When did Israel Become "America's Best Ally"?

 In the recent US Vice Presidential debate, the current US VP, Mike Pence dropped a throaway line that until nobody has noticed until now. He labeled Israel as America's "best ally," or a term meaning the same thing.

I think that from at least 1917 the "best ally" of the US was either Canada or UK. Under Trump both of those alliances were downgraded, although they were loyal to us for all that time.

So now we have the supposedly new "best ally" (might be slightly different wording, but it means this), Israel.  

Now I am much more for Israel than many on the left and elsewhere. I have long supported the two-state solution set in Oslo in 1992 or thereabouts. But the current admin throws that into a trash can.

On June 8, 1967, Israel sank the USS Liberty, killing 34 American citizens, wounding 171. 

Sorry, Israel may be an "ally" of the USA, but this throaway line that somehow it is US.s "best" or "top" or "leading ally" is just a joke.

For the record, if the current POTUS is not reelected, this fantasy will be undone and we shall return to our long established relationships.  Sorry any fantasists who think otherwise, but Canada is a closer ally of the US than Israel.

Barkley Rosser

Voting in a Time of Covid: A Question about Judicial “Originalism”

The originalist theory of legal interpretation holds that judges, in reviewing the implementation of a statute, should be guided by the “plain meaning” of its language at the time it was adopted.  This is in opposition to the notion of a “living law”, whose interpretation should evolve as the conditions it addresses evolves.  For instance, originalists are appalled by Supreme Court decisions like Roe v Wade, since nowhere does the Constitution establish a right to bodily privacy, nor could the framers have plausibly thought back in the eighteenth century that the language they drafted encompassed such a right.  It is one interpretation of the living law view, on the other hand, that, as governments increasing acquired the administrative power to regulate our intimate lives, the zone of restriction implicit in the first amendment should be extended to measures that impinge on the freedom to control one’s own body.

Until his death the most vocal supporter of originalism on the Court was Antonin Scalia; now we are looking at the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, who describes herself as an acolyte of Scalia and a resolute defender of his philosophy.

Here is a case I would bring up if I were questioning Barrett.

The rules governing elections are established at the local and state levels, not federal, but the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of how they might be interpreted.  It is common for jurisdictions to have regulations prohibiting interference with or attempts to influence voters at voting sites.  In every instance I’ve seen this is expressed in terms of physical distance, something like “within 100 yards of the polling place”.  In enforcement this has always implied a radius extending from the door voters use to enter the building in which they will cast their vote.  You can’t hold signs and shout at voters, much less accost them, within so many feet of that door.

But voting has changed during the pandemic.  Social distancing has forced election officials to disperse voting booths, reducing the number of booths per site.  Lines also have to be distanced, and they now stretch out for many blocks, even the better part of a mile, from the door.  Because of this, voters waiting to cast their ballot are often beyond the specific distance specified in the law for prohibition of campaigning.

Should these prohibitions be interpreted according to their plain language, which unambiguously permits campaigning beyond a specified radial distance, or should they be understood more flexibly in terms of the changed circumstances of voting in a pandemic?

There is an easy way out, but on a little reflection it is obvious it doesn’t work.  That is, an originalist could say, “It’s clear that the purpose of the statute is to protect voters during the process of voting, which includes waiting to vote.  With the pandemic, that purpose can and should be served by overriding the numerical stipulation and extending prohibition to the entire voting line, no matter how long.”

Sounds good, but consider that (a) the authors of these laws could have used a qualitative description of the prohibited zone (“in close proximity to voting booths and lines”) but used a quantitative one instead, and (b) this is not the first pandemic; those in a position to write or amend these laws were familiar with the Spanish Influenza of 1918-19, where similar adaptations needed to be made.  Really, only one of two possibilities exist: either the laws should be taken at their word and judges, while they may lament how poorly they were written, can only enforce them literally, or it should be assumed that those drafting them expected that future generations would understand their purpose and apply them flexibly.  In the second possibility, the numerical demarcators were intended to convey a broader intent: you might say “within 100 yards” not to get out the tape measure but to express the idea that the immediate vicinity of the voting site should be differentiated from the community surrounding it.  That’s not a strange way of communicating intent.  Lots of rules parents set for children work that way.  “Be home by 11 pm” means you need to have a good reason to stay out later.  We could interpret voting regulations that way, but that puts us in living law-land.

So I’d ask Barrett about the enforcement of voting interference statutes during the pandemic and ask a follow up question when she tries, as she likely would, to give the easy-but-inadequate response about intent.

"Papa Haydn" or "Papa Bach"

 So a cultural diversion from all the current shouting.  Was it "Papa Haydn" or "Papa Bach"? And if the latter, which one, hint, probably not the more famous Johann Sebastian.

So Franz Josef Haydn (1732-1809) gets called that as he largely invented the modern form of the string quartet and the symphony (of which he composed 104), starting in the late 1750s as he held positions with various aristocratic families, following a youth in which he suffered extreme poverty and serious malnutrition.  He also codified the sonata allegro form, which, would along with firmly establishing modern keys, would become the basis by the 1780s when he completed his musical form innovations the classical form of classical music, aided by his younger friend, W.A. Mozart (1756-1791), with whom he played string quartets in Vienna and who got him into the premier masonic lodge of the city. This standard of composition would be the form that later composers would rebel and modify and extend and finally completely overthrow over the next century and a half, starting with Haydn's student, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) and arguably culminating with the total serialism of Elliott Carter in the mid-20th century.

However, it turns out that Haydn was deeply influenced by a particular composer, one who actually invented the sonata allegro form in particular.  That was Karl Philip Emmanuel Bach (1714-1788), whose manuscripts Haydn studied deeply during the 1760s as he developed his own style while working as Kappellmeister for the Estrhazy family from 1761 until his death, although he composed nothing after 1805 due to illness, the year Beethoven invented Romantic music with his Eroica Sympnyony No. 3, beginning the long deviation from Papa Haydn's standard.  K.P.E. Bach was the oldest son of J.S. Bach (1685-1750) and was long at the Court of Frederick the Great in Berlin, until moving in 1764 to Hamburg to replace his late godfather, Philip Telemann in a position there.

In his lifetime KPE Bach was far more well known and renowned than his father.  Both Haydn and Mozart were crucially influenced by him.  It was Mozart who recognized this by calling him "Papa Bach."  However, in the 19th century, Mendelsohn would revive interest in his father, who is now much better known.

Barkley Rosser

Open Thread

Spreadipus Rex seems to be suggesting that he deliberately infected himself and a whack of other people with the Covid "as your leader."

"The Masque of the Red Death" by Edgar Allan Poe, 1842

The red death had long devastated the country. No pestilence had ever been so fatal, or so hideous. Blood was its Avatar and its seal -- the madness and the horror of blood. There were sharp pains, and sudden dizziness, and then profuse bleeding at the pores, with dissolution. The scarlet stains upon the body and especially upon the face of the victim, were the pest ban which shut him out from the aid and from the sympathy of his fellow-men. And the whole seizure, progress, and termination of the disease, were incidents of half an hour.

But Prince Prospero was happy and dauntless and sagacious. When his dominions were half depopulated, he summoned to his presence a thousand hale and light-hearted friends from among the knights and dames of his court, and with these retired to the deep seclusion of one of his crenellated abbeys. This was an extensive and magnificent structure, the creation of the prince's own eccentric yet august taste. A strong and lofty wall girdled it in. This wall had gates of iron. The courtiers, having entered, brought furnaces and massy hammers and welded the bolts.

Is the Beady-Eyed Religious Fanatic A Major Superspreader Of The Pandemic?

 It now appears that the Rose Garden ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 26, presenting SCOTUS candidate Amy Coney Barrett, who has the beadiest eyes I have ever seen on any human being in my life, has turned into a superspreader event of SARS-Cov2. Among those who may have become infected include the president and his wife, along with at least two members of the Senate Judiciary Committee (Lee of UT and Tillis of NC), the president of Notre Dame University where Barrett was a law school prof, as well as others, with it likely more will be learned to have gotten it there.

This is a low probability theory, but clearly there was probably a super spreader individual at this ceremony, one upfront apparently, given where those infected were sitting.  Apparently the SCOTUS candidate herself, she of the creepy beady eyes, has already had the virus.  But we now learn that one who has had it can continue to spread the virus for quite a long time afterward.  So, it may be that this fanatic who most assuredly does not belong on the SCOTUS is the actual superspreader at this awful event.

I note my disagreement with Anonymous about use of the term "beady-eyed" regarding this horrible nominee for the court.  I deeply respect Anonymous, and I recognize for the record that A holds the view that this descriptor is "prejudicial." I note this for the record. 

However, for the record, I have disagreed with this view, so I am not at all surprised that this possible superspreader of this deadly virus is Beady-eyed! Beady-Eyed! Beady-Eyed! 

Barkley Rosser

Ponzi Finance II: quid pro quo

The real story revealed by the New York Times Trump tax returns bombshell is not that Donald Trump paid no taxes in 10 out of 15 years or that he paid $750 in 2016 and 2017. The real story is that he doesn't have net income to service his debt. There is nothing inherently illegal about that. He did it before in the 1980s and when real estate prices stopped rising in 1990, his creditors were left holding the bag.

Hyman Minsky wrote about Donald Trump's investment strategy in a 1990 talk, "The Bubble in the Price of Baseball Cards."

One of the puzzles of the 1980s was the rapid rise in the financial wealth of Donald Trump, author of The Art of the Deal, and what else. Trump’s fortune was made in real estate. Many large fortunes have been made in real estate, since real estate is highly leveraged. Two factors made Trump somewhat unique — one was the he developed a fortune in the period of high real interest rates, and the second was that the cash flows on most of Trump’s properties were negative.

Trump’s wealth surged because the market value of his properties — or at least the appraised value — was increasing faster than the interest rate. Trump obtained the funds to pay the interest on his outstanding loans by increasing the draw under what in effect was a home equity credit line. The efficiency with which Trump managed these properties was more or less irrelevant — hence Trump could acquire the Taj Mahal in Atlantic City without much concern about the impacts on the profits of the two casinos he already owned. Trump was golden — he had a magic touch — as long as property prices were increasing at a more rapid rate than the interest rate on the borrowed funds.

The puzzle is that the lenders failed to recognize that the arithmetic of his cash flows was virtually identical with that of the developing countries; in effect Trump was Brazil in drag. In the short run Trump could make his interest payments with funds from new loans — but when the increase in property prices declined to a value below the interest rate, Trump would become short of the cash necessary to pay the interest on the outstanding loans.

The increase in U.S. real estate prices in the 1980s was regional, and concentrated in the Northeast and in coastal California; for the country as a whole, real estate did not increase relative to the price level. The regional dispersion in the movement in real estate prices more or less paralleled the changes in personal income. Real estate prices dipped in the oil patch, climbed modestly in the rust belt, and surged in those areas that benefitted from the rapid increases in incomes in banking and financial services — sort of a derived demand from the financial success of Drexel Burnham. In effect, those individuals with high incomes in financial services — and with the prospect of sharp increase in incomes — set the pace for increases in real estate prices. 

...

Trump’s cousins were alive and well and flourishing in Tokyo, Taipei and Seoul especially in the second half of the 1980s. The prices of equities and real estate were increasing because they were increasing — the "greater fool theory" may have been relevant, in that the recent buyers believed there was a greater fool to whom they could sell these assets before the bubble imploded.

In any market economy the price of real estate will tend to reflect both its rental return and the rate of return on the riskless bond. Real estate is a riskier investment than bonds and even public utility stocks, so the anticipated return should be higher. But the real estate offers investors a more effective hedge against inflation. The cliché, "land is a good investment, the price of land always increases is right, wrong and irrelevant. The price of land rises and the price of land sometimes falls — the relevant question is whether the anticipated increase in the price of land is sufficiently higher than the interest rate on bonds to justify a riskier investment.

To make a long story short, when the interest rate on bonds rose above the rate of increase in real estate prices, Trump's real estate stopped being a "good investment." He could no longer pay off his old loans with the proceeds of new loans. Since his properties were money losers, there was no question of paying off his loans from his negative cash flow. That was Trump Ponzi Finance I.

The mystery of Ponzi Finance II is who would be "stupid" enough to loan hundreds of millions of dollars to a guy who had a track record of defaulting on hundreds of millions of dollars of loans and was recycling the same old racket? I'm sure you've all heard the expression quid pro quo? 

 

 

A Beady-Eyed Religious Fanatic For The Supreme Court

 Others may not see what I see when I look at a full-face photo of Amy Conet Barrett, but I see someone who looks like a fanatic to me, although that may be me reading in what I have heard of her views on things, she being Trump's nominee for the SCOTUS, with GOPsters in the Senate hypocritically ready to put her in there in time to help Trump steal the election.  

I know we are not supposed to pick on people for their religious views, but she does belong to a weird cult, the Praise for People group, which is not strictly Catholic as many have claimed, but did come out of the Catholic Charismatic movement in 1971 with most of its members Catholic.  It accepts such things as speaking in tongues, which is not something generally accepted by most Catholics, generally something practices by extreme Protestant sects. It also is sexist, with women forbidden from holding leadership position and with each member having to follow the lead of a "Head.

Those defending Barrett claim she is "very intelligent."  I am sure she is, but that does not keep her from being a fanatic.  She clerked for the late Justice Scalia, and conservatives want someone like him, but her views are more extreme than his.

Of course, she has criticized Roe v. Wade as well as the ACA, with a case on that being heard on Nov. 10 by the SCOTUS.  Clearly this is the issue Dems need to run hardest on in trying to oppose her, which will be hard given that even Sen. Murkowski of AK is thinking of supporting her.

As an example of just how extreme she is I note one item I have seen written about things she has written in academic publications.  It is known that she is an "Originalist," a term Scalia used for himself, which means one tries to rely on the original meaning of a term in a case from when the Constitution was writeen or when an amendment was adopted.  However, what is not so well known is that there are factions among these people, and apparently Barrett is part of an especially extreme faction that views both the 14th and 15th Amendments as not being legitimate because when they were passed by Congress, the Confederat states were not represented in Congress. Of course these amendments, especially the 14th, are the foundation of all SCOTUS rulings on civil rights and against discrimination on any grounds.

I shall add that indeed I am sorry RBG did not take the reportedly subtle invitation to resign that Obama offered to her in a lunch in 2013. But I also understand why she did not. One factor was that she had this competition with her old friend going on, Scalia, for whom Barrett clerked.  By the time he died 11 months before the next president would be sworn in was too late for her to do so, as we all know McConnell blocked even the moderate centrist Merrick Garland from even getting a hearing. And, of course, RBG was expecting HRC to be the next prez.  But that did not work out, much to all our disappointments, and for RBG, well, it looks that her final wish will not be obeyed, even though it is supported by a solid majority of the American public, including even 49% of Republicans reportedly. But the current Senate is not paying any attention to that in their rush to confirm Barrett before the election.

Barkley Rosser

Open Thread

It annoys me when people "comment" by pasting articles from the media that are unrelated to the original posts they are pasted to. The original post may get 500 or less visits and it is likely the irrelevant article is read by no one -- and certainly not by me. So here is a space for readers to paste articles from the media that they perhaps think no one else has seen. If it is successful in diverting irrelevant pasting, maybe I'll put up an open thread regularly.

Laughing to keep from Freaking Out

 On the theory that one effective weapon against an Insane Clown Would-be Dictator is ridicule, here is something I wrote a while ago.

The Second Coming 

“This is the greatest president for Jews and for Israel in the history of the world. Not just in America, Trump is the best president for Israel in the history of the world. And the Jewish people love him like he is the King of Israel. They love him like he is the second coming of God." –Wayne Allan Root

 “I take the gospel whenever it’s possible, but with a grain of salt.” –Sportin’ Life, in Porgy and Bess

 

Ok, Scoffers, I scoffed, too. But I went back to the Scriptures –the true scriptures, not the ones the dem--marxist-atheist haters just make up—and Lo, what do I find?

 Jesus made his first million shekels selling water with a little purple food-coloring as Jesus Wine. 

He met the woman at the well and called her a “Horse-face.”

 He started Jesus University, which promised that graduates would be able to do miracles just like him, the curriculum of which consisted of memorizing the entirety of The Art of the Heal, a Ghost-written, worthless piece of fiction. He was sued for fraud and settled.

 He started a foundation, the Jesus Foundation, which solicited funds for the poor and used them to pay off his own debts and finance giant pictures of himself.

 He mocked lepers and amused his followers with imitations of them.

 He sent the wise-men away from the manger, telling them “I love the poorly-educated.”

 After threatening Satan with fire and fury, he met him and “fell in love.”

 He evaded taxes and stone-walled all of Herod’s tax collectors’ requests for information, telling them, “You’ll have better luck getting a camel through the eye of a needle than you will getting a penny from me!”

 When he began to go bald, he went into the desert and asked God to “Take this cup from me.” God replied: “Verily I say unto you, comb it over already!”

 He threw the money-changers out of the Temple so he could turn it into luxury condos – financed by coerced loans from the money-changers themselves, who were never repaid.

 His dismissal of aspiring candidates for discipleship on his show Celebrity Disciple --“You’re damned!”— became a by-word in Jerusalem.

 Of course, his success came at a price. He knew what God wanted in return: that he must suffer for the sins of mankind by forfeiting his life. Here is where his brilliant negotiating skills saved him. As it is written: “God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son....bone-spurs.

"Constitutionalism"

Democratic Despotism: 

"We find latent in their conception of law— and some have been publicly preaching this view— that law emanates solely from the will of the majority of the people, and can, therefore, be modified at any time to meet majority wishes. This doctrine is absolutely totalitarian, and is contrary to our basic conceptions of the source of law. We have seen that our political system is predicated on the doctrine that there are some immutable laws of nature and certain other divinely sanctioned rights, which the Constitution and our tradition recognized as being above and beyond the power of the majority, or of any other group of individuals or officials of the Government. There are, also, other rights, which because of man's historic experience, that are specifically protected by the Constitution, and which can only be modified under the prescribed method set forth in the Constitution; and, consequently the majority- will is not free to modify them as it pleases, but only in the circumscribed manner prescribed by the Constitution. That is why our system has been characterized as a government of laws, not of men. That is the distinction between impersonal law and personal law. Americanism is the system of government by impersonal law: totalitarianism is the system of government by personal law.” (emphasis added) -- Raoul E. Desvernine, vice-president of the American Liberty League, Democratic Despotism. 1936 (cited in "Business Organized as Powerr: The New Imperium in Imperio" see also "Constitutionalism: Political Defense of the Business Community during the New Deal Period.")

"Business Organized as Power":

"As stated in its constitution, the [American Liberty] League's purposes were, among others, "to defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States," "to teach the necessity of respect for rights of persons and property," "to encourage and protect individual and group initiative and enterprise, to foster the right to work, earn, save and acquire property, and to preserve the ownership and lawful use of property when acquired." To win these goals the League went further than any previous liberty-loving, liberty-saving organization in our history. Crucial to its functioning was the National Lawyer's Committee, a group of some 58  prominent attorneys, which issued reports or opinions in advance of Supreme Court decisions, opinions setting aside with solemnity and erudition one after another of the entire New Deal legislative mélange. The League went still further: this private court having, for example, formally declared the Wagner Labor Relations Act unconstitutional, openly advised employers to ignore its provisions."

The "Trump Effect" On Happiness

 In a column in yesterday's Washington Post, Dana Milbank has written on "Trump has made our lives worse. Here's the proof."  He labels this apparent outcome the "Trump Effect."

Since 1972 the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago has annually studied the nation's mood. They survey people to find out how they identify their level of happiness. As of this summer an all time record low of 14% declared themselves "very happy." This compares with 29% saying that at the lowest point after the 2008 financial crisis. OTOH, fully 36% declared themselves to be "satisfied" with their financial situation and a record low expressed dissatisfaction, the survey taken at a time when expanded unemployment benefits were still in effect.  But Milbank declared that this amounted to a disjuncture between peoples' economic conditions and declared happiness, with this contradicting, or at least failing to support, a longstanding finding from happiness surveys in the past.

This may be an overstated conclusion. Milbank did not report on it, but studies over the years have found that higher income people tend to declare themselves to be happier than lower income people. This may still hold.  In the US this finding has been part of the famous "Easterlin Paradox," that higher income people report higher levels of life satisfaction (or happiness) at any given point in time while over time as national income rises, happiness levels do not rise. Indeed, another data source with a longer time horizon on this found US national happiness to have gradually declined since 1957. It must be noted that this finding of declining national happiness as national income rises does not show up in al nations, although it has been observed in several others besides the US, leading to much controversy and debate. Richard Easterlin himself (still alive well into his 90s) has emphasized the impact of distribution of income and perceived economic security, with peoples' happiness depending on how they compare themselves with others.  So even though income rose rapidly, the ending of old age pensions and rising income inequality led happiness levels in China to decline from around 1990 to around 2004, although they have increased again since as pensions were extended to rural areas.

In any case, even as there seems to have been a drift over time downwards in US happiness levels even as national income has risen, Milbank sees the NORC time series as exhibiting a specifically identifiable "Trump Effect."  In 2017, the first year of his presidency, 21 states exhibited a decline in happiness while not a single one showed an increase.  Apparently there was a correlation with voting, with most of the clearly declining states being ones that did not support Trump. But Milbank notes that there seems to have been no offset of an increase in happiness in states that did support him. While views of "pleasure in activities and positive energy from friends, family, and leaders" were stable from 2014 through 2016, but fell noticeably in 2017 and have stayed down since.

Other studies have found similar results, with unsurprisingly things worsening during the pandemic. The American Psychological Association found in 2017 that two thirds of the US population, including a majority of Republicans, were "stressed about the future of the nation." This rose to 83% this year, with 66% declaring that the government was mismanaging the pandemic. According to Rachel Garfield of the Kaiser Family Foundation, an August poll found 53% of the population say that their "mental health" has been "hurt," with rising problems regarding sleeping, eating, and alcohol and drug abuse.  Those reporting "depressive symptoms" quadrupled to 40% during the pandemic.

It is unsurprising that things would get worse during the pandemic, but Milbank notes they had already worsened prior to the pandemic starting even while the economy was still getting better on most fronts.  That Trump is perceived to have handled the pandemic more poorly than leaders in nearly every other nation certainly adds to the idea that he has especially aggravated the unhappiness problem in America, exacerbating the apparent "Trump Effect" that had already been going on.  Milbank notes Trump administration official Michael Caputo taking a leave of absence this past week due to his high "stress level" and declares that if Trump is reelected "Surely four more years would cause the losing of the American mind." There really is little to add to this foreboding forecast, although getting the pandemic back under control might mitigate this somewhat, assuming that happens.

Barkley Rosser  

The Danger Of Fascism With The Death Of RBG

 I try to avoid these terms like "fascism," but it has become clear that Donald J. Trump actively seeks to become an at least authoritarian leader of the US, indeed openly arguing that the Constitution's limit of only two terms should not hold for him.  We face a clear danger of a contested election that may end up in the Supreme Court. If Trump can put a flunky into the court before the election we may have them putting him in despite a situation where he has clearly lost. And given his recent behavior, backed by a friendly SCOTUS, he would be in position to impose a fascist dictatorship in this nation.

I also note that she died on Rosh Hoshanah, and in the Jewish tradition this is a portentious time to die, with one doing so being especially blessed.  I do not know how all this will turn out, and I can think of scenarios where her death at this time may lead to a more progressive future, but she was a very great woman deserving of the most profound respect and admiration, who should rest in the greatest of peace.

Clearly Mitch McConnell hypocritically seeks to impose a Trump appointee before the election, or if not then, during the following lame duck session.  So far Romney (R-UT) and Murkowski (R-AK) have said they will not go along with this, but two more GOP Sens must step forward to block this. That may happen.  But if it does not, then the Dem senators must simply shut the Senate down, which I think is about the only thing they can do, given that the filibuster was abolished (by Dems)for judicial appointments. But I think they can simply bring the whole place to a halt, and it may come to that.

Barkley Rosser

Putting the CULTURE back in cultural Marxism

My previous postings on "political correctness" and "cultural Marxism" have from time to time brought inquiries from researchers into the right-wing calumnies against the Frankfurt School. I carry no brief for Herbert Marcuse or Theodore Adorno, although I do have a soft spot for Walter Benjamin, who was not formally a Frankfurter even though he hob-nobbed with them.

It so happens that one of my correspondents has written a brief essay defending the conspiracy theory that the Frankfurt School was a bought and paid for tool of the Comintern. The defense hinges on the fact that Frank Brooks Bielanski, who claimed "evidence" that the Institute for Social Research was a Communist front financed from abroad, was "director of investigations" for the O.S.S. and not some random F.B.I. special agent.

Oh, well, if the director of investigations said so... 

On the other hand, the argument reeks of appeal to self-styled authority. So who was this Frank Bielanski character? It turns out he was a private investigator both before and after World War II and before that a Wall Street broker. His investigative specialties appear to have been burglary and illegal wiretapping. He was also a G.O.P. dirty tricks operative. But enough of the character assassination. I'm not here to ad hominem.

UPDATE: Mr. Bielanski testified "off the record" in 1946 before a House committee under the pseudonym of "Mr. Brooks." At that time, he described his position with the O.S.S. as special adviser to the Security Office of the Office of Strategic Services. He described his employment before the war as public relations and, before that, an "ordinary businessman." He was brought to the committee by Congressman George Dondero.

What really fascinates me about Bielanski is his association with a coterie of cultural counter-revolutionaries that also included George Dondero, Michigan Congressman who railed against "Modern Art Shackled to Communism."

My apologies for only having the first page of this treatise. If you get through this and want more, you can always Google it. Dondero's indictment of modern art really, really puts the "cultural Marxism" meme in perspective. Alongside the Museum of Modern Art, Kandinsky, Picasso, Duchamp et al. surrealism, cubism, expressionism, dadaism, abstractionism (sic) &tc. the Frankfurt School's alleged assault on Western Civilization hardly amounts to a snowflake on the tip of an iceberg.

Reactionaries were against modernism before they were against postmodernism.

Au Revoir, Robert J. Samuelson

 For quite a few years not so long ago I was regularly posting here variations on "Today is Monday, so on the WaPo editorial page Robert J. (not related to Paul A.)* Samuelson is calling yet again for Social Security benefits to be cut," and he did indeed do that very frequently over a long time.  However, today was his final column for the Washington Post, so we shall no longer have RJS to kick around, sob! It was titled, "Goodbye, readers, and good luck - you'll need it."  There is also a letter to the editor from former publisher, Donald Graham, praising RJS and reminiscing knowing him as a freshman in 1962 at Harvard.  Graham noted RJS eschewed a nominal non-partisan position and studied and thought hard about his columns, even as Graham himself disagrees with some of RJS's long held positions, noting in particular RJS's longstanding support for privatizing Amtrak.  He also noted, as RJS himself stated in this final column, he is not an economist; he has merely reported on economics for a long time, starting at the Post in 1969 and columnizing on economics since as far back as 1977 in various venues.

I also disagree with RJS on privatizing Amtrak, although this is not a topic he has written much in recent years, although he did mention it in this final column.  I would argue that he has ignored that governments fund highways, which gives vehicles a competitive edge on trains, which governments do not provide or support.  So I certainly see a case for government aid to railroads, with Amtrak certainly one of the more heavily used lines in the nation.

I should note what RJS spent most of his last column writing about. He argues the biggest story of his career has been "the rise and fall of macroeconomics."  But then he turned to economists. Much of it is on the money.  He says some nice things about us in general: "With some exceptions most are intelligent, informed, engaged and decent." But then we have been wrong about a lot of things, such as deciding at various points that recessions will never happen again, although RJS admits that he did not recognize the housing bubble or foresee the Great Recession (some of us here or associated with us here did, but RJS largely ignored us). He also accurately notes that many economists take stronger positions than they might otherwise out of a desire for power and position in this or that administration, and also claim to have more influence on the economy than we do.  And then he notes the unwillingness of most to change their minds after a certain point, something he himself exhibited on some of his more strongly held views.  

Of course the one he pushed so hard for so long that I and some others of us bashed him for repeatedly was indeed his constant refrain to cut Social Security benefits, with a final swing at this in general terms in this final column: "From 2010 to 2030, the elderly's share of the population (65 and over) is projected to rise from 13 percent to 20 percent. Spending on Social Security and Medicare will skyrocket, and already is. Yet we have done little to prevent spending on the elderly from squeezing the rest of the federal budget."  So, there we are; it is Monday and yet again, if for the last time, Robert J. (not related to Paul A.) Samuelson is calling for cuts in Social Security benefits!

Of course this statement took its more general form, throwing Social Security and Medicare in together.  I must grant that this time he left them together and did not pull Social Security out separately as he did so many times in the past.  But this was an old trick: point at rising trends in spending in both, which we know are much more due to rising Medicare costs, which are driven heavily by longterm rising medical care costs in general, but then he would pivot to focus on calling for cuts in Social Security benefits.  This seem to reflect an old view that "nothing can be done about medical care politically" (despite Obama passing the ACA with much effort), but that somehow a compromise was politically possible on Social Security, reflecting a memory of Reagan and Tip O'Neill cutting one in 1983 with the Greenspan Commission, which raised taxes and cut benefits for Social Security.  The idea that another round of this was needed was pushed by Bill Clinton in the 90s, and several bipartisan commissions were formed to pull it off, but somehow they all ran into political problems. It became this established delusion in various VSP circles that such a deal should be made, and it has remained entrenched on the WaPo ed page with Fred Hiatt and others, not just RJS. 

I must note that while I beat up on him relentlessly over this matter, I have done so less in the last few years.  It is not that he changed his mind, but he wrote about it much less.  He noted in this final column that he is "repelled" by Trump, and so I found myself much more frequently agreeing with him as he would criticize Trump economic policies ranging from his "help the rich" tax cuts through his trade protectionism to his awful environmental policies.  He would occasionally reprise these old views to maintain his independence, but much more of this attention was focused on the Trump policies.

A final point he made that has me thinking personally is that a reason he gave for retiring now, even as so much is going on, is his feeling of being "a man of the 20th century, but we are now facing the problems of the 21st century, which demand new policies and norms."  This may well be a major factor for him, with indeed his views on Social Security really seeming left over from the 1990s.  As he is just a few years older than I am, it makes me think that the same could be said of me, perhaps.  But I did see the housing bubble and the Great Recession.  I think I shall stick around for some more time.

*Regarding people related to the late Paul A. Samuelson or not but with the same name commenting on economics, it should be noted that Paul's son, William F. Samuelson, is fairly respectable economist who has published on risk and auctions and some other topics, now an emeritus prof from the Management Dept. at Boston University.  He does not share the last name, but the prolific and prominent Lawrence Summers is Paul Samuelson's nephew.  There is also a non-relative, Larry Samuelson, a highly respected evolutionary game theorist at Yale University. In any case, Robert J. Samuelson is neither related to Paul A., nor has he been an economist, although he is probably a better non-economist economist than some others who pose as one, such as say Larry Kudlow.

Barkley Rosser