A slump in confidence in policymakers?
Post categories: Credit Crunch, Economic policy, Energy
| 21:12 PM, Friday, 24 October 2008
I will start by quoting an AP wire that has just dropped on my desk:
"NEW YORK (AP) - Stock markets around the world plummeted Friday and oil prices plunged to their lowest in more than a year...The common denominator was growing fears that governments, central banks and finance ministers seem powerless to stop the deepening of a global recession that will slam corporate earnings and lead to deep job losses around the world."
That sounds to me spot on. Above all else what has driven the Nikkei down 10% and virtually all other Asian stock markets tanking in a panicked scatter graph around it, is this fear that the policy responses just aren't happening fast enough. They have after all seen it before - the "lost decade" after Japan slashed rates to zero and it still didn't work hangs heavily in the consciousness of Asian business.
Meanwhile in Britain the prime minister has tonight launched some winged words onto the airwaves. He said:
"We've seen cuts in interest rates from the Bank of England. I believe that they'll be looking at this again over the course of the next few weeks".
Those of us who listened to Mervyn King's hour-long speech about cricket, claiming inter alia that this is the worst banking crisis since World War one, had also gathered that. What would be useful to know is whether the government thinks "a few weeks" is the right timescale to be reacting. I say this because there are signals coming from the markets in New York that traders expect an early, emergency rate cut by the Fed.
I have been looking at the Bank of England Act 1998. It contains the power a) for the Treasury to restate its price stability (ie inflation) target at any time and b) the reserve power for the government to set monetary policy directly:
"if they are satisfied that the directions are required in the public interest and by extreme economic circumstances".
So if Gordon Brown would like an early interest rate cut he can actually order one - without impugning the formal independence of the bank since the Act is the legislation that made the Bank of England independent.
I don't know whether a rapid interest rate cut is the right thing to do. Some economists are loudly urging rapid fiscal intervention - and if you look at the figures it is only government spending that kept the Q3 shrinkage in the UK from looking a lot worse.
I do know that everybody who supports rate cutting as a strategy - whether monetarist or Keynesian by doctrine - is urging it to be done quickly. Now the MPC has discovered in October what it did not see in September - that we are in a sharp monetary contraction - the question is whether the policy framework is adequate given the scale of the crisis. I think this is the question history will ask of Mervyn King and the Labour government and it's one that we'll be putting to a government minister tonight.
And we'll be taking a look at the index that will not die down: the VIX - a measure of expected volatility on the US stock exchange. It rocketed up and peaked on the day the US government decided to "do a Gordon Brown" and part nationalise its banks. But it's still up there around 70 tonight.
If markets are short term voting machines and long term weighing machines, the VIX seems to be a vote against the effectiveness of co-ordinated action by policymakers in this crisis.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~27~RS~)
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Only the stock market parasites will benefit from a base rate cut, the " market " for cash savings says's 6% so the banks must work with this rate when lending to the public.
A cut in rates for savers will be disastrous for many small service businesses reliant on older people with ample savings to keep the wolf from the door.
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Some analytical thoughts on:
I don't know whether a rapid interest rate cut is the right thing to do
Often when markets turn on their heads doing the opposite thing proves to be the right thing. In this case raising interest rates rather than lowering them.
I think that is is reasonably well established that interest rates were too low for too long and that this and inappropriate levels of regulation contributed to the over-inflation of the credit bubble of the last decade.
So in the medium term a higher interest regime and more regulation are the correct policy. The present policy is a series of panic measures to avoid catastrophic failures.
First, it is by no means sure that the panic measures will work and secondly if they do work in the short therm there will be an even bigger shock to the system when interest rates are raised to more appropriate levels in the future.
If rates are not raised then the bubble will re-inflate with an almost absolute certainty of catastrophic systemic financial system failure.
So the conundrum is this lower rates now and substantially increase the risk of catastrophic re-inflation of the bubble and the inevitable failure or raise rates and suffer short therm pain but have a sounder economy in the future.
The other problem is that the so called experts have no experience of counter cyclical economics at all as they are all too young (and arrogant!)
Regulation needs increasing to prevent this type of catastrophic credit boom and bust. Now the same argument applies to regulation as to interest rates. If regulation is increased now the failures may be increased, but without regulation the toxic waste in the system will just grow like topsy.
So, I would raise interest rates and increase (more appropriate) regulation, but provide protection for the worst of the undesirable consequences so far as it possible. This gets us nearer where we are going and not further away. Lowering interest rates is an admission of defeat, and such an admission will have very disadvantageous international currency repercussions.
All of the kiddies that are being interviewed as so called experts are from the time when we were doing it all wrong and when the systemic failures were created so why are they being given the time of day? This is in itself another reason why rates should be raised - if the so called experts who got it wrong say 'lower' rates then 'raise' them for these so called experts have been proven to have been wrong.
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The lowering of interest rates seems doubly unjust to those of us that actually managed to be prudent and avoid the greed of the last few years: i.e. no mortgage (because the houses were well beyond our means) and no credit card debt (because we believed the maxim 'don't spend what you don't have').
Therefore those who have some savings as a result of working hard, living sensibly and not joining the mad greedy race to destruction, are now facing the twin disasters of lower interest rates (thus a lower return on savings) and an increase in inflation (that always accompanies a lowering of interest rates). Factor in the decline of the pound, and those who were prudent end up being almost as screwed as those who spent with wild abandon. But I suppose that nobody ever said that life was fair...
A final thought: I'm sure I recall a comment from this blog a short while ago that criticised the Bank of England's lowering of interest rates as being purely a motor for growth (- which is plainly correct). So why so on the fence now, Mr Mason?
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Sometimes in order to get nearer to where you are going it is necessary to go further away. A rise in interest rates now would plunge the world economy into not only a recession but a depression which would make the 30s look very tame. It is of course the case that low interest rates were part of the problem but now, paradoxically, they are an essential part of the solution, at least within the Keynesian framework - to which there is no convincing alternative - apart, of course from a complete shift to a socialist economy, which is what Obama is proposing anyway, apparently.
However, the problem with the Keynesian model as implemented by an essentially neo-liberal elite is that is effectively a bankers' coup. What needs to really be done is to seize the banks and the bankers, confiscate their assets (we do it to drug pushers, why not money pushers) with compensation only on the basis of proven need, redistribute the seized wealth back down to the parts of society who have been funding this billionaires' paradise, namely the working class and recapitalise from below rather than above. It would be real trickle down at last!
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Certainly you need to keep interest rates high to control inflation.
To prevent the worst effects of the recession you need to cut public expenditure by pay cuts for the public sector and give it back to everyone through tax cuts across the board. That will share the misery between the public and private sectors and keep the economy ticking over rather than going into freefall and taking out most of the private sector.
Sadly, I think Gordon Brown will do whatever he can (probably interest rate cuts and a spending binge) to hide the worst effects until election time. If he spends enough, he might just scrape back in, but the country will then face rampant inflation and be in recession for most of the next decade.
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Paul
This is a far deeper situation than economic.
eg
We are told climate change will kill us if we don't reduce consumption.
We are told to increase consumption to assist the economy.
Therefore to save the economy in the short term we have to sacrifice our lives.
There is a cognitive dissonance in the collective consciousness of the planet.
A schizophrenia across the globe. Caught between 2 phases.We need transition management.
The old paradigm is crumbling. This is our time to build the new one.
The UK lead the world into the Industrial Revolution. We need to lead the next one.
Other posters have talked about psychology and confidence. How can we have confidence when our leaders are trying to solve problems which have already happened?
We need to be moving forward into a better future, we create, for all life on this planet.
Love life.
May you live in interesting times.
Celtic Lion
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#4 Citizen Thompson
Thermodynamically you make some sense. In ecology trophic pyramids are dependent on the production of the bottom level.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trophic_pyramid
But what does life and ecology know. It's only been evolving successfully for billions of years.
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..............Though if you increase consumption we will collapse planetary ecological life support systems.
We all die.
The philosopher Eric Morcombe was quoted as saying "get out of that without moving".
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The important story here thats not being reported is of course what's happening with the pound.
In previous times of distress we've seen Norman 'Black Eye' Lamont defending our mighty currency to the country's not inconsiderable cost. The 'under-reporting' is doubly surprising when also considering a certain Mr Cameron's role in such activities.
While Gavin brought up 'beggar thy neighbourism' on tonight's show he did so only by reference to Smoot Hawley..ignoring the day's 5p 'market' devaluation of Sterling against the dollar. Bearing in mind that competitive exchange rate devaluations played a prominenet role in the unravelling after the Great Crash, the conspiracy of silence both intrigues and disturbs me. While 'express devaluation', (handily applied by the market and not the government) may certainly be good for the economy, and market intervention a tool likey to injure its user, despite the lack of journalistic questioning of our policymakers regarding either the falls or their unwillingness to squander our reserves on such a defence, its only a matter of time before those in Japan or perhaps more likely, the Eurozone, get a handle on what we, or sorry, the market, are up to here. Further base rate cuts are of course, only likely to accelerate this process. Brown's much vaunted supranationalist credentials will be sternly put to the test if this kind of behaviour triggers further measures by other countries to 'save' their domestic populations. My own theory is that France has been planning for an autarkic future for a very long time, but that's a different story entirely. So then Paul, when you next bump into Darling, maybe you could ask him straight whether devaluation is a direct policy goal. Whatever you do though, don't report the answer!
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By constantly emphasing that the financal crisis is international (but that the good years were down to sound national goverance), the Socialist Internationalists (SI) exonerate themselves from the downside of minimal i.e. anarchistic regulation of their national economies (which they justify in terms that stricter regulation would drive financial services 'off-shore', whilst at the same time furthering their internationalist (i.e. anti-nation statist) agenda.
Fine, but if they can't (as they assert) regulate nationally (for all sorts of pragmatic economic reasons allegedly) what makes any of them think that they can do so collectively internationally? Is this summit yet more grandstanding?
Brossen99 (#1) I'm sue you appreciate that pension funds and savings banks invest in the stock market too. As has been said already by another (presumably well informed poster), a lot of stock will be dumped now because the fund managers need the cash or because they can't get the loans to speculate.
As I understand it, if interest rates go up, businesses which depend on loans are punished and have to cut costs which include staff, it also drives money out of the stock market into government (and other) bonds, and for those on variable rates and sub-prime high interest rates also increases the cost of people's mortgages (and other debts, e.g. credit cards, personal loans, refinancing etc) increasing the risk of late payment, repossession, bankrupcy and thus further increasing unemployment/recession, and the cost to the state in terms of welfare etc (which is already very high). If interest rates go down, one may well stimulate economic growth, but the downside is that if left to market forces with light-touch regulation, we now see that it also reinforces irresponsible borrowing, investment, speculation, stock 'churning' (except whilst it was 'on the up', people didn't mind and just moaned at those who said it would end in tears for being 'depressing').
Here's smething to bear in mind. Over the same period that the UK's population increased by about 10 million, those of Nigeria, Bangladesh and Pakistan trippled. The latter two populations comprise about 150 million (all were smaller than the UK at one point last century) . The GDP of Pakistan is only about 100 billion. Guess what the country's mean IQ is? Think of lower IQ as more immature (childlike) behaviour (inability to think ahead very far because of limited memory capacity or to delay gratification easily, i.e higher impusivity, lower self-control) and you get the picture when it comes to governance, why they tend to be more authoritarian and resistant to free-market Liberal-Democracy out of necessity.
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GREATER LOVE HATH NO ACL
If we are honest, The Ape Confused by Language (ACL - try saying that as a word!)
is a blasphemy on planet Earth. Too much cleverness to live in harmony (with self, other, or planet), and too little wisdom to understand how he might do so. Going extinct is the only honourable course*.
But to Newsnight and Homo Metropolis, that is 'not important right now'.
I'll get me coat.
* In passing: We have declining geo-magnetism, accelerating pole drift, ultra low sunspot minimum, dramatic shrinkage of the heliosphere, an ?electric plume? over Africa, and even lost American birds (no, not Palin) appearing in UK. Interesting times indeed!
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i have to disagree with the idea the drop in markets is due to 'fear'.
What we are seeing is forced liquidation. Hedge funds and others either because of redemptions [people taking their money out] or the inability to roll over loans have to sell. They don't want to. It is a just a mechanical roll out of what has to happen when there is no credit. Not fear.
Players in the market do not run on fear. Retail investors might but not serious players. Buffet is buying. He is not the only one. Look at the charts at the end of everyday. Usually in the last 30mins there is massive buying on massive volume whereas the larger down move [that gets the headlines] has been on low volume. Technical chartists have down targets in place and we are just moving towards them.
Also there has been a totally unreported options blowout where brokers have lost billions and to get the money back they have to drive down the market.
Also i posted many weeks ago that players were buying 'nuclear war puts' [bets the market will crash] and they are making a fortune.
Policy makers are doing most things ok and its going to take years to get out this not days. e.g we are now back at 2002 levels. 6 years growth wiped out. It might bounce back to 3 years but that still means 3 years of recession.
As long as people can be kept working even on min wage and shorter time if necessary then day by day week by week we can claw out the hole. Which is why generation of real work and new industry like the feed in tariff is the real 'solution'.
beware economists. they are not putting their money [ie trading the markets] where their mouth is. So treat their 'advice' with caution.
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I suspect that the climate of fear has a lot to do with implementation. There are cries of 'glory hallelujah' when Mr. Brown annonces his radical measures, the whole world follows suit and Britain is proclaimed as the saviour of the planet. Then it dawns on everyone that this will all now disappear into that gaping black hole the civil service and that these 'emergency measures' will actually take months before they have any effect.
Much the same is true of interest rate adjustments which may seem sensible at the time but don't impact the real world for half a year or more. In the meantime, the real economy continues in nose dive.
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#5
Sorry but that is outdated Thatcheright twaddle that was tried and failed three times under Thatcher - all it produces is the real 'boom and bust' that we all went through in the 1980s and early part of the 1990s. The only people who get the tax cuts are those who are still in work, mostly those at the higher end of the social scale - but that is the point, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, even Cameron is trying to distance himself from such utter twaddle...
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#11 Barrie Singleton
APE confused by language. Applied Planetary Engineering
was always a strange term.
Language is a problem which many do not realise.
Language if we disregard eastern or other holistic pictographic representations of reality, is just a linear string of boxes representing quantums of thought.
Language is just a representational model of reality, it describes reality, but is not reality.
The linear sting of things we call words also falls far short of the complex non linear inter related inter acting complexity of reality.
We have unfortunately started to believe in words rather than the true reality behind them they only represent.
Until the ape understands what language is, it will always confuse.
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PURSUIT OF TRUTH: CRITICAL MASS
#15 Perhaps that's because high verbal fluency is essentially (genetically) a female (or feminised male) skill? As skills come tend to come (statistically speaking) in genetic clusters/factors, one should look to what else correlates (negatively as well as positively) with high verbal 'dexterity'. It isn't good news. Pointing out what some people literally can't grasp is very frustrating and so, I guess, not a very wise thing to try to do.
As an aside, on wisdom, I reckon Barrie doesn't need any lessons in the limits (or appropriate use) of language.
Barrie, Looking for (but failing to find so far) one of bookhimdano's links on the two-way grid implementation in Germany, I did learn two things. First the http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/profile/?userid=10771514&skip=10 userarchive is best used with a 'skip' increment of 10 rather than the default of 25. Secondly, an apposite remark about production matching audience whims/dumbing down But it's everywhere. Some of the presentations on Newsnight occasionally border on the style of John Craven's Newsround or Blue Peter. I can see the reasoning, but it's still regrettable (see first paragraph) as this behaviour tends to be self-fulfilling (it's starting to show up in the blog(s)).
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can something not be done about jaded Jean's open racism? Why do we have to have it?
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citizenthompson (#17) Perhaps it would help if you defined what you mean by 'racism' and then highlighted precisely what it is in any of my posts which you consider 'open racism', as I'm genuinely unaware of any racism in my posts. I suspect you may not appreciate that there are reliable behavioural/physological diferences in racial *groups* and that these group have very important policy consequences.
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#17 Citizen Thompson
I have very low verbal fluency on the JadedJean spectrum of ability.
So have to be honest that I don't know what they mean half the time.
I have to assume as I would consider myself fairly average, other struggle to comprehend them too.
If you look at all my posts they are short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.
JadedJean might get a larger comprehending audience if the posts were 'dumbed down' slightly to accommodate the opposite end of the verbal/spatial spectrum which many of the posts refer to.
Better to get some of the information across to more people as well as only getting most of it across to a small group.
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MASS
I have always regarded Mass as UNCRITICAL or no one would turn up. But not racist so much as sectist.
The fact that 'People of Faith' (as Gordon might say in current mode) fail to notice all the other people of DIFFERENT faith, and the RELEVANCE of their believing, shows how simplistic we are. And IQ won't save us, as there are plenty top thinkers who think they have faith.
Paradoxically: The Ape Confused by Language is a DUMB APE; a total ACL! Back to the drawing board God.
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Jaded Jean
It is difficult to know where to start because you will not accept that what you say is not fact but interpretation. But let's just take you comment #10: "The GDP of Pakistan is only about 100 billion. Guess what the country's mean IQ is? Think of lower IQ as more immature (childlike) behaviour (inability to think ahead very far because of limited memory capacity or to delay gratification easily, i.e higher impusivity, lower self-control) and you get the picture when it comes to governance, why they tend to be more authoritarian and resistant to free-market Liberal-Democracy out of necessity."
This is openly racist because it reduces a very complex set of historical, cultural and social circumstances down to one of IQ and race. To describe a whole group as "childlike" because of this is racist by any definition. The same was once said of Jews, Eastern Europeans, the Irish and many other groups and was as racist then as it is now.
Isn't this about economics anyway?
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HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
I am often accused of being obscure by my closest friends (my enemies disdain to comment). But my obscurity is just that - obscurity - an indulgence.
Were I to inform myself in the realms of Jaded Jean's expertise, I am inclined to believe JJ postings would emerge well founded in reason (though nonetheless open to challenge).
I find that, as I head for my box, my intuition, and nose for b-s, is ever finer. (That is the first time I have realised I share such exalted/exhorted initials!) This, of course, applies across the board.
For the avoidance of doubt: I have been prejudiced, in all matters, since birth, and have yet to meet an ACL who isn't. Anyone wish to cast the first stone at the ligneous intrusion in my ocular faculty?
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FEED IN TARIFF GERMANY - JJ
If the blogdog doesn't chew the link:
http://www.e-parl.net/eparlimages/general/pdf/080603%20FIT%20toolkit.pdf
Of search : "Success story feed-in tariffs"
This is what I read but no idea how I got there.
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THE SPECTRE OF DAWKINS
Oh no! What sign must one make - the cross doesn't work - it just makes him angry!
I have a feeling we might need to invoke some 'meme' therapy, to make a possible bridge between an ethnic IQ (take that very broadly) and the cultural memes of the same group. This is an instant thought on my part (very dodgy) but perhaps IQ mediates memes and memes mediate behaviour? Just a thought.
While we 'British' swagger about under a load of Para-Olympic medals, lets not lose sight of who dominates the Nobel Olympics. (:o)
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REDACTED REPOST
I am often accused of being obscure by my closest friends (my enemies disdain to comment). But my obscurity is just that - obscurity - an indulgence.
Were I to inform myself in the realms of Jaded Jean's expertise, I am inclined to believe JJ postings would emerge well founded in reason (though nonetheless open to challenge).
I find that, as I head for my box, my intuition, and nose for REDACTED, is ever finer. (That is the first time I have realised I share such exalted/exhorted initials!) This, of course, applies across the board.
For the avoidance of doubt: I have been prejudiced, in all matters, since birth, and have yet to meet an ACL who isn't. Anyone wish to cast the first stone at the ligneous intrusion in my ocular faculty?
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HERESIES
Barrie (#20) "And IQ won't save us, as there are plenty top thinkers who think they have faith."
Actually...the evidence (aside from views from the likes of Dawkins) suggests that's not true. People are less likely to be religious the more intelligent they are See here for some data on religiosity and IQ.
The problem is that as more and more people seem not to believe all sorts of things which are in fact true these days (see what's happening there viz dysgenesis?), I guess soon it won't make much difference, we really are heading for an idiocracy.
Maybe Newsnight could do a 'twiddley knob job' one night in order to ascertain what the truths of science really are and just settle the matter once and for all, perhaps lobbying for a few laws to get anyone who then disagrees with these 'truths' locked up as heretics (sorry terrorists)?
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MASS
I have always regarded Mass as UNCRITICAL or no one would turn up. But not racist so much as sectist.
The fact that 'People of Faith' (as Gordon might say in current mode) fail to notice all the other people of DIFFERENT faith, and the RELEVANCE of their believing, shows how simplistic we are. And IQ won't save us, as there are plenty top thinkers who think they have faith.
Paradoxically: The Ape Confused by Language is a DUMB APE; a total ACL! Back to the drawing board REDACTED.
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NEOPHOBIA
citizenthompson (#21)
You are just wrong. These conclusions have been arived at AFTRE looking at the rest of the 'complex' data (note the word 'complex' is often used to obfuscate by those who simply don't know enough science to be able to objectively partition variance).
Look up who Charles Murray (co-author of 'The Bell Curve') is and his influence on USA domestic policy. Then look up the two books by Lynn and VanHanen on IQ, GDP and global inequality.
It's the job of researchers to analyse large numbers of measures and to try to come up with functional relations between classes of measures which are scientifically useful (i.e make predictions) in the service of policy. What I am making are statistical statements about populations (or representative samples from populations). This is the level at which governments work with data. If you, and others like, you persist in making assertions along the lines that you do you will just be writing off science as politically incorrect, which is, at minimum a little silly.
Note: Just because one is surprised when one reads something does not make what one reads wrong or offensive. It just means one is probably learning something.
Young people tend to have lower IQs when normed against the rest of the population. Young people tend to be more impulsive. Look into how numbers in a population change as a function of the sigmas away from the mean.
Tis IS economics.
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jaded jean, I don't want you locked up and I don't think of you as a terrorist, just as someone whose scientistic attitude to what you perceive as truth should be challenged by those of us who wish to take a more complex and nuanced view of observable features of social reality.
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MODERN HEURISTICS
1. Look at a source of evidence
2. Decide if you a) like b) dislike the conclusion
3. If b) look for something to enable you to feel good about disregarding the source.
There appears to me to be be worrying increase in frequency of those who are either unwilling or unable to assess and appraise on the basis of empirical evidence and to appreciate that much that is held true is done so on the basis of statistical probabilities i.e. actuarial analysis. There is a common failure to appreciate that this is the level at which science and policy development has to operate. These skills are precisely the ones which seem to be in decline and they are the very skills which good administration, science and technology depend upon. Something to bear in mind when looking at our SATs, OECD PISA data and the data reviewed by Lynn and Vanhanen I suggest. Not long ago the British Psychological Society reported that maths ability had delined over the past 20 years. 80% of psychology undergraduates today are female. Look at SATs, GCSE and GCE course take up and performance. To accomodate group differences, the professions change. How topsy-turvy and sane is that?
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POLITE ENQUIRY (sure I am going to look foolish)
JJ, I followed your religiosity link at post 26, but Israel (natural home of the Nobel Prize) is not listed. I checked the comments - no one seemed to notice. Is it me?
While I am on, I DO hope no one is deluded into thinking science is not a religion. Currently Einsteinism is in error, Hubbleism likewise; Newtonism is unwell and Hawkingism falling into a black hole (metaphorically).
I checked my IQ once, but my memory won't remember what it is . . .
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I am neither neophobic nor anti-science. In fact I am very much in favour of both the new and the scientific method. But a) these ideas you present as fact are no only NOT fact but they are also not new. As I said before, this sort of scientistic (as opposed to scientific) view used to based on all sorts of "objective" and observable data - such as phrenology - which proved in the end to be as useless at measuring man as will IQ testing, even with all its variables built in. This is because you leave out one simple thing: namely change over time. Human society undergoes change and yesterdays' idiots become tomorrow's geniuses.
And b) the proper scientific method is in any case to approach this data with caution and measure it against a historical and social context, not use it as some sort of incantation of absolute truth. It is only true for as long as it reveals itself to be not true. Those who appeal to some supposed factual truth tend to want to use it to support some pre-conceived political aim. I simply suspect that your real motivation is somewhat more dangerous than a simple defence of "truth".
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citizenthompson (#29) It has nothing to do with 'perceived truth' or 'scientism'. It has to do with measures, i.e. tangible facts which government actuaries analyse and help their political masters manage their populations by. Organisations are, in non-corrupt countries, held accountable to such meaures. You can take as 'nuanced' a view as you like, but at the same time, you should look at the data. Look at nations' GDPs, mean IQs, and other measures of development (e.g. doctor patient ratios, TFRs, longevity, disease, literacy levels etc) and then ask yourself why so many people from so many of these countries desperately want to move somewhere else if they have the means to do so.
'a more complex and nuanced view of observable features of social reality' indeed....you don't know when to listen I suggest.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
HE WOULD SAY THAT WOULDN'T HE
Bush has just made a plea for not abandoning Capitalism. Makes me think of the robbers who bury the loot before spending a long time in jail, only to find the 'lie of the land' is totally changed when they come back for it, and it is beyond reach. Poor Dubya, what will he do if we replace Capitalism with good, honest Christian principles? Oh - I forgot . . .
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TESTING (ref 34)
Blogdog. Kennel Club. Fatois.
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Paul, if Vince Cable says that interest rates need to be cut, they will be cut.
I have just listened to him talking about the problems we are facing at a regional contest, and while he is far too modest to say so, he not only predicted that we were headed for big problems but the solutions he has argued for since have been constantly spot-on. What's more, if he had been in charge, the solutions would have happened straight away when they needed to be, but instead we have Brown who pontificates and dilly- dallys for weeks or months before doing what's necessary.
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Barrie (#31) Judaism is a tricky one and as Israel's half Muslim Israel is trickier still. Are Jews a race or co-religionists? I know the UN used to say that Zionism was racist, but that got dumped around the time of the first Gulf War. One thing's for sure, there isn't much grant money available for MRI studies looking for souls. For what it's worth, Randy Newman (Jewish) wrote a good song about God and I'd like to think that Arthur Jensen (half Jewish) and Richard Herrnstein (Jewish) would have endorsed much of what I've been saying in this blog. But yes, you have a point, Jews do *seem* very religious, except it's said that the Talmud is rather earthly, an endogamous (group and individual) behaviour management code, and one which has served them well in my view (so well in fact, that Hitler tried to copy them in order to compete with them).
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jj # 10
You surprise me in showing such apparent compassion for the stock market parasites, they almost all had a chance to get out at the top of the market. I suspect that the majority of private pension holders are relatively affluent ten bob fat cats who invest in the stock market primarily for 40% tax avoidance reasons. Gavin Esler types spring to mind since they vociferously squeal for deep interest rate cuts at any opportunity, why can't they just pay the tax like poor people, surely his BBC pension alone will see him OK in old age.
The only others caught in the net are those on relatively moderate incomes who are foolish enough to believe the corporate illusion. Those " nice gentlemen " financial advisors promise to pay them a fortune on retirement in exchange for their meager monthly contribution. In reality its just a " private tax " to pay for city bonuses and most people would be better off investing in a cash ISA every year. At least if you loose your job you have something tangible to fall back on, how many people are fortunate enough to have " jobs for life " these days.
Even once potential Rover asset stripper John Moulton recently remarked that all the alleged growth in our economy since 2005 had been false. Cutting interest rates risks crashing sterling, even talking about it knocked ten cents off our pound this week. The less affluent will suffer the most from the resultant imported inflation, the Danish have put their rates up half a percent to help prevent their currency crashing against the Euro.
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brossen99 (#39) I don't have much if any sympathy for the people you regard as predatory, I'm just a bit concerned that a lot more may be invested in the stock market on behalf of large numbers of innocents than is widely appreciated. Perhaps I'm mistaken? Perhaps others more intimately involved with the markets would like to comment?
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citizenthompson (#32) " I simply suspect that your real motivation is somewhat more dangerous than a simple defence of "truth"."
And that's what's so pernicious about that sort of thinking. It isn't empirically or logically driven, it's just based on 'suspicions' i.e assumptions devoid of evidence. If you look at it critically, you'll learn that your current views are mob driven, prejudicial, ill-informed, irrational and presumptuous. Look at the evidence I've provided, follow up some of the references and try to learn. There are decades of good research behind this. Behaviour is an expression genes shaped by environmental contingencies. These forces will not change without physically changing populations, i.e changing birthrates and assortive mating in different sections of populations, any more than we change phenotypes of any other species without selective breeding/hybridization (leaving aside mutation). What applies in agriculture and animal husbandry obviously applies in human populations, and most populations have been separated by genes barriers like oceans, mountain ranges etc for thousands of years after the initial 'out of Africa' diasporas. These differences are not changed through education etc. If one wishes to change economies, one has to change gene frequencies in populations. The alternative has been tried in the USA and here and it doesn't work (see the Standards Site) things justget worse.
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dear moderator , why are you letting all the off the subject and on occasion racist comments on this blog pass?
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JJ # 40
I suppose your " innocents " could include those viewers hypnotized by programmes like BBC Working Lunch over the past ten years or so. If the BBC claims its safe to give your hard earned money to virtual gamblers who are a gullible public to question it. Past BBC reporting in general was always keen to report when the market surged ahead, but failed to even mention the numbers when the market fell. People should have learned their lesson after 9/11 which showed up just how false any previous stock market gains were. The nice cuddly presenters always managed to assure people that everything was OK, no doubt in some part due to self interest. However, like private companies the BBC must make programmes that show the corporate multinational cartel and the corporate illusion in a good light. If they fail to do so private worldwide broadcasting cartel members could refuse to buy BBC programmes.
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AS ONE TO ANOTHER (#42)
Hi Oldefarte! In all seriousness, there is a secondary thread of reaction against the BBC in many of these threads, which is indeed 'off subject' but not irrelevant. The BBC sits comfortably 'within the lie', never nailing it, presumably because all the usual suspects, will withdraw to competing media outlets.
But (I assert) the Money Mess is a SYMPTOM of human failure; failure to engage with shortcomings and reality, and it is enquiry into such, that leads on to discussion of human characteristics - including race.
Humanity is making a very bad fist of being human; Britain is playing its part in failure; and the BBC just does not want to exercise the Public Service bit of its function, preferring wall to wall showbiz, razzamatazz and gimmickry. Perhaps this leads to some OTT reaction, cynical comment and flippancy? I plead guilty.
Personally, I 'condone' expressions that might or might not be prejudice as I am, self-confessed, multi-prejudiced from birth.
Might one infer that you are free from such natural tendency?
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HERE'S A THOUGHT JJ
You say @ 38: "Are Jews a race, or co-religionists?" And my fevered mind recalls that one is Jewish if one's mother is Jewish (rather than father). An interesting clue to ancient origins? But I digress.
Might the 'Nobel gene' (I jest) be carried on the X chromosome? (Out of my depth here.) It might even be preferentially expressed in the male, though I suspect bright girls are just directed to produce better Chicken Soup.
This still doesn't answer why I struggled to get 5 + 1 O-levels and a scraped ONC Chemistry. You wanna have a go?
My consolation is passing woodwork - I am up there with Paul Merton's metalwork pass!
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DENIAL
oldefarte (#42) Look a little more closely at the topic. Ask why the USA and UK economies are in such trouble. What did ETS warn about in Feb 2007? What have large numbers of researchers before then been warning about for decades on the basis of US and UK demographic trends and World Bank (etc) data on different countries?
Your criterion of 'on-topic' is probably a function of what you understand the critcal variables to be. It certainly isn't racist to highlight what the critical functional relationships may be which are driving changes to economies and why tinkering with the wrong independent variables won't inspire confidence.
Look at where the sub-prime loans were targetted. Look at where the majority of APM delinquencies and foreclosures are in the USA. What characterises these areas most? One of the reasons why so few people failed to see any of this coming was because they turned a blind eye to what's important, or because they asked someone else to censor. This was one of the alarming findings of ETS when they sampled public opinion in the wake of their report (sadly, they have removed their own press club briefing video, but others remain - I suggest you watch some of them and see if anything you see there changes your views).
http://www.ets.org/portal/site/ets/menuitem.1488512ecfd5b8849a77b13bc3921509/?vgnextoid=b87b145891480110VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD&vgnextchannel=9599460b52e70110VgnVCM10000022f95190RCRD
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#41 JJ
I think you will find as any society becomes more complex genes play an increasingly decreasing element compared to cultural and social factors, we become masters of our genes or over our genes.
The problems I would say are not in our genes but in some false world view society has created of self interest over riding the greater good.
Greenspan admitted on Thursday the self interest of banks was a flawed idea. it applies to people, organisations, countries, Governments.
Was it Gandhi who said make sure your brothers stomach is full before your own. Buddhism has compassion for all life. It is in many cultures.
Culture has to put the protection of the planet first and foremost. The opposite of what the dominant society is at present doing.
Love life: not in the narrow self interest of advertising and marketing of newer cars, excessive foreign holidays and the rest of the myth that life has to be bought.
Love life: as in this great cosmic adventure we are all on and share. Love the stars, the mountains, animals playing in early morning spring sunshine, the laughter of children, the strive for existence of the migrating birds overhead. Love all things.
What do the politicians tell us, all they say is support the economy. The economy has become the monster, the master, the machine we must serve.
The economy must become the servant to our journey of life. Then confidence will return, but not in the economy, but in life. Which is what we need.
Genetics are only a part of that process.
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THE OPTIMISM GENE
Hey Celtic! I gather our Eastern 'cousins' have found a way of removing selected memories? When they get round to removing the damaging memories we have forgotten, I might have a little hope. Then: if they move on to rewiring the social bit of the brain that we all make a mess of, when newborn, because we are using the outside (mad) world as a template, I will declare myself an optimist. Till then I will stubbornly see us as adapted, in a panic, to some extreme past circumstance - an ecological collapse maybe - with sub divisions due to later isolations; hence drastically unsuited to the modern world. And I haven't even touched on the 'animal years' from puberty to antipathy!
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#47
Hello Barrie
Newborn? Do You Mean Jung?
What about Plato's Cave?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory_of_the_cave
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jaded Jean, You still don't understand. You haven't provided "evidence". You have provided links to some statistics which might be said to say one thing but also might not, depending on how you read them. The more you write the more you expose yourself here. My comments are based on your words, which are, at the risk of being blocked by the moderators on here, eruditely stupid and naively but knowingly racist, and you know it. You simply cannot maintain that all the economic problems of the world are due to the "childlike" simplicity of blacks, Pakastanis, Jews, the underclass, women, gays, everyone who is not WASPish rather than the structures of financialised capitalism and get away with it. OK, very many very misinformed people took out loans for money which they could not afford. But that was not peculiar to one "childlike" racial group, but embraced the whole desperate community of people whose wages simply did not allow them to live a decent life and, on top of that, to have the things which a consumerist society told them they had to have. To maintain otherwise is - and I repeat this quite clearly - racist.
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WHO PUT THIS LOT IN THEN? (Plato)
Hi Celtic, I'm off to bed. Jung was not in my cast of characters. As for Plato's cave, I suspect its creator was of similar genetic makeup to us, but unaware that he had wired his own brain, while not qualified to do so. Had he had such knowledge, I suspect he would have peopled his cave with a throng of thick apprentice-electricians behaving like the Marx brothers, and would have been full of wrongly-drilled holes, chasing that led nowhere, dead bodies across the three-phase and a terrible tangle of wiring - mostly redundant.
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celticlionltd (#47) Here's some well meant advice (although I suspect I'm wasting my time saying that): Read more of what I've posted and linked to (most who have responded so far can't have, as there were days of reading). For now... post less. Most of what you are posting is, in my view, nonsense.
We are subject to a serious demographic and economic crisis and in my view you (and many others) simply don't understand the drivers. Genes make proteins and these essentially make us what we are, including how we behave. Look at the population projections for the USA over the next generation or so by the US Census, and look at those for London. Then look to the countries where these migrant groups have moved from, noting their GDPs, TFRs and social stability. Why should a physical shift in location make any difference? It might help to look at what's happening to the indigenous population whom they allegedly moved to settle 'amidst' (why else did they migrate)?
Don't be tempted just to make something up. Look at the data. These are hard-nosed, descriptive, empirical matters. Look at the distributions of cognitive ability by a) sex and b) race. Look at what's being encouraged in Liberal_democracies but discouraged elsewhere. Look at what's happening to TFRs in Liberal-Democracies and what's happening elsewhere. Please don't lecture me on biological fitness.
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citizenthompson (#50) Clearly you don't like any of this, but the problem won't go away by disagreeing with me, or by abusing me. Your assumptions appear to be the popular myths that all peoples are the essentially the same genetically and that observed differences in ability and economic development are essentially environmental/cultural. Put that all aside for a while and look up past posts on The Community Reinvestment Act (1977) and its critical revisions in the 90s under Clinton, the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, the misguided efforts to deal with the problem with No Child Left Behind over there (see Murray's trilogy in the WSJ) and Every Child Matters here, the abject failure of all efforts to compensate via HeadStart, SureStart, Aiming High, SEAL etc. Before the Civil Rights movement in the 1960s, Differential Psychology (the psychology of individual differences) was a critical part of the science of psychology. Over the past four decades it has been marginalised and experimental psychology largely focused on mean effect sizes and rejection of the Null Hypothesis, effectively ignoring individual and group differences.
Watch the ETS clips, read the report, and read the links I have provided. If you wnat data go and look up the annual SATs data in English Maths and Science at KS1, KS2, KS3 and KS4 by group, or look atthe data from Lynn and Vanhanen or OECD PISA. Take a look at social and political stability in Africa, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Look at the regimes in other mean low IQ countries. What do you notice?
You may not like what I am saying but does that mean it's wrong or sould not be said? The fact is that afyer 40 years of efforts to close group gaps through environmental intervention, nobody has been able to do it.
Even if it isn't genetic, it is intractable. If groups which disproportionately cause the most crime and contribute least to the economy keep growing whilst groups which do the opposite keep shrinking, what do you think will happen. That is what is happening. Governments on both sides of the Atlantic know this. It's just that they seem to have believed that No Child Left Behind and very Child Matters etc would compensate, but they aren't. See SATs.
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as an illustration of what is happening [why markets are falling]
...The 40-year-old oligarch is scrambling to find refinancing for a $4.5bn loan from western banks, including Royal Bank of Scotland, that paid for part of his 25 per cent Norilsk stake, after a plunge in the value of the shares he pledged as collateral. If he fails to gain an extension from the western banks of a waiver on repayments or a bail-out from the Russian state by the end of next week, he could have to hand over the shareholding to creditors.....
multiply that across all sectors and one can see why there is forced selling. Much of the market is bought using credit [sometimes without collateral]. If shares were used as collateral then their drop in value means more collateral must be found etc
The credit has gone and so the market will have to find a new level that does not depend on credit. And that could be a long way down. imo at least 50% from the highs.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/d96aa8ac-a1f9-11dd-a32f-000077b07658.html?nclick_check=1
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citizenthompson (#50) "You simply cannot maintain that all the economic problems of the world are due to the "childlike" simplicity of blacks, Pakastanis, Jews, the underclass, women, gays, everyone who is not WASPish rather than the structures of financialised capitalism and get away with it."
You've said this not I. That you think I have said any such thing just goes to show that you are not following what I have been saying at all diligently. First of all you have to grasp that this is a statistical issue, it is about group mean scores and standard deviations. Secondly it is about representation of groups in the underclass and elites. Jews for example are clearly over-represented in the elite as their group mean IQ is about 108 (although higher verbal than spatial - you might like to look up the statistics for groups in NYC). I suggest you also look into some of the figures on birth rates and differential fertility.
Take this on board: like many people these days, you believe a lot of things which are in fact not true. This has consequences, one of which being that you are prone (unwittingly perhaps) to misguidedly censure those who actually do tell the truth about all of this. This is how cultural Marxism (Political Correctness) exerts its pernicious, subversive if not seditious influence, and this is why the problems which we now face will not be properly dealt with.
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CONFIDENCE IN POLICY MAKERS (Paul Mason)
I wonder if Paul has found time to read the post and ponder his crime? He has stepped close to the edge of 'the lie'.
Mankind, no matter how modern the 'trappings' (an interesting word) is still an animal, intent on continuation but with an anomalous trimming of cerebral excess which is, by default, 'intent' on self destruction.
Confidence in (acceptance of?) policy makers, can come from animal-human liking, or cerebral-human acknowledgement. For complex governance, including control of a world monetary matrix, you need the best of the cerebral. This must combine competence and integrity to be sustainable. The truth, as it appears to me, is that such credentials, in policy makers, come a poor third behind cerebral chicanery and animal dominance.
So Paul - you have opened a can of worms in which your BBC masters slip and weave happily, while ratings affirm. Will you now investigate the underlying realities of the Money Mess AS A SYMPTOM of wider human failing, report it, and get fired for the greater good? We need a hero.
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56. At 11:56am on 26 Oct 2008, barriesingleton
Not sure, but I don't think the BBC do 'firings' do they?
As for heroes, they can have a rummage in the fee chest and buy another one. Even if it is a fiction.
Happens all the time.
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CREDULITY, DOGS, FLEAS, BAD NAMES AND WILD THOUGHTS/BEHAVIOUR ETC
"It stretches credulity to its absolute bounds to think that suddenly, overnight, all those who were Communists will suddenly adopt a new philosophy and belief, with the result that everything will be different. I use this opportunity to warn the House and the country that that is not the truth...Every time the House approves one of these collective agreements, not least treaties agreed by the collective of the European Union, it contributes to the furtherance of the Russian strategy."
Christopher Gill (CON)
House of Commons 1995
'A High Court judgment details the alleged social and business links between Oleg Deripaska and Anton Malevsky, a Russian mobster.'
Times Online, Sunday 25th Oct 2008
Does anyone else ever have a thought or two about what Anatoliy Golitsyn had to say back in 1984 and later?
Reading some of this, and noting the extent to which so much of Russia's strategic (i.e. industrial-military complex's) means of production seems to be in the hands of 'Oligarchs' with contacts in 'the underworld', these interesting antics of Oleg the Oligarch, his other 'Russian' friends and his not so friendly associates in conjunction with the common Israeli connection, makes one wonder.
Talk about giving 'Russians' bad names.
Still, if they help fight terror...
"In Israel, Cherney spends much effort on charity work and humanitarian projects that reinforce cooperation between Israel and Russia in fighting terror."
Still, perhaps they're not quite the sort of people one would recommend to run the world financial system?
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The use of interest rates to control an economy unfortunately is the last remnant of monetarism. As such, like much of the other ideas coming from the Chicago School, in general there was almost no meaningful theoretical justification for this. It is true that when such rates are so low that they are negative in real terms, as they were for a number of years in the US, they actually fuel a credit boom. However where elsewhere, as in the UK, real interest rates (of around 4 %, say) exist, but which are moved by just Ľ% once or twice a year, it is difficult to see what strong financial mechanism can leverage these to control the whole economy directly.
The real value of ?base rate? changes is as an indicator. They show what the experts, and the wider population, expect will be the position of the economy as a whole over the next few months. The validity of this measure was considerably enhanced when it was put under the remit of an independent Bank of England; though that distance from government has undermined its power in the economic downturn. Even so, and despite the questionable basis for using just interest rates, this ?indicator? had the great virtue of being simple in use; and even simpler for the wider population to recognise, as well as seemingly being directly related to one of the key parts of the economy; that of house buying. Unfortunately the latter connection has been broken with the LIBOR measure diverging so widely from base rate. In addition, where the US has made much higher rate cuts, the UK?s Ľ% or ˝% changes have been undermined, especially when commentators are now demanding that only a 2% cut will do. The emperor?s clothes have definitely gone missing.
The indicator that has recently, to a degree, replaced base rate is the FTSE. Market traders overall confusion, not to say panic, is accordingly reflected in the VIX index. However, where the overall trend initially was almost vertically downwards, though there is still enormous volatility the trend now follows a relatively stable flat mean of around the 4000 mark. I take that as reassuring that the worst is over in terms of catastrophic news.
For the future it seems to me that a wider set of measures could allow better control. Thus, in addition to predictions of coming interest rates, we might also use economic growth and price indicators. These are, of course, included in the Pre-Budget Report (as well as the OECD forecasts); but, where these are annual forecasts, to be practical on the ground we now need such indicators at least monthly as the base rate currently is.
The other major problem is that current indicators, including base rate, are based on the output of econometric models. These are now massive mathematical models which claim to take into account everything which might have an impact on the economy. This means that although base rate looks simple it is based on a model which nobody understands; it has far more variables than even the most complex of derivatives. Such econometric models, which are fine tuned by looking backwards rather than forwards, have a terrible record for accuracy. Indeed the record shows that the best of them is heavily based on the CBI measure of business confidence - which charts the (relatively uninformed) views of mere mortals. The lesson, I believe, is that survey methods are now perhaps the best starting point. [See our work from the 1990s at http://futureobservatory.dyndns.org/7270.htm and http://futureobservatory.dyndns.org/7252.htm]
Whatever the forecast method chosen, its use must be transparent. In particular, the measures the government chooses to use in order to then steer the economy must be clearly spelled out; and fully justified.
Of course, such an approach will be much more effective if adopted globally; even if individual nations have their own forecasts within the overall figures.
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Re CelticLion barriesingleton JadedJean and citizenthompson:
Would you like Are you the JPF? Can i join your group? I hate the Capitalists as much as anybody.
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#59 David Mercer
A GENERAL HYPOTHESIS OF AGGREGATED EXPECTATIONS
Absolutely fascinating -really enjoyed the links that I have read.
I can't even begin to write as I could discuss every line you wrote in a very constructive manner.
Paul's blog is perhaps not the most appropriate place.
Celtic Lion
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Barrie (#45) A bit off-topic, but maybe saying soething about this will appease dsome of those who don't understand that thete have been great advances since the genome was sequenced, at least in quantitative genetics. There's been some interest in the X chromosome (and the homologous area on the Y). Remember, females have one X randomly (largely) inactivated in all but their gonads. There's been some interest in C6p21 too (and oter autosomes) but the MHC is in that area so C6p21 etc naturally gets a lot of attention. I've mentioned C6p21 in the context of NCAH and ethnic differences in the CYP21 polymorphism, but it's unlikely to be what's critically important as its only one gene and I only mentioned it as a possible explanation for some of the verbal-spatial tilt due to changed in the sex steroids (note 1/3 Ashkenazi carry at least one of the polymorphisms, 1/27 are homozygous - NCAH is autosomal recessive). Much of medicine and pharmacology is now looking at racial differences because of different gene frequencies acorss groups and how this affects pharmacodynamics, prevalence of disorders etc so any suggestion that any of this is 'racist' is silly given what's now known.
The genes and IQ issue is technically difficult as it's likely to be polygenic (i.e. a QTL) which presents quantitative methodological problems of its own. The focus is currently on simple variables like individual differences in the number of grey brain cells and genes which may account for this. If there's a consensus it seems to be a parsimonious one of not looking for environmental or epigenetic factors first. We know that females have smaller brains on average, and we know that brain sizes differ across ethnic groups too, but size isn't everything as packing may come into it.... East Asians always seem to come out on top mind you, not WASPs.
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EFFRONTERY (#60)
Who you calling a group?
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#60 Trikidiki
JPF?
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celticlionltd (#64)
Oh dear
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#65 jadedJean
missed it when I searched
http://www.acronymfinder.com/JPF.html
Thanks
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63. At 4:40pm on 26 Oct 2008, barriesingleton
For there to be a successful 'us' vs. 'them' thing to get going (or stirred up), you of course need an 'us' and a 'them', and that needs a bit of tribal collecting together and assigning of pigeon holes first. Those who tick boxes for a living just love it, I've found.
So when some individuals on a blog start making sense and agreeing with each other (if only on a single issue), and some others (can be individuals, but they often can also be coordinated) don't like the way the overall vibe is shaping as it doesn't gel with more obviously 'correct' views, it helps to create a 'group' which you can then blanket dismiss or decry as being from the 'other', not 'right' (I use the word, of course, with no political connotations, so as not to excite some more than they are already) viewpoint.
Get ready for more, often preceded with 'You lot...' and then containing oodles about the person(s) and often nothing about whatever is being discussed.
Thing is, if you know you are just you, and through long and often valued experience you are pretty sure some others are just them (with the added quirk of judging what is written by its merits, or not, rather than just who writes it... BBC and employees please note) then often the reverse of what is intended by the attempted group creator can result.
Because I now am wondering who is up to what now.
As it happens all the time.
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ANOTHER EXAMPLE - IF ONE WERE NEEDED
Thanks JJ - I more or less grasped that.
Interesting that the subtext is 'information we can't/won't consider because we are immature'.
As you frequently point out: Just because it doesn't suit doesn't make it wrong.
So: when Paul Mason opts, selflessly, to be the People's Champion from Newsnight (fired) making all this plain, will go on his 'To Do' list. I wonder if Gordon will recognise such service to Britain, and announce it in Parliament?
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Barrie (#68) "'information we can't/won't consider because we are immature'."
As you probably appreciate, research takes time, lots of it painstaking, often for very little in terms of reward. There is a very high correlation between 'g' and memory span, especially backward digit span. Basically, effort/work hurts and many will avoid it if they can, but 'there's no such thing as a free lunch'.
As to Gordon Brown, well, my experience with government, for what it's worth, is that if you give them anything (i.e. years of R&D), they tend to give it a makeover in order to make it LOOK and SOUND better, turning it into something completely unrecognizable/unworkable and then blame you for it not working.
These days I tend to watch in despair as things just continue falling apart. I think the gist of what I've summarised in these posts over the past couple of years is empirically sound, but try to tell myself that that won't make much difference under the circumstances.
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INCONVENIENT TRUTH
I stand in awe of brainy Jews
With all their Nobel Prizes.
That might be racial prejudice
Perhaps the thought unwise is?
I?m glad I?m not a wan white maid
Those Asian girls don?t play fair.
It?s such a doddle with those looks
To hook a guy from Mayfair.
White sprinters weep - and well they might
At fast receding backs.
?Support racial equality!?
(Let?s hang weights on the 'others'!)
So lacking brains and looks and speed
Great British Truth I face.
One with my ilklings ? mongrels all;
Deferring with bad grace.
Tatta. See you Monday.
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#58 "Still, perhaps they're not quite the sort of people one would recommend to run the world financial system?"
oops! (#5)
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#30 - JadedJean
Quite what all of this has to do with the global economic problems is a bit beyond me but it is very interesting.
The problem with statistical analysis and empirical research is that the former presupposes that the statistics you are analyzing are reliable and the latter that the empirical evidence from which the statistics are derived is credible. When the latter becomes dependent on factors which are either subjective (matters of opinion) or open to an alternative interpretations, the whole thing can quickly unravel.
Your point about the correlation between average IQ and GDP in Pakistan is a case in point. GDP is of course measurable in terms on which most economists (I am not one) would probably agree. Measuring IQ is altogether more subjective. I am put in mind of some research done in Australia many years ago which concluded that the indigenous population had a lower average IQ than people from immigrant stock. One of the tests involved taking a number of dice faces and asking the respondents to pick an odd one out. I will resist the temptation to explain why there is at least one answer to every possible combination up to five but no obvious contender when all six faces are displayed. Yet consistently aboriginals chose 6 as the odd one out. It subsequently emerged that the configuration of the 6 did not match any star formation in the southern hemisphere and accordingly was the only pattern that had no navigational relevance. My point is that these tests ignore the possibility that certain people for cultural or environmental reasons may have a different kind of intelligence.
You pointed out in another post that more intelligent people were less likely to be religious. I believe there is also research which shows that more intelligent people tend to be more highly sexed. So there would appear to be a relationship between those who believe that sex is ordained for procreation and those that regard it as pleasure which is based in part on intelligent perception. Coincidence?
On a lighter note, I note your point that 80 per cent of psychology students are women. Going back to my time, the subject of choice when you had no idea what to study and what you were going to do after graduation was sociology.
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threnodio (#72) I've said what it has to do with the world economy. You've just told us that you haven't grasped what's been said.
You're basically doing what several others here have mistakenly done, i.e. challenged what is now the scientific community's consensus with your own subjective beliefs. You may well hold your beliefs to be true, but that's the problem with beliefs, they're intensional. In fact, here, nearly all your beliefs are false. The criterion for truth or falsehood is not intensional, but extensional, i.e the power of observation statements (conjunctions) to comprise predictive functional relations about the world. The criteria there have nothing to do with what people think, believe or desire.
I suggest you read the references and take on board that sample based evidence is corroborated at the population level by annual UK SATs data at 7, 11, 14 and 15, and has been for as long as this has been collected and published by the DFES/DFCS by ethnicity and sex (which goes back to the beginning of PLASC in the early years of this century - in effect, the government has IQ proxies by postcode and these can be related to crime figures, welfare benefits, and much else besides).
The scientific community throughout the world now knows of these functional relations (which are empirical and extensional), as do governments, but the latter persist in enacting (misguided) legislation like NCLB (in the USA) to try to deal with the advere consequences (see the roots in the CRA and Civil Rights movement, but especally ethnic TFRs as covered earlier). Large numbers of the educated public just do not understand any of this. I have made an effort to explain why this is the case, seemingly to little avail, so have many others. This is the effect of years of punitive political correctness.
If you really want to see what it has to do with the world economy, I suggest you read the ETS report "America's Perfect Storm' and look back to Lynn and Vanhanen's books on 'IQ and the Wealth of Nations' and 'Global Inequality'.
You are making some very naive assumptions. Of course, you won't think so, as hardly anyone ever does (people can't think outside their own conditioning). But they can follow instructions......but often don't.
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Errata: DCFS (not DFCS, which is the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services which like many bodies nobly if not Quixotically endeavour to reduce adverse environmental impacts on innate ability development.
And it's 'IQ and Global Inequality'.
Tip: You probably have to think about some of the things that I post, and it may hurt.
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#73 - JadedJean
Firstly, I am not a scientist so obviously I do not think like one. Naturally I bow to your superior knowledge in these matters. Secondly, you are right to suppose that I have not researched all the links you posted. There is an awful lot there. Thirdly, it would be unnatural for most us to to harbour prejudices however unreasonable or irrational they may appear, but seeking to distort or willfully misinterpret information to justify a politically correct position is certainly not one of mine. If that is what the science says, I do not dispute it.
However, I am very surprised by your assertion that 'people cannot think outside their own conditioning . . . but they can follow instructions'. I would have thought that many of the advances of human kind are down to thinking 'outside the box' and ignoring the rule book.
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#74 - JadedJean
'Tip: You probably have to think about some of the things that I post, and it may hurt. '
That is a bit condescending. Personally, I have never found thinking painful. In fact, the most painful experiences of my life have tended to be cause by people who don't.
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threnodio (#75,#76) Good responses up to a point, but people can't 'think outside the box', it's just one of those silly modern nonsenses. It is not condescending to teach. On the contrary, it's a benevolence, and for many it's a vocation (although the evidence now suggests that many in the profession are regretting it these days, I've said why).
I suggest you follow up the links, they have been carefully chosen. If it isn't painful, it isn't worthwhile. Take that as a given. Nothing is ever gained by endorsing what one already believes, and the converse hurts, almost always. Neophobia is an innate, unconditoned (innate) response, which is at the heart of behavioural plasticity/change, which is probably endogenous opioid driven.
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threnodio (#75) "it would be unnatural for most us to to harbour prejudices however unreasonable or irrational they may appear, but seeking to distort or willfully misinterpret information to justify a politically correct position is certainly not one of mine."
Alas, it is all too natural.
The key thing to grasp here is that most people don't do it intentionally, it happens naturally. It *feels* like intuiton. That's how political conditioning/social engineering works. Operant conditioning is 'voluntary', or 'intentional' conditioning. That's why Skinner wrote 'Beyond Freedom and Dignity', which in the 70s frequently cropped up in an undergraduate finals paper despite Chomsky's anarchistic nonsense. You can bet that's not the case these days though. You might ask why. The answer probably lies in biologically based sex differences and IQ. But females are excused their narcissism....... until it's no longer reinforced through their ageing. The lifetime prevalence of depression in females is twice that of males. Can you conjecture why that may be so?
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#77 - JadedJean
Yes, it is a horrible turn of phrase but you take my point.
I am fascinated by the idea that neophobia could be as you describe. Certainly I understand the point but worry slightly that it can be used a cop-out.
'I can't help being an old reactionary - it's all chemical'. (Sorry!).
More interestingly, that seems to suggest that radical or progressive thinkers are somehow physiologically - or at least chemically - different from the majority. Is this the case?
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#78 - JadedJean
"The lifetime prevalence of depression in females is twice that of males. Can you conjecture why that may be so?"
Again not my field but two thoughts come to mind. Culturally, there is still a generation of men who believe that depression is somehow 'girlie'. It does not happen to them. So as well as being depressed, they are in denial. Perhaps a much higher proportion of depressed males are simply undiagnosed. Less statistically important but still significant is the greater life expectancy of women meaning far more women than men will experience bereavement - a significant factor in some depressive condition - than men.
Having experienced both in recent years, I would advise any man who is depressed to own up and get it fixed.
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SEX DIFFERENCES AND ANARCHISM?
threnodio (#80) Two interesting suggestions, the first is often said, but is unlikely, the second hadn't occurred to me, but I suspect it's also unlikely. As to your (#79), it's hard to assign credit accurately (listen to Skinner'se 60 minute audio 'On Having a Poem' if you can find it) as most research relies on many contributors. Those who get/take the credit are not always the innovators or originators (which is an odd notion in itself - see 'On Havng A Poem'). In fact, many researchers avoid the limelight. Neophobia is definitely innate, it's a defensive behaviour (think of rats and bait-shyness). Its habituation is associated with habit formation i.e. 'learning'.
We have far less control than we like to believe. What people say they do and what people actually do are all too often different classes of behaviour.
Speaking of which, as to being 'reactionary', look into the statistics for assortive mating. What do these tell one?
Finally, a reminder: Political Correctness = Cultural Marxism. Although I think it's important to note that the type of 'leftism' here is actually a type of rightism in that it subversively undermines authority, i.e regulations. It is Trotskyite/Neocon rather than Stalinist. It weakens statism in support of market, anarchistic, forces.
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Confidence won't return until everybody knows the problem is fixed. The Japanese stagflation experience shows that without the public being fully informed and confident that won't happen. The Treasury Select Committee expressed that view I believe.
So Brown and his partners in crime can feel quite "clever" to have been partially responsible for the crisis (debt/house prices/regulation weaknesses) and be hailed as heroes.
But eventually the full truth will have to come out so that everybody knows exactly what went wrong and that the problem is now fixed.
So a public inquiry in the UK would go a long way to achieving that understanding and then allowing confidence that the "fix" was going to work and was not the act of a politician in a blind panic.
Its just a question of how long it will take to achieve the same thing without a public inquiry.
I think it was ten years for Japan.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#81 - JadedJean
You are taking me into areas where I do, I think, have a greater degree of understanding although by no means expertise.
Rightly or wrongly, I have come to believe that the great curse of the 20th century is what I describe as the cult of the 'ism'. It stems from the need (which may be inherent) to categorise pretty much everything from music (serialism, atonalism, neo-classicism, tonalism), art (cubism, surrealism, Dadism, abstract expressionism, impressionism) to political philosophy (Marxism, Leninism, Marxist-Leninist revisionism, national socialism - the list is endless. The net effect of this 'ismism', if I can call it that, is self-imposed blinkering which - again to use that horrible phrase - prevents us from thinking outside the box. What singles out the strikingly original thinkers of that period was a refusal to be straight jacketed or categorised. Excellence is often to be found in the work of those who defy definition. To some extent, you find this in a view prevalent in American cultures which see no contradiction between something being great entertainment and great art. Europeans would tend to ask whether, for example, 'Porgy and Bess' is a smash hit musical or the great American opera because somehow it cannot be both. The American view is that it can, of course be both. It is a very trite example but it makes the point.
As for the 21st century, it's greatest curse to date has been political correctness. Again being trite, it seems self-evident to me that if I need a personal assistant, it matters not one jot if she is a one-legged black lesbian but she needs to be intelligent. On the other hand, if I need a window cleaner for a tower block, he does not need to be especially bright but clearly being able bodied is a considerable advantage. What seem to me to be common sense observations fly in the face of affirmative action, positive discrimination and all the other mechanisms that the PC lobby have invented for no better purpose than artificial cultural and social engineering.
You are quite right to say that political correctness equals cultural marxism but if you take that a stage further and substitute 'correctism' (to invent a word) for 'correctness', you have a recipe for disaster - the formation of an ideology from a base of false assumptions seeking to realise the unrealisable in the pursuit of an illusion. The danger is that it becomes cultural dictatorship.
I am musing out loud - a dangerous fault with me - but perhaps it makes some sense. I better go away and try to figure what the hell it has to do with the global economy:-)
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Gee whiz, guys, have you all been laid off in the recession, is that why you have so much time to raise the contents of the bbc blogosphere?
I wouldn't say it is all drivel.........but........
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I am astonished at the suggestions coming out of this blog:
Raise interest rates
Cut public spending
Or we could just invent a time machine and travel back to 1929
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Nice to see the content standard being so ably raised by, er...
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#83 - thegangofone
Well you know where I am based and, with close family ties to Auchwitz victims, you can guess how much change holocaust deniers will get out of me. Shalom!
#85 - bcumulus
Amazing the amount of stuff you can come up with when you are sitting in front of a computer waiting for the phone to ring. Of course it doesn't now - I think it is called recession.
#86 - GHBRich
Yes, 3% in Hungary. Probably something to do with those nice people at the IMF.
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Holocaust Schmolocaust
Gangofone #83
And you, sir are a bigot. You simply reject all opinion differing from you own. You are obstinately devoted to your own prejudices even when these are challenged and shown to be false. Name calling, screaming and pointing is the behaviour of children.
Take a few minutes to read 'The Power of Weakness' (particularly para 3) by William S Lind and reflect awhile.
You'll find it at www.lewrockwell.com/lind/lind23.html
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Intellectual content is high, and darn nice to read after the odd foray into "Have Your Say"...
Anyone who denies the Holocaust is incomprehensible to me....both my Dad and my husband saw the reality.
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#89 - NewFazer
Well you should know - after all it was you who wrote 'And you, sir are a bigot.'
As to William S. Lind, I don't claim to know all the answers but I am sure as hell Cultural Conservatism is not one of them.
You will have to explain 'Holocaust Schmolocaust'- but if I am right in inferring denial on you part I will dismiss it with the contempt it deserves. By the way, what does this have to do with the thread?
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Holocaust Schmolocaust
#91 - Go1
Websters...
Main Entry:
big·ot
Pronunciation:
\'bi-g?t\
Function:
noun
Etymology:
French, hypocrite, bigot
Date:
1660
: a person obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices ; especially : one who regards or treats the members of a group with hatred and intolerance
? big·ot·ed \-g?-t?d\ adjective
? big·ot·ed·ly adverb
Ok?
By explanation of the title. Your beginning of post 83 by libeling another poster i felt to be completely unwarranted and made me wonder "what does this have to do with the thread" ;-)
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#92 - NewFazer
Your temper is plainly greater than your powers of concentration. I did not post #83.
An apology, I think is in order.
OK?
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Has it occured to anyone else that there is a direct and causal link between the volatility of a market and the quantity and quality of the doom & gloom media blitz currently in progress?
If Robert Peston was working for Osama Bin Laden then he could not have achived a more magnificent result!
How do we both stay informed and not panic? Is there any solution other than to shut down the source of the panic?
Can democracy survive in a seemingly determined self fullfilling prophecy of despair?
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Threnodio # 93
Indeed I am guilty of a lapse in concentration. Trying to do too many things at once.
You did not write #83 and you did not libel JJ, Go1 did that. But you did write #91 so the rest of my answer stands. No apology. Bigot remains an accurate description of Go1.
My temper is serene, i try never to indulge in anger. However, Go1's constant raking up of holocaust and calling for those whose opinions differ from his own to be thrown into prison I find tiresome and, like you, as having no place in this thread.
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A rate reduction wont help me, I am on a fixed rate like 1000's of other people, so no help for me then!
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bcumulus (#90), threnodio (#91)
A number of contrivances which have elements of truth to them but which don't stand rigorous scrutiny have been promulgated since the end of WWII (and especially the 60s), largely to deter statism and to encourage free-market Liberal-Democracy. That's what this has got to do with this thread.
Look closely into these 'noble lies' (which have elements of truth to them) and one sees how mass psychology in the service of a particular type of politics/economics works.
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#89 NewFazer
There is vast evidence that the holocaust did happen and associates of my family were either there or saw it first hand. There are way too many people in my category for it not to have happened. #90 sounds similar just on this thread.
Moreover I don't believe that you people do believe what you say. Thats why I think the risk, and I accept that it is a risk, to free speech is reduced as that does not cover the right to lie in my world.
To have somebody attempt to lecture on bigotry when they are apologists for some of the greatest mass murderers in history is contemptible and laughable.
You people take yourselves so very seriously and fortunately the rest of the world does not.
I would point you to "The Producers" and a mirror!
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#92 NewFazer
You say "your beginning of post 83 by libeling..."
Look that poster is the one that has posted that drivel at various times so it is not "libel" it is a statement of fact.
Facts. Not twisted logic.
As for the relevance argument I am pretty tired of hearing racist slurs being added in to almost every thread. Sometimes its more subtle, sometimes not.
But in any event the nature of the poster is relevant.
I am happy to be known as somebody who strongly opposes propaganda streams with a purpose of promoting racial hatred and denying the holocaust ever happened.
If you're not happy - I am!
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#99 JadedJean
Ha ha!
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101. At 12:44pm on 28 Oct 2008, thegangofone
For fairly obvious reasons, I have no clue what is going on. And until this comment is moderated or deleted I guess no one else will either.
Nowt like running an effective communications business.
I'm sure if we had Jonathan and Russell on here swapping witty banter, even if pre-recorded and post approved for mainstream broadcast and not some niche blog, none of this unpleasantness would be taking place.
Would it?
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PROJECTIONS AND DEMANDS ON THE ECONOMY
(Previous submission had live links to three PDF files, which may have inadvertently broken House Rules. Acccordingly, I have changed the links so that readers can, if they wish, cut, paste and paste the links. I have put spaces between the letters P D F so they are no longer live - so please remove the spaces when cutting and pasting).
The projections in #15 were taken from a talk given by Richard Lynn back in Oct 2006. The two guestimates for 2031 and 2061 look on the wild, high side, but even taking lower 'convergence' of Asian TFRs into account (e.g. Pakistan TFR=4.7 (2001) but Pakistanis in UK 2.9 (2002)) the mixed, Asian and Black populations are still projected to grow much faster than the White British (overall TFR for UK is between 1.6 and 1.8). The British Chinese birth rate tends to be quite low too. One must bear in mind that the ability x TFR correlation is negative and it looks like it's largely is genetic see earlier links to Rushton and Jensen (2005)).
For more conservative trends, here's a link to a PDF presentation by Coleman in 2007:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
To supplement, here's an even more conservative estimation of future growth of the population by ethnicity:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
Here is another summarising trends in TFRs:
[Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
That some people can't see how this is likely to have a major impact on the economy somewhat surprises/worries me.
Finally, a paper by Murray on NCLB and some more here
Just as the UK has been putting divisive pressure on our Maintained Schools by turning failed schools into Academies, the USA has been doing much the same via the creation of privately run, publicly funded Charter Schools. This is yet further statism eroding anarchism, with promises to do the impossible given the empirical data.
But is this now a necessary evil given our demographic trends?
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A working link to the September 2008 Murray audio.
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thegangofone - Have a look at the first two paragraphs of this review (the film was shown on TV not long ago). Then think about last night's Newsnight piece on sectioned people and typhoid. It wasn't until after the war that antibiotics became widely available. People had to be quarantined or they risked spreading the bacteria which produce typhus (the vectors being flea/lice) and typhoid. Grouping large numbers of people in one place created great risks of disease during the war, hence there were great efforts to fumigate/isolate and disinfect. These problems became even more critical towards the end of WWII when the allies crippled German supply lines.
Thousands of people died in Belsen after liberation whne the camp was managed by the British. Was that murder? Millions of Germans were killed during WWII. Was that murder?
Please give this some thought along with the allied denazification programme after the war.
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HEGEMONY
Furthermore, one needs to look very carefully at the geopolitics between 1943 and the late 40s. Germany was to either to suffer draconian reprisals (if Stalin had had his way at the Tehran Conference in 1943) or have been reduced to an agricultural economy under the Morgenthau Plan (which was in part implemented). The USSR was playing a clever game for Europe after the war. It wanted the Western allied controlled part of Germany to hate the Western allies so that they would welcome Soviet liberation. When the USA realised this, they did a volte face and implemented the Marshall Plan which poured money into Europe and effectively ended the denazification programme.
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GUILT FOR YOU, POWER FOR ME?
In 1948 Truman recognised the self-proclaimed State of Israel, despite Marshall's objections. Today, more Jews live outside Israel than they do in this specifically created refuge from anti-Semitism. One should ask why. Might it be because there are financial and other advantages to be gained at the expense of others elsewhere by playing the victim whilst taking advantage of trust in a risk based culture which encourages group competition rather than collectivism and statism?
If this were indeed the game, would it not show up statistically in terms of group over-representation (relative to other groups)? How would one explain this? In equal opportunity preoccupied democracies, wouldn't such a glaring example of inequality attract critical analysis, if not criticism? Or would such scrutiny be deemed offensively anti-semitic and lead some to demand censure?
If all groups/races were equal, would one not expect proportional representation as a function of population base-rates?
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#94 themalina
You are surely deluded!
Do you really think the entire financial world are hanging on every word that BBC financial reporter Robert Peston either says or writes?
What do you really believe precipitated this financial crisis?
Some say capitalism without bankruptcy is like religion without hell. Others say that simple expansion of the money supply followed by the inevitable contraction explains the boom and bust cycles.
Please see the graph in the link below which clearly charts the expansion of the money supply in the US (charted as debt as a percentage of US GDP). The US Fed meticulously records this type of information.
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/07/has-deleveraging-even-begun-not-for.html
Some one, some where decided to end the party (er I mean orgy of debt) and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Robert Peston.
So who allowed this situation to develop and why?
Maybe our political elite and their wealthy backers might have the answers. I wonder if they will be holidaying in Corfu again next year!
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#98 Go1
Let's get this straight, I am neither a holocaust denier nor an affirmer. I make no statement either way. But I do ask questions. Like; what was the total world Jewry in 1930? What has the birth rate amongst Jews been since then? And, what is the total world Jewry today? I would welcome your answers to these questions (along with your sources) as it is something I cannot equate with some of the major claims made about the holocaust.
To call JJ a 'holocaust denier' is to make an untrue statement. Nowhere on this blog or anywhere else to my knowledge has JJ made such a denial. JJ is kindly person, genuinely distressed by today's world of lies, deceit and intolerance. Anyone less likely to be found 'goose-stepping' I cannot imagine.
Some might demand that your libelous comments be deleted from here, but that would not be in the interests of free speech would it?
As for your 'comment' at #101, well now you are descending into childishness.
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#109 - NewFazer
"Like; what was the total world Jewry in 1930? What has the birth rate amongst Jews been since then? And, what is the total world Jewry today? I would welcome your answers to these questions (along with your sources) as it is something I cannot equate with some of the major claims made about the holocaust."
These figures, assuming them to be available in a reliable format, would not help one bit. Indeed they could be very misleading. The victims of the holocaust were almost entirely European Jews and reliable census figures do not exist simply because many countries did not require that people include information relating to faith or origin in the count. You could not relate the number of survivors to, say, the population growth in Israel since so many have come from outside Europe. You could not factor in figures for victims of anti-semitic activity outside of the Nazi occupied territories, especially the former Soviet Union. The only value in these statistics would be give further ammunition to those who would deny the undeniable.
What is undeniable is the combination of witness evidence, extensive media material and the Nazi's extraordinarily efficient record keeping. You might, at a pinch be able to fabricate or exaggerate any one of the above but, in combination, they are irrefutable.
To those who question the voracity of this evidence, I say only this. Live with it in memory of the 7 million who were denied that opportunity
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As someone who is here simply as an observer and commentator, it seems to me that the answer to this unseemly scrap is very simple and that is to directly ask the poster in question - do you accept or reject the generally held historic view that the holocaust did happen on a scale which is widely believed?
If the answer is 'yes', your comment at #109 is well founded. If the answer is 'no', thegangofone's comment is correct. Unless JJ is in some jurisdiction, it is not an offence in the UK or the US to take the latter view so no harm can be done by being honest.
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#111 threnodio
Very eloquent and completely right.
You may be right about the unseemly scrap but I think its more complicated than a yes or no.
So I have a legal-ish question.
They are saying they do not deny or affirm the holocaust.
But they use phrases like "Holocaust Schmolocaust", cite statistics - you made a much better stab at demonstrating the overwhelming evidence for the holocaust by the way - suggesting it either did not happen or was exaggerated.
NewFazer has problems "with the major claims of the holocaust".
I see the statistics as a cynical subterfuge but they could believe that I suppose.
But at the end of the day they say they are neither for or against the view the holocaust happened.
I have already told them on the web team thread that hell would freeze over before I apologised - unless they were more specific.
A previous attempt trawled up something like "bad things happened" but that could mean anything.
Perhaps my suspicious mind has got the better of me.
You are an immaculate judge and a lawyer. I will accept the verdict.
Am I being unfair in describing them as deniers on the basis that they don't affirm it and suggest it either did not happen or was exaggerated?
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At 10:46am on 29 Oct 2008, BankSlickerminustheR wrote
"Some one, some where decided to end the party (er I mean orgy of debt) and I'm pretty sure it wasn't Robert Peston.
So who allowed this situation to develop and why?"
It may have just been the entire situation just got out of hand, wasn't regulated.
Not in the sense of FSA etc, but the commonsense of you can't have infinite growth in a finite
system. No one said hold on, where is this going.
A professor once said to me "never attribute to maliciousness what sheer incompetence can achieve on it's own".
I knew it was going to crash from the trajectory it shot of at in 1991. Trajectory being a curve similar to our Kondratieff Waves.
I got put into a position where I couldn't do anything.
So I told politicians, media, Government, police etc but nobody with even the slightest leverage to do something did anything.
I even wrote about it before hand in a specialist economics journal, but no one did anything.
I take what you say but I still believe the 'system' did it, itself.
But still have an open mind on it, never dismiss anything.
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#111 threnodio
An unseemly scrap indeed. It is pointless to continue when one of the protagonists refuses point blank to accept anything other than his 'belief'. An merely takes delight in insulting my forebears and making childish comments. A complete waste of time.
As for me, I honestly can't answer one way or the other. There is a mass of evidence to be examined on both side and I have only so much time.
I have already said I neither deny nor affirm.
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threnodio (#111) You are still missing the point. You asked what relevance this has to this thread but when told you ignored the explanation just the thegangofone has. It is not relevant what A, B or C personally believes. What matters is whether events which occured in the early 1940s have since been used for political/hegemonic and affirmative action purposes, specifically, in order to reinforce free-market Liberal-Democractic anarchism and to censure statism both domestically and abroad.
That is the relevance of this to this thread and other current events covered in the NN blogs. Look at Article 139 and follow it up, bearing in mind how this relates to the EU Lisbon Treaty, and how it's the culmination of what was set in place after WWII. This, at root is all politics. There are 1.4 billion Muslims out there and unlike Jews and Europeans, they are growing. The soon to be strongest nation on the planet is Democratic-Centralist (Stalinist), and the SCO is growing.
Your remarks about numbers in Europe are nonsene. Great efforts were taken to identify how many Jews there were in Europe and the USSR. What is not understood by enough people is that at the end of the war, the Eastern camps were in Soviet territory, as was large parts of Europe. Displaced Persons were 'lost' in Soviet' occupied territory. NewFazer is correctly pointing out that when the Cold War ended in the late 80s many of the descendents of 'lost' Jews turned up and the numbers in the world today are remarkably close to the number in 1930 (about 15m - most European Jews were in West Russia, i.e Pale areas, and Poland). After the war, these areas were in the Warsaw Pact! Given below replacement level fertlity in Europe, that's pretty much what one would have expected if millions had NOT died. Most people just presumed losses because they didn't have contact with people after the war, but there was a major DP problem. A survivor' was anyone in Europe who was not lost in' The Holocaust'. Europe was a mess after the war, most of the talk of 'The Holocaust' started up again in the 60s when USA backed Israel was fighting the Soviet backed arabs (I presume you know of Abass's Russian supervised PhD ? As I say, politics even Marshall of Marshall Plan fame saw these problems coming, and yet you and thegangofone APPEAR detemined to reinforce the problem rather than learn from history.
There is no doubt that many Jews died. Many died from typhus etc and many would have been killed for poltical reasons in the East, i.e because of their intimate role in the Bolshevik state. WWII was a war against a) international Bolshevism which Jews were disporportionately involved with and still are (Trotskyism/Neoconservativism), and b) international finance, whch again, Jews were disproportionately involved with and still are.
Jews clearly did not like being driven out of their homes and businesses in the 1930s/40s, and their hatred of German and other states implementing National Socialism was and still is entirely understandable - it threatened/s their way of life. But Jews do not exactly endear themselves to thse of nations they have settled when proclaiming allegiance if not nationality to another state, or waging a political/economic war on Muslims when large numbers of Commonwealth citizens are a) British and b) Muslim. There are many peole in teh UK who quite liked our welfare state and planned economy under Old Labour. Many have seen it torn apart by free-market loving de-regulators. And it doesn't help when so many of the Russian Oligarchs are non-dom 'expatriates' living in Israel. One has to be blind not to notice that given the population of the planet, these people are disproportionately from a tiny ethnic group of 14 million. Why should this behaviour not be pointed out and censured? Why should the behaviour of those on Wall Street etc not be censured as predatory? I repeat, there are 1.4 billion Muslims and they are growing whilst Europeans are in negative growth because of their Liberal-Democratic Judaic values.
What I and many others are concerned about today is that until we better regulate and until we better enforce that regulation, we will continue heading towards what looks like a disaster. I've explicated how and why this happening demographically. Whether you or thegangoone or anyone else grasps this, like it etc, doesn't really come into it if what I say really is happening.
It is.
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#114 NewFazer
Juts in case I seem to recall saying your forebears paid the ultimate price in the fight against the Nazis. Commendable.
I have added to the other thread.
But you continue to cite the statistics but neither confirm nor deny.
Perhaps I should have said but that is a standard far right (what I call right) argument to deny it ever occurred. I am not certain but I think Irving and Toben relied upon it.
So what do the statistics actually mean to you then as they neither prove nor disprove anything in your mind?
In my mind its spurious information.
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SOLIPSISTIC CONSENSUS IS NOT TRUTH: IT'S THE ROAD TO DELUSION
thegangofone - NewFazer is correct. You do not apear to have the same conception of truth as those trained in science, logic, phiosophy or even law (which is 'pursuit of truth'). Truth is simply not a function of how many people agree with one. It is not a function of consensus, or argument.
I suspect you may not have a science degree or any training in logic, law or philosophy, which probably explains why you don't understand the things which have been explained to you.
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Personally I do believe Jews were killed by the Nazis in WW2. This is from books, TV etc and friends of my dad who got to the camps more or less first.
So I don't want to be branded as a Holocaust denier.
About 40,000 children die everyday because of lack of medical attention or even clean water.
That is 400,000 in 10days. 4 million in around 4 month ish. 12 million per yearish.
The natural communities of the world are being destroyed. Forests burnt, animal and plant species made extinct.
We fly planes halfway round the world to drop bombs on children, because someone imagines non existent weapons.
The oceans are being poisoned and treated like a sewer or dump.
Soon very soon there will be nothing left. A beautiful planet full of life destroyed.
If and I mean if anyone survives. When people look back from 60 years into the future.
It will not be the Nazis who will be the butchers of history, the evil empire.
It will be us. Those who committed the crimes, those who were complicit, those who benefited and those who did nothing to stop them.
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thegangofone addresing threnodio like a high priestess "You are an immaculate judge and a lawyer. I will accept the verdict. Am I being unfair in describing them as deniers on the basis that they don't affirm it and suggest it either did not happen or was exaggerated?"
People used to write sketches about this sort of thing you know
Maybe we should bring another Nat Rothschild in on this (is SPIKED really a Trot journal??).
.
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#114 - NewFazer
#112 - thegangofone
#119 - JadedJean
OK, I own up. My background is legal, not scientific. I do not practice, however (I am not in the UK).
As to the question of whether or not the holocaust occured at all, that seems to me very simple. It is unimaginable that a crime of such magnitude would ever come beofe a normal (domestic) court but if it did, the prosecution would be require to demonstrate that the crime did take place and that, on the balance of probability, the defendent committed it and could be shown to have done so 'beyond reasonable doubt'. There is no doubt whatever in my mind that were Nazi Germany to be put on trial again for these allegations, they would be found guilty and sentence accordingly.
As to the scale of the atrocity, I think any reasonable person would have to agree that this will never be precisely known. Assiduous record keeping was a hallmark of Nazi efficiency and it is therefore possible to calculate with almost complete accuracy the number of people who were willfully put to death. There are also records relating to some specific events which occured outside the camp where it is possible to calculate the number of victims, for example the Baba Ya massacre in Kiev. What may be more questionable is the number who died from starvation, deprivation or literally worked to death under forced labour programs. An educated guess is not unreasonable to achieve. If someone is known to have been taken away by force, can be traced to one of the holding camps, recorded as being transferred to a concentration camp and never seen again, the balance of probability rule comes into play. In my view, any sensible juror would conclude that it was reasonable to assume that they perished. Some of these people will, of course, have died of natural causes but would not have done so had they not been exposed to extremes of privation and other life threatening risks which were avoidable. This, too, is therefore murder.
I would argue therefore that you can show that at least 6.5 million people perished as a direct consequence of the 'final solution' policy and it would not be unreasonable to suppose that a further 1-1.5 million people unaccounted for were also victims.
So where that leave the sceptics and deniers? The sceptics are basically arguing numbers. They see the folly of denying the event ever occurred so they take refuge in the possibility that the numbers are rather less than history assumes. To them I say this. In law, a murderer is a murderer. Once guilt has been established, the number of victims is relevant only to the extent that it may have an effect in sentencing. I do not say that the numbers are unimportant, they are very much so. But they do not go to culpability or otherwise.
Deniers are, in my view, in a whole different league. They take great swathes of historically reliable evidence and simply write it off as hogwash. You have to have some sympathy for them because they are dangerously close to being certifiably insane.
So to your question, gangofone one:
"Am I being unfair in describing them as deniers on the basis that they don't affirm it and suggest it either did not happen or was exaggerated?"
Probably yes. A fairer term would be fence sitters. In my experience, fence sitters tend to be moral cowards. They are afraid of the truth but also of the consequences of not confronting it so they fall back on balances of probability which are neither balanced nor probable. But there is certainly nothing wrong with challenging them - indeed I did so myself in an earlier post when I asked the question directly. What you almost certainly not doing is libeling them. As long as you are reasonably confident of your ground, you are I think, entitled to call them out and require an answer if they are minded to give one. If they are not minded to give one, I think you are entitled to infer at the very least ambivalence on their part.
I have tried to give a fair and balanced view but I feel I cannot leave this topic without expressing my own then I will sit down and shut up.
It is well documented that at least 960,00 Jew, 75,000 Poles and 19,000 Roma were willfully killed at Birkenau (Auchwitz II) alone. The figures for Auchwitz I are less reliable because Soviet prisoners of war were not recorded because of breaches of the Geneva protocol but it is thought that at least 70,000 died there. Auchwitz III was a forced labour utility. Commandant Rudolph Hoss himself estimates the death toll at 2.5 million gassed and a futher .5 million died of natural causes. Please remember that this is just one camp. I can quote figures for the others but it is wholly unnecessary. The figures for Auchwitz alone are sufficient to demonstrate the scale of the slaughter. Anyone who has lived (as I do) in eastern Europe, comes into contact with people who have personal knowledge of not just the events but the conditions on an almost weekly basis.
To deny or even to question these facts in my view makes the champions of the Flat Earth Society look like sensible human beings. In seeking to delude others, they are merely deluding themselves. As an exercise in futility, I can think of few parallels. The sadness is that rewriting history does not serve any purpose. It is 85 years since the first Nazi concentration camp was opened in 1933. Soon there will be no more first hand witnesses. We owe it to them to respect their testament and we owe it to the victims to remember their suffering. As someone put it to me recently, it is right to forgive only never forget. Germany has gone on to be a powerful voice for good in the world, an example of a modern democracy and a home of liberal values. If they can acknowledge live with and overcome the past, it is time the lunatic fringe followed course.
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threnodio (#111) You are still missing the point. You asked what relevance this has to this thread but when told you ignored the explanation just the thegangofone has. It is not relevant what A, B or C personally believes. What matters is whether events which occurred in the early 1940s have since been used for political/hegemonic and affirmative action purposes, specifically, in order to reinforce free-market Liberal-Democractic anarchism and to censure statism both domestically and abroad.
That is the relevance of this to this thread and other current events covered in the NN blogs. Look at Article 139 and follow it up, bearing in mind how this relates to the EU Lisbon Treaty, and how it's the culmination of what was set in place after WWII. This, at root is all politics. There are 1.4 billion Muslims out there and unlike Jews and Europeans, they are growing. The soon to be strongest nation on the planet is Democratic-Centralist (Stalinist), and the SCO is growing.
Your remarks about numbers in Europe are nonsense. Great efforts were taken to identify how many Jews there were in Europe and the USSR. What is not understood by enough people is that at the end of the war, the Eastern camps were in Soviet territory, as was large parts of Europe. Displaced Persons were 'lost' in Soviet' occupied territory. NewFazer is correctly pointing out that when the Cold War ended in the late 80s many of the descendents of 'lost' Jews turned up and the numbers in the world today are remarkably close to the number in 1930 (about 15m - most European Jews were in West Russia, i.e Pale areas, and Poland). After the war, these areas were in the Warsaw Pact! Given below replacement level fertility in Europe, that's pretty much what one would have expected if millions had NOT died. Most people just presumed losses because they didn't have contact with people after the war, but there was a major DP problem. Others exaggerated the losses for political reasons. A survivor' was anyone in Europe who was not lost in' The Holocaust'. Europe was a mess after the war, most of the talk of 'The Holocaust' started up again in the 60s when USA backed Israel was fighting the Soviet backed Arabs (I presume you know of Abass' Russian supervised PhD? Look into who supervised. As I say, politics even Marshall of Marshall Plan fame saw these problems coming, and yet you (at times) and thegangofone persistetly APPEAR determined to reinforce the problem rather than learn from history.
There is no doubt that many Jews died. Many died from typhus etc and many would have been killed for political reasons in the East, i.e because of their integral role in the Bolshevik state. Internees hated their captors and amongst the internees there were also criminals, psychopaths and highly politically motivated communists who would have said anything to get their captors punished/discredited (and this was known and a lot of the witness reports were rightly disregarded). This was war. WWII was a total war against a) international Bolshevism which Jews were disproportionately involved with and still are (Trotskyism/Neoconservativism), and b) international finance, which again, Jews were disproportionately involved with and still are.
Jews clearly did not like being driven out of their homes and businesses in the 1930s/40s, and their hatred of German and other states implementing National Socialism was and still is entirely understandable - it threatened/s their way of life. But Jews did not exactly endear themselves to nations they settled amidst by proclaiming allegiance to, if not nationality of, another state, or by waging a political/economic war against Muslims when large numbers of Commonwealth citizens were a) British and b) Muslim. There are many people in the UK who quite liked our welfare state and planned economy under Old Labour. Many have seen it torn apart over the last 30 years by free-market loving de-regulators/anarchists, but many watching Newsnight today or reading these blogs will be too young and naive/arrogant to grasp what's really been going on. It doesn't help Judaism one bit when so many of the Russian Oligarchs are paraded as non-dom 'expatriates' living in Israel having ripped off the Russian people who were essentially Old Labour Webbians. Think about the exaggerations about the USSR during the Cold War when thinking about 1930s-40s Germany. One has to be blind not to notice that given the population of the planet, the Oligarchs and the Neoconservatives etc are disproportionately from a tiny ethnic group of 14 million. Why shouldn't such statistics be pointed out and censured as undemocratic? Why should the behaviour of those on Wall Street etc not be censured as predatory? I repeat, there are 1.4 billion Muslims and they are growing whilst Europeans are in negative growth because of their Liberal-Democratic Judaic values. The Muslims may have lower mean IQs, but today we don't see the Chosen Ones leading the way in terms of financial and social responsibility do we? I think they should. That's why I and others are so critical. Others should be more critical too. If people have ability but abuse it by taking advantage of less able people they deserve severe criticism and sanctions.
What I and many others are concerned about today is that until we better regulate and until we better enforce that regulation, we will continue heading towards what looks like a disaster. I've explicated how and why this happening demographically. Whether you or thegangofone or anyone else grasps this, like it etc, doesn't really come into it if what I say really is happening.
It assert it is and I have supported it with empirical evidence.
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It - is a logical quantifier or pronoun,a place holder. In logic and language it stands for something. It is a referent. To deny or affirm something one has to be able to state, extensionally, what it is that one is affirming or denying. This is just a matter of basic logic, languae and truth functional analysis, but logic and science is clearly not something which the gangofone has much time for, instead, thegangoone's penchant is nefarious rhetoric. The cognoscienti might recall Quine on this matter.
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#117 Jaded_Jean
So what is the truth you are expressing?
So far I have heard you DON'T deny the holocaust happened. But you cite statistics questioning the numbers of survivors. But clearly these statistics mean nothing to you because you DON'T deny the holocaust happened. So why cite them? Its a logic path like spaghetti junction.
And actually I have two Masters of Science.
I am not following any link from you - but why mention Nat Rothschild? What was the point? Hmmm.
I am not a Trot, not even a socialist.
But thank you because I am reassured that I was right all along.
By the way I have never heard of SPIKED.
threnodio I am off to bed and your post has not come through so I'll have to wait for the verdict should it be offered. Best wishes to you whatever.
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thegangofone (#123) "So what is the truth you are expressing?"
That if you listen to what you are told, follow links etc, you will learn something and abandon mistaken beliefs. But you don't listen and you say you don't follow. The outcome is inevitable. This is why Newfazer was so critical and exasperated I submit.
I therefore recommend that you don't take too seriously much that you tell yourself as it seems only minimally in touch with reality.
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#120 threnodio
I take on board everything you say and I am sorry if this episode has awakened bad memories and feelings. My connections are remote.
Therefore with some temerity I would like to ask for a second opinion, if you felt inclined to answer. I am myself against any restrictions on free speech. Leaving aside the "fence sitters" on this blog I have moved, to my own surprise, in favour of legislation against holocaust denial as was used in Austria against Irving. I don't favour prison but think criminalisation would deter many. There is the other side of the coin - martyring the lunatic fringe and providing a platform. If I recall you were against 42 days and probably have a very informed opinion.
I will refrain from using the phrase "holocaust denier" - and I did interpret some remarks as being that and clarification usually resulted in tangential references without substance.
But I will continue to challenge them whenever I see the inevitable dubious statistics and race connections usually referring to IQ.
#124 Jaded_Jean
You are confused as we are talking about holocaust denial and I think it happened and you are neither for or against the view that the holocaust happened.
Therefore I cannot "abandon mistaken beliefs" as I see only proof and you have offered nothing against and hold no opinion. As above - several times I think - if the statistical, and flawed, argument you proposed does not prove to you it did not happen then it is irrelevant. So what is the argument against the holocaust having happened to being exaggerated?
I will however not describe you as a holocaust denier in future - but I feel free to say you neither affirm nor deny it.
The reason being it puts into perspective the smokescreens and tangential arguments that you offer regularly - and the fact that when push comes to shove there is no sound basis to your arguments.
So reference Quine all you like. All I would say to readers is that some things speak volumes about a person - and maybe saves people the time taken to reference Quine.
You are neither for or against the view the holocaust happened but you do like to quote statistics about the survival rates of Jews from the 1930's.
If people don't read the signals then I did at least try to highlight the facts.
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#125 - thegangofone
You are absolutely right. I was vigorously opposed to 42 days, I am outraged that the inequality of extradition arrangements between the UK and the US and I am so horrified at what Jacqui Smith is proposing that I would probably never set foot in Britain again were it to become reality. Now, given that I am at heart a libertarian who instinctively cringes as the first sign of control freakishness but am also emphatic in my views about the holocaust, the idea of criminalisation has given me pause for thought.
I have come to the conclusion that:
1. The UK has in the last decade or so become legislation happy. Almost any excuse to pass new law - most of it bad law - is seized upon. I just don't see the need for yet more paper.
2. One of the consequences of freedom of expression is that, from time to time, we are all going to hear and read things which we find offensive. It does not follow that they should be denied the opportunity to express it. To draw on my analogy with the Flat Earth Society, we all know it's madness but do we really want to lock them up? In any case, we have traditionally locked up fruit cakes in asyla, not prisons.
3. I tend to think that holding people who spout nonsense up to public ridicule is often more effective than criminalising. I completely agree with your remark about 'martyring the lunatic fringe'. Does sending Irving to gaol achieve anything? Probably not. Would extraditing Toben to Germany have served any useful purpose? It already has. It has made a number of wealthy lawyers a bit wealthier.
To be honest, I tend to put holocaust denial in the same category as indecent exposure. Of course some people are going to be offended but the vast majority when confronted with Flash-a-mac are going to break down in hysterics. Maybe, ultimately, this is the best approach
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rather than play this game of statistical one-up-manship, it might be relevant to consider the political attacks JJ makes in order to ram home his/her delusions. His/Her comment at #115 that: "There is no doubt that many Jews died. Many died from typhus etc and many would have been killed for poltical reasons in the East, i.e because of their intimate role in the Bolshevik state. WWII was a war against a) international Bolshevism which Jews were disporportionately involved with and still are (Trotskyism/Neoconservativism), and b) international finance, whch again, Jews were disproportionately involved with and still are" is pure fascist rhetoric, straight from the pages of Mein Kampf and the lunacy of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Goebbels and Hitler too spoke loudly of the "Juedisch-Bolschewistische Weltverschwoerung". ONLY in the national socialist view of world history was WWII a war against those things. As I suspected, many posts ago on this thread, JJ has hidden and dangerous motives for the supposedly scientific "truth" he/she propounds and sitting back and watching as this develops has been most illuiminating. Thank you JJ.
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ON NOT LOOKING BEHIND THE CURTAIN
thegangofone "You are confused as we are talking about holocaust denial".
No, you forget that I brought this matter up in the context of current economic and political events. You have persistently failed to grasp that context and have tried to turn the issue into something else.
Let me provide some pointers which might help you and threnodio grasp what I have been saying. It is about politcal propaganda and mass psychology.
1. Most Jews in Europe in the 1930s were in Poland and Western areas of the USSR (about 6.5m). In the early 1940s Other European Jews were forceably migrated to the East, which, at the end of the war was in the Soviet sphere of influence - off limits to the Western allies. let's be very clear on this. This means that at the end of the war, most European Jews (dead or alive) were in areas where the Soviets ruled.
2. Note that it was Stalin who wanted the war crimes trials (after initailly wanting 50-100,000 german staff executed) and that it is likely that he reasoned that the show trials (where normal rules of evidence did not apply see the Articles I liked to) and the draconian US Morgenthau Plan and SHAEF denazification PsyOps programmes would make the Germans hate the Western allies and thus make the USSR system more attractive to them (this is why I covered Dexter White (Jewish Soviet agent) who was instrumental in with the Morgenthau Plan a long time back). This was a major post war battle for hearts and minds.
3. Note it was Churchill who announed the Cold War in his Iron Curtain from the Baltic to the Adriatic speech and that decades later Gorbachev was to end the Cold War with his speech at the same location). The evil empire cut itself off from the West. AND ALL WHO LIVED AND DIED THERE.
4. Read the Wikpedia piece on Abbas and his PhD See also rference 4 part V. Where did Abbas do his PhD, under whom? Why is that important?
5. Look up the link to Hayek and 'freedom', deregulation, totalitarianism. What have I been talking about? Orwell was a Trotskyite. They have much in common with free-market deregulators, anarcho-capitalists like Thatcher/Keith Joseph.
6. Look at the topics of the threads in this blog.
Finally, take this on board: you do not behave like someone with any training in science.
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Yes, Threnodio, I am a libertarian by nature too, and feel that laughing at the deniers may be the best course of action for the moment, even though- or maybe precisely because - this is no laughing matter. But we must be vigilant and not make the offenders appear as harmless fools. The coming economic storm will force many to the margins, where they will be preyed upon by the deniers and the fascists.
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If this conversation ever drifts back to economics, could someone let me know?
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#128 - JadedJean
You state the following but (cleverly?) drawn no conclusion:
"1. Most Jews in Europe in the 1930s were in Poland and Western areas of the USSR (about 6.5m). In the early 1940s Other European Jews were forceably migrated to the East, which, at the end of the war was in the Soviet sphere of influence - off limits to the Western allies. let's be very clear on this. This means that at the end of the war, most European Jews (dead or alive) were in areas where the Soviets ruled".
Should we infer that this leaves open in your mind the possibility of a significant degree of responsibility resting with the Soviets?
I would be interested to know of any connection between international Bolshevism, Zionist conspiracies, the world of banking and finance or political activism of any kind and any of the following:
René Blum, French-Jewish choreographer, founder of the Ballet de l'Opera
Tadeusz Borowski, Polish writer
Rebbi Menachem Mendel Taub of Kaliv
Hana Brady, died in gas chamber at 13.
Bronislaw Czech, Polish skier- 24 times Polish champion
Robert Desnos, French poet
Laure Diebold, French resistant, Compagnon de la Libération
Xawery Dunikowski, Polish sculptor and artist
Benjamin Fondane, French-Romanian author, died October 1944.
Anne Frank, teenage diarist from Amsterdam
Kurt Gerron, German-Jewish actor and film director
Dora Gerson, German-Jewish cabaret singer and silent-film actress
Pavel Haas, Czech composer
Stefan Jaracz, Polish actor and theater director
Regina Jonas, born 1902, first ordained female rabbi in Germany, rabbi at Neue Synagoge in Berlin
Yitzhak Katzenelson, Polish-Jewish poet
Peter Kien, Czech artist, poet and librettist
Maximilian Kolbe, Catholic Saint
Irčne Némirovsky, French/Russian writer
Józef Noji, Polish track and field athlete
Felix Nussbaum, German-Jewish painter
Grigol Peradze, famous Georgian ecclesiastic figure, theologian
Erich Salomon, German photographer
Otto Selz, German-Jewish Psychologist
Edith Stein, Catholic Saint, died 9 August 1942.
Viktor Ullmann, Austrian Composer active in Prague
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QUANTIFIERS AND GAUSSIAN DISTRIBUTIONS: ALL=NOT(SOME) AND SOME=NOT(ALL)
citizenthompson (#127) Yes, I was describing the Axis powers' perspective which was anti-Comintern, and not anti-Socialism in One Country (Stalinism) until summer 1941. The diplomatic papers leading up to the war clearly document what the war was about and Hitler repeated this in his political testament. It would help if everyone left out the invective.
Those who follow these posts should appreciate that particular vested interests are a being expressed and at times emotively defended.
We need to learn from history and science. There are individual differences which are sustained from generation to generation through assortive mating and endogamy. This means that some classes of behaviour are more frequent/prevalent in some groups than in others and these behaviours are enduring for the same reason. One that is notable is the statistical difference between the sexes in the propensity for objective, rational (spatially based) analysis. Sexual dimorphism is not dichotomous but a continuum conditional upon exposure to testosterone (see the ,a href="http://www.aboutkidshealth.ca/HowTheBodyWorks/The-Prader-Scale.aspx?articleID=7715&categoryID=XS-nh4-03">Prader Scale). because of gene barriers (e.g. assortive mating and endogamy), brain-gender and behaviour is therefore also likely to subtly differ by ethnic group.
Fighting for one's beliefs when one's beliefs are possibly false, is surely a formula for trouble rather than enlightenment?
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SCOTOMA
citizenthompson (#129) "Yes, Threnodio, I am a libertarian by nature too.."
You still do not appear to understand that Libertarians caused the financial crisis.
Perhaps you just think Libertarianism looks good?
This is the pathos/tragedy of intentional (and intensional) opacity.
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#132 - JadedJean
"Fighting for one's beliefs when one's beliefs are possibly false, is surely a formula for trouble rather than enlightenment?"
So is putting others to death because they don't share your view of the world.
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JJ, you were certainly not quoting or describing anything in #115, you were stating once again one of your "incontrovertible truths" as far as I can make out. I am well aware of what the Axis Powers aims were in their protocol. I was merely pointing out that you appear to endorse and share them. There is certainly no distancing going on your post above. If you are going to quote something you disagree with then there should be quotation marks and some sort of disclaimer, surely? I urge everyone to check for themselves above.
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#132, JJ, yes, a libertarian by nature, i.e. in the best of all possible worlds, but in your case I am increasingly prepared to make an exception.
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#134 threnodio
"So is putting others to death because they don't share your view of the world"
I couldn't agree more. Same as calling for the imprisonment for those who do not subscribe to your particular opinions.
Go1 reminds me of nothing so much as the footballer who, on being lightly touched on the shoulder by a member of the opposing team, falls to the ground clutching his knee and howling in pretended pain.
Give it up JJ, you will get nowhere with people as prejudiced and wantonly blind as these. You have more useful things to do I know, as I have. Stop wasting your time.
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
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#133 - JadedJean
"You still do not appear to understand that Libertarians caused the financial crisis".
The financial crisis was not caused by libertarians. It was caused by the greed and sheer stupidity in some cases of those to whom the freedom was gifted. I doubt if you would find too many dissenters from the view that greater regulation is now required but it makes it no less regrettable.
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MERE SCOTOMA OR DYSGENIC SIGNS OF THE TIMES?
citizenthompson (#136) threnodio (#134) What do you make of this? Is this libertarianism, or is it another one of those 'exceptions'?
Looking through some of the replies I have had, the standard rules of logic don't seem to apply and all sorts of peculiar attributions appear to be being made instead.
Perhaps it's one of those 'nature' things?
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#139 Jaded Jean
How enlightening your links! Such gentle, caring, liberal mined people.
Incidentally I have heard much the same opinion voiced by Muslims where any would be destroyer of the infidel is assured that even the rocks will call out to give away those hiding behind them.
Fundamentalist Christianity is not much better. All these groups have in common their sheer intolerance of those with differing views. Barrie, you are so right. The ape confused by language is an evil creature.
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#139 - JadedJean
What do I make of it?
I will have no truck with people who would have you believe that you solve anything by killing. It matters not one jot to me whether it is a rampant rabbi, a bunch of nutters flying hijacked planes into buildings or nation of xenophobes gassing an entire community. They are profoundly evil and to be resisted.
However, they all have one thing in common. They seek to terrorise people into giving up the most basic freedom any person has - the right to be themselves. Every time we curtail that right in the name of 'national security' or whatever, we hand them the victory. If, instead of destroying our way of life, they terrorise us into doing it for ourselves, their victory is all the sweeter. My brand of libertarianism does not allow that my personal freedom be curtailed for the greater good. There is of course a price to pay.
In economic terms, the world will be paying the price for some time to come but the problem will not be addressed by draconian controls if for no better reason than that there is no guarantee that the controllers will be any better than the controlled. The only basis on which I find additional regulation acceptable in the current climate is that the regulators are answerable to governments which in turn are answerable to the electorate. Remove that safguard and the whole thing becomes unacceptable.
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#138 threnodio
You see where I am coming from!
Its like being attacked by a toothless sheep that spouts seemingly intellectual and articulate propositions but on analysis they are totally flawed and insubstantial. Try and nail them down!
You never quite get "Springtime for Hitler" but it is certainly supremacist and elitist. When you listen to these people you would think they were Nobel prizewinners. I wonder what many of the Jewish Nobel prize winners would make of this gibberish right now.
In my world the Crackpot Tendency are an annoyance only but I still feel the need to make sure that they do not get to air their views unchallenged.
But people will see them for what they are in the long run.
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LIBERTARIAN HUMAN RIGHTS
NewFazer (#140) I guess they do live in rather stressful times, and I suspect large numbers of Jews in Israel and elsewhere will be appalled by such behaviour But my point here is really just to encourage others to think back to the even more distressing times of 1939-1948 and what people are inclined to say and do out of revenge. It would also help if more contributors here made a better effort to understand how to use statistical statements about classes. In language, one talks about individuals as elements or members of classes. This is a logical/mathematical point.
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#142 - thegangofone
Toothless shepherds tgoo, that is the problem. They will tiptoe gingerly through the tulips and leave the sheep to trample roughshod over the grass. People were always going to see the Nazis for what they were but that didn't stop them putting 7 or 8 million people to death did it?
But it is our brand of libertarianism which is mainly responsible for us freely to indulge in these exchanges so perhaps we shouldn't be too harsh. We do I suppose have the comfort of some anonymity from each other if not the authorities. Speaking for myself, I have never made any great efforts to conceal who I am and correspond with a few regulars from time to time. But then again, I have nothing to fear from my beliefs. I wonder whether that might be the case with some of the posters on here.
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#143 - JadedJean
The first concentration Nazi concentration camp was opened in 1933. It was not until "the early 1940s Other European Jews were forceably migrated to the East" (your words). Gunskirchen, Gusen, Mauthausen and Ebensee were the last camps to be liberated in May, 1945.
So by specifying 1939 to 1948, you are already excluding the first six years of the policy but extending it by three years at the other end to allow the possibility of an alternative explanation. This is not reliance on history, it is a distortion of it.
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I think what JJ is trying to do has another explanation. Of course it is true that concentration camps were opened as early as 1933 but the extermination camps were opened only between 1939 and 1941. They were then liberated by May 1945. But by extending the date to 1948 JJ manages to imply that the continuing use of the camps by the Soviets for non-extermination purposes (although thousands also died under their rule) shows a continuity of criminality which can be put down to reasons other than the express extermination of Jews, Communist, Gays, Roma and Sinti etc. by the Nazis. It's a typically sly piece of Irvingian obfuscation.
Anyway, back to serious news. what about that whole Brand Ross thing then. Certainly far more important than global economic meltdown. How silly we have been to go on about such trifling matters.
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#146 - citizenthompson
Not you too!
I can only repeat what I posted elsewhere. If we have to be pre-moderated and those two twerps are only post-moderated, there is something very wrong back at Auntie's.
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THE PRICE OF LIBERTARIANISM
threnodio (#145) If you can not work out what the referents are in any of my posts, just ask me to explicate, don't presume and falsely assert that I am distorting history. My referent for 1939-1948 was WWII 1939-45, and its aftermath including the vindictive parts of the Morgenthau Plan which were implemented under JCS 1067 the most intense period of denazificaction which is why the camp footage was compiled to demoralise the German people, to the reversal of JCS 1067 in 1948 when the Economic Cooperation Act of 1948 (the Marshall Plan) became law. I have explained the context of all of this in this thread but instead of addressing what I have been saying, you continue to ignore all of that and rather egocentrically, if not ethnocentrically, focus on personal/group interests (along with others) which has little to do with what I've been writing about which, I remind you, is how political propaganda has been used for years to reinforce liberal, laissez-faire, free-market capitalism in the West whilst vilifying statism. The cost has been dire when one looks at our demographic trends. You should perhaps look more closely at these trends. That is, you should look more carefully at what I have said is driving dysgenesis and depopulation instead of telling us in #141:
"My brand of libertarianism does not allow that my personal freedom be curtailed for the greater good. There is of course a price to pay."
You and others really do need to look into just how high that price actually is. Look up biological fitness.
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#148 - JadedJean
The inference of extending 1945 to 1948 is that the Final Solution and the aftermath are both part of an ongoing process. This is what I am questioning. The fact that the methodology is similar does not take away from the fact that they are quite separate. The objective is different, the perpetrators are different and it does not involve mass systematic killing. I have not denied your thesis, I say merely that the dates mislead. Similarly, at the other end of the time frame, the fact that the Final Solution does not come into play until much later is not especially relevant. The fact that the National Socialist practice of segregating dissenters and 'social misfits' in the most atrocious conditions as early as 1933 is, in my submission, significant.
As to the substantive question, much more relevant to the topic in hand, I really do not need to be lectured about what I may or may not say about libertarianism. It is my view that the strict control and regulation of an economic model by the state is demonstrably as flawed as the deregulated models. The total collapse of the Soviet model is proof enough of that. My argument is that erring on the side of over-regulation spills over into the wider social sphere to the detriment of individual personal liberty to a degree that I find unacceptable.
It is not that I have not understood what you are saying. I simply do not happen to agree with you. I am aware of just how high that price can be and I still consider it a price worth paying.
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General Thought on Genetics.
It isn't racist to point out that races have characteristics in common, and that there are differences - different parts of the world have different environments and the factors which favour survival are different.
In "western" societies why wouldn't natural selection favour what we (in the west) call intelligence if this is a trait which our societies value and reward ?
This might also explain why those of Chinese origin show even greater IQ scores, their society selected for this trait for longer than ours did.
Isn't this is how evolution works ?
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threnodio (#149) " I really do not need to be lectured about what I may or may not say about libertarianism. It is my view that the strict control and regulation of an economic model by the state is demonstrably as flawed as the deregulated models. The total collapse of the Soviet model is proof enough of that"
You do need to be lectured as you clearly have not grasped that one of the reasons the USSR's system collapsed was through deregulation (Perestroika) under Gorbachev, another was the help given by the Chicago Boys and Jeffrey Sachs.
The People's Republic of China regarded the USSR as revisionist after the death of Stalin. The PRC is Democratic-Centralist and its constitution is essentially Stalinist. It is now headed as head of the SCO to be the world super-power.
Your grasp of political reality and history is even more naive than thegangofone's.
Try to follow what I've written, and try to learn rather than dashing off another impulsive post letting me know what your personal feelings/opinions are. You don't disagree with me as you clearly don't understand enough of what I have been writing about to be able to do that (yet). In this respect you are behaving very much like thegangofone/citizenthompson. It's almost adolescent narcissism.
This is well meant criticism. Learn from it rather than arguing.
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MAN OF THE YEAR 1938
threnoldio "I am aware of just how high that price can be and I still consider it a price worth paying."
Which just goes to show that you have not understood at all. Extinction is the price. Look at the TFRs and demographic projections for the USA and other Liberal-Democracies.
Hitler, Mussolini and Roosevelt did what they did in the 1930s (essentially running planned economies) because of the catastrophic financial mess which had been brought about by anarcho-capitalist 'democratic' deregulators peddling the merits of 'freedom'. Yet you and others of your ilk are still naively arguing for precisely this.
I suggest that you read this 1939 Time article very carefully, bearing in mind what I've said about Trotskyism (purged in the USSR after 1928) becoming Neoconservativism (Trotskyism in the USA with a makeover), and how right wing Reagan, Thatcher and Blair etc fronted 'Liberal-Democratic free-market anarcho-capitalism whilst breaking up their own nation states.
On the other hand, if you want to see history repeat itself, just keep thinking the way that you are.
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#144 threnodio
I take on board what you say and of course I have given it thought. Its one of the reasons why I don't regard this as harmless eccentricity. I agree also that there is a "sickening smell from under the stone" that does make you wonder about what lies beneath.
#147
I agree on that VERY strongly. I did wonder about an "inside job" but its probably doubtful.
If these people are of the ilk that their postings suggest though, and you know this already from the above, its not worth killing too many brain cells trying to communicate with them.
They will cheerfully square off
"Freedom of speech" on the one hand and
then "...anarcho-capitalist 'democratic' deregulators peddling the merits of 'freedom' ".
Its a propaganda stream.
They have had plenty of time to clarify things and avoid misunderstanding so I think my suspicions are well grounded. I usually satisfy myself with just challenging them and making sure it does not appear to the world that they are typical.
But this does need sorting out by the Beeb so I hope they are keeping an eye on this.
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"You do need to be lectured . . . Your grasp of political reality and history is even more naive than . . . Try to follow what I've written, and try to learn . . . You don't disagree with me as you clearly don't understand enough . . . It's almost adolescent narcissism".
And this is "well meant criticism"? It reads to me a lot more like condescension but then what do I know?
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I am sorry, GO1, I am out of here. Doubtless I shall be open the accusation of intellectual cowardice but if people are going to talk down to me, they owe it me to secure an elevated position before doing so.
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Well,well,well!
This forum has a refreshing atmosphere of intellectual pursuit.
Anyone really interested in discovering the facts of the recently discussed matter would do well to visit www.vho.org/
and download their free books by noted historical scholars.
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The detailed scientific analysis of buildings features heavily I might add.
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RACISM, SEXISM AND ANARCHISM
threnodio and thegangofone
As I have said elsewhere, presumptuous, insightless adolescent narcissistic histrionics are at the root of many of our current financial and social problems. Narcissistic entitlement is why our schools are in such a disciplinary mess, why we have rising violent crime, and why our prison population has nearly doubled since the beginning of the 1990s.
There are dramatic differences in both educability and criminogenic risk across different ethnic groups/races, just as there is in population growth (TFRs). Muslims, who have a high TFR are actually under-represented when it comes to criminogenic risk, and yet in recent years we've seen liberal, free-market anarchists trying to secularise them even though Islamic morality is possibly what accounts for their low criminogenic risk. It is the low TTRs of secular Europeans which is the major problem.
Which [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator] predominantly drove the 'war on terror' and to what end?
Instead of sharing what they think, more people should go and look at the objective data and their trends. But few will, as far more have been taught to verbally argue rather than observe, analyse and extensionally predict. That's what happens when one feminizes education. That's why the older religions are so 'sexist'.
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threnodio, I wrote that rather badly re the dates, but there is little evidence that there were extermination camps until Eastern Europe, and in particular Poland, was firmly occupied by the Nazis. The concentration camps which existed from 1933 onwards were dark enough scars but they were not extermination camps. I think to elide that difference actually plays into the hands of the neo-nazis and the David Irvings of this world (actually, is JJ David Irving do you think?). Equally, the camps were used by both the US and the Soviets after 1945 but again they weren't used for extermination purposes. That crime is one entirely to be laid at the door of the Nazis and anyone who attempts to deny their existence is, by definition at least, a sympathiser with the Nazi cause, if not themselves a Nazi. And I am certainly not one of them. Despite my doubts about it I rather rejoiced when Irving went to prison.
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#155 threnodio
I understand totally. I frequently feel the need for a sick bucket once you grasp what these people are about.
But in case you read this remember they are not "people" - it is just propaganda and their remarks are intended to drive away people and then they get to use the blog as a propaganda tool.
Don't let them get to you.
But I think I am out of here too.
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MANUFACTURING CONSENT
citizenthompson, threnodio, thegangofone
I repeat, whether the holocaust occured as many assert, whether it was exaggerated or whether it was under-reported, is not the point for the case which I have been making. The case that I have been making is that this entire issue has been abused for political purposes (as were the purges in teh USSR in the 1930s) in order to reinforce Liberal-Democratic free-market anarcho-capitalist deregulative principles and thereby erode statism (which includes Old Labour policies of nationalisation of the means of production (Clause IV) and economic central planning).
Do yourselves a favour - learn some history and politics.
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#161 JJ
I seem to recall your bewilderment recently, when other contributors were not responding to your powers of persuasion / logical argument.
Perhaps Cassandra was also cursed with an acerbic tongue?
Having originally withdrawn from entering this debate, I feel minded to raise a point that struck me at post #107.
In this JJ has asked the question:
"If all groups/races were equal, would one not expect proportional representation as a function of population base-rates?"
Although innocuous on first inspection, it does raise the question of why should this form of representation be contrived in the first place. The premise of proportional representation is that this ensures a fair and unbiased reflection of the population by a certain (empowered) sub-set / sample.
Is this because there is an inherent reliance within each group/race of trusting only their own type?
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Hawkeye_Pierce (#162) I'm not entirely sure I've understood the end of your post, but what I said is a core assumption of basic Statistical Hypothesis Testing. One assumes the Null Hypothesis and collects observations (data) to see if observed cell values differ from expected cell values (chance) by a certain amount depending on one's sample size (N). One has a statistically significant association (i.e a lawful functional relation) operating between variables (if the measure is nominal) or significant correlation (if the scale is ordinal or higher). It is just basic scientific method to assume chance (equality) to begin with and to reject that assumption on the basis of how the cell frequencies turn out.
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(#163) "One has a statistically significant association (i.e a lawful functional relation) operating between variables (if the measure is nominal) or significant correlation (if the scale is ordinal or higher) IF THE NULL HYPOTHESIS IS REJECTED.
Effect size is an important factor, not just significance but the relationships which I've made reference to are large and it surprises me that more people have not commented on what's clearly illustrative of the myth of equal opportunity.
Hawkeye_Pearce (#162) "The premise of proportional representation is that this ensures a fair and unbiased reflection of the population by a certain (empowered) sub-set / sample. Is this because there is an inherent reliance within each group/race of trusting only their own type?"
Yes, it looks hat way. Is this not revealed by assortive mating, i.e. like pairing and mating with like? In other species this is even known to happen in terms of histocompatibility and the immune system (see the MHC on chromosome 6). Like prefering like shows up in choice of friends. Families tend to trust their own family members before others as they tend to share more genes, and races are of course just extended families. One can see some of that happening in this blog, i.e. individuals fsignalling they are from the same extended family and then supporting each other and being hostile to a non group member who appears to be threatening their hegemony.
We know that neo-phobia is a universal unconditioned (innate) behaviour (a protective, defensive behaviour against the unknown a sine qua non for plasticity?), so xenophobia is too.
It's Cannutism to legislate against nature.
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#163
The statistical hypothesis testing that you are referring to is actually one of ensuring the integrity of descriptive / inferential statistics. A topic not without controversy itself:
http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Working-Start-Thinking-Cohen/dp/0415368308
There are two main points I would like to make here. In cases where you only measure a subset of the total population, standard deviations (or standard error of the mean to be precise) can provide confidence that the differences between groups is a fair assumption of whether or not a difference is actually present in the population that you are trying to measure. It is not in itself a measure of the extent of difference (instead there are effect size measures for this).
Secondly, it would be helpful if you could indicate whether or not your references contain research that is not so much descriptive (i.e. trying to prove group differences), but is attempting to link causes with effects.
Ultimately, this is an obfuscation. My question is about the underlying premise behind your request for such a proportional representation. It has no bearing on any descriptive measures of each of the sub groups in question, but instead is one of whether or not you feel you can trust people who are not from the same group as yourself.
Perhaps I am naive in expecting a confirmation or rejection of this hypothesis.
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Hawkeye_Pierce (#165) In my time I've taught and examined statistics at post-grad level and I'm no fan of significance testing by itself.
"Secondly, it would be helpful if you could indicate whether or not your references contain research that is not so much descriptive (i.e. trying to prove group differences), but is attempting to link causes with effects."
As I've said repeatedly, what I've said shows up at the population level too (see our annual SATs and GCSE data since 2001 when PLASC started, and this sort of data has been available for decades in the USA SATs). If one follows the links anyone can see the consensus for themselves. I fear many won't though as it challenges their prejudices..
The treatment of Jim Watson last year was absurd, he was simply saying what the established consensus is. When Richard Lynn was interviewed for 'The Moral Maze' last year pointing out that there are at least a hundred studies all saying the same thing, the panel just accepted it. Still, there's still no telling some people anything I guess as most these days seem to prefer arguing to science.
professioally, I know quite a bit about this subject and sometimes I wish I didn't as it's been rather revealing about the persistence of human ignorance and prejudice in the face of abundant empirical evidence. There are dire demographic trends confronting us and most people have their heads in the sand.
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CONCLUSION: THE ROAD TO HELL...
Most who have responded to what I've been presenting here and elsewhere appear to have either been unable or unwilling to follow what's been presented, or resorted to a variety of avoidance/argumentative behaviours which effectively amount to little more than denial.
If representative, this does not bode well, as the demographic patterns and trends to which I refer are now very well documented internationally, and are likely to be the expression/consequence of selection and reinforcement of behaviours which prima facie had good intentions but demonstably has dire long term but insidious consequences, none of which may have been intentional, just the consequence of deregulation and dysgenic/entropic 'market-forces'.
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JJ, Gof1, Citizen Thompson, Hawkeye, NewFazer, threnodio etc
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=oNRv0fBDrw0
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#168 The German National Socialist party was a LEFT wing SOCIALIST party which practiced central planning, strictly regulated business and despised speculators. If anything the 'goose-steppers' would have been wearing Obama-Biden buttons.
Hitler was in fact very like Roosevelt and Stalin. That these three ever went to war with each other (or Cold War in the case of Stalin and Truman) had far more to do with those who were pulling Roosevelt's strings, and even, possibly, Stalin's at the time. Trotskyites and their allies, who are always champions of Libertarian anti-statism as this is good for business, and Libertarians are not nationalists (except in one small part of the Middle East).
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A NOT SO FUNNY OLD GAME
What we've seen displayed as opposition to the thesis that I've explicated in this thread (and elsewhere) is an instantiation of how those who (especially) benefitted from the 'collective guilt' programme implemented by the Psychological Warfare Division of SHAEF after WWII in Germany, which was then subsequently spread throughout European and the USA's academia by anti-statist free-market economists such as the Austrian and Chicago Schools. This is supplemented with inquisitorial threats, emotional hyperbole, nefarious rhetoric, appeals to family memory personal and other ad hominem abuse in order to resist any challenge to Libertarian 'market-force driven deregulation which over the past decade or so, has culminated in predatory, naked capitalism.
For a guide to hegemony (group competition) and why the same people tend to oppose talk of race and intelligence, look closely at the population base rates of New York City (#5) bearing in mind the mean IQs and SDs of the other ethnic groups. This is about obfuscation, wrong footing the opposition and profiting from immigration.
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ON TANGLED WEBS AND SAFE-HANDS
For those who have followed the case made above, the Third Reading of the Employment Bill in the House of Commons on 4th November 2008 is worth watching from about five hours in. It will shortly appear in Hansard. Although 1992 legislation got rid of the 'closed shop', the debate still illustrates how delicate the balance is between the rights of groups/collectives vs those of the individual. It raises the spectre of 'Are you, or have you recently been a member of...(or held views which..)' and it doesn't even have to be a party (whatever that is).
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