Category: History

Colbert Good, Keynes Not So Smart

Another hugely interesting article from Patrice Ayme

Patrice is a good friend of this Blog so it pleases me very much to point you towards a recent article on Patrice’s own Blog.  Here’s the abstract:

Obama is well on his way to become one of the most unaccomplished presidents of the USA, ever. This is made worse, because we are at a crucial juncture of history, and the USA is in leadership position. When the car is travelling fast, and the leader is asleep at the wheel, it will not just end in the ditch.

The little smoke and mirrors Obama threw up, will be easily reversed by the republicans, as planned. So, in the end, Obama will turn up as just an extension of Bush, without the smirk… nor the originality. By choosing the same ideological, Goldman Sachs team, that implemented plutocracy under Clinton, Obama asked those who put the car in the ditch, to get it out, not understanding that they were still drunk in their quest to selfish profit.

This story presently unfolding has been seen before; it was Great Depression II, the great depression of the 1930s. It was the stall after the deliberately engineered bubble of the 1920s.

The West got out of it by massive state enforced job programs, started under president Hoover (Hoover dam, Empire State building, etc,) and pursued by FD Roosevelt (Grand Coulee dam, etc.) and Hitler (Autobahn system, copied by Eisenhower in the 1950s, and everybody else since).

Millions got employed directly by the government and the massive mobilization of WWII did the rest, followed by the GI Bill in 1945. Europe had massive state organized and financed economic activity, led by the US Marshall plan (Marshall was the US chief of staff during WWII, and Secretary of State of Truman). Europe, traumatized by what had happened also made important institutional changes, oriented towards welfare, such as free health care. Sully’s plan of circa 1600 for a “Very Christian Council of Europe” was also implemented.

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(Labeling used on aid packages.)

The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program,ERP) was the primary program of the USA for rebuilding and creating a stronger economic foundation for the countries of Europe (1947–51). Efforts focused on modernizing European industrial and business practices using high-efficiency American models (themselves learned from French industrialists to implement American production of the 75mm gun, the mainstay of French artillery in WWI).

All this help and investment, in the USA and Europe, was paid bymarginal tax rates on income as high as 90% in the USA (under US president Ike).

Right, now, instead, the richest Americans pay the lowest tax rate (15%), and wealth has not been so concentrated in a century (a century ago, great spaces and freedom were another form of wealth, at least in the USA, which have now disappeared).

Starting in 1996, a succession of ever larger bubbles, following part of Keynes’s ideas, has injected more and more money in the economy, money which came neither from savings nor production, but mostly borrowed from aliens, and, increasingly, the Chinese.

Robert Reich (UC Berkeley), who lost to Robert Rubin (Goldman Sachs) the debate on the economic strategy to pursue in the Clinton administration, wrote an essay in the New York Times, “How to End The Great Recession”, reflecting the approach that wealth needs to be redistributed. Reich mentioned what I have long observed: the real (inflation adjusted) median income has been going down for thirty years now. This is worse than what happened during Great Depression II. So this is Great Depression III, not just another recession.

I approve of Reich’s anti plutocratic approach, of course. As he says: “The Great Depression and its aftermath demonstrate that there is only one way back to full recovery: through more widely shared prosperity.”… However, this is not the whole story.Redistribution is good, however production is necessary.Keynes, as we will see, is about throwing money to the people, as the Roman emperors invented. That is not about meaningful employment.

Obama’s ineptitude is not all his fault. The economic advice he got, even from his opponents, has been terrible. For example, Krugman, whom I approve a lot of, wanted, like Romer (the ex-chair of economic advisers) a bigger stimulus. And so did I.

But stimulating what? How? To which aim? Most of Obama’s stimulus was wasted on short term alleviation of long term structural defects, exactly the sort of trap one does not want to fall into (French socialists fell into that very trap in the recent past, with the result that the income tax started to fully go to paying the interest on the French national debt).

The USA stimulus ought to have targeted to jump start a big energy infrastructure first, followed by a massively innovative scientific industry, modeled after the military industrial complex (the only thing the USA does really well nowadays, besides plenty of hot air). Instead, the debate in economic theory has been pretty much Keynes (somewhat of a neo-stupid, see below) versus Hayek (a pro-plutocratic neo-fascist who influenced the Chicago school’s meta principle that GREED, AND ONLY GREED, MAKES GOOD).

However, the military-industrial complex of the USA, by now, by far, the most competitive part of its economy, is not run according to Hayek, or Keynes. It is run along the lines defined by Jean Baptiste Colbert. That ought to be a hint, but no main stream American economist has picked it up.

American economists in good standing do not know who Colbert was, perhaps because he thrived when Indians were outnumbering European colonists in North America, and studying history is not as important than learning sports, and to learn to agree with one’s peers, in American schools.

Colbert started his career, and this is overlooked, overlooking the military, at the grand old age of 21. Colbert branched off into economy and finance much later, after helping to send the hyper rich “superintendent of finances”, Fouquet, to jail, for life.

The American economist Paul Kennedy, in a book about The Rise And Fall Of The Great Powers, basically expounded, as his theory, what was pretty much Colbert’s theory and practice(unsurprisingly, Kennedy does not talk about Colbert too much, and got rewarded with a prize for his depth and originality).

Colbert had perfectly understood that Great Power status necessitated a Great Economy. Thus Colbertism could be viewed as the highest form of militarism. Just like the USA is itself the highest form of militarism which ever was. Notice the rapprochement. Not to make fun of it: the position of Europe and the USA is unstable, just as the entire world economy, society and military situations are all simultaneously unstable, and military superiority is what keeps thing together, right now (unfortunately it is courting defeat in Afghanistan).

Colbert was actually following the model implemented, with spectacular success, by Henri IV and his economy and finance minister, Sully, a protestant military engineer, around 1600 CE, with state financed canals, silk factories and free markets.

Why are great powers great powers? Because they have achieved a technological superiority gradient, and have enough numbers to sit on top of it. Numbers are not everything: the Mongols carved the world’s largest empire in a few years, and with 200,000 warriors. “Technology” here is meant in the full etymological sense: any specialized discourse.

If we want to keep a superior lifestyle in the empire of the West, and a stable planet, it is high time to recover such a gradient, which is, basically, an intelligence gradient. Thus it is high time to redistribute the sort of economy which makes the military industrial complex of the USA so superior, namely COLBERTISM MODERNIZED.

***

The full article is here

Well worth reading.

By Paul Handover

Light from the past

An amazing find near Colchester in Essex, England

Once again indebted to Naked Capitalism for including a link to a piece on the BBC website about a unique Roman find in that part of England known as East Anglia.  It caught my eye because during the 80’s my business was based in Colchester quite close to the Sudbury, the place mentioned in the BBC report.

But before going to that report, yet another compliment from me about Yves’ Blog, Naked Capitalism.  Here’s what James Kwak of Baseline Scenario wrote on the 5th explaining that he was going to have to make some other areas of his life a greater priority than the Blog.

In my defense, most of the high-volume economics bloggers are either tenured professors (Cowen, Thoma, DeLong, Krugman) or people whose job is to blog (Salmon, Klein). (Yves Smith is an exception; how she finds the time I don’t know.)

My italics.

Anyway, I digress somewhat.  Here’s an extract from the BBC report:

Rare Roman lantern found in field near Sudbury

A metal detecting enthusiast has found what is believed to be the only intact Roman lantern made out of bronze ever discovered in Britain.

Danny Mills, 21, made the find in a field near Sudbury in Suffolk.

The area was dotted with plush Roman villas and country estates in the second century.

The object, described as a rare example of Roman craftsmanship, has been donated to Ipswich Museum where it is now on display.

In the autumn of 2009, Mr Mills, a metal detector user, found a large bronze object whilst metal detecting in a field near Sudbury.

Read the full report here.

Here’s a picture that the BBC included.

Roman lantern found in Britain

By Paul Handover

Stonehenge, again!

As yesterday, travelling demands make it impossible to find creative time for the Blog.  Thus a repeat of one of the most popular Posts from the last year.

Incredible outcomes from the dig in 2008

Stonehenge is one of Britain’s most famous historical sites, deservedly so because Stonehenge was one of the most important places in ancient Europe.

Stonehenge
Professors Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright are the world-renowned archaeologists who believe they have cracked the conundrum of Stonehenge's original purpose.

But evidence from a dig that was authorised in 2008 has shown that not only is Stonehenge a much older site of human habitation but that it’s purpose is altogether different to what has been assumed.  It was, indeed, a healing place, possibly the most important in Europe.

Those living in the UK can watch the Timewatch programme on the BBC iPlayer.  But for those living outside the UK then the following web site has reams of wonderfully fascinating information.  That site is here.

By Paul Handover

Bob Hoover, the best stick and rudder man in the world

Demonstrating the joy of being really good at what you do!

Before I get to the subject matter, just another word from me about the Posts being published on Learning from Dogs just now.  As I mentioned earlier, I’m presently away from home and back in England for as long as it takes to complete all the necessary procedures at the US Embassy in London.  All part of me being allowed to become a resident of Payson, Arizona and the husband to my lovely Jeannie.

Anyway, I’m posting items that catch my eye and don’t require the normal amount of time to prepare and write, simply because to have a new Post every day means keeping the pipeline going to cover the times when I shall be in darkest Devon and away from internet coverage!  Trust I have your support during this period – I just love seeing so many readers of the Blog!

OK, to the article.

Bob Hoover

Bob Hoover is well known to many besides pilots because for years he has demonstrated the huge skill in managing the energy of a flying aircraft – with both engines stopped.

Thanks to Peter Kelsey, a Facebook contact, who recently posted a YouTube video of Bob flying his famous display.  But more about the man.  Here’s an extract from Wikipedia:

Robert A. “Bob” Hoover (born January 24, 1922) is a former air show pilot andUnited States Air Force test pilot, known for his wide-brimmed straw hat and wide smile. In aviation circles, he is often referred to as “The pilots’ pilot.”

Bob Hoover learned to fly at Nashville‘s Berry Field while working at a local grocery store to pay for the flight training.[1] He enlisted in the Tennessee National Guard and was sent for pilot training with the Army.[2] He was sent to Casablanca where his first major assignment of the war was test flying the assembled aircraft ready for service.[3] He was later assigned to the Spitfire-equipped 52nd Fighter Group in Sicily.[4] In 1944, on his 59th mission, his malfunctioning Mark V Spitfire was shot down by a Focke-Wulf Fw 190 off the coast of Southern France and he was taken prisoner.[5] He spent 16 months at the German prison camp Stalag Luft 1 in Barth,Germany.[6]

He managed to escape from the prison camp, stole an Fw 190, and flew to safety in the Netherlands.[7] After the war, he was assigned to flight-test duty at Wright Field. There he impressed and befriended Chuck Yeager.[8] Later when Yeager was asked who he wanted for flight crew for the supersonic Bell X-1 flight, he named Bob Hoover. Hoover was Yeager’s backup pilot in the Bell X-1 program and flew chase for Yeager in a Lockheed P-80 Shooting Star during the Mach 1 flight.[9] He also flew chase for the 50th anniversary in an F-16 Fighting Falcon.[10]

What Bob shows is that true professionalism, in whatever one does, work or play, always comes over as an underplayed, understated skill.  Just look at this video for proof of that:

Well over 1,700,000 viewings at the time of writing this Post!

Remember  Gordo Cooper in the film “The Right Stuff” poses the question, “Who’s the greatest pilot you ever saw?”  Most pilots of all sorts would elect Bob Hoover for that honorable position.

The Smithsonian seem to agree as well.  If you can, settle back and watch Bob Hoover’s talk at the 2010 Smithsonian Charles A Lindberg lecture.  The video at that link is a long one and Bob doesn’t come on stage until minute 20.

But the flying scenes in the introduction include some historic footage and the talk by Bob Hoover, now nearly 90, is just wonderful.  That link also includes the following summary of Bob Hoover:

Robert A. “Bob” Hoover is a fighter, military, and civilian test and air show pilot of legendary proportions. Using his superb piloting skills to fly aircraft to the edge of their performance capabilities, Hoover has left an indelible mark in aviation history. During his Air Force and North American Aviation careers, he flew 58 combat missions (and as a WWII POW flew himself to freedom), served as back-up pilot on the Bell X-1 and tested a wide array of fighter aircraft. As an ambassador of aviation, Hoover flew aerobatic routines in a North American P-51 Mustang, the T-39, and the Aero Commander fleet, culminating in the Shrike Commander 500S, at more than 2,500 civilian and military air shows. Bob Hoover will discuss his career in aviation and some of the pilots he has known including Orville Wright, Eddie Rickenbacker, Charles Lindbergh, Jacqueline Cochran, Neil Armstrong, and Yuri Gagarin.

By Paul Handover

Facebook, 70 years ago.

A modern adaptation of World War II for the American teenager.

Hat tip George Foster on Facebook. The source is the website College Humor.

How it might have been reported

Rather neat!

By Paul Handover

2001: A Space Odyssey

Even today, still an amazing film

Jean and I watched this film the other evening.  I have seen it a number of times but Jean just once before when it first was released in 1968!  Yes, over 40 years ago!

What struck me watching it today was how beautifully slow the film was.  I mean in the sense of camera and scene changes.  I had forgotten just how beautiful the film was from a technical perspective.  It held the eye and brain in a way that seemed so foreign to the way that films have been made in the last so many years.

WikiPedia has a very good summary of the film.

And there are more summaries on the INDB website, here’s an example:

“2001” is a story of evolution. Sometime in the distant past, someone or something nudged evolution by placing a monolith on Earth (presumably elsewhere throughout the universe as well). Evolution then enabled humankind to reach the moon’s surface, where yet another monolith is found, one that signals the monolith placers that humankind has evolved that far. Now a race begins between computers (HAL) and human (Bowman) to reach the monolith placers. The winner will achieve the next step in evolution, whatever that may be.

The sign!

What is just as interesting is remembering the feelings that I had when I first saw the film, probably in 1968 or 1969, when I was living out in Australia, aged mid-twenties!

I was incredibly fascinated by the US expeditions out to the moon with the actual landing in July 1969.  Indeed, I rented a TV and took a complete week’s holiday from work just to watch every minute of this historical event.

So the film, 2001: A Space Odyssey, seemed to capture, for me anyway, the feelings and mood of a brave new world reaching out beyond Planet Earth.  The year 2001 felt like aeons away.  It was obvious that when we eventually got to the 21st century, mankind would be unbelievably advanced in many exciting and positive ways.

Ah, the dreams of the naive young!

Now here we are heading towards the year 2011 and the world, I mean mankind, seems to be going where?  Here’s Jon Lavin’s rather sombre view:

Have been musing about the part failure of the Russian grain harvest and the resultant speculation, that has forced the grain price up astronomically, the impact on bread/food/beer etc., evidence of the same mentality that kicked the banks/investments recession off.

Also, the fact that Lloyds TSB are 43% owned by the British people and are charging interest on non-approved loans of 165% and have a bonus fund of half billion pounds that certainly they have not asked my permission about.

This continuing lack of integrity, in the face of food shortages, untold hardship for millions of people, just goes to show that until an absolute calamity strikes to stop the whole of mankind in our tracks, it’s business as usual for the financially-led people and get-rich-on-the-back-of-anything-and-anybody crowd.

Are we still at consciousness level 204 or have we crossed back below the threshold, back below integrity 200, where falsehood rules?

The answer is to retain faith in the future, faith in the power of love and compassion, and faith in the fact that being the best that we can be today, now, in the present, just as dogs are so wonderful at doing, will bring us the better tomorrows we all dreamed about in 1968.  Here’s a reminder:

By Paul Handover

P.S. Serendipity at work.  Saw this from the BBC less than 5 minutes after completing this Post!

Battle of Britain, postscript

Living it day-by-day, 70 years ago.

Just a quick follow-on from the Post yesterday to say that the BBC have published an excellent graphic that allows one to review the events of the Battle of Britain day-by-day.

The link is here – well worth looking at.  If only because it shows that the week of the 23rd August 1940 was one of the more bloody weeks in the whole battle.  From that BBC web page:

The defence of Britain by RAF Fighter Command against extensive air raids by the German Luftwaffe in 1940 ensured Britain’s survival and blocked the possibility of invasion. Roll over the graphic to see the daily toll inflicted on men and machine in the Battle of Britain and read James Holland’s commentary on why Germany lost.

Very sombering.

By Paul Handover

Green shoots

New thinking is our only solution

Came across an interesting organisation the other day, the Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Do drop in to the web site and read what they are all about.

Common sense!

And then reflect about Easter Island.

It’s almost unimaginable that Planet Earth could go the same way.  Then again, anyone over the age of, say 60, would find where we are today, in terms of mankind’s long-term survival, equally unimaginable from how the world looked 40 years ago.

An early predictor of Planet Earth?

By Paul Handover

Are today’s friends tomorrow’s enemies?

Sometimes looking down the other end of the telescope reveals more, much more!

Afghanistan - where is it leading?

Now that coalition forces have just recently suffered their deadliest month yet in the conflict in Afghanistan, it now has become more crucial than ever to rethink the strategy of the United States and its allies in the region.  Currently, the cornerstone of this strategy rests upon two key factors – winning over the local peoples of the region, and training local forces to carry the burden when, and if, coalition forces leave the region.

At least on the exterior, these goals in Afghanistan do make some sense.  The only possible way to succeed via a continued military occupation of Afghanistan is to attain and bank on the support of the local peoples.  Also, if western powers are ever to withdraw from the region, local forces will have to be able to maintain whatever structure these forces leave in their wake.

However, while this strategy is not completely outlandish and does show some merit on the part of military strategists in that they are leaning more towards localized models that entail comprehension of diverse local factors, the question still must be asked – is this strategy actually possible to carry out and have the sought-after effects in the region?  Can the United States and its allies actually win over the peoples of Afghanistan and western Pakistan, and can these same powers possibly train forces that will remain peacekeepers in the years to come?

Despite the fact that I admire the intentions of the military’s current strategy in this region, I do not think that their plan is in fact possible.  It seems to me that rather we are fighting an unwinnable war to win over a people that we do not and cannot understand, and that by funding the Afghani security forces of today, we are inevitably funding our enemy of tomorrow, just as our nation has mistakenly done so many times in the past in this very region.

I cannot foretell the future.  Nor can anyone else.  However, I can comment on what is likely to occur.  And, in constructing such a model, two of the most important subjects to understand are history and praxeology, or human behavior.

An attempt by the United States to make Afghanistan a stable, western-friendly state is by no means a new happening.  The date of the beginnings of our intervention in the region could be debated, but a decent starting point is the late 1970’s when President Carter put forth the Carter Doctrine, which stated that the United States would defend its interests in the Middle East.

This doctrine just barely preceded the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and it was this invasion that saw the beginnings of American forces, at this point being mostly CIA and other such agencies, which were attempting to hamper the Soviet forces by funding the Afghani resistance.

Now, there is no room here for a history of American involvement in Afghanistan.  However, what must be noted is that during the 1980’s and 1990’s, a pattern developed in the Middle East – the United States would fund a group in the hope of combating some common enemy, and then in later years the group funded with American taxpayer money would inevitably end up turning against the United States.

A few prominent examples of this are Al Qaeda, who received $6 billion from the United States from 1989 to 1992, the Afghani Taliban, who was receiving US foreign aid up to the very minute American forces entered their country (and continues to receive US foreign aid through Pakistani backchannels) and Saddam Hussein, who received chemical weapons from the US during the Iraq-Iran War of the 1980’s, weapons he later used to kill American soldiers.

This, though briefly put, is the history, or the “what.”  So now must come an examination of the “why,” or the element of praxeology.  For obviously, our attempts to forge friendships in the region in the past have failed.  Our friends have become our enemies, in fact our worst enemies.

There are several possible explanations for why this occurs.  However, mine is quite simple – we do not understand these people, we do not understand this region, we do not understand Islamic culture, and, to be quite blunt, we never will.  It is not a wrongdoing by the West to look at the Middle East through Western eyes.  Rather, it is the only way that a westerner possibly can look at the Middle East.

On top of this extremely problematic misunderstanding of the Middle East by Western peoples then comes another layer of problems, these being the base problems of intervention in any context, amplified by the extreme foreignness and instability of the Middle East as a whole.  The consequences of intervention in any scenario are so unpredictable, so many, and so far-reaching that no one can possibly intervene and successfully fulfil their objectives without in the process creating a dozen new problems.  This is seen with the federal government intervening in states in their own country – how much greater then are the problems when intervening in a region like the Middle East?

All this now brings us back to the point on considering the future.  As I mentioned previously, I cannot say what the future holds.  However, I can make an educated guess.  And, based on analyses of both history and human behavior, it is safe to say that by both indirectly and directly funding the training of a new military force in Afghanistan, we very likely are creating our enemy of tomorrow.  For when these people that we are now training realize that the United States is not leaving, that they are not in fact a free state, that they have become a part of the American empire, and that if they want to live culturally independent of western influence they will have to forcibly remove Western elements within their borders, it seems extremely probable that they will do exactly that.

To say that we are creating a force that will do what we expect it to do in the future is a wish at best.  The reality is that we do not and cannot understand what is truly a foreign mindset, and our best course of action would be to distance ourselves from what is and will be for many years of region of perpetual conflict.

By Elliot Engstrom

Mau Piailug

A Pacific master navigator sails into the sunset

The Economist, for me, is one of the great newspapers of our time.  I have often referred to it on Learning from Dogs.

Last Saturday’s edition (July 24th – 30th 2010) carried a most beautiful obituary about Mau Piailug who in 1976 demonstrated that ancient seafarers could indeed have voyaged from Hawaii to Tahiti, a distance of some 2,500 miles, before the age of compasses, sextants or charts.  Here is an extract from that obituary (you may need to register to view it):

As a Micronesian he did not know the waters or the winds round Tahiti, far south-east. But he had an image of Tahiti in his head. He knew that if he aimed for that image, he would not get lost. And he never did. More than 2,000 miles out, a flock of small white terns skimmed past the Hokule’a heading for the still invisible Mataiva Atoll, next to Tahiti. Mau knew then that the voyage was almost over.

On that month-long trip he carried no compass, sextant or charts. He was not against modern instruments on principle. A compass could occasionally be useful in daylight; and, at least in old age, he wore a chunky watch. But Mau did not operate on latitude, longitude, angles, or mathematical calculations of any kind. He walked, and sailed, under an arching web of stars moving slowly east to west from their rising to their setting points, and knew them so well—more than 100 of them by name, and their associated stars by colour, light and habit—that he seemed to hold a whole cosmos in his head, with himself, determined, stocky and unassuming, at the nub of the celestial action.

Mau Piailug creating model of his canoe - Steve Thomas Photo

Here’s an extract from the website Suite101.com:

Mau Piailug was born in 1932 on Satawal, a tiny Pacific island no wider than a mile in Micronesia. When he was still a little baby, his grandfather put him in a tide pool as though he were putting him in a cradle. There the sea gently rocked him back and forth with the rhythm of the tides.

When Mau was six, his grandfather began to teach him about navigation. He started by telling him about the stars; the grandfather made a star compass out of a circle of coral rocks, and in the center he put a little canoe he had made of palm fronds. Then he explained how the stars rose in the sky and traveled from east to west.

As he grew older, Mau spent his evenings in the canoe house. There he asked the elders to teach him about navigation. In this way, and with his grandfather’s help, he learned the paths of more than a hundred stars. He also learned that when clouds covered the sky, he could use the direction of the ocean waves to guide the canoe. He could also follow the birds toward land when they headed home in the evening, and he studied the creatures of the sea, for in times of trouble they, too, could help him find land.

A film was made about Mau called The Last Navigator.  Do click on the link and read more about what Steve ‘learnt’ from Mau – here’s a closing taste:

It has been nearly fifteen years since I first met Piailug. In that time I have been blessed with relative fame and prosperity – an eventuality, by the way, that Piailug foretold to me. As I look back, I am impressed now by the twin qualities in the man that impressed me then: his generosity and his courage. Piailug took me into his family, assumed responsibility for my material and political well-being, and taught me his navigation without reserve. The knowledge he gave me about navigation is considered priceless in his culture. The knowledge he gave me about myself, I have come to see, is priceless as well. I often think of Piailug, and the fierceness and determination with which he defends a way of life he knows will die as the wise elders died. He has the courage to live and teach and voyage in spite of the certain knowledge that his struggle can never stem the tide of Westernization, which will change the character of his archipelago and may well eliminate the very role of the navigator as steward of his island’s sustenance and keeper of the flame of cultural knowledge.

Mau - asleep in the waves

A remarkable man.

By Paul Handover