The Daily Kos has a petition discussed in the post  Signature needed: Senate will vote on Constitutional Amendment to overturn Citizens United.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions opened the floodgates of unlimited campaign spending by the 1%, which threatens our democracy.

And the Court will keep ruling this way, as long as we subscribe to the absurd notion that money is “speech.”

However, Senator Tom Udall (D-New Mexico) has sponsored a constitutional amendment to give Congress the power to pass campaign contribution limits and spending limits. A vote is expected in the coming months.

I signed the petition, and added the comment:

We should have a constitutional amendment banning the use of invalid syllogisms as a justification for any ruling.

The link above shows that Google has the definition of syllogism as “a formal argument in logic that is formed by two statements and a conclusion which must be true if the two statements are true.”

Note that is is very important that the two initial statements must be true for the conclusion to be true. If either of the two initial statements are “money is speech” or “corporations are people”, then you know that the logic does not validate that conclusion that corporations are allowed to make unlimited political contributions.

Maybe I ought to be referring to WikiPedia‘s explanation of the actual meaning of begging the question.

Begging the question means “assuming the conclusion (of an argument)”, a type of circular reasoning. This is an informal fallacy where the conclusion that one is attempting to prove is included in the initial premises of an argument, often in an indirect way that conceals this fact.^[1]

Maybe the footnote 1 above is even a better definition of the problem.

Garner, B.A. (1995). Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. Oxford Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage. Oxford University Press. p. 101. ISBN 9780195142365. LCCN 95003863. “begging the question does not mean “evading the issue” or “inviting the obvious questions,” as some mistakenly believe. The proper meaning of begging the question is “basing a conclusion on an assumption that is as much in need of proof or demonstration as the conclusion itself.” The formal name for this logical fallacy is petitio principii. Following are two classic examples: “Reasonable men are those who think and reason intelligently.” Patterson v. Nutter, 7 A. 273, 275 (Me. 1886). (This statement begs the question, “What does it mean to think and reason intelligently?”)/ “Life begins at conception! [Fn.: ‘Conception is defined as the beginning of life.’]” Davis v. Davis, unreported opinion (Cir. Tenn. Eq. 1989). (The “proof”—or the definition—is circular.)”

The Daily Kos has the post Elizabeth Warren Changes the Conversation.

The massive response to Elizabeth Warren’s new book, A Fighting Chance, gives Democrats a great opportunity to change the 2014 conversation.
.
.
.
Democrats need to embrace Warren’s message in order to fire up the activists, online donors, and Democratic base voters they so desperately need to win in 2014. This is our moment to light a fire under Democrats and change the dynamic from us being in a defensive crouch, whining because our voters are unmotivated to turn out and vote, to going on offense and taking it to the Republicans and their billionaire big business buddies.

I was hoping that this book tour would raise this type of reaction. I truly think this is the intention of Elizabeth Warren in writing the book. It’s purpose is not to get herself elected to anything. However, if getting her elected as President in 2016 is what it will take, then I am all for it.

Naked Capitalism has the post Bill Black: NYT DealBook Praises Steve Jobs’ Serial Felonies.

The fact that Silicon Valley “deeply revere[s]” a serial felon who targeted workers (globally, see my prior columns on China) and shareholders (he secretly backdated stock options in an effort to make himself even wealthier) should be deeply disturbing, even to Deal Book.  (I joke: if DealBook had appeared as a character in The Wizard of Oz it would have simultaneously represented “no brain, no heart, no ethics, and no courage.”)  Jobs’ CEO counterparts knew about his serial crimes because they were conspiring with him to form the cartel suppressing workers’ wages and because his backdating scam was made public.

We should also stress that Microsoft was found to have violated the antitrust laws (the Bush administration deliberately gutted the remedy for those violations of the law) and that Robert Tillman’s (a prominent white-collar criminologist) empirical work has found that high tech firms were particularly likely to have engaged in accounting and securities fraud.  That requires a hard look at Silicon Valley’s culture.  While Ayn Rand, von Mises, and von Hayek all stressed the evil of elite fraud and the legitimate, and vital role of the government in acting to deter and punish such frauds, the culture of Silicon Valley is increasingly dominated by wealthy libertarians who are far more radical in their hostility to democratic government, their disdain for ethics, and their opposition to the government preventing fraud.  The “Kristallnacht” lunacy is a perfect example of the depraved culture that can emerge when you mix the worst strands of Silicon Valley’s and finance’s contempt for ethics into a single package.

This is one of the reasons why I could never be a fan of Steve Jobs, nor of Apple Computer. Bill Gates was no happy alternative. That is why, of the three computers I have, two of them have a variant of linux (Kubuntu) as their primary operating systems and the third has Kubuntu installed as a virtual machine. The two mobile devices that I have use an Android operating system.

The financial damage that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates have done to the world is only half the story. The technological anti-competitive behavior of these two companies has probably set back the the state of the art in computers by decades.

I am reading Elizabeth Warren’s book A Fighting Chance. I was thrilled to see that she remembered the advice that I gave her in the campaign for the Senate.

To see which part was my advice, refer back to my March 3, 2012 post How Will The Warren Campaign Compete With Scott Brown’s Money?

Here is the relevant section of that post.

Do’s

• Improve efforts to raise the connection in voters’ minds between the name Elizabeth Warren, her photograph, and the office she is seeking.
  • Change the logo on all bumper stickers, web sites, social media sites, and printed material to say “Elizabeth Warren for U.S. Senator” instead of saying “Elizabeth Warren for Massachusetts”
  • Use every opportunity to put her name next to her photo and the office she is seeking.
    

I think I may have first mentioned the change of bumper sticker to Elizabeth Warren at her early campaign stop in in Ware, Massachusetts.

Not only did I make up the signature gathering sign shown above, but I also made my own bumper sticker.  The one below, I felt was easier to read, but it still didn’t make it clear what she was running for.

The one I eventually used on my car made it clearer what she was running for.

I am not sure about this, but the campaign may have eventually come out with new bumper stickers. I continued to use my own throughout the campaign.

Depending on where you start the process of getting to the podcast below, the headline is either Randy Wray on Krugman and the Frustration of the Heterodox or Stephanie Ketlon Talks with Randy Wray.

A broad-ranging discussion of conventional economics and the heterodox alternatives to IS/LM, Ricardian equivalence, etc.

Most economists who have finally come back to the real world after the 2008/2009 economic crash think that we need more government stimulus.   The people who are proponents of Modern Monetary Theory have known this for several decades before the current crisis.  The Neo-Keynesians like Krugman and Summers seem to have come to the realization more recently and perhaps for the wrong reasons.

This podcast explains why it is necessary to understand the correct reasons for why there is agreement on what the short term policy needs to be.  If you get to the right short-term policy by way of the wrong reasons, then you will get the long-term policy all wrong.

One of the things that the MIT philosophy taught me is that it is not enough to come up with the right answer, you need to come up with the right answer for the right reasons.  As I said above, if you come up with the right answer for the wrong reasons, you are very likely to come up with the wrong answer the next time you apply the wrong reasons to solving a problem.

By the way, the Google definition of heterodox is – not conforming with accepted or orthodox standards or beliefs.  It is silly to lump all heterodox economists in one category.  Perhaps there are only a few ways to define what orthodox economists think, but heterodoxy is just everything else.

You can well imagine that heterodoxy can range from the sublime to the ridiculous.

Being a fan of Elizabeth Warren and also of her idea of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), I realized that I had not visited its web site, nor have I told others about it.

There are two URLs that you can use to get to the site. The shortened version www.cfpb.gov will automatically redirect you to the longer URL www.consumerfinance.gov. There is also a CFPB Facebook page.

Here is the introductory message from Richard Cordray, the CFPB director.

In Elizabeth Warren’s book A Fighting Chance, she said about the CFPB,

I figured it this way. Every day the wind would blow over this agency from one direction. We would hear the voices of those who were organized, those who had money, and those who were powerful. If we weren’t careful, their point of view would eventually seep into every crack and crevice of the place. We needed a strong wind from the other direction. We needed to create an agency that would be transparent about our mission, our goals, and the work we were doing – so that the public would call us out if we fell short.

One way for us to help this agency fulfill its potential is to talk about the agency and to tell people about the web site. We can look at the video above on YouTube, and click the like button.

Remember this web site if you ever have a problem with a financial institution, or if you want to find out what the CFPB is doing to protect you.

The Real News Network has the interview Is Thomas Piketty Right About the Causes of Inequality?

HUDSON: Well, that’s why the neoliberal’s love Piketty. It’s why Krugman loves Picketty(sic) and others. You can’t implement it. So he’s produced a book without any solution, and the free enterprise boys like that. The 1 percent don’t mind being criticized as long as there’s no solution to their problem. And that’s what the critics have come out saying: wait a minute, there are a lot of solutions. For one thing, some kind of wealth is better than others. You don’t want to tax people building factories and improving living standards like the one percent pretend that they do, but what you do want to tax is unearned income, economic rent, capital gains.
.
.
.
It’s the Wall Street bankers who’ve been doing the junk mortgages and engaging in the kind of fraud that we’ve been hearing about on Wall Street. This is not what Piketty discusses. He doesn’t say, throw the clerks in jail; he doesn’t say, have government regulatory agencies to prevent this kind of exploitation; he doesn’t say, reimpose anti-monopoly regulations to prevent monopoly profits from enriching the one percent; he doesn’t say, take all of these public utilities that Margaret Thatcher privatized in England and Ronald Reagan did in America and put them back in the public domain so that they can provide basic services to people at cost. All of this is a different topic from his book.

As with most books that I read that discuss the big problems in society, they are great in laying out the facts of what is wrong. This is usually the majority of the book. At the end they feel obligated to propose some solutions. Very rarely, if ever, have I read that part of the book and found it up to the standards of the first part of the book.

It appears that the Piketty book may be worse than the usual failure. He proposes non-solutions, and ignores the solutions that would work and have been proven to work.

The Real News Network is starting another series with Global Warming Theory Based on Evidence, Not Belief – Alan Robock on Reality Asserts Itself (1/5). This first part is a slow start if you are anxious to get into the nitty-gritty science.

Now, so that’s based on evidence. You asked me if I believe in global warming. It’s not a question of belief. It’s a question of looking at the evidence and weighing the evidence. And I’m really a skeptic. I try to be critical of anything that’s told to me, and want to ask questions, and then I make conclusions based on the evidence. My motivation in my career would be to find a flaw in global warming, not another paper that supports it.

The next part is No CO2 Eureka Moment, Just Years of Statistical Analysis — Alan Robock on Reality Asserts Itself (2/5).

ROBOCK: Well, my dissertation said that random variations, just the natural variability of weather, could have caused the climate change of the last hundred years. It turned out my model was too sensitive to these random variations and it was wrong. So, over time, I published papers on the impact of volcanic eruptions, which is what I specialize in, and other people worked on the carbon dioxide effect and trying to quantify it. And it wasn’t until more recently that it was clear that CO2 was the dominant cause.

But people don’t understand there’s multiple causes of climate change, and they’re all happening at the same time. And so it’s not just one thing; it’s the battle between these different things that ends up in the net climate change.

Paul Jay and other non-scientist always seem to expect a Eureka Moment. No matter how hard Paul tries, he cannot get this scientist to say there is one. At least the headline writer got the point.

As Robock tries to emphasize, there are a large number of competing forces in the climate that pull in different directions. What a scientist tries to do is to figure out what the net effect is and how sensitive the net effect is to changing over time. As time goes on, and we develop better measures, better simulations, and better accounting for more of the competing effects, the chances that we will find a large, heretofore unknown effect diminishes.

There is never a point in time when you can be absolutely certain that nothing can happen to upset the analysis. We could get hit by an asteroid large enough to kill us all off before we drown in the rising oceans. Normally, people get upset when the people who should know don’t take precautions against the obvious risks. They even get upset when the people who should know don’t guard against unimaginable risks. So why should we pay inordinate attention to the deniers who don’t want us to take any action against a likely and imaginable risk?

May 5, 2014.

The subsequent post Answering Counter Climate Claims – Alan Robock on Reality Asserts Itself (3/5) gets to the meat of the topic.

Truth-out has the article Scathing Report Finds Rocketship, School Privatization Hurt Poor Kids.

Finally, in his report, Lafer outlines how the corporate lobbyists and their allies pushing school privatization are manufacturing failure for poor communities in a broad, coordinated way, including “the dominant role of corporate lobbies in promotion of online learning and privately run charter schools; the corporate lobbies’ support for dramatic cuts in funding for public services, including education; and these same lobbies’ advocacy for an economic agenda that makes it harder for many families to work their way out of poverty.”

If you want to know what is the antithesis of what Elizabeth Warren is fighting for, then the above article will tell you what it is.

Elizabeth Warren is stressing how important it has been to this country to invest in the education of its citizens, especially its children.  Our whole success clearly depends on an educated populace.  The people who would prefer to make money in the short term by siphoning it out of the education system and putting the money into their own pockets are setting us all up for disaster.

Maybe we should call this the Vampire theory of society. A few get to suck out the life blood from the majority.  They are  nourished by what they suck out of the living, but leave only dried up bodies in their wake.

Politico of all places has a fairly positive article Elizabeth Warren’s book tour: ‘Run, Liz, run!’

Interviews with more than a dozen Warren supporters in both cities showed that her message — the system is rigged against the little guy to the benefit of Wall Street and corporate America — is resonating, and any Democratic presidential hopeful will have to convince the Warren wing of the party that they get it. The conversations also revealed that enthusiasm for Warren often goes hand in hand with wariness of a President Hillary Clinton.

I am waiting for that convincing from Hillary Clinton.  The problem is that Clinton will cede the progressive wing of the electorate to Warren who will not be running.  Therefore the tone of the debate will not even address income inequality, the abandonment of all levels of government in investing in the country’s future, the guilt of Wall Street bankers, and the war mongering of the oil people hankering after Ukraine’s oil shale. Clinton will court the middle and the right.  This will alienate a large number of potential enthusiastic campaign volunteers and voters.  Clinton’s campaign will not bring out the votes that the Democrats have and that are needed to defeat the Republicans.

The Republicans could run John Ellis Bush (aka JEB) and maybe beat Clinton.

By the way, I have not been able to verify Warren’s attitude on the Ukraine issue, so what I said above about the Ukraine may only be my issue.  I could understand that, but I would be disappointed.