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
U.S. Poverty Rate, at 15 Percent, Is the Highest Since 1993
NYT, WASHINGTON — The percentage of Americans living in poverty last year rose to the highest level since 1993, the Census Bureau reported Tuesday, fresh evidence that the disappointing economic recovery has done nothing for the country’s poorest citizens.
That’s 15 … Continue reading
The Shame of 9/11
I would like to tip my hat to NYT columnist Paul Krugman. He is the only mainstream commentator with the courage to tell it like it is.
“The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion … Continue reading
Winds of War? (updates at bottom)
In an event so commonplace it hardly makes news, Arab terrorists attacked a bus and two cars traveling to the Israeli resort town of Elat, killing eight and wounding 30, mostly innocent civilians, followed thereafter by an Israeli retaliatory strike … Continue reading
A Leader Who Refuses To Lead
In an essay in the NYT’s Sunday Review opinion section, psychologist Drew Westen tries to figure out “what happened to Obama?” He says,
“Like most Americans, at this point, I have no idea what Barack Obama — and by extension the … Continue reading
Houses of Cards
The house is shaking, don’t you know? We’re in the midst of a revolution.
In the U.S. the insurgent Tea Party is in the vanguard, titling at the vulnerable symbolic lynchpin of 20th Century civilization, the U.S. dollar. The EU is … Continue reading
The Art of Compromise: Let them eat pears!
President Obama, a master of the art of compromise, has agreed to put Social Security on the block to address our nation’s budget deficit. His compromise plan is to have older Americans eat half a much, though in effect he … Continue reading
Arab Spring Update: I hate being right.
As I said in my post last Feb, “They Coming of the New Caliphate” , and several others as well, it was not very difficult to predict the future on the heels of the “Arab Spring”.
In today’s “Islamists Flood Square … Continue reading
Do You Believe in Invisible Hands?
Democracy and Capitalism are two ideas–two theories—that often get mixed-up when we think about the American enterprise. I often wonder why these two ideas get conflated and I think I may have figured it out.
Both, taken in their purest form, … Continue reading
The Divided States of America: Can the Union Prevail?
The combatants in the Civil War are at it again. They remain divided roughly along the same lines as was the case in 1860. The Union is talking about ways for all Americans to get along together–to preserve the union. … Continue reading
The President’s Speech
For nearly four years you have had an Administration which instead of twirling its thumbs has rolled up its sleeves. We will keep our sleeves rolled up. We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, … Continue reading
Hidden Morality
I think there is no single idea in the work of Dr. W. E. Deming’s more important than his assertion: “A SYSTEM has an AIM”. This is the crux of the “Understanding of a System” component of his System of … Continue reading
Terminal Velocity
Just because the law of gravity dictates that in free fall we will achieve terminal velocity and go splat, does not mean that we must obey that law by hurling ourselves from high places.
I don’t have a very … Continue reading
Defend Your Rights, You Lose!
W. E. Deming saw the assertion of rights as a losing proposition but American society is built upon rights such as those set forth in the Constitution’s Bill of Rights and the vast and complex body of laws that make … Continue reading
“The customer made me do it”
Part of the disinformation dispersed by free market evangelists is the idea that customers determine what will be produced and sold in the marketplace. In other words, if customers like “it”, they will buy “it” and “its” producers will profit. … Continue reading
The Ear and the Mind
Tip of the hat to the very astute Tim Higgins for opening a discussion of Deming with the following quotes.
W. E. Deming said,
A body is not one single organ, but many. Suppose that the foot should say, “Because I am … Continue reading →