Wow! When those Libertarian States go to work they are really idiotic. :>)) With states rights America begins more and more to resemble provincial Europe and its inability to discipline itself with a central standard and authority. Meanwhile here's a little more idiocy. A good editorial from today's NYTimes. Since the US under Obama is doing better than Europe under austerity the NYTimes has finally come around. Hope it's not too late.
What was it that John Ruskin said about commerce? Obviously I quote Ruskin because his comments to a great extent either paralleled my Cherokee Teachers or maybe they read and thought about it together in the late 19th century. We had good schools until the government disbanded the nation in 1909 with the Dawes Act. We even had opera houses and singers and dancers. We would agreed with this British Artist philosopher about ideals. REH 18. Not less is the respect we pay to the lawyer and physician, founded ultimately on their self-sacrifice. Whatever the learning or acuteness of a great lawyer, our chief respect for him depends on our belief that, set in a judge's seat, he will strive to judge justly, come of it what may. Could we suppose that he would take bribes, and use his acuteness and legal knowledge to give plausibility to iniquitous decisions, no degree of intellect would win for him our respect. Nothing will win it, short of our tacit conviction, that in all important acts of his life justice is first with him; his own interest, second. In the case of a physician, the ground of the honour we render him is clearer still. Whatever his science, we would shrink from him in horror if we found him regard his patients merely as subjects to experiment upon; much more, if we found that, receiving bribes from persons interested in their deaths, he was using his best skill to give poison in the mask of medicine. Finally, the principle holds with utmost clearness as it respects clergymen. No goodness of disposition will excuse want of science in a physician, or of shrewdness in an advocate; but a clergyman, even though his power of intellect be small, is respected on the presumed ground of his unselfishness and serviceableness. 19. Now, there can be no question but that the tact, foresight, decision, and other mental powers, required for the successful management of a large mercantile concern, if not such as could be compared with those of a great lawyer, general, or divine, would at least match the general conditions of mind required in the subordinate officers of a ship, or of a regiment, or in the curate of a country parish. If, therefore, all the efficient members of the so-called liberal professions are still, somehow, in public estimate of honour, preferred before the head of a commercial firm, the reason must lie deeper than in the measurement of their several powers of mind. And the essential reason for such preference will he found to lie in the fact that the merchant is presumed to act always selfishly. His work may be very necessary to the community, but the motive of it is understood to be wholly personal. The merchant's first object in all his dealings must be (the public believe) to get as much for himself, and leave as little to his neighbour (or customer) as possible. Enforcing this upon him, by political statute, as the necessary principle of his action; recommending it to him on all occasions, and themselves reciprocally adopting it, proclaiming vociferously, for law of the universe, that a buyer's function is to cheapen, and a seller's to cheat, -- the public, nevertheless, involuntarily condemn the man of commerce for his compliance with their own statement, and stamp him forever as belonging to an inferior grade of human personality. 20. This they will find, eventually, they must give up doing. They must not cease to condemn selfishness; but they will have to discover a kind of commerce which is not exclusively selfish. Or, rather, they will have to discover that there never was, or can be, any other kind of commerce; that this which they have called commerce was not commerce at all, but cozening; and that a true merchant differs as much from a merchant according to laws of modern political economy, as the hero of the Excursion from Autolycus. They will find that commerce is an occupation which gentlemen will every day see more need to engage in, rather than in the businesses of talking to men, or slaying them; that, in true commerce, as in true preaching, or true fighting, it is necessary to admit the idea of occasional voluntary loss; -- that sixpences have to be lost, as well as lives, under a sense of duty, that the market may have its martyrdoms as well as the pulpit; and trade its heroisms as well as war. John Ruskin 1862, Interesting. How does the following fit that? Who gives the sacrifice and is it a matter of "class?" Who is screaming "class" warfare every time any question is raised? Is Europe so addicted to the "winner take all" with the upper class as the only true societal winners, that they can't constitutionally apply rational solutions that helps the whole population and rewards competence and inner motivation rather than simple lust to be rich? Who knows? REH _____ October 23, 2012 The Austerity Trap In <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/us/politics/obama-and-romney-meet-in-fore ign-policy-debate.html> Monday night's presidential debate, Mitt Romney echoed other Republican politicians, saying that under President Obama's economic policies, the United States is "heading toward Greece." Mr. Romney was invoking Greece apparently to make the point that deep and swift budget cuts are needed in the United States to avoid a debt crisis. That bizarre comment, sadly, is no surprise in a campaign that has parted ways with the facts. The president's budget, as scored by the Congressional Budget Office, would stabilize the ratio of federal debt to the economy over 10 years. What is more disturbing is that the comment displays willful ignorance about the lessons of Greece, and such ignorance can only lead to bad policy decisions at home. The lesson that should be learned from Greece is that its fiscal mess has been made far worse by severe budget cuts. <http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_PUBLIC/2-22102012-AP/EN/2-221020 12-AP-EN.PDF> New data from the European Union, released on Monday and <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/business/global/despite-push-for-austerit y-eu-debt-has-soared.html> analyzed in The Times by Landon Thomas Jr. and David Jolly, show that countries that have most ruthlessly cut their budgets - Greece, especially - have seen their overall debt loads increase as a share of the economy. The data provide objective support for what has been clear to just about everyone except pro-austerity German officials and deficit-crazed Republican politicians. Namely, deep government budget cuts at a time of economic weakness are counterproductive, complicating, if not ruining, the chances for economic growth. The new European statistics also dovetail with a recent <http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/2012/02/pdf/text.pdf> analysis by economists from the International Monetary Fund. They found that budget cutbacks are much more damaging to economies recovering from recession than has been previously believed. The reason is that with interest rates stuck near zero, there is no room to lower them when fiscal policy is tightened, and thus no way to offset the pain of budget cutbacks. If governments push ahead anyway with deep spending cuts, the result is only more economic weakness without the hoped for budget improvement. That has been the case in Greece and other nations of Europe, like Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Britain. If Republican policies to slash government programs while excessively cutting taxes were carried out here, the United States would experience a similar effect. Taken together, the Greek experience and the recent European research, show that for the United States, a "grand bargain" on the deficit should include two main parts: spending in the near term to boost the recovery, coupled with tax increases, and spending cuts to reduce the deficit as the economy regains its health. Mr. Obama is better positioned than Mr. Romney to deliver that agenda. Mr. Obama could make his jobs plan, introduced last September but blocked by Congressional Republicans, part of the budget package to be negotiated after the election, when politicians must agree on tax increases and spending cuts to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. Mr. Romney's agenda is missing a direct focus on jobs, foolishly relying instead on high-end tax cuts and deregulation to help the recovery. And he and his party continue to insist on premature deficit reduction that, in a fragile economy, is the real road to Greece. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of D & N Sent: Monday, October 22, 2012 1:51 PM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] water rights: Texas vs. Oklahoma, +++ As if drought were not enough. Note: author is a party in this suit. Natalia http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1012/82465.html 'Water is for fighting," Mark Twain famously said. Before November's election, the Supreme Court could thrust Congress into the middle one of the biggest no-win fights yet in this age of gridlock - a simultaneous renegotiation of some of the nation's most critical interstate water access agreements. The immediate issue is a dispute between Texas (via the Tarrant Regional Water District, which serves Fort Worth and surrounding areas) and Oklahoma. Yet whether the Supreme Court accepts the case (Tarrant Regional Water District v. Herrmann) for review will determine if much of the country, from the Great Plains to the Pacific, has assured access to water in the decades ahead - or will numerous arrangements, in some cases dating back nearly a century, all become in essence dead letters. Consider the implications. Eighteen of the country's fastest-growing metropolitan areas over the next decade, as projected by a Wharton School study, depend on water allocations from interstate compacts. Also at risk is the viability of Native American nations, as well as Western farmers and ranchers whose livelihoods and very existence depend on water from interstate compacts. These include the farmers of Southern California's Imperial and Coachella Valley, prime sources of winter fruits and vegetables for American consumers. Add to the casualties the shale oil, coal and petroleum producers Americans are counting on to end our dependence on imported energy. How did so much of the country's future come to hinge on an obscure litigation between two states? In September, ruling on the Tarrant case, the 10th Circuit reread language in the Red River Compact - an interstate water allocation agreement among Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas - to mean that water sharing among the signatories was voluntary, not mandatory - raising the question, why did the states negotiate the complex agreement at all? The compact is one of the nation's 26 interstate water access pacts. It was passed into state law by the four negotiating legislatures and then passed by Congress into federal law. Despite all this, according to the court, if Oklahoma doesn't want to allow Texas to use the water set aside for it in the legislation, it doesn't have to. To make matters worse, the decision turned on a provision that, in various formulations, is common to many of the nation's interstate water compacts. The provision says that when one state gives another the right to tap its water, it doesn't give up the right to enforce state laws on the waterway, or to impose its environmental standards, or anything else - other than the water itself. This kind of "we mean what we say and nothing more" language is in almost every major contract ever written. But, amazingly, the 10th Circuit panel read it to say that Oklahoma did not have to allow Texas the water guaranteed to it at all. The TRWD appealed to the Supreme Court, which in April asked the Solicitor General whether it should hear the case. The Solicitor General's brief is expected in the fall or winter and the justices' decision will come not long after that. If the high court denies the petition for certiorari (that is, refuses to take the case) the ruling of the 10th Circuit's three-judge panel will become federal law in the states under the circuit's jurisdiction - Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming - and may guide other circuits. The implications for the American West are immense. Through these states pass the Colorado River (source of water to cities from Denver to Salt Lake City to Phoenix and all of Southern California) and the Yellowstone River (which provides water to fracking operations in the High Plains). Even the Arkansas River, from which, ironically, northern and much of western Oklahoma receives water, comes under the ruling. Interstate water access compacts govern all three rivers. Already, Wyoming has expressed opposition to diversion of allocated water bound for the Denver region despite the Upper Colorado River Compact's promises. In short, if the Supreme Court decides not to hear this case, Congress will have no choice but to engage in what could easily become as many as two dozen massively contentious negotiations on which will hinge the futures of numerous metropolitan areas and other communities, as well as industries, agricultural regions and Native American tribes. America could be on the edge of water anarchy. James M. Oliver is general manager of the Tarrant Regional Water District, a party in this suit.
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