So I'm reading a book by Abraham Maslow. I know, but when I took it out at the library I was unaware that it's a textbook for post-graduate psychology students. It's pretty interesting, but in the first chapter I came across one of my danger words.
There are a few words, phrases, and concepts that set me off. For example, anything that involves global warming, organic food, regressive tax, social justice, or the greater good are very likely to cause me to have a heart attack. Another of these ideas is the anti-intellectualism thing. This is the idea that Americans are basically idiots that hate anything intellectual. We are all against learning and education. I actually read a book by Elizabeth Jacoby that claimed exactly that. She said that the "folks" just don't appreciate the fact that their intellectual superiors are looking out for their best interests. We in flyover country are too stupid to take care of our own lives, and too ignorant and proud to let them do it for us.
This idea was first introduced, I am sure, by intellectuals themselves. Most likely because no one was listening to them. The reason no one listens to intellectuals has nothing to do with anti-intellectualism. It is more likely because of the fact that intellectuals have never done anything in their lives but think about stuff. While there is nothing inherently wrong with thinking about stuff, I do it all the time, it is usually advisable to have some experience doing stuff before you give people advice about the best methods for doing stuff.
Talk what you know, and what you don't know, don't talk. I remember that from high school. Apparently, these eggheads never heard that phrase. Why should I take the advice of someone that's never held a real job in their lives, never had to live check-to-check, never had to decide which bill to pay this month and which can be put off for another month. Most of these people went directly from the teet to the teet. Mommy's to the government's. They all seem to work for various "thinktanks". What, exactly, is a thinktank? What do they do there? Do they sit around and think? I do that for nothing. Why should they make 6 figure salaries for it? Are they smarter than me? They would say yes, I'm not so sure. If they can't tell the difference between "anti-intellectualism and anti-intellectual, they should forfeit at least some of their salary.
It seems to me that their biggest bone of contention is with the religious right. They feel that the "biblical literalists" completely disregard scientific fact in an attempt to give some sense of meaning to their lives. This is to say that, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, people that believe in the truth of the bible are just plain stupid. I am by no means a biblical literalist. The way I see it, Jesus taught in parables. If he is the son of God, perhaps he inherited that trait from his old man. The bible is many things. It is not, in my mind, an accurate historical account of human history. I do not, however, completely discount the opinions of those that feel that it is. They are entitled to their opinions, as are the secular humanists, the Muslims, the Jews, and even the democrats. It is only when their opinions paint me as an uncultured, uninformed imbecile that I take issue with them.
How are the bible thumpers any different from the cult of global warming that has arisen over the las several years. Oh yeah, global warming has been proven to be a farce. When the average temperature of the earth has actually declined over the last decade, and you change the name of your movement in order to disassociate yourself from the prime motivating factor of your movement, you should probably pack it in.
The truth of the matter is, no one can really say for sure that the origin of human existence is one thing or another. None of us was there. If you believe in creationism, the big bang, or even alien intervention, I can't say for sure if you are right or wrong. I can say that if you call me stupid, we should step outside and have a discussion about the capital forming effects of collective institutions such as farming cooperatives and labor industrialization in the pre-marxian world. You won't know what I'm talking about, and frankly neither will I, but I can fake it as well as you can. That's because I'm not stupid. And neither is most of America. No other nation puts such a premium on education. No other country is so beholden to a knowledge economy as America. No other people are as versed in the ways of modern life as we are. That's because no other country has embraced modernity as heartily as us.
Ideas are the new currency, and this nation has them in abundance. Intellectuals, the really scary ones, are afraid that their monopoly on thinking is going the way of Ma Bell, and they are afraid. They are the kids we used to pick on in school. You know, the one's our mothers told us would be running the world someday. Our mothers were right, and now they are having their revenge. Trying to tell us how to live our lives, tell us what we should eat, whether or not we should smoke, how to raise our children, and then whining about how we hate them when we don't agree with them. It's the revenge of the nerds in the new millenium. And they wonder why we hate them.

I love going to Subway. Not for the food, that pretty much sucks. But I like the way they make the sandwiches. I think if Adam Smith designed a sandwich shop, it would look a lot like Subway. Adam Smith was the father of modern economics. He was a huge proponent of the division of labor. Of course he also opined that, in extreme cases, division of labor could lead to a stupid, dull, and unfulfilled existence for the majority of humanity. He obviously never thought about the time saved, and the immense wealth created and shared by all, that the division of labor could provide, opening the doors to climbing Maslow's pyramidal heirarchy of needs, blah, blah, blah.
Back to Subway. If you've ever been in there you know that one person greets the customer and asks what kind of bread and meat you would like. He then slides the product to the next person, who applies the vegetables and the toppings before passing it on to the next person who wraps the sandwich and hands it to the cashier, who rings you up and tells you to have a nice day. I know that all restaurants function in this manner, but it is so easy to see at Subway. It all happens right before your eyes. It is the most efficient, fastest way to make a terrible sandwich known to man. And it always makes me smile, especially because I know I'm not the one that has to eat it. One of the things I miss the most about Mass is the plethora of small, family-owned sub shops. It seems like every town, no matter how small, has at least 2 or 3. In Indiana, also known as the nation's largest truck stop, the choices are significantly limited. Less competition means worse food. Something else Adam Smith could have agreed with. And so that brings us to...drumroll please...Book review time.
Back by popular demand. Really, the letters, emails, and phone calls I received from publicists and authors begging me to review their books has been overwhelming since my last effort. They have been sending me free advanced reader's copies and just-released hardcovers by the truckload. So I thought I'd try to keep the gravy train moving. Free stuff is free stuff, even if most of it is crap.
I recently read P.J. O'Rourke's "Peace Kills". Unfortunately, this belongs in the crap section. Kind of like the food at Subway. Stale, homgenized, and tasting slightly of tin. I like O'Rourke. He can be funny, incisive, sarcastic and obnoxious. Sometimes all in the same sentence. I admire that. But this one has none of his usual humor or caustic wit. In fact, it felt to me as if he got his bar tab one night at closing time, took one look at it and said "Oh, Oh. Time to write another book." Then, during the cab ride home, he texted his secretary and ordered her to cobble together some of his old pieces, "Anything about foreign policy, that seems to be big right now, and Chomsky's making a killing", added a little commentary, hopefully before he sobered up, and sent it to his publisher. Now I know why I got it for 3 dollars online.
The reason I brought up Subway and Adam Smith in the beginning of this, is that I actually like O'Rourke's style. I've read a few of his other books and found them to be amusing and informative. He is, above all, a smart-ass. But he's also very smart. This makes for good reading in my opinion. 'Peace Kills' is not one of his better efforts. I recommend his book on Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations'. That one was so good, I was grateful that I slogged through the original before I read O'Rourke's take on it. Smith is difficult to read. He makes a point, then remakes it over and over and over again. Finding the nuggets of gold in 'Wealth of Nations' is akin to searching for a handful of needles in a 900 page haystack. Actually, pins might be more apropos. The search is long and difficult, but it is well worth the effort in order to see the depth and sincerity of his arguments in their original context. O'Rourke manages to capture the essence of the entire book in a scant 200 pages. Simply by visiting several countries, getting drunk, and writing down his observations, he highlights the main points of 'Wealth of Nations' as well as Smith did. Quite extraordinary if you ask me. That's why I was so disapointed in 'Peace Kills'. He set the bar too high, and this one falls woefully short.

Now that we have the whole birth certificate thing out of the way, we can concentrate on more important issues. I guess that's why the president waited so long to come out with the forgery. What, you think that thing is real? The more that people like Trump were playing up the fact that our president was really born in Kenya, the less they were talking about the economy, foreign policy, and the other missteps, mistakes, and misconceptions of the present administration.


Look, I don't care that Obama is a Kenyan-born muslim who hates America. He was elected by a majority of the country, so he's in charge. I'm more concerned with what he's done since his inauguration.


I think that it's instructive to look at the positions he has taken on all these issues, and what his goals are. Normally I don't like to assign motivations to people I've never met, but in this case, his actions can only lead to one conclusion.


Let's take the so-called "Birther" controversy. The president could have produced documentation of his birth at any time. Why did he wait so long? I believe he enjoyed the controversy. Not only because it took the focus off of what may go down in history as the worst presidency since Jimmy Carter, but also because it allowed him and his people to paint a segment of the American public as racist loons. The press insisted that if you believed the president wasn't a citizen, you were a racist. I don't know what one has to do with the other, but that was the story line.


It should be a familiar refrain. That particular slur describes anyone that disagrees with the president's stance on pretty much anything. You would think with all the overeducated snobs in the White House, they could have come up with something else. Maybe a little bit of variety. But I guess if it ain't broke, don't fix it. But then a funny thing happened on the way to Trump's dalliance with presidential politics. People, normal people, started to question the president. Too many people, that had earned too much respect in the public theater were suddenly wondering why the president didn't just produce his birth certificate. Obama could see the writing on the wall, could tell that his usual tactic of continuing to smear all those against him was not going to work anymore in this case. He did the right thing. He caved. He gave up his attempt to divide the nation on yet another issue. Casting some of his fellow citizen's, yes that first part was a joke, as misguided loons wasn't working anymore, so he did what he had to do to slow Trump's momentum. It must have killed him to do it.


I don't think I'm the only one that has noticed that this has been the most polarizing administration in recent memory. They seem to be attempting to create issues that will divide the nation on several different levels. Rich vs. poor. Black vs. white. Latino vs. everyone. They attempt to bully their detractor's by waiving around the "Racist" label at the slightest hint of disgreement. If you are against building a mosque at ground zero you are a racist. If you want to secure the border you are a racist. If you want lower taxes and more freedom from regulation for business you are a racist. If you don't support cap and trade legislation you are a racist. If you don't believe in global warming you are a racist. Apparently, if you eat, sleep, breath, or make any attempt to form your own opinion on any subject that may cast even the smallest semblance of doubt on anything that the president has said, thought, or done, you are also a racist.


This is, of course, all politics. Obama is a creature of his condition. He was raised in the stormy seas of Chicago politics. Pay to play. All's fair in love and war. Cut their throat before they cut yours. These are the edicts he was trained on. This is his environment. This is his real birth certificate. Every thing he does, has done, and will ever do is nothing but a calculated effort to preserve, maintain, and increase his own political power. It's the Chicago Way. It's become the Washington way. But it's the wrong way.

What comes next

I'm happy Bin Laden is dead. I just thought I'd be happier. I thought it would mean a little more to me. It seems a little hollow. Maybe it's because so much time has passed. Maybe it's because I realize there will be another whack job waiting to take his place. Maybe I'm just a little concerned about how this will all shake out with Pakistan. Obviously there were people high up in that government that knew where he was hiding. How much they aided him in his staying hidden is yet to be known, but my guess is, they helped a lot. What does this mean for our relationship with one of our only allies in the region, and more, what does it say about us that we were fooled into thinking of them as an ally?


I'm glad American soldiers were the one's to get him. I don't think it would have happened any other way. No one else in the region was going to do it.


I hate the fact that unctious politicians will attempt to use this, and by extension our military heroes, as a way to ingratiate themselves to the public ahead of the coming elections. Call me crazy, but none of them pulled a trigger, none of them should gain from this any more than the rest of us.


I'm happy for the people that lost loved ones on 9/11 and during the wars that followed. Hopefully this can bring them some kind of closure, help them deal with the grief they have been experiencing.


I know the reports out of the government will change many times over the next few weeks. I haven't really been paying attention and I've heard several different versions of the events.


I know there will be critics of the operation. I read that some Muslim clerics are upset that Bin Laden's corpse was "disrespected" by being buried at sea. Perhaps we should have shown him the same respect that his people treat their prisoners with. You know, we could have decapitated him and then posted the video on youtube. Or we could have released his dead body to an angry mob so they could tear him limb from limb. Maybe they would have considered that a little more respectfull.


Again, I'm not sure what happens now. I don't mean to sound callous, but it seems a little like the home team won a super bowl or world series to me. The team, obviously, is Seal team 6 and the rest of the military. The fans would be all of us. There is a sense of euphoria after the victory. The people that are more invested in the game are obviously more affected, but everyone in the community shares in the victory. Once the game is over, the parade is done, and the mess is cleaned up, we go back to our lives. There is a sense of pride, a feeling of accomplishment, but that only lasts for so long. Just like in sports, there is another season coming up.


Our team, our military can't afford to rest on it's laurels. They need to get right back to work to defend their title. I have no doubt that they will.


Oh, and one other thing. The smart owners, that's us, never offer a contract extension to the coach and GM right after the championship. They are under contract until 2012. Let's wait before we think about letting the politicians cash in on the team's victory. Coaches don't win championships, neither do GMs. Players do.

Does everything really happen for a reason? Is there some logic to life, something lurking behind our decisions that we remain blissfully unaware of? According to several economists, yes. I understand that economists are generally the last people one would go to for answers about human behavior, but really, that's what economics is, or at least a large part of it. Who cares about GDP or interest rates or invisible hands or utilitarianinsm unless it can give us some kind of insight into the choices people may make, and the reasons behind these choices.

Okay, it's that time of the month again. No, not that time, it's book review time. I know, this is the first one, but I read a lot. Why not try to impress people with the vast scope of my well-readedness. No, that's not a word. I just made it up. But I bet you wouldn't know that if I didn't tell you.

I just read "The Logic of Life" by Tim Harford. Excellent book, even if the author is British. It talks about rational choice theory, which is a very interesting concept. Basically, the theory holds that people's decisions, regardless of how haphazard or asinine they appear to be, are made by engaging in a process of cost/benefit analysis, a determination of risk vs. reward that is computed many times, in infinitely small increments of time.

The example used by the author is catching a baseball. No one knows the physics or the mathematical computations required by a person holding a glove to determine where the ball will go and where the glove should be in order to have the ball hit it. Many stupid people have, nonetheless mastered this activity. Even more difficult are the calculations required to hit a baseball as it's coming at you at over 90 miles an hour, but some can do it with ease. No one is accusing Manny Ramirez of being a mensa candidate, but he was one of the best hitters that ever lived.

The author takes us through several studies and experiments done by economists attempting to tease out differences in the way people behave when faced with similar options and how they behave in the same situations when faced with different consequences. One of the studies included a look at teen pregnancy and the changing morals of teenagers with respect to sex. It seems that the evidence shows that, in states where parental consent is required for an abortion, teenage pregnancy is reduced significantly. If one of the costs of having sex is having to tell your parents that you are pregnant, it apparently tips the scales in the other direction. There is also evidence that, during the height of the aids scare, people in general were less likely to have sex with men. This includes men as well as women. Apparently being gay is not a lifestyle choice, unless of course, that choice may lead to a long, painful, and drawn-out death.

Harford also makes a distinction between regular racism and so-called rational racism. The regular kind is genuinely abhorrent, while the rational kind, while equally abhorrent, is actually backed up by studies. It seems that it is in an employer's economic interest to discriminate on the basis of race in some cases. This, of course leads the people being discriminated against to give up trying to improve, leading to the discriminatory practice becoming more prevalent and, sadly, more rational. Sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Logic of Life is an interesting read, made so by the author's style and rather dry sense of humor. There is a great deal of information and opinion. There are also studies and experiments that back up the author's assertions. All in all, it is a thought provoking journey through the human decision-making process. It was well worth the 5 dollars I spent on it, and I recomend it to anyone that is interested in why we do the things we do.

When Democrats Attack

So much for the new climate of civility in political discourse. I guess all it takes for that to go out the window is one party feeling that they are in danger of losing an argument. Then the big guns come out. Pelosi accuses republicans of trying to starve 6 million old people. Obama uses his bully pulpit to attack Paul Ryan, even though he hasn't read Ryan's budget proposal. It's laughable the way that politicians resort to demonizing their opponents any time they feel like a simple debate won't go in their favor. I'm anxiously awaiting the quote from Debbie Wasserman-Schultz that "Republicans want to kill poor babies, then serve them to old poor people as their last meal before they kill them in order to save money on social security." You know it's coming soon. These are the times when I miss Alan Grayson. He was a bottomless pit of mindless, accusatory rhetoric. At least the democrats aren't trying to blame Bush for everything anymore.
I know, I know, the republicans do the same thing. It makes great theater. I do have a slight problem with the reaction of people that aren't really paying attention. There are people that actually believe some of this crap. These people vote, they discuss politics, they protest and hold signs. I can't help but think that they must know better. They have to understand, on some level, that the drivel coming out of Washington is designed to deflect, to divide, and to demonize the opposition without having any basis in reality. There are no facts, there is no real debate going on. One side calls the other fat, the other responds with "I know you are but what am I", and so it goes.
This grade school rhetoric is kind of amusing. Seeing supposed grown-ups, the people that are supposed to be our leaders, reduce themselves to nothing more than schoolyard bullies praying no one stands up to them is pretty funny. Sad, but funny. They lessen themselves by doing it, that's the funny part. The sad part is that they lessen their office, their position at the same time. How can we take a representative seriously when so many of them sound like morons. Look up some of the quotes from Grayson, Pelosi, Reid, et al during the so-called debate over healthcare. Listen to some of the quotes by members of the republican party in reference to Obama over the last few years. Listen to Donald Trump. On second thought, please don't. Can we take any of these people seriously?
I've said before that I love this stuff. I think it's hilarious when the talking heads go at each other and cross all boundaries of social decorum. On the other hand, I don't enjoy it so much when our leaders do it. They should be above the fray, shouldn't they? Shouldn't we be able to trust them? Shouldn't we be able to maintain at least a modicum of respect for the people we elect to run the country? The more they open their mouths, the harder and harder it is for me to believe that anyone would color in the circle next to the names of any of these people on election day. I don't know if it says more about us than about them, or if it only means that the alternative would be worse. Where do these people come from? All I know is that if these are the best we can come up with, maybe we should try something else. maybe we should try to find one good man or woman (there's got to be one out there somewhere right?) and name them dictator for life. We may not be happy with their decisions all the time, but at least we wouldn't have political spitball fights masquerading as political debate anymore.

What is a socially responsible corporation? Let's start by defining socially responsible. In my opinion, to be socially responsible, one must do something that benefits society. Makes sense, right? If you are socially irresponsible, that would detract from society. Well, what is society? Is it a simple majority of all the human beings on the planet? Is it everyone on the planet? Is it confined to one's community or nation? Is there a certain percentage of any group that would constitute society? These are important questions. For my purposes, I'll define society as the group of people that are most affected by any decision or action that one undertakes. This may be simplistic, but it's my theory, so I'll make up the rules as I go along. What does it mean to be responsible? Does it mean that you sacrifice your own interests for the interests of others? What if your interests coincide with the interests of others, and by sacrificing them, you are also harming a great number of other people. If Exxon/Mobil stopped drilling for oil, many people would be happy. No more destroying the environment. No more adding to the carbon footprint of mankind on the earth. Blah, blah, blah. What about the many thousands of people that would lose their jobs? What about the tremendous spike in the price of gasoline that would accompany the closing of one of the largest suppliers of oil in the world? What about the rise in price of everything that needs to be delivered somewhere in order to be bought buy people all over the world? Would any of the people adversely affected by this consider the decision to be socially responsible? I don't think so. So is responsibility dependant upon your perspective? Maybe. Let's move on. What is a corporation? A corporation is an entity that is created for one thing, and one thing only. That is to make a profit. A corporation cannot be evil. It cannot be good. It can only be exactly what it is. It can either be successful, in which case it enriches a great number of people, in addition to providing a good product for a good price to millions of consumers, or it can go out of business. Unless of course, it is considered by some to be too big to fail, which is another argument entirely. A corporation has no morals. It has no conscience. All it does is try to make money. People within that corporation can have feelings of social responsibility or empathy. They may even make decisions that reflect their own personal feelings and goals, but once those decisions start to hurt the bottom line, there will be repercussions. That is the way things work. At least they would work, if we would let them. And that, in my opinion, is the problem. We have too many people in too many positions with too much authority over things that they have no concept of. Why should Chris Dodd and Barney Frank, AKA the village idiot and his ugly, stupid stepbrother, have anything to do with finance? Neither one of them has ever even held a job. Why should they have the power to decide the future of millions of people that actually live in the real world? What does some career government bureaucrat know about what creates jobs, or costs jobs, or anything that exists outside the sphere of their limited experience? Nothing. And yet, for some reason we entrust these people with the power to pick who should survive and who should die in the corporate world. Why is that? Why do we listen to a complete moron like Joe Biden, no disrespect intended. I'm sure he's a lot of fun at cocktail parties, when he can stay awake of course. And why do we totally disregard the opinions of men who have spent their entire lives studying what makes an economy work and what doesn't? Maybe I'm getting a little off subject here, but why do we expect people that have no idea what they're talking about, to know what they're talking about? So, to be socially responsible, a corporation must benefit society. Even an evil corporation like Exxon/Mobil creates a great deal of benefit to society. Heck, even Walmart helps society, if by helping you mean creating something beneficial to the vast majority of people. When corporations are forced by government bureacracies and special interest groups to expend scarce resources in a vain effort to prove that they are benefiting society in a way that satisfies these very special interests, it costs us all. When Walmart has to pay millions of dollars to hire consultants to prove that they are making an effort to be more socially responsible, over and above the many and varied benefits that they bestow on society simply by existing, who pays the price? Not Walmart, they just pass the cost on to the very people that are supposedly being looked out for by the politicians and do-gooders. So who is being irresponsible? The corporation, which is just doing whatever it can to increase it's profit, because that's what it's supposed to do, even if it means spending millions or billions on a pr campaign to make them more palatable to the social and political elites, or the social and political elites, who make the rest of us pay in a material way for their own easement of conscience? Walmart, by it's very existence, brings a great deal of good to a great part of it's society. The one's that demonize Walmart, and companies like Walmart, do nothing but detract from the benefits provided by Walmart and other corporations. Who is really being irresponsible here? I guess it depends on your perspective, but from where I'm standing, give me more Walmart, and much less government.