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Archive for category General
Excerpts from an Interview of Tim Geithner by Peter Barnes held from April 18, 2011, a little under four months ago. View the video below.
Peter Barnes: Is there a risk that the United States could lose its Triple A credit rating, yes or no.
Tim Geithner: No risk of that, no risk. If you listen carefully now, you see the leadership of the United Sates of America, the President, the Republican leadership in both houses, and the Democrats, recognizing now that this is the right thing to do for the economy. We have to put in place now reforms that bring down our long-term deficits in ways that will help strengthen future growth. And that’s an incredibly important recognition by people, and we’d like to put something in place as soon as we can so we can begin that process.
Peter Barnes: So Standard & Poors is wrong. The United States will keep it’s Triple A credit rating?
Tim Geithner: Absolutely.
Not like the experts have never been wrong before. See Bernanke before the last recession, or select quotes from the Great Depression.
Grade inflation
Jul 21
“The most common grade is my class is a C.” That’s what teachers told my classes year after year. Yet somehow, half of the students were getting A’s. I must have taken classes with exceptionally smart students. Or, the average grade really wasn’t a C.
According to the analysis of Stuart Rojstaczer and Christopher Healy, published in the Teachers College Record, A’s represent 43% of all letter grades. It hasn’t always been that way. 50 years ago, only 15% of grades were A’s and the most common grade really was a C. In 1960, approximately 35% of grades were C’s, 32% were B’s, 16% were A’s, 11% were D’s and 6% were F’s. Grade inflation spiked in the 60′s, slowed down – and even reversed slightly – in the 70′s and early 80′s, and then began a gradual increase that’s still climbing 25 years later.
Chart from New York Times (free registration required)
In the 60′s, there was a traditional bell curve around a C grade. In the 80′s there was part of a bell curve around a B grade. As of 2007, there was half a hill. There’s no longer a bell curve. The chart below shows these curves and shows that although the inflation is happening at both public and private schools, it’s happening at private schools faster.
Chart from New York Times (free registration required)
According to Rojstaczer and Healy, one of the concerns is that,
When college students perceive that the average grade in a class will be an A, they do not try to excel… It is likely that the decline in student study hours, student engagement, and literacy are partly the result of diminished academic expectations.
Straight A’s are now much less impressive.
On political parties
Jul 5
There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble apprehension, is to be dreaded as the greatest political evil under our Constitution.
- John Adams in a letter to Jonathan Jackson, Oct. 2, 1789
Under democracy one party always devotes its chief energies to trying to prove that the other party is unfit to rule—and both commonly succeed, and are right… The United States has never developed an aristocracy really disinterested or an intelligentsia really intelligent. Its history is simply a record of vacillations between two gangs of frauds.
- H.L. Mencken in Minority Report: H.L. Mencken’s Notebooks (1956)
Spending money
Jun 19
When people spend their own money on themselves, they are careful about how much they spend and about what they spend it on. If people spend their own money on others, they are careful about how much they spend, but not as careful about what they spend it on. If people spend other peoples money on themselves, they are not careful about how much they spend, but they are careful about what they spend it on. If people spend other people’s money on other people they are not careful about the amount of money they spend, nor are they careful about what they spend it on. That is government.
(One of the “Snowflake” memos written by Donald Rumsfeld during his tenure as U.S. Secretary of defense, from Harper’s Magazine, May 2011).
Via TYWKIWDBI.
The Liberty Dollar was a private currency produced by Bernard von NotHaus and his organization NORFED (National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve and Internal Revenue Code). The Liberty Dollar served as warehouse receipts for real gold and silver until it was shut down following a raid by the FBI and Secret Service. The website for Liberty Dollars now reads “Site Removed Due to Court Order.”
According to Wikipedia, “VonNotHaus was charged with one count of conspiracy to possess and sell coins in resemblance and similitude of coins of a denomination higher than five cents, and silver coins in resemblance of genuine coins of the United States in denominations of five dollars and greater, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 485, 18 U.S.C. § 486, and 18 U.S.C. § 371; one count of mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 and 18 U.S.C. § 2; one count of selling, and possessing with intent to defraud, coins of resemblance and similitude of United States coins in denominations of five cents and higher, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 485 and 18 U.S.C. § 2; and one count of uttering, passing, and attempting to utter and pass, silver coins in resemblance of genuine U.S. coins in denominations of five dollars or greater, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 486 and 18 U.S.C. § 2″
Based on these charges, VonNotHaus was trying to counterfeit US currency. VonNotHaus must be the stupidest counterfeiter ever. Rather than producing a replica of currency at a lower than face cost, VonNotHaus was producing a similar currency that was actually worth the face value of what he was “counterfeiting”. According to the prosecuting attorney, Bernard von NotHaus is a domestic terrorist.
Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country are simply a unique form of domestic terrorism. While these forms of anti-government activities do not involve violence, they are every bit as insidious and represent a clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country. We are determined to meet these threats through infiltration, disruption, and dismantling of organizations which seek to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government.
U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins
I’m not arguing whether the printing of Liberty Dollars is or should be legal. I’m criticizing the word choice of U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins.
Terrorism is defined in the following ways:
- Princeton Wordnet: the calculated use of violence (or the threat of violence) against civilians in order to attain goals that are political or religious or ideological in nature
- Cambridge dictionary: (threats of) violent action for political purposes
- Encyclopedia Britannica: the systematic use of violence to create a general climate of fear in a population and thereby to bring about a particular political objective.
According to U.S. Attorney Anne Tompkins, this includes ‘Attempts to undermine the legitimate currency of this country’
All previous definitions share two things in common. The need for a political objective and the use or threat of violence. VonNotHaus clearly had political motivation behind the distribution of Liberty Dollars, but by no definition did he use or threaten to use violence. If Tompkins is expanding her definition to include inciting fear, then she should go after roller coaster manufactures and makers of horror movies. If she is focusing on threatening the economic stability of this country – which is not a crime – she should go after the federal reserve itself. Creating repeated recessions and destroying the value of the currency by diminishing its buying power by 96% seems to fit the bill.
NORFED has been openly and publicly issuing Liberty Dollars into circulation for 10 years. Suddenly, it’s a crime that is a ‘clear and present danger to the economic stability of this country’.
Tomkins also criticizes VonNotHaus for his ‘anti-government activities’ and his his attempt to ‘challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government’. Neither of these are crimes. By the nature of democracy and free speech, VonNotHaus has the right to challenge the legitimacy of our democratic form of government. It’s not against the system, it’s an inherent part of the system. Criminalizing VonNotHaus’ actions is the real crime.
A very short, but simple blog post by Philip Greenspun.
Philip takes those huge numbers, divides by 100 million, then compares the government to a family. I’ve posted before about how numbers without context can be confusing.
We have a family that is spending $38,200 per year. The family’s income is $21,700 per year. The family adds $16,500 in credit card debt every year in order to pay its bills. After a long and difficult debate among family members, keeping in mind that it was not going to be possible to borrow $16,500 every year forever, the parents and children agreed that a $380/year premium cable subscription could be terminated. So now the family will have to borrow only $16,120 per year.
Read the rest of his post.
Obama on Libya: Then and Now
Mar 28
This Q&A is from a December 2007 interview with Charlie Savage at the Boston Globe.
In what circumstances, if any, would the president have constitutional authority to bomb Iran without seeking a use-of-force authorization from Congress? (Specifically, what about the strategic bombing of suspected nuclear sites — a situation that does not involve stopping an IMMINENT threat?)
The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.
As Commander-in-Chief, the President does have a duty to protect and defend the United States. In instances of self-defense, the President would be within his constitutional authority to act before advising Congress or seeking its consent. History has shown us time and again, however, that military action is most successful when it is authorized and supported by the Legislative branch. It is always preferable to have the informed consent of Congress prior to any military action.
As for the specific question about bombing suspected nuclear sites, I recently introduced S.J. Res. 23, which states in part that “any offensive military action taken by the United States against Iran must be explicitly authorized by Congress.” The recent NIE tells us that Iran in 2003 halted its effort to design a nuclear weapon. While this does not mean that Iran is no longer a threat to the United States or its allies, it does give us time to conduct aggressive and principled personal diplomacy aimed at preventing Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
However, before bombing Libya, Obama did not seek use-of-force authorization from Congress. Although the use-of-force was approved by the United Nations Security Council, it was not approved by Congress.
To read a thorough post on The Phony Arguments for Presidential War Powers, check out this post by Tom Woods.
And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I will put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll will walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.
- Barack Obama in Spartanburg, SC. Nov. 3rd, 2007.
Will Obama actually put on those shoes? Probably not. This quote does show one thing though… he likes to talk.