We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
View from the rooftop garden at NYC's Metropolitan Museum last Sunday afternoon. Took a pic of the cool new stainless steel scupture up there, but somehow deleted it by mistake.
I have no clue about the Physics of this, but it's quite a remarkable phenomenon: Pendulum Waves:
"Fifteen uncoupled simple pendulums of monotonically increasing lengths dance together to produce visual traveling waves, standing waves, beating, and random motion. One might call this kinetic art and the choreography of the dance of the pendulums is stunning! Aliasing and quantum revival can also be shown."
Some of my friends sit around every evening And they worry about the times ahead But everybody else is overwhelmed by indifference And the promise of an early bed You either shut up or get cut up -Elvis Costello "Radio, Radio"
I've had to deal with a number of issues lately, some good, others not so much. Last August, I was introduced to a phrase, when Irene knocked out our electricity for 4 days. Dealing with no electricity, or the limited capacity provided by a small generator, was annoying. Eventually, though, things went back to normal. My son, during the blackout, kept repeating "First World Problems" every time one of us complained of inconvenience.
The phrase refers to things which are meaningless to most people and occur only in industrialized nations. The ennui of life leading to kids not bothering to change a channel even though they have the ability to click a button. The disappointment of a latte, after realizing you really wanted a cappuccino. It's a phrase usually used in a snarky fashion, but it can have meaning in a larger sense. After the Derecho that passed through Ohio and some Mid-Atlantic states, I once again uttered the line as we cleared my father's property of fallen trees and branches in stifling heat. First World Problems are things which never occur to a Papuan jungle tribe member or even a denizen of Rio's "City of God". In fact, trying to explain these things could yield quizzical looks and questions about what we view to be important in our lives.
The neoconservative approach posits that universal peace is achievable by engineering a world of democratic institutions and that, if history does not move quickly enough, we can move it along by military force. My concern is that this ultimate goal is in practice so remote, and the method of reaching it so uncertain, that it leads to an interventionism exhausting our society and ultimately to abdication, as in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. The difference is less one of destination than of pacing. The point is not that what exists is unalterable, but that the effort required to implement change will be more sustainable, if we temper the visionary aspect of policy with a recognition of the variety and complexity of circumstance.
The current situation in the Middle East is instructive...
The US, unlike Canada and (mostly) in the UK, will never criminalize private medicine because who could imagine the Lefty Hollywooders and the Lefty Wall Streeters waiting in lines in grungy government clinics or waiting six months for an MRI?
Not to mention the little-noticed detail that federal employees are exempt from Obamacare. I wonder why.
Just a quick reminder that a whole bunch of computers are going to lose their Internet connection this Sunday night at midnight, Eastern time.
Despite repeated alerts, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April. Of those still infected, the FBI believes that about 64,000 are in the United States.
As the last wave of fireworks die out, the shooting stars sinking to earth and vanishing into the darkness, the light of Independence Day fades and the crowds slowly trudge away from the brief spectacle, past the lines of police barricades, through narrow streets, past government buildings, back to their co-dependent lives in a co-dependent nation where the will of the people and the rights of the individual matter less than the latest proposal to solve the problems of their independence by making the country a more dependent place.
A few hundred years ago in these streets, men and women celebrated the end of tyranny, and in its darkest hour, lines of grim men marched along the waterfront up to the highest point on the island to mount a final defense. Sometimes the older buildings still wear their shadows on their brick walls and by the golden light of the fireworks you can almost see them, shadows moving in the darkness, their footsteps taking them north, a faint song on their lips, muskets in their hands, their lives lost and gained in defense of their freedom.
An interesting dilemma has presented itself to the world's bankers. For years they have been misguided in believing that forcing money through the system is the only way to keep economies running. Ignoring the nature of economic cycles, and trying to centrally manipulate positive outcomes, typically called 'soft landings', has led to a number of unintended consequences.
A slowing economy is one which needs savings, because in a heated economy, too many people are spending. At some point, the investment cycle can only be completed by having more people save.
We are, and have been for some time, at this stage. But the Federal Reserve (and other central banks) have all tried to manipulate consumption and spur borrowing by lowering interest rates. At some point, we've borrowed too much. At what point is that? At the point where we begin to charge for the 'privilege' of saving money. This is a Keynesian solution to a problem, but a problem that is misunderstood. During the Depression, rates were raised. This was the correct approach to handling the issue. But they were raised too far. Keynes did not deal with the issue of scale, just the issue he felt was problematic, which was a lack of consumption. Lack of Consumption is a very real problem, but lack of savings is an even worse problem.
The truth is, with interest rates as close to zero as they can be, and bank fees reaching levels that rival extortion, the US has been in a Negative Interest Rate situation for almost 3 years. We just haven't made it official the way Denmark has. It's not a good thing, either (though Denmark claims it is).
Interest rates have been negative once before - for reserves by banks at the central bank in Sweden in 2009. Even the US is considering this approach to get banks to lend more.
At some point, the massive credit expansion the Fed has employed the last 4 years will create inflation. We've been lucky so far, as a reserve currency, that most of this inflation has been exported to smaller nations. But that time is coming to an end, as is our reserve status. This, combined with negative interest rates, will no doubt spark the inflationary fires as consumption takes place and dollars are repatriated when interest rates go up.
It's worth noting, as well, that the US has been in a Negative Real Interest Rate situation for quite some time (inflation is greater than interest rate payments = negative real interest rates). Negative Real Interest is not rare, and is usually what leads to increased consumption (and has no doubt kept our economy struggling along rather than forcing us to do what we need to do). Which explains why Jim Rogers has been deeply invested in commodities.
There are two sorts of Americans, the "What can I get?" Americans and the "What can I do?" Americans.
Some folks might wade through the Rio Grande for "What can I get?", but I think most of them, like the ones who immigrate from further afield, come because of "What can I do?" Nowadays, it's mostly smart, ambitious Asians who can write code but are also willing to do the night shifts at the minimarts (kind of crazy to see work-free Americans on welfare in the minimart lines while the Asian or Haitian keeps busy at the check-out counter practicing his or her English and studying some textbook between customers).
Land of Opportunity, and all that. Whining and whinging not allowed here. There is still more freedom here to pursue your life goals than anywhere on earth, and leisure is not a traditional American life goal. In fact, the original Americans considered leisure to be disreputable if not shameful except on Sunday, after church.
It was the banks that first felt the lash of Mr Hollande’s tongue when he declared that his “true adversary” was not Mr Sarkozy but “the world of finance”. The president, who has spent almost his entire career in the public sector or working for his party, once said: “I don’t like the rich."
If you hate the world of finance, don't borrow and don't invest. It's simple. Also strange, since Hollande has become very wealthy working all his life for government and in politics, and all of his friends and girlfriends are rich. He has the parasitic mind, and parasites hate their hosts because they are ashamed of their dependency.
The Washington Post describes the discovery of the subatomic Higgs boson particle as “thought to create a sort of force field that permeates the universe, imbuing everything we see and touch with the fundamental property known as mass.” There is also a basic particle that permeates the universe of human nature and, thus, of politics, imbuing everything that happens with the fundamental property known as power.
From birth each individual exhibits a basic nature which exists throughout life. Even as it is shaped some by nurture and experiences, that basic nature is dominant. Those natures fall along a continuum from stubborn control of self and choices of environment to stubborn control of others and their choices of environment. In the political sphere these natures fall along a right to left continuum. On the right is a tendency toward individualism and creation of an environment that is based on the freely combined choices of other individuals. On the left is a tendency toward imposing a collectivism that is based of unifying others through power over their choices. On the right the role of government is important in protecting those free choices, including those of minorities. On the left the role of government is essential to aggregating power to enforce visions of the collective good, regardless of minorities. Most people are along the continuum, by nature, by choice, and by circumstance tending toward one end or the other.
This is, if you consider 'lucky' as witnessing the most spectacular fireworks display in the history of mankind, now and probably forever.
Last night, an electrical malfunction caused the city of San Diego to set off their entire display in half a minute.
I've combined two clips for your viewing pleasure. The camera lens kind of futzes out in the first one because of the brightness; the second one, while blurrier, is closer to what people actually saw. Lucky bastards.
If you have a minute (but who does?) and have been on vacation from the intertubes, please scroll down Maggie's and catch up on some of our posts from the last couple of days.
Re France, "Why should they (the Germans) accept to contribute to the financing of a 60 year retirement age in France when they have just raised it domestically to 67?"
1. Overheard from a wise old(er) RN in the ER this morning, "She's dying. Let her be."
2. Hospital bill for one of my patient's daughters for a 3-day ICU stay after an overdose: $124,000 (not including the bills from the numerous specialists who consulted on the case). That's the price of high-tech combined with tort fears. Tort-sensitivity prevents common sense in medicine, and results in rigid one-size-fits-all (expensive) protocols.
3. One-day ER bill for a stumbling drunk on the street brought in by the police after shouting to strangers that he was going to throw himself in front of a car: $3200. One wonders what happened to good old drunk-tanks at the police station. ER staffs prefer that drunks and addicts intoxicate themselves quietly without drawing attention to themselves.
4. An OR friend emailed me this pic of a nurse friend posing jauntily with surgical sponges. People have to have a little fun and humor in the OR. Fighting over what music to play is sometimes the most fun. Every OR has its CD player. Generally, the surgeon picks unless he or she is feeling especially generous towards the anesthesiologist or the nurses. Surgeons who want opera drive everybody else crazy.
Happy Dependence Day! Between the government-sponsored electronic medical records and the Obamacare-IRS alliance, big brother is going to know everything about you and your family. For the Greater Good, natch.
It's a wonder that a single American likes this idea. Perhaps there is a large portion of Americans who like to be forced to do things. I just don't get it.
Leftists harp about the corruption in free markets, but rarely about the corruption intrinsic to centrally-controlled or -manipulated systems (see Solyndra, or Fannie Mae, for recent American examples).
The "invisible hand" has been given a teleological interpretation, as if some benevolent agent is active in bringing about that benevolent end. For Smith the hand is simply a metaphor for a free market, a "system of natural liberty", in which individuals exchange their goods and services without the intervention of any supervising hand or authority. Only in such a system could the division of labour produce the "opulence" that would distribute the "necessaries of life" for the benefit of all. "By necessaries," The Wealth of Nations explains, "I understand, not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without." Society, the rich and the poor, employers and workers, even unto the "lowest order" — this is the "nation" in The Wealth of Nations. It is not the nation state in the mercantilist sense, but the people who constitute society. And not the "people", as contemporaries often used that word — those who play an active part in politics — but the "common people" as well, including the lower and even the lowest orders. By the same token, the "wealth" in the title is not the wealth of the state (again, as the mercantilist understood it), but the wealth, or well-being, of all the people. Only a "progressive" — that is, a free and industrious — economy, could bring about "a universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people, . . . a general plenty [which] diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society." To those who complain that if the poor shared in the "general plenty", they would no longer be content with their lot in life, Smith put the question: "Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or an inconvenience to the society?" His answer is unequivocal — and very much in the spirit of Moral Sentiments:
Servants, labourers and workmen of different kinds make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconvenience to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.
Also, What Life Was Like in 1776 - Americans had the highest per capita income in the civilized world, paid the lowest taxes—and were determined to keep it that way.
Because I am drunk, this Independence Night, I watch the fireworks from far away, From a high hill, across the moony green Of lakes and other hills to the town harbor, Where stately illuminations are flung aloft, One light shattering in a hundred lights Minute by minute. The reason I am crying, Aside from only being country drunk, That is, may be that I have just remembered The sparklers, rockets, roman candles and So on, we used to be allowed to buy When I was a boy, and set off by ourselves At some peril to life and property. Our freedom to abuse our freedom thus Has since, I understand, been remedied By legislation. Now the authorities Arrange a perfectly safe public display To be watched at a distance; and now also The contribution of all the taxpayers Together makes a more spectacular Result than any could achieve alone (A few pale pinwheels, or a firecracker Fused at the dog's tail). It is, indeed, splendid: Showers of roses in the sky, fountains Of emeralds, and those profusely scattered zircons Falling and falling, flowering as they fall And followed distantly by a noise of thunder. My eyes are half-afloat in happy tears. God bless our Nation on a night like this, And bless the careful and secure officials Who celebrate our independence now.
I've been reading a bit about how western forest fires could be prevented, or reduced, by human intervention. I am opposed to that. Wildfire is a natural occurrence, and forest regeneration is a natural and necessary process and one upon which many species depend. It's well-known that fire-prevention eventuates in bigger fires.
If you want to live in the woods where fire is eventually expected, don't do it on my nickel. While I must admire the valiant forest-fire-fighters, I don't know why I am paying for them. There are dangers in the woods. Cougars, wolves, fires, bears, snakes, crazy rivers, etc. Nobody is forced to live there.
Same goes for federally-subsidized flood insurance. Seems like a no-brainer to me. Why should my tax dollars subsidize somebody to live where there is a predictable expectation of flooding? Or hurricanes or tornadoes?
Perhaps this sounds "insensitive," but adults are expected to calculate their risks in life and not come crying to me when the odds turn against them. I can be charitable when I choose to be, but I don't want to be forced by government to subsidize other peoples' adult choices.
An angry client today told me how pissed he was that the bank wouldn't swallow his $250,000 loss in the home he needs to sell now. I pointed out to him the obvious fact that he was implying that he would have been happy to keep any gain on the house, but not any loss. Then I pointed out that, if somebody wants to give up loss and to give up gain, then they should rent. When you rent, the landlord or the bank takes the risks.
In my long life experience, the more responsibility people take for their decisions and their consequences, the better and more careful decisions they make.
I happen to believe, based on experience, that the right psychotherapeutic approach, tailored for the individual, can be enormously helpful.
Two of my favorite quotes:
Freud (often misquoted): "The goal of psychoanalysis is to convert neurotic suffering into everyday (ordinary) misery."
Erik Erikson: "Psychotherapy begins where common sense ends."
Readers know that I am a Psychiatrist (MD) Psychoanalyst whose practice is mainly in psychodynamic psychotherapy, less of a "medical model" practice.
Dr. Dworkin (an anesthesiologist and pundit) has a good summary of the the evolution of psychotherapy in America: Psychotherapy and the Pursuit of Happiness. A quote from his essay:
Psychotherapy has undergone a great transformation since America’s mental health crisis began. Gone are the days when therapists were dedicated to the doctrines of Freud and Jung, when the field was suffused with an air of priestly sanctity, heavy with the odors of tradition and authority. In the old days, psychotherapists constructed vast philosophical fabrics out of the writings of visionaries. They dallied with ideas that bordered on philosophy and religion; their emotional natures were totally absorbed in the partisan passions of their analytic cliques; their subtle intellects concerned themselves with the dialectical splitting of dogmatic hairs. The words they used — id, ego, and superego, among many others — seemed like a transcendent manifestation of divine power, an example of humanity being vouchsafed glimpses of eternal truth flowing down through an elaborate and immense cascade of books, with individual therapists stretching back, through their pedigree of technique, to some godhead. A whole universe of understanding was brought about by means of these words. In this universe the therapist was not as his clients, but, instead, a creature apart.
In the past few decades, a new breed of therapist has emerged — sympathetic, friendly, lighthearted, warm, and caring. His therapeutic style bears everywhere upon it the signs of human imperfection. It is the outcome of efficiency and practicality, of the exigencies of business executives and the ambitions of professionals, of the preferences of society and of the necessities of unhappy people. Gone is the transcendent manifestation, the abracadabra of therapy. Gone are the fervors of piety, the zeal of disciples, and the enthusiasm of intellectuals imagining themselves to have discovered a new theory of human nature.
Once a consecrated priesthood, therapists today walk along the smooth road of ordinary duty. They help people with their everyday problems. They speak in a casual manner and even crack jokes. They are friendly. They smile. They differ neither outwardly nor inwardly from the clients they serve, for whom therapy has become a useful organization, a convenient and respectable appendage to existence, a sometimes necessary form of artificial friendship.
I would cheerfully dispute the notion that physicians no longer constitute a priesthood of sorts, and I would dispute the notion that most people practicing psychotherapy, regardless of their training, are mostly busy with people with "everyday problems." (Some are, most aren't.)
As for "happiness," that's not something either physicians or "caring professionals" have the power to deliver. Relief of unnessary suffering and problematic behavior is difficult enough in itself.
In my view, psychotherapy is a deadly serious endeavor with the ambitious goal of rescuing lives and souls from their emotional problems and limitations, as much as possible. More like a mind-surgeon than a paid friend.
Man: Would you sleep with me for $5 million? Woman: Sure. Man: Okay, how about for $1? Woman: No way! What kind of woman do you think I am? Man: Oh, I already know. Now we're just haggling over the price
London celebrates completion of Europe’s tallest building
Mead: 
The Fourth of July (1958, mind you)
I happen to believe, based on experience, that the right psychotherapeutic approach, tailored for the individual, can be enormously helpful.