“Altruism: The Moral Root of the Financial Crisis” by Richard M. Salsman

This article presents a different explanation for the current financial mess. Salsman rejects the commonly offered explanation that the inherent flaws of the free market caused the recession. His economic explanation is not unique. Others, like Thomas Sowell, have shown that government policies, not fatal flaws in capitalism, thrust us into the present mess. Salsman takes a critical step not evident in other free market based explanations. He identifies the ethical ideas behind certain policies: these ideas, accepted by Republicans and Democrats, pushed an altruist agenda in order to help folks without the necessary financial means buy houses. This was a recipe for disaster.

Those who claim greed caused are partially (and only partially) right. While Salsman explains how banks were "encouraged" by the certain politicians to lower lending standards I'm sure it's also true that some institutions and individuals were motivated by greed to play along and even profit from these lowered standards. This would include those who managed Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae as well as their political buddies who protected them. Greed by itself doesn't explain why the housing market imploded. Otherwise it would happen all the time and not just in the housing market. (Do we see this happening, say, in the cell phone market? Or with PC's? Or food?) You need something to prevent the market from correcting itself. In this case one of the factors was the unhealthy alliance between those who ran Freddie Mac and Freddie Mae and those who "regulated" them and the banking industries. Greed certainly was a factor but not the sole or even the main one.

Why Bin Laden Lost by Brendan Greeley

I have only a few minor quibbles with Brendan Greeley's perceptive commentary on Bin Laden. He starts his article with: "The United States has no purpose." I like to think he worded his intro that way simply to catch our attention. I’d put it differently: the purpose of our government is to protect our individual purpose. I agree: it’s not nearly as catchy. In essence Greeley is saying that our government does not establish a purpose to which all of us must march in lockstep but to protect the ability for each of us to take steps in the direction of our choice.



I agree with his overall point: that the founding principles of the U.S. protect our ability to pursue happiness. While Greeley tends to focus on consumption such as collecting figurines, joining a clogging troupe and taking road trips (these are his examples) he misses another aspect: creating values. Our Constitution protects both enjoying values and creating them.


Towards the end of his article Greeley says: “We humans follow base and pedestrian needs.” Unfortunately, whether he means it or not, I think this choice of words plays into the hands of those who think we should be committed to a “higher” purpose, such as serving others. There is a strong sentiment here in our own country to compel us to serve others whether we want to or not.

To me there is nothing base or pedestrian about fulfilling our needs. Yes, I don’t deny there are some activities (like watching Jersey Shore) which are base or pedestrian. At least I think they are and don’t partake in them; I also don’t recommend outlawing them.

I think it’s a mistake both philosophically and strategically to label activities that satisfy our wants or needs as merely “base” or “pedestrian”. Our ability to pursue these wants reflects the success of our approach: that we can transcend basic survival needs to pursue other desires that represent our individual needs, interests, wants and desires. We have the luxury of, say, collecting figurines, joining a clogging troupe and taking road trips precisely because of the spectacular and envied (or despised depending on your viewpoint) success of our system of limited government and the free market. This success rests on our freedom to create, enjoy and express values within a market and culture protected by laws based (in general) on individual rights. In other words our riches rest on our ability to pursue our own self-interest as long as we don’t violate the self-interest of others. We collect figurines, clog or travel because we feel they enrich our lives. We don’t feel the need to justify our existence by serving some “larger” purpose such as serving God, others or Allah. Nor should we.

With all of the above in mind I nonetheless highly recommend reading Greeley's article.

ROBERT JAMES BIDINOTTO: How deeply has "Atlas Shrugged" penetrated our cul...

Robert James Bidinotto's analysis of the Left's reaction to the Atlas Shrugged movie nicely captures Rand's influence and the threat she represents to their agenda. As he concludes:

And that is why the Ruling Class establishment cannot bring itself to ignore her any longer. The sheer volume and intensity of their intemperate mockery gives the lie to their claims that her ideas aren't worth bothering about. They are bothered, all right -- as they should be -- about a looming philosophic menace to their shaky hold on our culture.

George Monbiot's Epiphany

Walter Russell Mead reports in Top Green Admits: “We Are Lost!” “George Monbiot of the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian has a must-read column in which he admits that because of a whole series of intellectual mistakes, the global green movement’s policy prescriptions are hopelessly flawed.”

Greens like to have it both ways. They warn darkly about “peak oil” and global resource shortages that will destroy our industrial economy in its tracks — but also warn that runaway economic growth will destroy the planet through the uncontrolled effects of mass industrial productions. Both doomsday scenarios cannot be true; one cannot simultaneously die of both starvation and gluttony.

As Monbiot says in his The Lost World.

You think you’re discussing technologies, you quickly discover that you’re discussing belief systems. The battle among environmentalists over how or whether our future energy is supplied is a cipher for something much bigger: who we are, who we want to be, how we want society to evolve. Beside these concerns, technical matters – parts per million, costs per megawatt hour, cancers per sievert – carry little weight. We choose our technology – or absence of technology – according to a set of deep beliefs; beliefs which in some cases remain unexamined.

Although Monbiot gets close to the truth, I believe Robert Bidinotto gets even closer in his Environmentalism or Individualism?

Capitalism and science are values only to people who want to achieve material progress; they rest implicitly on the idea that self-interest is good. Yet this clashes with age-old moral teachings, which hold that goodness consists of "service to others"--and that self-interest is evil.

This explains why economic and scientific arguments have failed to inoculate the public against environmentalism. By and large, people want to do the right thing. But if they've been taught to equate "the right thing" with self-sacrifice, and evil with selfishness--if they've been taught "Paradise" is Eden, that perfect Garden in which Man is a humble steward of the "natural balance"--then how can they possibly remain sympathetic to the enterprises of science and free market economics?

As I wrote in an earlier post on climate change:

I think the following quote from the former Canadian Environment Minister Christine Stewart sheds light on their motive.

“No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits…. Climate change [provides] the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world.” Source: Calgary Herald, 14 December 1998.

It all comes down to a new way to make us (the U.S. in particular and the West in general) feel guilty for our material success in order to soften us for their solutions of taxing emissions, changing our life style and bringing us down to the level of countries that don’t suffer from these “problems,” thanks to their policies of punitive taxation, heavy regulation and government control (or strangling) of their economies.

Which ‘Extremists’ Are Forcing a Governmental Shutdown? - Robert James Bidinotto

» Which ‘Extremists’ Are Forcing a Governmental Shutdown? - Big Government

Nuclear crony capitalism | The Rational Optimist

Nuclear crony capitalism | The Rational Optimist…

On the subject of the liability cap that protects the U.S. nuclear industry The Rational Optimist observes:

That's exactly the problem with crony capitalism, whether in finance or energy or anything else. The `market' and `capitalists' are not on the same side and against `government'. No, its government and capitalists colluding against the market, which is on the side of the people. The `financial market' proved to be no such thing; it was a casino for favoured clients run by central banks. The `energy market' is no such thing. It is a scheme run by governments for favoured clients in the nuclear, renewable and environmental-pressure group industries.

Here is a balanced perspective on the Japanese nuclear industry that sheds light on how their plants suffered the damage from the earthquake and tsunami.

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/03/24/032411-opinions-column-japan-dalmia-1-2/

Jeffrey Epstein's Society Friends Close Ranks

Jeffrey Epstein's Society Friends Close Ranks

I had not heard of this story until Robert Bidinotto commented on it in Facebook. Below is his take on why certain celebs and politicians jumped to Epstein’s defense.

One of the most revealing aspects of this episode is how the ethics of altruism serves to exonerate and absolve an individual even of sexual exploitation of young girls. What flaw of character these days cannot be overlooked and forgiven, simply by writing a check to some charity, or -- even easier -- simply by publicly advocating some Politically Correct cause, without even so much as writing the check? That this creep is a pal of Bill Clinton and Woody Allen speaks volumes, doesn't it?

Consider the case of Clinton, who soiled the presidency with his sordid Oval Office dalliances, then ruthlessly tried to destroy the reputations of women who resisted and reported his behavior. Where was the National Organization for Women to stand up for the women? Where were all the lefties who eagerly sought to expose Republican politicians who cheated on their wives? What was the difference in the behavior? None, except for one thing: that "their" candidates and public figures got a moral pass simply because they pay lip service to the "right" causes and policies, while their targeted enemies did not.

To the Ruling Class -- and by that term, I mean not just political leaders but also the intellectual-cultural Establishment -- "ethical behavior" is a concept that has been expunged from the personal realm and now applies solely to social-political activity. One can be a complete degenerate in his personal life -- a ruinous parent, an unfaithful spouse, a coke-snorting wastrel, a pedophile or pervert or crook -- and yet remain a hero among the self-anointed Elite, simply by virtue of promoting "charity," "self-sacrifice," "spreading the wealth around," etc. In this last, even blatant hypocrisy is excused. Think of all the jet-setting, gas-guzzling, mansion-dwelling celebs and politicians who pontificate about the perils of your carbon footprint. Think of the Charlie Rangels and Timothy Geithners and Jeff Immelts and other tax-dodgers who push the redistribution of OTHER people's wealth.

What we see in all of these contradictions, inconsistencies, and hypocrisies is one constant goal: the retention of their power and status. In the end, all the sanctimonious philosophizing and sophistic theorizing of the Ruling Class, all their chatter about charity and the ethics of altruistic sacrifice for Others, is nothing more than grand-scale rationalizing: moral excuse-making that will allow them to retain their status as members of the Ruling Class.

And that is why they will all rally together to support one of their own -- even if he is a convicted child molester. This is class warfare: warfare of the Ruling Class against the tediously restrictive standards and impossibly constraining principles of the Lower Classes. They are doing to ethics what they are doing to the Constitution -- and for the same reason.