Just a few things in a rather scattered yet grander than the grand, Victorian manner…
Once again, I have been quite negligent in updating this blog- my midterms just finished recently and I seriously do not know how even I could have managed that. At any rate- I have been fortunate and grateful. I knew I worked hard (well that’s not really saying much as I have been coasting on talent for the past two years) but still, I have learned my lesson not to leave fights to judges and their scorecards and finish them- no more, no less. I am returning to camp Marinovich for the whole of March and will be coming out of April- fit and focused and more importantly, my weaknesses will be strengths, my strengths will be second nature . Watch.
I have been immersed with the rather mesmerising spectacle of the Olympics- the tragedy that befell the start was surely heartbreaking but still the triumph of man against physical and mental odds must be celebrated- a very welcome respite from the tortuous drama going on in the world. So to my girl Mao Asada (too bad honey- you’ll win next time darling- here’s a great article from the Village Voice though- http://blogs.villagevoice.com/forkintheroad/archives/2010/02/mao_asadas_cons.php), Yu-na Kim (just mind blowing and very well-deserved), Magdalena Neuner, Bode Miller (doing it in one’s own way and all in good time- the only way to do it!), the Japanese Women’s Curling Team (still not a sport-haha), the skiers, the skaters, the sticks, the shooters, the crashes, the jumps, the falls and the fights and the flights and everything in between- thank you. For a moment, you all spared the world from nonsense and sadness and just gifted all a taste of victory- for humanity.
So there. I am finishing my reading on Hayek, keeping an eye on the war of words between the Greeks and the Teutons, writing a few pieces here and there and getting ready to go back to camp. March will mark TWO MONTHS OFF of cutting out all the silly stuff (to the muse I made a vow to and for- see? I keep my word…) and I am gunning for A HUNDRED DAYS OFF. Anyway, I’ll post more of my musings on economics and law soon and here’s to the summer..
Kim Yuna
WATCH. JUST SCRAP.
(All articles, photographs, and artwork owned and copyrighted by their respective authors, publishers, and artists)
Adina-Ioana Vãlean, representative for Romania at the European Parliament, member of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) hails the European Parliament’s vote in favour of enabling the European Commission to gather energy infrastructure information that will help shape future European energy policy.
The proposal requires that Member States collect and notify data and information on key investment and decommissioning projects. This will empower the Commission to identify potential future demand and supply gaps as well as obstacles to investment.
In welcoming the EP’s endorsement of the proposal Ms Vãlean, who was rapporteur for the report, commented that “Citizens and companies across the EU need to know that their future energy supplies will be affordable, sustainable and secure. The data that the Commission will now be able to gather should lead to the smarter energy policies that will achieve those ends. But the Commission must also protect the sensitive information that it will gather and ensure that it does not amount to a burden on enterprise: that is the way to buy in trust and good will from citizens and industry alike.”
The proposal for a Council Regulation (Consultation procedure) which aims at ensuring that the Commission is accurately and regularly informed of investment projects in EU energy infrastructure, in order for it to be able to perform its tasks, in particularly its contribution to the European energy policy. This regulation replaces in fact a similar regulation from 1996 (which, itself, is a reformulation of a regulation from 1972). The repealed regulation is considered outdated, because it does not reflect the important changes that have taken place since 1996 in the energy field (EU enlargement and security of supply issues, renewable energies, climate change policy, new EU role in the field of energy under the Lisbon Treaty).
The Regulation requires that, every two years, Member States (or the entity they delegate this task to) collect and notify data and information on certain types (specified in an annex to the regulation) of investment projects concerning building, modernisation or decommissioning of production, transport and storage capacities (planned or undergoing). These cover oil, natural gas, electricity, bio-fuel, as well as carbon dioxide produced from these sources. The regulation places an obligation on energy undertakings to provide the necessary data to their own member state. It also specifies the content of the notification (capacities, location, timetable, technologies used in the interest of security of supply, carbon capture systems or retrofitting mechanisms, as well as comments on delays of obstacles on the implementation of the projects).
In order to avoid double reporting, if notifications of investments are required under other specific EU legislation, Member States will be exempted of the obligation to notify such investments.
The information will be kept confidential, but the Commission will be able to publish aggregated data [1]. It will also provide every two years a cross-sector analysis of the structural evolution and perspectives of the EU energy system and any other specific analysis needed. This would allow for an identification of potential future demand and supply gaps as well as obstacles to investment. This regulation intends to make more transparent projected demand and available (or planned) supply.
With these analyses, the Commission will be in a better position to promote best practice and to establish greater transparency for market participants. To develop common views on these issues, the results of these analyses would be discussed with stakeholders and published.
A review of the regulation is scheduled five years after the entry into force.
A consumer watchdog group is giving President Obama’s bipartisan deficit-reduction commission a head start — a $1.4 trillion head start.
Obama last week created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to develop a plan to balance the federal budget by 2015 and strengthen the government’s financial health. Obama named as co-chairs Clinton administration budget director Alice Rivlin and former GOP senator Alan Simpson.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group this week posted online in The First Trillion report – a new list of policy recommendations that would save American taxpayers more than $1 trillion.
None of the recommendations would cut Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or other social safety-net programs that many liberals worry will come under the commission’s fiscal knife.
To calculate The First Trillion, U.S. PIRG says it looked at existing tax code for loopholes, reviewed government reports on wasteful contracting practices and crunched the numbers. The group says that it came up with ways the government can save the first trillion dollars “by enacting common sense policy that is in the public interest.”
“To truly put everything on the table, the commission cannot ignore gaping corporate loopholes and tax breaks that have gone unchecked,” says Nicole Tichon, tax and budget reform analyst for U.S. PIRG. “There has also been ample evidence that all agencies need to undergo scrutiny when it comes to the money spent on contracts.”
A number of the recommended provisions were included in Obama’s proposed budgets last year and this year, but never made their way into final legislation, U.S. PIRG notes. Some of the largest potential revenues can be derived from closing loopholes that enable large corporations and individuals to make use of offshore tax havens for business or banking. Despite attenpting to make political hay out of the budget deficit, Republicans have already objected to ending at least some of these corporate giveaways.
The U.S. PIRG recommendations would collect duplicate payments made to federal contractors, as well as collect delinquent taxes from these contactors, and end student loan subsidies to private lenders.
“In addition to bailing out bankers now rolling in bonus money, taxpayers and small businesses on Main Street have had to assume the tax burden of those who use every trick in the book to avoid paying taxes,” Tichon says. “This has got to end, and enacting the policy recommendations in The First Trillion report are a good place to start.”
Andrew Lilico of Policy Exchange (plus many other areas, such as the Shadow MPC), has come up with an interesting compromise for those Centre-Right thinkers who are both annoyed by the high level of public spending, and worried about the macroeconomic consequences of cutting the deficit. Why not do a temporary tax cut at the same time?
A lot of precedent overseas suggests that it is easier, politically, to cut soon. But Keynesian macroeconomics argues against it. Does this square the circle?
I would be interested to know which tax cuts will have the same bang-for-buck as spending, but they do at least have less distortionary effects, particularly if well-targeted on high marginal spenders. Perhaps lift the income tax threshold?
Cruise ships take a while to steer, their bulky momentum gets in the way, but they are robust and comfortable. On the other hand, speed boats can turn quickly, but with it comes a sizable probability of flipping the boat, and don’t attempt to sip a glass of Merlot.
In my opinion America is like a large cruise ship, and when it is to be guided to a new course the change will be slow to occur.
Personally, I gave Bush 2-4 years before I began to have an opinion about our stay in Iraq … it simply takes that long when you are dealing with such large and complex issues.
Amazon today announced the availability of Reserved Instance pricing for Windows. For users who will run server instances for more than about about 37% of the year, it is a new price reduction. By paying a fee up-front, you get a huge discount on the per-hour price. The break-even is about 37% of a year, if you start and stop all the time, or 19.3 weeks, if you just run all the time.
For example, if you are running on our new cloud recovery service, you will want to run an EC2 Small Windows Instance, 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, for as long as you use the service. Here is how the numbers work out for you:
On-demand pricing: $0.13 per hour, or $1,139 per year.
Reserved instance pricing: $227.50 up-front fee (for the one-year deal), plus $0.06 per hour, totaling $753 per year.
This is a nice savings of $386 per year, or about 34%. (Amazon also offers a 3 year deal, with even better savings; this breaks-even at about 30 weeks of full-time usage). Of course, one of the key benefits of cloud computing is the ability to pay as you go, and stop whenever you need. In this case, though, I suggest making a small investment. As long as you think you will keep running for 19 weeks, you cannot lose, and every hour you run after that gives you a nice discount.
Here is an AP story. Frankly, it seems to me they are in favor of it. How about a bill that has NO TAX INCREASES?
Obama puts forward $1 trillion health care plan
It starts out this way:
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama is putting forward a nearly $1 trillion, 10-year health care plan that would allow the government to deny or roll back egregious insurance premium increases that infuriated consumers.
Really? Who wrote that, Rahm Emanuel or David Axelrod? Instead of mentioning disastrous price fixing controls that will cripple the entire healthcare industry…
Let’s hope the GOP can do their job and KILL THE BILL:
Boehner: President’s Health Care Proposal Jeopardizes Summit, Doubles Down on Failed Approach Americans Have Already Rejected
GOP Leader: “The President has crippled the credibility of this week’s summit by proposing the same massive government takeover of health care based on a partisan bill the American people have already rejected.”
White House: If GOP Filibusters, We’ll Pass Health Reform Via Reconciliation
The game of chicken commenceth — right now.
In the course of unveiling Obama’s new health reform proposal on a conference call with reporters this morning, White House advisers made it clearer than ever before: If the GOP filibusters health reform, Dems will move forward on their own and pass it via reconciliation.
Scary.
Obama healthcare plan nixes Ben Nelson’s ‘Cornhusker Kickback’ deal
That’s the headline, but it leaves the LOUISIANA PURCHASE, and I’m sure lots of other things “negotiated” behind closed doors.
Obama’s bill, however, does not specifically remove $300 million of Medicaid funds pegged for disaster relief for which Louisiana is the only state eligible.
Republicans dubbed it the ”Louisiana Purchase” and said it was a corrupt bargain to win the support of holdout Sen. Mary Landrieu (D).
So where is the transparency?
* As expected, the plan has no public option — but this does not preclude a reconciliation vote on the public option later.
* The proposal boosts the threshold for the “Cadillac” tax on the most expensive health plans from $23,000 for a family plan to $27,500. That’s actually a better deal than some labor officials were expecting, though some House Dems will still be angry that the tax is being included at all.
* The proposal also preserves the Senate bill’s state-based exchanges, and does not have a national exchange, as the House bill did.
* However, House Dems will be cheered by the fact that Obama’s compromise closes the Medicare prescription drug “donut hole” coverage gap.
* Also, the bill nixes Ben Nelson’s Nebraska deal and boosts Federal financing for Medicaid expansion in all states.
* And finally, as expected, Obama’s proposal creates a Federal panel to monitor and block exorbitant rate hikes and other unfair practices by the insurance industry.
The federal government gets to decide what is “exorbitant” and what is “fair?”
They want to takeover healthcare – a power grab.
The Obama plan: Price Controls, Mandates… Is Obama’s New Health Plan Unconstitutional?
How is this not redistribution of wealth: Marxism?
And after months of losing the messaging war on health care, the White House put a new frame on the subsidies for lower-income Americans to purchase health insurance, describing them as the “largest middle class tax cut for health care in history.” At the same time, the plan would raise the Medicare payroll tax on couples earning more than $250,000 a year.
A “healthcare subsidy” is not a “tax cut.” I think that is downright deceptive. Why should we start believing them now?
That’s a start, that’s all I have time for right now. Stay tuned!
There exists a common view that belief in oneself, hard work and determination will enable one to be very successful in life. I have a hypothesis, that such view is just a convenient and powerful tool for controlling the masses of people and extracting amounts of energy out of them, sufficient enough for maintaining the growth of organised production, therefore, make profit for the few. The reasoning behind this hypothesis is linked to, what I call, the difference between voluntary and involuntary slavery.
Involuntary slavery is where one group of people gains control over time and energy of another group(s) of people by means of crude force or cohesion. In such case, the slaves live in complete and full awareness of their social position and, driven by suppressed and wounded spirit, inevitably tend to rebel against their masters. Thus, under the involuntary slavery system, the masters find it difficult to control the slaves, since the latter will always try, in one way or another and sooner or later, to break away from their social position and even take revenge upon their masters for the hardships caused. Involuntary slavery is essentially unsustainable.
Voluntary slavery, on the other hand, is a very effective, very powerful and very sustainable system. The key distinction from the involuntary slavery system is that, under voluntary slavery system, the slaves live in a practical illusion with respect to their social position. They wholesomely believe that they are free. Free to speak, free to move, free to choose. They think they have freedoms, while in reality they have obligations. Obligation to their employer to perform, obligations to the financial institutions to pay installments, obligations to the governments to pay tax. It is much easier to control the masses and extract the required energies from them, when the masses think they are making effort out of free will, instead of when they realize that they are forced, by some mean or the other, to make that effort.
Inevitably, in a social system of voluntary slavery propaganda, of one form or the other, is the key instrument for enforcing the will of the masters. And what better propaganda there is than the one, which effectively promises the slaves that, if they continue to make effort (and thus give the masters the energy they require), they can realistically achieve the same, or almost the same social standing.
The system of voluntary slavery does not even try to smooth out the view of the respective position of the masters vis-a-vis the slaves. On the contrary, it promotes that position by promising the slaves the possibility of achieving the same. In this also lies additional advantage of the voluntary slave system over the involuntary one. Under the latter, the slaves are made aware from the start, that they have little or no chance of becoming the masters and have to make do with what they are, while under the former, the slaves are made to believe that every single one of them can effectively become the master if they just continue to be determined, work hard and believe in themselves.
Of course, it is easy to see, that it is impossible for everyone to “become a master”, irrespective of the amount of determination, effort, and belief in oneself. And yet, most of us, continue to be fooled and coach ourselves on an ongoing basis, that we must strive, we must work hard, we must believe and then success will definitely follow.
Finally, because of the basic laws of probability few do make it, of course. But this just reinforces the system and gives additional boost of motivation for the remaining masses. It is possible, we must just believe in ourselves, work hard, etc, etc. And indeed it is possible, it is just highly improbable. Like playing a lottery: few win big but millions play their whole life without ever winning anything significant. But while few win and change their social position, the rest keep playing, and that means exerting the energies required by the few for keeping the machine going.
Lecture Dates: 25th – 28th February, 2010. Exam Date: 24th April, 2010. Lecturer: Dr Choon Yin Sam
The objective of managerial economics is to explore how economic theory and decision science tools can assist in the formulation of optimal solutions to managerial decision problems. The course applies many familiar concepts from economics such as demand and cost, monopoly and competition, the allocation of resources and economic trade-offs, level of economic activity, macro-economic policy, and the impact of globalisation.
Students will also acquire quantitative skills in business and economic forecasting. At the end of the course, students should be able to use these analytical tools within the economic framework on real-world business applications.
International Business
Lecture Dates: 4th – 7th March, 2010. Exam Date: 1st May, 2010. Lecturer: Dr You-il Lee
This course aims to provide students with the knowledge and skills to manage a business in the international arena and to familiarise them as managers and leaders with the range of strategies available to compete more effectively in today’s rapidly emerging global economy.
We’ve just published our latest report on the post-recession consumer, and the headlines are that although people are still concerned about the state of the economy, and are behaving cautiously as a result, there is less panic about the economic outlook than was shown in our previous research. But this is partly because people have changed their behaviour – the UK savings rate is now 8% (it was close to zero for most of the last decade, and even negative in 2008). As Futures Company Director Fran Walton said at the client launch, “People are building a buffer for what might lay ahead for them.”
A couple of insights from particular sectors are striking. The first is that people seem to have changed their grocery shopping behaviour – the proportion agreeing that ‘I am shopping at several shops to get the best prices, rather than doing one big shop at the supermarket’ increased from 22% to 36% between January 2009 and November, when the field research was done for the latest report. And there’s evidence that people are looking to spend less when they go out. There’s a more detailed summary of the data in WARC (subscription required).
News of the client launch event turned up in an unlikely place – Claire Myerscough’s Media Week in Brand Republic. She works for News International, and this was her take on the research:
Learn that consumers are still less trusting, with 53% worried about the price of petrol and 43% planning to spend less over the next 12 months. The mood of uncertainty is in line with our research: things have improved since this time last year but we are not out of the woods yet.
The Reconstructed Consumer is available as a paid-for report. For more information please contact Jennifer Childs on 020 7966 1824.
This chart pretty well sums up why piracy is widespread: it’s the freedom, stupid.
It’s all about the freedom of the content (not necessarily the free price). If you need more anecdotal proof, think about how much more willing you are to buy a song on iTunes than to search for an album in a physical store or even through peer-to-peer networking.
The simple fact of the digital world is that digital media can always be repurposed and freed. Commercials can be stripped out, playback options can be expanded, and the freed media can be reproduced. If the human brain can process the information, its encryption or digital rights management can be removed because a machine will necessarily be able to perceive and collect the information if it is able to play it back.
Pull beats push. By definition, people want to be able to do whatever they want with their media. And they will do whatever they need to free their media for unlimited use and consumption if the costs are low enough (again, see the iTunes Plus pricing discrimination in effect). When you add the Internet into the equation, the functionality that everyone wants becomes free (as in price) to anyone who wants it as soon as one person figures out how to do it for themselves (or for anyone else for that matter).
The lesson: if media owners start offering really convenient and free media, maybe they can charge a buck a pop on the first run, without forcing people to find their own solutions. Capitalizing on laziness can beat piracy because delivery beats pull.
By Dean Baker | Center for Economic and Policy Research | February 15, 2010
Last week, when President Obama was asked about the $9 million dollar bonus for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, he described Mr. Blankfein as a savvy businessman, adding that Americans don’t begrudge people being rewarded for success. While Obama later qualified his comment about Mr. Blankfein and his fellow bank executives, it’s worth examining more closely some of the ways in which Blankfein and the Goldman gang were “savvy.”
Perhaps the Goldman gang’s best claim to savvy was in buying up hundreds of billions of dollars of mortgages and packaging them into mortgage-backed securities, and more complex derivative instruments, and selling them all over the world. Mr. Blankfein and Goldman earned tens of billions of dollars on these deals.
The great trick was that many of the loans put into these securities were issued fraudulently, with the banks filling in phony information so that borrowers could get loans that they would not be able to repay. But this was not Goldman’s concern. They made money on the packaging and the selling of the securities. Goldman did not care that the loans in their bundles might not be kosher.
In fact, Goldman actually recognized that many of these loans would go bad. So they went to the insurance giant AIG and got them to issue credit default swaps against many of the securities it had created. In effect they were betting that their own securities were garbage. Now that is savvy. (It says something else about the highly paid executives at AIG.)
Goldman doesn’t just confine its savvy to the U.S. economy; it shares it with the rest of the world as well. According to the New York Times, it worked closely with the Greek government over the last decade to help it conceal its budget deficit. The trick was to construct complex financial arrangements that appeared on the books as “swaps,” even though they were in fact loans. Greece was adding billions of dollars to its debt, and thanks to the ingenuity of the Goldman crew, no one knew about it until now.
But Goldman’s greatest triumph was to get the government to come to its rescue when the financial sector was melting down in the fall of 2008 as the housing bubble that they had helped to fuel began to collapse. Treasury Secretary and former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson rushed to Congress and demanded $700 billion for the banks, no questions asked. He dragged along Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke for support, along with Tim Geithner, then the important head of the New York Federal Reserve Bank and now President Obama’s Treasury Secretary.
Using exaggerations and half-truths, this triumvirate convinced Congress that we would have a second Great Depression if it didn’t cough up the money immediately with no conditions. At that point Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and most of the other major banks were staring at bankruptcy. While this cascade of bank failures would have been bad news for the economy, there was no plausible scenario in which it would have led to a second Great Depression.
There was also no reason that Congress could not have put conditions on its money. For example, Congress could have dictated that as a condition of getting the money that bankers would get the same sort of paychecks as other workers, that they would get out of highly speculative activity, that the largest banks would be downsized and that the principle would be written down on bad mortgages. At that point, Congress could have told the bank honchos that they had to run around Wall Street naked with their underpants on their head. The bankers had no choice; their banks would crash and burn without government support.
But the savvy Mr. Blankfein and the other bankers got the money no questions asked. In fact, Goldman even got the government to pick up the bankrupt AIG’s debts. Thanks to the government’s intervention, Goldman got paid every penny on its bets with AIG. This came to $13 billion, enough money to pay for 4 million kid-years of health care under the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.
No one should doubt that Mr. Blankfein is a very savvy banker. Without his ingenuity Goldman Sachs would likely be out of business, its component divisions being auctioned off to the highest bidder. Instead it is making record profits and paying out record bonuses.
But unlike the successful ballplayers to whom President Obama compared Mr. Blankfein, Goldman’s success is inherently parasitic. It comes at the expense of taxpayers and the productive economy. Goldman and the other Wall Street banks are successful in the same way as the savvy Bernie Madoff was successful. It seems that President Obama must still decide whether he stands with the Wall Street banks or whether he stands with the workers and businesses who actually produce wealth.
Dean Baker is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR). He is the author of False Profits: Recovering from the Bubble Economy. He also has a blog on the American Prospect, “Beat the Press,” where he discusses the media’s coverage of economic issues.
Philosophy can be defined in many ways. Some definitions are as simple as “defining the meaning of words” to “reflective thinking on the world around us”. Philosophy of Education tries to contemplate this unique human endeavor called education.
Unlike rest of living beings human beings are distinctly different. Human beings are more organized, have sense of ethics, have culture, sense of justice, have economy and ability to communicate. Hence a human offspring when born, simple does not posses any of the skills and substantial knowledge that it must have in order to feel accepted among rest of the community. The skills like reading and writing, arithmetic etc. do not come naturally to human off-springs. It must be given to less knowledgeable by someone who already knows it. This concept of transfer of knowledge from someone who knows it to someone who doesn’t know is called education. Besides knowledge skill also forms part of education. But it is up to the individual to sharpen his skill by constant practice.
The obvious consequence of education is that, the knowledge and skills that an individual obtains are largely determined by the education system he goes through. Hence the benefits that he will get by acquiring it also depends of the education system. Which means education system becomes a social-sorter and has an enormous impact on economic fate of an individual.
Once attained some basic education the individual can define his own goals of life and can further equip himself with education that will help him in attaining his own goals.
This shows that education is so important. Over years several philosophers have thought on this subject and have tried to express their views on education, knowledge, truth etc.
When contemplating on education there is rich set of topics that philosophers have tried to contemplate upon. Education and it’s effect of class structure of society, the difference between education, training, indoctrination, education for individual aspirations or aspiration of citizenry, educations and rights of students, children, parents and teachers, free or paid education, should we have same education for all or can we have different education with different aim for different class, gender , region etc. In Indian context the contemporary issues are reservation in education , state sponsored education or private education, medium of instruction etc.
Among all philosophers one man who stands tall is Plato. It is often remarked that Western Philosophy is nothing but footnotes to Plato’s The Republic. When it comes to thoughts relating to education and knowledge Plato simply beats the time. Even today philosopher most often tow the same line as Plato.
Knowledge , Truth and Light
A few centuries ago, before the industrial revolution education basically meant religious education. Most of the times it was based on Dogmas or in case of India, mostly on direct experience through a Guru.
But invariably, the reason civilizations felt education was desirable was because , they related it to the main objective of human life, to be “good”, attain “higher truth” or “the truth”. Tamaso Ma Jyotirgamaya, from darkness to light etc.
Education is believed to make human life better. It is not only through economic status of individual but through social, moral and spiritual status. While human beings have a limited life span groups, communities and societies continue to live. Education remains a critical factor in determining progress of a society over a period of time.
Education and Economy
But mere presence of education is not enough. As mentioned above it acts as a social-sorter and quality matters. The societies which managed to build excellent education system became stronger and richer while those ignored education perished.
It is worth nothing that India with its oldest education system was a rich nation until British arrived destroyed the beautiful tree (term coined by Gandhiji to describe indian education system). Argentina and United states were rival at the beginning of 18th century, United States Invested in education and today it is still the strongest economy. China’s growth should also be correlated to it’s pursuit of improving it’s education system.
Plato
But then it means that human beings are basically not good, they live in darkness or in “Avidya” (ignorance). Plato’s parable of cave very aptly describes the state of human society. The prisoners in Cave mistake shadows for reality. One prisoner among them manages to make himself free and escape the cave to see the world outside. But when he returns to free rest of his fellow prisoners they don’t understand him.
The apparently simple allegory, describes several problems. The truth as we perceive it , is not the real truth? Is it the responsibility of the person who has seen the truth to come back to rest of the ignorant crowd and explain the reality? And how the ignorant crowd will accept the wise ones words ? Does it imply that direct experience is essential in truely liberating our self?
Plato’s ideas about education are described in The Republic. He argues that the abilities of human beings do no depend on genes and person from any class can exhibit talents more appropriate for other classes. Hence he argues that the State must separate children from parents and segregate them based on the kind of talents they show.
Plato’s education system considers women and men equal. Everyone gets military training for two years and education can continue till the age of 50. Given that the life expectancy during Plato’s time, this is significant.
Plato describes knowledge as the truth. He also describes that knowing truth is like going higher up, in his allegory of cave the free prisoner had to climb steps in order to reach light. A ray of light illuminates the world outside and the freed prisoner is able to see the rest of world. In Indian context too, light is synonymous with knowledge and truth. The illuminator Sun is often considered as the symbol of knowledge.
Locke
John Locke, when he was in exile in Europe, wrote letters to his relatives who had questioned him about how their child, heir should be educated. The Kid apparently had learning difficulties. Locke’s letters were later published and became one of the most important work of philosophy of education.
Locke argued that a child’s mind is like a blank tablet which needs to be furnished with time. He suggested that learning must be made fun. The child must form several simple ideas in his mind and more complex knowledge is essentially combination of these simple abstract ideas.
He saw repetition as an important tool to internalize good habits and argued that parents of teachers must help children to carefully nurture their natural habits before they are exposed to academic education.
Maria Montessori
A french doctor who devised a method to teach children below the age of 7. Based on her observation she concluded that “Edcuation is not an activity that is to be imposed on the individual but it is a spontaneous activity carried out by the individual himself. A teacher is not supposed to teach to the individual but provide a series of motives to learn, an environment where a student can learn and present an obtrusive distractions.”
Her method was very successful and she received a lot of acclaim for her work. But the critics of her method argued that while her method was very successful for cultivating basic skills, when it comes to subjects such as mathematics and greek which disciples our mind, it is not helpful.
Influences and way forward
The modern times have seen education getting influenced by modern thoughts such as marxism, pragmatism, feminism etc. etc. political thought continues to be the driving force as most of the education system in world is driven by state.
The world is undergoing rapid changes with time. These rapid changes along with the importance that we are attributing to information has changed people’s perspective towards tradition concept of education. The amount of knowledge and skill required is so substantial that human beings can’t memorize all of it. With different technologies, memorizing is becoming less and less important while creativity and imagination is gaining more and more importance.
On the other hand, the divide among The “haves” and “Have not” is increasing. While the importance of education remains beyond any doubts, a large population around the world is uneducated, illiterate or the quality of education that they have received remains abysmally poor. India itself is home to worlds largest illiterate population.
Education poor and women has received high attention from international communities. Many argue that State must make basic education free and compulsory to its population. On other hand there is discussion whether the poor should be subjected some different sort of education system rather than the one we followed in previous century.
Philosophers continue to ponder over these questions. As education becomes more and more important certainly there will be more and more interesting thoughts coming forward, and without any doubts these thoughts will determine how the future of the world is shaped. du
Here are two articles about nanotechnology safety: one somewhat reassuring, the other not so much. It appears we must educate ourselves, since labeling and consumer protections are not priorities:
24 questions and answers on nanotechnology safety
2020Science Andrew Maynard February 12, 2010
Well I guess I set myself up good and proper – I should have realized that in asking people for their questions on nanotechnology safety last week, they would actually want answers!
read more here
and the next article
Hazards Magazine
Dangers come in small particles
Hundreds of nanotechnology applications are already in commercial production despite a huge health and safety question mark. Hazards looks at how an industry the safety authorities admit they know precious little about has been allowed to grow, unregulated, into the biggest thing since the microchip.
Once more Americans are opening their hearts by opening their wallets.
The earthquake that has rocked Haiti has prompted an outpouring of aid to assist the relief effort to rescue the trapped and feed, clothe and house the dispossessed. It is one of those times where tragedy brings out our better natures.
It also brings out some of the dark underbelly of America as well. A certain rotund radio host has proclaimed that our simple humane gesture of sending troops to help in the recovery efforts was really about the president securing the black vote. A television preacher and activist dragged up an awful legend that Haiti brought this on themselves by making a deal with the devil to defeat France and gain independence more the 200 years ago. Fortunately, America is made of better stuff than that and those buffoons were largely ignored.
By and large, as a country we are a giving people. Whether the crisis is a medical emergency or a school trip or rescuing abused animals, there are always people willing to give their time and money to help others in need. That is one of the reasons the United States is a great country.
The fly in the ointment is that we often let our own prejudices and self-interest overrule our generosity. One example is a requirement I understand is attached to some federal food aid grants that the cash can only be used to buy American commodities. This puts a burden on charities who could buy more food from local sources and not have to waste thousands of dollars shipping it halfway across the world. This practice also steals customers from those local farmers and processors, actually taking away jobs from those we are trying to help.
In-kind donations are another sort of double edged sword. There are times when it is appropriate, such as sending construction equipment to Haiti to help dig out trapped people and clean up the devastation. But some manufacturers have used charities to clear unsaleable merchandise from their inventories and get a tax break to boot.
I remember reading about a charity in Somalia opening a crate from a manufacturer and finding it was full of women’s high-heel shoes. Not the most practical gift in the midst of a famine. Other gifts are useless because of ignorance of other countries. Following the devastating Christmas tsunami of 2004, winter coats were sent to Indonesia, a country that almost defines the word tropical.
We also have a tendency to only want to help the “deserving.” There is no way to kill a useful program or charity than to claim to have seen one of its recipients eating steak or driving a fancy car. Certainly there should be efforts to prevent widespread fraud against charities. But these measures can be taken to the point where help is denied to hundreds in order to stop one from getting a few undeserved dollars, not to mention all the resources need to investigate and account for each penny that could have gone to helping hundreds more.
The best donations possible are money, followed closely by time. With a few exceptions of charities specifically geared to handle them – such as food banks, blankets, clothing, and food – are more trouble than they are worth to charities. The clothing has to be cleaned. All of it needs to be sorted and warehoused and then transported to where it is needed. All that has significant costs for the charities involved. Sometimes the donations are sold for pennies or just thrown away because they are not worth the trouble.
Money, on the other had, spends everywhere. It can be moved around the world electronically at the speed of light. Charities can buy the material they need close to where the crisis is occurring, which also helps prop up the economy of the people they are trying to help. It also is much easier to keep track of and simplifies the accounting (what is the value of a $600 spike heel designer shoe in a famine?).
The same goes for volunteers. Doctors, nurses and people with construction skills are badly needed in Haiti and thousands of generous and brave people are in the country or are headed there. Others, like newspaper editors for example, would most likely just get in the way and should be content with sending money.
The American Institute of Philanthropy has a list of its most highly ranked charities working in Haiti. To receive a top ranking from that group, a charity should spend at least 75 percent of its budget on program services and spend no more than $25 to raise $100. The list can be found at www.charitywatch.org/hottopics/Haiti.html.
Richard Sole and Brian Goodwin compiled a book detailing the applications and seemingly inescapable presence of complex systems in the biological sciences in their pioneering book Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology. Now let me begin by saying that this is not light reading and probably not for everyone. That is not to say you need a science background to understand this book. The authors did a wonderful job of separating the technical science and math from the main themes of the book and use a multitude of pictures, diagrams, graphs, charts, and figures to detail their thesis.
Signs of Life
Scientists have long reconstructed systems and analyzed their individual parts to understand how they fit together with regards to the whole. It has worked wonderfully for some time. However, now scientists are realizing that in nearly every field of biology from cellular and molecular biology to ecology and physiology that analyzing the parts of the whole simply does not yield predictable behavior. Why do certain stem cells become skin cells and others become neurons if they have the same genome? Why do some creatures seem to hold up an entire ecosystem if only a small percentage of animals actually eat these species? Sole and Goodwin begin by explaining how nonlinear interactions between individuals form complex systems. This understanding of complex systems and the emergent behavior, that is, behavior that cannot be performed by individual units but can be performed by the system as a whole, can offer us novel ways of approaching these deep problems of biology. Sole and Goodwin show us how issues once considered inexplicable, are now being unraveled and explained with complex systems biology.
Our national school lunch program has a very dear place in my heart. I advocated increasing funding to the program as an affirmative case on a high school debate topic many, many moons ago. I was a novice debater and a poor advocate at the time and I am sure the only reason I won the few rounds that I did was that the arguments for these policies carry their own weight.
The argument is that hunger is perhaps the most meaningful barrier to learning in the classroom. This is because neither the mind nor the body can function at its best when it does not have enough nutrients. This prevents an immediate barrier to classroom instruction that the classroom cannot distance them from. You can provide the social, emotional, and physical distance from the problems in a child’s life in the space of a classroom, but you cannot separate a child from his or her hunger.
It seems worthwhile to me that schools should provide an adequate and nutritious breakfast or lunch option for children, particularly for children in poverty, but poverty alone is not the sole barrier to adequate nutrition. Even large numbers of children in well-off families routinely skip an adequate breakfast and having that option available at school is truly meaningful (Brown et all 2008) in whether or not your students are attentive and able to learn. There are real costs to medications and managing disruptive behavior and the entire system that enforces laws against absenteeism; I think the Brown 2008 study estimates one set of costs at $10 billion annually. Think of it this way: hunger increases misbehavior and hence the amount of non-productive, ‘guard’ labor in the form of security officers, social workers, etc that are necessary to deal with the consequences of misbehavior. Hence what appeared to be a simple problem of hungry children also represents an economy-wide misallocation of resources with many large and hidden costs.
There is a moral argument for providing sufficient diet options for schoolchildren as well. Children do not have a choice about whether or not they are educated; it is the law that they be educated (though parents have wide latitude in determining the thrust of that education). In a sense mandating participation in education is a form of just form of involuntary servitude because children cannot opt out (and most children do want to be in school). It is our moral obligation to provide adequately for them given our constraint on their liberty. I would argue that if we cannot guarantee children the basic commitment to provide for their well being then mandating their participation in education is unjust. Consider the following: if we provide bad, inedible food to prisons, prisoners riot and lawmakers start writing bills. But there are no repercussions for us when we provide ‘spent hens‘ and bacteria-infested meat that doesn’t meet McDonald’s quality standards to children. If children misbehave we medicate them, providing employment for doctors who over-diagnose ADHD and other conditions and over-prescribe drugs like Ritalin that make billions of dollars for pharmaceutical companies that make mind-altering drugs.
These are reasons why shoddy and uninformed stances opposing investments in our children’s nutrition really aggravate me. Here is Show-Me Institute intern Sarah Brodsky slamming what appears to be a notably successful effort in New Orleans (!) to improve access to nutrition:
I read further and saw that my guess was wrong. The “What We’ve Done” section of the website is all about school food. Of the 12 recommendations for change, two call for more local food in school lunches. One suggests that schools establish gardens on their premises because “Students need to grow fresh food and taste what they grow.”
Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools is lobbying for something peripheral to a great education. It doesn’t matter where school food was grown, as long as students get a nutritionally complete meal. And gardening, while it’s possibly educational and rewarding, is not a basic human need. If you think of school priorities, like creating a safe environment and teaching students to read, maintaining a garden would be pretty far down the list.
I hope Kids Rethink New Orleans Schools will reevaluate its goals and stay true to its original mission. A couple of questions to consider: Are the most pressing inequities already addressed, so that we can now devote our attention to gardens? Or do neighborhoods and parental income levels continue to keep a great education out of reach for many students, for reasons that have nothing to do with food?
The problems here are obvious! While it’s true that as adequate nutrition doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with where food came from, the status quo is so far from satisfactory that this FYI is meaningless. What is meaningful is that students now have access to high-quality food. If it comes from local producers who don’t maximize yields, diluting nutrient content (as is the case with large agribusiness), the food is vastly better! If children aren’t eating meat that tests positive for salmonella four times more often than McDonald’s standards for chicken, or processed wheat products that have been stripped of their nutrient content and instead get access to food produced in less destructive ways, we are all better off!
Here’s the fundamental argument that Sarah’s blind opposition to local food ignores. Industrial food production and distribution happens on a national scale. Unfortunately, it is well documented that regulators don’t do their jobs well in regulating quality and safety. The compelling argument for local food is that being able to immediately hold specific people accountable and not depending on the bureaucracy of a federal regulatory body allows us to prevent children from eating contaminated meat and tortillas and things that would get a large fast food chain in a class-action lawsuit faster than you can say “where’s an attorney?”. Part of the basic economics of information holds that when information is specialized and decentralized it is harder to gather and interpret, meaning that consumers have less information, not more, about their choices.
There are three policy recommendations that I’d like to close with. The first is that we have more school gardens! Even if they’re not by themselves sufficient to feed an entire school the effort is still worthwhile. You get to start changing the outlook children have towards food and their environment and promote healthy living. And it’s a huge educational opportunity! A garden is a natural lab for chemistry and biology classes. It is a starting place for discussions about politics, fodder for historical and cultural education, and if you have a culinary arts program headed by someone like Brook Harlan (here is another good profile) at Rockbridge High here in Columbia, you’re really on to something.
The second is of course that this focus on local food is good. There are inefficient ways and bad thinking that can characterizes local food economies and it is important to be unbiased and scientific; that being said, I think I have made a compelling argument that local food is good because you get what you pay for.
The third policy recommendation is that we encourage more school districts to end the monopoly on providing food services that they retain or contract out to large corporations. Allow multiple private vendors to provide food of certain quality and let competition drive at least part of the increase in quality. In economic language we can note more formally that expanding the market increases the amount of both consumer and producer surplus. It also protects our obligation to ensure basic services to our children. This is really the libertarian way out of the problem and it’s a good example of where interactions between public and private entities provide better services than the status quo, which is dominated by public schools granting monopolies to private lunch contractors.
Those words alone have sent reverberations up and down both parties. In fact, I’ve been called an “enigma”. For now, there are not too many blacks in the Tea Party. My friend, that is about to change! And you can be a part of that change!
I’ve just participated in a recent Tea Party event that coincided with the first ever National Tea Party convention in Nashville, Tennessee.
THANKS TO BARACK OBAMA…a “revolution” has begun!
This Tea Party movement is not necessarily defined by any one group, leader or politician. It is a GRASSROOTS action that is forcing both regular parties to change the way that they do business! Conservatism is NOT dead! It is being resurrected…..thanks to President Obama!
Level-headed, clear-thinking, patriotic Americans are disheartened by what they are experiencing through this current administration. The Reid-Pelosi-Obama agenda is doing permanent damage to the very fiber of our ideals as a great country.
CLICK HERE to assist me in getting the word out that a Black Leader supports the Tea Party Movement! We are setting up television and radio interviews, sending out information packets and visiting media outlets to help overturn the damages caused by President Obama. Your Donation to STAND will get this crucial, one-of-a-kind message out to a greater number of people and politicians!
Let’s do just a partial “checklist” of what I call the …“OBAMA DAMAGE FACTOR”:
A Christmas Day bomber (moments away from killing 300 people on an airplane in Detroit) is treated like an American citizen, instead of a terrorist that he is!
A $3.8 TRILLION DOLLAR economy-busting, yearly proposed budget.
Multi-trillion dollar deficits that our children and grandchildren will be paying and paying and paying.
More BIG GOVERNMENT at any cost. We have been warned by Moody’s that we are in danger of losing our Triple A credit rating. In the meantime, he is mortgaging our country to China.
Promise of acceptance of an open gay lifestyle in our military. As a U. S. Marine and Vietnam Era Veteran, it makes me angry that they are doing social experiments with our military at a time of when our national security is under constant threat.
“Big Brother” (government) overseeing our everyday life
Admitted communists, radical homosexual activists and even a transgender in leadership positions “czars.”
A hard hearted refusal to drop OBAMACARE (SOCIALIZED MEDICINE), even though the American people have made clear in election after election that we don’t want it!
An Air Force Academy that is dedicating its first circle of pagan worship for witches and warlocks (and the whole Academy was invited!!)
He says, “We are not a Christian nation!” But according to Obama, “we are one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.”
Obama has traveled the world denigrating our country by bowing and apologizing before thugs, dictators and despots. They should be apologizing to us and the world, not vice versa.
In short, President Obama is destroying our economy and culture, and undermining our military and national security.
CLICK HERE to help get the word out that a Black Leader supports the Tea Party Movement! We must STOP the damage being caused by President Obama. Your Donation to STAND will give this urgent message many new people!
I get ridiculed by many because I am black and do not support Barack Obama’s ideology. But this is not personal. I honor the office of the Presidency. I pray for President Obama to have a real change of heart. Unfortunately, his heart is hardened in pursuit of his radical and destructive policies. He has literally broken trust (and broken promises!) with the American people, even those who voted for him. For example, the promise of “transparency” has proved to be a joke, along with the promises he made about doing away with earmarks and keeping lobbyists out of his administration.
I CANNOT AND WILL NOT SUPPORT HIM JUST BECAUSE HE IS BLACK. I OWE MY ALLEGIANCE FIRST TO GOD AND COUNTRY, NOT TO A MAN OR MY RACE! HELP ME GET THIS MESSAGE OUT TO ALL THE OTHER RIGHT THINKING BLACK PEOPLE WHO ARE PERSECUTED FOR DISAGREEING WITH OBAMA. HELP ME TO LET THEM KNOW THAT THEY NEED NOT BE SILENT! WE WILL STAND WITH THEM!
I am a part of a small but growing number of blacks who support the grassroots Tea Party movement. At this past weekend’s first national Tea Party Convention in Nashville, Sarah Palin received a rousing welcome from a crowd of nearly 1,000 Tea Partiers as she sent a strong message of support for lower taxes, smaller government, transparency, energy independence and strong national security. She said, “I’m a big supporter of this movement. America is ready for another revolution!”
This is a movement—and a revolution—that cannot be stopped…..
They will forever OPPOSE the beliefs of President Barack Hussein Obama (and his cronies)! Help me to wipe out the “Obama Damage Factor”!
The American people are frightened by President Obama’s fiscal policies. Respected economists say his runaway spending and massive deficits could lead to economic collapse. I begin to wonder: “Why is he doing this to us?”
Many Americans suspect that he disdains our capitalist economy and wants it to fail. When it does, HE would then control everything!
He’s adding over $1 trillion in taxes, doubling the deficits President Bush left us and is making us a debtor nation to China and Japan. Given the proposed deficits in the next few years, every American family of four will owe—
CHINA ALONE….$10,000 per year!
You read that correctly. This is according to official government reports.
Please CLICK HERE to assist STAND to tell thousands more that a Black Leader supports the Tea Party Movement! We are setting up television and radio interviews, sending out information packets and visiting media outlets to help STOP OBAMA’S POLICIES! Your Donation will get this crucial, one-of-a-kind message out to a greater amount of people and politicians!
Help STAND to make a difference in our government! I receive negative communications every single hour because of my STAND for truth! Thus, the name of our organization, S.T.A.N.D. – STAYING TRUE TO AMERICA’S NATIONAL DESTINY.
America’s national destiny does NOT include the over-bearing economic burden put on us by the socialistic Obama Administration. By the end of 2010 our deficit will be 77% of our Gross Domestic Product. Our interest due on the debt will soon be $700 Billion a year, more than the budget of the Defense Department. President Obama is either grossly incompetent or there is a method to his madness. Either way— WE MUST STOP HIS MARXIST CREED
AND RADICAL DOGMA
BEFORE THEY DESTROY OUR BELOVED COUNTRY!
My fellow patriot, it is way past time to take a very definitive STAND!
Our culture . . . our country . . . our defense . . . our security . . . our economy . . . our society as a whole is literally at stake. What many have fought and died for now hangs in the balance.
When I addressed and prayed at a Tea Party rally last week, I admonished grassroots Americans to support the Tea Party; more importantly, their objectives: EXPOSING corrupt and incompetent politicians—from the very top to the bottom!
I did not find any Nazis or racists there (as charged by the liberals!). I found Americans who love their country and are prepared to stand up for the values we believe in. WE DO NOT CARE THAT OBAMA IS BLACK; WE JUST WANT HIM TO BE RED, WHITE AND BLUE!
I am one of the most blessed people on earth to have been born a citizen of the United States of America. My forefather paid the price of slavery for me to be here. I love this country, and I do not like what President Obama is doing to it. The Tea Party offers tremendous hope of voting out people who are taking this country in an unconstitutional and ungodly direction. I support them whole-heartedly and I am urging all black Americans (as well as non-blacks whether Republican, Democrat or Independent!) who believe in the Judeo-Christian values which made this country great, to join with the Tea Party and their objectives.
CLICK HERE to assist me in raising up an army of Black Leaders who support the Tea Party Movement! Our new media communications will expose President Obama! Your Financial Investment in STAND will get this vital and unique message out to the greatest amount of people and politicians!
The 2010 elections present an opportunity to put the brakes on the Obama march toward socialism. Will you help me to bring a message of genuine hope to the black community that can change hearts and minds? All I want is common-sense conservative solutions and a government that abides by the Constitution. All I want is for us to judge each other by the content of our character, not the color of our skin. What happened to the post-racial President. It was a deception, but the truth has been exposed. Obama is one of our MOST racial Presidents, not a post racial President. Help me provide the leadership that will take us toward a truly COLOR BLIND SOCIETY.
Sarah Palin, the former Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party also commented at the Nashville convention, “Only limited government can expand prosperity and opportunity for all. Freedom is a God-given right that’s worth fighting for.”
E.W. Jackson defends the Tea Party against Obama!
We are working very hard to bring people together across racial and cultural lines…to stand up for the values which made this nation great!
God bless you as you STAND up for America,
E. W. Jackson, Sr.
P. S. Please understand that the Tea Party is a grassroots movement, which I totally support. It offers tremendous hope of offering a viable alternative to the socialist ways of President Obama. Many liberal and selfish American politicians are taking us down an ungodly and unconstitutional path. That’s another reason why you should support STAND! I look forward to hearing from you.
YOUR donation will make a distinct difference! CLICK HERE to assist me in telling the liberal news media and true Americans that a Black Leader supports the Tea Party Movement! Help overturn the damage caused by President Obama. Your Donation to STAND will get this fundamental message to many others! STAYING TRUE to AMERICA’S NATIONAL DESTINY
P.O. Box 15111
Chesapeake, Virginia 23328
For further clues to where the trend towards disposable labor is headed, we turn to two recent pieces in the WSJ that were published, coincidentally, on the same day.
The first is an op-ed by Jody Greenstone Miller, founder and CEO of the Business Talent Group, a temp agency for the executive and managerial set. Ms. Miller declares that “the surge in temporary workers is not only good news for the economy, it’s the future of the 21st century labor market.” The ongoing conversion of all kinds of worker to perma-temps is simply the “latest sign of our economy’s endless capacity for renewal and innovation.” She argues it’s good not only for firms but for individuals, who can exercise their talents without being restricted to one employer.
Ms. Miller may have a personal–we won’t say crass–reason for her exuberance: “Amid the worst recession in decades, our business is up 70%.” Yet we’re not inclined to dismiss her argument for this reason alone; as we’ll describe in another post, we actually find some aspects of it quite compelling.
For now we point the reader to a report in the same issue of the WSJ which describes a different kind of perma-temp existence than the one envisioned by Ms. Miller, one that may be characterized more often by exhaustion than by renewal.
We find the case of Marty Rasmussen, a former bank executive in California, especially poignant. He and his wife earned a combined income of more than $250,000 a year before he was laid off. Mr. Rasmussen has been reduced to selling furniture he used to make as a hobby. This new vocation has not paid as well as his earlier one, earning him just $11,000 last year. His wife also lost her job and now gets unemployment benefits.
We assume that Mr. Rasmussen is not fundamentally different from the kinds of “top business talent” advised by Ms. Miller, and can’t help wondering what he would make of her celebration of the “new relationship between talent and firms” exposed by this recession.
Un cálculo aproximado del valor de trabajo, por la compañera «Serve the People» de IRTR
(publicado originalmente el 30 de junio de 2005)
(monkeysmashesheaven.wordpress.com) (English)
Intentemos calcular el valor del trabajo abstracto mediano socialmente necesario. Este cálculo nos dará una idea de cuánto producen las personas y de quién es explotado.
Ya que casi toda la economía del mundo entero está integrado en una gigante estructura imperialista, se puede usar la teoría del valor-trabajo del compañero Marx para tasar el trabajo. El compañero Marx señaló que el trabajo es la sustancia del valor. Dijo que la cantidad de horas de trabajo abstracto mediano socialmente necesario para producir una mercancía — es decir el trabajo de rendimiento mediano para este tipo de trabajo, bajo las dadas condiciones — represente su valor. Entonces una hora de trabajo a la cosecha de chirivías se puede cambiar a su justo valor por una hora de montaje de lavadoras (si en ambos casos el trabajo es de rendimiento mediano).
En 2002 el PNB nominal del mundo entero fue 31,9 billones de dólares norteamerikkkanos. (1) Esta cifra represente todo lo que se produjo en el mundo, incluso servicios (que en general son sobrevalorados), en un período de un año. La población es aproximadamente 6400 millones. Supongamos que los 2/3 de la gente trabajan a tiempo completo para 2000 horas por año, como es típico en los e$tragos unidos. Entonces el valor del trabajo mediano es 7500$ por año, o 3,75$ por hora. (En realidad es un poco más, porque la población mundial fue un poco más baja en 2002 que hoy día.)
En otros textos he visto cálculos de la ONU que indican que el PNB nominal del mundo en 2005 es aproximadamente 36 billones de dólares. Según esta cifra, el valor de trabajo sería aproximadamente 8400$ por año, o 4,20$ por hora.
¿Qué significa eso? El salario mínimo en e$tragos unidos es 5,15$ por hora, y aún más en algunos estados y ciudades. Si el trabajo mediano vale 4,20$, aún los que ganen el salario mínimo reciben sueldos excesivos medianos de 23% aproximadamente. El salario mediano en e$tragos unidos está cerca de 18$ por hora, o casi 4 veces el valor del trabajo.
Este ejercicio muestra que es poco probable que quienquiera que trabajo legalmente en e$tragos unidos sea explotado. Al contrario, los trabajadores norteamerikkkanos reciben superganancias sacados del Tercer Mundo por los imperialistas y entonces se benefician de la explotación imperialista. También va por la mayoría de los países de Europa Occidental, cuyo salario mínimo es en general superior a ése de los e$tragos unidos.
Para rebatir esta afirmación, sería necesario probar que los trabajadores norteamerikkkanos producían más de lo mediano. En realidad es probable que producen *menos* del mediano internacional, ya que en el Tercer Mundo se trabaja generalmente con una intensidad muy superior.
Pero sí hay explotación en e$tragos unidos. Los obreros chinos empleados ilegalmente en los míseros talleres de la industria de la confección para 1,50$ por hora y los trabajadores mexicanos del campo empleados ilegalmente para tales salarios sí son explotados. Es posible que ciertos prisioneros son explotados también, aunque en este caso los cálculos son un poco más difíciles. Y quizás hay algunos estajanovistas aislados cuyo rendimiento sobrepasa tanto el mediano que se pueden considerar como explotados.
No obstante, es claro que la gran mayoría de los norteamerikkkanos no es explotada; es en efecto explotadora.
I just flew back from Miami, and boy, are my arms tired. But seriously. I loved the Super Bowl. The weather was great. The food was terrific. The mood was extraordinary, mostly due to the joyous, friendly, tipsy presence of the Who Dat Nation. At times it seemed like there were 100 Saints fans for every Colts fan. Maybe it was the proximity of Miami to the Big Easy. Maybe it was just the overwhelming feeling that it was time for New Orleans to have some good news. But even people from Indianapolis were saying “Who Dat?” to each other.
A word about “Who Dat?” For those who have been living in a cave in Waziristan, this is the greeting that Saints fans offer each other upon sighting of any sign of mutual fandom, like the wearing of a Fleur de Lis or the painting of one’s body black and gold.
The great thing about “Who Dat?” is that if one is offered the salutation, one is absolutely, positively required to return it. It functions, in a very interesting way, like a Pavolovian response mechanism to those who are part of the gestalt. So, for instance, if you see two people wearing the colors engaged in a serious conversation about something totally and obviously peripheral, and you offer them a polite “Who Dat?”… they must respond. If you see someone tying their shoe and you walk by with a perfunctory “Who Dat?”… they must reply with an immediate “Who Dat?” It became kind of a fun parlor game, to walk up Collins Avenue and make people say “Who Dat?” or an occasional “Who Dat who say Who Dat?” like you were a doctor tapping on a patient’s knee with a little rubber hammer.
It turns out that the whole “Who Dat” thing dates to the 19th century, like much of the city that invented it. Those who are interested in the phenomenon as an anthropological phenomenon may read a very interesting article in Wikipedia about it here.
The best thing about the Who Dat Nation is how nice they all are. I’ve been to a lot of conventions, some of them in New Orleans, but also in Houston, Miami, Dallas and of course, Vegas, and this Super Bowl was, without question, the most pleasant gathering of happy drunkards I have ever attended. Some people get annoying or mean when they’ve been sopping up alcohol and shrimp for three consecutive days. Not this bunch. This was simply a gathering of excited, happy people bobbling around like kids saying “Who Dat?” to each other until game time.
The game, of course, was historically excellent. It was exciting up to the very last minute, which was awesome news for the NFL, the broadcasting industry which rotates showing the spectacle each year, and most of all for Madison Avenue, which poured a lot of money into the broadcast and was awarded for its confidence by the best ratings in more than 20 years, up 10% from the year before.
While that is news, there was also the added comfort of hearing the same wonderful catchphrases encapsule this totally unique event. I believe I will close with the great, well-polished phrases that come to mind this morning after, toasty chestnuts that may be used year after year to describe totally discrete events:
It was clear that both teams came to play;
Nobody left their A-game at home;
To go home victorious they had to play to win;
… because, as we all know, it’s a game of inches…
… and the game is won and lost on the line.
The winning team had to mix up the playbook, move the ball down the field one down at a time, and punch through the red zone, but most of all…
To win, you gotta play all four quarters.
In the end, the Super Bowl is not just an emotional exercise or a great sports event. It’s an economic phenomenon like no other, where people exchange money for products and services like no other. The size and ferocity of the financial exchange is a bit hard to fathom. Why is a beer suddenly worth $10? A tee-shirt for $33? A ticket for $6,000? Is it because one is sitting in the same space with Angelina and Brad, Adam Sandler and Jennifer Lopez? Attending an event being watched by more than 100 million people at that moment?
Or is it something more mysterious still? On the way out of the stadium, scruffy guys were paying $30-$50 for tickets to the event, which was now over, these tickets therefore worth absolutely nothing to those who had purchased them. I guess, in the end, things are worth what people will pay for them. Yet one more reason to distrust economics as a science, I think.
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Good morning! The last week before the whole of Asia takes a siesta for Chinese New Year next week.
Let’s pick up where we left off on Friday. Last week I spent a lot of time talking about inflation and the looming sovereign debt crises facing the globe. The two are, of course, related – given than there is much debt coming due which needs to be refinanced. Run-away inflation would result in significantly higher interest payments, something even economies like the US simply cannot afford. We are on a trajectory where projected interest payments on US Governement liabilities will soon become the single largest expenditure of the Federal Budget. When you repair a road or build a hospital or increase the salaries of teachers this is a “cost”, but on the other side of the ledger there are benefits to this which usually result in long term benefits to the economy. In fact, this type of Federal expenditure should not be considered as costs, they are investments. What do you get when you pay interest to foreign counterparts? Nothing, Zilch, Zip, Didly-squat.
You will recall I also made a throw-away comment on Friday about the “surprise” of downturns and how sell-offs like the one we have just seen rarely come at times we expect.
In my opinion, this is a typical sell-off in the markets. They never happen when you expect them to, do they? That’s because they are sparked by a sudden change in sentiment and sentiment is notoriously hard to predict. But because this is a psychological issue I can deduce two things:
There is not much substance to this sell-off
There is a lot of substance to this sell-off
If you see what I mean… or in other words: I have no idea why the markets have chosen the last 3 weeks to stage their sell-off. It seems to be 3 weeks like any other in my opinion. If anything Earnings looked to come in line with expectations and the GDP print was much higher than we thought it would be. It’s a funny old World.
While I was being a little facetious here, the truth is, there rarely seems to be logic behind the timing of market corrections. This is because, while underlying fundamental conditions could be argued, bears and economic pessimists are best known for how long they are “wrong” before they are “right”. The “trigger point” for a sell-off is largely psychological, which makes them incredibly difficult to predict and, as we know from the adage; the market can remain irrational much longer than you can remain liquid. This is often where the opinions of market participants diverge from economists (no surprises there). We must be humble enough to realize that there are things we do not always understand even in the market place – it is dangerous to follow economic theory right to the bitter end in a market dominated by a psychology which is continuously moving and evolving.
A physicist, a chemist, and an economist are shipwrecked on a desert island. Starving, they find a case of canned pork and beans on the beach, but they have no can opener. So, they hold a symposium on how to open the cans. The physicist goes first: “I’ve devised a physical solution. We find a pointed rock and propel it at the lid of the can at, say, 25 meters per second –”
The chemist breaks in: “No, I have a chemical solution: we heat the molecules of the contents to over 100 degrees Centigrade until the pressure builds to –”
The economist, condescension dripping from his voice, interrupts: “Gentlemen, gentlemen, I have a much more elegant solution. Assume we have a can opener…”
Macro Data to Watch:
Swiss Jobs
Markets
On the psychology of the markets still; Mauldin quotes Rogoff and Reinhart’s book “This Time It’s Different” where they try to make sense of market psychology – the crucial link between underlying economic fundamentals and market activity. This concept is important as it connects everything I’ve been saying about debt, federal deficits, sovereign creditworthiness, fiscal and monetary policy and how this relates to the psychology of the market place.
A Crisis of Confidence
Let’s lead off with a few quotes from This Time is Different, and then I’ll add some comments. Today I’ll focus on the theme of confidence, which runs throughout the entire book.
“But highly leveraged economies, particularly those in which continual rollover of short-term debt is sustained only by confidence in relatively illiquid underlying assets, seldom survive forever, particularly if leverage continues to grow unchecked.”
“If there is one common theme to the vast range of crises we consider in this book, it is that excessive debt accumulation, whether it be by the government, banks, corporations, or consumers, often poses greater systemic risks than it seems during a boom. Infusions of cash can make a government look like it is providing greater growth to its economy than it really is. Private sector borrowing binges can inflate housing and stock prices far beyond their long-run sustainable levels, and make banks seem more stable and profitable than they really are. Such large-scale debt buildups pose risks because they make an economy vulnerable to crises of confidence, particularly when debt is short term and needs to be constantly refinanced. Debt-fueled booms all too often provide false affirmation of a government’s policies, a financial institution’s ability to make outsized profits, or a country’s standard of living. Most of these booms end badly. Of course, debt instruments are crucial to all economies, ancient and modern, but balancing the risk and opportunities of debt is always a challenge, a challenge policy makers, investors, and ordinary citizens must never forget.”
And this is key. Read it twice (at least!):
“Perhaps more than anything else, failure to recognize the precariousness and fickleness of confidence-especially in cases in which large short-term debts need to be rolled over continuously-is the key factor that gives rise to the this-time-is-different syndrome. Highly indebted governments, banks, or corporations can seem to be merrily rolling along for an extended period, when bang!-confidence collapses, lenders disappear, and a crisis hits.
“Economic theory tells us that it is precisely the fickle nature of confidence, including its dependence on the public’s expectation of future events, that makes it so difficult to predict the timing of debt crises. High debt levels lead, in many mathematical economics models, to “multiple equilibria” in which the debt level might be sustained – or might not be. Economists do not have a terribly good idea of what kinds of events shift confidence and of how to concretely assess confidence vulnerability. What one does see, again and again, in the history of financial crises is that when an accident is waiting to happen, it eventually does. When countries become too deeply indebted, they are headed for trouble. When debt-fueled asset price explosions seem too good to be true, they probably are. But the exact timing can be very difficult to guess, and a crisis that seems imminent can sometimes take years to ignite.”
Mauldin then goes on to summarize:
The point is that complacency almost always ends suddenly. You just don’t slide gradually into a crisis, over years. It happens! All of a sudden there is a trigger event, and it is August of 2008. And the evidence in the book is that things go along fine until there is that crisis of confidence. There is no way to know when it will happen. There is no magic debt level, no magic drop in currencies, no percentage level of fiscal deficits, no single point where we can say “This is it.” It is different in different crises.
While it is difficult to predict the timing of such macro volatility, this type of environment never-the-less suits those who seek to opportunistically trade upon this market volatility when it occurs, in particular those portfolios which seek to maintain a “long volatility bias” for the next few years. This degree of indebtedness, inflation uncertainty and macro economic fundamentals inevitably leads to market which are hypersensitive to psychological flippancy. This is fodder for active and deliberately-focused long term volatility products.
The Dollar Rally continues as I expected, there is still some juice left in this I think. The Euro and GBP are getting smashed.
As investors sought safety the not only piled into Dollars, they fled from risk assets and ploughed into Euro Bonds. Graph of the day is a 2 year picture of the 5 year swap rate for European Bonds dropped to a 52 week low… actually that’s a 3 year low… errmm, actually 10 year low…sorry… I mean, the lowest level ever recorded. You’ll just get a measly 2.5% return on your investment in Euro Bonds and this is supposed to be an inflationary environment?
Source: Bloomberg
Global Stocks to Watch:
I think as the Dollar continues to rebound it’s worth revisiting those company revenues which will be affected by the Dollar rally. Obviously unhedged US exporters but also those who stand to gain such as unhedged exporters to the US in Europe.
The biggest movers on Friday were the banks and resource stocks in Europe and Japan. I’d expect a bit of a rebound given the late rally in the US, but I’ve been wrong before!
It would be odd if I let the week go by without mentioning the event that’s taking place this Sunday evening. We’ve all heard that you can’t call the event by it’s real name for fear of legal action. Most people throw out the generic term “the big game,” and I’ll take the same course of action in this post.
In the United States, this is one of the few remaining shared media experiences that we have each year. I’m sure sociologists have devoted many books to examining the impact of the big game on social interaction. There are plenty of people who view the big game as a holiday in the same vein as Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve or Independence Day. The actual game is an excuse to get together and share food, beverages and friendship.
From a business perspective, we look at the big game as the single biggest “captive” audience for television advertising each year. The game’s reputation for outlandish or groundbreaking advertising led to as many people watching the game specifically for the advertising as for the action on the gridiron. Are you one of those who will tune in on Sunday “just for the ads”?
If so, I want you to do me a favor. The next day when you’re talking with friends or co-workers about the ads you watched the night before, think a little bit about which ones were your favorites. Then I want you to think about why these were your favorites and whether or not you’ll buy the product that appeared in the ad. At nearly $3 million for 30 seconds, the companies that bought the commercial time are certainly hoping for a return on their investment.
The ads you like and whether or not they translate into you purchasing a product may not be related at all. This was examined in detail by author Martin Lindstrom in his book Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. I don’t need to spend $3 million to tell you that this summary could open you eyes about advertising and the actual brain functions that trigger our buying impulse.
Enjoy the big game, but after it’s over, check out what Lindstrom has to say. It might surprise you!
Our Information Technology Project Management professor was explaining how value of substance depends on it’s attributes which sometimes is marked by a label.
“Johny Walker scotch comes in different brands, red label 3 years old, black label 6 years old, green label some 12 years old etc. I can’t tell the difference but some people say they can, and that is why a green label costs more than red label. “
The same professor also described the difference between value and cost.
A Rs 15 pen that my son gifted me from his money he had saved, has insignificant cost but it is very valuable to me. I have saved many inexpensive but extremely valuable things in my safe which probably be thrown in dustbin after I die.
In last few years India has seen sudden growth. Those people who managed to get themselves good education despite the problems government created in their path have managed to offer themselves a good life style. But then these people have become rich suddenly, they spend a lot in Multiplexes, Malls and Spas.
A good movie show ticket cots Rs 250 in multiplex, the most ordinary branded shoes will not cost less than 3k, a humble meal at a good restaurant is never less than Rs. 500. I see a huge crowd going for all these goods are services which are smartly branded as “only for rich”.
It reminds me of story of Eklavya. Dronacharyaa refused to educate Eklavya because he did not belong to the varnam that deserved to get education from Dronacharya. During those times the determining factor for varnam was birth by default. today varnam is replaced by entrance examinations like JEE and GATE. [It's ironical that the so called champions of so-called backward classes are demanding that "birth" be used as a criteria instead of merit].
Eklavya learnt everything he wanted to learn without any help from Dronacharya. But he wanted “Authority”, he wanted “certification” and he wanted it from someone like Drona. Hence when presented an opportunity he did not hesitate to sacrifice even his thumb for that certificate. Because he knew that, his sacrifice will also mean that Drona has accepted him as his disciple. Drona too knew Eklavya’s wish and exploited it to make sure that Eklavya will not become a threat to the ruling class.
Just like Drona, the companies which have established themselves as brands-for-rich have successfully exploited young people who are dieing to prove themselves as rich. This certainly has not happened by offering services and goods that have value equivalent to their cost but sometimes even far inferior value.
Rickshaw-drivers who never keep change, waiter’s who expected extra tip, Courier delivery boy who demands “Bakshish” for doing his duty, Policemen who makes a point to catch a non-resident-techie, landlords who demand extra deposit from software developers are all such exploiters.
Birmingham: a more exciting place than you might imagine...
A fascinating debate is raging over at the Birmingham Post, whose reporters and bloggers have often impressed me with their insightful writing and out-of-the-box thinking.
It started here, when John Clancy and Professor David Bailey argued that a little land reform might be a good way of reducing the budget deficit.
Yup, the Post have a revolutionary business professor on their hands:
However, how would you like a new revenue policy that helps to significantly cut the deficit but that only affects some 100 or fewer people? Surely, this is a dream from another age, a pre-credit-crunch, pre-banking- crisis world that is consigned to history?
Well, the policy itself comes from history. It’s called crowning. We crown land. We return to the ownership of the Crown in Parliament the country’s great landed estates, which have been languishing for centuries in the hands of individuals and families who won the state lottery at various stages over the last 600 years in a series of land grabs, in some cases going back to the Norman Conquest.
Over the centuries, kings and queens awarded land in return not for money but for past and (more importantly) future services like raising an army (services long since forgotten about) and gave the grantees of the land fancy titles as part of the lottery win, like Viscount, Earl, Duke, Marquess and Baron. Alternatively, they simply stole the land, grabbed it out of opportunity, or fenced it off and enclosed it; possession, in reality, being 9 tenths of the law when it came to land, historically speaking.
Our research estimates that some £100 billion at least is available in asset value, currently in the hands of about 100 men (an almost exclusively male club, by the way), consisting of a sizeable chunk of the land surface of the UK, including much of the commercial property in the hearts of our towns and cities. This land simply has been handed down generation after generation from eldest son to eldest son.
Let’s ‘ave it back! They cry…
This won’t affect Birmingham, will it? This is about the landed gentry in the ‘Shires, surely? No – it’s about central Birmingham.
For rising high at no 6 in our top 20 is our very own Sir Euan Anstruther Gough Calthorpe. Yes, he of the great sprawling Calthorpe estate. By accidents of Birth (and marriages, as it happens) he has come to own the freehold, and more, of great swathes of our city, commercial and residential. You may very well be reading this on Calthorpe Estate land.
This is not a business matter, is it? Well, the wealthiest British-born business man in the Sunday Times Rich list 2009 is The Duke of Westminster. He has assets at his command of £20billion in land simply inherited over centuries to run one of the biggest businesses in Britain, Grosvenor Estates.
All we are saying to the likes of the Duke of Westminster and Sir Euan Anstruther Gough-Calthorpe is: thank you very much for looking after our land for the last few hundred years, you’ve done very well, now mosey along and do something else. Our need is greater than yours, Sir Euan. This land will now be returned to the Crown in Parliament, where it belongs.
This is brilliant stuff! And from a business professor blogging in a Trinity Mirror paper too!
Read an angry response from a fellow blogger at the paper here and their reaction to that here…
February 25, 2010
Last week, when President Obama was asked about the $9 million dollar bonus for Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, he described Mr. Blankfein as a savvy businessman, adding that Americans don’t begrudge people being rewarded for success. While Obama later qualified his comment about Mr. Blankfein and his fellow bank executives, it’s worth examining more closely some of the ways in which Blankfein and the Goldman gang were “savvy.”
reassuring, the other not so much. It appears we must educate ourselves, since labeling and consumer protections are not priorities:
Obama has traveled the world denigrating our country by bowing and apologizing before thugs, dictators and despots. They should be apologizing to us and the world, not vice versa.
E.W. Jackson defends the Tea Party against Obama!
Will 20,000 Bonus
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RMR: A Message From Transport Canada
I just flew back from Miami, and boy, are my arms tired. But seriously. I loved the Super Bowl. The weather was great. The food was terrific. The mood was extraordinary, mostly due to the joyous, friendly, tipsy presence of the Who Dat Nation. At times it seemed like there were 100 Saints fans for every Colts fan. Maybe it was the proximity of Miami to the Big Easy. Maybe it was just the overwhelming feeling that it was time for New Orleans to have some good news. But even people from Indianapolis were saying “Who Dat?” to each other.
