Short Takes
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
January 17, 2012 | 8:54 pmSays psychologist David Lewkowicz of Florida Atlantic University, who led [a] study published yesterday…
’The baby in order to imitate you has to figure out how to shape their lips to make that particular sound they’re hearing,’’
Can you “figure out” why this is utter nonsense? I should as obvious as monkey see, monkey do. With this sort of thing passing for science, we are surely doomed.
- The Mark of Cain
November 9, 2011 | 3:13 amWatching Herman Cain duel with his female accusers is like watching the Jerry Springer Show. Not a pretty picture. If you partake, be sure an wash you hands afterwards.
- The Truth About Sovereign Debt
November 1, 2011 | 4:01 pmDuring the housing bubble people bet on rising home prices by taking out loans on to-good-to-be true terms and investment banking made bets on the rising home prices by lending on to-good-be-true terms. Everyone drank the Kool Aid. Prices went down. Having made bad bets, home owners should default on their loans and bankers should take their losses. This is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
The nations that joined the EU placed bets on rising economic prosperity that would come from joining the EU and adopting the Euro and borrowing from the EU banks on to-good-to-be-true terms. The EU investment bankers made speculative bets on EU member nations by lending them billions on to-good-to-be-true terms. The borrower economies went down not up. Everyone drank the Kool Aid and having made bad bets the borrowers should default on their loans and the bankers should take their losses. This too, is the simple-minded logic of every-man-for-himself market economics.
So how do the bankers hold the world hostage to their bad bets? They claim they are too big to fail. In other words, the only game they know is heads they win, tails we lose.
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Archive for Short Takes »
- Lip Reading Babies: Utter nonsense!
Category Archives: Leadership
Twisting Arms
In her New York Review of Books article, “Obama and the Myth of Arm-Twisting,” Elizabeth Drew correctly explains that those who have been criticizing President Obama’s lack of political persuasive skills fail to understand that we are at a point in … Continue reading
When Bad News Is Good News
The other evening at dinner a friend asked me if my prognosis for our economic system meant that I was actually hoping for bad news. He wondered how anyone could actually think bad news could be good.
The title of my … Continue reading
China Attack: Unit 61398 is snooping on me
Big news today! U.S. spooks recently declassified reports containing almost proof-positive that China has unleashed a cadre of elite cyber-warriors, known as Unit 61398, who are raiding our cyberspace and stealing our secrets. They work their evil deeds in a … Continue reading
“Reach what you cannot”
In his autobiographical novel, Report To Greco, author Niklos Kazantzakis, (who wrote Zorba the Greek) gives an account of his asking God how he might live a life of value. God answers: “Reach what you can.” But Kazantzakis responds that … Continue reading
New Year’s Resolutions, 2013: It’s Too Late
NYT, Sydney Austrialia — Record Heat Fuels Widespread Fires in Australia: Four months of record-breaking temperatures stretching back to September 2012 have produced what the government says are “catastrophic” fire conditions along the eastern and southeastern coasts of the country, … Continue reading
The Letter Diane Feinstein Wrote To Me In Reply To My Letter And The Letter I Wrote Back To Her In Reply To Her Reply
Several weeks ago I sent a letter to Senator Diane Feinstein in which I expressed my concerns about the proposed changes in the formula for calculating the cost of living increases for Social Security Insurance. Ms Feinstein got around to sending me … Continue reading
Problem (not) Solved
I can’t shake that feeing that…
When it comes to solving the problems of increasing income inequality today, our Warrior and Chief Mr. Obama is “busily negotiating all hope away.
Paul Krugman goes so far as to say that it looks more and more … Continue reading
The Great Scam
I woke this morning thinking about the ticking Doomsday machine–the “fiscal cliff”–that our politicians, left and right, created about a year ago. How, in our great democracy, could such an everyone-looses sort of thing be permitted?
It strikes me that the … Continue reading
Why Your Vote Matters
I know quite a few people, especially young adults, who are thoroughly disenchanted with American Democracy. They believe that it makes little difference who we elect as president of the United States.
The shades of difference, they say, are mere window … Continue reading
Deadbeat Lions and the Myth of Efficiency
Let’s wander the intellectual landscape of efficiency, value-added and waste.
We should be careful when we attribute the character of human enterprising to organisms that do not evince our ambitious habits. Still, we can learn.
Lions laze away most of their days. … Continue reading
We Are Certifiably Insane
In today’s NYT:
KABUL, Afghanistan — After months of military leaders’ attempts to tamp down worries over the killings of American and NATO troops by the Afghan forces serving beside them, Gen. John R. Allen, the top commander in Afghanistan, called … Continue reading
Democracy OR Capitalism?
Democracy and Capitalism are two very big ideas. Democracy is an idea about a method people can use to govern themselves. Capitalism is an idea about how some people think we should produce and distribute wealth among people.
So what do … Continue reading
New Year’s Resolutions Predictions 2012
I did my first New Year’s Resolution blog back in 2010, resolving that we as a nation should set ourselves to work increasing goodness rather than misery. My resolution didn’t take. Since then, we’ve done more warring. Wealth differentials have … Continue reading
What Learning Is
Your knowing of the world is not “inside your head”! There’s no hard drive in your skull—no root directory nor subdirectories in which binary files filled with tomes of knowledge are stored.
What a silly idea!
As counter-intitive as it sounds, the … Continue reading
Our Market Society
The great missing debate in contemporary politics is about the role and reach of markets. Do we want a market economy, or a market society? What role should markets play in public life and personal relations? How can we decide … Continue reading →