Category: Musings

The Foreign Policy Handbook

An outsider’s view of the European Union

Recently Young Americans for Liberty, a libertarian organization that I write for, published the second issue of the Foreign Policy Handbook, a magazine on foreign policy written by and for students.

However, the fact that it’s “for students” does not mean that others aren’t encouraged to check it out!  (Who says you need to be in school to be a student, anyways?)

The European Union

My article in this issue, “The European Union: Eurocrats and the Eurosphere,” discusses a few problems that I see with the European Union.  The article begins:

During the 19th and early 20th centuries, European governments came under attack for their colonial policies in the African continent.  One of the primary claims made by pan-Africanists and other anti-European individuals was that such European policies denied the peoples of Africa the right of self-determination.  For example, the Declaration of Rights of the Negro Peoples of the World, drafted at a 1920 convention of the Universal Negro Improvement Association led by Marcus Garby, stated, “We believe in the self-determination of all peoples.”  Through policies ranging from direct rule via military force to indirect rule via forced economic dependency, European governments were holding African countries back from determining their own course.

While the modern “third world” certainly is not free from the tethers of traditional western powers, the situation has greatly improved from what it was a hundred years ago.  However, the modern European governments now are directly denying the right of self-determination not to the peoples of other continents, but to the peoples of Europe itself.  Considering the rhetoric surrounding the European Union, such as a commitment to “sustainable development” and the goals of “peace, prosperity and freedom” for the people of Europe, this is a sad irony indeed.

Other articles in this issue of the FPH include:

  • “The War on Terror and Sun Tzu: Is American Strategy Sound?”,
  • “Why Conservatives Should Hate Our Foreign Policy,” and
  • “Law or Hoax? Disproving Democratic Peace Theory.”

Check out an entire digital copy for free here.

By Elliot Engstrom

Basel

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision

I suspect that you, like me, know diddly-squat about the Basel Committee.  As the Bank of International Settlements puts it:

The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters. Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the quality of banking supervision worldwide. It seeks to do so by exchanging information on national supervisory issues, approaches and techniques, with a view to promoting common understanding. At times, the Committee uses this common understanding to develop guidelines and supervisory standards in areas where they are considered desirable. In this regard, the Committee is best known for its international standards on capital adequacy; the Core Principles for Effective Banking Supervision; and the Concordat on cross-border banking supervision.

The Committee’s members come from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the United States. The present Chairman of the Committee is Mr Nout Wellink, President of the Netherlands Bank.

OK, that’s clear then!

Pers Kurowski

Well, according to a good supporter of and Guest contributor to Learning from Dogs, Pers Kurowski, we really ought to know much, much more about this ‘committee’.

Pers has a Blog called Tea with FT (as in the Financial Times) and there is much to read there that helps us understand why we are in so big a mess with the banks.  Here’s his piece from the 4th May.

Basel Committee, why don´t you just shut up!

Sir who do these Basel Committee regulators really think they are bullying us around with an arrogant “the banks should be sensible and realise that it might backfire if they protest too much”? as reported by Brooke Masters, May 4.

They themselves are the ones who thought everything would be fine and dandy if they just had some few credit rating agencies determine default risks and then gave the banks great incentives, by means of different capital requirements, to follow those credit risk opinions. They themselves are the ones who believing in the abundance of safe triple-A rated lending and investments, caused the world to stampede and fall over the subprime mortgages. They themselves should shut up, because rarely has the world seen such a gullible naive and outright stupid bunch of regulators.

Now the banks, in the midst of a crisis, need to build up the equity they do not have precisely because the Basel Committee did not require them to have; precisely when we need the most the banks to lend. The regulators, instead of bullying banks, should busy themselves day and night finding ways for severely capital stretched banks to be able to lend to those small businesses and entrepreneurs who have had to pay the cost of higher capital requirements but who had absolutely nothing to do in generating this crisis.

And just in case, for the record, I am no banker, only a citizen, very upset with the fact that in the 347 pages of the regulations known as Basel II, there is not one single word that describes the purpose of those regulations. Basel Committee why do you not start defining a purpose for what you are doing? Is that too much to ask?

By Paul Handover

Radio Caroline

A real blast from the past!

Recently we rented the film, Pirate Radio, a somewhat ‘true’ story about the days of broadcasting rock and roll from a ship moored just outside British waters.  Here’s the official trailer of the film (somewhat glitzy as is the manner of Hollywood):

Anyone of my sort of vintage living in England during the 1960s will recall the fun and excitement of Radio Caroline, the name of the radio station that started up in 1964.

Here’s a good extract from the WikiPedia entry:

Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O’Rahilly, to circumvent the tight hold the record companies had on the broadcast of popular music in the UK. It originally commenced transmissions as an offshore radio station broadcasting from a ship anchored in international waters off the coast of South East England. Originally unlicensed by any government, for the majority of its early life, it was labelled as a pirate radio station.

Radio Caroline

Amazingly, at its peak Radio Caroline had an audience of 23 million listeners.  In a very real way Radio Caroline was another symbol of what became known as the Swinging Sixties, a transformation period for post-war Britain.

Tony Blackburn was just one of many famous disk jockeys who started life out on Radio Caroline, with Tony being the first presenter of the BBC’s Radio 1 station, broadcasting popular music, when it came on air on the 30th September, 1967.

Tony Blackburn, some while ago!

Anyway, if you are nostalgic towards the ‘good’ old days of the sixties, do watch the film.

By Paul Handover

Question for Elliot About Public Education

Hello Elliot!

I’d love to engage in a discussion with you — and interested others — about the appropriate role of government in education.

The Federalist Papers made it clear, to me at least, that our founding fathers believed that the government, our federal government in particular, should have nothing to do with educating the populace.

The government providing public education? How did THAT happen?

I realize it sounds a bit radical now, but I believe that any discussion of what is right and wrong about public education today must begin with a healthy debate about whether the federal government should be involved in public education at all.

Your thoughts?  Thanks!

by Sherry Jarrell

The Dust Settles

Who dares, Wins!

The new British Conservative & Liberal-Democrat Cabinet

I can’t remember a more momentous week in British politics. It seemed silly to comment as events unfolded so swiftly – one would have risked being out of date before finishing the article – but it is perhaps time to summarize what has happened:

  • The outcome was in retrospect the best possible, even if none of the parties might think of it that way.
  • We have a stable government locked into a coalition that commands a large majority in the House of Commons and a considerable majority of the popular vote. Nobody can deny this coalition “the right to govern”, whichever way you regard the statistics.
  • The country’s finances are in a terrible mess and a stable government was essential to put things right and recover confidence.
  • Yes, there will be strains and stresses in each party, but both have now invested so much in this that  neither can afford to rock the  boat and risk another general election to let Labour back in under a new and more charismatic leader.
  • Both parties have shown a spirit of compromise and both have had to ditch some of their cherished (and more wacky) policies.
  • “First Past the Post” has taken a lot of stick and it seems the time of electoral reform has arrived. The Lib-Dems have a firm commitment to a referendum on the Alternative Vote (not optimal, but an improvement) plus other essential elements – long-delayed by the previous Labour dinosaur – such as fixed term parliaments, a redistribution of votes per constituency and a reduced number of MPs.
  • The country has seemed fragmented and divided in recent years, with much bitterness and a sense of drift and failure. The coalition has brought fresh hope, though it is born in very difficult times. But as a coalition it is perhaps better-placed than one single party to make the very difficult decisions needed. A single party would have had to make the same decisions but with the risk of losing a vote in the HOC and a lurch to the other side to start all over again.
  • The wretched previous government is gone. The most pleasing aspect of this is that those architects of spin and PR, the unelected Lord Mandelson and the unelectable Alistair Campbell, have seen their stars not only wane but disappear into a black hole. Their last-ditch attempt to stagger on in a Lib-Lab coalition was effectively torpedoed by their own back-benchers and party Grandees, who found the whole process undignified. It is indeed the end of Noo Labour, and few will regret its passing.
  • Last but not least, the Labour Party survives, whereas there was a time when it seemed it might be humiliated and destroyed. The extent of the defeat could not be spun – even if Mandelson et al had a go at it – but it survives as an essential part of the British political scene. Moreover, though Brown rightly had to go, he was not humiliated either and was able to depart with grace and dignity. One is far from sad to see him retire to the back benches, but the bad feeling that anything worse might have produced has been avoided.

The change has been momentous. Politics is unpredictable, so who can tell if this bold experiment will work. But “Who dares, Wins”, and they should have the best wishes of all who love their country.

By Chris Snuggs

Elliot’s schooling – Sir Ken’s view

Sir Ken Robinson’s view

I plan to have my final post on education finished very soon.  However, with my last week of finals and papers at the undergraduate level (which is finally over!) constantly hoarding my time, I have not yet quite been able to truly decide on which side I plan to end up.

My instinct tells me that the costs of the US schooling system far outweigh its benefits, but I feel I must be sure that this is truly a case that can be supported with logic and not simply my own biases coming through.

However, while I continue to ponder, I thought that readers might find this video interesting.  It’s a different take on the nature of institutionalized schooling than is often seen.  It’s on the longer side — approximately 20 minutes long — but I definitely think it is worth a watch for anyone pursuing a clear and well thought-out perspective on education, and it’s actually quite humorous and entertaining.

The video is of a presentation by Sir Ken Robinson, an internationally recognized leader in the development of innovation and human resources.  His thesis statement is as follows:

My contention is that creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status.

I hope the Learning From Dogs community enjoys this video.  Upon my return from celebrating my college graduation in Charleston, I plan to present my final finding on whether the costs or the benefits of schooling in the United States outweighs the other.

By Elliot Engstrom

The Fourteenth Banker

What interesting times we live in.

Came across a relatively new Blog with the title The Fourteenth Banker.  Caught my eye because of the similarity to the book written by Simon Johnson and James Kwak of Baseline Scenario fame.  Here’s an extract from the ‘About’ piece of this new Blog.

In response to the comments of folks in the Congress and oversight regimes, I have created this blog as a home for bankers who need to speak out and do not have a central clearinghouse or a safe place to do so.     Big banks now treat their employees like property, bought and owned.     Typically employees must subject themselves to all sorts of potential sanctions, forfeitures of compensation, clawbacks and even lawsuits if they speak in ways we often have thought were protected speech.   I am not talking about revealing confidential customer or proprietary information, I am talking about simply commenting on a company, management philosophy, making general observations or raising concerns.     It makes one appreciate unions even if not historically supportive of unions.   At least management and labor can have a debate.    Not so in today’s large banks.    Gag orders are written in the most intimidating way, included in Codes of Ethics, attached to incentive plans, posted on the company home pages.     We should ask ourselves, what is the big secret?

Do support the Blog by calling by.  Here’s a taste of what they are writing about:

Lying at Leyman

What is a million between friends?

Read this piece from Bloomberg Businessweek How Much Did Lehman CEO Dick Fuld Really Make?

This can only be called what it is. Delusion. Delusion about self, society, morality, values and anything else you can name. These are symptoms of a grave illness which is too common among those in power. In fact, the illness may be the requisite to power.

By Paul Handover

What a night for British politics!

Maybe, just maybe, this is going to be real change!

I’m writing this at 9.30 pm US Mountain Time on the 6th, the equivalent of 5.30am British Summer Time on the 7th May.  I’ve been watching the excellent live election broadcast online from the BBC.

There is no clear leading party at this time but the Conservatives appear to heading possibly to lead a minority Government.

It’s been the most puzzling set of results in my lifetime but maybe it’s showing that the British public have voted against one-party politics and voted for consensus.

Because the sorts of problems that are ahead for Britain (and so many other countries) require a new form of Government, a Government that truly puts the country first and not the Party!

Fascinating times.  Let’s see what the next few days, weeks and months will bring.

By Paul Handover

Freedom starts at home

Freedom as something one must endeavor to gain and maintain!

The power of a cup of tea!

There is a quiet self-contradiction developing in the Tea Party movement that needs addressing, for it is a contradiction that, if left uncorrected, could turn a force with truly revolutionary potential into one more element of an oligarchic political stasis.

This movement, which as a culture attempts in many ways to be an imitation of the founders, is steering away from its origins and failing to take hold of perhaps the single most important insight of the entire American Revolution – that national change is the result of local change, not its cause.

It was not homesickness that led Thomas Jefferson to return to his home state of Virginia and decline a re-election to

Thomas Jeffersen

Congress after penning the Declaration of Independence. At the forefront in Jefferson’s mind on July 5, 1776, was not the welfare of the new nation as a whole, but rather the welfare of his home state of Virginia.

For Jefferson, Virginia was not simply one part of the ultimate goal of the United States, but in fact an ultimate goal in itself. It was at the local level that Jefferson knew provisions for the future freedom of his fellow Virginians had to be made.

Voltairine de Cleyre, an anarchist who lived in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, greatly admired the founding generation and Jefferson in particular.

In her essay “Anarchism and American Traditions,” she wrote that one of the greatest traits of the American revolutionaries was their recognition “that the little must precede the great; that the local must be the basis of the general; that there can be a free federation only when there are free communities to federate; that the spirit of the latter is carried into the councils of the former.”

“Anarchism” today is often employed as a pejorative term rather than as a description of the political and economic philosophy taken seriously by such great minds as J.R.R. Tolkien, Henry David Thoreau, Thomas Jefferson and William Lloyd Garrison. In fact, de Cleyre’s political philosophy had many similarities with modern libertarianism and traditional conservatism.

Continue reading “Freedom starts at home” →

Georgia O`Keeffe

The Marriott Hotel Home, New York

Due to my work I am one of the lucky people who has the opportunity to stay for short periods in various cities around the globe, and mostly the Hotels we stay in are the best around, and depending where we are, the flavour is often special.

I remember a stay in the Hilton Amsterdam where John Lennon had stayed, and had a week in bed to “Give Peace a Chance”, but a recent stay in the Marriott Eastside Hotel, New York caught my eye.

Georgia O'Keefe, 1918 photograph by Alfred Stieglitz

Georgia O`Keeffe lived here for 10 years!

I remember, she was the lady who painted the large scale flowers, and in particular “The Petunia”, and when she painted that particular piece, she was living in a suite on the 32nd floor of the very hotel I was staying in.

Georgia O`Keeffe was born in 1887 in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. She studied art in Chicago, and New York, and became an Art Teacher at Columbia College, South Carolina.

One of her friends had shown some of her works to Alfred Stieglitz the photographer. She came to New York, and there the two eventually married, and moved later into the Shelton Hotel, Lexington Avenue, which is now called the Marriott Hotel, Eastside.

The Petunia picture was painted in 1924, and was one of a large number of her works that were exhibited in 1925.

Her husband Alfred Steiglitz died in 1946, after which she moved to an isolated ranch in New Mexico, but she continued to produce great works. Paintings of Desert Cliffs, Animal Bones, and Flowers are among the worlds most admired works of art, and she continued to draw, paint and sculpt until her death in 1986, aged 98.

Petunia - 1925

I rather liked a comment she made at the age of 90.

“Success takes more than talent. It takes a kind of nerve.”

And a lot of hard, hard work, if you ask me!

By Bob Derham