Thanks Selma,
There are several interesting posts this morning
and due to my very hectic schedule all I can do is read and make very cursory
comments. I love Krugman because he has both the technical expertise
and the "practical" constantly in mind and doesn't get caught up in the beauty
of form (classicism) and theory (science).
In Keith's beautiful post from this morning he made
a singular case for science as a religion and as the fundamentalists have
pointed out he is right in his form but also like the fundamentalists he is
wrong in his intent. And intent is, I believe what it is really all
about. The description of Russia, for example, didn't go far enough
in comparing the seventy year history of other new ideas and their
processes.
It is unscientific to take only one example in
mega-governmental forms. If you compare the play by play
history of the USSR and the USA you will find the same genocides, the same huge
programs that oppressed millions of people and the same successes that brought
new wealth and affluence to larger groups of people. (Those scientists that
Keith praised in Russia are the children of peasants)
The Russians that I lived next door to in my little
country RV were all highly skilled to the man and woman. They
were all worried about the education of their children here in the US and many
of them started Russian type schools to teach their children
themselves. They had very different attitudes towards Stalin
than I did. In fact their attitudes paralleled America's
attitudes towards our "Founding Fathers."
The man next door to me knew as much about the
Kulaks as Americans know about the Osage Reign of Terror which gave much of the
white world its control of today's oil through the slow motion murder of the
original owners. They were privately owned by individual's
lots since the Osage had private ownership of their property from the
beginning. But the dominant European culture couldn't stand
their spending and appointed White guardians who then proceeded to murder these
private land owners one at a time until the land was in White
hands. Ultimately it didn't matter what the rules were as long
as the rule of greed and power predominated.
And that is my point about
science. Science is a process that ends in a simplicity
that cannot be proven to date. Religion is a simplicity that
no matter how much you learn continually unfolds into a complexity.
Science assumes an unfolding understanding while religion assumes a Great
Mystery that is beyond understanding but still tries.
Economics may or may not be a science.
It does seem to be a Great Mystery to those being raped by it and blamed for it
themselves. Sort of like practicing piano and then failing at
playing a concerto in front of an audience. Yes the answer is
that you didn't practice hard enough or in the correct manner.
But could you have afforded to do so given the fact
that you have another life? In the case of the piano you can
decide to quit and not stand the failure of several thousand people knowing you
didn't practice enough or in the right way. In the case of
economics (where people's lives depend upon not only the information but the
rules of that information which is constantly (like the Osages) in
negotiation since the market is alive) you do not have the ability to
opt out unless, like me, you decide simply to do your work and forego medical
and retirement plans in order to do your work.
What happened, of course, was that I
won over many of my generation who did the opposite.
They chose to do drudge work for monetary profit in order to have the money to
invest for their "old age" health and affluence. Now a
large number of them are less able than I since their work didn't involve the
same skill level as mine and was not built on individual
negotiation.
When I lose one client, I do not lose the
store. But if I want to do the highest level work I end up giving it
away to "purchase" the raw human materials for the development of my
product. (Scholarships) I make very successful products but not
a lot of profit. As I look at the people who lost
everything and gave up everything for "economics" it does seem more
like a religion than a science.
My work (Art and Pedagogy) is like the
religious process and that makes religion more clear to me than to the
scientists. On the other hand, the scientists are just as
irresponsible as I when it comes to their work and we both are more
so than the religionists who care for and about the
poor. Art cares about production while science
cares about the progression of knowledge to a greater simplicity or "Unity."
I have "challenged" my family giving them
education as a birth right rather than physical
property. The scientist economists have challenged the
whole human family by giving us massive human experiments like capitalism and
communism that murders millions and then blames them for not doing it
right. (Murder is used here in the sense of causing death
for profit no matter what the process is that you use. The
system of the UN for example that built those wells in Bangladesh without
checking for arsenic because of cost committed murder by
omission. Both Capitalism and Communism continue to do
and have done the same.)
Capitalism states that business is contractual and
amoral. I contend that their contracts are based upon power and that
the system itself is immoral. No more immoral than the
other Western systems of economics but corrupt at its core.
Krugman probably wouldn't agree but he makes my point daily.
Regards
Ray Evans Harrell
----- Original Message -----
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 30, 2002 8:20 AM
Subject: NYTimes.com Article: Our Banana Republics
> has been sent to you by [EMAIL PROTECTED].
>
>
> Thought I'd add a little to the general pessimism on this list.
>
> Selma
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
>
>
> Our Banana Republics
>
> July 30, 2002
> By PAUL KRUGMAN
>
>
>
>
>
>
> New Jersey has always been a good state for scandals, and
> last week provided two. One, the case of Web-snooping by a
> Princeton admissions officer, which involved a total of 11
> applicants to Yale, was the subject of front-page stories
> across the nation. (Disclosure: I'm a Princeton professor.)
>
>
> The other - further revelations about the way dishonest
> budgeting by former Gov. Christie Whitman crippled the
> state's finances - has dire implications for all of the
> state's eight million people, who face the prospect of
> higher taxes on their houses, more potholes in their roads,
> fewer teachers in their children's classrooms and worse
> medical care for their parents. This story received no
> national coverage at all.
>
> Experts already knew that the Whitman administration had
> used creative accounting to justify a series of tax cuts.
> Last year New Jersey Policy Perspective, a local think
> tank, released a study of fiscal policies in the 1990's
> titled "Take the Money and Run." Among other things, the
> state stopped contributing to its pension funds. This made
> the budget look a lot better, but created a financial hole.
> In an attempt to fill that hole Governor Whitman violated
> the basic principles of pension funds by having them engage
> in stock arbitrage, borrowing money to speculate on the
> market.
>
> Now the state's taxpayers must make up for an investment
> loss of $22 billion, most of a year's tax receipts. But
> don't cry for New Jersey; Mrs. Whitman wasn't alone in her
> misbehavior.
>
> For one thing, many corporations with pension plans used a
> similar trick to inflate their bottom lines. As the current
> issue of Business Week explains, the pension time bomb
> involves large numbers; I'd say it's the equivalent of at
> least 50 WorldComs.
>
> Furthermore, Mrs. Whitman's policies were by no means the
> worst among the states. That honor may fall to Tennessee,
> though Alabama, where a cash crunch stopped all jury trials
> for awhile, may run a close second.
>
> The fact is that in recent years many states have been run
> like banana republics. Responsibility gave way to political
> opportunism, and in some cases to mob rule. When Tennessee
> considered a tax increase last year, legislators were
> intimidated by a riot stirred up by radio talk-show hosts.
> Only when lack of cash forced the governor to lay off half
> the work force did the state, which has the second-lowest
> per capita taxes in the country, face up to reality.
>
> The only reason Tennessee doesn't look like Argentina right
> now is that it isn't a sovereign nation; since the federal
> budget was in good shape until recently, there's a safety
> net. And the federal budget was in pretty good shape
> because the Clinton administration, unlike state
> governments, behaved responsibly. Budget projections were
> honest - if anything, too cautious - and boom-year
> surpluses were used to reduce debt.
>
> But the responsibility era is over. Even as state
> governments face up to the consequences of cooked books in
> the 1990's, the Bush administration is following in their
> footsteps.
>
> The latest antics of the White House Office of Management
> and Budget have even the most hardened cynics shaking their
> heads. It's not just that projections for fiscal 2002 have
> gone from a $150 billion surplus to a $165 billion deficit
> in the space of a few months; it's not just that the O.M.B.
> projects a much smaller deficit next year, when everyone
> else - including the Republican staff of the Senate Budget
> Committee - says the deficit will increase. It's also the
> fact that O.M.B officials simply lie about what their own
> report says.
>
> "The recession erased two-thirds of the projected 10-year
> surplus. . . . The tax cut, which economists credit for
> helping the economy recover, generated less than 152166660f the
> change." So reads the agency's press release. Yet as the
> Center on Budget and Policy Priorities points out, the
> actual report attributes 40 percent of the budget
> deterioration to tax cuts, only 10 percent to recession.
> Maybe dishonesty in the defense of tax cuts is no vice.
>
> State governments turned into banana republics in part
> because voters didn't realize that a charming, personable
> chief executive can also be an irresponsible opportunist,
> seeking political advantage through policies that ensure a
> fiscal crisis on someone else's watch. Now the same
> governing style has moved to Washington. And this time
> there's no safety net.
>
> Nicholas D. Kristof is on
> vacation.
>
> http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/30/opinion/30KRUG.html?ex=1029031649&ei=1&en=95caa1eefcbf67b2
>
>
>
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