Big Business & Big Government

One of the refrains I’ve seen of late is how capitalism failed and that’s why we are in an economic crisis. Something I’ve tried to explain to people in the past is that real capitalism is rarely seen in America these days.  What we have is huge corporations that dearly wish to be monopolies.  Monopolies don’t want competition, they want total control and are big believers in centralization.

So I’ve found it interesting how Republicans have been labeled the party of big business when so many big businesses mainly contribute to Democrats.  When big government and big business conspire, you get what we have these days.  What I am is a believer in competition of the free market which is different than being pro-business.  Jonah Goldberg has an excellent piece on this that everyone should read.

At Blogmocracy, Rodan has a post based on Goldberg’s op-ed that connects the union of progressives and big business with the policies of fascism.  In it, he uses a term I’ve used for years, Neo-feudal to describe the attitude of those wishing control through making everyone beholden to them. I have to point out that the ever increasing number of “czars” in the Obama administration accentuates the impression of feudalism to me.  Having people with cabinet level power who directly report to the President is all too much like vassals reporting to their lord, in my view.

I will say that the video in the post is annoying, it has some good content on socialism and George Orwell, then completely goes off the rails with the cartoony stuff at the end.

I think a fundamental human mistake is to vest power in one organization and then have all the decisions be made at the top.  This is the essence of centralization and history shows that it leads to inflexibility, inefficiency, and corruption every time.  This applies to businesses, organizations, political parties, and governments equally.

But here we are, repeating the same mistakes and being shocked when it goes wrong. While I think people are starting to wake up and see what is happening, I wonder if it is too late.  The consolidation of power by the federal government and large corporations has been going on for some time now.  The ACTA shenanigans are a good example of how it works, with the US government doing the bidding of the entertainment industry.

The solution is smaller government and small business.  A focus on these things will lead to better economic and political health in the country.  But will the American people do what is needed to bring reform about?  That’s the multi-trillion dollar question.

Weirdest Death Ever

Imagine being killed by exploding chewing gum.  Sounds like something from an Austin Powers movie, doesn’t it? Pretty funny, right?

In Ukraine, a chemistry major was killed when his chewing gum exploded.  Supposedly he used to dip gum in citric acid and may have confused another chemical with it.

This is too strange to believe. Or not to believe.  Frankly, I don’t know what to make of it and wonder if we’ll ever get a full explanation of what happened.   I just feel sorry for his poor parents.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow

After all, it isn’t like we can stop it.

Life in Minnesota involves the occasional blizzard or two and we’re in the middle of one right now.  Most places in the area have gotten between 10 and 16 inches already and it is still coming down as I post this.

The Post Bulletin is predicting it will end up in the top ten blizzards in Rochester history. 18 inches is looking likely for Winona, Rochester, and North of La Crosse.  I have the feeling I’ll be canceling the Missionary Coordination Meeting at church scheduled for tonight.

The wind is adding insult to injury.  Wind chills and blowing snow take much of the fun out of a blizzard.  Tonight temperatures will drop below zero in the AM meaning 20 to 30 below wind chills.  I hope that everyone stays safe and warm during nature’s siege.

Bloodhound to Run 1000 mph

Except this is no dog, this is a car.  The Brits who officially broke the sound barrier on wheels 12 years ago are back with a project to go 1,000 mph in South Africa.  The SSC Thrust hit 763 mph for an average using two jet fighter engines but that isn’t enough now that others want to break the record.  With a hybrid rocket motor this project is aimed at more than setting an amazing record.  They are hoping the involvement of schools and universities will have an effect like the Apollo moon shots did back in the 1960’s by bringing in more students into science degrees.

Quote of the article:

Put it this way, if you fired what used to be the most powerful handgun in the world, Dirty Harry's .44 Magnum, at the tail of the rocket/jet car as it passed and Green toggled the 20,500lb thrust hybrid rocket as the revolver went off, the bullet would never hit the car.

I wonder how big a speeding ticket he’d get for that?

But seriously, I’m skeptical they can do it because the low level speed record for an aircraft is only 994 mph.  An aircraft has a lot less friction to deal with -- not only involving air but with no energy being lost to contact with the ground. The other thing worrying is the dual engine concept with a jet engine and a hybrid rocket motor.  That won’t be the easiest thing to work out. It reminds me of Chuck Yeager’s flight in a similarly augmented NF-104A Starfighter that ended in a crash so vividly depicted in The Right Stuff.

Speaking of Starfighters, I’m looking forward to seeing if the North American Eagle team can break 800 mph with an adapted F-104 Starfighter fuselage on wheels. Being very fond of the F-104 in all its incarnations, I’m rooting for their success.  They’ve been ramping up test runs and have run into some problems lately but it doesn’t look project threatening.

Most people don’t know of it, but back in 1979 Stan Barret broke the sound barrier in the Budweiser Rocket Car built by Hal Needham’s team.  Sadly, the first supersonic car run couldn’t be recognized because it had three wheels and only did a one way trip.   Check out the story at YouTube:

Is Science Losing Its Stature?

With the East Anglia “climategate” scandal slowly starting to get a little media attention, I’ve found out I’m not the only one worrying it will tarnish all scientific research.  At the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henniger has an opinion piece warning that the credibility of all science is at risk.  In it he brings up some valid points why this may happen and this quote gets to the heart of the dilemma:

Global warming enlisted the collective reputation of science. Because "science" said so, all the world was about to undertake a vast reordering of human behavior at almost unimaginable financial cost.

There is great danger in mixing politics and science, but I’ll only address the biggest and possibly least perceived danger. That being the loss of stature in the public eye. Over at Hot Air, Ed Morrissey breaks down the Rasmussen Reports poll that shows 59% believe data on global warming has been falsified.  What is amazing in these polarized times is that majorities across the strata believe this. If that isn’t a loss of credibility, I don’t know what is.

I’ve always thought AGW was based on faith rather than hard science as that massive nuclear furnace in the center of our solar system dictates more than we fully comprehend. Perhaps it is because I remember two previous panics that were widespread.  In the 1970’s it was the fear of another ice age that some of the AGW scientists actually pushed back then.  Later on the terror of the hole in the ozone layer dominated the media and led to a banning of CFC’s to reduce damage to it. In these I see the arrogance of man combined with the allure of hysteria making for bad science driven by the politics of anti-capitalism.

Shifting gears a bit, it doesn’t help that we are starting to hit some hard walls with scientific research producing practical results. While the search for knowledge is a good thing, in the end most of it needs to deliver something of use to humanity in general. This is particularly true in medical research.

The Telegraph has a sobering article about the diminishing returns of the huge amounts of money thrown into medical science.  While I think the title of the article is overly pessimistic or sensational, it is hard to argue that we aren’t getting our moneys worth.  Such high hopes were placed on the human genome project that it couldn’t possibly live up to expectations.

Unfortunately, it is not looking good there and if science is done objectively as is suggested in this article, it may open a Pandora’s Box of political and racial problems.  The promise of finding the causes of diseases and ways to treat them with gene cocktails has not had much success so far, possibly due to the small sample. Geoffrey Miller posits that the research will instead go in another direction once wider sampling is done:

The trouble is, the resequencing data will reveal much more about human evolutionary history and ethnic differences than they will about disease genes. Once enough DNA is analysed around the world, science will have a panoramic view of human genetic variation across races, ethnicities and regions. We will start reconstructing a detailed family tree that links all living humans, discovering many surprises about mis-attributed paternity and covert mating between classes, castes, regions and ethnicities.

In the pop culture, the original Star Trek television series speculated that there will be a eugenics war between genetically enhanced and superior humans with the rest of humanity.  That is where we got the memorable villain, Khan.  If we do get the kind of research suggested, I don’t think that scenario is too far fetched.  The wealthy will want to tinker with their progeny and I can see state run programs in totalitarian states wanting to achieve dominance in a genetic arms race. Worse, I can see racial strife based on both rejection and embracing of the studies coming out of the research.

All of that could lead to an extreme neo-Luddite reaction, especially if science has already become viewed as just another political football. The last people to see that coming will be the scientists themselves due to their living in insulated academic bubbles.  Perhaps more transparency and less politics would help, but it needs to happen quickly before the public consigns science to the trash heap of politics.

Only Yesterday (1991) Review

A thoughtful and emotional film from the director of Grave of the Fireflies, Isao Takahata, it couldn’t be more different than that grim story. This story of a woman flashing back on her memories from fifth grade as she takes her summer vacation may sound boring, but it is filled with poignant moments with an incredibly emotional ending.  While aimed mainly at women, the movie managed to be a surprise hit with both genders in Japan and saved Studio Ghibli from financial ruin.

This is one of the hardest to find films by Studio Ghibli in the United States, since it has never been released here on DVD and, according to Wikipedia, never will be.  I was fortunate to catch it on Turner Classic Movies during their Hiyao Miyazaki month and as far as I know that was the only broadcast over here.

The movie starts out with a typically great Studio Ghibli score over the long opening credits which are shown over a fabric texture.  Right away, you get the feeling this will be a slow moving film. Finally the movie starts with a shot of skyscrapers in crowded Tokyo.  Quickly cutting to the interior of one of them, where we are treated to the images of hum drum office work. 

There we are introduced to Taeko, who is getting her ten day vacation approved.  The personnel director notices that she is planning on traveling and inquires if it is due to a breakup.  Slightly embarrassed, she replies no and that she likes going to the countryside.

Without warning, the movie shifts to a flashback when Taeko was ten and in the fifth grade.  It is done without any kind of fadeout and sets the pattern for the rest of the movie. The animation style is different, with washed out watercolors for the backgrounds and muted tones for the characters.

Economic Worries in Europe

Plus a Black Friday Update

There are a couple of worrisome reports from the Telegraph today, one about Germany and the other about the UK.

Germany

Chancellor Angela Merkel has proposed another bank bailout in Germany as part of another large economic package.  This is not a popular idea with the public and I sense a hint of desperation involved.  Another credit contraction has been predicted with 90 billion Euros of bad loans being written off in 2010.

A survey by Munich's IFO institute revealed yesterday that lending conditions in Germany had tightened sharply in November. Some 53pc of large manufacturing companies found credit hard to obtain, suggesting that the problem has spread beyond small firms without access to the bond markets. "The financing situation of firms remains critical and poses a risk to economic recovery," said the group's president, Hans-Werner Sinn.

If the problem is spreading to the larger industries in Germany, that spells trouble for all of Europe because they are the manufacturing engine of the EU.  What worries me even more is the solution Mr. Sinn proposes:

He said it was an error for the government to buy toxic debt, urging Berlin to direct equity stakes in the banks through partial nationalisations.

Oh great, fascism in Germany, what could go wrong with that?  It makes bailing the banks out look good by comparison.

Interesting stuff, but the quote of the article involves something I think is happening in the US as well:

Volker Treier, chief economist for the German chamber of industry and commerce (DIHK), said worries were mounting among Mittelstand family firms. "The real test has yet to come: the drastic decline in sales has not yet shown up in balance sheets," he said.

I have to wonder what our balance sheets really look like. Creative accounting may be hiding a lot of bad news.

United Kingdom

Over in Britain, Morgan Stanley has warned that the UK may have a massive debt crisis next year. The US company’s prediction is that the economy there will collapse completely, taking the pound sterling down another 10%. Oddly enough, they think the dollar will go up, so I am taking their analysis with a shaker of salt.

Quote of the article:

While the report – “Tougher Times in 2010” – is not linked to the Dubai debacle, it is a reminder that countries merely bought time during the crisis by resorting to fiscal stimulus and shunting private losses onto public books. The rescues – though necessary – have not resolved the underlying debt problem. They have storied up a second set of difficulties by degrading sovereign debt across much of the world.

Boy that really gets to the point.  All these stimulus packages and bailouts have been stall tactics with long term negative consequences. When all is said and done, historians will look back and point to them as madness.  Well, except for utopians who think government solves everything, I don’t think that will ever go away.

Black Friday in the USA

Here in the States, Black Friday weekend sales were disappointing as while there were more shoppers, they each spent less. Unemployment and under-employment still loom large with no relief in sight. Personal debt is at suffocating levels too. Is it any wonder people are spending less?  Hoping the consumer will bail us out is ridiculous as long as there is high unemployment.

Wish I could find some good economic news for the future.