Naomi Klein on pest control

There's something about Larry

Sizing up the present moment along with one of its causes, Naomi Klein wants "…to banish Larry Summers…from public life." She would not go so far as to launch Summers into space or toss him into a nuclear reactor because doing either "…wouldn't be nice." Yet she does wish to deprive him of the power he often enjoys.

Her reasoning:

The criticisms of President Obama's chief economic adviser are well known. He's too close to Wall Street. And he's a frightful bully, of both people and countries. Still, we're told we shouldn't care about such minor infractions. Why? Because Summers is brilliant, and the world needs his big brain.

And this brings us to a central and often overlooked cause of the global financial crisis: Brain Bubbles. This is the process wherein the intelligence of an inarguably intelligent person is inflated and valued beyond all reason, creating a dangerous accumulation of unhedged risk. Larry Summers is the biggest Brain Bubble we've got.

Klein here identifies another instance of the misplaced adoration we moderns tend to have of mere technique and the powers contained therein. I say this because being smart like Larry Summers means having the capacities needed to ace tests and to make one's way up and through America's bureaucratized educational system; it surely does not mean the person identified as smart speaks the truth about anything at all. And it certainly does not indicate the smart person's willingness to speak truthfully when he or she does chat with the less able. More importantly, thoughts, no matter how well-formed, eloquently expressed and rationally grounded, are not identical to the matter they address. They are, even when they are at their best, representations of something they are not, something different, something non-identical. Consequently their truth content, assuming for the sake of the argument that they contain such content, may always be contested, and this possibility remains in effect even when they issue from qualified professionals with access to the best information and techniques.

Unfortunately post-war American history is dotted with the catastrophes generated by the "best and the brightest," "wise men," "masters of the universe," brilliant advisors of Presidents and others considered excellent and entitled to wield power. What this recent history, which has been decisively marked by a criminality born of America's messianic conceit, ought to teach us is this: Although a few among us are incredibly smart, their mere existence does not relieve us lesser souls of the responsibility to think and judge for ourselves, to make up our minds about what is the case and what ought to be the case. Giving these smart individuals power merely intensifies this burdensome responsibility on those who authorize this power. It does not unburden the comparatively powerless.

Nepotism forever

Caroline Kennedy will seek New York's open senate seat

Alas, Chelsea Clinton is still too young (b. 1980) to take her mother's place.

Nevertheless, celebrity-watchers need not despair since they do have a Kennedy for the job. The New York Times
reports that Kennedy's "…decision [to seek the seat] came after a series of deeply personal and political conversations, in which Ms. Kennedy, whom friends describe as unflashy but determined, wrestled with whether to give up what has been a lifetime of avoiding the spotlight." "Absent thee from felicity awhile," the Moirae seductively whispered to the reticent Princess!

Some crisis links (10.20-10.21.2008)

In his latest, Michael Hudson asks:

Is it too much to say that we are seeing the end of economic democracy and the emergence of a financial oligarchy — a self-serving class whose actions threaten to polarize society and, in the process, stifle economic growth and lead to the very bankruptcy that the bailout was supposed to prevent?

He answers his question with:

Everything that I have read in economic history leads me to believe that we are entering a nightmare transition era. The business cycle is essentially a financial cycle. Upswings tend to become economy-wide Ponzi schemes as banks and other creditors, savers and investors receive interest and plow it back into new loans, accruing yet more interest as debt levels rise. This is the "magic of compound interest" in a nutshell. No "real" economy in history has grown at a rate able to keep up with this financial dynamic. Indeed, payment of this interest by households and businesses leaves less to spend on goods and services, causing markets to shrink and investment and employment to be cut back [emphasis added].

Michael Winship debunks the Republican smear ACORN campaign while recalling the political scandal generated by the Bush effort to politicize the Justice Department after the 2004 election. In that instance the Justice Department fired some of its attorneys for refusing to prosecute weak voter fraud cases.

Anthony DiMaggio, in his fine article on the smear ACORN operation, concludes with the following:

The Republican Party and right-wing media's attack on ACORN is motivated primarily by their fear of electoral defeat, and their contempt for poor, minority voters who will help usher in that defeat. Sadly, the Obama campaign failed to condemn this racist hate movement by distancing itself from ACORN in the third debate. It should be applauding the group for its important and necessary work in registering disenfranchised voters. At a time when Obama leads in the polls by 6.5-7% over McCain, he should feel empowered to take on racism and class biased directed at those who're simply exercising their basic, democratic right to vote. This may be asking too much, sadly, from Democratic leaders who would rather pander to the affluent than stand up for the disadvantaged.

Chris Hedges believes (and here) the myopia of America's elite is a cause of the country's current predicament.

Noam Chomsky recommends choosing the lesser evil in a recent interview:

Billionaire-genius pisses on the riff raff

Ladies and gentleman, Thomas Friedman:

This [democracy?] is dangerous. We have House members, many of whom I suspect can't balance their own checkbooks, rejecting a complex rescue package because some voters, whom I fear also don't understand [what?], swamped them with phone calls. I appreciate the popular anger against Wall Street, but you can't deal with this crisis this way.

Right, that's not piss, it's rain….

Earth to Tommy, the House could and did deal with the crisis in just this way. That is an established historical fact. And the House was right to reject the Plan and its progeny. Why? It was right to vote down the House bill because the original Plan on which it was based was a piece of crap meant to defraud Americans. It was irrational and immoral. It insulted the intelligence of those to whom it was addressed. The House bill was, it must be said, a modest improvement over the Plan — a better piece of crap, but a piece of crap nonetheless. The Senate bill, on the other hand, had additional 'improvements' — bribes of one sort or another. But, like its predecessors, the Senate version failed to address the problems which caused the crisis and lacked a credible answer to the question: Paulson's Plan or this legislation based on it will work because?

Finally, the opposition to the Plan and these bills is not about resentment, as you suggest. It is about providing for the future by dealing with scoundrels and their intrigues in the present. It is about creating a sane and just response to the crisis.

But, what do I know? I am just one dense peasant among millions of similar creatures.

Update (10.2.2008)

An economist-peasant who differs with Friedman on the bailout.