There has been much hype about the signing of Phase One (and probably only) US-China trade deal. However based on a front page story in today's Washington Post, there is not much there. The US did not raise tariffs as planned, but tariff still remain on two thirds of the sectors that had them, although some were halved. But numerous US sectors see no change at all and are now viewing the situation as not likely to improve, with them suffering losses of business likely to return. Among those are chemicals, apparel retailers, and auto parts. In these and other sectors there is not much reduction of uncertainty regarding US-China trade, so not likely much increase in investment.
The main items in it besides no worsening of tariffs, China has made promises not to pressure US firms to turn over technology and also to increase imports from the US by $200 billion over the next two years, especially in energy and agriculture. So maybe US soybean farmers will no longer need the bailouts of billions of $ Trump has been providing to them. However, such promises have been made in the past.
As it is, I am watching commentators on Bloomberg, and about the most any of them are willing to say is that this "puts a floor" on the "deterioration" of US-China trade relations. That is far from some dramatic breakthrough, and most of the tariffs put on as part of the US-China trade war remain in place.
Barkley Rosser
Wednesday, January 15, 2020
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
Further Followup On The Soleimani Assassination
I wish to bring out some matters not getting a lot of attention in the US media.
An important one of those was reported two days ago by Juan Cole. It is that apparently it has not been determined for certain that the initial attack that set off this current round of deaths when a militia in Iraq attacked an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk in which an American contractor was killed, almost certainly a matter of collateral damage although not recognized as such, was actually done by Kata'b Hezbollah, the group reported to have done it. That group was commanded by al-Mushani, who was also assassinated with Soleimani, with whom he was allied. But it is not certain that they did it. As it is, the Kirkuk base is dominated by Kurdish Pesh Merga, with whom it is not at all obvious the pro-Iranian militias like the Kat'b Hezbollah have hostile differences. This may have been cooked up to create an excuse for assassinating Soleimani.
Indeed, it has now been reported that seven months ago Trump had approved killing Soleimani essentially at the first instance there would be a good excuse for doing so. In fact it is now reported that although Trump had not heard of Soleimani during th 2016 election, within five minutes of his inauguration he suggested killing Soleimani. SecState Pompeo been encouraging and pushing this action, but it has been something Trump has been hot to do for some time. Going up for an impeachment trial looks like a really good time.
We have now seen quite a dance around reasons to justify this. We must keep clear that it is a matter of both US and international law that this sort of killing of a foreign national official such as General Soleimani is that there be an "imminent threat." I shall not drag through the various versions of what was supposedly the imminent threat here, but it has finally become clear that there was none. And as of today both Pompeo and AG Barr have now pivoted to saying that it was done for "deterrence," but that leaves this assassination as illegal, with US troops in Iraq now declared to be"terrorists."
Now indeed the further followup has become quite a mess, although hopefully the escalation has stopped and war will not happen, despite getting very close to the brink. So Iran made its strike on two bases with US troops in Iraq. While it initially looked that the Iranians were going out of their way to avoid killing any Americans, local US commanders now say that it looks that the strikes were in fact aimed at killing some Americans, and some were in fact injured. I do not know if this is true or not, but it is disturbing and shows how close we have gotten to heightened war.
Then we had this disaster of the Iranians themselves shooting down a commercial Ukrainian airplane (oh, the irony), killing 176 civilians, mostly Iranians, Canadians, and Ukrainians, plus some others. With the admission by the regime anti-government demonstrations have broken out from universities especially in Tehran where many of the Iranians on the plane were from, many of them university students heading to Canada. Those demos have gone on for three days bringing forth a harsh put down from the government, but with news people quitting their jobs out of disgust. The government has now arrested some supposedly responsible for the erroneous shootdown under heightened laert status, which would not have come to pass without the illegal assassination. It is unclear if these arrests will bring an end to the demonstrations, but it should be kept in mind that these involve much smaller numbers of people than turned out in the aftermath of Soleimani's assassination.
Underlying this most recent uprising is the fact that Iran is suffering serious econoimic problems. Much of this is due to the Trump sanctions, but they also reflect entrenched corruption and spending on foreign adventures, such as support for foreign militias. These are difficult times, and let us hope that all sides step back and reduce the heightened tensions.
Barkley Rosser
Addendum:
I must walk back one speculation in the above. I asserted that probably the troops at the base attacked by a militia on Dec. 27 were Kurdish Pesh Merga. I should have checked on this before posting. They were not. While it is near Kurdish dominated Kirkuk, I have now checked on this aind it turns out that the K-1 base indeed had a lot of Americans, some other foreign coalition troops, as well as Iraqi Security Forces, the national army. These troops were all supposedly involved in fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Four US military people were injured, with this obviously intended by whoever was attacked (the killed American contractor was a naturalized US citizen born in Iraq).
There remains a possibility that the attacker may have been ISIS/ISIL/Daesh forces, some of which are apparently in that area, and who would have a motive for doing so. However, there are strong claims made by US officials that it was Kati'b Hezbollah, commanded by al-Mushani. I have also seen a report that Soleimani visited Shia militia leaders in Baghdad in late October, supposedly auggesting they attack US forces and supplying them with Katyusha rockets and other arms, with the attack on K-1 involving the use of such rockets.
I
An important one of those was reported two days ago by Juan Cole. It is that apparently it has not been determined for certain that the initial attack that set off this current round of deaths when a militia in Iraq attacked an Iraqi military base in Kirkuk in which an American contractor was killed, almost certainly a matter of collateral damage although not recognized as such, was actually done by Kata'b Hezbollah, the group reported to have done it. That group was commanded by al-Mushani, who was also assassinated with Soleimani, with whom he was allied. But it is not certain that they did it. As it is, the Kirkuk base is dominated by Kurdish Pesh Merga, with whom it is not at all obvious the pro-Iranian militias like the Kat'b Hezbollah have hostile differences. This may have been cooked up to create an excuse for assassinating Soleimani.
Indeed, it has now been reported that seven months ago Trump had approved killing Soleimani essentially at the first instance there would be a good excuse for doing so. In fact it is now reported that although Trump had not heard of Soleimani during th 2016 election, within five minutes of his inauguration he suggested killing Soleimani. SecState Pompeo been encouraging and pushing this action, but it has been something Trump has been hot to do for some time. Going up for an impeachment trial looks like a really good time.
We have now seen quite a dance around reasons to justify this. We must keep clear that it is a matter of both US and international law that this sort of killing of a foreign national official such as General Soleimani is that there be an "imminent threat." I shall not drag through the various versions of what was supposedly the imminent threat here, but it has finally become clear that there was none. And as of today both Pompeo and AG Barr have now pivoted to saying that it was done for "deterrence," but that leaves this assassination as illegal, with US troops in Iraq now declared to be"terrorists."
Now indeed the further followup has become quite a mess, although hopefully the escalation has stopped and war will not happen, despite getting very close to the brink. So Iran made its strike on two bases with US troops in Iraq. While it initially looked that the Iranians were going out of their way to avoid killing any Americans, local US commanders now say that it looks that the strikes were in fact aimed at killing some Americans, and some were in fact injured. I do not know if this is true or not, but it is disturbing and shows how close we have gotten to heightened war.
Then we had this disaster of the Iranians themselves shooting down a commercial Ukrainian airplane (oh, the irony), killing 176 civilians, mostly Iranians, Canadians, and Ukrainians, plus some others. With the admission by the regime anti-government demonstrations have broken out from universities especially in Tehran where many of the Iranians on the plane were from, many of them university students heading to Canada. Those demos have gone on for three days bringing forth a harsh put down from the government, but with news people quitting their jobs out of disgust. The government has now arrested some supposedly responsible for the erroneous shootdown under heightened laert status, which would not have come to pass without the illegal assassination. It is unclear if these arrests will bring an end to the demonstrations, but it should be kept in mind that these involve much smaller numbers of people than turned out in the aftermath of Soleimani's assassination.
Underlying this most recent uprising is the fact that Iran is suffering serious econoimic problems. Much of this is due to the Trump sanctions, but they also reflect entrenched corruption and spending on foreign adventures, such as support for foreign militias. These are difficult times, and let us hope that all sides step back and reduce the heightened tensions.
Barkley Rosser
Addendum:
I must walk back one speculation in the above. I asserted that probably the troops at the base attacked by a militia on Dec. 27 were Kurdish Pesh Merga. I should have checked on this before posting. They were not. While it is near Kurdish dominated Kirkuk, I have now checked on this aind it turns out that the K-1 base indeed had a lot of Americans, some other foreign coalition troops, as well as Iraqi Security Forces, the national army. These troops were all supposedly involved in fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh. Four US military people were injured, with this obviously intended by whoever was attacked (the killed American contractor was a naturalized US citizen born in Iraq).
There remains a possibility that the attacker may have been ISIS/ISIL/Daesh forces, some of which are apparently in that area, and who would have a motive for doing so. However, there are strong claims made by US officials that it was Kati'b Hezbollah, commanded by al-Mushani. I have also seen a report that Soleimani visited Shia militia leaders in Baghdad in late October, supposedly auggesting they attack US forces and supplying them with Katyusha rockets and other arms, with the attack on K-1 involving the use of such rockets.
I
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Can The US Assassination Of Qasem Solemiani Be Justified?
We know from various Congressional folks that briefers of Congress have failed to produce any evidence of "imminent" plans to kill Americans Soleimani was involved with that would have made this a legal killing rather than an illegal assassination. The public statements by administration figures have cited such things as the 1979 hostage crisis, the already dead contractor, and, oh, the need to "reestablish deterrence" after Trump did not follow through on previous threats he made. None of this looks remotely like "imminent plans," not to mention that the Iraqi PM Abdul-Mahdi has reported that Soleimani was on the way to see him with a reply to a Saudi peace proposal. What a threatening imminent plan!
As it is, despite the apparent lack of "imminent plans" to kill Americans, much of the supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters (with bragging about it having reportedly been put up on Trump's reelection funding website) involves charges that Soleimani was "the world's Number One terrorist" and was personally responsible for killing 603 Americans in Iraq. Even as many commentators have noted the lack of any "imminent plans," pretty much all American ones have prefaced these questions with assertions that Soleimani was unquestionable "evil" and "bad" and a generally no good guy who deserved to be offed, if not right at this time and in this way. He was the central mastermind and boss of a massive international terror network that obeyed his orders and key to Iran's reputed position as "the Number One state supporter of terrorism," with Soleimani the key to all of that.
Of course, in Iran it turns out that Soleimani was highly respected, even as many oppose the hawkish policies he was part of. He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr. It appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World's Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was responsible killing "hundreds of thousands." Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were (and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths cannot be labeled "terrorism." That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani's al Quds are not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military. Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US datinrg back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians. Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani's assassination. And we also have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However, when Soleimani's body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani's son accompanied his body. It really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
I guess I should note for the record that I am not a fan of the Iranian regime, much less the IGRC and its former and new commander. It is theocratic and repressive, with many political prisoners and a record of killing protestors. However, frankly, it is not clearly all that much worse than quite a few of its neighboring regimes. While Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei was not popularly elected, its president, Rouhani, was, who obeyed popular opinion in negotiating the JCPOA that led to the relaxation of economic sanctions, with his power reduced when Trump withdrew from the agreement. Its rival Saudi Arabia has no democracy at all, and is also a religiously reactionary and repressive regime that uses bone saws on opponents and is slaughtering civilians in a neighboring nation.
Barkley Rosser
As it is, despite the apparent lack of "imminent plans" to kill Americans, much of the supporting rhetoric for this assassination coming out of Trump supporters (with bragging about it having reportedly been put up on Trump's reelection funding website) involves charges that Soleimani was "the world's Number One terrorist" and was personally responsible for killing 603 Americans in Iraq. Even as many commentators have noted the lack of any "imminent plans," pretty much all American ones have prefaced these questions with assertions that Soleimani was unquestionable "evil" and "bad" and a generally no good guy who deserved to be offed, if not right at this time and in this way. He was the central mastermind and boss of a massive international terror network that obeyed his orders and key to Iran's reputed position as "the Number One state supporter of terrorism," with Soleimani the key to all of that.
Of course, in Iran it turns out that Soleimani was highly respected, even as many oppose the hawkish policies he was part of. He was viewed as crucial to the victory over ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in Iraq, much feared by Iranians. Shia take martyrdom seriously, and he is viewed as a martyr. It appears that even Trump took notice of the massive outpouring of mourning and praise for Soleimani there up to the point of people dying in a stampede in a mourning crowd in his hometown. But, hey, obviously these people simply do not understand that he was The World's Number One Terrorist! Heck, I saw one commenter on Marginal Revolution claiming Soleimani was responsible killing "hundreds of thousands." Yes, this sort of claim is floating around out there.
A basic problem here is that while indeed Soleimani commanded the IGRC al Quds force that supported and supplied various Shia militias in several Middle Eastern nations, these all were (and are) ultimately independent. Soleimani may have advised them, but he was never in a position to order any of them to do anything. Al Quds itself has never carried out any of the various attacks outside of Iran that Soleimani is supposedly personally responsible for.
Let us consider the specific case that gets pushed most emphatically, the 603 Americans dead in Iraq, without doubt a hot button item here in the US. First of all, even if Soleimani really was personally responsible for their deaths, there is the technical matter that their deaths cannot be labeled "terrorism." That is about killing non-combatant civilians, not military personnel involved in combat. I do not support the killing of those American soldiers, most of whom were done in by IEDs, which also horribly injured many more. But indeed this awful stuff happened. But in fact this was all done by Iraqi -based Shia militias. Yes, they were supported by Soleimani, but while some have charged al Quds suppplied the IEDs, this turns out not to be the case. These were apparently made in Iraq by these local militias. Soleimani's al Quds are not totally innocent in all this, reportedly providing some training and some inputs. But the IEDs were made by the militias themselves and planted by them.
It is also the case that when the militias and Americans were working together against ISIS/IISIL/Daesh, none of this happened, and indeed that was still the case up until this most recent set of events, with the death setting off all this an American civilian contractor caught on a base where several Iraqis were killed by a rocket from the Kat'b Hezbollah Iraqi group. Of course with Trump having Soleimani assassinated, this cooperation has ceased, with the US military no longer either fighting ISIS/ISIL/Daesh nor training the Iraqi military. Indeed, the Iraqi parliament has demanded that US troops leave entirely, although Trump threatened Iraq with economic sanctions if that is followed through on.
As it is, the US datinrg back to the Obama administration has been supplying Saudi Arabia with both arms and intelligence that has been used to kill thousands of Yemeni civilians. Frankly, US leaders look more like terrorists than Soleimani.
I shall close by noting the major changes in opinion in both Iran and Iraq regarding the US as a result of this assassination. In Iran as many have noted there were major demonstrations against the regime going on, protesting bad economic conditions, even as those substantially were the result of the illegal US economic sanctions imposed after the US withdrew from the JCPOA nuclear deal, to which Iran was adhering. Now those demonstrations have stopped and been replaced by the mass demonstrations against the US over Soleimani's assassination. And we also have Iran further withdrawing from that deal and moving to more highly enrich uranium.
In Iraq, there had been major anti-Iran demonstrations going on, with these supported to some degree by the highest religious authority in the nation, Ayatollah Ali Sistani. However, when Soleimani's body was being transferred to Iran, Sistani's son accompanied his body. It really is hard to see anything that justifies this assassination.
I guess I should note for the record that I am not a fan of the Iranian regime, much less the IGRC and its former and new commander. It is theocratic and repressive, with many political prisoners and a record of killing protestors. However, frankly, it is not clearly all that much worse than quite a few of its neighboring regimes. While Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei was not popularly elected, its president, Rouhani, was, who obeyed popular opinion in negotiating the JCPOA that led to the relaxation of economic sanctions, with his power reduced when Trump withdrew from the agreement. Its rival Saudi Arabia has no democracy at all, and is also a religiously reactionary and repressive regime that uses bone saws on opponents and is slaughtering civilians in a neighboring nation.
Barkley Rosser
Small Town Support for Trump and “The Working Class”
Much has been written about voters, sometimes labeled the “white working class”, who live in small towns, have low incomes and supported Trump in 2016. There are various hypotheses—not, despite the rhetoric, mutually exclusive—that have been proposed to explain this: never-ending latent racism galvanized by the experience of having a black president, a vote of despair in the face of economic decline, paranoia fueled by fictitious narratives of immigrant crowding and crime. I just finished reading a post-mortem on the recent British election that, by analogy, suggests two more hypotheses about Trumpism:
1) With decades-long declines in deindustrializing areas, there has been a steady outflow of mostly younger residents. This has a tendency to shift the politics of those who remain to the right based on age considerations alone, but the outflow is likely selective in other respects as well. Those who light out to the cities are probably better educated and more tuned in to trends in metropolitan culture, taking their blue votes to jurisdictions that already pile up big majorities for Democrats.
2) What do people do when they lose their long-term jobs in manufacturing and the relatively well-paid services that cluster around manufacturing nodes? If they don’t emigrate, what’s left? Many look for bits of opportunity where they can find them, combinations of self-employment, gig work, off-the-books service work, etc. Those who scrounge for income in these ways are the same people as the workers who were laid off during deindustrialization, but their class position has changed. They no longer look to unions or government regulation to protect their interest against employers, quite the opposite. Union work now competes with them, and regulation just makes it harder to cut the corners their livelihood depends on cutting. In other words, their income has gone down but they are less “working class” than before.
Just to be clear, I’m not pushing these explanations. They are just hypotheses, and it isn’t obvious to me what kind of evidence would adjudicate them.
1) With decades-long declines in deindustrializing areas, there has been a steady outflow of mostly younger residents. This has a tendency to shift the politics of those who remain to the right based on age considerations alone, but the outflow is likely selective in other respects as well. Those who light out to the cities are probably better educated and more tuned in to trends in metropolitan culture, taking their blue votes to jurisdictions that already pile up big majorities for Democrats.
2) What do people do when they lose their long-term jobs in manufacturing and the relatively well-paid services that cluster around manufacturing nodes? If they don’t emigrate, what’s left? Many look for bits of opportunity where they can find them, combinations of self-employment, gig work, off-the-books service work, etc. Those who scrounge for income in these ways are the same people as the workers who were laid off during deindustrialization, but their class position has changed. They no longer look to unions or government regulation to protect their interest against employers, quite the opposite. Union work now competes with them, and regulation just makes it harder to cut the corners their livelihood depends on cutting. In other words, their income has gone down but they are less “working class” than before.
Just to be clear, I’m not pushing these explanations. They are just hypotheses, and it isn’t obvious to me what kind of evidence would adjudicate them.
Monday, January 6, 2020
Are We Living In The "Capitalocene"?
I also attended the last session listed in the program at the ASSA at 2:30 on Sunday, an URPE session on "Ecology, the Environment, and Energy," chaired by Paul Cooney. He presented on "Marxism and Ecological Economics: An Assessment of the Past, Present, and Future." Lynne Chester presented on "Energy and Social Ontology: Can Social Ontology Provide Insight?" Finally Ann Davis presented on ""'Home on the Range:' Integrating the Household and Ecology." There were a lot of interesting ideas in these talks, and there was a vigorous discussion about them involving the audience.
What I want to present here is not anything in particular from the talks, but rather a remark from probably the most insightful commenter in the audience. That was my old friend, David Barkin, who has lived in Mexico for a long time and is at Metropolitan University in Mexico City. Long an expert on Mexican agriculture, he has in more recent years written a lot on ecological economics from a radical perspective.
Near the end of the session as the discussion was going on about all the papers, he brought up an idea I was unaware of previously, although it has been around for awhile. It is due to the late German Marxist political scientist, Elmar Altvater, who first became known for writing on environmental problems in the Soviet Union.
So the concept he introduced is that rather than the world being in the "Anthropocene," we are in the "Capitalocen.e." We may have been the former since humanity first emerged as a species and began heavily impacting the environment, including through bringing about species extinctions. But in the last several hundred years we have moved into this much more damaging system of the Capitalocene.
This is a serious and challenging idea.
Barkley Rosser
What I want to present here is not anything in particular from the talks, but rather a remark from probably the most insightful commenter in the audience. That was my old friend, David Barkin, who has lived in Mexico for a long time and is at Metropolitan University in Mexico City. Long an expert on Mexican agriculture, he has in more recent years written a lot on ecological economics from a radical perspective.
Near the end of the session as the discussion was going on about all the papers, he brought up an idea I was unaware of previously, although it has been around for awhile. It is due to the late German Marxist political scientist, Elmar Altvater, who first became known for writing on environmental problems in the Soviet Union.
So the concept he introduced is that rather than the world being in the "Anthropocene," we are in the "Capitalocen.e." We may have been the former since humanity first emerged as a species and began heavily impacting the environment, including through bringing about species extinctions. But in the last several hundred years we have moved into this much more damaging system of the Capitalocene.
This is a serious and challenging idea.
Barkley Rosser
Might We Be On The Verge Of An "Upswing"?
One of the more dramatic sessions at the just-completed ASSA meetings in San Diego was an AEA panel on "Deaths from Despair and the Future of Capitalism" on Saturday at 2:30. Chaired by Angus Deaton, it focused on the book by him and his wife/coauthor Anne Case with the same title as the panel session. Case spoke on their book. This was followed by Robert Putnam, who spoke on his forthcoming (in about six months) new book, The Upswing, which this post will focus on. This was followed by Raghuram Rajan, who spoke about his recently published book, The Third Pillar: The Community. Finally Ken Rogoff commented on the Case/Deaton book, although he has no new book of his own.
So all of these focused on the declining life expectancy in the US, along with the associated broader breakdown of community and equality and so on. Putnam presented a series of figures showing the long term trends on various variables from equality to memberships in organization to degrees of political polarization to the relative use of the words "we" and "I" in books published from the 1880s to the present. He showed a trend where basically there was improvement from around 1900 to the 1960w (1970s in the case of equality) All of these have since gone down basically steadily to the point that we are now "in about the same condition as we last were in the gilded age."
This leads to Putnam posing a possible optimism the possibility of the "Upswing" in the title of his forthcoming book. He argued at the end of his talk that we should consider what happened back then: the emergence of the Progressive movement that started that upward trajectory of social capital. He argues that since we did this back then, it can happen again, the Upswing. Can it? I do not know, but maybe he is right to push for such an outcome, although it may take getting rid of our current president.
Barkley Rosser
So all of these focused on the declining life expectancy in the US, along with the associated broader breakdown of community and equality and so on. Putnam presented a series of figures showing the long term trends on various variables from equality to memberships in organization to degrees of political polarization to the relative use of the words "we" and "I" in books published from the 1880s to the present. He showed a trend where basically there was improvement from around 1900 to the 1960w (1970s in the case of equality) All of these have since gone down basically steadily to the point that we are now "in about the same condition as we last were in the gilded age."
This leads to Putnam posing a possible optimism the possibility of the "Upswing" in the title of his forthcoming book. He argued at the end of his talk that we should consider what happened back then: the emergence of the Progressive movement that started that upward trajectory of social capital. He argues that since we did this back then, it can happen again, the Upswing. Can it? I do not know, but maybe he is right to push for such an outcome, although it may take getting rid of our current president.
Barkley Rosser
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Is The Chines Economic System the "Mandarin Growth Model" or the "Chinese-Style Keiretsu System"?
The first term in this choice was the title of a paper presented this morning (1/4/20) at the ACES/ASSA session at 8 AM in San Diego by Wei Xiong of Princeton University. It was a highly mathematical model I shall describe shortly, but which drew heavily on the paper presented before it by Chenggan Xu of Cheng Kong Graduate School of Business in Beijing, the alma mater of Jack Ma who founded Alibaba and the founder of Sinopec and the richest woman in China, etc. His paper was titled "Institutional Genes of China's Socio-Economic Development," with it discussed by the current ACES (Association of Comparative Economics) president, Scott Rozelle of Stanford.
The simplistic version of the "Mandarin model of growth" according to Wei Xiong is "political centralization with fiscal decentralization." He then presented a math model of incentives for regional governors in a growth tournament being judged by the central government. These governments face a choice of long term growth-enhancing infrastructure investment versus short-term consumption spending. He argues this leads to a "rat race of shadow banking borrowing" that is putting the Chinese system into peril as the debt-GDP ratio has been sharply rising, with much of this in the shadow banking sector. This was what I heard about personally on my last trip to China a few years ago, a lot of concern about the growth of the shadow banking sector, driven by local governments.
The historical underpinning of this Mandarin growth model was laid out in the paper by Xu who presented a tripartite system: The ruling bureaucracy, the system of deciding who was in that ruling bureaucracy, and the system and reality of land ownership. In the imperial system the bureaucracy was the Mandarin elite who were in the earlier and less-corrupt stages of dynasties selected according to the Confucianist Mandarin exam system originated in the Han dynasty. This was separated from land ownership at that stage, but at later stages of a dynasty the sign of rising corruption was the breakdown of the exam system as land-owning Mandarins got their incompetent sons appointed to the bureaucracy.
In contrast to this clearly still important system, it appears a new system is arising in China. I should be clear that the label in the title is my neologism for this. system. The paper that presented it was titled "The Growth of Conglomerates in China," presented by Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago, with Chong Bai of Tsinghua University in Beijing and two professors from the Chinese University of Hong Kong as coauthors. Chang admitted upfront that what he was describing are not really conglomerates, which are single corporations operating in many sectors. This is what the pre-WW II Japanese zaibatsu looked like and what the current South Korean chaebol (jaibul) look like. But these structures now taking over the Chinese economy are not single corporations but rather large interconnected groups of them. While they do not exactly resemble the Japanese keiretsu groups, that looks to me to be their closest models, although they have substantial differences. Hence my neologism: "Chines-style keiretsu."
So here is the bottom line. The paper was inspired by a 2012 New York Times story on "hidden ownership" in Chinese companies that led to the NY Times getting blocked in China, still in place. These researchers followed the sources used by the Times to investigate and fully lay out the ownership structures of leading Chinese corporations. A crucial pattern in this is of multiple layers of holding companies owning holding companies holding companies owning holding companies to an almost unbelievable degree along with "real companies" and state-owned companies, with this structure like the Japanese keiretsu involving a vertical structure of input suppliers and output subsidiaries of several layers often. This even gets down to a large company owning a major provincial bank that then owns many local banks that fund many local enterprises, some of whom are either suppliers or outlets of the core company, with many of these involved in joint ventures with other companies in other networks. Oh yes, this is really complicated.
The current summary stats on all this are that that the top 100 Chinese companies now own half the capital stock of China. The average number of layers of ownership in one of these companies is 23. A weird detail is that when they finally come to the end of these long trails of holding companies to actual people, usually well connected politically, it seems to almost always be two of them. Why this Hsieh had no explanation.
An important issue involves what is at the core of this. In a Japanese keietsu, it is a privately owned bank. In these Chinese-style keiretsu it turns out to be a major state-owned enterprise. The paper shows a link between the size and political connectedness of this core SOE and both the total size of the network and the number of layers within it, with a math proof of the latter point.
To get to the intra-Chinese systemic competition point, in the older Mandarin model the local Communist Party chief was running the show. In this newer emerging system that person gets bypassed as local companies get absorbed into these larger national entities that depend ultimately on the political connectedness ot the owners of the various related firms and the power and connectedness of the ultimate core state-owned enterprise. That the core is state-owned is another difference between the Japanese keiretsu and these Chinese-style keiretsu.
Which system will come to dominate in the future remains up in the air, but for now it looks like this newly emerging "Chinese-style keiretsu" system is what is what is on the risee, and maybe it can avoid and maybe even mitigate the mushrooming shadow banking debt arising from the inter-provincial growth tournament of the old Mandarin growth model.
Oh, Hsieh mentioned that there was one major Chinese company that did not at all exhibit this structure, looking like a more or less "normal" international company. That is Huawei.
Barkley Rosser
The simplistic version of the "Mandarin model of growth" according to Wei Xiong is "political centralization with fiscal decentralization." He then presented a math model of incentives for regional governors in a growth tournament being judged by the central government. These governments face a choice of long term growth-enhancing infrastructure investment versus short-term consumption spending. He argues this leads to a "rat race of shadow banking borrowing" that is putting the Chinese system into peril as the debt-GDP ratio has been sharply rising, with much of this in the shadow banking sector. This was what I heard about personally on my last trip to China a few years ago, a lot of concern about the growth of the shadow banking sector, driven by local governments.
The historical underpinning of this Mandarin growth model was laid out in the paper by Xu who presented a tripartite system: The ruling bureaucracy, the system of deciding who was in that ruling bureaucracy, and the system and reality of land ownership. In the imperial system the bureaucracy was the Mandarin elite who were in the earlier and less-corrupt stages of dynasties selected according to the Confucianist Mandarin exam system originated in the Han dynasty. This was separated from land ownership at that stage, but at later stages of a dynasty the sign of rising corruption was the breakdown of the exam system as land-owning Mandarins got their incompetent sons appointed to the bureaucracy.
In contrast to this clearly still important system, it appears a new system is arising in China. I should be clear that the label in the title is my neologism for this. system. The paper that presented it was titled "The Growth of Conglomerates in China," presented by Chang-Tai Hsieh of the University of Chicago, with Chong Bai of Tsinghua University in Beijing and two professors from the Chinese University of Hong Kong as coauthors. Chang admitted upfront that what he was describing are not really conglomerates, which are single corporations operating in many sectors. This is what the pre-WW II Japanese zaibatsu looked like and what the current South Korean chaebol (jaibul) look like. But these structures now taking over the Chinese economy are not single corporations but rather large interconnected groups of them. While they do not exactly resemble the Japanese keiretsu groups, that looks to me to be their closest models, although they have substantial differences. Hence my neologism: "Chines-style keiretsu."
So here is the bottom line. The paper was inspired by a 2012 New York Times story on "hidden ownership" in Chinese companies that led to the NY Times getting blocked in China, still in place. These researchers followed the sources used by the Times to investigate and fully lay out the ownership structures of leading Chinese corporations. A crucial pattern in this is of multiple layers of holding companies owning holding companies holding companies owning holding companies to an almost unbelievable degree along with "real companies" and state-owned companies, with this structure like the Japanese keiretsu involving a vertical structure of input suppliers and output subsidiaries of several layers often. This even gets down to a large company owning a major provincial bank that then owns many local banks that fund many local enterprises, some of whom are either suppliers or outlets of the core company, with many of these involved in joint ventures with other companies in other networks. Oh yes, this is really complicated.
The current summary stats on all this are that that the top 100 Chinese companies now own half the capital stock of China. The average number of layers of ownership in one of these companies is 23. A weird detail is that when they finally come to the end of these long trails of holding companies to actual people, usually well connected politically, it seems to almost always be two of them. Why this Hsieh had no explanation.
An important issue involves what is at the core of this. In a Japanese keietsu, it is a privately owned bank. In these Chinese-style keiretsu it turns out to be a major state-owned enterprise. The paper shows a link between the size and political connectedness of this core SOE and both the total size of the network and the number of layers within it, with a math proof of the latter point.
To get to the intra-Chinese systemic competition point, in the older Mandarin model the local Communist Party chief was running the show. In this newer emerging system that person gets bypassed as local companies get absorbed into these larger national entities that depend ultimately on the political connectedness ot the owners of the various related firms and the power and connectedness of the ultimate core state-owned enterprise. That the core is state-owned is another difference between the Japanese keiretsu and these Chinese-style keiretsu.
Which system will come to dominate in the future remains up in the air, but for now it looks like this newly emerging "Chinese-style keiretsu" system is what is what is on the risee, and maybe it can avoid and maybe even mitigate the mushrooming shadow banking debt arising from the inter-provincial growth tournament of the old Mandarin growth model.
Oh, Hsieh mentioned that there was one major Chinese company that did not at all exhibit this structure, looking like a more or less "normal" international company. That is Huawei.
Barkley Rosser
Saturday, January 4, 2020
Killing Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis
Most of the attention in this recent attack by a US drone at the Baghdad Airport has been on it killing Iranian Quds Force commadder, Qasim (Qassem) Solmaini (Suleimani), supposedly plotting an "imminent" attack on Americans as he flew a commercial airliner to Iraq at the invitation of its government and passed through passport control. But much less attention has been paid to the killing in that attat of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, commander of the Popular Mobilization Forces in Iraq and reportedly an officer in the Iraqi military, as well as being accoeding to Juan Cole a Yazidi Kurd, although the PMF is identified as being a Shia militia allied with Iran.
The problem here is that supposedly US leaders approved this strike because there were no Iraqi officials in this grroup; it was supposedly "clean." But there was al-Muhandis, with his PMF also allied to a political faction, the Fath, who hold 48 seats in the Iraqi parliament. The often anti-Iranian Shia lieader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has now joined wirh Fath and other groups to demand a vote in the parliament to order a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It might be good for them to go, although Trump has just sent in 3,500 more Marines to protect the US embassy that came under attack and protests after an earlier US attack on pro-Iranian militas.
Solemaini may have been ultimately behind the killing of up to 600 Americans by pro-Iranian militias during the war in Iraq. But he has also worked with the US both in the aftermath of 8/11/01 against the Taliban in Afghanistan and more recently against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in Iraq, with those efforts now jeopardized by this US attack.
There is much more that can be said about this, but among less noticed responses I note that although Israeli PM Netanyahu made a strong statement supporting the attack, apparently he has ordered his aides not to talk about it further, and the Israelis are worried about possible escalation of this In KSA, "Bone-Saw" MbS has said nothing, although supposedly the Saudi had sought to kill Solemaini themselves.
Oh, and of course Mike Pompeo announced that this move has made Americans "safe" in the region, even as Americans have been urged to leave Iraq immediately. So, yeah, they will be more safe by getting the heck out.
Oh, and of course Solemaini has been replaced by his deputy, who I imagine will continue whatever nefarious plots Solemaini was working on. The idea that killing Solemaini will slow any of this down, especially now with many Shia invoking Solemaini as a martyr, a major theme of Shiism, looks highly unlikely.
Barkley Rosser
Addenda:
1) The Iraqi parliament has voted to recommend that US troops be expelled from the nation even though apparently there are villages in northern Iraq under the control of remnants of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
2) Iran has further withdrawn from the JCPOA nuclear deal. While IAEA inspectors will still be allowed into the country, limits on centrifuges and enriching of uranium are ending. Trump's efforts to get Iran to the table to negotiate a tighter deal are completely shredded.
The problem here is that supposedly US leaders approved this strike because there were no Iraqi officials in this grroup; it was supposedly "clean." But there was al-Muhandis, with his PMF also allied to a political faction, the Fath, who hold 48 seats in the Iraqi parliament. The often anti-Iranian Shia lieader, Moqtada al-Sadr, has now joined wirh Fath and other groups to demand a vote in the parliament to order a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq. It might be good for them to go, although Trump has just sent in 3,500 more Marines to protect the US embassy that came under attack and protests after an earlier US attack on pro-Iranian militas.
Solemaini may have been ultimately behind the killing of up to 600 Americans by pro-Iranian militias during the war in Iraq. But he has also worked with the US both in the aftermath of 8/11/01 against the Taliban in Afghanistan and more recently against ISIS/ISIL/Daesh in Iraq, with those efforts now jeopardized by this US attack.
There is much more that can be said about this, but among less noticed responses I note that although Israeli PM Netanyahu made a strong statement supporting the attack, apparently he has ordered his aides not to talk about it further, and the Israelis are worried about possible escalation of this In KSA, "Bone-Saw" MbS has said nothing, although supposedly the Saudi had sought to kill Solemaini themselves.
Oh, and of course Mike Pompeo announced that this move has made Americans "safe" in the region, even as Americans have been urged to leave Iraq immediately. So, yeah, they will be more safe by getting the heck out.
Oh, and of course Solemaini has been replaced by his deputy, who I imagine will continue whatever nefarious plots Solemaini was working on. The idea that killing Solemaini will slow any of this down, especially now with many Shia invoking Solemaini as a martyr, a major theme of Shiism, looks highly unlikely.
Barkley Rosser
Addenda:
1) The Iraqi parliament has voted to recommend that US troops be expelled from the nation even though apparently there are villages in northern Iraq under the control of remnants of ISIS/ISIL/Daesh.
2) Iran has further withdrawn from the JCPOA nuclear deal. While IAEA inspectors will still be allowed into the country, limits on centrifuges and enriching of uranium are ending. Trump's efforts to get Iran to the table to negotiate a tighter deal are completely shredded.
Tuesday, December 31, 2019
2020 Hindsight: Why the world is not zero-sum
According to a report, Global Waves of Debt, pre-published by the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development:
Happy New Year!
Waves of debt accumulation have been a recurrent feature of the global economy over the past fifty years. In emerging and developing countries, there have been four major debt waves since 1970. The first three waves ended in financial crises—the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, the Asia financial crisis of the late 1990s, and the global financial crisis of 2007-2009.
A fourth wave of debt began in 2010 and debt has reached $55 trillion in 2018, making it the largest, broadest and fastest growing of the four. While debt financing can help meet urgent development needs such as basic infrastructure, much of the current debt wave is taking riskier forms. Low-income countries are increasingly borrowing from creditors outside the traditional Paris Club lenders, notably from China. Some of these lenders impose non-disclosure clauses and collateral requirements that obscure the scale and nature of debt loads. There are concerns that governments are not as effective as they need to be in investing the loans in physical and human capital. In fact, in many developing countries, public investment has been falling even as debt burdens rise.
We hear from time to time that "the world is not zero sum." Rarely is that dictum explained in other than mystical terms (e.g. "supply creates its own demand," "human wants are insatiable," etc.). The explanation, however, is simple: debt. Without debt there would be no "economic growth."
Debt finances growth; growth services debt. And they all lived happily ever after. But some debt takes "riskier forms." Hyman Minsky wrote about the first of those four debt waves in "The Bubble in the Price of Baseball Cards." In that paper Minsky addressed the price of baseball cards, the Latin American debt crisis, the Japanese, Korean and Taiwanese real estate and equity booms of the '80s, and "[o]ne of the puzzles of the 1980s... the rapid rise in the financial wealth of Donald Trump."
What the rise in Trump's wealth had in common with the Latin American debt crisis was that they both were predicated on a precarious differential between real interest rates and increases in asset values that could change very suddenly with an increase in the former or a decrease in the latter.
One of Minsky's best shots was a drive-by -- relating the regional increase in real estate prices to "rapid increase in incomes in banking and financial services -- sort of a derived demand from the financial success of Drexel Burnham." That Drexel Burnham "success" was, of course, transitory and involved fraud. The inference was that Trump's financial success, too, was ultimately -- at least indirectly -- fraudulent.
John Kenneth Galbraith coined the term "bezzle" for the amount by which total wealth is inflated by embezzlement in the period before the embezzlement is discovered:
At any given time there exists an inventory of undiscovered embezzlement in—or more precisely not in—the country’s business and banks. This inventory – it should perhaps be called the bezzle – amounts at any moment to many millions of dollars. It also varies in size with the business cycle.Any large quantity of debt includes an inventory of embezzlement. A certain amount of it will never be paid back. Some was never intended to be repaid. As the debt increases relative to income, the proportion of prospective embezzlement also increases.
Happy New Year!
Thiessen Balances His Policy Defense Of Trump
Several days ago I posted on Marc A. Thiessen's defense of 10 policies by Trump in WaPo. I must now credit him with today on New Year's Eve in the same venue publishing a column "The 10 worst things Trump did in 2019." Good for him, some balance after all. I agree these are all bad things, although I disagree with some of his analysis of them, with a few caveats especially on a couple of the foreign policy items. However, I shall just list them with Thiessen's conclusion.
10. He ridiculously claimed "Our country is FULL"
9. He used anti-Semitic tropes to attack his enemies.
8. He said the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan and congratulated China on the 70th anniversary of the Communist takeover.
7. He lost a needless government shutdown.
6. He used his emergency authority to circumvent Congress on the border wall.
5. He continued to spread the canard that the United States is fighting "endless wars."
4. He continued to attack dead people.
3. He asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden.
2. He invited the Taliban to Camp David.
1. He gave Turkey a green light to invade Syria and attack out Kurdish allies.
Thiessen concludes with the following paragraph:
"In past yearss, many entries on my 'worst' list were mistakes of style, not substance. But this year, the number and seriousness of the president's substantive mistakes grew. On balance, the good still outweighs the bad in the Trump presidency. But the bad is getting worse."
Again, Happy New Year, you all!
Barkley Rosser
10. He ridiculously claimed "Our country is FULL"
9. He used anti-Semitic tropes to attack his enemies.
8. He said the Soviet Union was right to invade Afghanistan and congratulated China on the 70th anniversary of the Communist takeover.
7. He lost a needless government shutdown.
6. He used his emergency authority to circumvent Congress on the border wall.
5. He continued to spread the canard that the United States is fighting "endless wars."
4. He continued to attack dead people.
3. He asked the president of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden.
2. He invited the Taliban to Camp David.
1. He gave Turkey a green light to invade Syria and attack out Kurdish allies.
Thiessen concludes with the following paragraph:
"In past yearss, many entries on my 'worst' list were mistakes of style, not substance. But this year, the number and seriousness of the president's substantive mistakes grew. On balance, the good still outweighs the bad in the Trump presidency. But the bad is getting worse."
Again, Happy New Year, you all!
Barkley Rosser
Forward Creeping Excessmass Wins The War On Christmas
"Excessmass" is a term neologized in a column in the late 1990s in the Wall Street Journal (sorry, unable to find precise date) by my JMU colleague, Bill Wood. A devout Brethren, he was and remains disgusted by the crass commercialism associated with the Christmas holiday in the US. In this column he proposed dividing the holiday into two: a strictly religious one, "the Nativity" without gift giving, and a gift giving one he argued should be called "Excessmass," a term that did not particularly catch on, but I am reviving as I see its forward creep as in fact damaging it not outright destroying the traditional religious Christmas, certainly far more vigorously than any bout of people saying "Happy Holidays!" to each other.
What triggered this post is that over the weekend in the Washington Post comics section (the most important part of the paper), nearly a quarter of the comics had a theme of "taking down the Christmas tree" or "taking down the Christmas decorations," and indeed in my neighborhood I saw several houses where there was a tree out on the street on either the 26th or 27th. Plus, for some years now a local radio station has started playing the schlocky commercial Xmas music ("Frosty the Snowman," etc.) starting a day or two after Halloween, but then on Dec. 26 is back to its usual pop music stuff. Hey, Christmas is over! Time to move on to Valentine's Day! And also this year I saw the stores breaking what had been a Halloween barrier (the Thanksgiving one long ago broken) and putting up all their Xmas stuff in October. Hey, with all that going on for so long, of course it is time to put all those decorations away the minute Christmas is over!
Well, let me note in fact how far all this has now moved from the formal religious Christmas, especially as seen by Roman Catholics around the world, as well as the more established "high" Protestant faiths like Episcopalianism and Lutheranism. Formally, the core Christmas holiday only begins on Christmas Day, indeed, the day after. Dec. 26, known as "Boxing Day" in the UK, is the actual "First Day of Christmas" of the 12, with the 12th day being the Epiphany, January 6. Not that long ago, lots of public places kept decorations up until then, but now it is an increasingly close call if they keep them up until New Year's Day.
Yes, there is recognition of an earlier period. The major churches recognize Advent, the runup to Christmas. It begins on December 1, but it was breached long ago by the commercial move to institute Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving for major Xmas shopping. As it is, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade has since the 1920s featured Santa Claus arriving at the end of the parade to mark the beginning of the Excessmass season, and indeed, while it is now forgotten, the modern image of Santa Claus was really cinched at that time and in connection with that parade. But, of course, as noted above, the Thanksgiving boundary was breached long ago, and now the Halloween one has been as well, leading to total exhaustion with it all once Christmas Day finally is reached.
I shall also note that especially in predominantly Catholic countries, the early celebrations do not get going until December 8, which I think is supposedly Mary's birthday, or something. Creches get put into churches then. But the creches stick around until the day Jesus was supposedly taken to the Temple after birth, which is also the Purification of the Virgin. This is 40 days after Christmas, that is February 2, or Candlemas in the Church, although Groundhog Day in the US. In any case, no way commercially minded Excessmass celebrators are going to have decorations up from Nov. 2 to Feb. 2, (although, of course there are those people who simply never take their decorations down).
Oh, and Happy New Year everybody, here on the Sixth Day of Christmas!
Barkley Rosser
What triggered this post is that over the weekend in the Washington Post comics section (the most important part of the paper), nearly a quarter of the comics had a theme of "taking down the Christmas tree" or "taking down the Christmas decorations," and indeed in my neighborhood I saw several houses where there was a tree out on the street on either the 26th or 27th. Plus, for some years now a local radio station has started playing the schlocky commercial Xmas music ("Frosty the Snowman," etc.) starting a day or two after Halloween, but then on Dec. 26 is back to its usual pop music stuff. Hey, Christmas is over! Time to move on to Valentine's Day! And also this year I saw the stores breaking what had been a Halloween barrier (the Thanksgiving one long ago broken) and putting up all their Xmas stuff in October. Hey, with all that going on for so long, of course it is time to put all those decorations away the minute Christmas is over!
Well, let me note in fact how far all this has now moved from the formal religious Christmas, especially as seen by Roman Catholics around the world, as well as the more established "high" Protestant faiths like Episcopalianism and Lutheranism. Formally, the core Christmas holiday only begins on Christmas Day, indeed, the day after. Dec. 26, known as "Boxing Day" in the UK, is the actual "First Day of Christmas" of the 12, with the 12th day being the Epiphany, January 6. Not that long ago, lots of public places kept decorations up until then, but now it is an increasingly close call if they keep them up until New Year's Day.
Yes, there is recognition of an earlier period. The major churches recognize Advent, the runup to Christmas. It begins on December 1, but it was breached long ago by the commercial move to institute Black Friday the day after Thanksgiving for major Xmas shopping. As it is, the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade has since the 1920s featured Santa Claus arriving at the end of the parade to mark the beginning of the Excessmass season, and indeed, while it is now forgotten, the modern image of Santa Claus was really cinched at that time and in connection with that parade. But, of course, as noted above, the Thanksgiving boundary was breached long ago, and now the Halloween one has been as well, leading to total exhaustion with it all once Christmas Day finally is reached.
I shall also note that especially in predominantly Catholic countries, the early celebrations do not get going until December 8, which I think is supposedly Mary's birthday, or something. Creches get put into churches then. But the creches stick around until the day Jesus was supposedly taken to the Temple after birth, which is also the Purification of the Virgin. This is 40 days after Christmas, that is February 2, or Candlemas in the Church, although Groundhog Day in the US. In any case, no way commercially minded Excessmass celebrators are going to have decorations up from Nov. 2 to Feb. 2, (although, of course there are those people who simply never take their decorations down).
Oh, and Happy New Year everybody, here on the Sixth Day of Christmas!
Barkley Rosser
Sunday, December 29, 2019
Protectionism and the election
Democrats need to campaign inter alia on a full-throated condemnation of Trump's protectionism. Over and over again, they need to point out that Trump has raised taxes on ordinary people with his tariffs -- we need to get an estimate of the net effect of the tax "cuts" less tariff-induced price increases and run with it. I have to say that years and years of "progressives' " apologia for protectionism -- the nonsense about the jobs destroyed by NAFTA (when jobs created are ignored!) is a case in point--has contributed to the current muteness of the Democrats on these issues.
Surely a full-throated anti-protectionist message could capture votes in rural America. And a non-negligible part of the pervasive corruption of this administration centers on the quid pro quos, explicit or implicit, that are involved in granting exemptions from tariffs --this needs to be investigated to a much greater extent.
Surely a full-throated anti-protectionist message could capture votes in rural America. And a non-negligible part of the pervasive corruption of this administration centers on the quid pro quos, explicit or implicit, that are involved in granting exemptions from tariffs --this needs to be investigated to a much greater extent.
Friday, December 27, 2019
The Unreasonableness Of The Policy Defense Of Trump
In today's (12/27/19) Washington Post, regular Trump defender, Mark A. Thiessen published a column, "The 10 best things Trump did in 2019" This turns out to be mostly things either not worth defending or Thiessen, who simply never criticizes Trump, misrepresenting situations. Here they are.
10. "He continued to deliver for the forgotten Americans." This amounts to unemployment continuing to decline, wages beginning to rise, and supposedly 57 percent of Americans saying they are better off since he became president. Yes, this by and large happened, but amounts to Trump managing to having avoided derailing the expansion he inherited from Obama. The problem is that he enacted many policies that have hurt the poor and redistributed money to the rich. They would have been even better off without his policies.
9. "He implemented tighter work requirements for food stamps." Yikes, more of his helping "forgotten Americans." This was the amazingly Scroogeish policy of dumping people from getting food stamps just as the holiday season arrived, probably part of the "War on Christmas." This supposedly to help the "dignity and pride" of the poor. Sure, Scrooge himself could not put it better.
8. "He has gotten NATO allies to cough up more money for our collective security." I guess the outcome here is not a bad thing, per se, although the amounts of money involved are not all that big. But this has been the only thing he has done regarding NATO, managing to alienate most of the leading nations in NATO, with him raising serious doubts regarding whether he would actually defend a nation that might be attacked by Russia. Their attitude is best seen by the bunch of leaders mocking him on tape at the last NATO meeting. They hate his guts and disrespect him.
7. "He stood with the people of Hong Kong." No he did not. This is Thiessen just engaging in fake news. Shameful and nauseating. Just a worthless liar.
6. "His withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is delivering China and North Korea a strategic setback." No it has not. I have seen zero commentators making this point. I agree that China not being in it has complicated things, and most believe that Russia had been in violation of it for a long time. But almost nobody abroad approved of Trump simply withdrawing from this important 1987 treaty negotiated by Reagan and Gorbachev. The European nations are especially disturbed by this action.
5. "His maximum pressure campaign is crippling Iran." This is true, but this in fact follows and reinforces probably the worst single foreign policy decision he has made: withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal to which Iran was adhering. He has indeed succeeded in imposing sanctions on Iran against the views of all but a handful of nations in the world, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia. So, wow, Iranian oil exports have fallen from 2.5 mbpd to about 10 percent of that. Yes, the Iranian economy has been thrown into serious stagflation. People are miserable. But has this brought us a new and improved agreement with Iran? No. And Iran has escalated actions against Saudi Arabia and in other places. This policy is both a practical disaster as well as being completely indefensible and immoral.
4. "His tariff threats forced Mexico to crack down on illegal immigration." Well, it probably did. But I disapprove of using tariff threats against a smaller and weaker neighboring nation, and I simply do not see illegal immigration as a bad thing. No, I am not a supporter of totally open borders, but I am not far from that. These people now blocked were desperate, and immigration helps both out economy and lowers our crime rate. There is really little here to be proud of.
3. "He delivered the biggest blow to Planned Parenthood in three decades." I completely support PP, so I view this as nothing but bad. Ugh.
2. "He ordered the operation that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi." OK, I approve of this. But Thiessen manages to undermine this two ways. First he fails to note that Trump neaely undid this by his stupid support for Turkey invading northeastern Syria against US allies against ISIS. This nearly undid this attack given that crucial information came from the Syrian Kurds. Apparently the attack was delayed and nearly did not happen. Thiessen also drags in that Biden supposedly questioned Obama's attack on bin Laden. This is just silly. This is at best a mixed bag.
1. "He has continued to appoint federal judges at a record pace." Needless to say, I see this as yet another thing I think is awful and reason to get him out. No mention here of how McConnell blocked Obama judicial appointments, but obviously he thinks the ends justify the means.
He then throws in a laundry list of other items, sort of a mixed bag, where he does allow just the slightest hint of criticism at one point: "Despite an inexcusable 55-day delay, he gave Ukraine the lethal aid that the Obama-Biden administration refused to deliver." Yeah, sure no reason for any impeachment there, despite a mention of "inexcusable." Yes, this Thiessen is a fair and balanced guy.
Barkley Rosser
10. "He continued to deliver for the forgotten Americans." This amounts to unemployment continuing to decline, wages beginning to rise, and supposedly 57 percent of Americans saying they are better off since he became president. Yes, this by and large happened, but amounts to Trump managing to having avoided derailing the expansion he inherited from Obama. The problem is that he enacted many policies that have hurt the poor and redistributed money to the rich. They would have been even better off without his policies.
9. "He implemented tighter work requirements for food stamps." Yikes, more of his helping "forgotten Americans." This was the amazingly Scroogeish policy of dumping people from getting food stamps just as the holiday season arrived, probably part of the "War on Christmas." This supposedly to help the "dignity and pride" of the poor. Sure, Scrooge himself could not put it better.
8. "He has gotten NATO allies to cough up more money for our collective security." I guess the outcome here is not a bad thing, per se, although the amounts of money involved are not all that big. But this has been the only thing he has done regarding NATO, managing to alienate most of the leading nations in NATO, with him raising serious doubts regarding whether he would actually defend a nation that might be attacked by Russia. Their attitude is best seen by the bunch of leaders mocking him on tape at the last NATO meeting. They hate his guts and disrespect him.
7. "He stood with the people of Hong Kong." No he did not. This is Thiessen just engaging in fake news. Shameful and nauseating. Just a worthless liar.
6. "His withdrawal from the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is delivering China and North Korea a strategic setback." No it has not. I have seen zero commentators making this point. I agree that China not being in it has complicated things, and most believe that Russia had been in violation of it for a long time. But almost nobody abroad approved of Trump simply withdrawing from this important 1987 treaty negotiated by Reagan and Gorbachev. The European nations are especially disturbed by this action.
5. "His maximum pressure campaign is crippling Iran." This is true, but this in fact follows and reinforces probably the worst single foreign policy decision he has made: withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal to which Iran was adhering. He has indeed succeeded in imposing sanctions on Iran against the views of all but a handful of nations in the world, notably Israel and Saudi Arabia. So, wow, Iranian oil exports have fallen from 2.5 mbpd to about 10 percent of that. Yes, the Iranian economy has been thrown into serious stagflation. People are miserable. But has this brought us a new and improved agreement with Iran? No. And Iran has escalated actions against Saudi Arabia and in other places. This policy is both a practical disaster as well as being completely indefensible and immoral.
4. "His tariff threats forced Mexico to crack down on illegal immigration." Well, it probably did. But I disapprove of using tariff threats against a smaller and weaker neighboring nation, and I simply do not see illegal immigration as a bad thing. No, I am not a supporter of totally open borders, but I am not far from that. These people now blocked were desperate, and immigration helps both out economy and lowers our crime rate. There is really little here to be proud of.
3. "He delivered the biggest blow to Planned Parenthood in three decades." I completely support PP, so I view this as nothing but bad. Ugh.
2. "He ordered the operation that killed Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi." OK, I approve of this. But Thiessen manages to undermine this two ways. First he fails to note that Trump neaely undid this by his stupid support for Turkey invading northeastern Syria against US allies against ISIS. This nearly undid this attack given that crucial information came from the Syrian Kurds. Apparently the attack was delayed and nearly did not happen. Thiessen also drags in that Biden supposedly questioned Obama's attack on bin Laden. This is just silly. This is at best a mixed bag.
1. "He has continued to appoint federal judges at a record pace." Needless to say, I see this as yet another thing I think is awful and reason to get him out. No mention here of how McConnell blocked Obama judicial appointments, but obviously he thinks the ends justify the means.
He then throws in a laundry list of other items, sort of a mixed bag, where he does allow just the slightest hint of criticism at one point: "Despite an inexcusable 55-day delay, he gave Ukraine the lethal aid that the Obama-Biden administration refused to deliver." Yeah, sure no reason for any impeachment there, despite a mention of "inexcusable." Yes, this Thiessen is a fair and balanced guy.
Barkley Rosser
Two Can’t Miss Sessions in San Diego Next Week
Well, I can’t miss them because I’m in them. You can, but why would you?
Climate Crisis Mitigation: Implementing a Green New Deal and More
Union for Radical Political Economics: Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 3, 10:15am–12:15pm
Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego - La Jolla B
“Financial Bailout Spending Would Have Paid for Thirty Years of Climate Crisis Mitigation: Implementing a Global Green New Deal and Marshall Plan” – Ron Baiman, Benedictine University
“Green New Deal: Interdisciplinary Heterodox Approaches” – Mathew Forstater, University of Missouri–Kansas City; Fadhel Kaboub, Denison University; Michael Murray, Bemidji State University
“The Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal: The Issue Is the Issue, After All” – Peter Dorman, Evergreen State College (emeritus)
Chair: Ron Baiman
Socialism in the Twenty-First Century
Union for Radical Political Economics: Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 4, 2:30–4:30pm
Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego - Coronado E
“Integrating Long-Term and Short-Term Participatory Planning” – Robin Hahnel, American University (emeritus); Allison Kerkhoff, University of British Columbia
“Stable Job or iPhones? The Dilemma of Innovation in Socialism” – David Kotz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Mihnea Tudoreanu, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Information Technology and the Socialist Mode of Production: A Simulation of the Point Allocation System” – Daniel Saros, Valparaiso University
“Social Equity Funds in a Pluralist Socialism” – Peter Dorman, Evergreen State College (emeritus)
Chair: Robin Hahnel
For those of you who have registered for this conference, both of my papers are now available on the ASSA’s app. Anyone else can click on the links for the two papers: Green New Deal and Social Equity Funds.
Climate Crisis Mitigation: Implementing a Green New Deal and More
Union for Radical Political Economics: Paper Session
Friday, Jan. 3, 10:15am–12:15pm
Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego - La Jolla B
“Financial Bailout Spending Would Have Paid for Thirty Years of Climate Crisis Mitigation: Implementing a Global Green New Deal and Marshall Plan” – Ron Baiman, Benedictine University
“Green New Deal: Interdisciplinary Heterodox Approaches” – Mathew Forstater, University of Missouri–Kansas City; Fadhel Kaboub, Denison University; Michael Murray, Bemidji State University
“The Climate Crisis and the Green New Deal: The Issue Is the Issue, After All” – Peter Dorman, Evergreen State College (emeritus)
Chair: Ron Baiman
Socialism in the Twenty-First Century
Union for Radical Political Economics: Paper Session
Saturday, Jan. 4, 2:30–4:30pm
Manchester Grand Hyatt San Diego - Coronado E
“Integrating Long-Term and Short-Term Participatory Planning” – Robin Hahnel, American University (emeritus); Allison Kerkhoff, University of British Columbia
“Stable Job or iPhones? The Dilemma of Innovation in Socialism” – David Kotz, University of Massachusetts, Amherst; Mihnea Tudoreanu, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
“Information Technology and the Socialist Mode of Production: A Simulation of the Point Allocation System” – Daniel Saros, Valparaiso University
“Social Equity Funds in a Pluralist Socialism” – Peter Dorman, Evergreen State College (emeritus)
Chair: Robin Hahnel
For those of you who have registered for this conference, both of my papers are now available on the ASSA’s app. Anyone else can click on the links for the two papers: Green New Deal and Social Equity Funds.
Sunday, December 22, 2019
Is There An Objective Reality?
Yes.
So this is the ontological question: is supposed apparently "objective" reality really real?
I come at this as someone who in the past questioned this. I had my period of post-modernist questioning of objective reality. This culminated in a paper, which I presented as a major address to receive a major recognition at my university, "Belief: Its role in economic theory and action," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1993.
I shall stand by the vast majority of things I said in that paper, now under criticism on various fronts, but not all. I shall note, without bothering to reply specifically to any of those comments here, that indeed I there are things in this paper I now disagree with. This was the height of my agreement with the pomo view of the universe. But I had moved on from the less defensible parts of that paper well before the general pomo exercise was to be revealed to be a pile of crap.in the Sokal expoese in 1996.
I have just finished reading main portions of the latest book by my friend, Lee Smolin, "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum," which is to be a Christmas present to a family member, "pretesting" of gifts we call it.
Lee is a friend of mine, and the big cheese at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, ON, CA. This is the place where the critics of string theory hang out, and Lee is their leader. I have spoken there, and I have lots of respect for this place and specifically many people thre beyond Lee Smolin, their general protector and supporter.
So, Lee is the leader of those who question the String theory explanation of ultimate reality. This now puts Lee and his associates at the PMI as "heterodox," as economists would say, given that there is no longer a clear disproof of the hypothesis.
Anyway, Smolin recognizes that this debate over the nature reality is important for current policy discussions. While he recognizes varieties of "anti-realists," the most important view going back through Wheeler and Bohr and Schrodinger is his cat problem: until somebody looks at it we do not know if it is alive or dead. But whether or not we view it; in the end it is one or the other. There really is an objective reality that has been proceeding long before we showed up to have ideas about it. At the bottom line, I agree with him, even as I continue to support most of what in my 93 paper.
I shall note, now especially as I have identified or economists, especially fans of this blog, the Perimeter Institute is the hangout of what supposedly does not exist, "heterodox physics theorists." Now I, as an old epistemologist, recognize that supposedly physics is "more real" than economics, with all its humans behaving weirdly and more. But, as Smolin notes, quantum mechanics is itself from Neils Bohr on down through Heisenberg and many others associated with an "anti-realist" view: reality is ultimately an interaction between humans and what they perceive: the cat is dead or alive only when some observer sees the cat. For Smolin, and according to him and the ultimate realist Eintein, the cat in the end is alive or dead. More fundamentally, on a point I take seriously. reality was around for billions of years before we showed up. Does somehow its reality depend on us on observing it?
Bottom line is that I agree with Lee that despite all the oddities of quantum mechanics in the end there really is an objective reality.
So now let us bring this to the current ongoing debates in political economy an admittedly less well-founded "science." So Smolin does make some observations on current discussions, where I completely agree with him. So, on climate change, yes, science is pretty clear: global warming is happening. What we do about is another matter. But global warming is a real reality actually happening.
Also, human beings got here through evolution. That is also an objective fact supported by virtually all of the available evidence, despite some odd details in evolutionary history. We really need to defend science against its attackers in the public arena.
Barkley Rosser
So this is the ontological question: is supposed apparently "objective" reality really real?
I come at this as someone who in the past questioned this. I had my period of post-modernist questioning of objective reality. This culminated in a paper, which I presented as a major address to receive a major recognition at my university, "Belief: Its role in economic theory and action," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 1993.
I shall stand by the vast majority of things I said in that paper, now under criticism on various fronts, but not all. I shall note, without bothering to reply specifically to any of those comments here, that indeed I there are things in this paper I now disagree with. This was the height of my agreement with the pomo view of the universe. But I had moved on from the less defensible parts of that paper well before the general pomo exercise was to be revealed to be a pile of crap.in the Sokal expoese in 1996.
I have just finished reading main portions of the latest book by my friend, Lee Smolin, "Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum," which is to be a Christmas present to a family member, "pretesting" of gifts we call it.
Lee is a friend of mine, and the big cheese at the Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, ON, CA. This is the place where the critics of string theory hang out, and Lee is their leader. I have spoken there, and I have lots of respect for this place and specifically many people thre beyond Lee Smolin, their general protector and supporter.
So, Lee is the leader of those who question the String theory explanation of ultimate reality. This now puts Lee and his associates at the PMI as "heterodox," as economists would say, given that there is no longer a clear disproof of the hypothesis.
Anyway, Smolin recognizes that this debate over the nature reality is important for current policy discussions. While he recognizes varieties of "anti-realists," the most important view going back through Wheeler and Bohr and Schrodinger is his cat problem: until somebody looks at it we do not know if it is alive or dead. But whether or not we view it; in the end it is one or the other. There really is an objective reality that has been proceeding long before we showed up to have ideas about it. At the bottom line, I agree with him, even as I continue to support most of what in my 93 paper.
I shall note, now especially as I have identified or economists, especially fans of this blog, the Perimeter Institute is the hangout of what supposedly does not exist, "heterodox physics theorists." Now I, as an old epistemologist, recognize that supposedly physics is "more real" than economics, with all its humans behaving weirdly and more. But, as Smolin notes, quantum mechanics is itself from Neils Bohr on down through Heisenberg and many others associated with an "anti-realist" view: reality is ultimately an interaction between humans and what they perceive: the cat is dead or alive only when some observer sees the cat. For Smolin, and according to him and the ultimate realist Eintein, the cat in the end is alive or dead. More fundamentally, on a point I take seriously. reality was around for billions of years before we showed up. Does somehow its reality depend on us on observing it?
Bottom line is that I agree with Lee that despite all the oddities of quantum mechanics in the end there really is an objective reality.
So now let us bring this to the current ongoing debates in political economy an admittedly less well-founded "science." So Smolin does make some observations on current discussions, where I completely agree with him. So, on climate change, yes, science is pretty clear: global warming is happening. What we do about is another matter. But global warming is a real reality actually happening.
Also, human beings got here through evolution. That is also an objective fact supported by virtually all of the available evidence, despite some odd details in evolutionary history. We really need to defend science against its attackers in the public arena.
Barkley Rosser
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