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Why Public Debt Does Not Equal Credit Card Debt

Posted on January 30, 2013 in Articles

Public And Credit Debt

The Article: Why Public Debt Is Not Like Credit Card Debt by Robert Kuttner in Reuters.

The Text: One big part of the well-financed campaign for economic austerity is the contention that the public debt is like a national credit card. If we keep charging on it, the argument goes, we’ll get overwhelmed with interest costs, suffer a reduced standard of living and, pretty soon, go bankrupt.

As David Walker, a prominent budget hawk and the former head of the billion-dollar Peter G. Peterson Foundation, has contended, “Both Republicans and Democrats in Washington have charged everything to the nation’s credit card, including tax cuts and spending increases, without paying for them.”

The Peterson Foundation is the leading sponsor of this brand of bogus economics. It is a spurious metaphor on so many levels that it’s hard to know where to begin.

Revolutionary Language

Posted on January 29, 2013 in Articles

The Article: Revolutionary Language by Charles M. Blow in The New York Times.

The Text: Listen closely.

That sound you hear is the sound of a cultural paranoia by people who have lost their grip on the reins of power, and on reality, and who fear the worst is coming.

And they are preparing for it, whatever it may be — a war, a revolution, an apocalypse.

Five Creepy New Ways Police Can Intrude On Your Rights

Posted on January 28, 2013 in Articles

Police Arrests

The Article: 5 Creepy New Ways for Police to Intrude on Your Rights by John Knefel in AlterNet.

The Text: One of the most disturbing trends in law enforcement in recent years is the hyper-paramilitarization of local police forces. Much of the funding for tanks for Fargo’s hometown cop shop comes from the Department of Homeland Security. The feds have a lot of money to throw around in the name of preventing terrorism, and municipalities want to get that money. As anyone who has done budgeting knows, the best way to ensure your funding stays high is to request a lot of money and spend it all.

As a result, every year the police get more tools, gadgets, weapons, and surveillance technologies that, whatever their stated purpose, serve to give cops greater capabilities to curtail the rights of anyone unlucky enough to be standing in their path.

We were going to list these in order from least to most creepy, but that proved far too challenging. So here are some cop tools you may not be familiar with, in no particular order.

Jimmy Carter On Losing His Religion

Posted on January 27, 2013 in Articles

Jimmy Carter Equality

The Article: Losing my religion for equality by Jimmy Carter in The Age.

The Text: I HAVE been a practising Christian all my life and a deacon and Bible teacher for many years. My faith is a source of strength and comfort to me, as religious beliefs are to hundreds of millions of people around the world. So my decision to sever my ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, after six decades, was painful and difficult. It was, however, an unavoidable decision when the convention’s leaders, quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be “subservient” to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.

This view that women are somehow inferior to men is not restricted to one religion or belief. Women are prevented from playing a full and equal role in many faiths. Nor, tragically, does its influence stop at the walls of the church, mosque, synagogue or temple. This discrimination, unjustifiably attributed to a Higher Authority, has provided a reason or excuse for the deprivation of women’s equal rights across the world for centuries.

At its most repugnant, the belief that women must be subjugated to the wishes of men excuses slavery, violence, forced prostitution, genital mutilation and national laws that omit rape as a crime. But it also costs many millions of girls and women control over their own bodies and lives, and continues to deny them fair access to education, health, employment and influence within their own communities.

How Game Theory Explains DC Gridlock

Posted on January 26, 2013 in Articles

Game Theory

The Article: How Game Theory Explains Washington’s Horrible Gridlock by Mohamed A. El-Erian in The Atlantic.

The Text: Again and again while trying to understand the fiscal machinations of Congress, I find myself referring to a simple analytical approach acquired at university: game theory. The construct, popular among economists, sheds light both on what has happened in Washington and on how the bargaining power of its negotiating parties may evolve over time. And it points to less-than-reassuring prospects if the overriding objective is — as, certainly, it should be — to improve America’s economic outlook in a meaningfully and sustainable manner in the years ahead.

An important aspect of game theory sets out conditions under which negotiating parties end up cooperating well, and why they fail to do so. It does so based on analyzing what drives individuals in the majority of bargaining situations: incentives, access to information, initial power conditions, the extent of mutual trust, and accountability enforcement.

This intuitive framework provides immediate insights into why members of Congress find it so difficult to come up with a coherent fiscal approach — or, indeed, a coherent approach on virtually anything. Simply put, good cooperative outcomes are unlikely to emerge when, as is the case on today’s Capitol Hill, individual and collective incentives are misaligned, access to information is asymmetrical, relative power is fluid, each party doubts that the other will deliver on their commitments, and there is no way to enforce credibility.