Alan Greenspan was at a Senate hearing today, talking about amnesty for illegal aliens. Of course, they would choose an economist who agrees with them to make the presentation.
Greenspan is the master of macro-economics. His agenda was to promote borrowing and consumption, which requires growth. Of course, it is impossible to sustain such actions. By-and-by comes a train wreck, as we are now suffering.
But for him new borrowers and new consumers are good, and large numbers of illegal aliens fit the bill.
He glossed over the fact that our low-skilled citizens are taking it on the chin, being undercut at every turn by illegal aliens.
He then went on to extol the virtues of immigrants (and illegals) at the top end, those requiring professional visas. He quoted Bill Gates. He wants more visas for scientists and engineers.
Why? Because our educational system is broken. We can't get math and science right and must import talent to fill the gap. So goes the argument.
I wonder what would happen in our school district if we could spend our money on the gifted? Instead we teach English, hygiene, and foreign culture to anchor babies, immigrant children, and Plyler's kids. And there are federal grants for bilingual education, but few for math and science. What did Greenspan expect? And exactly how does amnesty fix that problem?
But his deliberate pronouncements were well-received by the committee. Just what they wanted to hear.
We wouldn't want one of those rogue economists telling Congress that America will adapt if we allow our own citizens to fill the jobs. Wages and benefits would adapt to the demand and the unemployed would fill those jobs.
We would see our own scientists rise to the occasion.
Greenspan didn't talk at all about our broken labor certification that doesn't look very hard to find a citizen to fill the professional jobs.
But Greenspan has never been wrong before, has he?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
About the Obama agenda
Thoughts on climate change, nationalization (even temporarily) of business, health care reform, swine flu...
The first is the advance, and increasing application of science. As a means to the ends I care for, this is neutral. We shall grow able to cure, and to produce, more diseases -- bacterial war, not bombs, might ring down the curtain -- to alleviate, and to inflict, more pains to husband, or to waste, the resources of the planet more extensively. We can become either more beneficent or more mischievous. My guess is we shall do both; mending one thing and marring another, removing old miseries and producing new ones, safeguarding ourselves here and endangering ourselves there.
Observe how the "humane" attitude to crime could operate. If crimes are diseases, why should diseases be treated differently from crimes? And who but the experts can define disease? One school of psychology regards my religion as a neurosis. If this neurosis ever become inconvenient to Government, what is to prevent my being subjected to a compulsory "cure"? It may be painful; treatments sometimes are. But it will be no use asking, "What have I done to deserve this?" The Straightener will reply: "But, my dear fellow, no one's blaming you. We no longer believe in retributive justice. We're healing you."
This would be no more than an extreme application of the political philosophy implicit in most modern communities. It has stolen on us unawares. Two wars necessitated vast curtailments of liberty, and we have grown, though grumblingly, accustomed to our chains. The increasing complexity and precariousness o our economic life have forced Government to take over many spheres of activity once left to choice or chance. Our intellectuals have surrendered first to the philosophy of Hegel, then to Marx, finally to the linguistic analysts.
As a result, classical political theory, with its Stoical, Christian and juristic key-conceptions (natural law, the value of the individual, the rights of man), has died. The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good -- anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence, the new name "leaders" for those who were once "rulers".
We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, "Mind your own business." Our whole lives ARE their business. I write "they" because it seems childish not to recognize that actual government is and always must be oligarchical. Our effective masters must be more than one and fewer than all. But the oligarchs begin to regard us in a new way.
Here, I think, lies our real dilemma. Probably we cannot, certainly we shall not, retrace our steps. We are tamed animals (some with kind, some with cruel masters) and should probably starve if we got out of our cage. That is one horn of the dilemma. But in an increasingly planned society, how much of what I value can survive? That is the other horn.
I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has the "freeborn mind". But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology.
Read Montaigne; that's the voice of a man withhis legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone' schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when a man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horriblesuspicion that our only choice is between societies with few freemen and societies with none.
Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend.
Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him that for any other man.
I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have nay sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in". It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants' "science" -- they didn't think much of Hitler's racial theories or Stalin's biology. But they can be muzzled.
We must give full weight to Sir Charles's reminder that millions in the East are still half starved. To these my fears would seem very unimportant. A hungry man thinks about food, not freedom. We must give full weight to the claim that nothing but science, and science globally applied, and therefore unprecedented Government controls, can produce full bellies and medical care for the whole human race: nothing, in short, but a world Welfare State. It is a full admission of these truths which impresses upon me the extreme peril of humanity at present.
We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it; omni-competent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement? This is how it has entered before; a desperate need (real or apparent) in the one party, a power (real or apparent) to relieve it, in the other. In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers -- a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians -- a Church who can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.
The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting?
Let us make no mistake about the sting. The Swedish sadness is only a foretaste. To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death -- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.
All this threatens us even if the form of society which our needs point to should prove and unparalleled success. But is that certain? What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about "Man taking charge of his own destiny". All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before?
All the above comments are from C S Lewis, July 1958
http://www.onthewing.org/user/Pol_Is%20Progress%20Possible%20-%20CS%20Lewis.pdf
A fascinating perspective as fresh as last night's Presidential address.
The first is the advance, and increasing application of science. As a means to the ends I care for, this is neutral. We shall grow able to cure, and to produce, more diseases -- bacterial war, not bombs, might ring down the curtain -- to alleviate, and to inflict, more pains to husband, or to waste, the resources of the planet more extensively. We can become either more beneficent or more mischievous. My guess is we shall do both; mending one thing and marring another, removing old miseries and producing new ones, safeguarding ourselves here and endangering ourselves there.
Observe how the "humane" attitude to crime could operate. If crimes are diseases, why should diseases be treated differently from crimes? And who but the experts can define disease? One school of psychology regards my religion as a neurosis. If this neurosis ever become inconvenient to Government, what is to prevent my being subjected to a compulsory "cure"? It may be painful; treatments sometimes are. But it will be no use asking, "What have I done to deserve this?" The Straightener will reply: "But, my dear fellow, no one's blaming you. We no longer believe in retributive justice. We're healing you."
This would be no more than an extreme application of the political philosophy implicit in most modern communities. It has stolen on us unawares. Two wars necessitated vast curtailments of liberty, and we have grown, though grumblingly, accustomed to our chains. The increasing complexity and precariousness o our economic life have forced Government to take over many spheres of activity once left to choice or chance. Our intellectuals have surrendered first to the philosophy of Hegel, then to Marx, finally to the linguistic analysts.
As a result, classical political theory, with its Stoical, Christian and juristic key-conceptions (natural law, the value of the individual, the rights of man), has died. The modern State exists not to protect our rights but to do us good or make us good -- anyway, to do something to us or to make us something. Hence, the new name "leaders" for those who were once "rulers".
We are less their subjects than their wards, pupils or domestic animals. There is nothing left of which we can say to them, "Mind your own business." Our whole lives ARE their business. I write "they" because it seems childish not to recognize that actual government is and always must be oligarchical. Our effective masters must be more than one and fewer than all. But the oligarchs begin to regard us in a new way.
Here, I think, lies our real dilemma. Probably we cannot, certainly we shall not, retrace our steps. We are tamed animals (some with kind, some with cruel masters) and should probably starve if we got out of our cage. That is one horn of the dilemma. But in an increasingly planned society, how much of what I value can survive? That is the other horn.
I believe a man is happier, and happy in a richer way, if he has the "freeborn mind". But I doubt whether he can have this without economic independence, which the new society is abolishing. For economic independence allows an education not controlled by Government; and in adult life it is the man who needs, and asks, nothing of Government who can criticise its acts and snap his fingers at its ideology.
Read Montaigne; that's the voice of a man withhis legs under his own table, eating the mutton and turnips raised on his own land. Who will talk like that when the State is everyone' schoolmaster and employer? Admittedly, when a man was untamed, such liberty belonged only to the few. I know. Hence the horriblesuspicion that our only choice is between societies with few freemen and societies with none.
Again, the new oligarchy must more and more base its claim to plan us on its claim to knowledge. If we are to be mothered, mother must know best. This means they must increasingly rely on the advice of scientists, till in the end the politicians proper become merely the scientists' puppets. Technocracy is the form to which a planned society must tend.
Now I dread specialists in power because they are specialists speaking outside their special subjects. Let scientists tell us about sciences. But government involves questions about the good for man, and justice, and what things are worth having at what price; and on these a scientific training gives a man's opinion no added value. Let the doctor tell me I shall die unless I do so-and-so; but whether life is worth having on those terms is no more a question for him that for any other man.
I dread government in the name of science. That is how tyrannies come in. In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have nay sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They 'cash in". It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science. Perhaps the real scientists may not think much of the tyrants' "science" -- they didn't think much of Hitler's racial theories or Stalin's biology. But they can be muzzled.
We must give full weight to Sir Charles's reminder that millions in the East are still half starved. To these my fears would seem very unimportant. A hungry man thinks about food, not freedom. We must give full weight to the claim that nothing but science, and science globally applied, and therefore unprecedented Government controls, can produce full bellies and medical care for the whole human race: nothing, in short, but a world Welfare State. It is a full admission of these truths which impresses upon me the extreme peril of humanity at present.
We have on the one hand a desperate need; hunger, sickness and the dread of war. We have, on the other, the conception of something that might meet it; omni-competent global technocracy. Are not these the ideal opportunity for enslavement? This is how it has entered before; a desperate need (real or apparent) in the one party, a power (real or apparent) to relieve it, in the other. In the ancient world individuals have sold themselves as slaves in order to eat. So in society. Here is a witch-doctor who can save us from the sorcerers -- a war-lord who can save us from the barbarians -- a Church who can save us from Hell. Give them what they ask, give ourselves to them bound and blindfold, if only they will! Perhaps the terrible bargain will be made again. We cannot blame men for making it. We can hardly wish them not to. Yet we can hardly bear that they should.
The question about progress has become the question whether we can discover any way of submitting to the worldwide paternalism of a technocracy without losing all personal privacy and independence. Is there any possibility of getting the super Welfare State's honey and avoiding the sting?
Let us make no mistake about the sting. The Swedish sadness is only a foretaste. To live his life in his own way, to call his house his castle, to enjoy the fruits of his own labour, to educate his children as his conscience directs, to save for their prosperity after his death -- these are wishes deeply ingrained in civilised man. Their realization is almost as necessary to our virtues as to our happiness. From their total frustration disastrous results both moral and psychological might follow.
All this threatens us even if the form of society which our needs point to should prove and unparalleled success. But is that certain? What assurance have we that our masters will or can keep the promise which induced us to sell ourselves? Let us not be deceived by phrases about "Man taking charge of his own destiny". All that can really happen is that some men will take charge of the destiny of others. They will be simply men; none perfect; some greedy, cruel and dishonest. The more completely we are planned the powerful they will be. Have we discovered some new reason why, this time, power should not corrupt as it has done before?
All the above comments are from C S Lewis, July 1958
http://www.onthewing.org/user/Pol_Is%20Progress%20Possible%20-%20CS%20Lewis.pdf
A fascinating perspective as fresh as last night's Presidential address.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Vectors, vectors, everywhere
Remember the tainted tomatoes? Remember how it took the FDA weeks to say the word "Mexico" and shut down imports?
The swine flu outbreak is more of the same and another one for your Bush III file. Napolitano did not act quickly enough to limit travel and has yet to close the border. Why? Because the political image of Mexico as our friend is more important than public safety.
Of course, we knew that just by looking at our immigration policy, but this just shows you how deep our loyalty goes.
As a result, new vectors for the virus continue to enter the United States. Watching people get off airplanes at O'Hare is NOT a reliable way to screen for the virus.
Had the outbreak been limited to a town in rural Mexico one could justify the limited approach, but people in Mexico City were already infected and health officials there were shutting the city down. Ergo, affluent Mexicans and visitors likely to travel were not kept out of the US.
As a result, the number of infected people and their distribution around the United States has grown. This is not the policy of containment as is commonly practiced in disease control.
Homeland Security fails us again.
The swine flu outbreak is more of the same and another one for your Bush III file. Napolitano did not act quickly enough to limit travel and has yet to close the border. Why? Because the political image of Mexico as our friend is more important than public safety.
Of course, we knew that just by looking at our immigration policy, but this just shows you how deep our loyalty goes.
As a result, new vectors for the virus continue to enter the United States. Watching people get off airplanes at O'Hare is NOT a reliable way to screen for the virus.
Had the outbreak been limited to a town in rural Mexico one could justify the limited approach, but people in Mexico City were already infected and health officials there were shutting the city down. Ergo, affluent Mexicans and visitors likely to travel were not kept out of the US.
As a result, the number of infected people and their distribution around the United States has grown. This is not the policy of containment as is commonly practiced in disease control.
Homeland Security fails us again.
Moron Air Force One
I mean, more on Air Force One.
There is quite a buzz about the little air show over New York City on Monday. There are all sorts of theories but they all come to the same conclusion: We aren't being told the truth.
One theory is that a renegade pilot stole the plane and took it for a very visible joyride in order to protest the new administration.
I'm skeptical about that one since the NYPD apparently knew about the exercise days in advance but didn't tell anyone.
On another note, it seems odd to me that early reports said it was a combination training exercise/photo op. It seems the "training exercise" part of the excuse has been dropped.
So, let's say it really was a photo shoot of Air Force One and the Statue of Liberty. What's wrong with this picture:
1) No one reported helicopters or other photographers covering the shoot. And F-16s aren't exactly built for taking pictures.
2) Such a photo shoot would have been done on a Sunday, like most movie scenes. And there would have been advance warning. (I don't mean telling the public that Air Force One would be in the sky over the Hudson at 9:00 am Sunday. Just say "airplanes for a movie" and people will know enough.)
3) Now is not the time to go around the country taking pictures of government airplanes, especially when the tab for an hour in the sky for Air Force One and a couple of F-16s is well over $100K. ABC says it was $328K. Like was said, just use PhotoShop and save the taxpayers.
Now there are some other ideas about what happened. The First Family wanted to take Bo up and show him the plane. That's as good as anything else I've heard.
What is hard to believe is the reaction of the President. He didn't know about it. It'll never happen again. How about the response of Napolitano about the Bellingham raid. She was going to get to the bottom of it.
Obama could have said he was going to investigate and give us a full report. (That would be transparency.) It took a letter from John McCain to get that ball rolling.
If he didn't know where his airplane was, that would put him in a very bad light. The plane, it's readiness, it's back up plane, are all part of national security.
I think from his answer he knows more than he's telling. And it is consistent with President Image to hide bad news from us, especially if it reflects badly on him as a leader.
It makes you wonder what else he's hiding from us.
There is quite a buzz about the little air show over New York City on Monday. There are all sorts of theories but they all come to the same conclusion: We aren't being told the truth.
One theory is that a renegade pilot stole the plane and took it for a very visible joyride in order to protest the new administration.
I'm skeptical about that one since the NYPD apparently knew about the exercise days in advance but didn't tell anyone.
On another note, it seems odd to me that early reports said it was a combination training exercise/photo op. It seems the "training exercise" part of the excuse has been dropped.
So, let's say it really was a photo shoot of Air Force One and the Statue of Liberty. What's wrong with this picture:
1) No one reported helicopters or other photographers covering the shoot. And F-16s aren't exactly built for taking pictures.
2) Such a photo shoot would have been done on a Sunday, like most movie scenes. And there would have been advance warning. (I don't mean telling the public that Air Force One would be in the sky over the Hudson at 9:00 am Sunday. Just say "airplanes for a movie" and people will know enough.)
3) Now is not the time to go around the country taking pictures of government airplanes, especially when the tab for an hour in the sky for Air Force One and a couple of F-16s is well over $100K. ABC says it was $328K. Like was said, just use PhotoShop and save the taxpayers.
Now there are some other ideas about what happened. The First Family wanted to take Bo up and show him the plane. That's as good as anything else I've heard.
What is hard to believe is the reaction of the President. He didn't know about it. It'll never happen again. How about the response of Napolitano about the Bellingham raid. She was going to get to the bottom of it.
Obama could have said he was going to investigate and give us a full report. (That would be transparency.) It took a letter from John McCain to get that ball rolling.
If he didn't know where his airplane was, that would put him in a very bad light. The plane, it's readiness, it's back up plane, are all part of national security.
I think from his answer he knows more than he's telling. And it is consistent with President Image to hide bad news from us, especially if it reflects badly on him as a leader.
It makes you wonder what else he's hiding from us.
Monday, April 27, 2009
"I have a gift, Harry."
Such confident words from Obama, as recalled by Harry Reid.The "gift" is public speaking.
Obama had another TelePrompTer malfunction just today.
I hope someone kept the receipt for his gift.
Stupid pills discovered...
...at Homeland Security.
Well, here's another boneheaded move. They conducted a training exercise in New York City in the middle of the day today using Air Force One (sans O) and two F-16s.
Except no one at NYPD thought it would be a problem so they kept it a secret from the mayor and the media.
Buildings were evacuated and lots of New Yorkers shaken up by the sight of a 747 coming in over the Hudson, doing a few banks and turns among the skyscrapers, followed by F-16s.
Oh yeah, and it was a photo op for the government as well.
Speaking of stupid pills, Napolitano apologized to the veterans for calling them rightwing security threats. How about an apology for the rest of us? I guess she's not taking that one back.
Anyone with strong opinions about immigration, abortion, or gun rights in still on the Homeland Security watch list.
Well, here's another boneheaded move. They conducted a training exercise in New York City in the middle of the day today using Air Force One (sans O) and two F-16s.
Except no one at NYPD thought it would be a problem so they kept it a secret from the mayor and the media.
Buildings were evacuated and lots of New Yorkers shaken up by the sight of a 747 coming in over the Hudson, doing a few banks and turns among the skyscrapers, followed by F-16s.
Oh yeah, and it was a photo op for the government as well.
Speaking of stupid pills, Napolitano apologized to the veterans for calling them rightwing security threats. How about an apology for the rest of us? I guess she's not taking that one back.
Anyone with strong opinions about immigration, abortion, or gun rights in still on the Homeland Security watch list.
Sunday, April 26, 2009
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