Nation of Change has the article Europe’s Debt Crisis Deepens.

Talking about “the markets” who are pushing austerity programs on governments that are in debt, Wolff says:

The chief influences among those creditors are the major banks that represent and/or advise all or most of the rest of them.  The major European banks were and are the chief recipients of the costly bailouts by those European governments since 2008.  Indeed, those bailouts sharply increased the indebtedness of European governments because the latter paid for those bailouts by borrowing.

As far as I can tell, unless I just missed it, Wolff does not suggest any solutions to the problem.

If the indebtedness of European governments’ was sharply increased by the bailouts of the banks, does that not imply that the banks owe these governments the money that the governments are in debt?  Would you not think that the governments have some pressure they could exert back on the banks?

Two comments on the story suggest that nationalization of banks might be a solution.  You would think that even the threat of nationalization might drive banks to the negotiating table. If you don’t like nationalization, how about the governments demand their money back from the banks so that the government could go into competition with the banks as sources for liquidity in the “free” market?  Then the private banks could disappear into oblivion and nobody would care (except for the bank executives and the bank investors.)  The people who caused the problem would suffer the consequences, and the rest of us could just go about our business.

I wonder why Richard D. Wolff didn’t delve into or even hint at these questions and possible answers?

The Economist has an interesting article, Lessons of the 1930s: There could be trouble ahead.

In 2008 the world dodged a second Depression by avoiding the mistakes that led to the first. But there are further lessons to be learned for both Europe and America.

The article talks about opposing theories about the history and lessons learned.  Unlike stories in many U.S. media outlets, this one does give some hints as to which theories have been debunked and which seem to stand up.  The article is worth the read for the specific lessons learned.

That said, I am going to go off on a tangent about methodological lessons learned.

Reading this article had me thinking about a lesson I think I learned from the book Bad Science: Quacks, Hacks, and Big Pharma Flacks.

There is quite a difference between having a premise and seeking data to support it and having some data and trying to figure out what you can learn from it.

In the first case it is almost always possible to find data to support a theory if you look hard enough, massage it, and squint at it if you must, and ignore any data that casts doubt on your premise.  In the second case you gather data in an unbiased way and see where it leads you.

I think you can see examples of both types of theories discussed in The Economist article.

If you think about the two situations more you see that it is very easy to fall into the trap of premise first and data next.  You might start out in the unbiased way, and develop a theory.  Then it is very easy to fall into the trap of just searching for more data to confirm your theory.  This is called confirmation bias.

I can think of one way to search for more data while controlling the bias problem.   When you set up your search or your experiment, always consider ways to disprove your theory as well as ways to prove it.  Consciously think of data to look for or experiments to conduct that will disprove your theory.  If the data you find or experiment you perform in an effort to disprove your theory fails to disprove it and your other searches and experiments tend to confirm it, then you are more likely to have found a theory that is closest to the truth.

Another problem arises when you get into a discussion (argument) with someone who disagrees with your theory.  That is exactly when you are caught in the trap of trying to prove you are right.  If the opposition presents some opposing data, your natural tendency is to look for flaws in that data.  There is nothing wrong with that as long as you are also looking at the possibility that the opposition is right and their data do disprove your theory.

I write this blog entry as much as a reminder to myself as it is a lesson to anyone else.

From Lowering the Bar whose motto is “Legal humor. Seriously.” comes the article For Christmas, Your Government Will Explain Why It’s Legal to Kill You.

Summary:

• The government dropped a bomb on a U.S. citizen,
• who, though a total dick and probably a criminal, may have been engaged only in propaganda,
• which, though despicable, is generally protected by the First Amendment;
• it did so without a trial or even an indictment (that we know of),
• based at least in part on evidence it says it has but won’t show anyone,
• and on a legal argument it has apparently made but won’t show anyone,
• and the very existence of which it will not confirm or deny;
• although don’t worry, because the C.I.A. would never kill an American without having somebody do a memo first;
• and this is the “most transparent administration ever”;
• currently run by a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks again to RogerG for posting this item on his Facebook page.

In The White House post What $40 Means to Americans Across the Country, President Obama emphasized the value of social media in politics.

Using social media and the internet, the American people told Washington in no uncertain terms that letting the payroll tax cut expire on December 31, 2011 was not acceptable. You tweeted, you called and you emailed to remind Washington that politics is not a game – serving the American people is a serious responsibility and the decisions made in Congress have serious consequences on people’s lives.

I hope this is a sign that the President has come to realize that his most important job is to educate voters so that they know what is at stake. Rallying people around the legislation he wants to pass, is effective as shown by this incident.

Rather than going into battle with the Republicans and leaving his troops behind, this time the President decided to bring the troops along with him. He is in a much more effective negotiating position, when the opposition says, “Oh yeh? You and whose army.” I can see the President now, pulling the curtain aside and saying, “This army!”

It is time that citizens and politicians realize that the citizens’ part in running the government does not end on election day.

The Daily Kos is carrying the article Are Pro-NDAA Lawmakers for Military Detention of U.S. Citizens Actually Guilty of “Treason?”.

You don’t need to be a meteorologist to know if it’s raining outside, and you don’t need to be a constitutional scholar to know that permanent wartime powers amounts to the overthrow of the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution.  Treason.

This sounds an awful lot like statements to which I always object “You don’t need a PhD in economics to understand [name your favorite economic inanity].  It just takes common sense.”  Nevertheless, this Daily Kos article is worth thinking about.

The article also says:

Thomas Jefferson said of the jury trial:

“I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by  man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its  constitution.”

I also remind you of my oft stated warning, “The above statement does not derive its wisdom from having been said by a famous founding ancestor.  Instead that famous founding ancestor can be said to have some wisdom because he made the above statement.  Whatever other statements said founding ancestor might have made, need to be judged on their own merits.”

Here is an easy link to RecallTheTraitors.blogspot.com mentioned in the video that went along with the article.  This was in conjunction with the call to Join The Drive to Recall All Congressmen and Senators who voted for the NDAA indefitinite detention of American citizens.

Thanks to RogerG for posting this on his Facebook page. This is something you should carry around with you at all times, just in case.

Below is the video from The Young Turks Cenk interviews Rocky Anderson, progressive 3rd party candidate for president.

“The Republicans and the Democrats are completely in bed with the same folks, these corporate interests who are in control of our government,” Anderson says. “The reason I’m doing this and the reason the Justice Party was formed is so that we can take the reins of our government and make sure that those in Washington are doing what’s in the public interest.”

Who knew that Salt Lake City, of all places, had a progressive Democratic mayor?

Here is Rachel Maddow expressing her outrage.

To single out President Obama from all previous Presidents who sent similar cards is not racist, I assure you. If you can’t believe Faux Noise, who can you believe?

In The Progressive magazine article An Interview with Elizabeth Warren, there is a segment I want to emphasize.

Q: You have an amazing anecdote in The Two-Income Trap about Hillary Clinton and the bankruptcy bill, which she called “that awful bill” and opposed when her husband was President but voted for in 2001, though it didn’t pass then.

Warren: I give Hillary Clinton a lot of credit. When she was First Lady, I sat down with her in a hotel in Boston. I had all these graphs and charts, and she was crunching through a hamburger, listening, and asking a lot of questions, and she really got it. At first, she was resistant. After all, the White House was quietly supporting the banks’ bankruptcy bill. But boy, by about the third or fourth slide she was starting to say, “Oh,” and she could jump ahead. She got it.

Someone later told me there were skid marks on the floor in the White House from people reversing position on that bankruptcy bill when Hillary Clinton got back from Boston.

Q: And then those skid marks turned the other way again when she went to the Senate and soon thereafter voted for a similar bill.

Warren: That was the interesting thing. She stayed in the same place so long as she was in the White House. I believe that Mrs. Clinton was responsible for President Clinton’s veto of that bankruptcy bill. Ultimately, Congress passed the bill again in 2005 and George Bush signed it into law. But in that five-year period in between, eight million families went through the bankruptcy system, while the law was still intact. So the veto was important, and I believe she was the cause. And that’s what’s so disheartening. She changed her vote in the Senate. If Hillary Clinton, one of the strongest, most independent politicians of her generation, felt that she needed to conform her voting to the desires of the banking industry once she held elective office, what hope is there for the rest of the politicians?

This same anecdote is discussed starting at 56:35 in the video in the previous post Elizabeth Warren – The Two Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke.

The lesson Elizabeth Warren gave to Hillary Clinton was the explanation of how bad the bankruptcy bill was.

The lesson Hillary Clinton gave to Elizabeth Warren is that even if you understand the horrors of the bill and you convinced President Clinton to veto it, you may still eventually give in to the lobbying pressures once you become a Senator.

I would love to hear Elizabeth Warren’s plan to resist this pressure when she becomes the Senator from Massachusetts.  Unfortunately President George H. W. Bush made the “Read my lips” assurance null and void.   I have no idea what plan Elizabeth Warren could have to make sure she does not succumb.

There is still some technical jargon in this discussion. Is there anything in here that Elizabeth Warren says that you cannot understand? Let’s get it out on the table.