Re: [PEN-L] economics in the news!
math is art not science, and when game theory takes hold of it is actuarial science and not social science. in the sensce one that seeks to sudy how society develops and the conditions for change. but is it not possible for an ideological social science position to become scientific when subjected to interpersonal comparisons. - Original Message From: raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: PEN-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU Sent: Wednesday, November 28, 2007 8:12:04 PM Subject: Re: economics in the news! On Nov 28, 2007 6:26 AM, Jim Devine <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: is game theory a "serious science"? is any social research "serious science"? not yet. The problem with game theory is not that it isn't "serious science" as much as that its users often have _pretensions_ of being serious scientists. (as per usual in social research, they reify their models, confusing the map with the territory.) And not all of its practitioners have such pretensions. Game theory is best thought of as a branch of mathematics. The problem is with the application not with the theory itself. -raghu. Be a better sports nut! Let your teams follow you with Yahoo Mobile. Try it now. http://mobile.yahoo.com/sports;_ylt=At9_qDKvtAbMuh1G1SQtBI7ntAcJ
[PEN-L] A wiki
http://usprogress.wetpaint.com/ Let's see where it takes us... if anywhere.
Re: [PEN-L] heard much about the Vzlan supporters of 'democracy' in the capitalist press?
"How can a group of people be better armed than the state and municipal police," I have at least ONE good answer to that question... Leigh On Nov 28, 2007 8:44 PM, michael a. lebowitz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Venezuelan Opposition Protesters Shoot Chavez Supporter November 28th 2007, > by Kiraz Janicke - Venezuelanalysis.com > > Caracas, November 28, 2007 (venezuelanalysis.com) - Neighbors, friends and > family members of young worker and supporter of Venezuelan President Hugo > Chavez, José Anibal Oliveros Yépez, who was murdered by a radical opposition > group in the regional city of Valencia on Monday, have express profound rage > and indignation at what occurred explaining that his body was spat on and > kicked by his killers, "as if he were and animal." > > Oliveres, 19 years old, was on his way to work driving a truck of state > owned "socialist" housing company Petrocasa when he encountered opposition > groups blocking the road in protest against proposed constitutional reforms. > When he tried to convince them to let him pass he was shot several times and > died before he could be rescued. > > Radio YVKE Mundial reported that the opposition protesters came from Cuidad > Alianza, a middle class suburb in Valencia and blocked a highway to impede > workers from Petrocasa from passing to the poorer neighborhood of Araguita, > where they were working to construct housing for the poor. However, the > report noted many of the neighbors from Cuidad Alianza also rejected the > violent behavior of some of the opposition groups. > > A resident from Cuidad Alianza who did not want to be named told Radio YVKE > Mundial that the opposition groups had blocked the road to Araguita from > three o'clock in the morning and were patrolling the neighborhood "with guns > in hand." > > Alexander Borges, friend and workmate of Oliveros explained to VTV that > they tried to rescue Oliveros, but were prevented by the protestors who > threatened to kill them. > > "There were four of us, trying to carry our friend to the community, but > they surrounded us throwing bottles. I took the opportunity to move him > [Oliveros] because they were going to hit him with a bottle in the face and > I moved him so it did not hit him in the face. He had one bullet in the leg, > a man from the local community was going to carry him, but in this moment > they shot him twice in the back and this is when he fell to the ground." > > "We pleaded with them for the life of our friend that was lying bloody on > the ground, to please allow us the opportunity to pick him up and they > responded that now they were coming for us, that they were coming for me," > Borges added. > > Borges explained that two other people came to help rescue Oliveros, but > that the opposition supporters threw rocks and bottles at them screaming, > "Come and pick up your dead, now we are coming for you." > > Dixon Viloria, also a friend of Oliveros and a witness said that after they > killed him, "they mal-treated him, kicked him, stripped off his clothes, hit > him and screamed 'pick up your dead chicken!' as if he was an animal." > > Beltran Chavez, from Araguita said that neighbors from Cuidad Alianza had > shot at workers from Petrocasa earlier when they tried to pass through to > construction sites in Araguita. He said the same group of protesters had > previously set alight to a truck from Petrocasa and physically and verbally > attacked a group of women from Araguita. > > "How can a group of people be better armed than the state and municipal > police," he asked. He added that thanks to the municipal and state police > the four people that participated in the act were captured." > > National Assembly Deputy Francisco Ameliach and the Mayor of Guacara, José > Manuel Flores, who visited the neighborhood to pay their respects to the > Oliveros' family, reported that opposition groups in Ciudad Alianza that > claim to represent "civil society" have marked the houses of Chavez > supporters, or those they believe to be Chavez supporters, with red paint > and "have said they are going to kill them." > > Vice president Jorge Rodriguez confirmed that the Oliveros' killer had been > identified and arrested and has confessed to the crime, reportedly saying > that all "Chavistas" should be killed, as well as three other people also > linked to his death. Rodrgiuez said that simultaneously coordinated > opposition protests of small groups had blocked other highways with burning > objects in Valencia and Maracay. In total 80 people were arrested. > > Rodriguez has also asked the Venezuelan Episcopal Conference to explain > what they know about a meeting held by the opposition in the Diocesan > Insitute in Maracay where the violent protests are alleged to have been > planned. > > Rodriguez said he has witness testimony of people who were invited to the > meeting in the Diocesan Institute to "pray for peace" however; when they > arrived they found the meet
[PEN-L] I'm shocked!
today, on the way to work, there was an exposé on U.S. National Public
Radio: it turns out that Hugo Chávez's relatives (allegedly) benefit
from nepotism! This is totally unlike other Latin American countries,
and poles apart from the United States!! call out the troops!
--
Jim Devine / "The radios blare musak and newsak, diseases are cured every day /
the worst disease is to be unwanted, to be used up, and cast away." --
Peter Case ("Poor Old Tom").
"Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity,
nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor
by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." -- Herman Melville
[PEN-L] Foreclosure help on the way
From: michael perelman A database would be very useful. An Ohio judge just ruled that foreclosures were illegal because the forcloserers could not prove that they owned the property. CB: My only concern is that if they use a data base to to help untangle who owns foreclosed properties, then they will know and prove who owns the properties and the Ohio judge's type ruling will be gotten around , and the foreclosures will go forward. In other words, we don't want them to untangle who owns the property so the Ohio judge's type of ruling can be gotten and effective in Michigan too. ^^^ Foreclosure help on the way Under fire for the explosion of failed mortgages that has led to a national foreclosure crisis, lenders promised U.S. mayors in Detroit on Tuesday that they will pay for credit counseling hotlines and assemble a database to help untangle who owns foreclosed properties. Help on the way for who exactly? How is creating a database of foreclosed properties going to help the unfortunate ex-homeowner? The only ones who would benefit are vulture investors looking for cheap properties and possibly neighbors who don't want a unmaintained lawn to drive down their own property value. This is a disgrace. -raghu.
Re: [PEN-L] Ultraleft counter-revolutionaries in Venezuela
On Nov 29, 2007, at 11:50 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: Unlike miserable ultraleft sectarians like Bandera Roja, the Marxists who have helped to elect Hugo Chávez do not see themselves on any such “holy mission.” Indeed, it is the absence of such self- aggrandizement that has so disoriented much of the left outside of Venezuela, at least those sectors of the left that still clutch to “vanguardist” illusions. While most of them are not nearly as bad as Bandera Roja, they still see Hugo Chávez as an impediment to the True Revolution that is gathering momentum at the grass roots level. In this scenario, the only thing that can save Venezuela is some kind of latter-day version of the Soviets in 1917 and a working-class revolutionary party to lead them toward a seizure of power. While Chávez’s government is a decent social democratic alternative to the neoliberal solution that the US would prefer, it falls short of their ideals–the operative word being ideal. Yeah. It's as if these sectarians have no idea how hard it is to do something radical that has a prayer of surviving. A while back I had a chat with a senior guy in the ISO about Castro and Chavez. Both are caudillos, of course. What struck me about the conversation was how little sense he had of the challenges coming from domestic and foreign opposition, not to mention the practical difficulties of making sure the electricity keeps running. But of course someone that won the ISO seal of approval could never take power anywhere - even in the little activist groups they try to dominate. Doug
[PEN-L] Ultraleft counter-revolutionaries in Venezuela
On November 24th the Wall Street Journal ran an article that was highly flattering to Stalin–Ivan Stalin González, that is. Stalin (he prefers being called by this name) is the leader of the privileged university students who are on the front-lines opposing the proposed constitutional reforms that would make the government more directly accountable to the people beginning with an end to term limits. Stalin’s background would be familiar to those who run into his counterparts in the radical movement in their own countries: "Mr. Chávez’s description also hardly fits Mr. González. The 27-year-old, sixth-year law student grew up in a poor household that dreamed of a Communist Venezuela. His father, a print-machine operator, was a high-ranking member of the Bandera Roja, or Red Flag, a hard-line Marxist-Leninist party that maintained a guerrilla force until as recently as the mid-1990s. Its members revered Josef Stalin as well as Albania’s xenophobic Enver Hoxha. As a boy, Mr. González remembers packing off to marches with his sisters, Dolores Engels and Ilyich, named in honor of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. "As a young man, Mr. González burnished his leftist credentials, joining Marxist youth groups and following his father into the Bandera Roja. He traveled to Socialist youth conferences in Latin America." (The WSJ article can only be read in its entirety by googling “Ivan Stalin Gonzalez” through google/news.) Hugo Chávez described Bandera Roja thusly: "Groups like them appear to have given themselves the holy mission of proclaiming themselves to be the only revolutionaries on the planet, or at any rate in this territory. And those who don’t follow their dogmas are not considered genuine revolutionaries." Unlike miserable ultraleft sectarians like Bandera Roja, the Marxists who have helped to elect Hugo Chávez do not see themselves on any such “holy mission.” Indeed, it is the absence of such self-aggrandizement that has so disoriented much of the left outside of Venezuela, at least those sectors of the left that still clutch to “vanguardist” illusions. While most of them are not nearly as bad as Bandera Roja, they still see Hugo Chávez as an impediment to the True Revolution that is gathering momentum at the grass roots level. In this scenario, the only thing that can save Venezuela is some kind of latter-day version of the Soviets in 1917 and a working-class revolutionary party to lead them toward a seizure of power. While Chávez’s government is a decent social democratic alternative to the neoliberal solution that the US would prefer, it falls short of their ideals–the operative word being ideal. full: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2007/11/29/ultraleft-counter-revolutionaries-in-venezuela/
Re: [PEN-L] Foreclosure help on the way
A foreclosure database is only as "honest" as the people who coordinate, manage, and supervise the collation of the data which is entered in it. The Florida election rolls are a 'database' too! No problems there! (snicker...) Undoubtedly 'those people' will be the same people who profited from the situation which created the NEED for a 'foreclosure database in the first place. Leigh "One does NOT sell the earth upon which the people walk" – Crazy Horse "They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it. -- Chief Red Cloud On Nov 29, 2007 8:50 AM, Charles Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > From: michael perelman > > > A database would be very useful. An Ohio judge just ruled that > foreclosures were illegal because the forcloserers could not prove > that > they owned the property. > > > CB: My only concern is that if they use a data base to to help untangle > who owns > foreclosed properties, then they will know and prove who owns the > properties and the Ohio judge's type ruling will be gotten around , and > the foreclosures will go forward. In other words, we don't want them to > untangle who owns the property so the Ohio judge's type of ruling can be > gotten and effective in Michigan too. > > > ^^^ > > > > > > > Foreclosure help on the way > > > > > > Under fire for the explosion of failed mortgages that has led to a > national foreclosure crisis, lenders promised U.S. mayors in > Detroit on Tuesday that they will pay for credit counseling > hotlines and assemble a database to help untangle who owns > foreclosed properties. > > > Help on the way for who exactly? How is creating a database of > foreclosed properties going to help the unfortunate ex-homeowner? The > only ones who would benefit are vulture investors looking for cheap > properties and possibly neighbors who don't want a unmaintained lawn > to drive down their own property value. This is a disgrace. > -raghu. >
Re: [PEN-L] Foreclosure help on the way
On 11/28/07, michael perelman said: > A database would be very useful. An Ohio > judge just ruled that foreclosures were illegal > because the forcloser[s] could not prove that > they owned the property. This isn't quite what he ruled in what anyway is an at once obvious and trivial ruling. Although that decision did suggest (in the context of that case: basically as an aside) that, possibly, in some states which have recording requirements for the enforcement of mortgages that have been assigned by the original lender, the ways in/by which holders of mortgages by assignment typically acquire them but without complying with law required recording might provide a partial defense to at least some borrowers being sued, the arguably only significant two aspects of that case were, first, that the defendants were fortunate enough to be represented by a lawyer who read the documents on which the plaintiff purported to rely and, second, that the court ruled that a plaintiff who alleges a right to sue must then actually prove what it alleges if challenged to do so (re. which "Duh!" fairly summarizes the applicable technical/legal principle). Copies of the loan/mortgage documents purportedly sued upon in that case showed that a different financial institution than the plaintiff owned those notes and mortgages and so belied the complaint's conclusory allegation that the plaintiff was the party injured by defendants' alleged defaults in paying; and although the judge then gave plaintiff's lawyers ample opportunity to do so, they did not supply a copy of any assignment to plaintiff of the mortgages sued upon to it before it sued thus making this (like a few comparable others since) a simple lack-of-standing-to-sue case (which, at that, the court dismissed "without prejudice" so as to allow the filing of a new lawsuit if plaintiff obtains the documentation it would need to do so). Most residential mortgage foreclosure lawsuits are brought in state courts against defendants probably not financially able to be represented by counsel and many such courts also might be expected to invoke This or That rule of evidence or other principle of law that will be less punctilious and more accommodating to plaintiffs than the federal judge referred to above. Further, even in cases in which courts do require foreclosing lenders or assignees of lenders to provide documentation of the sort required in that case, so doing more likely than not will have the effect of adding to costs/expenses defendants will have to bear in light of the fact that nearly all mortgages these days include provisions to the effect that borrowers in default shall reimburse the owner of the mortgage for expenses including attorneys fees incurred to redress uncured defaults. The decision is notable, however, because of a perhaps culturally/politically interesting footnote - interesting because, on the one hand, arguably not necessary for the decision and, on the other hand, hardly typical for a federal judge to acknowledge (let alone so openly to emphasize) -- namely, that, chastising plaintiff and its lawyers for their sloppiness aggravated by what he perceived as a demand for relief despite their peremptory disregard for basic requirements of law, the judge said: "Plaintiff's, 'Judge, you just don't understand how things work,' argument reveals a condescending mindset and quasi-monopolistic system where financial institutions have traditionally controlled, and still control, the foreclosure process. Typically, the homeowner who finds himself/herself in financial straits, fails to make the required mortgage payments and faces a foreclosure suit, is not interested in testing state or federal jurisdictional requirements, either pro se or through counsel. Their focus is either, 'how do I save my home,' or 'if I have to give it up, I'll simply leave and find somewhere else to live.' "In the meantime, the financial institutions or successors/assignees rush to foreclose, obtain a default judgment and then sit on the deed, avoiding responsibility for maintaining the property while reaping the financial benefits of interest running on a judgment. The financial institutions know the law charges the one with title (still the homeowner) with maintaining the property. "There is no doubt every decision made by a financial institution in the foreclosure process is driven by money. And the legal work which flows from winning the financial institution's favor is highly lucrative. There is nothing improper or wrong with financial institutions or law firms making a profit - to the contrary, they should be rewarded for sound business and legal practices. However, unchallenged by underfinanced opponents, the institutions worry less about jurisdictional requirements and more about maximizing returns. "Unlike the focus of financial institutions, the federal courts must act as gatekeepers, assuring that only those who meet diversity and standing r
Re: [PEN-L] Foreclosure help on the way
On Nov 29, 2007 10:33 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> "The Court will illustrate in simple terms its decision: 'Fluidity of
> the market' - 'X' dollars, 'contractual arrangements between institutions
> and counsel' - 'X' dollars, 'purchasing mortgages in bulk and
> securitizing'
> - 'X' dollars, 'rush to file, slow to record after judgment' - 'X'
> dollars,
> 'the jurisdictional integrity of United States District Court' -
> 'Priceless.'"
>
Thanks for sharing this. The ruling in my opinion has been way over-hyped.
>From the above summary it seems the Court is primarily concerned about its
'jurisdictional integrity' i.e. the plaintiffs better address the Court as
'Your Honor' and remember to dot the i's next time lest the Judge should
feel slighted. As the lead character in Foucoult's Pendulum says it: "Ma
gavte la nata?" ("Would you be so kind as to remove the cork?")
Meanwhile all it has achieved is a temporary delay in the foreclosing
proceedings in this particular case. I doubt it will bring any real relief
to the 'foreclosurees', and indeed as knowknot points out may eventually
result in increased expenses to the defendants.
-raghu.
[PEN-L] Network-Centric Warfare
Wired magazine has an interesting article on "How Technology Almost Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not Electronic". "Network centric warfare" is not merely a catch-phrase - it appears that it is a systematic project undertaken by the DoD. There is quite a substantial literature even in the public domain on it and there is even an acronym (NCW); a good bibliography is here: http://www.comw.org/rma/fulltext/netcentwar.html The article traces the beginnings to a 1998 paper in Proceedings of the Naval Institute titled "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future". Unfortunately the original paper does not appear to be available online. http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-12/ff_futurewar?currentPage=all ---snip The Defense Department wasn't blind to the power of networks, of course — the Internet began as a military project, after all, and each branch of the armed services had ongoing "digitization" programs. But no one had ever crystallized what the information age might offer the Pentagon quite like Cebrowski and Garstka did. In an article for the January 1998 issue of the naval journal Proceedings, "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and Future," they not only named the philosophy but laid out a new direction for how the US would think about war. Their model was Wal-Mart. Here was a sprawling, bureaucratic monster of an organization — sound familiar? — that still managed to automatically order a new lightbulb every time it sold one. Warehouses were networked, but so were individual cash registers.. The US military could use battlefield sensors to swiftly identify targets and bomb them. Tens of thousands of warfighters would act as a single, self-aware, coordinated organism. Better communications would let troops act swiftly and with accurate intelligence, skirting creaky hierarchies. It'd be "a revolution in military affairs unlike any seen since the Napoleonic Age," they wrote. And it wouldn't take hundreds of thousands of troops to get a job done — that kind of "massing of forces" would be replaced by information management. "For nearly 200 years, the tools and tactics of how we fight have evolved," the pair wrote. "Now, fundamental changes are affecting the very character of war." Network-centric wars would be more moral, too. Cebrowski later argued that network-enabled armies kill more of the right people quicker. With fewer civilian casualties, warfare would be more ethical. And as a result, the US could use military might to create free societies without being accused of imperialist arrogance... And yet, here we are. The American military is still mired in Iraq. It's still stuck in Afghanistan, battling a resurgent Taliban. Rumsfeld has been forced out of the Pentagon. Dan Halutz, the Israeli Defense Forces chief of general staff and net-centric advocate who led the largely unsuccessful war in Lebanon in 2006, has been fired, too. In the past six years, the world's most technologically sophisticated militaries have gone up against three seemingly primitive foes — and haven't won once. How could this be? The network-centric approach had worked pretty much as advertised. Even the theory's many critics admit net-centric combat helped make an already imposing American military even more effective at locating and killing its foes. The regimes of Saddam Hussein and Mullah Omar were broken almost instantly. But network-centric warfare, with its emphasis on fewer, faster-moving troops, turned out to be just about the last thing the US military needed when it came time to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan. A small, wired force leaves generals with too few nodes on the military network to secure the peace. There aren't enough troops to go out and find informants, build barricades, rebuild a sewage treatment plant, and patrol a marketplace. For the first three years of the Iraq insurgency, American troops largely retreated to their fortified bases, pushed out woefully undertrained local units to do the fighting, and watched the results on feeds from spy drones flying overhead. Retired major general Robert Scales summed up the problem to Congress by way of a complaint from one division commander: "If I know where the enemy is, I can kill it. My problem is I can't connect with the local population." How could he? For far too many units, the war had been turned into a telecommute. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Lebanon were the first conflicts planned, launched, and executed with networked technologies and a networked ideology. They were supposed to be the wars of the future. And the future lost. Inside the Pentagon, the term network-centric warfare is out of fashion, yet countless generals and admirals still adhere to its core principles. On the streets of Iraq, though, troops are learning to grapple with the guerrilla threat. And that means fighting in a way that couldn't be more different from the one Donald Rum
[PEN-L] Tomato pickers face 40 percent pay cut
NY Times, November 29, 2007 Op-Ed Contributor Penny Foolish By ERIC SCHLOSSER THE migrant farm workers who harvest tomatoes in South Florida have one of the nation’s most backbreaking jobs. For 10 to 12 hours a day, they pick tomatoes by hand, earning a piece-rate of about 45 cents for every 32-pound bucket. During a typical day each migrant picks, carries and unloads two tons of tomatoes. For their efforts, this holiday season many of them are about to get a 40 percent pay cut. Florida’s tomato growers have long faced pressure to reduce operating costs; one way to do that is to keep migrant wages as low as possible. Although some of the pressure has come from increased competition with Mexican growers, most of it has been forcefully applied by the largest purchaser of Florida tomatoes: American fast food chains that want millions of pounds of cheap tomatoes as a garnish for their hamburgers, tacos and salads. In 2005, Florida tomato pickers gained their first significant pay raise since the late 1970s when Taco Bell ended a consumer boycott by agreeing to pay an extra penny per pound for its tomatoes, with the extra cent going directly to the farm workers. Last April, McDonald’s agreed to a similar arrangement, increasing the wages of its tomato pickers to about 77 cents per bucket. But Burger King, whose headquarters are in Florida, has adamantly refused to pay the extra penny — and its refusal has encouraged tomato growers to cancel the deals already struck with Taco Bell and McDonald’s. This month the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange, representing 90 percent of the state’s growers, announced that it will not allow any of its members to collect the extra penny for farm workers. Reggie Brown, the executive vice president of the group, described the surcharge for poor migrants as “pretty much near un-American.” Migrant farm laborers have long been among America’s most impoverished workers. Perhaps 80 percent of the migrants in Florida are illegal immigrants and thus especially vulnerable to abuse. During the past decade, the United States Justice Department has prosecuted half a dozen cases of slavery among farm workers in Florida. Migrants have been driven into debt, forced to work for nothing and kept in chained trailers at night. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers — a farm worker alliance based in Immokalee, Fla. — has done a heroic job improving the lives of migrants in the state, investigating slavery cases and negotiating the penny-per-pound surcharge with fast food chains. Now the Florida Tomato Growers Exchange has threatened a fine of $100,000 for any grower who accepts an extra penny per pound for migrant wages. The organization claims that such a surcharge would violate “federal and state laws related to antitrust, labor and racketeering.” It has not explained how that extra penny would break those laws; nor has it explained why other surcharges routinely imposed by the growers (for things like higher fuel costs) are perfectly legal. The prominent role that Burger King has played in rescinding the pay raise offers a spectacle of yuletide greed worthy of Charles Dickens. Burger King has justified its behavior by claiming that it has no control over the labor practices of its suppliers. “Florida growers have a right to run their businesses how they see fit,” a Burger King spokesman told The St. Petersburg Times. Yet the company has adopted a far more activist approach when the issue is the well-being of livestock. In March, Burger King announced strict new rules on how its meatpacking suppliers should treat chickens and hogs. As for human rights abuses, Burger King has suggested that if the poor farm workers of southern Florida need more money, they should apply for jobs at its restaurants. Three private equity firms — Bain Capital, the Texas Pacific Group and Goldman Sachs Capital Partners — control most of Burger King’s stock. Last year, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs, Lloyd C. Blankfein, earned the largest annual bonus in Wall Street history, and this year he stands to receive an even larger one. Goldman Sachs has served its investors well lately, avoiding the subprime mortgage meltdown and, according to Business Week, doubling the value of its Burger King investment within three years. Telling Burger King to pay an extra penny for tomatoes and provide a decent wage to migrant workers would hardly bankrupt the company. Indeed, it would cost Burger King only $250,000 a year. At Goldman Sachs, that sort of money shouldn’t be too hard to find. In 2006, the bonuses of the top 12 Goldman Sachs executives exceeded $200 million — more than twice as much money as all of the roughly 10,000 tomato pickers in southern Florida earned that year. Now Mr. Blankfein should find a way to share some of his company’s good fortune with the workers at the bottom of the food chain. Eric Schlosser is the author of “Fast Food Na
Re: [PEN-L] Network-Centric Warfare
For the first three years of the Iraq insurgency, American troops largely retreated to their fortified bases, pushed out woefully undertrained local units to do the fighting, and watched the results on feeds from spy drones flying overhead. There's been no change in strategy or tactic at any point in the war no matter the branding such as: Operation "Amber Waves" (pushed patented GMO seeds on Iraqi farmers by troop handouts of seed) Operation Anaconda Operation Arrowhead Ripper Operation Enduring Freedom Operation First Casualty Operation Iraqi Freedom Operation Phoenix The list goes on and it's STILL about securing the petro-resources no matter the cost to Iraqi society in dead civilians written off by the as "...kill more of the "right" (Who IS that today?... tomorrow?) people." Gotta watch out for those "Free-Fire Zones". "[Rep.] SIEBERLING: You talked about the purpose of the free-fire zones. You have mentioned the fact that the free-fire zones and the harassment and interdiction fire at villagers were obviously designed to force the villagers to leave and go to resettlement areas. Did you ever hear anyone in a position of rank indicate expressly that was one of the purposes?" Answers may be here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free-fire_zone , and FWIW, Afghanistan is being destroyed remotely by Northop Gruman contractors from companies like Silicon Systems sitting behind a coffee cup 24/7/365 at Grass Valley California. Oh and Ford Motor Company... http://www.defensetech.org/archives/003828.html Who needs the UAW when you can simply replace them with an aerospace machinist's unions just as nepotic, and way better compensated... read pampered, as a full fledged despotism might, because the military projects are BIG $$$ compared to some pissant SUV redesign project. Leigh On Nov 29, 2007 12:42 PM, raghu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Wired magazine has an interesting article on "How Technology Almost > Lost the War: In Iraq, the Critical Networks Are Social — Not > Electronic". "Network centric warfare" is not merely a catch-phrase - > it appears that it is a systematic project undertaken by the DoD. > There is quite a substantial literature even in the public domain on > it and there is even an acronym (NCW); a good bibliography is here: > http://www.comw.org/rma/fulltext/netcentwar.html > > The article traces the beginnings to a 1998 paper in Proceedings of > the Naval Institute titled "Network-Centric Warfare: Its Origin and > Future". Unfortunately the original paper does not appear to be > available online. > > > http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-12/ff_futurewar?currentPage=all > ---snip > The Defense Department wasn't blind to the power of networks, of > course — the Internet began as a military project, after all, and each > branch of the armed services had ongoing "digitization" programs. But > no one had ever crystallized what the information age might offer the > Pentagon quite like Cebrowski and Garstka did. In an article for the > January 1998 issue of the naval journal Proceedings, "Network-Centric > Warfare: Its Origin and Future," they not only named the philosophy > but laid out a new direction for how the US would think about war. > > Their model was Wal-Mart. Here was a sprawling, bureaucratic monster > of an organization — sound familiar? — that still managed to > automatically order a new lightbulb every time it sold one. Warehouses > were networked, but so were individual cash registers.. > > The US military could use battlefield sensors to swiftly identify > targets and bomb them. Tens of thousands of warfighters would act as a > single, self-aware, coordinated organism. Better communications would > let troops act swiftly and with accurate intelligence, skirting creaky > hierarchies. It'd be "a revolution in military affairs unlike any seen > since the Napoleonic Age," they wrote. And it wouldn't take hundreds > of thousands of troops to get a job done — that kind of "massing of > forces" would be replaced by information management. "For nearly 200 > years, the tools and tactics of how we fight have evolved," the pair > wrote. "Now, fundamental changes are affecting the very character of > war." > > Network-centric wars would be more moral, too. Cebrowski later argued > that network-enabled armies kill more of the right people quicker. > With fewer civilian casualties, warfare would be more ethical. And as > a result, the US could use military might to create free societies > without being accused of imperialist arrogance... > > And yet, here we are. The American military is still mired in Iraq. > It's still stuck in Afghanistan, battling a resurgent Taliban. > Rumsfeld has been forced out of the Pentagon. Dan Halutz, the Israeli > Defense Forces chief of general staff and net-centric advocate who led > the largely unsuccessful war in Lebanon in 2006, has been fired, too. > In the past six ye
Re: [PEN-L] Moral hazard
raghu wrote: Isn't moral hazard just econospeak for a familiar phenomenon: socialized risk and privatized profit? -raghu. Stiglitz sees moral hazard an any actions by parties to an agreement that are short of due care. In his hands, any incentive problem is a moral hazard problem. Could you please expand on what you mean by socializing risk?
[PEN-L] Cue the NY Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/americas/30venez.html?hp
Re: [PEN-L] Cue the NY Times
"I find the (CIA coup memo) document quite suspect," said Jeremy Bigwood, an independent researcher in Washington. "There's not an original version in English, and the timing of its release is strange. Everything about it smells bad." Speaking of stench, I think Jeremy Bigwood is out of his area of expertise: "...veteran investigative journalist Jeremy Bigwood, an expert in FOIA requests..." http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/351 Unless you are looking for state secrets in U.S. government declassified papers. Leigh "I'm Just a speedbump on the information superhighway" On Nov 29, 2007 4:43 PM, Julio Huato <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/americas/30venez.html?hp >
Re: [PEN-L] Moral hazard
Moral hazard came from the insurance industry. For example, because you have insurance, you may have less incentive to drive carefully. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
Re: [PEN-L] Moral hazard
On Nov 28, 2007 11:32 AM, Michael Nuwer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > raghu wrote: > > Isn't moral hazard just econospeak for a familiar phenomenon: socialized > > risk and privatized profit? > > -raghu. > > Stiglitz sees moral hazard an any actions by parties to an agreement that are > short of due care. In his hands, any incentive problem is a moral hazard > problem. > > Could you please expand on what you mean by socializing risk? > In a typical situation involving moral hazard in financial markets, a participant enters into a high stakes contract and assumes obligations that he does not intend to honor. Usually this takes the form of gambling using money borrowed without collateral (or more typically inflated collateral) - think Citibank's SIVs. Obviously such a scheme will not work without a fool who will act as counter-party i.e. in effect lend money without collateral. It turns out that such "fools" exist usually in the form of public institutions where (1) the money being lent is Other People's Money (OPM), and (2) the 'OP' are too small and too unsavvy to prevent this (Stiglitz' incentive problem?). The major examples are pension funds with employees money and government Treasuries with tax-payer money. Since the risk of loss is borne by these public institutions, we can say in effect that the risk is socialized. Of course this is by no means confined to financial markets. Other examples are say an oil company getting subsidies for exploration or a pharma company using public funds for R&D but retaining the IP. However, like so many other dysfunctions of capitalism, this also finds its purest form in the financial markets. -raghu.
Re: [PEN-L] Moral hazard
On Nov 29, 2007 6:59 PM, Michael Perelman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Moral hazard came from the insurance industry. For example, because you have > insurance, you may have less incentive to drive carefully. And insurance companies have ways of dealing with this by use of deductibles, increased premiums etc. The issue is not so much that financial players have insurance against loss. The issue is that they are not paying for the insurance. So I'd argue for a more generalized view of moral hazard to understand the way it applies in financial markets. e.g. Northern Rock did not have insurance to start with. They still (arguably) behaved irresponsibly and retroactively got the insurance for free. In other words, Northern Rock got to enjoy the benefits of an insurance policy without bothering to pay for it. And that is the essence of the moral hazard problem where someone gets a valuable consideration without paying for it. -raghu.
[PEN-L] Handicapping Profits
In The Confiscation of American Prosperity, I looked at the correlation of poor corporate profitability with CEO's low golf handicaps, as well as the use of corporate jets, and membership in far off country clubs. Later, I learnt of the relationship between CEO's oversize mansions and negative corporate performance. Liu, Crocker and David Yermack. 2007. "Where Are The Shareholders' Mansions? Ceos' Home Purchases, Stock Sales, and Subsequent Company Performance." http://ssrn.com/abstract=970413 Now I see that Business Week has found a similar relationship (though not statistically analyzed between gold handicaps and subprime mortgage losses. "... we started with Golf Digest's inaugural ranking of the top 150 golfers in finance (October 2007). We then averaged the handicap indices of the best three at each firm. At the head of the list is Bear Stearns. The company and its CEO, James Cayne, have been in the news as two of their hedge funds melted down in the subprime mortgage crisis." At the time of the subprime meltdown, with banks bleeding money, Here is the Handicap index for the top firms: Bear Stearns, 0.3; Morgan Stanley, 1.3; Lehman Brothers, 1.5; Merrill Lynch, 1.9. Foust, Dean. 2007. "Wall Street's Leader Board." Business Week (12 November): p. 102. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com
