Panglossian Notes

Here we go again with the phantom Nobel Prize for Economics

The Press Release reader on the hourly CBC news has just told his audience that the Nobel Price for Economics has been announced. That’s great, except there is no Nobel Prize for Economics. There is the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel but that title would likely challenge the reading and verbal skill set of the current CBC Press Release reader.

Simply translating the title the reader could have said the the Swedish Central Bank’s prize for economics. Sticking old Alfred’s name in the title is meant, I think, to attached some of the caché associated with the real Nobel Prizes to the mumble-jumbo now characterized as “economic science”.

I note, but only for interest: The Nobel family dissociates itself from the economics prize,

the curious story of the Nobel Prize for economics,

and, of course, Phillip Mirowski’s interview during the Bretton Woods meeting of the Institute for New Economic Thinking.

Small Things Get Me Thinking

It’s the small things that set me slightly ajar. For example, writing that penicillin was invented, as William Easterly does, in his FT January opinion piece on the do-goodery smugness of some Western elite when it comes to world poverty. [

Now I would say PTSD was invented i.e. it’s a concept, like some other mental disturbances. It hasn’t been lurking out there in the unknown under some rock, just waiting to be discovered or revealed by a serendipitous accident. Rather it is, as Allen Young said, a ““harmony of illusions," a cultural product gradually put together by the practices, technologies, and narratives with which it is diagnosed, studied, and treated and by the various interests, institutions, and moral arguments mobilizing these efforts.” [ http://j.mp/1jSD9Rr ].

Which doesn’t mean people don’t suffer, just that cultures invent ways of dealing with “things” and I’d say some inventions are more successful than others and not necessarily for medical reasons.

This is a succinct review of Young’s book by Edward M. Brown M.D., Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Brown University -http://j.mp/1jSExnl [note he writes the construction of the diagnosis of PTSD in the review]

What I’ve not yet read much about, though I think about it and have my own view, is why has PTSD become the disorder du jour, so-to-speak. The military conflicts the West has been involved in, so far, in the 21st century have been relatively minor in comparison to the horrors of the 20th century, so why the rash of PTSD? Derek Summerfield noted that “... the diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder has become almost totemic.” Summerfield weote further : “Originally framed as applying only to extreme experiences that people would not expect to encounter every day, it has come to be associated with a growing list of relatively commonplace events: accidents, muggings, a difficult labour (with healthy baby), verbal sexual harassment, or the shock of receiving (inaccurate) bad news from a doctor even in cases in which the incorrect diagnosis has been rescinded shortly afterwards. Increasingly the workplace in Britain is being portrayed as traumatogenic even for those who are just doing their jobs: paramedics attending road accidents, police constables on duty at disasters, and even employees caught up in what would once have been described as a straightforward dispute with management.” http://j.mp/RAB3uO

First thoughts on seeing an essay by David Sainsbury

How do you get past paragraphs noting first one, Thomas Friedman, then, Richard Florida, both popularizers of trendy “half thoughts” to determine if there might be anything of value in an essay? Swallow hard and grind on, I guess

Just publishing, after some time , John Creamers story as he told it:

Ordinary's Account, 14th October 1772.

John Creamer was indicted for returning from transportation before the expiration of his time, for which he was transported. The record of his conviction was read; by which it appears, that he was tried in May session, 1769, for stealing eight guineas one half guinea, a quarter guinea, the property or John Lothian, in the dwelling house ofWilliam Figg, for which he was capitally convicted, but afterwards received his Majesty's mercy upon condition of transportation for fourteen years.

John Creamer was born in the Western part of Ireland; and while he was young, his parents came over to England. When he grew up, he was put apprentice to a taylor in Holborn. His master dying, he was left to shift for himself; but as he had served some part of his time, he was able to get his bread, and supported himself. Soon after he married, and having a young family, and being at that time out of work, he was led to commit the robbery. Being desired to tell if he had committed any other, he said, “No, sir, nor did I ever keep company with, or knew any one that did go out a robbing, that was my first and last fact; nor have I done any thing of the kind since I came over, but have worked hard to maintain my family.Being told that he should have staid abroad his time, he answered, "That he had heard that his wife and children were in the parish work house, and he thought that if he came over, he could work in the country, and send for his wife and children, and nobody would find him out." He said that he came over last March, and did work in the country, and lived with his family. But, unfortunately for him, he came to London to see a friend on some business, and going to drink with him at a public house, a man came in that knew him, who immediately gave information of him, and he was taken up.

He thought it hard that he should suffer, as his intention was honest and good. Being a member of the church of Rome , he did not attend the chapel; but was ready and willing to receive my instructions, and behaved, while under sentence of death, with decency. He was 25 years of age.

I should be writing an essay

on neo-liberalism as I've sorted out a starting point, at least, for myself in the testing of the quality of my reading and thinking in regard to the slippery concept of liberalism and it's new bastard child. But, after getting roughly organized last night, I became restless or, maybe shy, about starting to actually put my jumbled thoughts on paper, so-to-speak, so I looked for a diversion before hitting the sack and avoiding making a start. Trials have been on my subconscious mind lately, having just finished a 3 week stint of jury duty at the local court house, thus I thought of continuing my watching of the series Garrow's Law online.

The series takes place in the 1780's, maybe 100 years after the glorious revolution and the enshrinement of, for some males, a bill of rights in the UK. But, as portrayed in the TV drama, the "justice" institution, at that time, is struggling to get marginally close to what we now might consider an appropriate structure. The program makes for reasonable drama, if nothing else, I think, and certainly amuses me, for awhile, when I watch an episode or two.

However I was distracted from even watching Garrow last night as I wandered off to search the files of cases from the Old Bailey via a link the BBC had put up on the website of their TV series. It was bizarrely fascinating to rummage around in the old case files and to trace one or two individuals through their various run ins with the courts, some to simply disappear from the files, after a point in time, and others to eventually run out of luck and get death.

An example of the latter would be John Creamer, by all accounts not a particularly bad person, and someone who today, as long as we can maintain some semblance of our modern humanism against the longing of conservatives and pretend elite progressives for the return of a form of feudalism, would likely be considered a credit to any nation of which he was a citizen.

Creamer was convicted of theft in 1769 and sentenced to death - death prior to the early 1800's was administered by short drop hanging, a bloody lovely way to go. However, he "received his Majesty's [George III] most gracious pardon" in 1770 on condition that he be transported for 14 years. Prior to 1776 - you must know the significance of this date - transportation was to the Americas i.e. the now USA [hmm Aussies celebrate that their nations' founders were the then riffraff of the UK but I've never seen it mentioned that the USA was a dumping ground for more than half a century for the UK's "criminals" prior to 1776; maybe it doesn't quite fit into a particular part of an elaborate national myth].

Poor John seems to have gotten word while in the Americas that his wife and little ones were in even more dire straits then the time he committed his first "crime" to care for them. So somehow John managed to get back to the UK and hide in the country side outside London being a family man - this feat of the poor soul is, I think, in itself a friggin adventure untold.

But John, though Irish, didn't seem to have our luck and someone recognized him while he was out for a drink - ah the bloody Irish, eh; the drink always does you in - and in September 1772 he is again before the beak at the Old Bailey and returning from transportation before time allotted was death.

John took the short drop on October 14, 1772 just across from one of the numerous Pret a Manger shops that dot modern UK. Actually you can go into the shop pick up a very good sandwich and head over to check out the massive horse head and look towards the Marble Arch and know that's where the convict John Creamer straggled at the end of a rope about 240 years ago.

After reading the Old Bailey files I'll not so easily have lunch by the Marble Arch.

So what is a reasonable person to make of the sack race in the USA*

The Progressive Case Against BO

The Price of a Black POTUS

Matt Taibbi responses to part of BO’s Rolling Stone interview

Glenn Greenwald on the Rolling Stone interview with BO

___________________________

*I’ve come to think of the hilarity known as a US presidentially elect as simply an old fashion sack race with the exceptional characteristic, seemingly only really present in the USA, where the race is between a sack of bull-shit and a of horse-shit.

Of Empires and emperors, eh.

I somehow found myself on this page in my morning reading and, of course, immediately noticed the graphic showing the last 5 POTUS with a Roman name associate to them. Hmm, where to start: does anyone who knows even a little think the elder George Bush could be vaguely considered the great Augustus the first actual Roman Emperor. The problem with the graphic is the USA hasn't yet descended into the pit of chaos far enough to give an Augustus his opportunity to have a "revolution" and replace the Republic with an old fashion empire.

I thought at one time BO might be the USAs Augustus, no such luck. Remember when Augustus actually shifted the republic to an empire there was a massive blossoming of the arts, culture and all things I really like.

Likely I should just recognize that in my life time it will be just like Roman times and centuries of chaos and internal conflict before we get a real Augustus - if we should live so long, eh.

Just got back

from seeing a friend from the North. Just a quick coffee but great to see her. When I walked over to meet the beauty I followed my usual route: past St. Pat's Cathedral and the row of houses used by the Irish workin men who built it; I cut through the World Exchange Plaza to check on the belugas and narwhales suspended from the high high ceiling then past the stag outside the Manu Life building and on to the British High Commission to make sure the Stump Girls are still O.K.. The Girls were stolen back in 1999 when they hid out in amongst the shrubs in the front garden. Now they are out in the open but around the side of the bed, eh. I loved when they hide in amongst the shrubs and was troubled when they were stolen. I always now have a very quiet chitchat with them to make sure they are O.K. being in the open and visible to the usual completely stupefied Ottawa mob of silly servants.

The Girls were O.K. tonight so I had them pose for me again - [they are such show-offs don't you think. I do, but love them none the less]:

Fridgenator People

Anyone who reads Steven King should know about fridgenator people. They are the characters that live in or around your refrigerator and cause things to mysteriously happen in or on it. I've always thought they are related to the sockenator people who live in and around washing machines and make off, when you are not looking, with a single sock from your favourite pair of them - bastards.

Anyway, I came downstairs this morning and my fridge people had fled the refrigerator door and where cavorting on the dining room table. I shot a few pictures of the buggers as they frolicked before herding them back to the door to plan their next diabolical mishap for my preserved food.

The, to be expected, rapidly expanding, secret 'No-Fly List'

"More and more Americans who have done nothing wrong find themselves unable to fly, and in some cases unable to return to the U.S., without any explanation whatsoever from the government," said Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project. "A secret list that deprives people of the right to fly and places them into effective exile without any opportunity to object is both un-American and unconstitutional."

via www.commondreams.org

So I'll wring my hands, but, I know that once you have a bureaucracy it's difficult, if even possible, to turn it off from it's role, which may have been precisely defined to start, but becomes vague over time. This recent list making mania is a nice example of this general rule about man made organizations which are devised to protect an ideology, rulers - elected or otherwise, and, the all time favourite, national security which really encompasses the other two I think.

The only difference between harsh or brutal, authoritarian regimes and our democratic authoritarian models, regarding the information gathered about us, I think, is that we have a sense we can openly talk about it. In harsh regimes you can't talk about it openly, as individuals, and their forms of media are usually directly control by the government authorities. Whereas ours publish occasional stories about the matter thus supporting the illusion of a free press; providing good cover for a corporate controlled agenda - which maybe good or bad; and allowing most to luxuriate in complacence about our wonderful society.

The list mania seems reminiscent of the East German Stasi, an unchecked bureaucracy which, as all seem to do, just keep running, almost like perfect perpetual motion machine but producing next to nothing of any value. But a useful tool for terror and wholesale or selective oppression.

And to think, if Cullen Murphy is correct, it all may have started with the Inquisitions and you know how long those little fandangos went on. A good summary of Murphy's thesis was in The Publishers Weekly and it chillingly rings true for aspects of the current list making mania of undesirables, I think:

"… while the inquisitions most often are associated with the Church, they arise anytime an organization, state, or institution possesses and uses tools—such as censorship and torture—to stoke and manage suspicion, intolerance, and hatred of the other. Inquisitions require a system of law that can be administered with uniformity, the power to conduct interrogations and extract information, a bureaucracy with a large staff of individuals to administer it, a capacity to restrict the communications of others, and a source of power to ensure enforcement. Murphy powerfully shows that the impulse to inquisition can quietly take root in any system—civil or religious—that orders our lives."

Publishers Weekly

Re-sending: Thinking of the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize and Richard Feynman

Some other than me must wish Feynmen or his elike were more plentiful.

I don't like honors, they're rotten:

Just say, eh!

Attawapiskat

The chief of the Attawapiskat reservation said last night that the reason Harper’s government has unilaterally imposed non-1st Nation outside rule over her people is that his government has been embarrassed by the Red Cross having to fly into her land and attempt to save her people. Bear in mind that the federal government, currently controlled by Harper, has the fundament responsibility for all 1st Nations people in Canada. Harper has been saying that the reservation received about $90 million over 5 years from the federal government thus, he seems to be implying, what is the problem for the 1293 Nation members? After all that is about $69,600 for each individual or about $13,900 per year.

Actually for the fiscal year ended on March 31, 2011 the reservation received about $15,160 per person of federal funding so Harper was basing his defence on broad averages it seems. It also seems he likes to quote 5 year totals because, I think, it sounds like a lot of money to the average Canadian and gives his rather mean spirited, aka, I think, modern Christians, base something to chew on as well as talking points to attack anyone questioning his rule. Gad those large numbers say it all don’t they.

Well any one, can check the Attawapiskat’s audited books and financial statements as they are available online here: http://j.mp/rsjGBd. My check, [don’t you wish sometime that one, it could be anyone of the oodles of journalists, is that what they call them, working for any news organization might have gone to actually have a look at the books so-to-speak before just copying down what Harper et all have said] didn’t reveal anything earth chattering.

Oh, by the way, I wonder what the Band’s audit firm in Timmons might think of Harper seizing financial control and indicating a forensic audit will take place. Has there been some skulduggery here? Remember that a forensic audit is, in simple terms, just the application of auditing skills to situations that have legal consequences. Maybe but I think not.

Anyway since I know a bit about Nunavut and particularly its finances I thought I’d do a few back-of-the-envelop comparison for just one fiscal year between the situation for the average citizen of the territory versus an Attawapiskat resident. I picked 2010 the last year the Nunavut government has completed and published the AGs audited public accounts. I’m not doing any tables, as I said these are rough comparisons. So:

in 2010 Attawapiskat (Att) received $19.6 million in federal transfers, Nunavut (NU) received $1.231 billion; that’s $15,160 per resident of Att and $36,969 per NU resident.

in 2010 Att spent $30.522 million to run its community, NU spent $1.505 billion to run the territory; that’s $23,606 per resident of Att and $45,187 per NU resident.

And just one final little factoid, to provide a bit of perspective regarding Harper’s $90 million over 5 years talking point, over the same 5 year period Nunavut received from the federal government $4.975 billion. The come back to my factoid would be that 1st Nations don’t pay income taxes so lets reduce Nunavut’s federal transfer total by the amount its taxable residents pay in net federal income taxes. I’ve used CRAs interim statistics to get an approximate indication over the 4 years from 2006 to 2009 and grossed up 2009 by about 6% for 2010. This gives me a total of $375.6 million so net federal transfers to Nunavut over 5 years, assuming its residents make no real contribution to the federal government, would be $4.975 billion - $.3756 billion or $4.5994 billion.

I wonder how the per capita Nunavut federal transfers compare to the number Harper has been mentioning for Attawapiskat? Lets see:

Att $90 million divided by approximately 1,293 residents divided by 5 years, as we said above, = $13,900; and

NU $4.5994 billion divided by approximately 32,000 residents divided by 5 years = $28,746

I’ve no general conclusion from my little trip into audited public statements for two very remote places in Canada that are, under the best of conditions, extremely challenging to govern and administer. I do, however, have a feeling in my stomach that we have just seen, yet again, the nasty and mean spirited Harper and his government if they are cornered, embarrassed or opposed.

Yanis Varoufakis at UniteScotland on his New Book and the Greece & the Eurozone Troubles

Below is an interesting 4 part interview that Yanis Varoufakis gave while on a tour in the UK, to launch his new book "The Global Minotaur: America, The True Origins of the Financial Crisis and the Future of the World Economy. In Part1 of the interview, he gives a broad outline of his thesis which reminded me a bit of some of Giovanni Arrighi's work. A good review of the book, by Brian Collins, was recently published in the LARB and can be found here . Part 2 & 3 has Yanis providing his analysis of the Greek & Eurozone troubles while, in Part 4, he gives his assessment - not flattering - of how some social democrats have responded to the troubles.

For interest sake, a review, by Joshua Clover, of Giovanni Arrighi's last published book, before he died, "Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the 21st Century" as well as his "The Long Twentieth Century: Money, Power and the Origins of Our Time" was also published in the LARB two months prior to the review of Yanis' book.

I'm muddling both of their approaches in my head just now and though Yanis book is more up-to-date and specifically does deal with the current mess I haven't compared them in detail. This is because I've only read the Introduction to The Global Minotaur as I wait delivery of my copy from Amazon UK.

Incidentally you can read the Introduction online at e-Books. The link to the Introduction online reader is here. I found the it amazingly succinct, and written in a light style for my mind, weary of the seemingly endless disjointed and ideological analysis inflicted, by various pundits, on anyone attempting to sort through the practical and theoretical mess of this latest capitalist schmozzle.

Economics, Empire

Remembering and noting page 156 of The Third Reich at War & the situation for ordinary Greeks

I've noted on Twitter regarding demonizing any particular national group, in this case some Greeks versus Germans, for past acts is a dangerous and I think foolish course. David Rieff deals with the whole bloody mess in his book Against Remembrance and his recent essay in Harper's: After 9/11 The limits of remembrance (also you can listen to him on ABCs Late Night Live talking to Phillip Adams about it here )

Confabulating current economic messes with past horrors is a mistake made by the panicked and fearful. These individuals need some sense that history is not going to repeat itself in any form. This sense can come from a respected political leadership. However in the case of Greece the political elite appears bankrupt and completely inadequate for the current crises. I, also, suspect now that the elite is considered illegitimate in terms of its governance and maybe even be being considered by some as quislings. In other words Greece's political class is now kaput.

The vast majority of the present day population of Greece, over 83%, was born after the situation described below in an excerpt from Richards Evans 3rd volume of the history of the Third Reich titled The Third Reich at War. However that doesn't stop myths and other elaborate tales being woven about the time and events by families and passed down as grievances ready to be trotted out nationally by any wishing to add to or benefit from the present chaos.

As German troops entered Athens, tired, hungry and without supplies, they began to demand free meals in restaurants, to loot the houses in which they were billeted, and to stop passers-by in the streets and relieve them of their watches and jewellery. One inhabitant of the city, the musicologist Minos Dounias, asked:

Where is the traditional German sense of honour? I lived in Germany thirteen years and no one cheated me. Now suddenly . . . they have become thieves. They empty houses of whatever meets their eye. In Pistolakis’s house they took the pillow-slips and grabbed the Cretan heirlooms from the valuable collection they have. From the poor houses in the area they seized sheets and blankets. From other neighbourhoods they grab oil paintings and even the metal knobs from the doors.

While the ordinary troops were stealing what they could, supply officers were seizing large quantities of foodstuffs, cotton, leather and much else besides. All available stocks of olive oil and rice were requisitioned. 26,000 oranges, 4,500 lemons and 100,000 cigarettes were shipped off the island of Chios in the first three weeks of the occupation. Companies such as Krupps and I. G. Farben sent in agents to effect the compulsory purchase of mining and industrial facilities at low prices.

As a result of this massive assault on the country’s economy, unemployment in Greece rocketed and food prices, already high because of the damage caused by military action, went through the roof. Looting and requisitioning led to peasant farmers hoarding their produce and attacking agents sent from the towns to collect the harvest. Local military commanders tried to keep produce within their region, disrupting or even cutting off supplies to the major cities. Rationing was introduced, and while the Italians began to send in extra supplies to Greece to alleviate the situation, the authorities in Berlin refused to follow suit, arguing that this would jeopardize the food situation in Germany. Soon hunger and malnutrition were stalking the streets of Athens. Fuel supplies were unavailable, or too expensive, to heat people’s houses in the cold winter of 1941-2. People begged in the streets for food, ransacked rubbish bins for scraps, and in their desperation started to eat grass. German army officers amused themselves by tossing scraps from balconies to gangs of children and watching them fight for the pieces. People, especially children, succumbed to disease, and began dying in the streets. Overall death rates rose five- or even sevenfold in the winter of 1941-2; the Red Cross estimated that a quarter of a million Greeks died as a result of hunger and associated diseases between 1941 and 1943.

….

The general state of hunger and exhaustion of the Greek people meant that there were few attempts at armed resistance in the first year or so of the occupation, and no co-ordinated leadership.

The Third Reich at War 1939 - 1945, Richard J. Evans (Penguin Books 2010) 156 - 157

Whose who and from where

The first of the Noble Prizes were announced this morning. The Prize for medicine being number one and this year it is being share by 3 individuals named by the AP in the following manner

"American Bruce Beutler and French scientist Jules Hoffmann shared the $1.5-million award with Canadian-born Ralph Steinman …".

I understand from reading the AP press release, published in the Globe & Mail, that messieurs [doctors, maybe] Beutler et Hoffmann are USA and French born natives respectively whereas Steinman is a bit of a mystery. Seems he was born in what Voltaire referred to as "quelques arpents de neige", aka Canada, and is affiliated with Rockefeller University in New York but we are left to puzzle as to whether he is a USA or Canada person.

Does it matter where Steinman came from originally and where he is now? Not likely, except maybe to form stories in which happenstance and serendipity play some role in the narrative. So why bother to identify the nationality now or at birth of recipients?

I guess it doesn't really matter where Dr. Steinman originally came from because just now know he died 3 days before the award was announced.