The economist rappers are back

Sequel to this.



"One data point and you're jumping for joy.
The last time I checked, wars only destroy"

What, me sacrifice?

A Washington Post-ABC News poll asked Americans what they thought of a few solutions to reduce the national debt. It stands that:

Only 30% supported cutting Medicaid;
Only 21% supported cutting Medicare;
Only 42% supported cutting military spending;
But, 72% supported raising taxes on richer Americans.

As The Freeman succinctly puts it, these people want no cuts in services, they just want to "let someone else pay".

Taxes that kill

The Warmonger's Lair (i.e., the White House) recently released a nifty tool that allows American taxpayers to see exactly what their taxes are spent for. Check it out here. Punch $100 as a sample amount and see where the money goes.

The biggest drain on the taxpayer, at 26.30%, is "National Defense". Let us hear it again: The United States, an entity with friendly nations to the north and south and oceans on the east and west, spends a quarter of its tax earnings on "defense".

When you put American "defense" spending in the context of taxes, it seems unfathomable why the so-called anti-tax Republicans and Tea Partiers would not have anything to say about it. Indeed, when Obama rebuked so-called fiscal conservative Paul Ryan, he was on the money:

"This is the same guy that voted for two wars that were unpaid for, voted for the Bush tax cuts that were unpaid for, voted for the prescription drug bill that cost as much as my health care bill -- but wasn't paid for."

Presently, Ryan is leading the charge against Obama on cutting federal spending, but defense is not on his radar. Indeed, if the anti-tax lobby wants my respect, it needs to own up to its dirty past during the Bush years and treat "defense" for what it is.

America is fighting three wars today, only one of which would vaguely fulfill the definition of a just war. Former Warmonger-in-Chief Dwight Eisenhower warned in 1960 of the military-industrial complex:

"Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

The said citizenry, drugged by the opium of power, happens to be fast asleep.

When civil society fails

Who keeps the collective conscience of a society/nation?

In theologically or politically centralized societies, the answer may be 'government', but not so in open, democratic ones. There the answer is more likely to be 'civil society'. In democratic structures, civil society is the funnel that narrows down innumerable personal sensibilities into a practical number of society-wide moral choices which often shape public policy.

(For the sake of this discussion, civil society is any instance where more than one humans cooperate to think, discuss, or act on something of public consequence; e.g., friends, family, neighborhood associations, religious groups, political parties, TV, newspapers, bloggers etc. It can be any organization but one with police powers; i.e.,the government.)

In an ideal democracy, civil society should be the testing and debating grounds for any potential changes in public policy instituted by governments. A couple of examples of this from the United States which demonstrate how civil society has actively and for long debated gaps in public policy not fully addressed by either arm of the government: gay rights and smoking. In neither of these issues has the judiciary or legislature done enough to conclusively set a direction but in both cases, civil society has set the tone for the discussion. These can be taken to be signs of a healthy democracy.

But negative-minded as we are, let us focus on two instances where civil society has lagged behind the government or behind circumstances.

1. The collapse of the housing market and subsequent financial disaster

Both civil society and government were caught with their pants down when this hit. Civil society's reaction has been to find convenient scape goats like "Wall Street fat cats" and "greedy mortgage lenders". But the fact is that Wall Street and the mortgage industry were only fulfilling an insatiable hunger for cheap money and easy lending on part of the public. Zig Ziglar said once:

You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help other people get what they want.

Helping others is precisely what those allegedly rotten scoundrels were doing. The drug junkie should share the blame with the street-corner crack dealer.

Then, and even now, civil society has failed to see anything wrong with the mindset of those "innocent" everyday Americans who wanted more house, more car, more everything than they could fairly afford. On the contrary, as the overspending orgy or the past decade was receding, civil society was worried that prudent behavior by individuals would hurt the economy.

2. Entitlement reform

It is well known that the US' government finances are likely screwed in the long run because of looming liability of future entitlements - Social Security and Medicare. Even as elected representatives have long tossed around the issue like a hot potato for electoral reasons, civil society has pretended the problem does not exist. As the Tea Party (which, admittedly, is one element of civil society) pushes legislators to start acting towards entitlement reform, it is clear that any resulting reform will be in spite, not because, of civil society at large.

Civil society debates should give rise to legislation, not the other way round. When the latter happens, and when it happens in profoundly important areas like the above, all is not right with democracy.

A good old bhais club

The Galleon case has been fascinating to track over the past year or so, not least because of the ethnicities involved. It is now being played out in the courtroom. Galleon Management, a multi billion hedge fund headed by Raj Rajaratnam, was accused by the Securities & Exchange Commission of widespread and repeated inside trading. Here is a cheat sheet:

Source: New York Times

Glossary:

Raj Rajaratnam: Chief target of allegation that he collected insider information to make profits off it

Anil Kumar: Senior Partner, McKinsey; admitted to passing on confidential information to Rajaratnam

Rajiv Goel: Intel executive; admitted to passing on information from inside Intel to Rajaratnam

Rajat Gupta: Ex-Director, Goldman Sachs; accused of passing on information about a pending Berkshire Hathaway purchase of GS stock and other tidbits

Rajaratnam has been standing trial since the past few weeks and much muck is flying. Take this excerpt from a wiretapped conversation between Rajaratnam and Gupta:

Wiretap

More meaningful conversations are available for your listening pleasure here. (Warning: Rajaratnam accuses the U.S. of illegally collecting these wiretaps, so listen at the risk of making yourself an accessory.)

It has been said that Gupta, Kumar and Rajaratnam met at Wharton; Gupta and Kumar both went to IIT Delhi.

Those are some big shoes for Asok to fill.

Amnesiac, or evil?

Over the past few years, as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan soured, one often heard the refrain from "anti-war" Americans: "How did we ever get suckered into this war?". Anti-war is in quotes because it now seems that any kind of commentary against the war was little more than "red-eye peaceniking", i.e., a partisan peace stance motivated by the fact that it was the other side of the aisle running the war.

As the United States went to war against Libya, it was disheartening to see the complete lack of public debate about whether militaristic intervention was appropriate. The discussions hovered around how. Last week, the Warmonger-in-Chief addressed the people to explain why the Libyan war was necessary. Post-speech, I expected at least some fundamental opposition to going to war, but there was none. Instead, there was was a rush to defend and apologize for the Chief, or to argue the war should be conducted differently. Here is a sampling of commentary from major opinion-setters around the nation:

Los Angeles Times

In his speech Monday, Obama addressed thorny questions (about the war) with cogency and clarity...

New York Times

President Obama made the right, albeit belated, decision to join with allies...

Washington Post

..a policy that curtails American involvement at the expense of failing to resolve Libya's crisis may only lead to greater costs and dangers.

The Weekly Standard

I found it reassuring (that) the President was unapologetic, freedom-agenda-embracing and didn't shrink from defending the use of force....

If, among the cacophony criticizing Bush's wars during his tenure, there were any voices fundamentally opposed to war, they are silent now. Even libertarian talking heads, who usually took a non-partisan anti-war stand on Iraq/Afghanistan, are mostly quiet this time.

It seems the American conscience is blinded by the awesome radiance of its own military might. A collective sensibility so numbed by power, it feels no need to exercise its morality. To borrow from Thurgood Marshall:

"Power, not reason, is the new currency of decision-making."