Its not about that Ed. It's about the patterns of behavior that they advocate. I agree that there is a connotative reality to their lives but we can through study and hard work, understand that connotation through the art and urban environment they had. Then we can reach the underlying denotative abstractions and evaluate whether they make sense or not. Those are the things that make Art and Law universal as principles. Knowing that the choice of the pattern is arbitrary and the legacy of the pattern has consequences should give us all pause. I submit this from my half cousin's home town, Muskogee, Oklahoma:
July 11, 2010 Coburn engaging in class warfare Recently Tom Coburn showed (again) a picture of a little girl from Maryland named Madeline who was photographed at a tea party protest with a sign that read "I'm already $38,000 in debt and I only own a dollhouse." This was his reason for voting to end extending unemployment benefits. Hey Coburn, when are you gonna stop crying for people in Maryland and do something to help the people you're supposed to "represent" in this state? I realize these tea baggers are your kinda people and all, and if little Madeline was at a tea party rally, her parents are most likely well off and not living paycheck to paycheck like me and a whole lot of others. But you're engaging in class warfare against the people who have the most to lose. That "future generation" you're always crying about? History tells us that fascists always use human shields, mostly children, to cower behind as they commit their despicable acts. And you, Senator, are a fascist of the highest order. Where was your concern about running up the debt when you and Inhofe voted time and again to fund two wars and tax cuts for the wealthy that weren't the least bit paid for? Now you're playing politics with peoples' lives, and that makes you a pretty sorry excuse for a human being. People are hurting, Coburn, but it's people you don't care about, like the poor. In closing, let me make a suggestion, how about you open up a business with your millions you have to put all of us unemployed losers back to work, because we are getting turned down for simple part time work from being overqualified? Really? Overqualified to cook or serve, so we go back to college hoping that when we earn our degrees, this world will have work, until then we need our unemployment benefits and more jobs in our great state, can you handle that? If not I would love to vote for someone who can. Lisa McMahon Warner From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Monday, July 12, 2010 11:35 AM To: [email protected] Cc: [email protected] Subject: [Futurework] More dismal stuff There's been a lot of discussion, too much in fact, on Keynes and Hayek on the list recently. I recall reading them, and others like Friedman, a very very long time ago. They understood the world from the perspective of their times, but now they're all dead. Well Krugman, essentially a Keynesian, isn't dead, but the kinds of things he keeps saying in his columns, which I've characterized as "spend, spend, spend", seems out of place too as belonging to a past era rather than now. What kind of a world do we live in now and how might we think about it? One of the greatest differences between the worlds of Keynes and Hayek is the extent of globalization. Economic decisions and actions that are now made a very long distance from us can have a huge effect on our well being. When Keynes and Hayek lived, and thought, unemployment in a particular country was seen as caused by a fall in effective demand in that country or by market imperfection such as too much monopolization and too little competition. I don't think that is the case now. Many Americans for example are unemployed because a large chunk has been ripped out of their economy and shipped off to China. Another major difference between the world of Keynes and Hayek and our world is that of the efficiency of the productive process. Even if production has or has not been shifted to China and the BRICs, the productive process employs far fewer people than in would have in Keynes' and Hayek's day. But because of population growth there are far more people needing work. Even the production of an increasing proportion of consumers goods in China has done little to increase the proportion of the Chinese population that is employed. And globally, while the efficiency of production has increased greatly, so has the proportion of the global population needing employment. In 1950, global population was approximately 2.5 billion; by 2000 it had increased to over 6 billion. And a much larger proportion of global population lived in cities where they would be less able to fend for themselves if they did not find jobs. Yet another major difference between our world and that of Keynes and Hayek is the greatly expanded role of the financial sector, which can play a very large role in global economic illness or health, as the US subprime mortgage debacle has demonstrated. Yes indeed, as James Galbraith argues, catch the bastards, incarcerate them, apply tough laws, etc., but will that stop them? Hardly, given the vast number of hiding places that electronic communications now provide them. So, let us nod respectfully in the directions of Keynes and Hayek and earlier economic thinkers like Adam Smith, Jean Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, etc., but let's not forget that we live in a very different world than they did. My greatest fear is that our world of growing population, job shrinkage, and the growth of nefarious practices could, in a couple of decades, resemble the world portrayed in Soylent Green, a very classic movie about a world gone totally out of kilter. Ed
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