The Bush administration, neo-conservatives generally, equate power with immunity from wrongdoing, and prosecution of it. The argument is: our power is dervived from the constitutional consent of the governed, it is therefore immune from prosecution except where it is "originally" intended by the Constitution. This is the political contract of representative (republican) government that Jefferson referred to as ideal--it operationalizes the leadership talent and the ambition for power with the general welfare, or the public good.
It fails because the ideal is operationalized into a Hamiltonian model of government in which an elite rules, and they rule with immunity and impunity. According to this practical model and working hypothesis of power, the best leaders will not be available for public service under threat of prosecution for exercising power, which fallaciously implies that power is necessarily corrupt and must be immune from prosecution. It is a tautology, a circular argument, a fraud in which Hamiltonians masquerade as Jeffersonians, and it is not exclusive to Republicans by any means.
We need a pragmatist of power for the public good whose immunity from prosecution is the popular consent of election and reelection to "good" office by being in service to "The People" (Jeffersonianism) not the people in service to the ruling class (Hamiltonianism).
Fannie May and Freddie Mac, for example, are a Hamiltonian model of central banking that Jefferson warned would lead to political instability and propogates the need for central command and control (the Fed and the new rules) inimical to The Constitution of the United States and the fundaments for freedom that cannot be allowed to fail. It is exactly what Declaring Independence and the Constitutional endowment of Natural Sovereignty is intended to avoid.
Obama is the pragmatist we are looking for to obtain a more Jeffersonian model of government in which the risk of our financial system, for example, is spread naturally among many pluralist elements in a peaceful and prosperous manner of both a distributive and non-distributive benefit (Mancur Olson); a systematic risk that does not conflict individual freedom with the utility of a collective action, or free market economics.
Very best wishes.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Reinventing the Problem
The Fed and Treasury chiefs recommended to the House Financial Services Committee today a reinvention of the financial regulatory system.
While no insurance company will insure a house that is on fire, that's more or less what's going on here, and does absolutely nothing to address the cause of the problem.
Rather than suggesting there be assurance that we do not have a consolidated and collusive financial marketplace that results in firms too big to allow to fail, Bernanke says, rather, "new tools are needed for ensuring an orderly liquidation of a systemically important securities firm that is on the verge of bankruptcy, together with a more formal process for deciding when to use those tools." (AP)
So instead of ensuring a failed financial institution cannot be "critical" in a non-collusive, pluralisitic, free market environment of relative safety, we are going to ensure the means for a critical failure with "an orderly liquidation" and "a more formal process" that gives it the legitimacy of public authority--or ensuring a Hamiltonian model, which is the problem reinvented, not the solution.
No. These people are not stupid. They are corrupt!
This is not public service. It is self-service using good offices with the force and legitimacy of public authority.
Get the neo-conservatives out!
Vote Obama, 2008!
Very best wishes.
While no insurance company will insure a house that is on fire, that's more or less what's going on here, and does absolutely nothing to address the cause of the problem.
Rather than suggesting there be assurance that we do not have a consolidated and collusive financial marketplace that results in firms too big to allow to fail, Bernanke says, rather, "new tools are needed for ensuring an orderly liquidation of a systemically important securities firm that is on the verge of bankruptcy, together with a more formal process for deciding when to use those tools." (AP)
So instead of ensuring a failed financial institution cannot be "critical" in a non-collusive, pluralisitic, free market environment of relative safety, we are going to ensure the means for a critical failure with "an orderly liquidation" and "a more formal process" that gives it the legitimacy of public authority--or ensuring a Hamiltonian model, which is the problem reinvented, not the solution.
No. These people are not stupid. They are corrupt!
This is not public service. It is self-service using good offices with the force and legitimacy of public authority.
Get the neo-conservatives out!
Vote Obama, 2008!
Very best wishes.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
Profit Taking
Analysts attribute the quick drop in oil prices to "profit taking."
A two-day, six-dollar drop is not a volatility characteristic of user-hedge contract activity. It is a purely speculative demand that is entirely detrimental to our economy. This breadth of volatility indicates at least 70% of the contracts in futures being a speculative demand, yet the CFTC claims it has no way to know the source of the contracts. Neutrality of the CFTC, it's credibility, is seriously called into question. It needs a new executive administration.
A McCain administration will not be an improvement, but an exacerbation of the problem.
If McCain wants to garner the popular vote, he may want to dump Phil Gramm's passe' Reaganomics and engage a pragmatic approach like Obama. An ideological politics yields ideological results. A $300 billion tax cut mainly for the rich is the ideological problem, not the pragmatic solution.
Technical analysts agree that a drop in oil prices strengthens the dollar by reducing the microeconomic (deflation of demand) destruction of our economy. Yet, the same analysts attribute the falling price of oil to a stronger dollar.
The dollar's strength is an effect, not a cause.
This fundamental misattribution is a rhetorical fallacy--it is a trick!
In the arena of politics and economics, what kind of people perform "tricks?"
Right! Frauds!
Get the frauds out of the marketplace!
Vote for Obama and get the real thing!
Very best wishes.
A two-day, six-dollar drop is not a volatility characteristic of user-hedge contract activity. It is a purely speculative demand that is entirely detrimental to our economy. This breadth of volatility indicates at least 70% of the contracts in futures being a speculative demand, yet the CFTC claims it has no way to know the source of the contracts. Neutrality of the CFTC, it's credibility, is seriously called into question. It needs a new executive administration.
A McCain administration will not be an improvement, but an exacerbation of the problem.
If McCain wants to garner the popular vote, he may want to dump Phil Gramm's passe' Reaganomics and engage a pragmatic approach like Obama. An ideological politics yields ideological results. A $300 billion tax cut mainly for the rich is the ideological problem, not the pragmatic solution.
Technical analysts agree that a drop in oil prices strengthens the dollar by reducing the microeconomic (deflation of demand) destruction of our economy. Yet, the same analysts attribute the falling price of oil to a stronger dollar.
The dollar's strength is an effect, not a cause.
This fundamental misattribution is a rhetorical fallacy--it is a trick!
In the arena of politics and economics, what kind of people perform "tricks?"
Right! Frauds!
Get the frauds out of the marketplace!
Vote for Obama and get the real thing!
Very best wishes.
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Stock in Trade
To be arbitrary and capricious. To be unpredictable is the stock in trade of a consolidated capital. It is a hallmark of power: something is, or is not, just because you command it. Economically, that would be a command economy.
So we have a current macro-technical in which the relationship of a giant budget deficit and the interest rate has been improperly reversed into an ad hoc deflation of our economy in which nothing seems to make sense, cause-effect is a matter of an ideological opinion, and the uncertainty causes a high risk factor, and trepidation, of acting contrary to convention. Will raising the interest rate reverse the deflationary trend or deepen it?
Rather than rely on what we don't know, let's rely on what we do!
Consolidated capital distorts markets. The technicals just reflect an arbitrary and capricious market behavior. Things that should have value do not, things that don't do, things that have value are irrationally overvalued...valuations are entirely at the mercy of a consolidated command of capital. It is the antithesis of a free market economics.
Thus, both the problem of our economic woes has been properly identified and the solution properly induced in priority.
All we need to do now is act on it in priority.
Build the coalition for Barack Obama, 2008!
Very best wishes.
So we have a current macro-technical in which the relationship of a giant budget deficit and the interest rate has been improperly reversed into an ad hoc deflation of our economy in which nothing seems to make sense, cause-effect is a matter of an ideological opinion, and the uncertainty causes a high risk factor, and trepidation, of acting contrary to convention. Will raising the interest rate reverse the deflationary trend or deepen it?
Rather than rely on what we don't know, let's rely on what we do!
Consolidated capital distorts markets. The technicals just reflect an arbitrary and capricious market behavior. Things that should have value do not, things that don't do, things that have value are irrationally overvalued...valuations are entirely at the mercy of a consolidated command of capital. It is the antithesis of a free market economics.
Thus, both the problem of our economic woes has been properly identified and the solution properly induced in priority.
All we need to do now is act on it in priority.
Build the coalition for Barack Obama, 2008!
Very best wishes.
Wednesday, July 2, 2008
Simulation of a Bear Market
Let's say you own a small trucking business. You add value to the economy with a competitive price, and a competitive quality of fast delivery on time--something businesses of any size want and highly value.
The cost of fuel forces you into bankruptcy. The value to the economy is lost having both an inflationary effect on prices, and a deflationary effect on economic activity. Businesses now have less pluralism in the marketplace and now have a higher price and lower quality. It is the model of lowest efficiency; it is the model of a conslidated capital. It is a model for consolidating the wealth and reducing pluralism of the marketplace that is real economic growth.
Eventually the trend reverses as capital cannot be further consolidated without a retribution of the value consolidated. The distribution causes a decompression--a recovery trend (a retrace), not a deconsolidation. It is not economic growth, but a range-bound support and resistance of a predictable model of consolidated capital.
As the recovery proceeds, the economy will support the value you add to the economy. The added value of your business was always in demand, it now has the command of a consolidated capital (the ruling class elite). You will now need to borrow back your assets consolidated. You will run your business without ownership of it. The profits will have to be shared with the source of consolidated capital. By the time you have equity enough in your business to claim ownership, the cycle will again trend into compression by any number of ad hoc means of a consolidated capital.
The process is repeated.
This is not doing business. It is a farce!
Having real economic growth with a sustainable stablity is entirely possible. We're just not doing it. It's time to start! It's time to substitute decompression with deconsolidation at the very highest rate.
Join the coalition for pragmatic change.
Join the coalition for Obama!
Very best wishes.
The cost of fuel forces you into bankruptcy. The value to the economy is lost having both an inflationary effect on prices, and a deflationary effect on economic activity. Businesses now have less pluralism in the marketplace and now have a higher price and lower quality. It is the model of lowest efficiency; it is the model of a conslidated capital. It is a model for consolidating the wealth and reducing pluralism of the marketplace that is real economic growth.
Eventually the trend reverses as capital cannot be further consolidated without a retribution of the value consolidated. The distribution causes a decompression--a recovery trend (a retrace), not a deconsolidation. It is not economic growth, but a range-bound support and resistance of a predictable model of consolidated capital.
As the recovery proceeds, the economy will support the value you add to the economy. The added value of your business was always in demand, it now has the command of a consolidated capital (the ruling class elite). You will now need to borrow back your assets consolidated. You will run your business without ownership of it. The profits will have to be shared with the source of consolidated capital. By the time you have equity enough in your business to claim ownership, the cycle will again trend into compression by any number of ad hoc means of a consolidated capital.
The process is repeated.
This is not doing business. It is a farce!
Having real economic growth with a sustainable stablity is entirely possible. We're just not doing it. It's time to start! It's time to substitute decompression with deconsolidation at the very highest rate.
Join the coalition for pragmatic change.
Join the coalition for Obama!
Very best wishes.
What to Do Now!
If the compression underway due to trickle-down economic policy is not at this point stopped and reversed with simple, direct and decisive measures, the trend will be a hardship of highly unacceptable depth and breadth.
Capital becoming evermore consolidated and churned through commodities exchanges has to stop now!
Taxing the benefit, instead of giving it favorable treatment, will stop the speculative churn and consolidation of disposable income. The reduction in the price of oil will begin the reversal of the deflationary trend. Retributing the value back to the consumer will magnify the reversal and strengthen the dollar.
Everybody, even the speculators, will benefit. Speculators will be in a stop-and-reversal investment mode that generates a capital gain, it just won't be at the expense of economic growth, but to promote it.
This is what we need to do NOW!
If we don't, the consequences will be exceptionally bad, and if that detriment has not trickled-down to you, it's headed your way, soon to be very close up and verifiably personal.
The solution is simple, pragmatic, easily executable, and Strong Pareto Optimal. There is no excuse for not doing it unless we are to be impractical slaves to ideology. Pro-growth is not a matter of ideology, it is a matter of pragmatically doing the right thing...just like Obama has to say about his approach to politics and policy, and that's worth voting for!
Very best wishes.
Capital becoming evermore consolidated and churned through commodities exchanges has to stop now!
Taxing the benefit, instead of giving it favorable treatment, will stop the speculative churn and consolidation of disposable income. The reduction in the price of oil will begin the reversal of the deflationary trend. Retributing the value back to the consumer will magnify the reversal and strengthen the dollar.
Everybody, even the speculators, will benefit. Speculators will be in a stop-and-reversal investment mode that generates a capital gain, it just won't be at the expense of economic growth, but to promote it.
This is what we need to do NOW!
If we don't, the consequences will be exceptionally bad, and if that detriment has not trickled-down to you, it's headed your way, soon to be very close up and verifiably personal.
The solution is simple, pragmatic, easily executable, and Strong Pareto Optimal. There is no excuse for not doing it unless we are to be impractical slaves to ideology. Pro-growth is not a matter of ideology, it is a matter of pragmatically doing the right thing...just like Obama has to say about his approach to politics and policy, and that's worth voting for!
Very best wishes.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
What's the Plan?
Our economic planners, after the unprecedented economic growth produced by a more progressive tax code in the 1990's, planned the economy to deflate.
The rejection of trickle-down economics in the 90's for a more Jeffersonian model of political economy produced an environment in which new businesses flourished and labor was more in control than it had ever been by market forces. Economic growth was exceptionally strong, disconfirming the trickle-down hypothesis, and confirming the progressive tax hypothesis.
The pluralistic environment of a progressive tax code is inimical to big business which relies on regressive taxation, accumulating debt, slow growth (minimal competition), high prices (maximal inflation and profits), demand reduction (declining purchasing power), overproduction (rising inventories) and rising unemployment--stagflation and deflation, or what we have now. That's the plan. Mission accomplished.
The Hamiltonian plan entails shipping our raw materials to Asia, where it is a labor-buyer's market, and shipping cheap finished goods back. The only advantage of the free trade agreements is the labor cost advantage. Otherwise, the trade agreements are a model of inefficiency, or extremely bad planning. The result, the plan, is inflation AND unemployment for our nation, which is why it is beyond the technology of monetarism to bank our way out of it.
For a small elite of the super rich, the supra-sovereign elite in command of the global economy, the plan is a complete success. For the vast majority of Americans, it is proving to be a dismal failure, just as planned.
Now that Americans are increasingly desperate for jobs, the comparative labor-cost advantage shifts back, especially if we have state-provided healthcare. The energy cost also adds a comparative, natural, advantage for manufacturing to be closer to both its raw material inputs and its consumer market. Again, this advantage should have never been commanded away. It was a huge misfeasance, if not a deliberate malfeasance, doing tremendous harm for a very narrow benefit.
A more pluralistic model of power and political economy is clearly in order to wrest this command economy away from its commanders.
Ensuring a genuine, unconsolidated, free market mechanism in priority, beginning with a simple progressive tax code on all income without exception, is clearly in order.
John McCain is not the candidate to do that.
If you want a plan that works for the vast majority of America, its businesses, its government, with a thoroughly verifiable legitimacy that is the constitutional legitimacy of providing for the general welfare, and not a small group of would-be monarchs, vote for the conscience and competence we need to move our nation forward, Barack Obama!
Copyright 2008 by Griffith Lighton
The rejection of trickle-down economics in the 90's for a more Jeffersonian model of political economy produced an environment in which new businesses flourished and labor was more in control than it had ever been by market forces. Economic growth was exceptionally strong, disconfirming the trickle-down hypothesis, and confirming the progressive tax hypothesis.
The pluralistic environment of a progressive tax code is inimical to big business which relies on regressive taxation, accumulating debt, slow growth (minimal competition), high prices (maximal inflation and profits), demand reduction (declining purchasing power), overproduction (rising inventories) and rising unemployment--stagflation and deflation, or what we have now. That's the plan. Mission accomplished.
The Hamiltonian plan entails shipping our raw materials to Asia, where it is a labor-buyer's market, and shipping cheap finished goods back. The only advantage of the free trade agreements is the labor cost advantage. Otherwise, the trade agreements are a model of inefficiency, or extremely bad planning. The result, the plan, is inflation AND unemployment for our nation, which is why it is beyond the technology of monetarism to bank our way out of it.
For a small elite of the super rich, the supra-sovereign elite in command of the global economy, the plan is a complete success. For the vast majority of Americans, it is proving to be a dismal failure, just as planned.
Now that Americans are increasingly desperate for jobs, the comparative labor-cost advantage shifts back, especially if we have state-provided healthcare. The energy cost also adds a comparative, natural, advantage for manufacturing to be closer to both its raw material inputs and its consumer market. Again, this advantage should have never been commanded away. It was a huge misfeasance, if not a deliberate malfeasance, doing tremendous harm for a very narrow benefit.
A more pluralistic model of power and political economy is clearly in order to wrest this command economy away from its commanders.
Ensuring a genuine, unconsolidated, free market mechanism in priority, beginning with a simple progressive tax code on all income without exception, is clearly in order.
John McCain is not the candidate to do that.
If you want a plan that works for the vast majority of America, its businesses, its government, with a thoroughly verifiable legitimacy that is the constitutional legitimacy of providing for the general welfare, and not a small group of would-be monarchs, vote for the conscience and competence we need to move our nation forward, Barack Obama!
Copyright 2008 by Griffith Lighton
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