On the 2nd August there was a Post that highlighted the way that officialdom was changing figures that painted a very different picture to that promoted at the time the figures were released.
I linked to a recent article from Karl Denninger showing how previous US GDP figures had been significantly revised downwards.
Well Karl has now published a smart chart showing what happened in a way that makes it very easy to understand.
The chart is below, but please support Karl by going to the article which is here.
Revised US GDP figures
Do read the original article at Karl’s Blog site simply because he sets out in his usual clear (and forthright) manner just what this all means. And it isn’t just affecting the US – this ripples across the pond!
Finally, another perspective on this issue is here – with the same implications being presented. It’s gloomy ahead!
I am rapidly approaching the point where I have to devote some considerable time and energy to persuading the US
Too many forms!
Government that I am a fit person to enter the USA and get married to my Jeannie!
It involves more form filling than one may imagine plus attending interviews in London, etc., etc.
Without doubt it is going to put that small creative part of my brain under some pressure and as a result I am concerned that regular fresh daily postings on Learning from Dogs may be a challenge.
My hope is that there is always something for you to read on a daily basis because that is the least that should be done for so many loyal supporters of this Blog.
But some of the Posts may be popular ones recycled from the archives, small snippets of items from the news that have caught my eye, or just a beautiful or funny picture to mark another day in all our lives.
If you have something you would like to contribute, then please feel free to email it to learningfromdogs [at] gmail [dot] com That would be most welcome and really appreciated.
JB Baptism
STOP PRESS: I was granted my fiancé visa by the kind folks at the US Embassy in London on the morning of the 26th October. Amazing that at my age, one can still feel like a love-sick teenager!
UPDATE: Arrived back in Payson on the 5th November – what a wonderful feeling that was. The wedding is just 2 weeks away!
On 12th May 1997 former British Foreign Minister Robin Cook made a famous speech in which he outlined his intention to give Britain’s foreign policy an “ethical dimension.”
Here is an extract:
Burma
“Our foreign policy must have an ethical dimension and must support the demands of other peoples for the democratic rights on which we insist for ourselves. The Labour Government will put human rights at the heart of our foreign policy and will publish an annual report on our work in promoting human rights abroad.”
In truth this became something of an albatross since it is easier to pledge an “ethical foreign policy” than to actually deliver it, and sadly Robin Cook never lived to see his brain-child through to maturity. [He died on the 6th August, 2005. Ed.]
However, many were inspired by this speech and felt that a new beginning was being made, one where national interests and economic greed might take second place to “ethics”. However, like many great ideas, it seems to have come to nothing when faced with the cold, hard light of day. And nowhere is the demise of this dream more clear than in the current British Prime Minster’s recent trade mission to India.
Yes, the PM these days is as much a travelling salesman as moral, spiritual and practical leader ….. unfortunately, he chose to visit India the week after this great country had been graced with a visit from the leader of Burma, General Than Shwe.
This “leader” is of course in reality a gangster dictator who seized power after an election gave victory to the democratic opposition. He now rules over a police state from the middle of the jungle, rumouredly using astrology as one of his principal policy-making guides.
Senior General Than Shwe arrived in India on Sunday (25th July) to sign economic agreements. On the first day of his visit, he travelled to Bodh Gaya and Sarnath, two important pilgrimage sites related to the life of Gautama Buddha.
He also laid a wreath at the the site where the world’s most famous non-violent protester, Mahatma Gandhi was cremated; Rajghat in New Delhi. What Gandhi would of thought of that one can only imagine – two days earlier, the Burmese military wiped out a Christian village in Karen State, eastern Myanmar.
This was no great surprise, since this is one of the nastiest, most corrupt and oppressive regimes on Earth. This from Wikipedia: (This is a long extract from Wikipedia but please read it carefully.)
Human rights in Burma are a long-standing concern for the international community and human rights organisations. There is general consensus that the military regime in Burma is one of the world’s most repressive and abusive regimes.Several human rights organisations, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science have reported on human rights abuses by the military government.[95][96] They have claimed that there is no independent judiciary in Burma. The military government restricts Internet access through software-based censorship that limits the material citizens can access on-line.[97][98]Forced labour, human trafficking, and child labour are common.[99] The military is also notorious for rampant use of sexual violence as an instrument of control, including allegations of systematic rapes and taking of sex slaves as porters for the military. A strong women’s pro-democracy movement has formed in exile, largely along the Thai border and in Chiang Mai. There is a growing international movement to defend women’s human rights issues.[100]
The Freedom in the World 2004 report by Freedom House notes that “The junta rules by decree, controls the judiciary, suppresses all basic rights, and commits human rights abuses with impunity. Military officers hold all cabinet positions, and active or retired officers hold all top posts in all ministries. Official corruption is reportedly rampant both at the higher and local levels.”[101]
Brad Adams, director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia division, in a 2004 address described the human rights situation in the country as appalling: “Burma is the textbook example of a police state. Government informants and spies are omnipresent. Average Burmese people are afraid to speak to foreigners except in most superficial of manners for fear of being hauled in later for questioning or worse. There is no freedom of speech, assembly or association.”[102]
Evidence has been gathered suggesting that the Burmese regime has marked certain ethnic minorities such as the Karen for extermination or ‘Burmisation’.[103] This, however, has received little attention from the international community since it has been more subtle and indirect than the mass killings in places like Rwanda.[104]
In April 2007, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) identified financial and other restrictions that the military government places on international humanitarian assistance. The GAO report, entitled “Assistance Programs Constrained in Burma”, outlined the specific efforts of the government to hinder the humanitarian work of international organisations, including restrictions on the free movement of international staff within the country. The report notes that the regime has tightened its control over assistance work since former Prime Minister Khin Nyunt was purged in October 2004. The military junta passed guidelines in February 2006, which formalised these restrictive policies. According to the report, the guidelines require that programs run by humanitarian groups “enhance and safeguard the national interest” and that international organisations coordinate with state agents and select their Burmese staff from government-prepared lists of individuals. United Nations officials have declared these restrictions unacceptable.
Burma’s government spends the least percentage of its GDP on health care of any country in the world, and international donor organisations give less to Burma, per capita, than any other country except India.[105] According to the report named “Preventable Fate”, published by Doctors without Borders, 25,000 Burmese AIDS patients died in 2007, deaths that could largely have been prevented by Anti Retroviral Therapy drugs and proper treatment.[105]
Here’s something very recent:
New Delhi (AsiaNews) – Soldiers from the Burmese Army attacked Tha Dah Der, a Christian village in Karen State, eastern Myanmar, on 23 July, burning 50 homes, a school and a church. Over 600 villagers fled in the jungle as the army advanced, joining 300 more from neighbouring villages who had also abandoned their homes in fear.
A Burmese photographer dies ....
Yes, we have got used to nasty regimes, and to states sucking up to their psychopathic gangster leaders, but there are limits, surely?
Why is the British Prime Minister grovelling to India (and by the way grossly insulting Pakistan at the same time) when India is laying out the red carpet for the Burmese murderer?
I don’t think “murderer” is too strong a word. Apart from all the usual and well-documented pogroms against minorities (remind anyone of Hitler?) the Burmese mafia government refused to allow international aid agencies to help after the catastrophic 2008 cyclone, the worst in Burma’s history. This condemned hundreds of thousands of Burmese citizens to heartless, needless suffering and certainly cost many lives.
Well, above I asked “why”?
Of course, it’s for selfish national interest. India wants access to Burma’s natural resources, especially oil, while Britain wants industrial contracts with India. Cynics would say Cameron succeeded; a follow-on deal for India to buy British Hawk trainer fighters has just been announced.
But why am I reminded of Goethe’s “Faust”? Is it really worth selling our soul to the Devil (indirectly condoning India’s sickening sycophancy to the Burmese Fuehrer) for the sake of some British jobs? A confirmative answer would seem to suggest that ethics in foreign policy is well and truly dead.
Once again, a vicious dictatorship flourishes by divide and rule. Where is the united international front that might help to put an end to our fellow-humans’ suffering? We managed this unity to help end South African apartheid; have our moral standards declined so much since then?
PS South Africa? Oh weep …. In January 2007, Russia and China vetoed a draft resolution before the United Nations Security Council calling on the government of Myanmar to respect human rights and begin a democratic transition. South Africa also voted against the resolution.
Still, they put on a good World Cup, so that’s all right then ……
Per Kurowski has been a loyal follower and supporter of this Blog and I’m indebted to him for this. Per writes the Blog
Per Kurowski
Tea with FT (Financial Times) but his busy life seems to allow sufficient space for the odd comment on Learning from Dogs.
Here’s what Per wrote as a comment to the recent Post entitled, “Is thinking going out of fashion?“. It seem worthy of being a guest post.
In reference to courage, here is a question on financial regulations, only for the brave.
Currently the financial regulators in the Basel Committee requires the bank to hold 8 percent when lending to unrated small businesses and entrepreneurs but only 1.6 percent when lending to triple A rated clients.
What would have happened if exactly the opposite capital requirements had been imposed? The banks having to hold instead 8 percent in capital when lending to triple-A rated clients and only 1.6 percent when lending to unrated small businesses and entrepreneurs.
It would most surely have created problems, any regulatory discrimination does, but I hold that a crisis as large as the current one would not have happened… since no gigantic financial crisis has ever resulted from excessive lending to those who are perceived as risky, they have always resulted from excessive lending to those who are perceived as not risky.
We could also have had a lot more of jobs, since almost always the next-generation of decent sustainable jobs is to be found among the current small businesses and entrepreneurs.
Our biggest financial systemic risk is without any doubt our financial regulators.
A nearly 30-year old film has real relevance for today!
Those of you that read yesterday’s Post right through to the end will have picked up on the fact that after completing that article last Friday, Jean and I watched the movie The Verdict.
Amazingly, this powerful film was released on the 8th December 1982.
So why the connection between the film and the Post written yesterday?
Well yesterday I wrote about two recent examples of, at best, a terrible lack of integrity, or, at worst, blatant examples of powerful institutions lying to us. It troubled me greatly and I found no adequate way of closing the Post expressing my troubles in a succinct and fitting way. Stay with me for a few moments.
In the film The Verdict, Paul Newman plays Frank Galvin – here’s the synopsis from the IMDb website:
Frank Galvin is a down-on-his luck lawyer, reduced to drinking and ambulance chasing. Former associate Mickey Morrissey reminds him of his obligations in a medical malpractice suit that he himself served to Galvin on a silver platter: all parties willing to settle out of court. Blundering his way through the preliminaries, he suddenly realizes that perhaps after all the case should go to court: to punish the guilty, to get a decent settlement for his clients, and to restore his standing as a lawyer.
As one might have guessed, Galvin wins the case against all the odds, which doesn’t in any way reduce the power of the film. Newman was brilliant.
Tackling a medical malpractice case that could revive his once glorious career, attorney Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) questions a key witness, Dr. Thompson (Joe Seneca), in the compelling courtroom drama The Verdict.
At the end of the hearing Galvin rises to give his summation. Technically the case appears utterly lost to his side. Galvin slowly stands, hesitantly looks as his notes, cast the sheet aside and reluctantly addresses the jury.
You know, so much of the time we’re just lost.
We say, “Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true.” And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie.
And after a time, we become dead… a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims… and we become victims. We become… we become weak. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs. We doubt our institutions. And we doubt the law.
But today you are the law. You ARE the law. Not some book… not the lawyers… not the, a marble statue… or the trappings of the court. See those are just symbols of our desire to be just. They are… they are, in fact, a prayer: a fervent and a frightened prayer. In my religion, they say, “Act as if ye had faith… and faith will be given to you.” IF… if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves. And ACT with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts.
Now go back and read my Post of yesterday. Read of the Citi executives paying token fines for lying to investors. Read of the allegation that the 2009 data set in the US GDP report was a “bald-faced lie”.
Now read again, aloud to yourself if you can, the first few sentences of Galvin’s summation. Here they are again (my emphasis).
You know, so much of the time we’re just lost.
We say, “Please, God, tell us what is right; tell us what is true.” And there is no justice: the rich win, the poor are powerless. We become tired of hearing people lie.
And after a time, we become dead… a little dead. We think of ourselves as victims… and we become victims. We become… we become weak. We doubt ourselves, we doubt our beliefs. We doubt our institutions. And we doubt the law.
I firmly believe that this is where millions of ordinary, hard-working, caring citizens of many countries have arrived today because of the lack of integrity, the lack of honesty and the lack of grace shown by so many in positions of power and privilege.
But do not despair because if we do that, then all is lost. No, believe in the power of good men. Back to the summation from the film:
In my religion, they say, “Act as if ye had faith… and faith will be given to you.” IF… if we are to have faith in justice, we need only to believe in ourselves. And ACT with justice. See, I believe there is justice in our hearts.
Just a couple of items from disparate sources came together last Friday to demonstrate just how possibly corrupt it has been over the last so many years! But there is a golden lining to this stuff.
That is the ever increasing spread and reach of all forms of digital communications, from the humble email through to Wikileaks, is making it increasingly difficult for those that wish to cheat and lie their way through their lives, at the expense of others, to do so without detection.
Anyway, back to the theme of the Post.
The first item is from here (thanks to Naked Capitalism for the link):
A news story today provides further confirmation of the rule by the banking classes in the US, with only token gestures to the rule of law.
(and after an in-depth review closes with:)
The message seems pretty clear. Sarbox [Sarbanes-Oxley Act. Ed]was intended to curtail phony corporate accounting in the wake of Enron. But why resort to complicated transactions like the energy company’s famed Raptors when Citi shows that mere lying will produce the same results with much less fuss?
All three years of the revision period were revised down. Again, if a mistake or inaccuracy (as opposed to intentional falsehood) is responsible for errors, one would expect them to be normally distributed – that is, some would be positive, some negative. This is obviously not the case.
Is there any good news in the report? Well, yes – there was a material uptick in non-residential fixed investment, centered around equipment and software. How much of this is a normal replacement cycle (deferred last year) and how much signifies real expansion is an open question and one not easily answered. However, I wouldn’t call this particularly “robust”, despite the pump monkey characterization this morning in the media.
The drops in some of the previously-published numbers were, however, simply stunning. For example, PCE (personal consumption) was previously reported for Q1/2010 as 2.13. The revision is 1.33, a thirty percent downward revision. That’s not an error, it was a falsehood.
Worse was the services false report. The previous reported number for Q1/2010 was 0.69. Revised was 0.03, a downward revision of ninety-five percent.
The services revision backward was truly sickening – the entirety of 2009 was negative with the exception of the fourth quarter, where all but the first was previously reported positive, and the changes were ridiculous. First quarter was revised down from -0.13% to -0.75%, second from +0.09% to -0.79%, and so on. Again,that’s not an error, it’s a lie.
Needless to say when I get all my graph source data updated, it’s going to look worse than it did – including my “government ponzi support” graph, one of my favorites.
The futures are diving on the report, as well they should. Not because it’s bad – but because the entirety of the 2009 data set was a bald-faced lie.
Frankly, I’m much less interested in what is happening to Western economies – my views have been regularly reported on Learning from Dogs.
What appals me is how far we seem from those famous words in the Gettysburg Address given by President Abraham Lincoln on the afternoon of Thursday, November 19, 1863 (my emphasis):
It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Pres. Lincoln's words
P.S. As it happens, after finishing this article last Friday, Jean and I watched the film The Verdict in the evening. The words used by the lawyer Frank Galvin (Paul Newman) in his summation struck me so powerfully that I have made them a separate Post for tomorrow. By Paul Handover
Learning from Dogs 