Author: Mark Tokarski

Just a man who likes to read, argue, and occasionally be surprised.

Nothing has changed

I am skeptical of government pronouncements regarding things that they want us to fear, and unlike most, do not distinguish between Republican fear-mongering and Democratic fear-mongering. So I listened to Obama’s announcement of how they found a bomb in Dubai* and how it was headed for a synagogue, and I gave it the same credibility that such a pronouncement from George W. Bush would have merited. It’s probably a lie.

But assume that people working in counter-terrorism (their name for their work) are honest, as most surely are. Does that mean that the underlying event was real?

Not necessarily. Such incidents are easily generated, and can be real or fake, or better yet, manufactured. (Even shoe and underpants bombs can be manufactured events.) All is possible, but this is the U.S., so the event is automatically treated as real and credible. Shame on you, people! Shame on you!

The timing here is suspicious we well, the Friday before a national election. Bush did this on a regular basis.

Anyway, it was like an out-of-body experience for me as I listened to the news and Obama’s words on this matter. I was concentrating, and so not aware of myself, but standing before a mirror doing my morning stuff, looked at the mirror and saw myself smiling.

And then I laughed out loud. New president, different party, same old shit. Nothing has changed.

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*Worth noting here that the Obama Administration has given hints that it wants to attack Yemen, supposedly the source of the bombs found in Dubai. Is this casus belli?

The price is right

A group called American Action Network, one of those corporate fronts, is running an ad here in Colorado against Rep. Ed Perlmutter claiming that he favors giving Viagra to sex offenders. Here’s what a pretty little actress says to us:

“Apparently, convicted rapists can get Viagra paid for by the new health care bill… with my tax dollars… and Congressman Perlmutter voted for it.”

That’s crazy, I know. Just plain nuts. Regarding sex offenders and the new health law, nothing has changed. Pedophiles, just like pediatricians, can buy health insurance. Viagra is sometimes covered. Under the new law, some people might have their insurance subsidized, and no one knows what the hell the insurance exchanges will be when they come into being.

That’s the justification. Note the wording of the ad. Even though it’s a lie, it’s accurate.

One TV channel in Denver, Channel 9, pulled the ad. They stand alone in the integrity game. For all the others, the price is right.

Crystal balls

After the kerfuffle below regarding the uselessness of economics, one might logically ask the following:

Why have economic policy? If we can’t know the future, and if the present and past have too much data to analyze intelligently, why even try?

The answer is that large policies have outcomes. We can’t know all of them, but we can make reasonable guesses. Take, for instance, Social Security – we are told by policy wonks that it is either going to do the hockey stick on us, mounting so much future liability that it will absorb our entire economic engine, or that it is solvent through 2040. Which is true? Certainly not the former, as we would change course if the program got out of hand (which it hasn’t). And, sadly, not the latter either, as we did not know last year that current expenses would exceed current receipts this year.

So here is a policy suggestion: Attempt to get good outcomes, avoid bad ones, and avoid charlatans. Learn to recognize charlatans – usually, the first clue is they seem to be very certain about the future.

Social Security account manager
This much we know: The program has existed and never failed to pay a benefit for 70 years. That’s a good thing. Here’s what we also know: If we turn its management over to Wall Street, we will have no history of investment bankers running government programs during which good things happen, and a lot of history investment bankers gone wild where bad things have happened.

It’s really a no-brainer. Avoid Wall Street, and privatization.

The real Laffer Curve
The same goes for just about every other policy question – high marginal tax rates? It might alleviate (not cure) many of our current ills, like high income disparity, bubble investing, and concentrated wealth overrunning democratic governance, such as it is. So why not give it a try? The only thing that the past tells us about high marginal tax rates is that they don’t hurt much – they were kind of like the unnamed version of the Laffer Curve. By punishing people for certain behaviors (dis-investing in businesses, overpaying themselves), we encouraged other behaviors (investment in plant and equipment, avoidance of mansions and yachts). It wasn’t all good, but overall, it wasn’t bad.

Mentally ill
I have often referred to myself as a “European-style socialist,” and I stand by that. I don’t hold that socialism is better than capitalism, but rather that the two descriptive ideas of various behaviors seem to meld well for good outcomes. “Free market” advocates (it’s a clever phrase that implies good and masks bad … who doesn’t want to be “free!”) say that because certain Europeans countries are doing things differently than us, they are going to fail.

1) They don’t know this, can’t know this. 2) There are charlatans at work, again. Notice that they are certain about the future? There is a whole industry in this country of think tanks and bought priests who preach the wonders of “free” markets, and it is all so simple to figure out: Follow the money. Who bought all these people? The Koch brothers, the Waltons, Steve Forbes and other recognizable names. Already-wealthy people who want to stay wealthy. Duh.

Supremely stupid
Not everyone on the right wing is “bought.” Many are just stupid or suffering from Ayn Rand’s polemics. That damned book is like a siren song! Some are being manipulated (Tea Party). Some are very smart, but supremely stupid as they focus intensely on a few things and ignore everything else (Budge, Natelson, Kavulla). But more importantly, there is much of value on the so-called “right” – caution in formulating large policy changes, respect for wisdom of the past, fiscal prudence, respect for individual liberty (not “freedom”) – that we all need to respect.

If only the right wing would go back to being the right wing, if only the “left” even existed in this country, we could again have reasonable policy discussions. For now it’s a frenzy of stupids and crazies on one side, and weaklings and shills on the other.

I hope we make it through this period. I hope Social Security survives the onslaught. But I don’t know the future.

Poor Juan, now $2 million richer, should not have been fired

If you believe that people should be censored for saying unpopular things ...
Should Juan Williams have been fired? I don’t listen to NPR (except Car Talk and Wait Wait), and so don’t know anything about him. But the answer has to be “no, of course not.” It never hurts to know what a person is really thinking. And Williams accurately reflects the deep-seated fear that exists in so many of our citizens. If he were to follow his statement of fear with a reminder that it is irrational and the result of prejudice, then he could, like Christine O’Donnell, rightly claim “I am you.”

...then you don't believe in the First Amendment
We are horrible that way, by the way. Look at how Bill Maher and Ward Churchill got fired, how Phil Donahue was taken off the air, how the Dixie Chicks were taken off monopoly radio. Joycelyn Elders, Surgeon General under Clinton, had to resign because she said the “m” word, masturbation, without the shaking “no-no-no-no don’t do it no more” finger.

As Abbie Hoffman would remind us, freedom of speech is not about the ability to pray at a prayer meeting or salute the flag. It is about protection of the expression of unpopular views. And in that sense, the U.S. is a most un-free place. We don’t begin to practice what we preach to the world, and the world knows it.
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Here’s Glenn Greenwald of the same subject:

I’m still not quite over the most disgusting part of the Juan Williams spectacle yesterday: watching the very same people (on the Right and in the media) who remained silent about or vocally cheered on the viewpoint-based firings of Octavia Nasr, Helen Thomas, Rick Sanchez, Eason Jordan, Peter Arnett, Phil Donahue, Ashleigh Banfield, Bill Maher, Ward Churchill, Chas Freeman, Van Jones and so many others, spend all day yesterday wrapping themselves in the flag of “free expression!!!” and screeching about the perils and evils of firing journalists for expressing certain viewpoints. Even for someone who expects huge doses of principle-free hypocrisy — as I do — that behavior is really something to behold. And anyone doubting that there is a double standard when it comes to anti-Muslim speech should just compare the wailing backlash from most quarters over Williams’ firing to the muted acquiescence or widespread approval of those other firings….

Sucking blue whale

Down here in Colorado we are inundated by the same-ol same-ol from Democrats – yeah, Michael Bennet ain’t all that good, but geez! Ken Buck is even worse. These are our two senate candidates. Bennet is a Conservadem campaigning now as a progressive after knocking the real progressive out of the race. It’s a close contest. I voted for the Green candidate.

The lesser-of-evils strategy has worked too well for too long, for Republicans. Democrats succeeded in 2008 in taking control of two branches of government by such large margins that they could have made significant progress in achieving progressive goals. Instead, Obama went Clintonista on us, the 60 Senate Dems allowed the Republicans to block all legislation proposed, and good legislation like EFCA did not even make it to the floor.

They could have done more. They could have done a lot more. But they didn’t. Worse than that, they didn’t fight for us. They are either weasels and cowards of no spinal substance, or they are working against us. Pick-em.

By the way, the House passed quite a bit of good legislation, and it all died in the Senate. The lesson that most people took from that is that the House is a good body that is working hard for us. The actual lesson is a little less inspiring – the House could do anything it wanted, as everything had to pass through the bottleneck in the Senate. Therefore, the powerful forces that control these people pretty much let the House do as it wished. But note that when it came time to pass a very bad piece of legislation, the Health Care Reform Act, The House caved. Power worked its magic.

I know, the usual suspects will say that I “wasted” my vote on a Green candidate. This is true. It was a choice of wastebaskets, and I chose to toss that vote in the clean receptacle. Democrats are going to take a beating this November, but they deserve it. Republicans are going to take hold of many offices, and they will fight for their beliefs. Our choices are people who fight against us, and people who refuse to fight for us.

That sucks. But it is tough-love times, time for the Democrats to take a cold shower. Nothing that is done cannot be undone. There will be suffering and pain, and things will get worse now. In time, either the Democrats will be taken over by fighters, or they will sit on the sidelines watching history go by.

But don’t kid yourself. This coming election, the Democrats will go down, and it is not the fault of progressives. It is the fault of Democrats. They suck … blue whale? Who said that?

Texas Hold-em

I have a game on my ITouch that simulates Texas Hold-em poker. It’s put out by an outfit called Candywriter, and is called Imagine Poker. As far as I can tell, the game is not rigged – it allows real odds to play themselves out. There are a host of characters that you play against, most taken from history, and each exhibiting playing characteristics different from the others. Napoleon takes too may risks, Little Red Riding Hood is too timid, and Medusa is always in your face with a challenging bet, forcing you to take a hard look at your king-nine-suited.

The game is five levels, and if you win at every level you win the tournament. I have been playing for over a year, and have won one tournament. I have lost a couple of hundred times.

Am I a bad player? Probably. I will never find out in real life, as there are two possible outcomes from a real tournament: I win some money, or I lose some money. If I win, I’ll surely go back and try again. If I lose, well, I lose some money. So both outcomes are bad.

Worse than that, a simulated game allows me to play with funny money. The risk-taking, while it seems real, is not, and I know this. In a real game, challenged by a real player who knows more about odds and people than I do, I would be burnt toast in a big hurry. So I’ll stick to the ITouch, or watch those tournaments on TV where you get to see the hole cards.

Here’s what is interesting – my son, who is very perceptive, played the ITouch one time and won a tournament. How did he do it? He went all-in on every hand every time. Most times this caused the others to drop out, but often enough when they stayed in he drew the right cards to win.

As I said, I think the game allows real odds to play themselves out. So I need someone to explain this phenomenon to me. If I went to Vegas and played Texas Hold-em, and went all-in on every hand every time, would I stand a better chance of winning? Or did my son merely find the glitch in the programming where it stopped simulating real life, and became a farce.

Or a larger question – is skill at poker an illusion? Is it just random chance with random winners continuing to play while the losers go into other pursuits, like accounting or investment advice?

Empty suits

Heritage Foundation board meeting
One advantage of moving is time to think. I spent the week carting household goods onto a U Haul on one end, and off on the other.

My last serious blog encounter prior to the move was with Dave Budge, and it resonated. The man was arrogant enough to say

…I’m working on a long post, Mark, that you’re going to have to research to argue against.

As I learned afterward, he wasn’t asking me to critique it. He merely wanted to play teacher-student. His post, The Pulse of my Bleeding Heart: Part I (Part II never appeared), was devoid of one important thing: research.

I approached it with some anticipation, however, as I regarded him as a scholarly man. I put it off until a Saturday morning when I would have time to read it. And then I got through it, and did some writing. In retrospect, the real conclusions I draw form his post go deeper than what I wrote that day.

I am surprised. He’s not all that smart. He’s not all that thoughtful. His long post was mostly a citation of others with whom he agreed, patting himself on the back for taking the trouble to quote people with whom he otherwise disagrees, but with whom is was in agreement with on the subject at hand: sweatshops. He doesn’t like them, but thinks them necessary. They are the price that (other) people pay for prosperity. He offered no empirical data – only an affirmation that others had done so.

John C. Calhoun, advocate of free trade, states' rights, limited government, and slavery
He’s wrong, of course. Sweatshops are not part of development. They are part of a system of repression. They don’t lead to development. Development leads away from them. The arguments he put forward were almost identical to those put forth by southern plantation owners to justify slavery.

Sweatshops, like the stockyards of Upton Sinclair’s “Jungle,” are merely investors grabbing at opportunity. Budge looks backward and sees sweatshops in the distant past for countries that have developed well, and imputes cause and effect. It is not only wrong and backward, but servile. Such conclusions benefits oligarchy. He may not be well-paid in the terms of our bought priesthood, but he is bought nonetheless. He literally self-indoctrinates for benefit of the wealthy sector.

But there’s more to his flawed thinking than mere false narrative. There is massive, overwhelming, blatant and obscene confirmation bias. Budge went so far as to say that Japan and Korea developed because of sweatshops. All he had to do, all anyone has to do, is look a little deeper. What do Japan and Korea have in common? As with China, they were never colonized. That confirms my bias – that countries that were colonized by Europe and the U.S. in past centuries, like India and those in Latin America, suffer from retarded development. There may have been sweatshops in Japan and Korea, might still be, and it means nothing more than investors still pursue opportunity as it presents itself.

Sweatshops are just a tool for extracting wealth, a form of oppression, slave labor by many for the benefit of a few, and justified by the bought priesthood.

I didn’t set out here to write about sweatshops again. My reason in sitting down this morning was the wonderment I felt this week that the man with whom I have argued so much, and for whom I had grudging admiration, turned out to be so shallow. In the end, he reminds me of Rob Natelson, rigorously affirming what he knows to be true, ignorant of all that contradicts it, and calling the outcome “scholarship.”

Phew!

Red Rocks Amphitheater, Morrison, CO
Well, we are no longer residents of Boulder, Colorado – the “most self-satisfied community in the country” (Denver Post). We have been moving all week, and are now officially residents of Jefferson County, Colorado. Our mailing address will say “Morrison,” but that little community is ten miles away. The closest town is Aspen Park (not to be confused with Aspen, where movies stars ski). We are living now in a mountain home, or as my wife likes to say, our “tree house.” At night we look down on the lights of Denver.

Boulder was awfully nice – very lively, lots of brew pubs and coffee houses, a college town with a very liberal atmosphere. There are lots of PhD’s there, along with entrepreneurs and authors, scientists and green companies. It suited me fine, but in the end we decided that we wanted to be off the hot prairie and up in the mountains. (Not to mention that housing costs are astronomical there.)

I’ve been following the news and blogs and stuff, and nothing has changed. I’ve got to remember that if things change, it is only to get worse. There have always been crazies about, ever since the discovery of the New World. Europe routinely sent their sent their malcontents and religious cults this way. But these days, with the Tea Parties and people like Beck and Palin and O’Donnell held in high esteem, it seems as though Ladybug is right: We are circling the drain. These people are not just politically extreme. They are very stupid. And yet, stupidity automatically garners 30% in the polls.

But I suppose people have always said that. Maybe the only difference now is that I am sixty, and noticing the craziness more.

But I’ll carry on. I’ve been doing this for four years now, and enjoy it as much as in the beginning. And my arch-nemeses, the Democratic Party, has never offered such a large target as it does now. Obama has gone all Clinton* on us, and the usual suspects are digging deep into their imaginations for reasons to continue to believe.

Green Party gubernatorial candidate Laura Green
What a country! What lunacy! The Green Party candidate for governor of California, Laura Wells was arrested! for trying to legally enter a debate at Dominican University. Ralph Nader was arrested in 2000 for trying to merely sit in the audience for a presidential debate. He, like Ms. Wells is a citizen and had a ticket.

This is our one-party-with-two-right-wings system at work. The reason why they don’t want other parties in the debates is because their presence highlights how little difference there is between them.

Circling the drain, indeed.
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*Remembering Bill Clinton: Another post, some time. But could a Republican do more harm to this country than did Bubba? But he is more popular now than Obama.