Thursday, November 25, 2010

How Can We Pull Out of the Recession?

Q. What is a recession?

A. It is a period in which the middle and working class have less money to spend, and as a result, those who earn money when consumers buy things also earn less. As car dealers sell fewer and fewer cars, they have to let go of sales associates, and the sales associates in turn can't afford to buy furniture, and the furniture stores close causing more layoffs etc. etc.

Q. It sounds like the general public is running out of money. If almost nobody has any money, how can the economy keep going?

A. Well, it can't. People draw on their reserves, and once these are gone more and more activity comes to a halt.

Q. What about the government? Can't the government create jobs?

A. Yes, it can. It can create public works projects.

Q. So why can't the government start more and more projects and get people get back to work so that the recession ends?

A. As long as government infuses more and more money into society, there will be more and more activity. And more activity does mean more jobs. More jobs gives people more money to spend. As more is spent more taxes are collected, and with more tax revenue coming in the government can start even more projects with the result that more people get back on their feet.

Q. But there are those who say it's time to pull back on spending to make the economy healthy. What's wrong with that?

A. A society with a bad economy is like a person who is sick. If someone is sick because he or she is starving or dehydrated, it makes no sense to save on food and water just so his personal budget is balanced. If you need to make debts to keep someone alive, you don't ask whether or not money spent on recovery increases size of the person's debt.

Q. Are you trying to suggest the government should simply print more money and hand it out to the public without any limitations?

A. That is not the way to go. The government has incredible investigative and research capacities. A major part of the money lost in the last two to three years was lost through high risk speculation. Speculation is a form of gambling, and gambling there is always a winner and a loser. Government investigators and researchers need to find out who the winners in the financial contest are, and where they are hiding their money.

Q. This just does not make sense. Can you give me one example of who might be a winner in the market collapse we have just seen?

A. Examples of winners are those who made bets that the housing market would fall. Betting in the financial market place is done through derivatives. A speculator buys bonds or funds that pay off in case of a market fall. Once the market has actually fallen, he quietly picks up his cash. Most people don't know such speculators exist, let alone how they operate. The source of the money lost through gambling is to a great extent money gotten from people who listened to deceptive investment advice. Deception is a first cousin to fraud. Money fraudulently acquired is stolen money, and once stolen goods end up with an even unknowing buyer the goods once found are to be returned to the person they were stolen from.

Q. Are you saying that those who gambled against people's investments are in actuality beneficiaries of stolen goods?

A. Maybe not directly within legal terms. But they are benefiting from the hardships that were bestowed on innocent people. Without fraud and deception, the gamblers betting on a market downturn would have had nothing to gamble with. So the government needs to find creative means to get back that which was stolen.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

In Defense of Craigslist

One of the activists on a website called change. org succeeded to rally enough support to get Craigslist to shut down its adult services section because it "promotes child sex trafficking." Activists are now promoting a movement to prohibit such internet communications altogether. While I agree with a lot of what change. org promotes, I strongly feel its attack on Craigslist for its adult services is wrong because it encourages the suppression of some very basic human rights.

Yes, child abuse, especially child prostitution is wrong, but it is equally wrong to close down a message center where consenting adults seek other consenting adults to join them for sexual pleasure.

The quest for sexual liberation has been a long-fought battle in the history of western society. As late as the 1950s, the Catholic Church succeeded in getting any scene censored in any movie showing two adults being intimate beyond a closed-mouthed brief kiss. Unmarried people could not get an apartment unless they lied about their marital status. Promiscuity was fought so intensely that people who wanted carnal variety had little choice but to become serial husbands and wives with one divorce after another.

It was in the sixties that sexual liberation made its greatest strides reaching its foremost achievement in 1973 with Roe v Wade when a woman was granted the right to decide who entered her body and which embryo would be allowed to stay in her womb. Eventually both women and men would be given the freedom to have sex with partners of their preferred gender.

As for prostitution, it should be a basic right of any adult as to circumstances under which carnal contact is entered. If a woman or a man decides to take cash for having sex with multiple partners or to attach him or herself to a long-term partner for financial advantages, he or she needs to be recognized as having the right to do so.

We know that there is a potential danger in any given human activity. Dating on campuses is good for the social life of young people, but if someone happens to go on a date with a sexual predator he or she may end up being raped. Medicine that heals can be abused if taken in large dosages. Alcoholic drinks can relax many a social function, but most of us know the tragedies that may result from their abuse.

What is the answer for dealing with potential dangers resulting from human pleasurable activities? Should we outlaw dating because it might result in rape or in STDs? Should we make the use of herbal and pharmaceutical substances so difficult that anyone violating the norm for consumption in the slightest risks incarceration at any moment? Should we outlaw the sale of alcohol and close all bars as was done in the 1920s so as to eliminate the evils of intoxication?

As to the wrongness of human trafficking and child abuse, there is enough legislation in place to deal with transgressions in these areas. Our laws outlawing slavery and protecting children from abuse are adequate if enforced sensibly and judiciously. There is no more need to shut down the adult section of Craigslist than there is to close the bars, casinos and brothels of Nevada. As for the internet, there is so little in the way of safeguards of privacy that catching online criminals becomes easier by the minute.

The right to a life of freedom includes the right to enjoy being "sinful," and there may be few wrongs worse than to deprive people of that right.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Why Raising Taxes on the Wealthy Helps Everyone, Including the Rich



Q. What's the story with tax cuts? Taxes were cut again and again during the Bush II years. The U.S. was supposed to prosper more and more because as taxes were being cut, people would have a lot more money in their pockets. What happened?

A. The tax cuts didn't do much of anything for most people.

Q. Why not?

A. Well, ten percent of the population has seventy-one percent of liquid assets (stocks, bonds and cash holdings). The other ninety percent of the population owns the other twenty-nine percent. But to make it even clearer, assets owned by the lower fifty percent of the population amount to only 2.5 percent of the nation's total. So if you have a general tax cut across the board, the extra money the lower income half of the population gains or loses does not have much of an impact at all.

Q. So what's the message?

A. It does not make sense to tax that lower fifty percent of the population with 2.5 percent of the the total wealth, because practically all of their income is money already in circulation. You need to take the money from the top ten percent.

Q. Why?

A. Although there are investors in the top ten percent whose money is invested in solid companies that produce much needed goods and services, there are also speculators who use other people's hard earned cash to gamble in derivatives.

Q. Do you have any evidence that lowering taxes on the wealthy is bad for the general public's living standards while raising taxes on the rich benefits the whole country?

A. Yes. In the roaring twenties (1918-1929) the top marginal income tax rate (that's the rate paid by the rich) went from 60% on incomes over 100,000 in 1920 down to 25% in 1929. A major part of the money not paid in taxes now went, instead of going to the government, into the hands of speculators who had only one interest: to make more and more money. High risk speculators are gamblers who use the stock market as their casino.

Q. Can you explain?

A. Like gambling, high risk trading in the financial markets becomes an addiction. A gambler at a roulette table experiences the thrill of a winning bet. As the thrill lasts only a short time , a player will put his winnings back on the table, hoping to recapture the exhilaration again and again by doubling and then quadrupling his money etc. This goes on until the player's luck changes and he loses all he has won the last time he doubles his bet.

Q. So the big market crash in 1929 came as thousands of gamblers lost their shirts in the stock market?

A. Yes, and as the gamblers lost everything, they could no longer pay debts owed on houses, businesses and other loans. This set off a domino effect. Banks who had lent money to people who had been able to repay their loans before the crash now had to write off the loans because their borrowers no longer had an income. For so many of the banks and their customers bankruptcy was the only option. People became desperate for money to keep farms producing, to keep businesses going and to get food on the table.

Q. Isn't that an oversimplification? Weren't there those among the wealthy who managed to hang on to their money and property because they were simply better at financial management? Why should they care about reckless gamblers who lost everything? Would there be a risk that the disciplined and wise who have survived the economic collapse might experience losses of their own?

A. Perhaps not at first. But if not stopped, economic decay brings social collapse. Without recovery, cities eventually turn into ghost towns, people die of starvation, communicable diseases begin to ravage the country, and eventually even the wealthiest of the wealthy would be unable to escape ravaging pandemics.

Q. So ultimately, it is to the interest of the wealthy to have a prosperous country with healthy people?

A. Without a doubt.

Q. So how did the country pull out of depression?

A. When businesses, factories and farms no longer had any cash to stay operational, they looked to the government for a rescue. The government, in order to bring society back on its feet, created jobs through public works projects and other means.

Q. So how did the government get the money?

A. In 1932 the government raised the marginal tax rate on $100,000 that had been lowered to 25% back up to 56% and this made it possible to finance a recovery. People got back to work as dams, roads and public buildings were built, and after the end of World War II, ordinary people managed to find prosperity as the government educated returning soldiers through the G.I. bill.

Q. How was it possible to get the money to educate millions of returning soldiers?

A. It was possible because the government imposed a marginal tax rate of 92% on $100,000 in 1945. A rate of 89% in 1946 stayed in place until 1954. Then the rate was lowered gradually until it hovered around 75% through the early 1960s. It was a time during which the U.S. became the greatest industrial power of the world, with the result that not just the rich, but everyone got richer.

---Tax data based on figures provided by the Tax Foundation, http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

How Can We Pull Out of the Recession?

Q. What is a recession?

A. It is a period in which the middle and working class have less money to spend, and as a result, those who earn money when consumers buy things also earn less. As car dealers sell fewer and fewer cars, they have to let go of sales associates, and the sales associates in turn can't afford to buy furniture, and the furniture stores close causing more layoffs etc. etc.

Q. It sounds like the general public is running out of money. If almost nobody has any money, how can the economy keep going?

A. Well, it can't. People draw on their reserves, and once these are gone more and more activity comes to a halt.

Q. What about the government? Can't the government create jobs?

A. Yes, it can. It can create public works projects.

Q. So why can't the government start more and more projects and get people get back to work so that the recession ends?

A. As long as government infuses more and more money into society, there will be more and more activity. And more activity does mean more jobs. More jobs gives people more money to spend. As more is spent more taxes are collected, and with more tax revenue coming in the government can start even more projects with the result that more people get back on their feet.

Q. But there are those who say it's time to pull back on spending to make the economy healthy. What's wrong with that?

A. A society with a bad economy is like a person who is sick. If someone is sick because he or she is starving or dehydrated, it makes no sense to save on food and water just so his personal budget is balanced. If you need to make debts to keep someone alive, you don't ask whether or not money spent on recovery increases size of the person's debt.

Q. Are you trying to suggest the government should simply print more money and hand it out to the public without any limitations?

A. That is not the way to go. The government has incredible investigative and research capacities. A major part of the money lost in the last two to three years was lost through high risk speculation. Speculation is a form of gambling, and gambling there is always a winner and a loser. Government investigators and researchers need to find out who the winners in the financial contest are, and where they are hiding their money.

Q. This just does not make sense. Can you give me one example of who might be a winner in the market collapse we have just seen?

A. Examples of winners are those who made bets that the housing market would fall. Betting in the financial market place is done through derivatives. A speculator buys bonds or funds that pay off in case of a market fall. Once the market has actually fallen, he quietly picks up his cash. Most people don't know such speculators exist, let alone how they operate. The source of the money lost through gambling is to a great extent money gotten from people who listened to deceptive investment advice. Deception is a first cousin to fraud. Money fraudulently acquired is stolen money, and once stolen goods end up with an even unknowing buyer the goods once found are to be returned to the person they were stolen from.

Q. Are you saying that those who gambled against people's investments are in actuality beneficiaries of stolen goods?

A. Maybe not directly within legal terms. But they are benefiting from the hardships that were bestowed on innocent people. Without fraud and deception, the gamblers betting on a market downturn would have had nothing to gamble with. So the government needs to find creative means to get back that which was stolen.

Sunday, June 13, 2010

Life Is But a Stage

Life is but a stage, and we are all actors. As actors we assume characters, and as characters we relate to other performers in accordance with the parts we and they play. We may feel love or hate, respect or contempt, or any other emotion toward others as the script demands. To be an effective actor, you need to believe in and then become your own character and relate to others as being real. If the script demands that you detest one of the other persons on the stage you need to do so for the sake of the performance. But the danger is that if you very strongly identify with the character you are playing, you may become the on-stage character off-stage.

Can this create a problem in one's life? Yes, if you forget that you and your fellow actors are only playing parts demanded by the script. If the scenario calls for your character to hate another character in the performance, you need to remember that what takes place on stage is only an act, and that your fellow actors are human beings with their own paths through life.

Friday, March 26, 2010

Is the University of California Afflicted by Morbid Obesity?

University of California fees continue to increase because the university as a quasi-corporate person is suffering from morbid obesity--more and more money is demanded to nourish fat cells that do little more than add weight to an organism struggling to move into the twenty-first century.

In a discussion with some friends I asked a basic question: Students are protesting in California and elsewhere about sharply increasing tuition they have to pay, but professors and teaching assistants have gotten miniscule pay raises if any at all. Where is the money going? Who gets the money?

You don't need to look far. Mark Yudof, the chancellor of UC gets compensation of $828,000. http://encyclopedia.vbxml.net/Mark_Yudof. Would he be able to function for half as much, let's say around the salary level of $400,000, which is what President Obama gets? What about Kenneth M. Jones, Interim Chief Operating Officer UCSF Medical Center getting a raise of $58,625 to $500,723 in the summer of 2009, and Linda P. B. Katehi appointed as Chancellor, UC Davis at annual salary of $400,000, an increase of 27% percent above that of predecessor Larry N. Vanderhoef? www.upte.org/about/press/2009-07-23.pdf How are those exorbitant salaries and pay hikes being financed with other than with student tuition increases?

Could the money be coming from wealthy alumni giving more to the universities?

Not at this time. Donations to non-profits have taken a downturn since the beginning of the current recession.

Who are the "powers-to-be" that decide to give increases to administrators while students are being squeezed to pay more and more in tuition?

They are the members of the Board of Regents. They are generally wealthy members of the business community and other persons of prosperity

How do they justify compensation increases to those who are already more than adequately paid?

The general reasoning among regents is that administrators "need" to be paid more and more so that they don't leave for other jobs.

Who decides and how is it decided what makes a good administrator?
Higher ranking administrators evaluate both lower ranking ones and candidates wishing to become part of the system.

And what do they look for?

The ones on the higher rungs look for those candidates on the lower rungs who make them feel good about what they are n o t doing.

What are they n o t doing?

They are "not-doing" anything of any value that would improve the mission of an educational institution, to be specific, discovery and learning.

What keeps students and the public from doing anything to limit administrative bodies' taking funds that should be used to educate students?

There are several possible answers. The public is not aware how much of the money is going to waste at the top of educational institutions. If a university is compared to a human being, it needs to be fed. Money is the symbol for the food needed to keep it nourished. In a health-conscious human being calories are used to nourish a healthy mobile body in which exercise keeps muscles toned and the mind alert. But when someone takes in food indiscriminately and then does little more than watch TV, the calories are turned into body fat. Education money that goes into the pockets of overpaid administrators only makes for morbid academic obesity.

Why can't people see this?

Administrators tend to keep their distance. They wear suits and ties and hide in offices and conference rooms where they don't mingle with students and faculty.

What does wearing suits have to do with it?

If someone wears a suit, it is assumed that he is of a higher standing, that he/she is important enough that an appointment is needed to talk to him or her. Those who are higher and less accessible feel themselves to be aristocrats who merit more pay simply because they are part of an "upper class."

--I am aware that a lot more needs to be explored in regard to these issues, so I would greatly welcome any questions and commentary.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

We Have to Win in Afghanistan: There is no Choice but to Stop the Taliban "Gendercide"

The invasion of Iraq under Bush and Blair was and still is an incredibly serious mistake. By contrast I believe it was right to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan, but it was a disastrous mistake to allow the situation in the country to deteriorate to the point where the Taliban were able to reassume power.

Why is it so important for the U.S. to stay in Afghanistan and win? It is not the threat of the potential loss of an oil or gas pipe line that would be a loss to western economic interests, it is the threat of "Gendercide." A woman forced to wear a burka Taliban style has neither the freedom to be seen, heard, nor to speak to anyone without her owner's permission. She is no longer a human being in the social sense.

Without freedom of movement, a woman is nothing more than a member of the living dead. For Americans to permit the Taliban to make their women into zombies right under the noses of U.S. troops would be to allow the Islamic fundamentalists of Afghanistan to present a model of success for the rest of the underdeveloped world--there is no choice but for the U.S. to win this particular war.

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining--Even in China.

This post has been moved to my other blog http://thewryjester.blogspot.com for thematic reasons

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

The Secret Beneath "the Secret"

The message in the bestselling book/movie The Secret is that in thinking about the future it pays to stay positive. This involves not only visualizing a bright future, but also seeing whatever there is in the present in a positive light. An underlying principle is that what is held in one's unconscious will manifest itself in reality at some point.

Basically it involves making the right choice of looking at a glass as either half full or half empty. One observer looking at a glass with 50 percent liquid in it will say "Too bad, I only have half of it left--I miss the time when it was full," the other, who knows "the Secret" will say "Great, I already have half of the glass filled." The one with the stance of the glass being half full will be at an emotional advantage simply because a positive outlook is more energizing, making it easier to improve one's situation.

And yet, an emotional advantage may not necessarily produce positive results. First, in maintaining the glass being half full, one needs to say and ask, "Yes, it's full, but full of what?" There is an assumption that the glass contains pure drinking water. Okay if true, if not, optimism can lead to disaster.

Drinking glasses are containers. So what about the advantage of containers being half full in other contexts. A ship in the ocean is an example of a large floating container. What if the ship has sprung a leak and is now half full of sea water. Should we rejoice because the sinking ship is "only" half full or because it is still half empty?

It is obvious that the universal half-full-glass optimism of "the Secret" needs to be carefully examined. All factors, especially relevant laws of nature need to be taken into account. The secret beneath "the Secret" may be that those who place their blind faith in the universe simply accommodating whatever they wish for and visualize may have been basing their optimism on a metaphorical glass half full of clean, clear water which may not turn out to be so clean and clear when transposed into material reality. So should one simply forget about "The Secret?" My answer: Stay optimistic but keep a careful eye on the glass and its content.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Speculating on Chemical Imbalances as a Cause of Depression

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me my opinion about the connection between clinical depression and chemical imbalances. Here is my very speculative answer:

My understanding of depression is that it always involves a person's mindset as well as chemical configurations within anyone's bio-system.   Any given event, let's say good news about a loved one's recovery from an illness on the one hand, or sudden news about a  great loss in the stock market will set off thoughts and emotions that will change body chemistry.  "Good things happening" place one's physical being into a setting of comfort, and /or excitement, and the world is perceived as a place of joy--the heart beats happily, taste buds and digestion enter a dance of appreciation with the food that is eaten, the mind looks forward to solving problems, and one's muscles are ready for active movement.

"Bad things happening" may at first place one's body into a defensive and alert condition.   Personal rejections may bring feelings of disappointment.   A series of disappointments may cause body and mind to go into a standby mode, which, if intensified, shuts down activity and ends up causing an individual's body and mind to enter into a state of hibernation that feels like nothing less than clinical depression.  Just as the body chemistry of someone in happy circumstances is taken to be "balanced,"  the body chemistry of someone in dire straits will appear to be "imbalanced."

Having established that life's experiences can push an individual into the chemical imbalance of clinical depression, it would seem that the escape from depression could come either as a result from "lucky events" or from therapy that helps change the depressed person's thinking  into happier thoughts that help restore a healthy chemical balance. 

And yet, while it may be obvious that a healthy chemical balance may be supported by "good thinking," there is no guarantee that the right kind of mindset will prevail over a bio system falling into depression. It may be possible that someone slides into a state of depression without any obvious triggering events in his/her personal life, but that a chemical imbalance comes about for unknown reasons. It may happen that an individual reaches a state of clinical depression in which no kind of human interaction can restore a healthy chemical balance. Once a state of bio-energetic lock-down is manifest there can no longer be communication because the sufferer will be unable to get the meaning of what is being said.

When words can no longer reach someone who is deeply depressed, other interventions become more attractive. Fifty, sixty years ago, the simple solution was to subject patients to electroshock treatments, which tended to work because the "treatment" involved was so great a trauma to a patient's nervous system that the patient developed coping mechanisms that would restore chemical balance in order to avoid the torture of electroshocks.  Somehow a very diabolical approach of inducing the fear of extreme pain worked to jar patients out of their depression. 

Keeping in mind the torment the clinically depressed underwent with electroshock therapy, the administration of anti-depressant chemicals is humane  by comparison.  And yet, there may be better ways.  I have been speculating about placing clinically depressed persons on high-speed roller coasters to see if the shock effect of the ride would trigger life affirming survival mechanisms.  I am fully aware of the logistical problems of strapping a group of clinically depressed patients into the seats of a ride like the Viper at Six Flags Magic Mountain. Issues of security and liability might be prohibitive to say the least. But there is no reason to lose all hope: With ever greater progress in the development of virtual reality devices not all is lost.  It is quite conceivable that with advancing technology the clinically depressed can be jarred back into the joy of life through an exhilarating virtual reality roller coaster ride wearing little more than computerized head gear designed for this purpose.