least remove the mini disasters they create with their beneficial visits. But I bet they will not do that, at least until the average guy stops their malignant visits by refusing them. The elite just can not resist thrill the deference and the specialness that these visits among the little people gives them.

And where would the good food come from?

Thursday, June 10, 2010

The U.S.A. and Chyna

Everyone from editorial writers to Spike Lee thinks that Obama should be less cool and collected and more emotional and angry over the oil spill in the Gulf. He apparently responded by telling Matt Lauer he was finding out "whose ass to kick." There are some questions this demands aside from the obvious questions of presidential decorum. If the spill is the result of an honest error made by a workman or a supervisor, will the full weight of the executive branch be brought to bear against him? Will he be vilified? Ridiculed? Be held responsible financially by some bill of attainder? Will his life and actions be examined by government committees, conferences and news shows? If it is the result of a policy error or metal fatigue or a supplier's error, how will the blame be resolved and who will be held responsible and have his "ass kicked"? And as this technology is so new, the effort so gigantic, are there good norms for behavior? If so, who has set them? There are 56 tapes of the Roethlisberger investigation; certainly the people involved in this huge accident will deserve more evaluation and thoughtful criticism.

Or is this nonsense? Is this simply an effort to appear involved, committed and virile? Moreover, is it an attempt to seem in control of whatever is happening?

As we become less interested in substance and more interested in form, the powers that be will become more personalities and less people, more leadership-like and less leaders. Perhaps there will be a presidential form-and-substance advisor like the Office of Protocol. Soon these politicians will become good at this acting, perhaps under the tutelage of Vince McMahon (whose wife is running for senate!), and will develop clear-cut images like The Crusader, The Little Guy, Fossile Fuel and Rowdy Roddy Piper. Soon everything will become clarified, even the future.

Thursday, June 3, 2010

Some Questions

The North Koreans sneak up on a non-combatant, fire torpedoes into the ship, and kill over forty men: No international response. The Israeli boarding party fights back and kills nine professional terrorists and provocateurs who have tried to create an international incident: International outrage.

After weeks of posturing over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the administration sends an overseer, a movie director who did a film on the Titanic. I know Christopher Reeves is dead but wasn't Wolverine available?

The G20 will meet in South Korea. Is that because last year's meeting in Pittsburgh solved so many of our international economic problems?

Will the demonstrators at the G20 be more or less violent than the Tea Partiers?

Two of the organizers of the peace group Free Gaza are Bernadette Dohrn and Bill Ayers, two notorious Weather Underground members responsible for a number of American deaths. Have they changed?

What is the endgame if Hamas is allowed to receive any imports they wish in Gaza?

If Israel finally comes under unrelenting military siege by its enemies and their very survival questioned, will the Israelis just surrender and move to Pebble Beach or will something more ominous emerge out of their impending destruction? (Think Samson.)

The state of Israel was created in Arab lands by fiat by the United Nations. It is the single biggest point of contention in the entire world and has aside from Russia's rise and decline dominated the Western World's politics and economics since the second World War. Have supporters of the U.N. revised their opinion and expectation of the U.N. downward?

After the government failures in Katrina, the oil spill, the economy and the welfare state in general have the believers in the power of government to influence our problems in a positive way been chastened?

The Greek demonstrators oppose cuts in their benefits and increases in their taxes. What is the third option? Ditto the U.S..

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

A Letter

I've since read the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and think the reviewer who saw a large anti-bureaucratic theme in the novel was hallucinating (although it may emerge as a theme in the subsequent novels).

I've been preoccupied with the Swedish question because I've been reading The End of History and it seems to be unanswered by Fukuyama too. As his book is an examination of direction, with only theoretical endpoints, it is understandable that the various societies examined are seen in a time context. After all, of the three really powerful nation-states in the last century (and mutually incompatible antagonistic governmental systems) two are gone and at the time all looked invincible. Who knows what's next and that goes for Sweden too. My confusion stems from the sovereign debt and its known cause, entitlement programs. All of the European nations do it, the north Americans do it and they are all in serious trouble; why is it still a good idea?

Anyway..books and summer reading. I am not sure what you like but my suggestions from recent readings are: 1. Cormac McCarthy. A lot of people hate this guy because of his violence; I think he will win the Nobel Prize. All the Pretty Horses gives a good idea of his ability without being too off-putting. 2. Zafron. Spain's biggest exported writer, bigger than Reverte with his Alatriste franchise. He wrote Shadow of the Wind, his first and best so far, and Angel's Game. Shadow got better reviews and doesn't have the Faustian overreach that Angel does. Both are Dickensian mysteries on steroids. Reverte: A very good writer, the earlier the better. My favorite is The Fencing Master. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke will be a fantasy classic if you like that sort. She's a good writer, has a companion short story book but according to interviews may not have another book in her. I read Connelly's Poet and Lehane's A Drink Before the War and will read neither again. They are both well written, have interesting characters--especially Lehane--but savagery and child abuse wear on me. I might say the same about Dragon Tattoo but he is an interesting phenomenon and the savagery is over quickly, not a focal point to hold the reader. Nonfiction is too much work for the beach.