You give Arthur some sour lemons and he will ask for the pitcher, the ice, the sugar and make lemonade. That's why he's the perfect host.
I'm going to make some judgments about this. First: People come and go according to what is in their heads. Theres nothing special about any of the comments thus far that cannot be explained as problems of cultural translation. Even the bankers who destroyed my daughter's grandparents home in Yugoslavia with impunity suffered from their cultural stories and assumptions that killed an entire nation for thirty pieces of silver are based in cultural prejudices and assumptions. [It drove poor Michel Chossudovsky nuts with what the DUS munitions did to the farm land in Yugoslavia and the wedge driven between the ethnic minorities that had been taught something totally different for fifty years. Fifty years of ethnic reconciliation destroyed by the World bank but we talked about that years ago on this list]. Is it any wonder the World Bank is such a failure in Africa and elsewhere? The world is not the same culture as they are. Now we are facing the same story closer to home and picking on each other. The reason people leave is purely between their own ears and has nothing to do with anyone doing what they pledge to do on an internet list. Talk. If you go to the place Steve has gone you can end up like poor Michael Rupert in his house trailer waiting for the end of the world after he had the ultimate orgasm of telling us all what we already knew years ago in a documentary. Hanson drove himself off of this list as well with much the same story. I drove myself off. It was good for me. But there is a future of work. That's why I'm back and taking the time to write and think about it. It's good to read all of you and to see how you've evolved. I love Mikes passion. All of that travel perked him up a bit and taciturn has turned to focus and fecundity. After getting to know the Swiss lover of a sculptor friend of mine I read Chris from a different place as well. My shards are not his shards. If I am to know him I will have to get to know those Calvinist roots better:>)) Chris, I don't believe anything Steve said had to do with you. I just don't. On the other hand although I agree about the fake Nobel, it started with von Hayek for God's sake! Although I agree with you about that I must read a completely different Krugman than the one in your head. I don't know which one is the real one. I do know that the moment Obama praised the Homestead Act after taking office, I had a sneaking suspicion that the man I projected and the man is really out there were very far apart and they are. But either way they would never drive me back to my conservative Senator Cousin or his ilk. The Krugman in my head is more like the FDR of my folks. The man who paid for culture and creative projects that would stimulate individual growth and who helped the Indian Nations through the commissioner John Collier. He looked for what was unique in America and what would bring a better spiritual future. Unfortunately he found the interests so entrenched that the only savior was a demon reactionary dictator from Germany and the Japanese who cooperated in starting the angry engine up and organizing the population. He chose to use the dying, rotting Europe to start America's engine and pull it out of the tar pit. We are basically a warlike nation with the bulk of the population coming from the Walking Wounded of every culture on the planet. We don't begin in a happy creative place. Reading what Mahler had to say about dealing with Americans in New York at the turn of the 20th century brings the situation today into a very clear focus. The question now is will it take our killing half of the planet to find our center again or will we have to die in order to redeem the planet? These are very old themes from the three religions of the middle east. Sacrifice is the theme of my culture and it took a great death for the Sun of the fifth world to rise in our cultures. Human sacrifice is a world theme. The Christians thought that Jesus had stopped the sacrifice but then turned it into an orgy of selfishness and irresponsibility for the redeemed. Jews think Israel is the ultimate answer. Islam believes that a great Jihad is a good thing. We are not hardwired for peaceful creativity. I don't know why Steve should be surprised by brain research into two of the fundamental tenets of human performance being proven correct. Lamperti said: "to know the result before you act is the Golden Rule of singing." Infantile science comes along like a little puppy behind everyone else codifying the obvious and what the great teachers have taught since the beginning of time. Culture's a bitch but you have to deal with it and the Krugman in my head suggests the stimulus be spent in real new projects and new ways of organizing work and not in the old wasteful industrial era jobs that entrain people on the least possible and not the fullness of their potential. The future is not in a ever expanding "Star Trek Borg" like capitalism or communism. Of course that world is dying. But it is not THE world. It is only THEIR world. Chris brings up Soros but he's talking Hungarian. We have Pataki who is also Hungarian with the same attitudes but calls himself a conservative Republican. I studied with a whole generation of Hungarians. They are an amazing people. You should be careful about blaming a cultural trait on an individual. One Hungarian told me that it would make me blind to the cleverness built into the cultural story that makes it OK for them to trick you in business. She was Hungarian Jewish and spent her time during the war as a beautiful young girl hiding in the Viennese Palace with Zoltan Kodaly the composer. Her beauty and Kodaly protected her. But she told me that I should always be observant of cultures. That I could walk into a revolving door in front of a Hungarian and they come out in front on the other side because I wasn't paying attention and that was OK. She said "Mr. Harrell, you are too nice and naïve." Business puts it this way. "Nothing personal, it's just business." With Soros it's just Hungarian. The Hungarians gave America almost the entire conductor cadre of the nation's orchestras during my student days. Their gift to America was incalculable and my Hungarian Piano teacher Bela Rozsa gave me my definition of music and artistic values. Cultures are good and they are systems and you have to learn the rules. Complaining about the rules or the conclusion of a system is spitting in the wind. I hope the Krugman in my head is the one that succeeds. I would feel terribly betrayed if it turned out that he was the plebian economist that Chris inflects him to be. REH -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Arthur Cordell Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 10:35 PM To: [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Krugman's Insanity, And The Hard Mathematical Truth Steve, what are you teaching and where? -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Kurtz Sent: Saturday, July 10, 2010 4:54 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] Krugman's Insanity, And The Hard Mathematical Truth On 7/10/2010 4:05 PM, Ray Harrell wrote: > I love a zinger as much as the next person but "Socialist?" Maybe you were not yet re-subscribed Ray, but Mike called my one prior Denninger post a "right wing rant." Sally jumps in now with a 'rah rah' for Mike who is always tops. The "cornucopian socialist" term is very descriptive; it has specific meaning/content for anyone familiar with ecological economics. There is not more than enough of what most people seek if only we would all share. And human nature (like the rest of nature) will not voluntarily share equally; it's not in our genes. Apart from a few exceptions like Keith and maybe Ed Weick, this list is populated with positive future type activists who deem overshoot non-existent. They also think governments ( read politicians and bureaucrats) are well intentioned and among the most competent of the populace. I disagree. They also seem suspect of any who excell at ( and are rewarded for) private endeavors. But I will teach locally, in person, beginning next winter. It is a better use of my time than to try to convert religious people into evidence based thinkers or utopians into realists over the internet. Mike and I have had a decent relationship re technological democracy. But that is only a small part of the human economy. Economics to me is not mainly fiat credit analysis. Borrowing money from the future merely permits a faster pace of rape of the planet. Denninger doesn't likely get that. But he is still right about the addiction to spending what one doesn't have to consume now what one wants. As long as 'someone else' pays, people will vote for it and politicians will spend it. Lazy is not just correct about the US, it is the species. Cultures modify behavior, but they do not change the boundary behaviors of animal homo superstitious. I'm aghast at the rationale anyone has for admiring Krugman. He wants to grow our way out of overshoot!! :-) Here's a final teaser for the smart folks on this list: http://www.world-science.net/othernews/100701_freewill Cheers on the downslope, Steve _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
