(New)The Greatest Swindle Ever Sold By Andy Kroll
"Can Future Systemic Financial Risk Be Quantified? Ergodic Vs. Nonergodic Stochastic Processes" by Paul Davidson
Fabius Maximus | May 21, 2009 This financial crisis has revealed much about America. About the operation of our government. About our ruling elites, and what they consider important — and who they believe should pay for their mistakes. And about the American public. Our passivity and ignorance (don’t know, don’t care).
If we choose to be sheep the best we can hope to get is a shepard. More likely we will get wolves. This is the natural order of things, and neither shepards or wolves are criminals. The most common reaction to these hard facts has been to whine about it. Perhaps instead we should consider not being sheep.
Some prominent conservatives analyze the situation
Perhaps the most astonishing aspect of the crisis has been that of prominent conservatives. As we see in this conclave talking on the Glenn Beck Program: “Destined to Repeat“, Fox News, 10 April 2009 — Red emphasis added. Excerpt:
GLENN BECK, HOST: There are undeniable parallels between what has happened in the past on our planet and what is going on today. And tonight, we’re going to cover a lot of them. I hope that you come away from tonight’s program with a deeper understanding of how some of the most infamous events in history started with the best of intentions. …
BECK: All right. Our country is not being controlled by jackbooted fascists. But like I said, during George W. Bush’s term, the groundwork is continuously being laid to take us there if the train goes off the tracks. History shows us that it only takes two simple things for fascism to rear its ugly head, and it can happen virtually overnight: fear and hunger. A temporary crisis is almost always a precursor to a much, much more permanent one.
So, with that in mind, let me show you the four main things that we’re going to be talking about tonight. First, we’re going to take you to Russia, where under communists like Lenin and Stalin, their revolution pitted peasants against the rich, the poor against the wealthy. They were basically saying, “Eat the rich! They did this to you! Get them! Kill them!”
These days, the comparison, demonstrators are rioting in front of the G20, unions protesting in front of AIG, an organized mob, buses showing up at the houses of the evil AIG executives. It’s a different style, but the sentiments are exactly the same — find ‘em, get ‘em, kill ‘em! They did this to you!
…
RGELLATELY, AUTHOR, “LENIN, STALIN & HITLER”: Well, the Russian Revolution came at the end of disastrous First World War, and the people were hungry and there was a great desire to get out of the war. Lenin came back to Russia — brought there by the Germans, incidentally — to try to bring about a revolution, and he did it cunningly by offering poor peasants land, people bread, and the army peace. And with those three slogans, he managed to obtain rather quickly and easily victory for the Bolshevik Revolution in October — old style, October 1917.
Now, what happened after that, of course, is that there was a war was in the countryside and basically he promised the land to the poor peasants, who were then invited to take land from the churches, from nobility that were better off. And what they did, of course, was think actually that the communists were going to let them keep the land. So, they became firm backers of the Russian Revolution, the poor peasants believing that now the land that they thought was rightly theirs for so long now was theirs finally to keep.
But of course, that was complete illusion, and within no time at all, the situation went from bad to worse. So, think what would happen if you draw off the best farmers, you kill off the best farmers — what do you think is going to happen next? What happens next is a famine.
BECK: And that’s exactly what happened. And I see this parallel with AIG and then the bankers and everything else — hate them, hate them, they did this to you, you’ve got to get them, you know, kill them off, put them in jail, take their money, whatever. Who is going to run these things? There are — they have expertise that most don’t.
Let me — let me go to Amity. Do you have any or anybody — is anybody watching the news today and seeing things that don’t have to repeat? But when you, as a historian, and you know history, don’t you look at today and go — wait, wait, wait? Everybody knows what we’re doing, right? Everyone is aware this is dangerous territory that we’re — that we’re walking down.
AMITY SHLAES, AUTHOR, “THE FORGOTTEN MAN”: Yes, Glenn, there is a variant of what you said before — politicians who can’t remember the past condemn the rest of us to repeat it. So, you get the feeling in Washington, they haven’t thought about what government can do before. I prefer to call it “statism,” the ever-expanding state what we’re talking about, which then corrupts, when then sometimes leads to war. And yes, I see, when we look at companies and blame them, no good outcome because those companies are also often the source of our prosperity and our return to prosperity.
So, you can be mad at certain AIG executives that they didn’t forego their bonus or that they were too lawyerly in writing it all out this winter and tricking people with Congress. And yes, there are bad people at all companies, but if we blame AIG, we also hurt a lot of other companies.
For an analysis of Amity Shlaes brand of economics see An important and politically significant guide to the Great Depression (30 April 2009).
I recommend reading the complete transcript to take a full measure of its nuttiness. We have gone through the greatest financial crisis since the 1930’s — the first global recession (wars do not count) — and there these people show no awareness of the need for fundamental reforms. Also, comparing America to the last days of the Czars is nuts.
Most bizarre: in response to tepid discussion of changes, they invoke the ghosts of Communism and Fascism. Revolution and famine. If we jail some senior bankers, our system will collapse because nobody else can run those institutions. This is too crack-pot for serious analysis, but Matt Taibbi does find important meaning in it for all of us.
A reasonable person’s remarks about these conservatives’ analysis
Excerpt from “The peasant mentality lives on in America“, Matt Taibbi, posted at The Smirking Chimp, 14 April 2009:
This must be a terrible time to be a right-winger. A vicious paradox has been thrust upon the once-ascendant conservatives. On the one hand they are out of power, and so must necessarily rail against the Obama administration. On the other hand they have to vilify, as dangerous anticapitalist activity, the grass-roots protests against the Geithner bailouts and the excess of companies like AIG. That leaves them with no recourse but to dream up wholesale lunacies along the lines of Glenn Beck’s recent “Fascism With a Happy Face” rants, which link the protesting “populists” and the Obama adminstration somehow and imagine them as one single nefarious, connected, ongoing effort to install a totalitarian regime.
This is not a simple rhetorical accomplishment. It requires serious mental gymnastics to describe the Obama administration — particularly the Obama administration of recent weeks, which has given away billions to Wall Street and bent over backwards to avoid nationalization and pursue a policy that preserves the private for-profit status of the bailed-out banks — as a militaristic dictatorship of anti-wealth, anti-private property forces. You have to somehow explain the Geithner/Paulson decisions to hand over trillions of taxpayer dollars to the rich bankers as the formal policy expression of progressive rage against the rich. Not easy.
… It’s been strange and kind of depressing to watch the conservative drift in this direction. In a way, actually, the Glenn Beck show has been drearily fascinating of late. It’s not often that we get to watch someone go insane on national television …
After all, the reason the winger crowd can’t find a way to be coherently angry right now is because this country has no healthy avenues for genuine populist outrage. It never has. The setup always goes the other way: when the excesses of business interests and their political proteges in Washington leave the regular guy broke and screwed, the response is always for the lower and middle classes to split down the middle and find reasons to get pissed off not at their greedy bosses but at each other. That’s why even people like Beck’s audience, who I’d wager are mostly lower-income people, can’t imagine themselves protesting against the Wall Street barons who in actuality are the ones who fucked them over.
… But actual rich people can’t ever be the target. It’s a classic peasant mentality: going into fits of groveling and bowing whenever the master’s carriage rides by, then fuming against the Turks in Crimea or the Jews in the Pale or whoever after spending fifteen hard hours in the fields. You know you’re a peasant when you worship the very people who are right now, this minute, conning you and taking your shit.
Whatever the master does, you’re on board. When you get frisky, he sticks a big cross in the middle of your village, and you spend the rest of your life praying to it with big googly eyes. Or he puts out newspapers full of innuendo about this or that faraway group and you immediately salute and rush off to join the hate squad. A good peasant is loyal, simpleminded, and full of misdirected anger.
And that’s what we’ve got now, a lot of misdirected anger searching around for a non-target to mis-punish — can’t be mad at AIG, can’t be mad at Citi or Goldman Sachs. The real villains have to be the anti-AIG protesters! After all, those people earned those bonuses! If ever there was a textbook case of peasant thinking, it’s struggling middle-class Americans burned up in defense of taxpayer-funded bonuses to millionaires. It’s really weird stuff. And bound to get weirder, I imagine, as this crisis gets worse and more complicated.
Conclusion
This puts America in a tough spot. The core of the loyal opposition has gone crazy. The Administration in power continues the policies of the old Administration. To whom do we turn if the economy fails to recover in the second half of 2009? To ourselves. It’s our government. It’s our nation. It’s our responsibility.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally published at Fabius Maximus and reproduced here with the author's permission.
Friday, May 29, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
The Growing "Bubble" In Government Debt Markets...
This is an excellent article of our financial mess. I fully agree with Satyajit Das...
Second Lesson of the GFC: Whatever It Takes!
Satyajit Das | May 18, 2009
Socialist WIT
The severity of the crisis was underestimated initially. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve in March 2007 stated during Congressional Testimony: "At this juncture, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the sub-prime market seems likely to be contained." In April 2007 US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson delivered an upbeat assessment of the economy: "All the signs I look at show the housing market is at or near the bottom… The U.S. economy is very healthy and robust."
The grande mal seizure of financial markets in September and October 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, a large US investment bank and near collapse of AIG, the world’s largest insurance group, highlighted the seriousness of the problems. Since then national and international "committees to save the world" have implemented a bewildering and ever changing array of measures to try to stave of economic collapse.
The actions – dubbed WIT ("What it Takes") by Gordon Brown, the English Prime Minister - have been focused on trying to stabilise the financial system and maintaining growth in the real economy.
Governments and central banks have moved to remove toxic debt from bank balance sheets, inject share capital to cover losses from bad debts and also guaranteed the bank’s own borrowings to allow them to continue to raise deposits and borrow. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King recently summed up the nature of the UK’s support for the banking system memorably: "The package of measures announced yesterday by the Chancellor are not designed to protect the banks as such. They are designed to protect the economy from the banks."
Governments have provided large amounts fiscal stimulus and support for the housing market (in the US). In addition to the normal "automatic stabiliser" effects of reduced tax income and higher social welfare spending in a recession that push budgets into deficit, governments have launched new spending initiatives focused on infrastructure and direct payments to those most affected by effects of the GFC. Central banks have cut interest rates to levels not seen for decades.
It is not clear whether the actions taken will have the intended effect. As John Kenneth Galbraith noted: "In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension".
King Canute Addresses the Waves
The pretence of global co-ordination in policy responses, reiterated at increasingly frequent G20 summits, does not accord with the reality of individual actions.
Ireland’s anxious reaction to a "run" on Irish banks prompted a blanket government guarantee on bank deposits. This, in turn, led to a flight to Irish banks forcing the implementation of similar arrangements in other countries. The "electronic herd" did not notice that Ireland was guaranteeing deposits totaling over 200% of its own gross domestic production ("GDP") calling into question its ability to honour these commitments if called.
There have been constant shifts in policy. TARP might well stand for Temporary Asset Relief Program (rather than its real name - Troubled Asset Relief Program) as there have been a succession of wholesale changes in the strategy.
The financial initiatives have not led to a significant easing of credit conditions. This reflects the fact that the capital provided is only sufficient to cover continuing losses but insufficient to restore normal lending and financial activity.
Money supplied to banks is not flowing into the real economy. Banks need funds to pay off maturing borrowings of their own as well support assets coming back onto their balance sheet (known by another three letter acronym - IAG - involuntary asset growth). Companies have also drawn down debt facilities, as their own financial position has deteriorated, requiring the banks to finance these requirements.
Governments and central bankers have become frustrated at the failure of policy actions to help the resumption of normal financial activity. Where governments have taken substantial stakes in banks, there is a noticeable drift to "directed lending". Central banks and governments are increasingly bypassing the banking system and providing finance directly to businesses. The Federal Reserve may soon issue credit cards to all Americans under its own brand.
The debates miss the point that debtors still have too much debt and are not able to service it. Until the debt is written down and restructured, credit growth may not resume.
In the TARP Oversight Panel Report of 8 April 2009, Professor Elizabeth Warren observed: "Six months into the existence of TARP, evidence of success or failure is mixed. One key assumption that underlies Treasury’s …. approach is its belief that the system-wide deleveraging resulting from the decline in asset values, leading to an accompanying drop in net wealth across the country, is in large part the product of temporary liquidity constraints resulting from non-functioning markets for troubled assets. On the other hand, it is possible that Treasury’s approach fails to acknowledge the depth of the current downturn and the degree to which the low valuation of troubled assets accurately reflects their worth".
The stimulus packages create different challenges. Well-intentioned infrastructure spending will take some time to have any meaningful effect. Skill shortages in key areas of expertise may slow down implementation. The need to avoid "leakage" where spending flows to overseas recipients in a globalised world is also paramount politically. The return on inadequately targeted infrastructure investment is also not necessarily high
Governments must also borrow to finance their spending. Many countries implementing fiscal stimulus packages already have large budget deficits and also substantial levels of outstanding public debt.
In 2009, governments around the world will have to issue US$3 trillion in debt. The US alone will need to issue around US$ 2 trillion in bonds (a staggering US$40 billion a week!). This compares to around US$400-500 billion of annual debt that the US has issued in recent years. This debt must be issued at record low interest rates.
China, Japan, Europe and other emerging countries have been major buyer of this debt. It is not clear whether they will continue to buy US government bonds, at least at previous levels. Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, provided a reminder of the importance of this issue in February 2009: "Whether China will continue to buy, and how much to buy, should be in accordance with China’s needs, and depend on the safety and protection of value of foreign exchange." Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the Chinese central bank, recently sought guarantees that the value of China’s US$682 billion holdings of US government debt won’t be eroded by "reckless policies". He asked that the US "should make the Chinese feel confident that the value of the assets at least will not be eroded in a significant way."
At best, the tsunami of government debt may crowd out other borrowers exacerbating existing financing problems. At worst, there is a risk of a collapse of the growing "bubble" in government debt markets as investors refuse to purchase debt at current rates triggering additional losses. In January 2009, long-term interest rates moved up sharply as markets started to absorb the import of government initiatives. As James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, once noted: "I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."
Current initiatives resemble the "hair of the dog that bit you" cure where ingestion of alcohol is the treatment for a hangover. The current problems can be traced to high levels of debt accumulated by banks, consumers and companies. In effect, this debt is now being replaced by government debt. Simultaneously, the debt fueled consumption of consumers and companies is being replaced by debt funded government expenditure.
Adjustment in the level of debt and asset prices is part of process of through which the global economic system re-establishes itself. Governments and central banks can smooth the transition but they cannot prevent the necessary adjustments taking place. Like King Canute, central bankers and finance ministers cannot hold back the tide.
Multiplication by Zero
Like an athlete using drugs to enhance performance, the global economy used debt and financial engineering to enhance global growth. Increasing stimulus was needed to maintain performance in an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. The removal of performance enhancing drugs has exposed fundamental weaknesses.
A simple way to think about value in the global economy is in terms of Irving Fisher’s transaction equation:
Real Economy = Financial Economy
Where
Real Economy = Quantity of Good times Price of Goods
Financial Economy = Money Supply times Velocity of Money
Therefore:
Quantity of Good times Price of Goods = Money Supply times Velocity of Money
The financial economy represents claims on the earnings and cash flows (both current and future) from producing and selling real goods and services. The financial economy consists of the money available and how rapidly the money can be circulated through the global economy (velocity). Banks provide much of the velocity of money in the economy through its borrowing and lending activities where a small amount of capital is leveraged to create larger amounts of money in the form of debt.
Recent economic prosperity was primarily driven by growth in the financial economy – increased money supplied by central banks augmented the rapid growth of and innovation of financial techniques within the banking system that increased the velocity of circulation. This increased the value of the real economy by increasing prices and also stimulating the expansion in the supply of goods and services.
The GFC has sharply reduced the financial economy, specifically it has decreased the velocity of money. As any student of mathematics knows anything multiplied by zero is itself zero.
The reduction in the financial economy necessitates a corresponding reduction in the real economy, initially in prices and ultimately by reducing the quantity of real goods and services. Falling prices of financial assets (claims on real goods and services) and, more recently, reductions in production volumes reflect the required economic adjustment process.
Government actions, however well intentioned, seem primarily to be based on the recognition that Ponzi or pyramid games are only bad if they end. All efforts are now seemingly directed at keeping the game going for as long as possible!
In 1976, James Callaghan, the Prime Minister, delivered the following grim assessment of Britain’s economic situation that is still relevant today: "We have been living on borrowed time. We used to think you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candor that that option no longer exists."
Government actions, however well intentioned and significant, may entail pouring water into a bottomless bucket.
© 2009 Satyajit Das All Rights reserved.
Satyajit Das is a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006, FT-Prentice Hall).
This article draws on the ideas first published in Satyajit Das "Built to Fail" in The Monthly (April 2009) 8-13
Second Lesson of the GFC: Whatever It Takes!
Satyajit Das | May 18, 2009
Socialist WIT
The severity of the crisis was underestimated initially. Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve in March 2007 stated during Congressional Testimony: "At this juncture, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the sub-prime market seems likely to be contained." In April 2007 US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson delivered an upbeat assessment of the economy: "All the signs I look at show the housing market is at or near the bottom… The U.S. economy is very healthy and robust."
The grande mal seizure of financial markets in September and October 2008, with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, a large US investment bank and near collapse of AIG, the world’s largest insurance group, highlighted the seriousness of the problems. Since then national and international "committees to save the world" have implemented a bewildering and ever changing array of measures to try to stave of economic collapse.
The actions – dubbed WIT ("What it Takes") by Gordon Brown, the English Prime Minister - have been focused on trying to stabilise the financial system and maintaining growth in the real economy.
Governments and central banks have moved to remove toxic debt from bank balance sheets, inject share capital to cover losses from bad debts and also guaranteed the bank’s own borrowings to allow them to continue to raise deposits and borrow. Bank of England Governor Mervyn King recently summed up the nature of the UK’s support for the banking system memorably: "The package of measures announced yesterday by the Chancellor are not designed to protect the banks as such. They are designed to protect the economy from the banks."
Governments have provided large amounts fiscal stimulus and support for the housing market (in the US). In addition to the normal "automatic stabiliser" effects of reduced tax income and higher social welfare spending in a recession that push budgets into deficit, governments have launched new spending initiatives focused on infrastructure and direct payments to those most affected by effects of the GFC. Central banks have cut interest rates to levels not seen for decades.
It is not clear whether the actions taken will have the intended effect. As John Kenneth Galbraith noted: "In economics, hope and faith coexist with great scientific pretension".
King Canute Addresses the Waves
The pretence of global co-ordination in policy responses, reiterated at increasingly frequent G20 summits, does not accord with the reality of individual actions.
Ireland’s anxious reaction to a "run" on Irish banks prompted a blanket government guarantee on bank deposits. This, in turn, led to a flight to Irish banks forcing the implementation of similar arrangements in other countries. The "electronic herd" did not notice that Ireland was guaranteeing deposits totaling over 200% of its own gross domestic production ("GDP") calling into question its ability to honour these commitments if called.
There have been constant shifts in policy. TARP might well stand for Temporary Asset Relief Program (rather than its real name - Troubled Asset Relief Program) as there have been a succession of wholesale changes in the strategy.
The financial initiatives have not led to a significant easing of credit conditions. This reflects the fact that the capital provided is only sufficient to cover continuing losses but insufficient to restore normal lending and financial activity.
Money supplied to banks is not flowing into the real economy. Banks need funds to pay off maturing borrowings of their own as well support assets coming back onto their balance sheet (known by another three letter acronym - IAG - involuntary asset growth). Companies have also drawn down debt facilities, as their own financial position has deteriorated, requiring the banks to finance these requirements.
Governments and central bankers have become frustrated at the failure of policy actions to help the resumption of normal financial activity. Where governments have taken substantial stakes in banks, there is a noticeable drift to "directed lending". Central banks and governments are increasingly bypassing the banking system and providing finance directly to businesses. The Federal Reserve may soon issue credit cards to all Americans under its own brand.
The debates miss the point that debtors still have too much debt and are not able to service it. Until the debt is written down and restructured, credit growth may not resume.
In the TARP Oversight Panel Report of 8 April 2009, Professor Elizabeth Warren observed: "Six months into the existence of TARP, evidence of success or failure is mixed. One key assumption that underlies Treasury’s …. approach is its belief that the system-wide deleveraging resulting from the decline in asset values, leading to an accompanying drop in net wealth across the country, is in large part the product of temporary liquidity constraints resulting from non-functioning markets for troubled assets. On the other hand, it is possible that Treasury’s approach fails to acknowledge the depth of the current downturn and the degree to which the low valuation of troubled assets accurately reflects their worth".
The stimulus packages create different challenges. Well-intentioned infrastructure spending will take some time to have any meaningful effect. Skill shortages in key areas of expertise may slow down implementation. The need to avoid "leakage" where spending flows to overseas recipients in a globalised world is also paramount politically. The return on inadequately targeted infrastructure investment is also not necessarily high
Governments must also borrow to finance their spending. Many countries implementing fiscal stimulus packages already have large budget deficits and also substantial levels of outstanding public debt.
In 2009, governments around the world will have to issue US$3 trillion in debt. The US alone will need to issue around US$ 2 trillion in bonds (a staggering US$40 billion a week!). This compares to around US$400-500 billion of annual debt that the US has issued in recent years. This debt must be issued at record low interest rates.
China, Japan, Europe and other emerging countries have been major buyer of this debt. It is not clear whether they will continue to buy US government bonds, at least at previous levels. Wen Jiabao, China’s prime minister, provided a reminder of the importance of this issue in February 2009: "Whether China will continue to buy, and how much to buy, should be in accordance with China’s needs, and depend on the safety and protection of value of foreign exchange." Yu Yongding, a former adviser to the Chinese central bank, recently sought guarantees that the value of China’s US$682 billion holdings of US government debt won’t be eroded by "reckless policies". He asked that the US "should make the Chinese feel confident that the value of the assets at least will not be eroded in a significant way."
At best, the tsunami of government debt may crowd out other borrowers exacerbating existing financing problems. At worst, there is a risk of a collapse of the growing "bubble" in government debt markets as investors refuse to purchase debt at current rates triggering additional losses. In January 2009, long-term interest rates moved up sharply as markets started to absorb the import of government initiatives. As James Carville, Bill Clinton’s campaign manager, once noted: "I want to come back as the bond market. You can intimidate everybody."
Current initiatives resemble the "hair of the dog that bit you" cure where ingestion of alcohol is the treatment for a hangover. The current problems can be traced to high levels of debt accumulated by banks, consumers and companies. In effect, this debt is now being replaced by government debt. Simultaneously, the debt fueled consumption of consumers and companies is being replaced by debt funded government expenditure.
Adjustment in the level of debt and asset prices is part of process of through which the global economic system re-establishes itself. Governments and central banks can smooth the transition but they cannot prevent the necessary adjustments taking place. Like King Canute, central bankers and finance ministers cannot hold back the tide.
Multiplication by Zero
Like an athlete using drugs to enhance performance, the global economy used debt and financial engineering to enhance global growth. Increasing stimulus was needed to maintain performance in an unsustainable Ponzi scheme. The removal of performance enhancing drugs has exposed fundamental weaknesses.
A simple way to think about value in the global economy is in terms of Irving Fisher’s transaction equation:
Real Economy = Financial Economy
Where
Real Economy = Quantity of Good times Price of Goods
Financial Economy = Money Supply times Velocity of Money
Therefore:
Quantity of Good times Price of Goods = Money Supply times Velocity of Money
The financial economy represents claims on the earnings and cash flows (both current and future) from producing and selling real goods and services. The financial economy consists of the money available and how rapidly the money can be circulated through the global economy (velocity). Banks provide much of the velocity of money in the economy through its borrowing and lending activities where a small amount of capital is leveraged to create larger amounts of money in the form of debt.
Recent economic prosperity was primarily driven by growth in the financial economy – increased money supplied by central banks augmented the rapid growth of and innovation of financial techniques within the banking system that increased the velocity of circulation. This increased the value of the real economy by increasing prices and also stimulating the expansion in the supply of goods and services.
The GFC has sharply reduced the financial economy, specifically it has decreased the velocity of money. As any student of mathematics knows anything multiplied by zero is itself zero.
The reduction in the financial economy necessitates a corresponding reduction in the real economy, initially in prices and ultimately by reducing the quantity of real goods and services. Falling prices of financial assets (claims on real goods and services) and, more recently, reductions in production volumes reflect the required economic adjustment process.
Government actions, however well intentioned, seem primarily to be based on the recognition that Ponzi or pyramid games are only bad if they end. All efforts are now seemingly directed at keeping the game going for as long as possible!
In 1976, James Callaghan, the Prime Minister, delivered the following grim assessment of Britain’s economic situation that is still relevant today: "We have been living on borrowed time. We used to think you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candor that that option no longer exists."
Government actions, however well intentioned and significant, may entail pouring water into a bottomless bucket.
© 2009 Satyajit Das All Rights reserved.
Satyajit Das is a risk consultant and author of Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives (2006, FT-Prentice Hall).
This article draws on the ideas first published in Satyajit Das "Built to Fail" in The Monthly (April 2009) 8-13
Saturday, May 16, 2009
The History of History___Eclecticism___Where Is It?
“We should chiefly depend not upon that department of the soul which is most superficial and fallible (our reason), but upon that department that is deep and sure, which is instinct.” - Charles Sanders Peirce
Far too much about history has been stated in narrow analytical diatribe, inconcise nonsense, and pure empty rhetoric… Why? Are we really that dense? A simple first example; Aristotle___Most think he’s great because he wrote about a beautiful system of ethics, true enough, but what about his non-sensical silly-gistic proposition/predicate logic, or whatever you want to call it? Then along comes Kant with another beautiful system of ethics and arithmetic liberty, but what about his wedge driven between the “logica utens” and the “logica docens”? Was there any need of these two great minds dividing our natural senses so miserably? So nefariously? Then, just as the world is starting to come out of its stupidity, with Boole, DeMorgan, Jevons, Peirce and Shroader, along comes Frege with more of the same old divisions of logical sense/nonsense(and conflation), which has continued through Cantor, Piano, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine and Chomsky, ruling most of modern intellect. Oh, and don’t let me forget Hegel___That wonderful over-worshiper of state. Neitzsche? Another life hater. Beautiful story, ‘ain’t’ it…?
Is it true? How would you tell truth? Really, tell me… Napolean existed___True. Stalin existed___True. Hitler existed___True. Mooselini existed___True. Hussein and Bin Ladin existed/exist___True. Is this the type of truth the world really believes? Is there any real truth of “Power”? Does anyone on Earth know what the truth of “Power” really is? Is power logical to itself? Yes. Is power ethical to itself? Yes. Is power truthful to itself? Yes. Is power honest to itself? Yes. Is power all the above to a majority of its citizens? Yes, more often than we care to think about. Believe me, Caligula and Machiavelli have no one-up-ness on most of the modern world, it’s just that now, we do it all with the power systems of money___The Corporate Military Industrial Complexes.
Let’s take an eclectic look at historical power, through the eyes of logic, math, philosophy and money, Ok? What made it all go wrong? Simple question___Complex answer. Let’s rephrase it. What made it all go mathematically so wrong? That can be answered. Let’s look at the actors and players, mainly from history’s most influencial source___The academics. At least, most of them think they’re the most influencial source of change and refinement. Why is it we have such genius arithmetic scientists, and yet such meager philosophers of the mathematical sciences? Is it accidents of history, the complexity and time study constraints of history, or possibly the laziness of philosophers to truly learn the requisite maths, to more effectively describe mathematical histories’ and meta-histories’ truths?
Looking back at the early Greeks, we find great advancements by the geometers and the Pythagorean Schools, up until Aristotle. Then___What happened? The Pythagoreans had developed a most advanced triadic math and logic, with a necessary “mean terms”. They had the “Triadic Law of Mean Terms”___“The Triadic Principle”. This was a very pragmatic system of math and logic as attributed to them by Socrates, and much of Plato’s dialogues. Even Aristotle’s early work on the Nicomachean Ethics was excellent work, when he was still influenced by Plato and the Pythagoreans, but things shortly changed. The change, due to much critical Greek antagonism, may have forced Aristotle to try and sure up his philosophy, but without the genius influence and help of Plato, Aristotle went down a very confusing and false road. He separated the “logica utens” and the “logica docens” into two entirely distinct schools of thought, with his three laws of logic, and the main fault being the “Excluded Middle”. This put his logic in direct opposition with Pythagorean Triadic Logic and Math, with a new less powerful Dyadic Logic and Math. Archimedes tried to salvage it, as did Eudoxas, Nicomachus and Apollonius, and later the Arabic speaking nation-states, with their “Houses of Wisdom”, also tried to salvage the early Greek ideas, yet to no avail, when Averroes came along. Aristotle’s logic won the day, over the more able Triadic Logics of the early Pythagoreans, as the early Greek and Byzantine knowledge systems slowly crept into Europe. Could this have been different? Why was it so disasterous?
We all know the history by now. The “Port Royal Logic” School accepted the less capable and confusing “Dyadic Logic” and “Math Systems” of the Aristotle influenced schools. Even Galen had clearly shown the faults of much of Aristotle’s system, and the Arabic peoples, up to Biruni and Avicenna, clearly tried to right the wrongs, to no avail, so we finally ended with two distinct logic and math systems and schools of thought, right down to this day, but more of the history needs mentioning. Many mathematicians and true working scientists, through the years , always followed the true Pythagorean, Euclidian and Archimedean Schools, but most philosophers of, and many more falsely influenced scientists and mathematicians followed the more confused logic, arithmetic and (modal schools, which the Byzantine’s had created). Then along comes the enlightenment, to pull the wool fully over everyone’s eyes, for many years to come, with Descarte’s further separation of mind and body, etc., etc., and finally to the point everything was so confusing, Kant came along to try and straighten it all out. But, he ended separating the “Utens” and “Docens” even further___Nice try, but no ringers. Oh, there was his excellent mathematical ethics and liberty papers, but the true philosophical and final sense separation was devastating for logic and math systems for the next 150 years. You see, math and true mathematical logic are of the “logica utens” and most philosophers describe this true a priori ground as though it’s of the “logica docens”, and herein lies all the confusion.
Now, was this accidental or pure laziness, on the part of the philosophers and historians? I can’t truly answer this, but if life’s experiences are any guide, there’s a good percentage of all trades, crafts and professionals that are just plain lazy and downright slackers, so my money is on history really being controlled by this lazy-slacker element of all societies___Period…! The bad runs both up and down hill. No matter how brilliant anyone wants to think the professional classes are, that’s not my experience of life, at near 64 years of age, and this is why the human element of any system’s success is dubitable, unless we can turn much of society’s bad elemental powers over to properly algorithmatized computers___I have no faith in humanity changing, even if they realize their lives are at stake. I think there’s just far too many lazy-slackers who just wouldn’t believe it if the “Bear” were staring them in the face. They’d say, “Nice Bear”.
Well anyway, after Kant got through trashing the system, along came Hegel kissing up to the state, and a metaphysical “Notion”, after Kant had already created the “Thing In Itself” boogy-man. There’s really a ‘lotta’ interpretation in those two ideas, kinda like Wittgenstein’s “Private Language”. Yeah, I admit we all do have private self-languages, but that’s not what ‘Witt’ meant, and we all know that. As I mentioned earlier, others came along in time to straighten the world mess out, but America’s invasion by Europe’s WWI and WWII hoards of professional miscreants clobbered us, and down to the bottom of the barrel went Peirce, and his student Veblen, to only be replaced by English and European mediocrity, ending the only true and valid “Triadic Systems” revival, at that time possible.
Luckily, the last few decades have begun to change the world intellectual picture, even if it’s still but in the periphery, Peirce’s, Jevons’, Veblen’s and Keynes’ views are coming back into vogue, through the new heterodox schools. It only takes a quick Google search to verify this___millions of hits, thank ‘god’, when all epistemic and cognitive searches are done. So let’s take a quick look at the possible revival of “Triadic Ideas” as relates to the “Semantic Web” possibly not being so parasitic on the “Pragmatic Web” in our highly possibly better future.
How can we best represent global power systems? Capitalism? Socialism? Communism? Social Contracts? Contractarianism? Nationalism? Or Social Democratic Capitalism mixes? Taking an eclectic view, allowing a triadic isomorphic systems logic, which would recognize our better nature’s priority over our higher nature’s ego, we may have a shot at a new and total understanding. Are any of these systems true? Are any of these systems value validity preserving___sustainable? We’re certainly going to have to admit the present system has failed, or at the least terribly mis-fired. Are we going to have to rebuild it? Replace it? Coddle it? Or outright change the entire system for something entirely new? Does anyone really know about Keynes’ total system of “International Exchange Clearing, Bancor and Emergency Jobs Banks?” Does anyone even truly realize we have the computational ability to figure new systems from a future model’s arithmetic completion position? Can anyone even believe this? There’s lots of talk of adopting amalgamations of old tried and failed systems, but not much of Keynes’ true “Middle Way.” What if there’s an even better “Middle Way” compatible with the yearnings of entire generations’ better nature’s and higher natures? Surprise___There is, and has been for years. I, Paul Davidson and Jane D’Arista have been offering just such systems for years, but where’s the eclectic understanding, high enough, to see the possibility of a “Semantic Web” evolving the “Pragmatic Web” to a really new and true “Knowledge Web?” Not just more of the same, but a full-fledged, benign, algorithmic computerized system, capable of eliminating the un-necessary parasitic powers, that now rule the world economies to madness. I’d suggest studying Macromouse, The Awakening of the American Mind, Paul Davidson’s massive body of academic work, or Jane D’Arista’s ideas, then maybe we’ll have a chance.
There’s no sense me re-writing it all here again, as it’s all been posted at these sites. Charles Sanders Peirce, and his relational quantification logic, is the key mind to putting together all the “Triadic Isomorphic Logic” necessary to accomplish the above…
Far too much about history has been stated in narrow analytical diatribe, inconcise nonsense, and pure empty rhetoric… Why? Are we really that dense? A simple first example; Aristotle___Most think he’s great because he wrote about a beautiful system of ethics, true enough, but what about his non-sensical silly-gistic proposition/predicate logic, or whatever you want to call it? Then along comes Kant with another beautiful system of ethics and arithmetic liberty, but what about his wedge driven between the “logica utens” and the “logica docens”? Was there any need of these two great minds dividing our natural senses so miserably? So nefariously? Then, just as the world is starting to come out of its stupidity, with Boole, DeMorgan, Jevons, Peirce and Shroader, along comes Frege with more of the same old divisions of logical sense/nonsense(and conflation), which has continued through Cantor, Piano, Russell, Wittgenstein, Carnap, Quine and Chomsky, ruling most of modern intellect. Oh, and don’t let me forget Hegel___That wonderful over-worshiper of state. Neitzsche? Another life hater. Beautiful story, ‘ain’t’ it…?
Is it true? How would you tell truth? Really, tell me… Napolean existed___True. Stalin existed___True. Hitler existed___True. Mooselini existed___True. Hussein and Bin Ladin existed/exist___True. Is this the type of truth the world really believes? Is there any real truth of “Power”? Does anyone on Earth know what the truth of “Power” really is? Is power logical to itself? Yes. Is power ethical to itself? Yes. Is power truthful to itself? Yes. Is power honest to itself? Yes. Is power all the above to a majority of its citizens? Yes, more often than we care to think about. Believe me, Caligula and Machiavelli have no one-up-ness on most of the modern world, it’s just that now, we do it all with the power systems of money___The Corporate Military Industrial Complexes.
Let’s take an eclectic look at historical power, through the eyes of logic, math, philosophy and money, Ok? What made it all go wrong? Simple question___Complex answer. Let’s rephrase it. What made it all go mathematically so wrong? That can be answered. Let’s look at the actors and players, mainly from history’s most influencial source___The academics. At least, most of them think they’re the most influencial source of change and refinement. Why is it we have such genius arithmetic scientists, and yet such meager philosophers of the mathematical sciences? Is it accidents of history, the complexity and time study constraints of history, or possibly the laziness of philosophers to truly learn the requisite maths, to more effectively describe mathematical histories’ and meta-histories’ truths?
Looking back at the early Greeks, we find great advancements by the geometers and the Pythagorean Schools, up until Aristotle. Then___What happened? The Pythagoreans had developed a most advanced triadic math and logic, with a necessary “mean terms”. They had the “Triadic Law of Mean Terms”___“The Triadic Principle”. This was a very pragmatic system of math and logic as attributed to them by Socrates, and much of Plato’s dialogues. Even Aristotle’s early work on the Nicomachean Ethics was excellent work, when he was still influenced by Plato and the Pythagoreans, but things shortly changed. The change, due to much critical Greek antagonism, may have forced Aristotle to try and sure up his philosophy, but without the genius influence and help of Plato, Aristotle went down a very confusing and false road. He separated the “logica utens” and the “logica docens” into two entirely distinct schools of thought, with his three laws of logic, and the main fault being the “Excluded Middle”. This put his logic in direct opposition with Pythagorean Triadic Logic and Math, with a new less powerful Dyadic Logic and Math. Archimedes tried to salvage it, as did Eudoxas, Nicomachus and Apollonius, and later the Arabic speaking nation-states, with their “Houses of Wisdom”, also tried to salvage the early Greek ideas, yet to no avail, when Averroes came along. Aristotle’s logic won the day, over the more able Triadic Logics of the early Pythagoreans, as the early Greek and Byzantine knowledge systems slowly crept into Europe. Could this have been different? Why was it so disasterous?
We all know the history by now. The “Port Royal Logic” School accepted the less capable and confusing “Dyadic Logic” and “Math Systems” of the Aristotle influenced schools. Even Galen had clearly shown the faults of much of Aristotle’s system, and the Arabic peoples, up to Biruni and Avicenna, clearly tried to right the wrongs, to no avail, so we finally ended with two distinct logic and math systems and schools of thought, right down to this day, but more of the history needs mentioning. Many mathematicians and true working scientists, through the years , always followed the true Pythagorean, Euclidian and Archimedean Schools, but most philosophers of, and many more falsely influenced scientists and mathematicians followed the more confused logic, arithmetic and (modal schools, which the Byzantine’s had created). Then along comes the enlightenment, to pull the wool fully over everyone’s eyes, for many years to come, with Descarte’s further separation of mind and body, etc., etc., and finally to the point everything was so confusing, Kant came along to try and straighten it all out. But, he ended separating the “Utens” and “Docens” even further___Nice try, but no ringers. Oh, there was his excellent mathematical ethics and liberty papers, but the true philosophical and final sense separation was devastating for logic and math systems for the next 150 years. You see, math and true mathematical logic are of the “logica utens” and most philosophers describe this true a priori ground as though it’s of the “logica docens”, and herein lies all the confusion.
Now, was this accidental or pure laziness, on the part of the philosophers and historians? I can’t truly answer this, but if life’s experiences are any guide, there’s a good percentage of all trades, crafts and professionals that are just plain lazy and downright slackers, so my money is on history really being controlled by this lazy-slacker element of all societies___Period…! The bad runs both up and down hill. No matter how brilliant anyone wants to think the professional classes are, that’s not my experience of life, at near 64 years of age, and this is why the human element of any system’s success is dubitable, unless we can turn much of society’s bad elemental powers over to properly algorithmatized computers___I have no faith in humanity changing, even if they realize their lives are at stake. I think there’s just far too many lazy-slackers who just wouldn’t believe it if the “Bear” were staring them in the face. They’d say, “Nice Bear”.
Well anyway, after Kant got through trashing the system, along came Hegel kissing up to the state, and a metaphysical “Notion”, after Kant had already created the “Thing In Itself” boogy-man. There’s really a ‘lotta’ interpretation in those two ideas, kinda like Wittgenstein’s “Private Language”. Yeah, I admit we all do have private self-languages, but that’s not what ‘Witt’ meant, and we all know that. As I mentioned earlier, others came along in time to straighten the world mess out, but America’s invasion by Europe’s WWI and WWII hoards of professional miscreants clobbered us, and down to the bottom of the barrel went Peirce, and his student Veblen, to only be replaced by English and European mediocrity, ending the only true and valid “Triadic Systems” revival, at that time possible.
Luckily, the last few decades have begun to change the world intellectual picture, even if it’s still but in the periphery, Peirce’s, Jevons’, Veblen’s and Keynes’ views are coming back into vogue, through the new heterodox schools. It only takes a quick Google search to verify this___millions of hits, thank ‘god’, when all epistemic and cognitive searches are done. So let’s take a quick look at the possible revival of “Triadic Ideas” as relates to the “Semantic Web” possibly not being so parasitic on the “Pragmatic Web” in our highly possibly better future.
How can we best represent global power systems? Capitalism? Socialism? Communism? Social Contracts? Contractarianism? Nationalism? Or Social Democratic Capitalism mixes? Taking an eclectic view, allowing a triadic isomorphic systems logic, which would recognize our better nature’s priority over our higher nature’s ego, we may have a shot at a new and total understanding. Are any of these systems true? Are any of these systems value validity preserving___sustainable? We’re certainly going to have to admit the present system has failed, or at the least terribly mis-fired. Are we going to have to rebuild it? Replace it? Coddle it? Or outright change the entire system for something entirely new? Does anyone really know about Keynes’ total system of “International Exchange Clearing, Bancor and Emergency Jobs Banks?” Does anyone even truly realize we have the computational ability to figure new systems from a future model’s arithmetic completion position? Can anyone even believe this? There’s lots of talk of adopting amalgamations of old tried and failed systems, but not much of Keynes’ true “Middle Way.” What if there’s an even better “Middle Way” compatible with the yearnings of entire generations’ better nature’s and higher natures? Surprise___There is, and has been for years. I, Paul Davidson and Jane D’Arista have been offering just such systems for years, but where’s the eclectic understanding, high enough, to see the possibility of a “Semantic Web” evolving the “Pragmatic Web” to a really new and true “Knowledge Web?” Not just more of the same, but a full-fledged, benign, algorithmic computerized system, capable of eliminating the un-necessary parasitic powers, that now rule the world economies to madness. I’d suggest studying Macromouse, The Awakening of the American Mind, Paul Davidson’s massive body of academic work, or Jane D’Arista’s ideas, then maybe we’ll have a chance.
There’s no sense me re-writing it all here again, as it’s all been posted at these sites. Charles Sanders Peirce, and his relational quantification logic, is the key mind to putting together all the “Triadic Isomorphic Logic” necessary to accomplish the above…
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