JayB

Strong team, strong climb. Thanks for sharing.

"We will not apologize for our way of life..." Can't help but think that this line inspired a few quizzical looks back and forth and a momentary pause between claps amongst The Nation's subscriber base.

I chalked the quiescence up to the possibility that a certain cadre of posters might be feeling adrift with all of the above topics losing their emotional resonance by the day. I can't help but draw parallels to a man listening the broadcasts to his HAM-radio for a while, then staring blankly at the meticulously organized and copiously stocked shelves of canned food, ammo, and "Left Behind" series books in the underground shelter/compound/black-helicopter-surveillance-evasion-module he's constructed in his backyard at sometime around noon on January 1st, 2001. BushHitlerMcFascistCheneyBloodForOilTotalitariConspiriBurton, we hardly knew ye....

Well, this particular cretin was out kayaking and fly-fishing for a couple of days, so I hope that you'll pardon my absence. It's not that I can't respond, it's just that it's tough to summon the energy to respond to what you've presented. It's difficult for me to discern a central argument to respond to in those posts, and it would take more energy than I have at the moment to crank out an argument to deal with each assertion that forms the basis of the sub-arguments to be found in each of the snippets, so I'll just have to put forward a few assertions of my own. -Neither Grey Davis nor Swarzenegger have governed as "free market fundamentalists," and you'd be hard pressed to find such a creature amongst the Democratic majority that actually controls the legislative and regulatory output in Sacramento. If such a man exists, he must take direct personal inspiration from Sisyphus. -California's state and local taxes comprise the sixth highest of any state, and California has been in or near the top-ten in this category since at least the 1970's. California residents pay over $5,000 per capita in state and local taxes - currently the 7th highest in the nation. The state currently ranks 47th out of 50 in terms of it's business tax climate (State, local, corporate, property, sales, and unemployment insurance taxes). If California is having trouble paying it's bills, its not because people and businesses are taxed too lightly. -If you are arguing that national policy is to blame, you'll need to demonstrate that the said policies have adversely affected California in a manner independent of any particular legislative or regulatory policies that California has enacted or enforced. -Your stance against outsourcing is really just an argument against the mutual advantages of trade. If you really think that this practice is harmful for the nation, and California in particular, why draw the line at jobs, and why demarcate the borders around the US? Per this line of reasoning, California would be better off if it mandated that all companies operating in California had to locate 100% of their operations in California, contract all of their services with California businesses, etc. If a business in Oregon offered them a better value for their money - tough. You could extend the same logic down to the region, city, and town level. Ditto for all raw materials, machinery, etc. Want to sell diamonds? Better find 'em in California, buddy... Irrespective of what spending programs are desirable or useful from a particular point of view - states have to allocate scarce resources that have many alternative uses in a framework that's determined by the amount of taxable revenue generated by the citizens and businesses within the state. States have significantly less scope to finance their deficits than the Federal government. This is the reality. It's unfortunate that the folks running California seem to have forgotten this to the tune of ~40 Billion dollars that they have no idea how to finance. All states will have a hard time funding their budgets during this recession, but the fact that California's taking the worst hit suggests that the policy and regulatory framework in California may have something to do with it. STP has pretty well spelled out the options that they have available to them now.

1. Which particular policies are you referring to here, and what is your best estimate of their fiscal impact in the current and, say, previous three budgets? 2. How much tax revenue does California's public sector generate on its own?

Revenue boom pretty well traces the housing boom. I think that personal income tax accounts for roughly 40-45% of California's tax revenues, and sales tax for something like 20-25% of total revenues. Quite a bit of the YOY growth in both income/sales was driven by housing related activity, mortgage-equity-withdrawal, HELOC spending, etc. Now that the housing market in California is undergoing a mean reversion back to levels determined by fundamentals, both employment/income and sales are cratering. Exercising a bit of restraint on the spending side during the boom-years would have gone a long way towards preventing and/or alleviating the budget problems that California is experiencing. I suspect that the fiscal picture is even worse for many cities/counties, and we'll see more of them go bankrupt before things bottom out in 2010-2012.

"California controller to suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants. John Chiang announces that his office will suspend $3.7 billion in payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, because with no budget in place the state lacks sufficient cash to pay its bills. By Evan Halper and Patrick McGreevy January 17, 2009 Reporting from Sacramento -- The state will suspend tax refunds, welfare checks, student grants and other payments owed to Californians starting Feb. 1, Controller John Chiang announced Friday. Chiang said he had no choice but to stop making some $3.7 billion in payments in the absence of action by the governor and lawmakers to close the state's nearly $42-billion budget deficit. More than half of those payments are tax refunds. The controller said the suspended payments could be rolled into IOUs if California still lacks sufficient cash to pay its bills come March or April. "It pains me to pull this trigger," Chiang said at a news conference in his office. "But it is an action that is critically necessary." The payments to be frozen include nearly $2 billion in tax refunds; $300 million in cash grants for needy families and the elderly, blind and disabled; and $13 million in grants for college students. Even if a budget agreement is reached by the end of this month, tax refunds and other payments could remain temporarily frozen. Chiang said a budget deal may not generate cash quickly enough to resume them immediately." http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-budget17-2009jan17,0,4472460.story

Yup. Misread the caption. Hopefully the Palestinians will get some posters of their own along with their next batch of American flags in the next aid/rocket shipment.

You've been putting forth this "viewpoint" since McCain lost. It's as incoherent and misinformed now as it was then. The folks in Gaza have provided us with a bit of fodder for a thought experiment. Image Source "Hey....wait a second....that's an image of President...Obama that they're burning..." Looking forward to a series of "Hey...wait...!" moments from the American left when the Obama administration discusses the evidence pertaining to the Iranian nuclear program, etc. It's a whole new day in America. sickie

i was living in texas during the clinton years and here in seattle during the bush years... absolutely no comparison. so...by your experience, who was more hated then? I'm just happy that the American left once again sees no distinction between it's political interests and the national interest, and that the days in which the folks detonating themselves in crowded Baghdad markets are referred to as "The Resistance" are soon to be behind us. Hopefully the propensity to indulge in wild conspiracy theories in the wake of political alienation and disappointments is in abeyance as well. I think that - even allowing for the Black Helicopter folks during the Clinton Era - you'd have to go back to the days of the opposition to the Roosevelt administration in the late 1930's to find a similar dynamic at work in American political life.

It seems that the obvious answer is while mutual funds and so forth are invested in these banks so are many of Paulsons very wealthy buddies. Had a personal beef with the heads of Bear Sterns? I suspect that most of the policy being rolled out at this point has been developed in coordination with the incoming Obama administration, so for this and other reasons, I doubt that cronyism is the best explanation. I actually think that despite my protestation, the article above contains the answers - the government doesn't want to run retail/commercial banks, and don't want to add the bombs in Citi's (and other's) books directly onto the already staggering public tab for the bank rescue operations. Be that as it may, once you start talking about putting public money at risk, the time for fretting about the common stock holders has long since passed, IMO. At some point I think we'll have to add the seize-declare-liquidate-clear mechanism that the RTC used to deal with the S&L debacle in the 80's to the playbook.

Why anyone is worried about the common stockholders being wiped out at this point is beyond me. The company you own stock in implodes, the value of the said stock goes to zero - irrespective of whether the mechanism that brings about the said implosion is bankruptcy, a government takeover in lieu of liquidation, etc. Using government money to prop-up zombie companies and prevent common stockholders from taking a hit is worse than the government simply taking over the company outright. Don't think we'll see the credit markets unfreeze until someone puts a price on the repackaged I/O-negative-amortization-option-ARM laden portfolios that grant the holders the title to condos that rent for a quarter of the monthly mortgage, fields of empty McMansions outside Bakersfield, etc. Ultimately, that'll be the price at which the underlying properties can be bought and rented out for a profit - at least in the case of the stuff that's already been built. The floor on raw or partially developed land is likely to be much lower. Unfortunately - regional banks concentrated their loan portfolios far too heavily in residential construction projects, and the land that they loaned money to builders to develop is going to be find a floor at something like 50-90% less than what the builders paid for it. Combine the residential construction cluster with an equally dire outlook in commercial real estate (equally heavy loan concentrations in regional banks) and you can expect a substantial increase in the number of small and mid-sized banks going under in 2009-2010.

Back in early May. No need to pay off anything related to the wager, but if you happen to see a 3/2 in Ravenna that rents for ~$1500/mo (haha) that comes on the market in June, let me know...

Oddly enough - I seem to recall reading that Mexico had the foresight to hedge against the downside risk for a couple of years ago, but if those options expire before the price rises, it'll be interesting to see what happens at PEMEX and the fields that they manage. Overwhelming dependence on oil for government income + declining production + decades of underinvestment in exploration/infrastructure + corrupt management + intransigent unions = Mexicluster.

Should make for interesting times in the various petro-states. The revenue shortfalls that are bound to materialize if oil stays in the $20-$60 band will likely drive reform in some, and repression in others. Top candidates for increased repression include: Venezuela, Iran, and Russia, IMO.

The literature on the evolution of the immune system also makes for fascinating reading, and featured prominently in the Dover trial: http://www2.ncseweb.org/kvd/exhibits/immune/immune_evo_annotated_bib.html

Haven't listened to the story yet - but that's potentially very significant. At the genome level, the distinction between what's viral and what's human becomes very blurry on account of the fact that roughly half of our chromosomes are composed of endogenous retrovirus's and various other self-replicating elements that aren't too far removed from self-replicating RNA. Quite a bit of interesting material out there on the role that retroviral genes appear to have played in the evolutionary genesis of the placenta, etc out there if you're interested... "Gene conversion and purifying selection of a placenta-specific ERV-V envelope gene during simian evolution. Kjeldbjerg AL, Villesen P, Aagaard L, Pedersen FS. Department of Molecular Biology, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. alk@mb.au.dk BACKGROUND: Most human endogenous retroviruses (HERVs) invaded our genome at least 25 million years ago. The majority of the viral genes are degenerated, since no selection preserves them within the genome. However, a few intact and very old HERV genes exist, and likely are beneficial for the host. We here address evolutionary aspects of two HERV-V envelope genes, ENVV1 and ENVV2, located in tandem and containing a long open reading frame. RESULTS: The ENVV2 gene is preserved with an intact reading frame during simian evolution, but none of the ENVV genes are found in the prosimian species tested. While we observe many transposon insertions in the gag and pol regions of the ERV-V2 provirus, the ENVV2 genes have escaped transposon crossfire in all species tested. Additional analysis of nucleotide substitutions provides further strong evidence of purifying selection on the ENVV2 gene during primate evolution. The other copy, ENVV1, seems to be involved in gene conversion of the major part of the envelope. Furthermore, ENVV1 and ENVV2 show placenta-specific expression in human and a baboon species. CONCLUSION: Our analyses show that ERV-V entered our genome after the split between simian and prosimian primates. Subsequent purifying selection and gene conversion have preserved two copies of the ENVV envelope gene in most species. This is the first case of gene conversion involving long open reading frames in HERVs. Together with the placenta-specific expression of the human and baboon ENVV1 and ENVV2 envelope genes, these data provide strong evidence of a beneficial role for the host." Full Paper: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18826608

I definitely agree that empiricism should be a common basis for knowing and for understanding. But consider this: Although one might see religion to be grounded in an irrational basis it contains a certain amount of rationalism or, more correctly, legalism. Isn't a certain consistency of logic characteristic of two theologians of different beliefs arguing to each other the rightness of their particular religion or ideology? The particular issue that comes to my mind is the Temple Mount. I don’t recall if it was Gershom Gorenberg who made the observation that value judgments are instrumental in solving the problem presented by this issue but several years ago I recall reading or hearing his explanation of it. The facts alone are not enough to solve the problem. His point was that one has to consider the value judgments of both sides and treat them as ~equally true. Don’t ask me how he proposed to perform that balancing act! I suppose my fear of cold logic is its systematization so that something along the lines of that described in Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil is allowed to flourish. BTW, I believe in inoculations although I reserve judgment on some aspects of commonly accepted modern life. Don't have time to respond at length, so I'll have to defer to a couple of quotes: "The Sleep of Reason Brings Forth Monsters" ~ Goya. "Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." ~ Voltaire. Reason may not be sufficient defend against the the kind of madness represented by totalitarian ideologies, but it's certainly necessary.

Who said anything about the mentally ill? I was just contemplating the most likely fate of a hapless census worker who made the mistake of making eye-contact at the door, and shortly thereafter found himself in the conversational equivalent of "The Rubs Itself with Lotion Pit" in the "Silence of the Lambs." "Salvation-by-Organic-Hobby-Garden! Naval Mastermind and Chief-Technical-Officer! Dauntless Fluoro-Crusader and Hope-for-the-Future-Personified! Oh Jesus - now he's locked the door and he's reaching for the ice-climbing photo album!!!!!! Must. Escape. Aaaaaaaaaaaaargh......"

Having said all of that, I suspect that you'll be less than likely to address a stranger that walks into your house, takes a shit on your kitchen counter, and attempts to burn your house down with nothing more than whimsical ruminations on his unique and unpredictable nature....

Interestingly enough, I think that the fact that we aren't and will never be calculating machines, and that we live in a world of vastly different and conflicting value judgments is what makes the role of logic and reason in certain aspects of public life so critical. Logic, reason, and evidence provide a means by which people who have vastly different religious, cultural, and philosophical perspectives can nonetheless agree on the fact that, say, an elephant is larger than a mouse, or upon the elementary composition of water. Absent logic and reason, you are left with force and compulsion as the prime arbiters of disputes about the nature of reality. It's not as though you can't acknowledge the diversity of values, philosophies, perspectives, impulses, etc that drive human behavior and simultaneously insist on a set of rational limits on the scope of behavior that all of the above justify. My own feeling is that the point at which your actions have a direct impact on another person is the point at which the notion that your own value judgments are a sufficient justification for a particular action reaches its end. Beyond this point, you've got to find a common framework to justify your actions. The more serious your impact is on another person, or the more people it affects - the more important a common framework becomes, and the less likely it is that justifications that aren't based in fact or logic will be acceptable or defensible. The point at which people who believe that HIV infection doesn't cause AIDS, or that vaccines cause autism translate their beliefs into actions are directly harmful to others is the point at which they cross this boundary. Ditto for people who believe in witches, demonic possession, snake-oil, The Rapture, etc....

A system that makes a four year degree the central requirement for getting ahead in life satisfies this description far more than a system that also grants equal recognition to vocational aptitude - however and wherever it was obtained.

Hmmm. . I am the latter. I have a BS in Political Science. If you truly think it has "no objective value whatsoever" then we are in disagreement. The critical thinking, writing and research skills I developed in obtaining that degree have served me well in my career. On the other hand, I didn't take out an ARM to shoehorn myself into a home I couldn't afford. Perhaps that balances out my retarded-ness. I agree with Prole with respect to education and a functioning democracy. I disagree with the position that he shouldn't have to re-pay his loans. When one signs their name on a contract they have a moral obligation to fulfill the terms (be they borrower or lender). Personal responsibility and social responsibility can co-exist. There are fields in which one has to obtain "credentials"--e.g. doctor, lawyer, accountant, teacher. Are you arguing that you should be forced to be credentialed to flip burgers? No - I think it'd be useful for folks who have mastered a specific skillset or body of knowledge that's relevant to a particular line of work had an opportunity to get some kind of formal recognition for doing so, even if they never attended a college or university, or didn't complete their degree. The CFA Charter is a good example of what I have in mind. They require a four-year degree, four years of relevant work experience, or a combination of both as part of the set of qualifications that they require before granting the charter, in addition to completing the exam. They recognize the value of a degree/taking college level courses, but also recognize the value of relevant work experience. I like the fact it provides smart, driven people who want to work in finance with the opportunity to secure a credential that will get their skills universally recognized even if they never went to college. It's also entirely voluntary, and so far as I know, not required to work in finance in any state. I do think the value of the CFA is recognized by employers in every state, though. There's clearly already quite a few other programs like this out there, but this is the first example that comes to mind. I think that there are plenty of rational arguments that you can make for things like the CFA certification, but for me the main emotional driver for this is the number of dumbasses with degrees that I've come across in my day, who don't seemed to have learned much more than a false conceit about their place in and worth to society relative to, say, a farmer or a CNC machinist. It's also worth noting that a credential is something different than a license. The use and misuse of state licensing is a separate discussion, but when the state requires a license to arrange flowers for a living (as is the case in Louisiana), then things have gone badly awry. Per my comments about the worthlessness of a particular degree - I'm sorry if I offended you. I also have a BA, in the History of Science, but I never expected that the degree would, on it's own, lead to a secure and/or comfortable living, despite all of the fascinating things that I learned and skills that I honed in the process of getting it. I also think that the number of people who get themselves massively in debt in order to secure degrees that have a vanishingly low probability of generating anything like the economic return necessary to service the said debts without significant hardship is...very unfortunate. I wish that, alongside the uncritical praise of a university education that we heap on young people, we also tossed in a prudent warning or two (and maybe an amortization sheet) about the realities of debt and life beyond campus. If you're going to spend $120,000 on a degree in poetry - great - just do so with your eyes open, and don't cry about the cosmic injustice you're suffering when the monthly payments kick in.

This brings to mind an interesting question - who's the bigger retard: The guy or used a stated-income pay-option I/O loan to shoehorn himself into a home that he couldn't afford, or the guy who borrowed $80,000 to secure a degree in Post-Critical Studies? I vote for the latter. The home will always have a residual value determined by the rental income that it could generate. The degree, or the gazillion others like it, has no objective value whatsoever, and might even render the holder of the said degree less happy, less employable, full of baseless conceits about what he's owed by society, etc. Wastral: I'd like to see the US adopt a system of credentialing examinations for specific professions. Employers would have something more concrete than "This guy attended X college so..." to base their decisions on when assessing which young person to hire, and the smart, driven guy who busted his ass at a no-name college/community-college and knows his stuff would have an objective assessment of his skills to bring to the table. Ditto for students who can't afford to, or don't want to take all of the courses necessary to complete a degree.

I agree with you on one level. It just stands to reason what is right, what is wrong, what is good, what is evil. You might disagree with that stark categorization but it seems to come across based on the comparative number of deaths (or premature deaths, anyway). Dostoevsky said, “Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him.” So it’s about good and evil but also about what it means to be sane. I suggest it’s something more than tacit rejection of science. Let’s call it the lesser evil syndrome. Some people in the anti-vaccine movement appear to be motivated by the belief that components of modern life cause the body to be more susceptible to illness. So maybe it’s not so much the rejection of science but instead of the orthodoxy, of authority, of the establishment… Perhaps they believe that theirs is the lesser evil. It’s a different calculus for them. Do you believe that what plagues Africa cannot be cured by medicine alone? That was part of Mbeki’s message concerning poverty. So yes, HIV can lead to AIDS but what ails them is greater than viral infection. And again, maybe that's the woman’s message. Although her thinking may have been flawed perhaps it was an attempt to remedy what she perceived as the modern illness, one larger than infection, maybe in an odd way to address the question of sanity. Was the character in “Into the Wild” insane because he hastened his own death? Maybe he stood the definition on its head so that what appears to us as insanity actually is sanity. I personally think it's sufficient to describe Maggiore and the set of beliefs that she dedicated her life to advancing as tragically incorrect, profoundly misguided, immensely destructive, etc. Whether they're consistent with canonical definitions of evil might make for an interesting discussion, but I don't think it's a question that needs to be definitively resolved before one can single her and her ilk out for intense criticism and condemnation. I am not sure that I completely understand what you are saying in the parts of your post that touch on the question of "what is sanity," but I do think that it's important to recognize the difference between facts and value judgments when deciding whether a particular belief is defensible or not. "The color orange is superior to the color blue" is a value judgment that can't be settled by recourse to any evidence whatsoever. The answer is entirely dependent on the premises that one uses to define and assess superiority, etc. "The Earth revolves around the Sun" is a statement of fact that can be definitively proven or disproven by recourse to evidence. McCandless is analogous to someone who thought that orange was superior to blue, and Maggiore and her fellow travelers fall into the category of persons who believe a falsehood no less egregious than believing that the Earth does not, in fact, revolve around the Sun. Even if Maggiore did adhere to the beliefs that you attribute to her, the question then becomes - did she have a defensible basis for believing them? Ditto for the folks in the anti-vaccine movement. The answer is a categorical no in both cases, and as such there is no rational argument that can redeem them. I do think it's useful to try to understand why people subscribe to profoundly irrational beliefs that are completely at odds with indisputable facts, if for no other reason than to more effectively limit their impact - but you've got to draw the line between defensible and indefensible beliefs before doing so. People like McCandless, who have done nothing more than make some uncommon different value judgments don't need to have their sanity questioned or defended. People like Maggiore don't deserve either. P.S. - Always enjoy your posts. Oops - I also meant to answer your question about whether medicine is sufficient to fix what ails Africa. The answer there is a categorical no, of course. If you limit the question to AIDS, the answer is still no - but scientific medicine clearly does have the potential to dramatically reduce the suffering and devastation that the disease inflicts upon people who contract it, reduce the probability of transmission from mother to child, etc. Moreover, since doing all of the above will help combat any number of the continent's other ailments that are compounded by AIDS, the policy arguments put forth by Mbeki, Maggiore et al are no more defensible than their statements that HIV infection does not cause AIDS.