Johnny We Hardly Knew Ye

John Maynard Keynes

 

What in the heck is John Maynard Keynes doing in a self-described Republican blog?  Growing up in a fiercely Republican household, I learned quickly to equate Dr. Keynes’ name with socialism.  However, I have since learned that this is not exactly accurate.  The primary tenet of socialism is the public ownership of the “means of production,” which Keynes did not advocate.  In these times of big government and massive bailouts there are important distinctions to be drawn.  

Animal Spirits, published last year, coincidentally around the time of the financial system’s collapse, expounded on for nearly 200 pages, and I found myself disagreeing with a great deal of it.  However it did outline an important point that goes right to the heart of our capitalist system and to the role of governance. 

G.O.P. Wins! Now What?

Last Tuesday’s election results have been hailed as a rejection of President Obama’s first year.  Local politics aside, that does seem to be the case.   Even the late-night talk show hosts are starting to take their shots.  However, it’s not time to celebrate.  There is still plenty to do.  Republicans must develop our own agenda that will take us farther into the 21^st Century than the next election, and tea parties aren’t the answer.

The truth is that neither party is adequately addressing the real issues regarding the economy.  As Republicans, we obviously don’t believe that massive new government spending is the answer, but, unfortunately, there is nothing new in what Republicans are saying.

The Greed of Gordon Gekko

If pop-culture is a mirror on society, then the character of Gordon Gekko is an excellent example.  Michael Douglas won the Academy Award for his portrayal of the character in the 1987 movie Wall Street.  The character became something of a national hero.  Many Americans related to his powerful “greed is good” speech.  This is how the speech went:

“The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love; knowledge; has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA.”

The U.S. and China; The Scorpion and the Frog

If you owe the bank $ 1 million, you have a problem.  If you owe it $ 1 billion, the bank has the problem.  Variations of this banking proverb have been circulating for many years.  The two attributions most likely to be true are by John Maynard Keynes and John Paul Getty.  It really doesn’t matter who said it, or how long it’s been around, the veracity of the statement has been proven with the obvious caveat that inflation keeps pushing the upper limit boundaries further and further. 

The are several real-life scenarios where the proverb applies.  For example  the over-used phrase “too big to fail” comes to mind.  But that’s not the focus of this post, which is:   China and the United States have married their futures together for the foreseeable.

Arizona’s Immigration Tough Guys Are at it Again, Should the GOP Follow Along?

(Left to Right) Rep. Vic Williams, Sen. Russell Pearce, Rep. Sam Crump, LD11 Senate Candidate Rich Davis, Sheriff Joe Arpaio, Rep. Jerry Weiers, JD Hayworth, Sen. Thayer Verschoor, County Attorney Andrew Thomas, Sen. John Huppenthal

The tough guys are at it again.  J.D. Hayworth, Joe Arpaio, Russell Pearce and Andrew Thomas all shared the podium for the Arizona Republic photo-op Wednesday.  They told the crowd what they wanted to hear:  they’d to put more teeth into Arizona’s border security and hunt down the illegal immigrants.  The whole immigration issue has lost some of its “hot-button significance” due to the economy (the experts tell us that there has been an exodus of approximately 1 million “illegals” nationally during 2009); however, there’s still considerable animosity among the electorate that boils just under the surface.  And, these guys are not only going to the legislature; they’re ready with an initiative campaign if you don’t take them seriously.

So what does this mean for the Republican mainstream?  Certainly it’s not nearly as big a problem as what to do about the $2 billion state budget deficit.  But should the Party embrace the fight or is it smarter to be more circumspect? 

History’s Ebb and Flow: The Presidential Election of 1980

There you go again!

The presidential election of 1980 (Reagan v. Carter) was a turning point.  The election was preceded by years of intense social change:  Vietnam, civil rights, Watergate, terrorism, assassinations, rising drug use, environmental degradation, and fear of the twin specters of communism and nuclear annihilation.  With Vietnam and Watergate finally behind us, the sixties-era “flower children” were finally reaching maturity.  Their causes were losing momentum.  Even the important civil rights cause had advanced to the point where the formal barriers to blacks accessing the American Dream were falling away.

However, we now faced disgrace in Iran, gas lines, double-digit interest rates, and high unemployment.  As noted by President Carter in his infamous “malaise” speech, all of this weighed heavily on our national psyche.  Ironically, pollster Richard Wirthlin would later comment that the speech was “the exact moment I knew Ronald Reagan could beat Jimmy Carter.”

The Meaning of Columbus Day

Nowadays most people scoff at the notion of Columbus Day.  The media has recast Columbus’s discovery as primarily a venal event.  So why is it still a holiday?  The answer seems simply to be:   “Because it’s always been done that way.”  We humans have a strong propensity to do the same thing over and over again.  We’re engineered that way.  So Columbus Day is to the calendar what the appendix is to the human body.

But let’s take the opportunity to look at the event from a different angle.  The accidental “discovery” of the new world was a major moment on the road to globalization and modernity.  It is in the nature of history to yield winners and losers.  Even more reason to stop and understand its consequences.  Read Jared Diamond’s “Guns, Germs and Steel” to get an unbiased analysis of why European culture became a hegemon.  Unfortunately, our tendency to believe that things are either “good” or “bad,” “black” or “white” goes wide of the mark.  The accelerated pace of discovery that is marked by Columbus’s voyage can be linked to human kind’s escape from all kinds of tyranny.  For example, it led to the rise of such things as democracy, capitalism and medical science.

GOP Reform: Your Check is Ready

It’s time to take on a piece of conservative orthodoxy that has stood barely challenged since the early 1980’s.  It is a major block lying at the foundation of our spendthrift ways—nearly $12 trillion of accumulated debt by the end of 2008.  Truly the economic collapse and the reaction to it have changed the paradigm—these are not ordinary times.  President Obama’s first year deficit is reported to be $1.4 trillion (that’s Trillion with a capital T, which stands for trouble).  The fact that deficits are growing even more exponentially now is not directly due to Republicans, but our implosion has given the “New Dealers” ammunition, a replay of capitalism’s 1930’s face plant, which led to new and bigger government. 

A Wonderful World (this would be)—Just Resist the Marshmallow

Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?

The great Sam Cooke song goes like this: 

“Don’t know much about history;  Don’t know much biology; Don’t know much about a science book;  Don’t know much about the French I took…”

I have come across some very interesting data in regards to the education of our young.  This data already seems to be making a difference;  yet it’s assimilation ought to be accelerated to give kids the tools they need for complex modern living. 

In a nutshell, it is known as the marshmallow test, many of you may already have heard of it.  It was the brainchild of psychologist Walter Mischel, and was originally performed in the 1960’s at Stanford University.  Mischel challenged four year olds to resist eating a marshmallow in order to receive a second marshmallow 15 minutes later.  The truly astonishing part of the experiment came years later, after he followed-up with the participants.   The 4 year olds who controlled their urge to eat their marshmallow were more successful in school.  (They were also more successful on a broad range of life’s challenges, things like avoiding jail and drugs, staying married, and counting themselves as happy).  As a matter of fact, the ability to wait correlated even more strongly with academic performance than IQ.  This test has been repeated, and so far, the results are holding.  And the real good news is that researchers involved with these studies believe that impulse control and other improvements to emotional fitness can be taught.

Chimpanzee Politics and Health Care Reform

The other day, on my way to get a haircut, I became interested in the Diane Rehm Show, and her guest, Frans de Waal who was speaking about his new book “The Age of Empathy.”  Dr. de Waal and Ms. Rehm were speaking simultaneously about two things.  The first issue they discussed was the biological basis of empathy, how it can be found, perhaps somewhat surprisingly, among many species throughout the animal kingdom, and the doctor’s observations of empathy as it related to a social group of chimpanzees.  All that was good, but the second issue, the need for reforming the U.S. healthcare system, literally came out of left field.

I usually find Ms. Rehm’s shows stimulating, and in general, she seems to be a very nice lady and a competent radio host.  Unfortunately, at times, she becomes such an obvious shill for particular political positions, that it dishonors her work.  In this case, I would say that Dr. de Waal’s presentation came very close to making the claim that:  “Evolutionary behaviorism proves the need for the Democratic health plan,” which, of course, is nonsense.