Move Over, Alan Quatermain

Good God. I am in awe of this article. It's awesome. It just kicks ass.

To explain: We know Megan McArdle worships the rich. She sees herself as an authoritarian leader, one of the elite, and is unstinting in her support of their actions, no matter how venal, deadly, or just plain stupid. We also know she is not rich herself although she grew up surrounded by rich people, and therefore must be content with being a follower. If you are not rich but you support them you must justify this action to yourself; otherwise you're just some envious schmuck who watches E! to find out what kind of phone Paris Hilton is using. We also know from Stanley Milgrim that many people only need permission from an authority to do what they already want to do. And this morning, I hit paydirt.

[yap]

Even those who think wealth is good (or at least harmless) often implicitly suggest that the pursuit of wealth and the pursuit of moral goals are separate questions. They would do well to read Benjamin Friedman's The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth. The author, a professor of political economy at Harvard, has written an economic tome that is accessible to the average reader without failing to offer something new to specialists as well: a compelling argument that rising incomes make us not just richer people, but better ones.

[yap yap]

Economists have long known that what they call the “wealth effect” can stimulate spending: If people feel richer because the value of their home or stock portfolio has gone up, or because they think their income is likely to rise in the future, they will loosen up and spend more. Friedman suggests that people don’t merely become more willing to treat themselves to home entertainment systems and $4 cups of coffee as their wealth grows; they also become more generous to others. “With rising incomes,” he says, “more people become willing to donate time and money. And among those who do so, rising incomes also allow people to feel able to do more.”


But direct charity is only one of the ways we become more generous. Even more important is the tolerance that growing wealth brings for competition from others. There is a growing recognition that trade is a vastly more effective way to reduce global poverty than foreign aid; even Oxfam, a reliably left-wing nongovernmental organization, has jumped on the free trade bandwagon with a campaign against agricultural subsidies. Better still, trade benefits domestic consumers. Yet progress on that front is nearly impossible unless economic prosperity is rising fast enough to ease the fears of those who are threatened by a more open market.

Here's McArdle's justification for wealth worship: People with more money donate more money, and free trade helps the poor much more than actual, you know, help.

Damn! I feel like I've found the map to King Solomon's Mines, if his mines were huge, empty cavities filled with greed and vanity instead of gold and pearls.

Bring Out Your Stupid

We've got a nasty one, folks. Megan McArdle reports:

Apparently, the Obama administration has asked Rick Wagoner to step down as part of his deal with the administration.

Stop, stop! Journalists don't use "apparently" for facts. Either he has or he hasn't. Let's--what's the word?---Google.

After his administration forced GM Chief Executive Officer Rick Wagoner to resign
and pressed Chrysler to form a partnership with Italy’s Fiat SpA to get more
taxpayer aid, Obama today said that company creditors, shareholders, workers,
dealers and suppliers will be expected to make more sacrifices.

That took about three seconds to find.

Rick Wagoner is no managerial genius, but I'm not sure this will actually help much.

If he's a poor manager, who cares if he goes? We already know he insisted on selling SUVs despite rising gas prices and the slow train wreck that is this economy. People who can't run businesses successfully get fired all the time.

GM is caught in the jaws of its own structural problems--labor costs, yes, but also its corporate culture, its legacy physical plant, and so forth.

"And so forth." Very profession journalism there too. Labor costs were already cut to help the company survive. Its corporate culture is a fantastic reason to fire Wagoner--he's the one who creates and/or maintains the corporation's culture to a large extent. And since when is owning a factory a detriment instead of a source of potential income?

Perhaps most perniciously, GM is the victim of a brain drain--it's difficult to recruit top talent to a dying firm, especially when it's located in a dying industry.

Since the brain trust already there destroyed the company they should be tossing those brains out on their asses. From here on it's someone else's baby. And although the car industry ought to be a dying industry, it isn't. People need cars and will continue to drive them until they are forced to stop through extreme circumstances. By McArdle's standard newspapers and magazines are dying industries too. She should quit at once. (For so very many reasons.)

On the other hand, it can hardly hurt.

Here she goes again, hedging and qualifying every post into irrelevance with one or two sentences that she can point to later to prove that she isn't wrong, when she so often is.

And the symbolism, both to the taxpayer and the employees, is important.

Yes, and it was also true with AIG. Not that you cared then.

GM can't be given vast sums without some visible sign of serious change. Let's hope the new CEO actually brings some, rather than providing window dressing for a continuation of business as usual.

In other words it's dinner time (see the time stamp?) and McArdle is too busy to do anything but on-the-one-hand-on-the-other-hand-gee-I-hope-it-works-out-bye-now-cocktails-are-here.

This post is no surprise, of course. We all know McArdle supports the elite no matter how wrong they are.

Obviously, there are people who were right about the war for the right reasons, and we should examine what their thought process was--not merely the conclusions they came to, but how they got there. Other peoples' opposition was animated by principles that may be right, but aren't really very helpful: the pacifists, the isolationists, the reflexive opponents of Republicans or the US military. Within the limits on foreign policy in a hegemonic power, these just aren't particularly useful, again, regardless of whether you are metaphysically correct.

"It won't work" is the easiest prediction to get right; almost nothing does. The thought process that tells you something probably won't work is not always a good way to figure out what will, even if you were right for the right reasons, as I agree lots of people were. That's why libertarians have a great track record at predicting which government programs will fail (almost all of them) and a lousy track record at designing ones that do work.

On the other hand, "I thought it would work for X reason", when it didn't work, is, I think, a lesson you can carry into both decisions about what to do, and what not to do. On a deeper level, understanding the unconscious cognitive biases that lead smart and well meaning people to believe that things which will not work, will work, is a very good way to prevent yourself from making the same mistake.

America gets a lot of things right, I think, precisely because it includes people who have gotten it badly wrong. Most societies shun people who err; a senior business executive in Germany who has been attached to a failing company should not expect ever to be trusted with responsibility again. America, on the other hand, is a nation of failures, and has always been more hospitable than anywhere else to the people who made an honest mistake, even a lot of them. I believe that our economy works better than our foreign policy process precisely because foreign policy tends to be decided by either the successes or the failures, but never both.

Yes, Iraq was never anything but an honest mistake anyone could make. Anyone like McArdle, that is. Sorry, but I don't think failure should rewarded as long as an elite does it. God knows the non-elite have to pay for their mistakes, often for the rest of their lives.

My god, this woman is despicable. Anything for the rich, nothing for anyone else. The naked worship of money and power sickens the soul, and is sickening to watch.

Put Down Your Drink First

Shorter Megan McArdle: I'm not an ass-kissing, brown-nosing sycophant who praises and links to others to advance my career. I'm just a hell of a person who meant every ass-kissing, brown-nosing thing I said.

Bonus DVD material:

All the business-card warriors would do themselves a lot more good in the long run by focusing on getting good at their jobs, and helping other people when they can just because it's nice to be able to help.

Oh, god, stop it, it's too funny. "Focus on getting good at your job." It's hysterical.

We Shall Know Them By Their Skill Sets

Oh, my.

The NYPost reports the two biggest banking wrecks, CitiGroup amnd Bank of America, have been aggressively buying toxic assets with bailout money, and goosing the MBS auctions.

You can imagine why this might get people upset. I suspect its rather unavoidable. These banks have investment wings, and they are trolling for opportunities.

[snipped quote]

If anything, this argues against bailouts and in favor of nationalization, firing management, wiping out S/Hs, zeroing out debt, haircutting bond holders, etc.

We don't have to discover this sort of news to know what is going to happen. Thieves steal. It's what they do. These debates about the bonuses? Just words, to disguise the truth.

An Overlooked Fact

A quick note regarding our AIG Galtian executive: Jake DeSantis has a Masters of Science from MIT and worked at Los Alamos before becoming a derivatives trader. After six years he went to work for AIG. While he is undoubtedly very bright, I seriously doubt his financial knowledge is so deep, broad and irreplaceable that someone else can't do his job.

Some people simply want to believe that our elite are extra-special and worthy of endless respect and tax-payer dollars. More on that later.

The Corporate States Of America

Rich people came to this country and took what it had. They sold it to others and became richer. When the free goods were used up they turned to theft to relive the rush of getting more and more. That money is disappearing as well. When the rich are done they will not be able to regain that rush and will have to find another way to satisfy that elusive thrill. Since they have all the money and power they will be able to choose the type of thrill. There is more than one way of feeling alive--there is also the power over life and death. Think of Rome.

They are driven to fill the emptiness inside because they are hollow men and women, devoid of self. Their true self was taken from them, usually by their parents. Their self was smothered to make way for the self their parents insisted they become. Authoritarian adults demand that their children adhere to the pattern set down by their own parents, a never-ending chain of repression and control. That emptiness and self-denial can't be filled up with religion or politics or material possessions, cannot be ignored, cannot be stopped. The authoritarian, depending on the strength of his repression, must seek out something to fill the void and will not stop unless he or she is forced to stop.

And so here we are, in the twilight of our innocence, insisting that we are children and must obey. The rich rule because they must. The poor obey because they must. It doesn't even seem to occur to most of them that there is another way. A way called "letting go." Let go of the need, of the exchange of obedience for love. Let go of the need to be special, to fill the void, to hold on to the void because you think there is nothing else. Let go, and fill the void with the person you want and need and choose to be.

TV Time

Here is an entertaining and very informative video on the financial crises: "The Crises of Credit Visualized," via The Big Picture. And they don't even get into the consequences of an economy that is 70% consumer spending but has no money or credit to spend! It's why jobs are so important, no matter who funds them. The alternative is our current state of affairs, with small business failing right and left and everyone gradually (or swiftly) becoming poorer.

Except the bankers, politicians, and corporate owners, of course. Right now they are very, very rich.

The Truth Shall Set You Free

Okay, let's go over this again.

People raise their kids with callousness and cruelty because that is all they know. The kids grow up feeling afraid and unloved.

That makes them feel bad, so they try to find someone to give them what they want--security and love. They turn to parent-substitutes; authority figures. God is a parent substitute. So is the president. This is where the trouble starts, for nobody can go back in time and get the love they never received as a child. They can never go back to childhood and develop the self-esteem and self-confidence that comes from being loved and learning how to love others.

Therefore their search for a parent substitute is doomed to failure, an unacceptable situation that people fight tooth and nail to deny. Admit that your parents didn't or couldn't love you enough to teach you to love yourself and others? Forget that, they'd sooner kill you than admit it. So they try even harder to force their authority to give them what they need. The result is disaster.

There are no gods, no magic, no supernatural world. People would laugh at children for waving a stick and yelling, "Expelliarmus!" and expecting something to happen, yet they don't hesitate to wave a book or scroll and mutter Latin or Hebrew under their breath and expect a deity to listen and obey them. But they need a god, specifically a god who knows them personally (like a parent), loves them unconditionally (like a parent), is omniscient (like a parent in a child's eyes), and will always rescue them (like a parent is supposed to help their child). They will waste a huge chunk of their lives begging this parent substitute for proof of love and attention and never get it, because God is not their father or mother, he is an imaginary creature created out of need.

And people will do the same with the next parent substitute--their political and social leaders. Every president is a potential parent substitute, and we have come to speak of the presidency in parental terms. They must protect us and take care of us and tell us right from wrong. They must punish us when we're bad and reward us when we're good. But they aren't our parents, they are people with the same problems and issues that we have. They, too, are looking for safety and love. They, too, are damaged. But they are very, very rich, and can harm a lot of people while avoiding their own pain, by starting wars to feel safe and protecting their fellow elites to feel loved.

So here we are, debating whom the stimulus will help when we ought to know that the stimulus will help the elites feel safe and protected. We debate who created us, when we already know in our hearts. We fight and lie and deny, deny, deny--anything to avoid the simple truth. It's a tremendously painful truth that offers us nothing but more pain and hard work in the beginning, but it is the truth, and in the end that is the only thing that will set us free to love.

Brooks Kisses Ass; Nation Averts Eyes

Shorter David Brooks: For the love of Heaven, save the rich people!

ADDED: Shorter Jonah Goldberg, Ass-kisser to ass-kissers: "I've been hard on David Brooks of late, so let me just say I think this is a great column with some real insights."

Megan on Health Care

Megan discusses health care, which means Megan fantasizes about ways to punish the poor for their inherent inferiority.

Imagine if, rather than giving people food stamps, Section 8 vouchers,
welfare payments, public schooling, and so forth, we simply had an incomes
program to boost the wages of those whose productivity is not up to providing
them a basic, decent standard of living?

Is she actually suggesting that the public subsidize businesses?

But that's not all it would do; it would put choice back in the hands of
the consumers. Do poor people want more car and less house? Great;
why not give them that choice if it doesn't cost us anything? They could
even (whisper it) save the money and do something really important with it at a
future date.

Says the woman who just took on a bunch of debt for consumer purchases.

[...Y]ou'll probably end up giving the wastrels less money if they do
fritter it away. Because once you've actually provided people a minimum
income that is adequate to take care of their basic needs, there's no moral
reason not to turn away those who decline insurance from the emergency
rooms. Giving people more choices also means allowing them to live with
the consequences of those choices.

McArdle offers this as an incentive. Imagine the feeling of moral righteousness you can enjoy as you turn away sick people.

No matter what we do to our health care system, it will never much resemble the
cool modernistic dreams of socialist realist fiction, where everything is
effortlessly resolved by smugly serene Agents of the People.

Megan likes to remind her readers that she was taught politeness and she is very civil, unlike other people . If you say the right thing it's the same thing as doing the right thing. (Just ignore the actual digs and insults.)

We are a phenomenally rich nation--the richest in the history of the planet (in
our weight class, anyway). We can afford to paper over the holes with
money.

She's a libertarian, remember.

California and New York are undergoing financial emergencies. The federal government is of course deeply in debt. It will be easy to convince the public that they should be able to keep more of their money instead of paying for medical care and retirement funds for others. Like Megan they'll emphasize choice and responsibility and fairness. And people will die.

A Girl Can Dream: K-Lo and Rushbo

It's difficult to understand why poor and lower middle class people would vote for Republicans who will implement policies that would hurt them economically. Why support tax cuts for the rich, the eradication of social services, and expensive wars? To find the answer you can read "What's The Matter With Kansas" by Thomas Frank. The amazon.com review says:

According to Frank, the conservative establishment has tricked Kansans, playing up the emotional touchstones of conservatism and perpetuating a sense of a vast liberal empire out to crush traditional values while barely ever discussing the Republicans' actual economic policies and what they mean to the working class. Thus the pro-life Kansas factory worker who listens to Rush Limbaugh will repeatedly vote for the party that is less likely to protect his safety, less likely to protect his job, and less likely to benefit him economically.

Or you can just read Kathryn Jean Lopez celebrating Rush Limbaugh's new $400 million dollar contract.

‘There but for the grace of God go I.” The phrase is usually a cautionary note. My neighbor’s blunder could have been mine. My co-worker’s illness could easily be my affliction. I ought to count my blessings. But the flipside of the phrase is pregnant with promise, and many Americans felt it when they learned that radio phenom Rush Limbaugh, who marks his 20th year “of broadcast excellence” this summer, is making media history with a new $400-million contract.

Sure, many right-wingers were happy just to know that “El Rushbo” is making more than Katie Couric. “That could be me one day,” many surmise upon hearing news like that. With a little grace and hard work, maybe that kind of great success could be mine. Someday, that could be my son or daughter, if I teach them right. That sentiment — an appreciation of what’s possible in America, land of the free, which includes a free market — is at the heart of many Americans’ reaction to the news.

Yes, you too can drop out of college and make a fortune spreading hate and fear. It's the American Way.

Why do Americans think that they, too, can make tens of millions per year? How could they possibly convince themselves that if they vote for policies benefitting the rich, they are potentially voting for their own benefit? They lie to themselves.

Even though being rich is not the be-all, end-all for Americans, they are optimistic they could be and will be — having that motivational hope, even when probably not entirely realistic. One 2000 Time magazine survey had 20 percent of Americans polled optimistic that they would someday be in the top one percent of American earners; Americans frequently think we’re richer than we are, because we always see great riches and promise before us. Many Americans have real reason to be optimistic, if not always the luck, grace, or determination to seal the deal.

Now, this is Kathryn Jean, eternal virgin optimist and family values pimp, so she has to point out money isn't everything.

A recent Pew poll found that “being wealthy” is far from the top priority of Americans — we value things like “having enough time to do things you want to do,” “being successful in a career,” and “having children.” “Being married” rated as “very important” for 50 percent of those polled, while “being wealthy” rates with only such a priority for 13 percent.

Ah, what we really want is marriage and children, and time to spend with them. Odd, then, that Limbaugh has no family, no wife and children. Three ex-wives, but no current wife and no family. All that money, and nothing to show for it except conspicuous consumption, from food to drugs to women to material possessions. It's almost like there's something missing deep inside, that no amount of things can compensate for. Strange, in such an incredibly gifted and humanitarian person.

Beware of politicians gifting bears.

Hullabaloo is quite verklempt over some blogpost written by George Packer.

Now, as thinking people here on Hullabaloo, let's think about what Packer's
yakking about in his little throwaway. Packer says that thinking people, during
the past years, had forced on them hard trade-offs and ideological confusion.
But even five minutes of thought in 2002 would have revealed Bush/Iraq as
screaming yellow bonkers. But Packer didn't have the moral integrity to give
Bush/Iraq five minutes of thought, as so many others did around the world.
Instead, Packer let himself be unthinkingly swept away by Makiya's rhetoric -
and others'. Packer checked his brain at the door and went with his gut: LET'S
DO SOME GOOD!

Unthinkingly swept away by rhetoric? How could anyone do that? Ignoring the possibility of a disastrous war? Damn, that's feeble. How can you sit and listen to someone's words and not even hear what they are saying because of the rush of happiness that comes from belonging, being part of a group or movement, letting someone tell you what you want to hear?

I don't know who Obama has working for him on this stuff, but I hope he's
tapping into the best talent from the arts as well as politics. The right speech
in the right setting could reignite Obamamania into a roaring brushfire at just
the right moment.

Kill me now, please.

ADDED: Via Avedon Carol, IOZ speaks.

Watching vero possumus transmogrify before progressive eyes into status quo ante is less entertaining than it ought to be because it
lacks an element of suprise. Still, it's good for a grin. Barack Obama made such
fast work of it, leaping to
the defense of defenseless nuclear Israel, then proceeding to wrap himself
in an American flag, arm himself to the jowls, climb atop the Statue of Liberty,
and fire warning shots in a wild, easterly direction, lest the Hordes mistake
New York for Vienna and the twenty-first for the seventeenth century. Yeah, but
they'll show him. They're gonna vote for him, and they're gonna give him money,
but by motherfucking god, they're gonna blog about their disappointment.

Who was it who said, put all your eggs in one basket, and then watch that basket?

There's a clue. Go get it.

Digby et al. are concerned that Congress is lying to them about FISA. The commenters, as they often do, chastise fellow liberals, saying the Supreme Court openings make voting for Obama essential.

It doesn't even occur to them that Obama might "surprise" them again.

Why wouldn't Obama vote for a conservative Supreme Court justice, or a wink-wink-nudge-nudge pseudo-liberal? His belief in the separation of church and state? His devotion to the constitution? His independence from business interests, the real constituency of the Supreme Court?

Our* biggest problem is our habit of obedience and slavish, unquestioning devotion to authority. It doesn't even occur to some liberals to question the rich and powerful.



*By "our" I mean "everyone but you and me."

(Atrocious spelling fixed)

Obama has another secret plan!

Obama on withdrawing from Iraq: maybe I will, maybe I won't.

It's not that people are stupid to believe in Obama. It's not that Obama's evil. It's just that rich people hate you.

All we need to do is put Democrats in office...

Just in case you thought electing a Democratic Congress (or president) will change anything:

In the U.S. now, thanks to the Democratic Congress, we'll have a new law
based on the premise that the President has the power to order private actors to
break the law, and when he issues such an order, the private actors will be
protected from liability of any kind on the ground that the Leader told them to
do it -- the very theory that the Nuremberg Trial rejected.

The leaders of a country are not your friends. They want power, to use it to get everything else they want. They do not want to help you. They do not want you to prosper and be free. They want you to pay your taxes, die when ordered to, and bend over whenever they want something else. If they betray you it's not because they "have to." It's because they want to.

People who want power over the entire world (the US, its military and money that is) are dangerous. No matter what their reason is, good or bad, they are dangerous. But since we feel the need to follow the leader, remember one thing; it's us versus them. They are the enemy, and they will have to be forced to do the right thing, every single time. The purpose of political involvement is to watch the powerful, not find a candidate that makes us feel good. The only person who can make you feel good is you.

By the way, the Democratic Congress also just funded the war they were elected to end.

Such Men Are Dangerous

Digby tut-tuts Rev. Wright, and he deserves every tut, but surely this is not unexpected. We already knew Wright was angry, unsurprisingly he's also angry at Obama. Obama had the opportunity to be another Martin Luther King, but he gave it up to be part of the power structure that considers men like him disposable. Obama refused to risk his image as a safe black man, refused to say that yes, he is angry at the treatment of black people, and he has every right to be. Just as Obama refuses to see the US as a menace in the Middle East. And just as Clinton gives little or no hint of the enormous rage she must feel at the thousands of insults and injustices women receive, especially those with brains and ambition.

However, Digby quotes something I find far more alarming than opportunism and anger.

I watched Obama today and felt very sorry for him on a human level. As Joan
Walsh pointed out in a series of sensitive posts on the subject, this is a guy who has written a book about being abandoned by his father and here comes
father figure Wright, so self-centered that he apparently couldn't accept that his own star burned less brightly than the younger man who was very
possibly on his way to becoming America's first black president.

(Emphasis is mine.)

If Obama is indeed a man searching for a father figure, that is an authority figure, such men are dangerous. He has already chosen to side with authority too many times, to protect government lawbreakers or save the world.

He will not prosecute anyone in the government. He has too much respect for its institutions. He will not get us out of the Middle East. He sees us as saviors of the world. He will not restore the rule of law. As Chris Floyd says, to do so would be to implicate those who broke it. He will support religions over secular society, out of respect for religion if not for many of those who practice it. He sees religion as an authority to succumb to, a necessary part of public, not just private, life.

"[Americans] want a sense of purpose, a narrative arc to their lives. They're looking to relieve a chronic loneliness, a feeling supported by a recent study that shows Americans have fewer close friends and confidants than ever before. And so they need an assurance that somebody out there cares about them, is listening to them - that they are not just destined to travel down that long highway towards nothingness.

And I speak with some experience on this matter.... And in time, I came to realize that something was missing as well -- that without a vessel for my beliefs, without a commitment to a particular community of faith, at some level I would always remain apart, and alone."


Any Democrat is preferable over any Republican. Their time has come and gone, at least until the famously short American memory dims again and they can return to power, the next generation of Goldbergs and Podhoretzes and Bushes. But I don't think the changes we are hoping for will happen if Obama is elected. When in the course of human history did those in power willingly give up power, especially ill-gotten power that might never come again? When did people ever gain freedom except by fighting for it?

ADDED:

Nobody heard him, the dead man,
But still he lay moaning:
I was much further out than you thought
And not waving but drowning.

Arthur Silber speaks.

Most people completely failed to grasp the breadth of Obama's commitment to
America's mythologized history in his "nuanced," "historical" speech on race, or
his unbreached determination to lie about anything and everything. They were --
and are -- incapable of understanding this issue for the simple reason that
they, too, embrace this mythology. If they are deprived of their belief in
America's, and their own, claim to being "unique" and "special" in all of
history, they will die psychologically. Our mythologized history has become a
crucial part of their own identities. Obama's condemnation of Wright today
amounts to an emphatic postscript to his earlier speech: "I meant it. I will lie
to you about anything you want. I will lie about everything."

We are not special. The United States is not moral. We are not a force for good. We built our nation on blood and theft. We do not bring freedom to the world. Blacks are not inferior to whites. Women are not inferior to men. Children don't owe their parents obedience. Blind obedience is bad. Religion is useless and harmful. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We watch the world drowning in our lies, begging for rescue, and tell ourselves that they are waving.