HoltesThoughts

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Pagans of Wall Street

They worship the Golden Bull

And fear the Hungry Bear

Their Gods are not our Gods

But when you confront them

You get a blank stare

They are the Pagans of Wall Street

More vicious than any motorcycle gang

But they sit in the front rows in Worship

And, pharisees, make a show of worshipping

The ineffable one

What do we do with such people?

Remind them of what destiny awaits?

They'd never believe you anyway

They earned their privileges

And all acclaim

What marvelous people they are

Christopher H. Holte

Inspired by Pope Francis (though I've written on this before)

Sunday, February 8, 2015

War is a Racket! Waring myths and Smedley Butler

A few years ago I read "War is a Racket" by Smedley Butler. He was a leader in my Grandfather Holte's and Great Grandfather Carpenter's generation, A Marine General, and a great human being. I remember people from his generation, they were patriotic, no nonsense, and many of them were extremely honest. Of course there are always the aristocrats, but the tradition of the USA military derives from Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, more the legends about him than entirely the reality and our own militia tradition.

For most career military, military service was about serving the country. Of course for aristocrats serving the country was also about seeking honor and glory, often in service to a future business and politics career, but for many of our people service came first and personal profit a distant second. Smedley Butler was of that sort. As were both my Grandfathers. My Grandfather Holte served in WWI and my other Grandfather died in a plane crash in 1938, the same year that Amelia Earhart disappeared over the Pacific. They didn't serve in the military to get rich, to get famous, or to steal from others. They did it to serve the country. My Grandfather told me that he joined the Army because his Uncles and cousins, who had served in the Army in the Spanish American War convinced him that it was the right thing to do. But as a Flag Officer Smedley Butler and others learned that not everyone connected with the USA military felt that way.

Worstall, Krugman and John Henry -- Why we need minimum wages at the minimum

Tim Worstall at Forbes writes on 2/3/2015:

Article "Proof Perfect That the Minimum Wage Costs Jobs

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2015/02/03/proof-perfect-that-the-minimum-wage-costs-jobs/]

Worstall insists that Krugman, Stiglitz and other liberal economists are either lying or are misrepresenting reality when they argue that we need to increase minimum wages. He is wrong and there are a number of reasons he's wrong. Yes, when wages go up companies have to come up with a way to make good costs and may reduce the workforce or raise prices. But Krugman and other's follow on Keynes observation that when workers have more revenue they spend it more efficiency and that moves the demand curve as a whole in the economy to a new point. More recent economists note that the economy is never at equilibrium, that it is always changing; growing or shrinking, building or rebuilding. And that therefore the supply/demand illustrations are at best a snapshot of two dimensions of the overall economic equation. Our actual problems have to do with automation and the treatment of workers as an expense rather than part owners of the system.

Discussion

In the Article he asserts:

"One of the most basic foundations of economics is under attack these days from certain people. That basic fundamental point is attacked because people simply do not want to believe that raising the minimum wage will cost some people their jobs. That fundamental principle of economics being attacked there is that demand curves slope downwards. If you increase the price of something then people will desire to purchase less of it." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

I'm not surprised that the Right doesn't name names, because this is straw argumentation. Krugman, for example, in fact, is an expert on Demand Curves. He literally wrote the book:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/nominal_wage.pdf

Krugman himself explains that when there is a liquidity trap (which is what we have now) and pressure from "sticky" demand for labor, productivity rises, yet wages stagnate unless there is some sort of mandate or external push. This push is minimum wages and labor policy. It creates what Stiglitz calls "a virtuous cycle."

But Worstall doesn't believe anything Keynes said. Darn actual experience. Micro economic models and "praxeology" have more meaning to him. Math becomes a myth that is a fact whether or not evidence says so. For the RW economics is authoritative and authoritarian. Truth what the authorities say it is.

"As a result of people not wanting to believe this basic fact about the world, that price rises mean lower demand, we’ve had all sorts of contortions from people who really ought to know better about the effects of a rise in the minimum wage. That increased effective demand will mean more demand for labour for example, even though that increased demand isn’t going to be enough to cover the job losses. The most usual default position is that, well, people should pay more just because they should. And I’m deeply unconvinced that we should be forming public policy of the logical basis of a toddler demanding that the world be fair." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

Then he asserts that:

"However, here we now have proof perfect that a rise in the minimum wage is costing some people their jobs" [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

Do we? And his proof? Anaecdote. He notes:

"In November, San Francisco voters overwhelmingly passed a measure that will increase the minimum wage within the city to $15 per hour by 2018. Although all of us at Borderlands support the concept of a living wage in principal and we believe that it’s possible that the new law will be good for San Francisco — Borderlands Books as it exists is not a financially viable business if subject to that minimum wage. Consequently we will be closing our doors no later than March 31st." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

At best his example is of "correlation" as evidence of "causation". But in order for that to actually be true. One has to ask the question:

"Would Borderlands Books stay open if the minimum wage weren't going up?

As a bibliophile I've watched my favorite book places go under all over, at first due to monopolistic competition, and later due to simply bad management and unwillingness to react to changes in reading habits or find an economic model for living on the internet. Amazon isn't closing any stores in San Francisco.

"Many businesses can make adjustments to allow for increased wages. The cafe side of Borderlands, for example, should have no difficulty at all. Viability is simply a matter of increasing prices. And, since all the other cafes in the city will be under the same pressure, all the prices will float upwards." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

So "Borderlands with cafes in them should have no difficulty"...

"But books are a special case because the price is set by the publisher and printed on the book. Furthermore, for years part of the challenge for brick-and-mortar bookstores is that companies like Amazon.com have made it difficult to get people to pay retail prices. So it is inconceivable to adjust our prices upwards to cover increased wages." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

So the issue is being able to compete with Amazon, and Amazon's near monopoly on Books sales and publishing, not minimum wages.

So this is a special case, and raising wages is not the problem, competing with Amazon is. Citing a special case to prove a general point is an error in logic. The fancy term for it is:

"Fallacy of Accident. This error occurs when one applies a general rule to a particular case when accidental circumstances render the general rule inapplicable. For example, in Plato’s Republic, Plato finds an exception to the general rule that one should return what one has borrowed: “Suppose that a friend when in his right mind has deposited arms with me and asks for them when he is not in his right mind. Ought I to give the weapons back to him? No one would say that I ought or that I should be right in doing so. . . .” What is true in general may not be true universally and without qualification. So remember, generalizations are bad. All of them. Every single last one. Except, of course, for those that are not." [https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/fallacies_list.html#genetic_fallacy_anchor]

LOL

So Tim Worstall is essentialy making a sophomoric error. But it works for propaganda. Next, apparently citing the owner of Borderland Books:

"The change in minimum wage will mean our payroll will increase roughly 39%. That increase will in turn bring up our total operating expenses by 18%. To make up for that expense, we would need to increase our sales by a minimum of 20%. We do not believe that is a realistic possibility for a bookstore in San Francisco at this time." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

Again, the issue is competing with Amazon, not increasing wages. And this is the best guess (WAG) estimate of the owner. In theory he could turn more of his bookstores into bookstores with coffee shops. But I guess that alternative doesn't occur to him. Instead he lets Worstall speculate for him:

"The other obvious alternative to increasing sales would be to decrease expenses. The only way to accomplish the amount of savings needed would be to reduce our staff to: the current management (Alan Beatts and Jude Feldman), and one other part-time employee. Alan would need to take over most of Jude’s administrative responsibilities and Jude would work the counter five to six days per week. Taking all those steps would allow management to increase their work hours by 50-75% while continuing to make roughly the same modest amount that they make now (by way of example, Alan’s salary was $28,000 last year)." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

Again, since the company is barely surviving now, it appears that it is Amazon driving them out of business. Having worked in a bookstore out of my love for books. I know that if they paid their employees more they'd sell more books. This is a case of a failing business using the false choice of paying slave wages or "doing the right thing" as an excuse to shut it's doors. Personally I have little sympathy for businesses that can't pay their wages, though in this case I have more than usual since the owner is struggling too.

But Worstall is placing all sorts of assumptions into his argument:

"That’s not an option for obvious reasons and for at least one less obvious one:

— "at the planned minimum wage in 2018, either of them would earn more than their current salary working only 40 hours per week at a much less demanding job that paid minimum wage." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

Of course one alternative, one that many business owners follow, is to pay themselves the minimum wage. He has other choices too, besides waging minimum wages. He could sell the company to his employees for example. Or as mentioned earlier turn more of them into cafes. But Worstall is trying to make a general point with anaecdotal data so we aren't doing business analysis here. Just propaganda.

"So, as a result of the increase in the minimum wage they can try to raise prices. As they say, a cafe could raise prices. Because everyone else in the city will be under the same cost pressures and so a coordinated price rise is likely. So, our first criticism of a minimum wage rise is that it doesn’t actually do all that much for minimum wage earners because prices will simply rise across the board to accomodate it." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

However, as this example shows, prices and wages are often "sticky" if wages go up for minimum wage earners, folks paid better already will likely get raises too. I've seen that in my own life. Minimum wages may obey the price curve in operation. But they are set based on custom and habit, power and power relations. Maybe some businesses have the issue Borderlands has, but most simply pay minimum wages because demand for employment vastly exceeds the availability of jobs. And that reflects macro-economic forces broader than the micro economic demand curve.

"There’s also that second way of dealing with it, which is to fire some of the staff and then ask the others to work harder. This is also the “increase productivity” argument that we so often see deployed. Hey, employers should just increase the productivity of labour to pay for the higher minimum! And, see what happens? We’ve just reduced the number of jobs on offer as our method of increasing productivity."

We are in a loop doing that now. Employees paid the minimum wage are already under demands to increase productivity. Financially savvy monopolists like Amazon can use automation to increase productivity. In the long run we need fiscal policies (tax changes) to discourage misuse of productivity to oppress workers.

"And then there’s that problem that they can’t raise book prices. But it’s not just people who have prices set for them who cannot do that. It’s also people who have competitors who face a different cost structure than they do. As in fact every single business in the economy does but not to necessarily the same extent. Imagine, say, Costco and Walmart. One pays staff well but employs about half the number of staff per $hundred thousand in sales than the other." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

John Henry, The Real Problem and The Larger Argument.

This argument is disingenuous but it does point to a Larger argument. Maybe if Walmart paid better wages they'd find it easier to increase productivity. Part of the real problem is that most of those wages go to taxes and are treated as costs. While investment in automation is both depreciable and increases the capital situation of the company. When the choice is between employees and machines, for a lot of businessmen the choice is obvious; machines.

"The second pays not all that well but employs more and presumably lower skilled staff to do so. We really could insist that Walmart pay everyone like Costco does. But if we did we’d find that Walmart would raise the productivity of its labour to that of Costco. That is, they’d fire a third to a half of the people they employ." [Tim Worstall Forbes Article]

Again this argument is a straw argument, though it illustrates the larger issue in our economy. Wages aren't keeping up with productivity because employers can substitute machines and automation for people and not pay any penalty. Indeed this issue was presaged in a famous legend:

John Henry is said to have raced a Steam Drill, and he won, but in the process he died. At this point automation wins chess games and there are things that humans have no hope of competing in doing against a machine. In competing against machines. Whether they are pile drivers or drones and cylons, the machines threaten to win. [Wikipedia article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Henry_%28folklore%29]

The author shows that for most businesses in San Francisco employment is sticky. Raising employee pay will lower employment in some areas, but it also will increase demand for the products of those employees. It is a panacea in the face of the threat that automation is having to employment, but it is better than letting the choice be between slave wages or unemployment.

As McCulloch notes:

"An extension of the duration of compensated unemployment effectively diverts part of the potential labor supply into prolonged unemployment. By itself, this reduction in the supply of labor would, as Krugman notes, increase equilibrium wages given a normal downward-sloping demand curve. However, if it comes at the same time as an even bigger decline in labor demand, the net result will be wages that fall, but not by as much as would have been required to maintain full employment."

Of course he claims that Krugman isn't aware of this and that his arguments are somehow flawed for that. But the choice is between providing some succor for people being impoverished by low labor demand coupled with falling prices that put that downward push on wages. As Krugman or Stiglitz notes. Economics is not linear it is non linear. And as such paying people an immoral wage is immoral, not merely economically expedient. And as Stiglitz notes, supply and demand curves are moved by both demand and supply. Because they are actually power curves they are also moved by "virtuous cycles" versus "vicious cycles."

Collective Conscience

Our collective consciousness calls to me.

It cries in chaotic voices, "Set my Joy Free!"

"Too much killing, too much blood,"

"the voices of the dead cry like a flood!"

"and I am drowning in my conscience."

I hear friends say; "I don't want to hear!"

"This collective voice it cries with fear!"

My friend tells me he doesn't want to be part of their voice

That he fears the moral bonds;

They see consciousness as a poisonous Borg

An angry mob of voices driving hate and war.

But I hear the voices mumbling in my ear.

They are the voices of our fathers and mothers,

...our grandparents and long dead ancestors,

crying to us from the ground.

And we'd best be listening to their sound

There is no need to fear.

Spirit is wind and rain and sunlight.

Joined with mass it lets life dance.

Yes, the evil should be afraid, but not the good.

The voices are clamoring but they must be understood!

Yes, those moral bonds are of Iron my friend.

We can dance on the rings above an approving crowd

Or they can grab us like shackles and drag us down

Those mortal bonds are of Iron my friend.

They can lift us up or drag us down.

Our bodies are mortal and going to corrupt and die,

but our hearts are of wind and can fly!

And when we do the Right thing,

The winds carry our voices out to eternity.

And when we act collectively based on our better lights

We build artistic battlements, and spires that seem to dance and shine

Out of drab wood, stone and metal something lovely and fine.

Some myths we can make reality. Some Fairy tales can be made true.

When we hear a story we need not become slaves to the story teller.

When they tell us history repeats itself,

that doesn't mean we are shackled to repeat the past

Only that it is time to learn from it, and learn from it fast.

For John Done Said it, so long ago:

"Perchance he for whom this Bell tolls,"

"may be so ill, as that he knows not it tolls for him;"

"And perchance I may think my self so much better than I am,"

"as that they who are about me, and see my state, may have caused it to toll for me,"

"and I know not that."

"The Church is Catholic, universal,"

"so are all her Actions; All that she does,"

"belongs to all."

"When she baptizes a child, that action concerns me" ...

"who bends not his ear to any bell, which upon any occasion rings?"

"But who can remove it from that bell,"

which is passing a piece of himself out of this world?"

"No Man is an Island, entire of it self;"

"every man is a piece of the Continent,"

"a part of the main; if a Clod be washed away by the Sea,"

"Europe is the less,"

"as well as if a Promontory were,

as well as if a Manor of thy friends,"

"or of thine own were; Any Man's death diminishes me,"

"because I am involved in Mankind;"

"And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;"

"It tolls for thee."
[John Donne: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-donne]

John Done Poem not written by me, but rest is

Christopher H. Holte

Read About John Donne here: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/john-donne

Thursday, February 5, 2015

The Army of Poets

Inspired by an article in French, Dedicated to my wife who loved French

: The Army of Poets, marching off to war,; Getting the beat right in rhymed couplets, Quartets;; marching in Iambic pentameter stressed dignity.; To rap beats, to beat beats, and free verse.; But marching indeed.
: Can we end war? Can we ensure it goes on no more?; Maybe, we've certainly started enough of them!; Oh Homer, let your beard grow, for you sent men off to fight,; for the sake of your Helen and arbitrary Gods of meter.
: We poets, have some repentance to do.; For all the sneaky things we do,; glorifying horror, terror and gore!; By making it sound so sonorous and grand.; We need to make our stand.

By Christopher H. Holte


From the Blog:: L’armée des poètes; RÉVOLUTION NON VIOLENTE; jeudi 5 février 2015, par Roger NYMO; Quand j’entends le bruit des bottes, je sors ma plume ...
URL:http://sanurezo.org/spip.php?article202: Only an army of poets can effectively combat nuclear sustainable health and social ills and media omerta on them.; Only an army of poets can defeat the ruthless hordes of abominable technicians serving the nuclear industrial and military dominon promoted by the UN.; Only the power of words with the softness of feathers can disarm minds before it is too late.; Voltuan, Fitaki Linpe, Laurent Mabesoone, my favorite generous poets lament:; "War, crazy huge, hideous.; Working without eyes, fool Penelope; Lullaby of chaos where nothing oscillates,; War, War O occupied shock squads,; So full of furious sound of bugles,; O blood drinker who, fierce, withered,; Hideous man that causes drunkenness ...; Crazy huge, wind and lightning army,; What do you serve; giant, what do you serve; smoke:; If your collapses rebuild evil,; If you hunt for the bestial animals,; If you do not know, in the shadows where your random wallows,; Defeat an emperor to create another one."; Victor Hugo, 1872
And Matilde, here is my poem in French:: And here It even sounds more poetic in French:; L'Armée des Poètes, marchant à la guerre,; Obtenir le battement droit en couplets rimés, quatuors;; marche en langue libre a souligné la dignité.; Pour battements de rap, de battre battements, et le vers libre.; Mais marchaient bien.; Pouvons-nous mettre fin à la guerre? Pouvons-nous assurer qu'il va pas plus?; Peut-être, nous avons certainement commencé assez d'eux!; Oh Homer, laissez pousser la barbe, pour vous envoyé les hommes au combat,; pour le bien de votre Helen et Dieux arbitraires de mètres.; Nous poètes, avons une repentance à faire.; Pour toutes les choses sournoises que nous faisons,; glorifiant l'horreur, la terreur et gore!; En faisant sonner de manière sonore et grande.; Nous devons faire notre stand.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

The Emperors New Clothes

You remember the story,

...."the little Kingdom had an emperor who lived in his castle and was incredibly vain and insecure. Along came the con men and started selling him invisible cloth. And he bought it! They make him the most "beautiful gown" that "only a fool can't see how fine it is" and knowing deep in his heart that he's probably not all he's cracked up to be he goes along with their Con. And sure enough on the fateful day he's parading down the street wearing not even underwear, while the Cons are skipping town with his money."

Well that little Con game is part of our current political discourse. We have genuinely wise people who can have legitimate arguments over how to spend money, whether we are printing too much or too little of it, and how to make this country a better place. And then we have the Con Artists who sell us abusive myths, invisible cloth, instead of myths that can be made reality. Myths aren't necessarily bad things. Before the Empire State building was built, it's image was a myth. It took engineering, projects, plans, requisitions, materials and labor to put that building there. The building may not be the tallest building in the world anymore, but it still is a place where one can see the world that is the metropolis of New York. An ideal is a myth, reality is what we make of it. But con artists sell us things that don't actually exist, or can't possibly actually exist.

And of course it was dangerous for the little boy who noticed "Ooh, the Emperor is Naked!"

As long as it's only one kid in the crowd who is aware of the scam. It can continue. It's when everyone realizes they've been sold invisible cloth that we get back some sanity.

Fighting the Con artists starts with the realizations that:

a: Both our and their goals are myths until built.

b: Their myths are part of a bullying narrative that suits the bullies not anyone else.

And if we build their narrative we'll get dysfunction and misery in return.

We'll be parading down the street naked while the Con artists skip town.

c: Our myths a lot of effort to define and build to be any better.

Most Con artists are "grifters." A Grifter is someone who runs a con and then leaves town before they are caught. We only have cons in charge because we never seem to notice we are shivering and cold as we walk around in the cold. We work to build our goals and the result will be nice. It might not be paradise but it will be better than what we had before.

Sunday, February 1, 2015

Genesis and Climate Change

My issue with Fundamentalists is that many of them don't bother to read for content and don't understand the fundamentals of their own religions. For example, Genesis, to me, is clearly a story about Climate Change. Reading Genesis in the context of archeology and climate history leads me to believe it's also about human influence on climate change's impact on humans. Whether humans cause climate change or "G-d" does is immaterial because the record shows that climate change, even as depicted in the Bible flows from human misbehavior.

Abraham, Isaac and Joseph in Egypt

For example the narratives in Genesis are driven by climate change. Abraham, Isaac and Jacob all travel to Egypt periodically in the Narrative.

Abraham:

"{12:10} And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there" [I'm using KJ version but other versions same]

Isaac:

"{26:1} And there was a famine in the land, beside the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Isaac went unto Abimelech king of the Philistines unto Gerar."

The story of Genesis depicts people driven to seek a livelihood by climate change. Indeed one can make a case that Abraham left his homeland, probably for the same reasons that he later traveled to Egypt, because of climate change.

Now the archeological record shows that there had been some pretty impressive civilizations in Europe and the Middle East that actually collapsed around the time depicted in Genesis. One can blame a literal flood, or floods of human caused failures. Entire cities were built and abandoned from Britain to India. Cities and empires collapsed. There are some indications that climate change played a role there. Humans built complex irrigation systems that drew the salt out from the soil and gradually destroyed it's arability. Civilizations once existed and humans farmed lands where goats could barely graze and that turned into desert. The ancient Epic of Gilgamesh depicts a massive effort to deforest huge swaths of the middle east. We now know that removing forests dries out the "micro-climate" where the forest once stood. Humans did this over vast areas. This created a vicious cycle of climate degradation. Humans cut down forests in what is now Israel and Syria. They then farmed the land, but because it became drier eventually they had to abandon the farming. One reason for the cyclic beliefs of Hindus and others is that this became a cycle of growth and collapse. Archeologists find layered evidence of this as a cycle.

Storing Surplus

Of course the natural and human inputs into climate change feed on each other. Some human behavior can generate positive feedback and actually improve local climate. Some creates vicious circles. And some human changes get caught up in changes that have other causes; like the eruption of volcanoes, variegation in Solar Output, or the product of long cycles in ocean circulation. But to deny human input into climate change is silly. It's even in the bible. As is a narrative about what to do about it and the risks of doing so:

Joseph Enslaved the Hebrews

We store surplus to mitigate and deal with climate events that would otherwise be disasters. The story of Joseph in Genesis shows what happens when value is not stored. He interprets Pharaoh's Dream in Genesis 41:

"The dream of Pharaoh [is] one: God hath shewed Pharaoh what he [is] about to do. {41:26} The seven good kine [are] seven years; and the seven good ears [are] seven years: the dream [is] one. {41:27} And the seven thin and ill favoured kine that came up after them [are] seven years; and the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind shall be seven years of famine. {41:28} This [is] the thing which I have spoken unto Pharaoh: What God [is] about to do he sheweth unto Pharaoh. {41:29} Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: {41:30} And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt; and the famine shall consume the land; {41:31} And the plenty shall not be known in the land by reason of that famine following; for it [shall be] very grievous. {41:32}" [KJ version]

Joseph then gets all his power under Pharoah by convincing Pharoah to store food and water against drought and crop failure. When the droughts occured people sold themselves into slavery to eat when the crops failed and the grass withered, including his own brothers. Indeed he narrative bears out that it was Joseph who Enslaved the Israelites, not Pharoah.

The whole of the bible can be interpreted as a tale of climate change and of human response to disease, drought and sudden changes. As well as a tale of humans acting like locusts or wolves. Those who deny climate change and claim their denial is based on the bible evidently haven't read it.

Notes:

The above is how we can use the power of the PaRDeS to interpret myth and fight the "Dueling Myths" Wars. Those advancing myths about climate change that it: "couldn't possibly be caused by man's behavior" are pushing a "dueling myth" aimed at science itself. Our intellectuals are so caught up in taking religious truth literally that they can't duel back because they don't believe enough in our national myths to embrace them and use them wisely. Dueling myths are narratives. And in the past our leaders understood this. Liars can use myths. And truth tellers need no reject the truths within myths to use them themselves.