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anonymous

Senile McCain, Extremist Obama - 0 views

www.slate.com/2268667

criticalthinking media

shared by anonymous on 28 Sep 10 - Cached
  • Abraham Lincoln was called a Negro. John Adams was referred to as a hermaphrodite. James Madison was accused of being French.
  • anonymous on 28 Sep 10
     
    "How political operatives get us to believe the worst about their opponents." By Shankar Vedantam at Slate Magazine on September 27, 2010.
anonymous

The Global Crisis of Legitimacy - 0 views

www.stratfor.com/...00503_global_crisis_legitimacy

geopolitics

shared by anonymous on 04 May 10 - Cached
  • Political crises — as opposed to normal financial panics — emerge when the reckless appear to be the beneficiaries of the crisis they have caused, while the rest of society bears the burdens of their recklessness.
  • think of nations as consisting of three basic systems: political, economic and military. Each of these systems has elites that manage it. The three systems are constantly interacting — and in a healthy polity, balancing each other, compensating for failures in one as well as taking advantage of success. Every nation has a different configuration within and between these systems. The relative weight of each system differs, as does the importance of its elites. But each nation contains these systems, and no system exists without the other two.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This is a useful observation. It'd be interesting to contrast other nations' manifestation of each.
  • The corporation is built around the idea of limited liability for investors, the notion that if you buy part or all of a company, you yourself are not liable for its debts or the harm that it might do; your risk is limited to your investment.
  • ...17 more annotations...
  • It is also a political invention and not an economic one. The decision to create corporations that limit liability flows from political decisions implemented through the legal subsystem of politics.
  • In a more natural organization of the marketplace, the owners are entirely responsible for the debts and liabilities of the entity they own. That, of course, would create excessive risk, suppressing economic activity.
  • contrary to the idea that there is a tension between the political and economic systems, the modern economic system is unthinkable except for the eccentric but indispensible political-legal contrivance of the limited liability corporation.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      Statements like these are a reason why the accusations about StratFor being a Neocon front don't stick very well. This passage could have been lifted from the most pinko-leftist propaganda. :)
  • this is why classical economists never spoke of “economics” but always of “political economy.”
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This cuts to the myth of some idyllic "free market" in some earlier time. There may have been simpler economic creations, but there has not *been* a time when the political didn't mingle with the economic. Randians take note.
  • Emerging out of this complexity — and justifying it — is a moral regime. Protection from liability comes with a burden: Poor decisions will be penalized by losses, while wise decisions are rewarded by greater wealth.
  • Systemic risk emerges when it appears that the political and legal protections given to economic actors, and particularly to members of the economic elite, have been used to subvert the intent of the system.
  • the crisis occurs when it appears that the financial elite used the politico-legal structure to enrich themselves through systematically imprudent behavior while those engaged in prudent behavior were harmed, with the political elite apparently taking no action to protect the victims.
  • We now have a political, not an economic, crisis for two reasons. First, the crisis qualitatively has moved beyond the boundaries of a cyclical event. Second, the crisis is rooted in the political-legal definitions of the distribution of corporate risk and the legally defined relations between management and shareholder.
  • problem lies not with the market but with the political system that invented and presides over the limited liability corporation.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      This is why the right-wing calls to stop persecuting the "wealth creators" are so hollow. On one level, they're right - those people aren't responsible. They're just gaming a system that's probably broken. This is why some kind of political alteration to corporations needs to occur.
  • The crisis was rooted in the appearance that it was triggered by the behavior not of small town banks or third world countries, but of the global financial elite
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      "Appearance" is an operative word, too. No matter the cause, there's a perception problem that must be addressed.
  • The political elite is responsible for the corporate elite in a unique fashion: The corporation was a political invention, so by definition, its behavior depends on the political system.
  • part of this analysis is designed to explain why the Obama administration must go after Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers and others.
  • The goal is not so much to achieve something as to create the impression that it is achieving something, in other words, to demonstrate that the political system is prepared to control the entities it created.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      More of that "perception" stuff.
  • Europe thus has a double crisis. As in the United States, there is a crisis between the financial and political systems. This crisis is not as intense as in the United States because of a deeper tradition of integration between the two systems in Europe. But the tension between masses and elites is every bit as intense. The second part of the crisis is the crisis of the European Union and growing sense that the European Union is the problem and not the solution. As in the United States, there is a growing movement to distrust not only national arrangements but also multinational arrangements.
  • the important thing is to understand that both Europe and the United States are facing fundamental challenges to the legitimacy of, if not the regime, then at least the manner in which the regime has handled itself.
  • This is not simply a crisis within national elites, but within the multinational elite that created the European Union. If this leads to the de-legitimization of the EU, then we are really in uncharted territory.
  • The politically contrived corporation, and particularly the financial corporations, stands accused of undermining the wealth of nations. As Adam Smith understood, markets are not natural entities but the result of political decisions, as is the political system that creates the allocation of risk that allows markets to function.
    • anonymous
      anonymous on 04 May 10
       
      Politics is everything, it seems.
  • anonymous on 04 May 10
     
    By George Friedman (StratFor) on May 4, 2010.
anonymous

The economist manifesto - 0 views

www.newstatesman.com/...smith-market-essay-sentiments

economics

shared by anonymous on 06 May 10 - Cached
  • The 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith wasn’t the free-market fundamentalist he is thought to have been. It’s time we realised the relevance of his ideas to today’s financial crisis.
  • anonymous on 06 May 10
     
    By Amartya Sen in New Statesman on April 23, 2010.
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