Here's the joke that all the entertainment networks (CNN, CBS, ABC, Fox especially the last network) have been making a big deal about the NYC photo-op muddle and making a big deal about it.
Some want heads to roll for scaring New Yorkers. Heads to roll for making a mistake but none for the clowns who caused the financial mess. Oh no sir, those chaps can continue to work on the firms.
All the heads of the banks Citibank, Bank Of America, AIG, should be fired and no one who has Wall St connections should be employed.
We'll be far better off employing smart teenagers of the kind of win Westinghouse scholarships.
The point is just extremely sharp Science majors which no knowledge of finance or economics would ask the right questions and get the right answers. Heck even the CEOs of these banks do not have any clue about finance and what was going on in their firms!!
That should be the biggest story not this.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Healthcare in the US- or lack thereof
Here's an interesting article from the Economist
Americans like to think their country is number one but statistics tell a different picture. America lags behind third world countries in infant mortality! with a rank of 178!
Higher the number lower your
So even though the WSJ might claim the US has the best healthcare system in the world just because foreign heads of states visit the US for treatment, that doesn't say anything for the average resident.
See article below from the economist Health care in India
Health care in India
Lessons from a frugal innovator
Apr 16th 2009 | BANGALORE
From The Economist print edition
The rich world’s bloated health-care systems can learn from India’s entrepreneurs
Tom Pietrasik
ENTER the main cardiac operating-room at Bangalore’s Wockhardt hospital on a typical morning, and you will find a patient on the operating table with a screen hanging between his head and chest. On a recent visit the table was occupied by a middle-aged Indian man whose serene look suggested that he was ready for the operation to come. Asked how he was, he smiled and answered in Kannada that he felt fine. Only when you stand on a stool to look over the screen do you realise that his chest cavity has already been cut open.
As the patient was chatting away, Vivek Jawali and his team had nearly completed his complex heart bypass. Because such “beating heart” surgery causes little pain and does not require general anaesthesia or blood thinners, patients are back on their feet much faster than usual. This approach, pioneered by Wockhardt, an Indian hospital chain, has proved so safe and successful that medical tourists come to Bangalore from all over the world.
This is just one of many innovations in health care that have been devised in India. Its entrepreneurs are channelling the country’s rich technological and medical talent towards frugal approaches that have much to teach the rich world’s bloated health-care systems. Dr Jawali is feted today as a pioneer, but he remembers how Western colleagues ridiculed him for years for advocating his inventive “awake surgery”. He thinks that snub reflects an innate cultural advantage enjoyed by India.
Unlike the hidebound health systems of the rich world, he says, “in our country’s patient-centric health system you must innovate.” This does not mean adopting every fancy new piece of equipment. Over the years he has rejected surgical robots and “keyhole surgery” kit because the costs did not justify the benefits. Instead, he has looked for tools and techniques that spare resources and improve outcomes.
Shivinder Singh, head of Fortis, a rival hospital chain based in New Delhi, says that most of the new, expensive imaging machines are only a little better than older models. Meanwhile, vast markets for poorer patients go unserved. “We got out of this arms race a few years ago,” he says. Fortis now promises only that its scanners are “world class”, not the newest.
Mr Singh is not alone in thinking that many firms in the rich world are looking at innovation the wrong way. Paul Yock, head of the bio-design laboratory at Stanford University, which develops medical devices, argues that medical-technology giants have “looked at need, but been blind to cost.” Amid growing concern about runaway health spending, he thinks the industry can find inspiration in India.
Poverty, geography and poor infrastructure mean that India faces perhaps the world’s heaviest disease burden, ranging from infectious diseases, the traditional scourge of the poor, to diseases of affluence such as diabetes and hypertension. The public sector has been overwhelmed, which is not surprising considering how little India’s government spends on health as a share of national income (see chart). Accordingly, nearly four-fifths of all health services are supplied by private firms and charities—a higher share than in any other big country.
In the past that was more a reflection of the state’s failure than the dynamism of entrepreneurs, but this is changing fast. Technopak Healthcare, a consulting firm, expects spending on health care in India to grow from $40 billion in 2008 to $323 billion in 2023. In part, that is the result of the growing affluence of India’s emerging middle classes. Another cause is the nascent boom in health insurance, now offered both by private firms and, in some cases, by the state. In addition, the government has recently liberalised the industry, easing restrictions on lending and foreign investment in health care, encouraging public-private partnerships and offering tax breaks for health investments in smaller cities and rural areas.
Cheaper and smarter
This has attracted a wave of investment from some of India’s biggest corporate groups, including Ranbaxy (the generic-drugs pioneer behind Fortis) and Reliance (one of India’s biggest conglomerates). The happy collision of need and greed has produced a cauldron of innovation, as Indian entrepreneurs have devised new business models. Some just set out to do things cheaply, but others are more radical, and have helped India leapfrog the rich world.
For years India’s private-health providers, such as Apollo Hospitals, focused on the affluent upper classes, but they are now racing down the pyramid. Vishal Bali, Wockhardt’s boss, plans to take advantage of tax breaks to build hospitals in small and medium-sized cities (which, in India, means those with up to 3m inhabitants). Prathap Reddy, Apollo’s founder, plans to do the same. He thinks he can cut costs in half for patients: a quarter saved through lower overheads, and another quarter by eliminating travel to bigger cities.
Columbia Asia, a privately held American firm with over a dozen hospitals across Asia, is also making a big push into India. Rick Evans, its boss, says his investors left America to escape over-regulation and the political power of the medical lobby. His model involves building no-frills hospitals using standardised designs, connected like spokes to a hub that can handle more complex ailments. His firm offers modestly priced services to those earning $10,000-20,000 a year within wealthy cities, thereby going after customers overlooked by fancier chains. Its small hospital on the fringes of Bangalore lacks a marble foyer and expensive imaging machines—but it does have fully integrated health information-technology (HIT) systems, including electronic health records (EHRs).
New competitors are also emerging. A recent report from Monitor, a consultancy, points to LifeSpring Hospitals, a chain of small maternity hospitals around Hyderabad. This for-profit outfit offers normal deliveries attended by private doctors for just $40 in its general ward, and Caesarean sections for about $140—as little as one-fifth of the price at the big private hospitals. It has cut costs with a basic approach: it has no canteens and outsources laboratory tests and pharmacy services.
It also achieves economies of scale by attracting large numbers of patients using marketing. Monitor estimates that its operating theatres accommodate 22-27 procedures a week, compared with four to six in other private clinics. LifeSpring’s doctors perform four times as many operations a month as their counterparts do elsewhere—and, crucially, get better results as a result of high volumes and specialisation. Cheap and cheerful really can mean better.
But there is more to India’s approach than cutting costs. Its health-care providers also make better use of HIT. According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fewer than 20% of doctors’ surgeries in America use HIT. In contrast, according to Technopak, nearly 60% of Indian hospitals do so. And instead of grafting technology onto existing, inefficient processes, as often happens in America, Indian providers build their model around it. Apollo’s integrated approach to HIT has enabled the chain to increase efficiency while cutting medical errors and labour. EHRs and drug records zip between hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, and its systems also handle patient registration and billing. Apollo is already selling its expertise to American hospitals.
Eye on the prize
A casual visitor to Madurai, a vibrant medieval-temple town in southern India, would not think it was a hotbed of innovation. And yet that is exactly what you will find at Aravind, the world’s biggest eye-hospital chain, based in the town. There are perhaps 12m blind people in India, with most cases arising from treatable or preventable causes such as cataracts. Rather than rely on government handouts or charity, Aravind’s founders use a tiered pricing structure that charges wealthier patients more (for example, for fancy meals or air-conditioned rooms), letting the firm cross-subsidise free care for the poorest.
Aravind also benefits from its scale. Its staff screen over 2.7m patients a year via clinics in remote areas, referring 285,000 of them for surgery at its hospitals. International experts vouch that the care is good, not least because Aravind’s doctors perform so many more operations than they would in the West that they become expert. Furthermore, the staff are rotated to deal with both paying and non-paying patients so there is no difference in quality. Monitor’s new report argues that Aravind’s model does not just depend on pricing, scale, technology or process, but on a clever combination of all of them.
C.K. Prahalad and other management gurus trumpet examples like Aravind, but do the rich countries accept that they could learn from India? Unsurprisingly, some reject the notion that America’s model is broken. William Tauzin, head of America’s pharmaceutical lobby, warns that regulatory efforts to cut costs could stifle life-saving innovation. Sandra Peterson of Bayer, a German drugs and devices giant, stoutly defends the industry’s record. She argues that overall cost increases mask how medical devices, “like cars or personal computers, give better value for the money over time.” Diabetes monitors and pacemakers have improved dramatically in the past 20 years and have fallen in price—but costs have gone up because they are now being used by more patients.
But those examples are exceptions. Many studies show that America’s spending on health care is soaring, yet its medical outcomes remain mediocre. Mark McClellen of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, says that a big problem is the overuse of technology. Whether or not a scan is needed, the system usually pays if a doctor orders it—and the scan might help defend the doctor against a malpractice claim. “The root cause is not greed, but tremendous technological progress imposed upon a fractured health system,” says Thomas Lee of Partners Community HealthCare, a health provider in Boston.
Dr McClellen, a former head of America’s Food and Drug Administration, points out that other innovative industries often sell new products at a loss, and recoup their investments later. In genuinely competitive industries, innovators are rarely rewarded with the “cost plus” reimbursements demanded by medical-device makers for their gold-plated gizmos.
That is why Stanford’s Dr Yock wants to turn innovation upside down. He has extended his bio-design programme to India, in part to instil an understanding of the benefits of frugality in his students. He believes that India’s combination of poverty and outstanding medical and engineering talents will produce a world-class medical-devices industry. Tim Brown, the head of Ideo, a design consultancy, agrees. In the past, he notes, health bosses thought all devices had to be Rolls-Royces or Ferraris. But cost matters, too. Pointing to another recent example of India’s frugal engineering, he says: “In health care, as in life, there is need for both Ferraris and Tata Nanos.”
Americans like to think their country is number one but statistics tell a different picture. America lags behind third world countries in infant mortality! with a rank of 178!
Higher the number lower your
So even though the WSJ might claim the US has the best healthcare system in the world just because foreign heads of states visit the US for treatment, that doesn't say anything for the average resident.
See article below from the economist Health care in India
Health care in India
Lessons from a frugal innovator
Apr 16th 2009 | BANGALORE
From The Economist print edition
The rich world’s bloated health-care systems can learn from India’s entrepreneurs
Tom Pietrasik
ENTER the main cardiac operating-room at Bangalore’s Wockhardt hospital on a typical morning, and you will find a patient on the operating table with a screen hanging between his head and chest. On a recent visit the table was occupied by a middle-aged Indian man whose serene look suggested that he was ready for the operation to come. Asked how he was, he smiled and answered in Kannada that he felt fine. Only when you stand on a stool to look over the screen do you realise that his chest cavity has already been cut open.
As the patient was chatting away, Vivek Jawali and his team had nearly completed his complex heart bypass. Because such “beating heart” surgery causes little pain and does not require general anaesthesia or blood thinners, patients are back on their feet much faster than usual. This approach, pioneered by Wockhardt, an Indian hospital chain, has proved so safe and successful that medical tourists come to Bangalore from all over the world.
This is just one of many innovations in health care that have been devised in India. Its entrepreneurs are channelling the country’s rich technological and medical talent towards frugal approaches that have much to teach the rich world’s bloated health-care systems. Dr Jawali is feted today as a pioneer, but he remembers how Western colleagues ridiculed him for years for advocating his inventive “awake surgery”. He thinks that snub reflects an innate cultural advantage enjoyed by India.
Unlike the hidebound health systems of the rich world, he says, “in our country’s patient-centric health system you must innovate.” This does not mean adopting every fancy new piece of equipment. Over the years he has rejected surgical robots and “keyhole surgery” kit because the costs did not justify the benefits. Instead, he has looked for tools and techniques that spare resources and improve outcomes.
Shivinder Singh, head of Fortis, a rival hospital chain based in New Delhi, says that most of the new, expensive imaging machines are only a little better than older models. Meanwhile, vast markets for poorer patients go unserved. “We got out of this arms race a few years ago,” he says. Fortis now promises only that its scanners are “world class”, not the newest.
Mr Singh is not alone in thinking that many firms in the rich world are looking at innovation the wrong way. Paul Yock, head of the bio-design laboratory at Stanford University, which develops medical devices, argues that medical-technology giants have “looked at need, but been blind to cost.” Amid growing concern about runaway health spending, he thinks the industry can find inspiration in India.
Poverty, geography and poor infrastructure mean that India faces perhaps the world’s heaviest disease burden, ranging from infectious diseases, the traditional scourge of the poor, to diseases of affluence such as diabetes and hypertension. The public sector has been overwhelmed, which is not surprising considering how little India’s government spends on health as a share of national income (see chart). Accordingly, nearly four-fifths of all health services are supplied by private firms and charities—a higher share than in any other big country.
In the past that was more a reflection of the state’s failure than the dynamism of entrepreneurs, but this is changing fast. Technopak Healthcare, a consulting firm, expects spending on health care in India to grow from $40 billion in 2008 to $323 billion in 2023. In part, that is the result of the growing affluence of India’s emerging middle classes. Another cause is the nascent boom in health insurance, now offered both by private firms and, in some cases, by the state. In addition, the government has recently liberalised the industry, easing restrictions on lending and foreign investment in health care, encouraging public-private partnerships and offering tax breaks for health investments in smaller cities and rural areas.
Cheaper and smarter
This has attracted a wave of investment from some of India’s biggest corporate groups, including Ranbaxy (the generic-drugs pioneer behind Fortis) and Reliance (one of India’s biggest conglomerates). The happy collision of need and greed has produced a cauldron of innovation, as Indian entrepreneurs have devised new business models. Some just set out to do things cheaply, but others are more radical, and have helped India leapfrog the rich world.
For years India’s private-health providers, such as Apollo Hospitals, focused on the affluent upper classes, but they are now racing down the pyramid. Vishal Bali, Wockhardt’s boss, plans to take advantage of tax breaks to build hospitals in small and medium-sized cities (which, in India, means those with up to 3m inhabitants). Prathap Reddy, Apollo’s founder, plans to do the same. He thinks he can cut costs in half for patients: a quarter saved through lower overheads, and another quarter by eliminating travel to bigger cities.
Columbia Asia, a privately held American firm with over a dozen hospitals across Asia, is also making a big push into India. Rick Evans, its boss, says his investors left America to escape over-regulation and the political power of the medical lobby. His model involves building no-frills hospitals using standardised designs, connected like spokes to a hub that can handle more complex ailments. His firm offers modestly priced services to those earning $10,000-20,000 a year within wealthy cities, thereby going after customers overlooked by fancier chains. Its small hospital on the fringes of Bangalore lacks a marble foyer and expensive imaging machines—but it does have fully integrated health information-technology (HIT) systems, including electronic health records (EHRs).
New competitors are also emerging. A recent report from Monitor, a consultancy, points to LifeSpring Hospitals, a chain of small maternity hospitals around Hyderabad. This for-profit outfit offers normal deliveries attended by private doctors for just $40 in its general ward, and Caesarean sections for about $140—as little as one-fifth of the price at the big private hospitals. It has cut costs with a basic approach: it has no canteens and outsources laboratory tests and pharmacy services.
It also achieves economies of scale by attracting large numbers of patients using marketing. Monitor estimates that its operating theatres accommodate 22-27 procedures a week, compared with four to six in other private clinics. LifeSpring’s doctors perform four times as many operations a month as their counterparts do elsewhere—and, crucially, get better results as a result of high volumes and specialisation. Cheap and cheerful really can mean better.
But there is more to India’s approach than cutting costs. Its health-care providers also make better use of HIT. According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fewer than 20% of doctors’ surgeries in America use HIT. In contrast, according to Technopak, nearly 60% of Indian hospitals do so. And instead of grafting technology onto existing, inefficient processes, as often happens in America, Indian providers build their model around it. Apollo’s integrated approach to HIT has enabled the chain to increase efficiency while cutting medical errors and labour. EHRs and drug records zip between hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, and its systems also handle patient registration and billing. Apollo is already selling its expertise to American hospitals.
Eye on the prize
A casual visitor to Madurai, a vibrant medieval-temple town in southern India, would not think it was a hotbed of innovation. And yet that is exactly what you will find at Aravind, the world’s biggest eye-hospital chain, based in the town. There are perhaps 12m blind people in India, with most cases arising from treatable or preventable causes such as cataracts. Rather than rely on government handouts or charity, Aravind’s founders use a tiered pricing structure that charges wealthier patients more (for example, for fancy meals or air-conditioned rooms), letting the firm cross-subsidise free care for the poorest.
Aravind also benefits from its scale. Its staff screen over 2.7m patients a year via clinics in remote areas, referring 285,000 of them for surgery at its hospitals. International experts vouch that the care is good, not least because Aravind’s doctors perform so many more operations than they would in the West that they become expert. Furthermore, the staff are rotated to deal with both paying and non-paying patients so there is no difference in quality. Monitor’s new report argues that Aravind’s model does not just depend on pricing, scale, technology or process, but on a clever combination of all of them.
C.K. Prahalad and other management gurus trumpet examples like Aravind, but do the rich countries accept that they could learn from India? Unsurprisingly, some reject the notion that America’s model is broken. William Tauzin, head of America’s pharmaceutical lobby, warns that regulatory efforts to cut costs could stifle life-saving innovation. Sandra Peterson of Bayer, a German drugs and devices giant, stoutly defends the industry’s record. She argues that overall cost increases mask how medical devices, “like cars or personal computers, give better value for the money over time.” Diabetes monitors and pacemakers have improved dramatically in the past 20 years and have fallen in price—but costs have gone up because they are now being used by more patients.
But those examples are exceptions. Many studies show that America’s spending on health care is soaring, yet its medical outcomes remain mediocre. Mark McClellen of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, says that a big problem is the overuse of technology. Whether or not a scan is needed, the system usually pays if a doctor orders it—and the scan might help defend the doctor against a malpractice claim. “The root cause is not greed, but tremendous technological progress imposed upon a fractured health system,” says Thomas Lee of Partners Community HealthCare, a health provider in Boston.
Dr McClellen, a former head of America’s Food and Drug Administration, points out that other innovative industries often sell new products at a loss, and recoup their investments later. In genuinely competitive industries, innovators are rarely rewarded with the “cost plus” reimbursements demanded by medical-device makers for their gold-plated gizmos.
That is why Stanford’s Dr Yock wants to turn innovation upside down. He has extended his bio-design programme to India, in part to instil an understanding of the benefits of frugality in his students. He believes that India’s combination of poverty and outstanding medical and engineering talents will produce a world-class medical-devices industry. Tim Brown, the head of Ideo, a design consultancy, agrees. In the past, he notes, health bosses thought all devices had to be Rolls-Royces or Ferraris. But cost matters, too. Pointing to another recent example of India’s frugal engineering, he says: “In health care, as in life, there is need for both Ferraris and Tata Nanos.”
Hero worship in general and of "experts" in particular
I dislike Hero-Worship of any form. Madrasis as they referred to by North Indians anyone south of Mumbai are experts in Hero-Worship.
They have temples for film actors and politicians, some idiots even self-immolate(burn themselves to death!!) for e.g. on the death of a film star known as MGR
Here's a cut and paste from the Wiki entry death of a film star known as MGR
MGR passed away on December 24, 1987 after his prolonged illness. His death sparked off a frenzy of looting and rioting all over the state of Tamil Nadu. Shops, movie theaters, buses and other public and private property became the target of violence let loose all over the state. The police had to resort issuing shoot-at-sight orders, something seldom seen or heard of in democratic India.[citation needed] The violence during the funeral alone left 29 people dead and 47 police personnel badly wounded. [3],[4] This state of affairs continued for almost a month all over the state of Tamil Nadu. Around one million[5] people followed his remains, around 30 followers committed suicide and lakhs of people had their heads tonsured.
Which is why I dislike the hero-worship of Obama and attacks on anyone who criticizes his policies or administration.
The job of any good journalist and not the idiot hacks who masquerade as one both on the main news networks CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox and print media like Washington post, FT, NYT ..is to always question and criticize the government.
All governments lie and cover up their incompetence.
In the same vein, I find it surprising how people quote so called "experts" on matters and take it as the gospel without bothering to check the evidence or asking for it.
They have temples for film actors and politicians, some idiots even self-immolate(burn themselves to death!!) for e.g. on the death of a film star known as MGR
Here's a cut and paste from the Wiki entry death of a film star known as MGR
MGR passed away on December 24, 1987 after his prolonged illness. His death sparked off a frenzy of looting and rioting all over the state of Tamil Nadu. Shops, movie theaters, buses and other public and private property became the target of violence let loose all over the state. The police had to resort issuing shoot-at-sight orders, something seldom seen or heard of in democratic India.[citation needed] The violence during the funeral alone left 29 people dead and 47 police personnel badly wounded. [3],[4] This state of affairs continued for almost a month all over the state of Tamil Nadu. Around one million[5] people followed his remains, around 30 followers committed suicide and lakhs of people had their heads tonsured.
Which is why I dislike the hero-worship of Obama and attacks on anyone who criticizes his policies or administration.
The job of any good journalist and not the idiot hacks who masquerade as one both on the main news networks CNN, ABC, CBS, Fox and print media like Washington post, FT, NYT ..is to always question and criticize the government.
All governments lie and cover up their incompetence.
In the same vein, I find it surprising how people quote so called "experts" on matters and take it as the gospel without bothering to check the evidence or asking for it.
Monday, April 27, 2009
Peru- a nation of laws but not the US
Here's a joke, Western journalists and governments preach to third world countries their supposedly "superior" form of government with regard to the respect for the rule of law yet you have "pundits" in the US and also from rest of the world writing that prosecution of Bush and his officials who sanctioned the policy of torture which is in contravention of both US and International law is a bad idea!
Here's an article from the Economist a newspaper I like for their writing style and also for the fact it mirrors my views I'm a conservative liberal (conservative with my money and liberal with yours!; a fiscal conservative and a social liberal)
Democracy has often struggled in Peru, and the country has suffered from the patchy application of the rule of law.
Guess what not one word from this newspaper re. persecution of Bush and his cronies!
An elected strongman brought to book
Apr 8th 2009 | LIMA
From The Economist print edition
A victory for the rule of law
HE WAS widely credited with having saved his country from economic collapse and a murderous guerrilla insurgency. But for Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s president from 1990 to 2000, the end always justified the often-authoritarian means. On April 7th he became the first elected Latin American president to be found guilty of human-rights abuses by a court sitting in his own country.
After a televised trial lasting 16 months, three judges unanimously found that Mr Fujimori had known about and authorised the activities of an army death-squad, known as the Colina group, which killed 15 people attending a barbecue at a house in Lima in 1991 and kidnapped and murdered ten people from a teacher-training college the following year. These killings occurred as the army was battling the Shining Path Maoist terrorist group. His knowledge of the death squad made him the “indirect perpetrator” of these killings, the court ruled. He was also found guilty of two brief kidnappings of opponents by intelligence agents. The court sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment. He immediately appealed against the verdict.
Mr Fujimori was extradited in 2007 from Chile, where he had flown from voluntary exile in Japan in the hope of launching a political comeback. He is already serving a six-year sentence on charges of abuse of power. He faces three further trials, one for misuse of public funds.
In a lengthy address to the court this month he accused his prosecutors of failing to “distinguish between hate and evidence”. But human-rights groups said that the trial had been fairly conducted. “This trial has shown that the law is the same for everyone, including ex-presidents,” said Avelino Guillén, the prosecutor.
Reuters Fujimori and the judges he scorned
For most of his decade in office Mr Fujimori was hugely popular among Peruvians. Previously a little-known university rector, he won a presidential election in 1990, defeating Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru’s best-known novelist. He tamed hyperinflation, opened up the economy and launched two decades of rapid economic growth. With the help of the population, the Shining Path was crushed. When a smaller guerrilla group kidnapped 72 people attending a reception at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima in 1996, he organised a dramatic rescue after a four-month siege.
His methods were often heavy-handed. In 1992 he used troops to shut down the Congress and the courts. His intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, who is serving a 20-year jail sentence, systematically bribed potential opponents. Mr Fujimori’s regime collapsed after he illegally sought a third term, winning a rigged election in 2000. Investigators found that more than $1 billion was stolen from public funds and stashed in secret accounts during his rule.
In finding him guilty, the court rejected his claims that he was ignorant of the crimes of Mr Montesinos and of his army chief, General Nicolás Hermoza (who is also in jail). Mr Fujimori complained of a double standard, noting that more people were killed under his predecessor, Alan García, who is Peru’s current president.
As his misdeeds have been revealed, Mr Fujimori has lost public support. Polls have found that around 70% of those asked thought he was guilty. But his daughter, Keiko, is one of several contenders for the 2011 presidential election. She says that if elected she would pardon him.
Democracy has often struggled in Peru, and the country has suffered from the patchy application of the rule of law. Despite his achievements, Mr Fujimori exacerbated these flaws. Peruvians must hope that the court’s verdict marks a lasting triumph for the law.
Here's an article from the Economist a newspaper I like for their writing style and also for the fact it mirrors my views I'm a conservative liberal (conservative with my money and liberal with yours!; a fiscal conservative and a social liberal)
Democracy has often struggled in Peru, and the country has suffered from the patchy application of the rule of law.
Guess what not one word from this newspaper re. persecution of Bush and his cronies!
An elected strongman brought to book
Apr 8th 2009 | LIMA
From The Economist print edition
A victory for the rule of law
HE WAS widely credited with having saved his country from economic collapse and a murderous guerrilla insurgency. But for Alberto Fujimori, Peru’s president from 1990 to 2000, the end always justified the often-authoritarian means. On April 7th he became the first elected Latin American president to be found guilty of human-rights abuses by a court sitting in his own country.
After a televised trial lasting 16 months, three judges unanimously found that Mr Fujimori had known about and authorised the activities of an army death-squad, known as the Colina group, which killed 15 people attending a barbecue at a house in Lima in 1991 and kidnapped and murdered ten people from a teacher-training college the following year. These killings occurred as the army was battling the Shining Path Maoist terrorist group. His knowledge of the death squad made him the “indirect perpetrator” of these killings, the court ruled. He was also found guilty of two brief kidnappings of opponents by intelligence agents. The court sentenced him to 25 years imprisonment. He immediately appealed against the verdict.
Mr Fujimori was extradited in 2007 from Chile, where he had flown from voluntary exile in Japan in the hope of launching a political comeback. He is already serving a six-year sentence on charges of abuse of power. He faces three further trials, one for misuse of public funds.
In a lengthy address to the court this month he accused his prosecutors of failing to “distinguish between hate and evidence”. But human-rights groups said that the trial had been fairly conducted. “This trial has shown that the law is the same for everyone, including ex-presidents,” said Avelino Guillén, the prosecutor.
Reuters Fujimori and the judges he scorned
For most of his decade in office Mr Fujimori was hugely popular among Peruvians. Previously a little-known university rector, he won a presidential election in 1990, defeating Mario Vargas Llosa, Peru’s best-known novelist. He tamed hyperinflation, opened up the economy and launched two decades of rapid economic growth. With the help of the population, the Shining Path was crushed. When a smaller guerrilla group kidnapped 72 people attending a reception at the Japanese ambassador’s residence in Lima in 1996, he organised a dramatic rescue after a four-month siege.
His methods were often heavy-handed. In 1992 he used troops to shut down the Congress and the courts. His intelligence chief, Vladimiro Montesinos, who is serving a 20-year jail sentence, systematically bribed potential opponents. Mr Fujimori’s regime collapsed after he illegally sought a third term, winning a rigged election in 2000. Investigators found that more than $1 billion was stolen from public funds and stashed in secret accounts during his rule.
In finding him guilty, the court rejected his claims that he was ignorant of the crimes of Mr Montesinos and of his army chief, General Nicolás Hermoza (who is also in jail). Mr Fujimori complained of a double standard, noting that more people were killed under his predecessor, Alan García, who is Peru’s current president.
As his misdeeds have been revealed, Mr Fujimori has lost public support. Polls have found that around 70% of those asked thought he was guilty. But his daughter, Keiko, is one of several contenders for the 2011 presidential election. She says that if elected she would pardon him.
Democracy has often struggled in Peru, and the country has suffered from the patchy application of the rule of law. Despite his achievements, Mr Fujimori exacerbated these flaws. Peruvians must hope that the court’s verdict marks a lasting triumph for the law.
Ad-sense by Google
I've agreed to place ads in my blog in order to make "some money" which I'll donate to charity to one of the voluntary organizations I used to work with my donating both time and money Chicago Cares and/or Room to Read
The latter is better since it is got one of the highest ratings by the agency Charity Navigator which independently monitors how effective and efficient voluntary organizations use your contributions. Less administrative and over-head costs the better.
The ads are supposed to be relevant to the subject of the topics. I notice there are some spiritual and religious sites being promoted!
Close friends of mine know that I'm an atheist since the age of 18 long before it became fashionable to call yourself one!
I also don't believe in spiritual crap as nothing is spiritual in the world. I'm sorry there's no soul. Everything is physical in this world.
Our emotions, thoughts , consciousness all have a physical origin our BRAIN! Take the brain out or even sections of it and we will loose all knowledge even of the self.
There's an excellent book called Phantoms in the Brain which talks about cutting edge research in Neuroscience.
I agree with one of the ex-Governors of Minnesota Jesse Ventura , that religion is crutch for weak minded people. Here's the actual quote "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business."
Having said that, I don't mind the plug for relgiously businesses. If people feel they are delivering value, why not buy from them.
Heck, I buy a lot from Sierra Trading Post and the owners seem to be pretty religious. They always seem to have some quote from the Bible in their catalougues and also web-site.
BTW, I recommend STP (Sierra Trading Post). They have excellent products at very good prices and excellent customer service to boot.
The latter is better since it is got one of the highest ratings by the agency Charity Navigator which independently monitors how effective and efficient voluntary organizations use your contributions. Less administrative and over-head costs the better.
The ads are supposed to be relevant to the subject of the topics. I notice there are some spiritual and religious sites being promoted!
Close friends of mine know that I'm an atheist since the age of 18 long before it became fashionable to call yourself one!
I also don't believe in spiritual crap as nothing is spiritual in the world. I'm sorry there's no soul. Everything is physical in this world.
Our emotions, thoughts , consciousness all have a physical origin our BRAIN! Take the brain out or even sections of it and we will loose all knowledge even of the self.
There's an excellent book called Phantoms in the Brain which talks about cutting edge research in Neuroscience.
I agree with one of the ex-Governors of Minnesota Jesse Ventura , that religion is crutch for weak minded people. Here's the actual quote "Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business."
Having said that, I don't mind the plug for relgiously businesses. If people feel they are delivering value, why not buy from them.
Heck, I buy a lot from Sierra Trading Post and the owners seem to be pretty religious. They always seem to have some quote from the Bible in their catalougues and also web-site.
BTW, I recommend STP (Sierra Trading Post). They have excellent products at very good prices and excellent customer service to boot.
Response to the Swine influenza pandemic
The first thing that struck me even though we don't live in Mexico City was it'll soon reach Monterrey.
The lady-wife berated me saying I should think positive! I understand the importance of thinking and being positive and there's enough scientific evidence to prove that positive thinking helps even terminally ill patients in living longer.
However, there's a big difference between being positive, idealistic and utopian and responding to a situation calmly but understanding the threats.
My first response was that we shouldn't send our son to school. Minimize public contact and if it is unavoidable do so by taking adequate precautionary steps like wearing a face mask, carry alcohol gel and cleaning your hands after touching any object that is likely to have been touched by millions (e.g. door handles, shopping carts...)
The state of Nuevo Leon announced that all schools are to remain shut until May 6th. I don't plan to send my kid even after that not until things stabilize.
He doesn't even have an influenza vaccine. In Australia, it is not normally given to kids but to adults!
The lady-wife berated me saying I should think positive! I understand the importance of thinking and being positive and there's enough scientific evidence to prove that positive thinking helps even terminally ill patients in living longer.
However, there's a big difference between being positive, idealistic and utopian and responding to a situation calmly but understanding the threats.
My first response was that we shouldn't send our son to school. Minimize public contact and if it is unavoidable do so by taking adequate precautionary steps like wearing a face mask, carry alcohol gel and cleaning your hands after touching any object that is likely to have been touched by millions (e.g. door handles, shopping carts...)
The state of Nuevo Leon announced that all schools are to remain shut until May 6th. I don't plan to send my kid even after that not until things stabilize.
He doesn't even have an influenza vaccine. In Australia, it is not normally given to kids but to adults!
Rewarding incompetence and failure part 2
Here's a very good article and this guy happens to echo what I said before re. firing of the Treasury Secretary, Larry Summer's, Ben Bernake (this Triumverate of idiots!)
You can easily replace them with a reasonably sharp kid who doesn't even have any clue of economics but with the intellectual curisosity to ask questions and keep asking them until answers are given in plain and simple English not like like the moronic pronouncements of the "Oracle, former high priest Alan Greenspan"
The Lessons of the Savings-and-Loan Crisis
William Black, Associate Professor, Economics and Law,
University of Missouri, Kansas City
By JACK WILLOUGHBY
AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM BLACK: The current bank scandal dwarfs the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis -- and could destroy the Obama presidency.
WILLIAM BLACK CALLS THEM AS HE SEES THEM, which is why we enjoy talking with him. Black, 57 years old, was a deputy director at the former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. during the thrift crisis of the 1980s, and now serves as an associate professor, teaching economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. At FSLIC, a government agency that insured S&L deposits, Black prevailed in showdowns with the powerful Democratic Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, and helped identify the infamous Keating Five, a group of U.S. senators (including Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who lost his bid for the presidency in 2008) who tried to quash his attempt to close Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings & Loan. Wright eventually resigned amid unrelated ethics charges, and the senators were reprimanded for poor judgment. Keating went to jail for securities fraud.
[qa]
Ron Berg for Barron's
"It's like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good. Well, bad behavior drives out good behavior, without good enforcement." –William Black
For Black's provocative thoughts on the current financial crisis, read on.
Barron's: Just how serious is this credit crisis? What is at stake here for the American taxpayer?
Black: Mopping up the savings-and-loan crisis cost $150 billion; this current crisis will probably cost a multiple of that. The scale of fraud is immense. This whole bank scandal makes Teapot Dome [of the 1920s] look like some kid's doll set.
Unless the current administration changes course pretty drastically, the scandal will destroy Barack Obama's presidency. The Bush administration was even worse. But they are out of town. This will destroy Obama's administration, both economically and in terms of integrity.
So you are saying Democrats as well as Republicans share the blame? No one can claim the high ground?
We have failed bankers giving advice to failed regulators on how to deal with failed assets. How can it result in anything but failure? If they are going to get any truthful investigation, the Democrats picked the wrong financial team. Tim Geithner, the current Secretary of the Treasury, and Larry Summers, chairman of the National Economic Council, were important architects of the problems. Geithner especially represents a failed regulator, having presided over the bailouts of major New York banks.
So you aren't a fan of the recently announced plan for the government to back private purchases of the toxic assets?
It is worse than a lie. Geithner has appropriated the language of his critics and of the forthright to support dishonesty. That is what's so appalling -- numbering himself among those who convey tough medicine when he is really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks who are on a first-name basis with Washington politicians.
The current law mandates prompt corrective action, which means speedy resolution of insolvencies. He is flouting the law, in naked violation, in order to pursue the kind of favoritism that the law was designed to prevent. He has introduced the concept of capital insurance, essentially turning the U.S. taxpayer into the sucker who is going to pay for everything. He chose this path because he knew Congress would never authorize a bailout based on crony capitalism.
Geithner is mistaken when he talks about making deeply unpopular moves. Such stiff resolve to put the major banks in receivership would be appreciated in every state but Connecticut and New York. His use of language like "legacy assets" -- and channeling the worst aspects of Milton Friedman -- is positively Orwellian. Extreme conservatives wrongly assume that the government can't do anything right. And they wrongly assume that the market will ultimately lead to correct actions. If cheaters prosper, cheaters will dominate. It is like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good. Well, bad behavior drives out good behavior, without good enforcement.
His plan essentially perpetuates zombie banks by mispricing toxic assets that were mispriced to the borrower and mispriced by the lender, and which only served the unfaithful lending agent.
We already know from the real costs -- through the cleanups of IndyMac, Bear Stearns, and Lehman -- that the losses will be roughly 50 to 80 cents on the dollar. The last thing we need is a further drain on our resources and subsidies by promoting this toxic-asset market. By promoting this notion of too-big-to-fail, we are allowing a pernicious influence to remain in Washington. The truth has a resonance to it. The folks know they are being lied to.
I keep asking myself, what would we do in other avenues of life? What if every time we had a plane crash we said: 'It might be divisive to investigate. We want to be forward-looking.' Nobody would fly. It would be a disaster.
We know that with planes, every time there is an accident, we look intensively, without the interference of politics. That is why we have such a safe industry.
Summarize the problem as best you can for Barron's readers.
With most of America's biggest banks insolvent, you have, in essence, a multitrillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded entities, which amounts to felony securities fraud on a massive scale.
These firms will ultimately have to be forced into receivership, the management and boards stripped of office, title, and compensation. First there needs to be a clearing of the air -- a Pecora-style fact-finding mission conducted without fear or favor. [Ferdinand Pecora was an assistant district attorney from New York who investigated Wall Street practices in the 1930s.] Then, we need to gear up to pursue criminal cases. Two years after the market collapsed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has one-fourth of the resources that the agency used during the savings-and-loan crisis. And the current crisis is 10 times as large.
There need to be major task forces set up, like there were in the thrift crisis. Right now, things don't look good. We are using taxpayer money via AIG to secretly bail out European banks like Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, and UBS -- and even our own Goldman Sachs. To me, the single most obscene act of this scandal has been providing billions in taxpayer money via AIG to secretly bail out UBS in Switzerland, while we were simultaneously prosecuting the bank for tax fraud. The second most obscene: Goldman receiving almost $13 billion in AIG counterparty payments after advising Geithner, president of the New York Fed, and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs honcho, on the AIG government takeover -- and also receiving government bailout loans.
What, then, is staying the federal government's hand? Have the banks become too difficult or complex to regulate?
The government is reluctant to admit the depth of the problem, because to do so would force it to put some of America's biggest financial institutions into receivership. The people running these banks are some of the most well-connected in Washington, with easy access to legislators. Prompt corrective action is what is needed, and mandated in the law. And that is precisely what isn't happening.
The savings-and-loan crisis showed that, too often, the regulators became too close to the industry, and run interference for friends by hiding the problems.
Can you explain your idea of control fraud, and how it applies to the current banking and the earlier thrift crisis?
Control fraud is when a seemingly legitimate corporation uses its power as a weapon to defraud or take something of value through deceit.
In the savings-and-loan crisis, thrifts engaged in control frauds in order to survive. Accounting trickery proved to be the weapon of choice. It is at work today with the banks, and it is their Achilles heel. You report that you are highly profitable when you engage in accounting-control fraud, not only meeting but exceeding capital requirements. These accounting frauds create huge bubbles, which in turn create large bonuses, which in turn lead to huge losses.
Why then is there so much smoke and so little action?
First, they are inundated by the problem. They are trying to investigate the major problems with severely depleted staffs. Honestly. We have lost the ability to be blunt. Now we have a situation where Treasury Secretary Geithner can speak of a $2 trillion hole in the banking system, at the same time all the major banks report they are well-capitalized. And you have seen no regulatory action against what amounts to a $2 trillion accounting fraud. The reason we don't see it -- aren't told about it -- is that if they were honest, prompt corrective action would kick in, and they would have to deal with the problem banks.
Are there any parallels between the current crisis and the savings-and-loan crisis that give you hope?
Of course. Objectively, our case was even more hopeless in the S&L debacle than in the current crisis. If we were able to do it in such an impossible circumstance back then, we have reason for hope in the current crisis. I know how easily things can get off course and how quickly things can turn back again. The thrift crisis went through several lengthy courses and distortions before it finally was resolved under the leadership of Edwin Gray, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which oversaw FSLIC.
We went through almost a decade of cover-ups by a Washington establishment intent on helping thrift owners. Back then, we had the Justice Department threatening to indict Gray, the head of a federal agency, for closing too many thrifts. Next, there were those so-called resolutions, where the regulators worked day and night -- to create even bigger problems for the FSLIC. Years later, these so-called resolution deals had to be unwound at great expense by closing down even larger failures. Or how about the bill to replenish the depleted thrift-insurance fund that was blocked and delayed by then-Speaker of the House, Texas congressman Jim Wright?
You say the evidence of a breakdown in the regulatory structure comes from the fact that America avoided an earlier subprime crisis in the 1990s.
Exactly. Why had no one heard of the subprime crisis back in 1991? Because America's regulators also faced down the crisis early. The same thing happened with bad credits being securitized in the secondary market. Remember the low-doc or no-doc mortgages done by Citibank? Well, the problem didn't spread -- because regulators intervened.
Obama, who is doing so well in so many other arenas, appears to be slipping because he trusts Democrats high in the party structure too much.
These Democrats want to maintain America's pre-eminence in global financial capitalism at any cost. They remain wedded to the bad idea of bigness, the so-called financial supermarket -- one-stop shopping for all customers -- that has allowed the American financial system to paper the world with subprime debt. Even the managers of these worldwide financial conglomerates testify that they have become so sprawling as to be unmanageable.
What needs to be done?
Well, these international behemoths need to be broken down into smaller units that can be managed effectively. Maybe they can be broken up the way that the Standard Oil split up back in the early 1900s, through a simple share spinoff.
The big problem for the last decade is that we have had too much capacity in the finance sector -- too many banks have represented a drain on our talent and resources. All these mergers haven't taken capacity out of the system. They have created even bigger banks that concentrate risk to the taxpayer, and put off dealing with problems.
And a new seriousness must be put into regulation. We don't necessarily need new rules. We just need folks who can enforce the ones already on the books.
The bank-compensation system also creates an environment that leads to mismanagement and fraud. No one has to tell someone they have to stretch the numbers. It is all around them. It is in the rank-or-yank performance and retention systems advocated by top business executives. Here, the top 20% get the bulk of the benefits and the bottom 10% get fired. You don't directly tell your employees you want them to lie and cheat. You set up an atmosphere of results at any cost. Rank or yank. Sooner rather than later, someone comes up with the bright idea of fudging the numbers. That's big bonuses for the folks who make the best numbers. It sends the message -- making the numbers is what is most important. There is a reason that the average tenure of a chief financial officer is three years.
Compensation systems like I have just described discourage whistleblowing -- the most common way that frauds are found in America -- because the system draws upon the cooperation of everyone.
The basis for all regulation and white-collar crime is to take the competitive advantage away from the cheats, so the good guys can prevail. We need to get back to that.
Thanks, Bill.
You can easily replace them with a reasonably sharp kid who doesn't even have any clue of economics but with the intellectual curisosity to ask questions and keep asking them until answers are given in plain and simple English not like like the moronic pronouncements of the "Oracle, former high priest Alan Greenspan"
The Lessons of the Savings-and-Loan Crisis
William Black, Associate Professor, Economics and Law,
University of Missouri, Kansas City
By JACK WILLOUGHBY
AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM BLACK: The current bank scandal dwarfs the 1980s savings-and-loan crisis -- and could destroy the Obama presidency.
WILLIAM BLACK CALLS THEM AS HE SEES THEM, which is why we enjoy talking with him. Black, 57 years old, was a deputy director at the former Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corp. during the thrift crisis of the 1980s, and now serves as an associate professor, teaching economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. At FSLIC, a government agency that insured S&L deposits, Black prevailed in showdowns with the powerful Democratic Speaker of the House, Jim Wright, and helped identify the infamous Keating Five, a group of U.S. senators (including Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican who lost his bid for the presidency in 2008) who tried to quash his attempt to close Charles Keating's Lincoln Savings & Loan. Wright eventually resigned amid unrelated ethics charges, and the senators were reprimanded for poor judgment. Keating went to jail for securities fraud.
[qa]
Ron Berg for Barron's
"It's like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good. Well, bad behavior drives out good behavior, without good enforcement." –William Black
For Black's provocative thoughts on the current financial crisis, read on.
Barron's: Just how serious is this credit crisis? What is at stake here for the American taxpayer?
Black: Mopping up the savings-and-loan crisis cost $150 billion; this current crisis will probably cost a multiple of that. The scale of fraud is immense. This whole bank scandal makes Teapot Dome [of the 1920s] look like some kid's doll set.
Unless the current administration changes course pretty drastically, the scandal will destroy Barack Obama's presidency. The Bush administration was even worse. But they are out of town. This will destroy Obama's administration, both economically and in terms of integrity.
So you are saying Democrats as well as Republicans share the blame? No one can claim the high ground?
We have failed bankers giving advice to failed regulators on how to deal with failed assets. How can it result in anything but failure? If they are going to get any truthful investigation, the Democrats picked the wrong financial team. Tim Geithner, the current Secretary of the Treasury, and Larry Summers, chairman of the National Economic Council, were important architects of the problems. Geithner especially represents a failed regulator, having presided over the bailouts of major New York banks.
So you aren't a fan of the recently announced plan for the government to back private purchases of the toxic assets?
It is worse than a lie. Geithner has appropriated the language of his critics and of the forthright to support dishonesty. That is what's so appalling -- numbering himself among those who convey tough medicine when he is really pandering to the interests of a select group of banks who are on a first-name basis with Washington politicians.
The current law mandates prompt corrective action, which means speedy resolution of insolvencies. He is flouting the law, in naked violation, in order to pursue the kind of favoritism that the law was designed to prevent. He has introduced the concept of capital insurance, essentially turning the U.S. taxpayer into the sucker who is going to pay for everything. He chose this path because he knew Congress would never authorize a bailout based on crony capitalism.
Geithner is mistaken when he talks about making deeply unpopular moves. Such stiff resolve to put the major banks in receivership would be appreciated in every state but Connecticut and New York. His use of language like "legacy assets" -- and channeling the worst aspects of Milton Friedman -- is positively Orwellian. Extreme conservatives wrongly assume that the government can't do anything right. And they wrongly assume that the market will ultimately lead to correct actions. If cheaters prosper, cheaters will dominate. It is like Gresham's law: Bad money drives out the good. Well, bad behavior drives out good behavior, without good enforcement.
His plan essentially perpetuates zombie banks by mispricing toxic assets that were mispriced to the borrower and mispriced by the lender, and which only served the unfaithful lending agent.
We already know from the real costs -- through the cleanups of IndyMac, Bear Stearns, and Lehman -- that the losses will be roughly 50 to 80 cents on the dollar. The last thing we need is a further drain on our resources and subsidies by promoting this toxic-asset market. By promoting this notion of too-big-to-fail, we are allowing a pernicious influence to remain in Washington. The truth has a resonance to it. The folks know they are being lied to.
I keep asking myself, what would we do in other avenues of life? What if every time we had a plane crash we said: 'It might be divisive to investigate. We want to be forward-looking.' Nobody would fly. It would be a disaster.
We know that with planes, every time there is an accident, we look intensively, without the interference of politics. That is why we have such a safe industry.
Summarize the problem as best you can for Barron's readers.
With most of America's biggest banks insolvent, you have, in essence, a multitrillion dollar cover-up by publicly traded entities, which amounts to felony securities fraud on a massive scale.
These firms will ultimately have to be forced into receivership, the management and boards stripped of office, title, and compensation. First there needs to be a clearing of the air -- a Pecora-style fact-finding mission conducted without fear or favor. [Ferdinand Pecora was an assistant district attorney from New York who investigated Wall Street practices in the 1930s.] Then, we need to gear up to pursue criminal cases. Two years after the market collapsed, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has one-fourth of the resources that the agency used during the savings-and-loan crisis. And the current crisis is 10 times as large.
There need to be major task forces set up, like there were in the thrift crisis. Right now, things don't look good. We are using taxpayer money via AIG to secretly bail out European banks like Société Générale, Deutsche Bank, and UBS -- and even our own Goldman Sachs. To me, the single most obscene act of this scandal has been providing billions in taxpayer money via AIG to secretly bail out UBS in Switzerland, while we were simultaneously prosecuting the bank for tax fraud. The second most obscene: Goldman receiving almost $13 billion in AIG counterparty payments after advising Geithner, president of the New York Fed, and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, former Goldman Sachs honcho, on the AIG government takeover -- and also receiving government bailout loans.
What, then, is staying the federal government's hand? Have the banks become too difficult or complex to regulate?
The government is reluctant to admit the depth of the problem, because to do so would force it to put some of America's biggest financial institutions into receivership. The people running these banks are some of the most well-connected in Washington, with easy access to legislators. Prompt corrective action is what is needed, and mandated in the law. And that is precisely what isn't happening.
The savings-and-loan crisis showed that, too often, the regulators became too close to the industry, and run interference for friends by hiding the problems.
Can you explain your idea of control fraud, and how it applies to the current banking and the earlier thrift crisis?
Control fraud is when a seemingly legitimate corporation uses its power as a weapon to defraud or take something of value through deceit.
In the savings-and-loan crisis, thrifts engaged in control frauds in order to survive. Accounting trickery proved to be the weapon of choice. It is at work today with the banks, and it is their Achilles heel. You report that you are highly profitable when you engage in accounting-control fraud, not only meeting but exceeding capital requirements. These accounting frauds create huge bubbles, which in turn create large bonuses, which in turn lead to huge losses.
Why then is there so much smoke and so little action?
First, they are inundated by the problem. They are trying to investigate the major problems with severely depleted staffs. Honestly. We have lost the ability to be blunt. Now we have a situation where Treasury Secretary Geithner can speak of a $2 trillion hole in the banking system, at the same time all the major banks report they are well-capitalized. And you have seen no regulatory action against what amounts to a $2 trillion accounting fraud. The reason we don't see it -- aren't told about it -- is that if they were honest, prompt corrective action would kick in, and they would have to deal with the problem banks.
Are there any parallels between the current crisis and the savings-and-loan crisis that give you hope?
Of course. Objectively, our case was even more hopeless in the S&L debacle than in the current crisis. If we were able to do it in such an impossible circumstance back then, we have reason for hope in the current crisis. I know how easily things can get off course and how quickly things can turn back again. The thrift crisis went through several lengthy courses and distortions before it finally was resolved under the leadership of Edwin Gray, the chairman of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board, which oversaw FSLIC.
We went through almost a decade of cover-ups by a Washington establishment intent on helping thrift owners. Back then, we had the Justice Department threatening to indict Gray, the head of a federal agency, for closing too many thrifts. Next, there were those so-called resolutions, where the regulators worked day and night -- to create even bigger problems for the FSLIC. Years later, these so-called resolution deals had to be unwound at great expense by closing down even larger failures. Or how about the bill to replenish the depleted thrift-insurance fund that was blocked and delayed by then-Speaker of the House, Texas congressman Jim Wright?
You say the evidence of a breakdown in the regulatory structure comes from the fact that America avoided an earlier subprime crisis in the 1990s.
Exactly. Why had no one heard of the subprime crisis back in 1991? Because America's regulators also faced down the crisis early. The same thing happened with bad credits being securitized in the secondary market. Remember the low-doc or no-doc mortgages done by Citibank? Well, the problem didn't spread -- because regulators intervened.
Obama, who is doing so well in so many other arenas, appears to be slipping because he trusts Democrats high in the party structure too much.
These Democrats want to maintain America's pre-eminence in global financial capitalism at any cost. They remain wedded to the bad idea of bigness, the so-called financial supermarket -- one-stop shopping for all customers -- that has allowed the American financial system to paper the world with subprime debt. Even the managers of these worldwide financial conglomerates testify that they have become so sprawling as to be unmanageable.
What needs to be done?
Well, these international behemoths need to be broken down into smaller units that can be managed effectively. Maybe they can be broken up the way that the Standard Oil split up back in the early 1900s, through a simple share spinoff.
The big problem for the last decade is that we have had too much capacity in the finance sector -- too many banks have represented a drain on our talent and resources. All these mergers haven't taken capacity out of the system. They have created even bigger banks that concentrate risk to the taxpayer, and put off dealing with problems.
And a new seriousness must be put into regulation. We don't necessarily need new rules. We just need folks who can enforce the ones already on the books.
The bank-compensation system also creates an environment that leads to mismanagement and fraud. No one has to tell someone they have to stretch the numbers. It is all around them. It is in the rank-or-yank performance and retention systems advocated by top business executives. Here, the top 20% get the bulk of the benefits and the bottom 10% get fired. You don't directly tell your employees you want them to lie and cheat. You set up an atmosphere of results at any cost. Rank or yank. Sooner rather than later, someone comes up with the bright idea of fudging the numbers. That's big bonuses for the folks who make the best numbers. It sends the message -- making the numbers is what is most important. There is a reason that the average tenure of a chief financial officer is three years.
Compensation systems like I have just described discourage whistleblowing -- the most common way that frauds are found in America -- because the system draws upon the cooperation of everyone.
The basis for all regulation and white-collar crime is to take the competitive advantage away from the cheats, so the good guys can prevail. We need to get back to that.
Thanks, Bill.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Rewarding incompetence and failure
I used to be an Oracle D.B.A.(Database Administrator) whose job was to maintain and manage databases as the title suggests.
I'd seen numerous of my co-workers fired for incompetence or mistakes they made which were quite costly resulting in losses for the company.
I fail to understand how this common sense which is common practice for ordinary workers doesn't apply to upper management - Directors , CEO's , board of directors ... job - that of firing the people who caused this mess.
We are rewarding incompetence (with regard to the last administration which was throughly and utterly incompetent by electing them not once but twice!).
I have friends who are extremely smart and sharp who otherwise object loudly to people getting paid what they aren't worth (e.g. bosses who knew less than they did or were less competent)
I completely agree with the following article and economist whose writings I like, they are tempered with common sense.
Substitute New labour with Republicans and now Democrats and this article would equally apply.
The current treasury secretary Tim Geithner, Larry Summers , Rahm Emmanuel the WH Chief of staff , Bernanke should all be fired. We are paying the arsonists to help put out the fire.
Good governance requires transparency ,accountability and miminal or no conflict of interest; none of exists under the present circumstances.
__________________________________________________________________
Labour’s affair with bankers is to blame for this sorry state.
Published: April 24 2009 20:24 | Last updated: April 24 2009 20:24
In Wednesday’s Budget statement, Alistair Darling acknowledged that even on his optimistic assumptions a decade was needed to repair Britain’s public finances. The UK government’s reputation for economic competence was already in tatters; the chancellor of the exchequer has now laid it definitively to rest. How did the New Labour project end in such disaster?
The answers lie not in unpredictable global events but closer to home. The government failed to deal effectively with the reform of public services and conducted an indecent love affair with the financial services industry. These two apparently unrelated errors, allied with hubris, proved to be a fatal combination.
John Kay, columist
When Labour came to power in 1997, dissatisfaction with public services such as health, education and transport was widespread, and justified. For two decades not enough money had been spent, particularly on capital projects. This underspending had contributed to weak and demoralised management, reservations about which led to a fear that simply allocating more cash would provide poor value for money.
There were two possible directions of reform. One – it might be described as Blairite – decentralised management authority and financial responsibility. The other – it might be described as Brownian – tightened centralised control and imposed performance targets on managers, with associated sticks and carrots. Both approaches were pursued, inconsistently, but overall with more Brown than Blair. When, by 2000, there was little to show in the way of beneficial results, the decision was made to spend lots more anyway. There were some service improvements, but the concern that the extra money would not be well spent proved largely justified.
The reasons targets do not work are evident from any study of the failure of planned economies. You can require people to meet goals, but that is not at all the same as encouraging them to meet the objectives behind the goals. By emphasising targets you undermine both their motivation and their ability to achieve these more fundamental underlying goals. In a delicious irony, a major victim of this process would be the Treasury itself. Here is how it happened.
The government’s principal fiscal target was to balance current expenditures with revenues over an economic cycle. This makes sense as a generalised objective: but not as a binding constraint. The financial services sector boomed from 1998 to 2000 and the government benefited from a surge of revenues. The tide then receded. But by mechanically averaging spending and receipts over the cycle, earlier revenues could be used to offset the later splurge in spending. When this resource started to run out, the Treasury redefined the economic cycle to claim compliance with the target.
This is where the two stories become linked. We now know that many of the banking profits of that period were illusory. But they generated substantial revenues from corporation tax and income tax on bonuses. The real funding gap was wider even than it appeared.
But the illusion was at its most influential at the highest levels of government. Investment bankers had become the most powerful political lobby in the country and there was no vestige of political support for action to restrain City excess. Light touch regulation was not just a matter of policy but a matter of pride.
What would have happened if the Financial Services Authority or Bank of England had sought to block the competing bids from RBS and Barclays for ABN Amro – a contest which, we now know, would bankrupt the bank that won the race? The phones in Downing Street would have been ringing insistently and it is easy to imagine the government’s response.
Little has changed. The government continues to see financial services through the eyes of the financial services industry, for which the priority is to restore business as usual. For a time in 2008, it seemed possible to argue that a package of temporary support for the banking industry, combined with substantial recapitalisation of the weaker players, might stabilise the financial sector and prevent serious knock-on effects.
But the problems of banks are much deeper than were then acknowledged and the destabilisation of the real economy has happened anyway. Government now provides taxpayers’ money to financial services businesses in previously unimaginable quantities. But there is no control over the use of the money, no insistence on structural reform or management reorganisation, no safeguarding of the essential economic functions of the financial services industry and no accountability for the damage that has been done.
It is as though the teenage children and their friends were to wreck the house and then demand that the grown-ups clean up before the next party. Their parents are too intimidated to do anything more than ask Uncle Adair to keep an eye on them and excoriate the hapless Fred who made off with some of the silver.
On Wednesday, Mr Darling gave the impression of an honest man who would have much preferred to have been somewhere else, as befits someone caught in a trap not of his own devising. We need a comprehensive reappraisal of both the fiscal framework and the economic and political role of the financial services sector. The crippling consequence of inability to admit error is the impossibility of learning from past mistakes.
I'd seen numerous of my co-workers fired for incompetence or mistakes they made which were quite costly resulting in losses for the company.
I fail to understand how this common sense which is common practice for ordinary workers doesn't apply to upper management - Directors , CEO's , board of directors ... job - that of firing the people who caused this mess.
We are rewarding incompetence (with regard to the last administration which was throughly and utterly incompetent by electing them not once but twice!).
I have friends who are extremely smart and sharp who otherwise object loudly to people getting paid what they aren't worth (e.g. bosses who knew less than they did or were less competent)
I completely agree with the following article and economist whose writings I like, they are tempered with common sense.
Substitute New labour with Republicans and now Democrats and this article would equally apply.
The current treasury secretary Tim Geithner, Larry Summers , Rahm Emmanuel the WH Chief of staff , Bernanke should all be fired. We are paying the arsonists to help put out the fire.
Good governance requires transparency ,accountability and miminal or no conflict of interest; none of exists under the present circumstances.
__________________________________________________________________
Labour’s affair with bankers is to blame for this sorry state.
Published: April 24 2009 20:24 | Last updated: April 24 2009 20:24
In Wednesday’s Budget statement, Alistair Darling acknowledged that even on his optimistic assumptions a decade was needed to repair Britain’s public finances. The UK government’s reputation for economic competence was already in tatters; the chancellor of the exchequer has now laid it definitively to rest. How did the New Labour project end in such disaster?
The answers lie not in unpredictable global events but closer to home. The government failed to deal effectively with the reform of public services and conducted an indecent love affair with the financial services industry. These two apparently unrelated errors, allied with hubris, proved to be a fatal combination.
John Kay, columist
When Labour came to power in 1997, dissatisfaction with public services such as health, education and transport was widespread, and justified. For two decades not enough money had been spent, particularly on capital projects. This underspending had contributed to weak and demoralised management, reservations about which led to a fear that simply allocating more cash would provide poor value for money.
There were two possible directions of reform. One – it might be described as Blairite – decentralised management authority and financial responsibility. The other – it might be described as Brownian – tightened centralised control and imposed performance targets on managers, with associated sticks and carrots. Both approaches were pursued, inconsistently, but overall with more Brown than Blair. When, by 2000, there was little to show in the way of beneficial results, the decision was made to spend lots more anyway. There were some service improvements, but the concern that the extra money would not be well spent proved largely justified.
The reasons targets do not work are evident from any study of the failure of planned economies. You can require people to meet goals, but that is not at all the same as encouraging them to meet the objectives behind the goals. By emphasising targets you undermine both their motivation and their ability to achieve these more fundamental underlying goals. In a delicious irony, a major victim of this process would be the Treasury itself. Here is how it happened.
The government’s principal fiscal target was to balance current expenditures with revenues over an economic cycle. This makes sense as a generalised objective: but not as a binding constraint. The financial services sector boomed from 1998 to 2000 and the government benefited from a surge of revenues. The tide then receded. But by mechanically averaging spending and receipts over the cycle, earlier revenues could be used to offset the later splurge in spending. When this resource started to run out, the Treasury redefined the economic cycle to claim compliance with the target.
This is where the two stories become linked. We now know that many of the banking profits of that period were illusory. But they generated substantial revenues from corporation tax and income tax on bonuses. The real funding gap was wider even than it appeared.
But the illusion was at its most influential at the highest levels of government. Investment bankers had become the most powerful political lobby in the country and there was no vestige of political support for action to restrain City excess. Light touch regulation was not just a matter of policy but a matter of pride.
What would have happened if the Financial Services Authority or Bank of England had sought to block the competing bids from RBS and Barclays for ABN Amro – a contest which, we now know, would bankrupt the bank that won the race? The phones in Downing Street would have been ringing insistently and it is easy to imagine the government’s response.
Little has changed. The government continues to see financial services through the eyes of the financial services industry, for which the priority is to restore business as usual. For a time in 2008, it seemed possible to argue that a package of temporary support for the banking industry, combined with substantial recapitalisation of the weaker players, might stabilise the financial sector and prevent serious knock-on effects.
But the problems of banks are much deeper than were then acknowledged and the destabilisation of the real economy has happened anyway. Government now provides taxpayers’ money to financial services businesses in previously unimaginable quantities. But there is no control over the use of the money, no insistence on structural reform or management reorganisation, no safeguarding of the essential economic functions of the financial services industry and no accountability for the damage that has been done.
It is as though the teenage children and their friends were to wreck the house and then demand that the grown-ups clean up before the next party. Their parents are too intimidated to do anything more than ask Uncle Adair to keep an eye on them and excoriate the hapless Fred who made off with some of the silver.
On Wednesday, Mr Darling gave the impression of an honest man who would have much preferred to have been somewhere else, as befits someone caught in a trap not of his own devising. We need a comprehensive reappraisal of both the fiscal framework and the economic and political role of the financial services sector. The crippling consequence of inability to admit error is the impossibility of learning from past mistakes.
Bring your kid to work day
What do you do if you're the CIA torturer on Bring you kid to work day?
Do you take your kids to the room where your victim is on the rack being water-boarded naked?!!!
Do you take your kids to the room where your victim is on the rack being water-boarded naked?!!!
Friday, April 24, 2009
Forcing kids to do our bidding
I'm writing this as the thought occurred to me as the lady-wife dragged our crying 4 year old son who had to be rudely woken up for a birthday party, that he had said he didn't wish to go!
She had to go as it was an invitation from a co-worker's of hers and wanted to maintain good relations with her. The co-worker's son just turned one so it is obvious that the kid was no "friend" of our son and hence his understandable reluctance.
What's more, he had just had his sleep rudely disturbed. My parting words to the lady-wife were to be patient with him.
How many times parents force their kids to do something just it because it gives them greater pleasure than for the kid?
I remember while growing up my parents would force us to do something that they found cute in front of the neighbors and visiting relatives! I'm sure you know of similar cases or maybe done something similar if you're a parent.
I agree there are certainly times when kids have to be forced to ; but this should be few and far between not a matter of habit of trying to "convince" them of our way by brute force.
I recently bought the following book as I admit I'm still learning how to communicate effectively with my kid without raising my voice or resorting to violence (read spanking). Even my wife will admit that I have more patience dealing with children than with her or other adults and accuses me of being part of the problem!
I'm yet to receive it
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/Raising-Children-Compassionately-id-1892005093.aspx
She had to go as it was an invitation from a co-worker's of hers and wanted to maintain good relations with her. The co-worker's son just turned one so it is obvious that the kid was no "friend" of our son and hence his understandable reluctance.
What's more, he had just had his sleep rudely disturbed. My parting words to the lady-wife were to be patient with him.
How many times parents force their kids to do something just it because it gives them greater pleasure than for the kid?
I remember while growing up my parents would force us to do something that they found cute in front of the neighbors and visiting relatives! I'm sure you know of similar cases or maybe done something similar if you're a parent.
I agree there are certainly times when kids have to be forced to ; but this should be few and far between not a matter of habit of trying to "convince" them of our way by brute force.
I recently bought the following book as I admit I'm still learning how to communicate effectively with my kid without raising my voice or resorting to violence (read spanking). Even my wife will admit that I have more patience dealing with children than with her or other adults and accuses me of being part of the problem!
I'm yet to receive it
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/Raising-Children-Compassionately-id-1892005093.aspx
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Should torture be allowed , ever?
Now with the release of the torture memos thanks to the ACLU www.aclu.org(American Civil Liberties Union who I feel are ones responsible for safeguarding our freedom and not the troops!) this has "re-ignited" the debate re. torture.
Truth be told there was any debate and the previous Bush administration conducted torture secretly (which by itself indicates that it knew it was doing something unlawful) and then was forced to call it "tough-interrogation techniques" a laughable euphemism at best and Orwellian Newspeak at worst . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak when the New York ran the story.
Even interrogation experts admit that confessions obtained by means of torture is unrealiable and that it doesn't work. A google search will prove the veracity (truth) of this statement.
Thanks to doubtful information obtained by torturing one the Al Qaeda suspects, the case for invading Iraq was built. The CIA and adminsitration wanted to hear that Saddam harbored terrorists and the suspect in order to stop the torture told the interrogators what they wanted to hear.
Here's a cut and paste from Apr 25th-26th Weekend FT edition
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, says the fact that waterboarding was used on Mr Mohammed 183 times raises doubts about the efficacy of the technique. In Guantánamo, Mr Mohammed himself put it like this to the ICRC: “During the harshest period of my interrogation, I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop.”
My argument for not torturing is very simple. Would you like to be tortured? Some may find this reasoning simplistic. I say it is simple.
For e.g. one of the Senators who supported the warrantless wire-tap program of Americans is crying foul when she found out that she was herself wire-tapped!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/21/harman/index.html
Maybe your principal objection is "Those are the bad evil guys who deserve to be tortured".
Torture is one those few forms of punishment that is so degrading, in-human that it not only affects the tortured (quite naturally) but even the torturer.
In medeival times, torture was used a form of punishment even for relatively minor crimes like stealing a loaf of bread. Why is Muslim sharia law so abhorrent to most people people. Maybe even for significant numbers in Islamic countries. This is pure speculation.
Because of the barbaric forms of punishment - In accordance with the Qur'an and several hadith, theft is punished by imprisonment or amputation of hands or feet,[123] depending on the number of times it was committed and depending on the item of theft.
In accordance with hadith, stoning to death is the penalty for married men and women who commit adultery.
For more, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Classic_Islamic_law
We have become more "civilized" over the centuries.
There is nothing to prevent the government from arresting an innocent person and torturing him/her and extracting confessions obtained under torture (which is what is permissible under the military commissions) to be used against you. I bet any innocent person would confess to crimes they never did commit! This is what happened during the witch hunts.
A vast majority of people in Gitmo fall under this category. We've tortured innocents and thus we are creating more terrorists.
The only way to win the battle against terrorism is not to stoop as low as your opponent.
Truth be told there was any debate and the previous Bush administration conducted torture secretly (which by itself indicates that it knew it was doing something unlawful) and then was forced to call it "tough-interrogation techniques" a laughable euphemism at best and Orwellian Newspeak at worst . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspeak when the New York ran the story.
Even interrogation experts admit that confessions obtained by means of torture is unrealiable and that it doesn't work. A google search will prove the veracity (truth) of this statement.
Thanks to doubtful information obtained by torturing one the Al Qaeda suspects, the case for invading Iraq was built. The CIA and adminsitration wanted to hear that Saddam harbored terrorists and the suspect in order to stop the torture told the interrogators what they wanted to hear.
Here's a cut and paste from Apr 25th-26th Weekend FT edition
Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, says the fact that waterboarding was used on Mr Mohammed 183 times raises doubts about the efficacy of the technique. In Guantánamo, Mr Mohammed himself put it like this to the ICRC: “During the harshest period of my interrogation, I gave a lot of false information in order to satisfy what I believed the interrogators wished to hear in order to make the ill-treatment stop.”
My argument for not torturing is very simple. Would you like to be tortured? Some may find this reasoning simplistic. I say it is simple.
For e.g. one of the Senators who supported the warrantless wire-tap program of Americans is crying foul when she found out that she was herself wire-tapped!
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/04/21/harman/index.html
Maybe your principal objection is "Those are the bad evil guys who deserve to be tortured".
Torture is one those few forms of punishment that is so degrading, in-human that it not only affects the tortured (quite naturally) but even the torturer.
In medeival times, torture was used a form of punishment even for relatively minor crimes like stealing a loaf of bread. Why is Muslim sharia law so abhorrent to most people people. Maybe even for significant numbers in Islamic countries. This is pure speculation.
Because of the barbaric forms of punishment - In accordance with the Qur'an and several hadith, theft is punished by imprisonment or amputation of hands or feet,[123] depending on the number of times it was committed and depending on the item of theft.
In accordance with hadith, stoning to death is the penalty for married men and women who commit adultery.
For more, please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharia#Classic_Islamic_law
We have become more "civilized" over the centuries.
There is nothing to prevent the government from arresting an innocent person and torturing him/her and extracting confessions obtained under torture (which is what is permissible under the military commissions) to be used against you. I bet any innocent person would confess to crimes they never did commit! This is what happened during the witch hunts.
A vast majority of people in Gitmo fall under this category. We've tortured innocents and thus we are creating more terrorists.
The only way to win the battle against terrorism is not to stoop as low as your opponent.
Unemployment situation, cheap labor
Someone just rang our doorbell asking whether "we" needed anyone to clean the house i.e. work as a domestic help.
It is not uncommon here in Mexico for people to have domestic help, at least the middle and upper middle classes. We only have a maid who comes and leaves everyday as opposed to staying with us at home.
There is a special room built for this purpose in almost every middle class Mexican home.
The average number of maids a family has is three! To clean, cook and take care of the kids. In fact, I'm the ONLY dad who plays with his kid in the park.
They were two young girls probably teenagers not more 18-19 years old and one of them was pushing a pram with a kid.
Our help is an eighteen year old girl who is a mom of a 4 month of kid. When we moved here to Monterrey we asked neighbors to help us find domestic help.
The realtor who worked for the owner of the house sent a 12 year old girl. The lady wife and I debated on whether to hire her. We decided against as she had a terrible attitude.
Part of the debate was if we don't hire her someone else would. At least we would treat her better. We asked her why she wasn't in school. She replied, she didn't like studying.
The "sad" part is these girls will NEVER escape poverty and so will their kids. One of the biggest causes of poverty at least in the US is teen-age pregnancy. The other factor is single parenthood.
Which is why I support organizations like RoomtoRead.org (www.roomtoread.org) which provide scholarships to girls in the third world among other activities. They also build schools and libraries. I urge you to contribute to them as their overhead costs are extremly low.
My brother Dave and I used to volunteer for them and helped raised funds when we used to live in Chicago.
The only way to reduce poverty, reduce infant mortality for the next generation is to have educated mothers. Educated moms have fewer kids, have kids later after they've acquired skills that will help them succeed in life and also teach their children the importance of education.
It is not uncommon here in Mexico for people to have domestic help, at least the middle and upper middle classes. We only have a maid who comes and leaves everyday as opposed to staying with us at home.
There is a special room built for this purpose in almost every middle class Mexican home.
The average number of maids a family has is three! To clean, cook and take care of the kids. In fact, I'm the ONLY dad who plays with his kid in the park.
They were two young girls probably teenagers not more 18-19 years old and one of them was pushing a pram with a kid.
Our help is an eighteen year old girl who is a mom of a 4 month of kid. When we moved here to Monterrey we asked neighbors to help us find domestic help.
The realtor who worked for the owner of the house sent a 12 year old girl. The lady wife and I debated on whether to hire her. We decided against as she had a terrible attitude.
Part of the debate was if we don't hire her someone else would. At least we would treat her better. We asked her why she wasn't in school. She replied, she didn't like studying.
The "sad" part is these girls will NEVER escape poverty and so will their kids. One of the biggest causes of poverty at least in the US is teen-age pregnancy. The other factor is single parenthood.
Which is why I support organizations like RoomtoRead.org (www.roomtoread.org) which provide scholarships to girls in the third world among other activities. They also build schools and libraries. I urge you to contribute to them as their overhead costs are extremly low.
My brother Dave and I used to volunteer for them and helped raised funds when we used to live in Chicago.
The only way to reduce poverty, reduce infant mortality for the next generation is to have educated mothers. Educated moms have fewer kids, have kids later after they've acquired skills that will help them succeed in life and also teach their children the importance of education.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Western hypocrisy/ double standards
The so called "enlightened" West meaning the US and its allies Western allies in Europe, Australia and New Zealand have a double standard. One rule for them and another for others.
I like Gandhi's quote. He was asked in the 1920's by an American reporter what he (Gandhi) thought about Western civilization. Gandhi replied, "I think it would be a very good idea!"
There are many examples of this (E.g. biased reporting against Chavez) but just one or two would suffice.
When I was a kid growing up in India there was the terrorism problem in Kashmir which was Pakistan sponsored and the West clearly knew but turned a blind eye.
I concede the point one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. That is the topic of another blog.
Now when those very same groups aided by Pakistan threaten the very fabric of the country and also threaten the West, terrorism caused by Islamic fundamentalists or Al Qaeda is a problem.
I'd urge to read the book by Chalmers Johnson Blowback and buy books from this site rather than Amazon. They donate their proceeds to worthy causes and have very competitive prices.
I'm not against Amazon.com, in fact I've bought a lot of stuff from them but for books I use this site. http://www.betterworldbooks.com/
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/Blowback-id-1433204789.aspx
Recently, with regard to the anti-racism conference in Geneva and Iranian Presidents comments on the racist policies followed by the State of Israel.
I'm in no way support Ahmadinejad in his other shocking remarks re. denying the Holocaust or wiping the state of Israel. These are not dignified remarks and deserve condemnation. Surely anyone who makes these remarks must be smoking something.
However, we must defend their right to say them as part of freedom of expression.
Just the same way the cartoons on Prophet Muhammed could and should have been published.
You cannot be for freedom of speech for something you support but be against it when ideas or things you hold dear are attacked.
Even Israeli human rights groups have issued reports condemning Israeli military tactics.
See http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090208.asp
Nor do I agree or support the Anti-racism conference introducing a text or resolution that you can't speak against/"blasphemize" any religion. Refer to my post on Respect
http://russ-ramble.blogspot.com/2009/04/respect.html
I like Gandhi's quote. He was asked in the 1920's by an American reporter what he (Gandhi) thought about Western civilization. Gandhi replied, "I think it would be a very good idea!"
There are many examples of this (E.g. biased reporting against Chavez) but just one or two would suffice.
When I was a kid growing up in India there was the terrorism problem in Kashmir which was Pakistan sponsored and the West clearly knew but turned a blind eye.
I concede the point one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. That is the topic of another blog.
Now when those very same groups aided by Pakistan threaten the very fabric of the country and also threaten the West, terrorism caused by Islamic fundamentalists or Al Qaeda is a problem.
I'd urge to read the book by Chalmers Johnson Blowback and buy books from this site rather than Amazon. They donate their proceeds to worthy causes and have very competitive prices.
I'm not against Amazon.com, in fact I've bought a lot of stuff from them but for books I use this site. http://www.betterworldbooks.com/
http://www.betterworldbooks.com/Blowback-id-1433204789.aspx
Recently, with regard to the anti-racism conference in Geneva and Iranian Presidents comments on the racist policies followed by the State of Israel.
I'm in no way support Ahmadinejad in his other shocking remarks re. denying the Holocaust or wiping the state of Israel. These are not dignified remarks and deserve condemnation. Surely anyone who makes these remarks must be smoking something.
However, we must defend their right to say them as part of freedom of expression.
Just the same way the cartoons on Prophet Muhammed could and should have been published.
You cannot be for freedom of speech for something you support but be against it when ideas or things you hold dear are attacked.
Even Israeli human rights groups have issued reports condemning Israeli military tactics.
See http://www.btselem.org/English/Press_Releases/20090208.asp
Nor do I agree or support the Anti-racism conference introducing a text or resolution that you can't speak against/"blasphemize" any religion. Refer to my post on Respect
http://russ-ramble.blogspot.com/2009/04/respect.html
Sunday, April 19, 2009
Respect
I wanted to write on this subject for a long time. Here's the dictionary meaning of respect from dictionary.com
re⋅spect
/rɪˈspɛkt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-spekt]
–noun
1. a particular, detail, or point (usually prec. by in): to differ in some respect.
2. relation or reference: inquiries with respect to a route.
3. esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment.
4. deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment: respect for a suspect's right to counsel; to show respect for the flag; respect for the elderly.
5. the condition of being esteemed or honored: to be held in respect.
Thanks to my grandfather who brought me up until the age of 7 and later on too each time we visited his house in Madras (now known as Chennai). I learnt that Respect should be earned and it cannot be demanded.
Now when I look back, I think it was quite a revolutionary way of thinking from a man who lived in a society where by force of tradition and culture you had to respect your elders.
But why? Just because they were born before you! But did you or I choose the time or place of our birth. No. It is something on which you and I had no control, sheer luck. I'm polite with any elderly person but only grant respect when I've known them better, known their views.
Would you respect an old fool? Just because by sheer luck he/she was born before you? Or what about "respecting" religious viewpoints. I agree with Richard Dawkins that religious views must be subject to the same open debate as any other idea like poilitics or sports.
In fact, under the name of respect, insidious blaspehmous laws/ charters are trying to be be passed.
Please see http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html
and this blog http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-support-of-johann-hari.html
Here's a brief cut and paste
"The article goes on to elaborate that Hari feels no need to "respect" religions. I totally agree: we must affirm the right of other individuals to believe whatever superstitious or moralistic nonsense strikes them as true, and their right to speak the truth as they see it. But there is no need to esteem, or defer to, the nonsense itself."
I completely agree. Hence, when I father-in-law Jose Miguel questioned by religiouscity or lack there-of and gave the nonsensical argument to support his view as he's a Catholic that the Bible is the largest selling/sold book in the planet.
Wrong, it is the Koran one of the most retrograde books ever written. I asked him to stop talking shit, unadultrated shit.
This shocked a friend of mine Monique as I had "dis-respected" an elder.
re⋅spect
/rɪˈspɛkt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [ri-spekt]
–noun
1. a particular, detail, or point (usually prec. by in): to differ in some respect.
2. relation or reference: inquiries with respect to a route.
3. esteem for or a sense of the worth or excellence of a person, a personal quality or ability, or something considered as a manifestation of a personal quality or ability: I have great respect for her judgment.
4. deference to a right, privilege, privileged position, or someone or something considered to have certain rights or privileges; proper acceptance or courtesy; acknowledgment: respect for a suspect's right to counsel; to show respect for the flag; respect for the elderly.
5. the condition of being esteemed or honored: to be held in respect.
Thanks to my grandfather who brought me up until the age of 7 and later on too each time we visited his house in Madras (now known as Chennai). I learnt that Respect should be earned and it cannot be demanded.
Now when I look back, I think it was quite a revolutionary way of thinking from a man who lived in a society where by force of tradition and culture you had to respect your elders.
But why? Just because they were born before you! But did you or I choose the time or place of our birth. No. It is something on which you and I had no control, sheer luck. I'm polite with any elderly person but only grant respect when I've known them better, known their views.
Would you respect an old fool? Just because by sheer luck he/she was born before you? Or what about "respecting" religious viewpoints. I agree with Richard Dawkins that religious views must be subject to the same open debate as any other idea like poilitics or sports.
In fact, under the name of respect, insidious blaspehmous laws/ charters are trying to be be passed.
Please see http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html
and this blog http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/2009/02/in-support-of-johann-hari.html
Here's a brief cut and paste
"The article goes on to elaborate that Hari feels no need to "respect" religions. I totally agree: we must affirm the right of other individuals to believe whatever superstitious or moralistic nonsense strikes them as true, and their right to speak the truth as they see it. But there is no need to esteem, or defer to, the nonsense itself."
I completely agree. Hence, when I father-in-law Jose Miguel questioned by religiouscity or lack there-of and gave the nonsensical argument to support his view as he's a Catholic that the Bible is the largest selling/sold book in the planet.
Wrong, it is the Koran one of the most retrograde books ever written. I asked him to stop talking shit, unadultrated shit.
This shocked a friend of mine Monique as I had "dis-respected" an elder.
Patriotism part 2
I've decided to blog more as an expression of my creative outlet. I do write frequently and e-mail and debate with my friends.
The part 2 of this post is thanks to a debate I had with a friend of mine Rohit Lal which originally began as a debate between the type of capitalism (actually more socialism fot the rich) being practiced in the US.
So when someone tells me that they are patriotic or questions someone else's patriotism, my spider sense starts to tingle.
By standard definitions I'm not patriotic at all! I like it this way. I feel I'm a citizen of the world. I look Brazilian, Israeli so I can pass off as nationals in these countries.
I'll go and live in any country or take the citizenship (as I took US citizenship) if I feel it is advantageous if it is in my self interest. Period. That simple.
I feel all of us consciously or unconciously take decisions in their self interest i.e after weighing the pros and cons (by whatever factors they have in their mind) a cost benefit analysis if their decision makes them happier. I digress.
Re. Rohit's statement that he is proud of India because that is where his parents live, grandparents came from ...
I find it hard to fathom. He owes nothing to India . Whatever he or I have achived is INSPITE the govt of India and not because of it!
It is an accident of birth that he or I was born in India. I wonder if he'd have the same sentiment had he be born in CAR (Central African Republic)
People who are "patriotic" remind me of a dialogue from an Dilip Kumar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilip_Kumar) movie I think Vidhaata. He tells this in front of the villain played by Amrish Puri
"Tum kamine jaade ho ya befkoof!" Translated means "Are you more of a scoundrel or a moron?"
We easily know examples of scoundrels name any politician! As for morons it is the soldiers.
I think that most people (I say most, they might be some idealistic morons) who join the armed forces of any country do it for purposes other than patriotism. Maybe it a career, a means of getting an education as it is in the US by means of the GI bill.
I don't know about you but the only people I'm willing to lay down my life for are my kids. This is makes evolutionary sense as your kids are the propogators of your genes.
The part 2 of this post is thanks to a debate I had with a friend of mine Rohit Lal which originally began as a debate between the type of capitalism (actually more socialism fot the rich) being practiced in the US.
So when someone tells me that they are patriotic or questions someone else's patriotism, my spider sense starts to tingle.
By standard definitions I'm not patriotic at all! I like it this way. I feel I'm a citizen of the world. I look Brazilian, Israeli so I can pass off as nationals in these countries.
I'll go and live in any country or take the citizenship (as I took US citizenship) if I feel it is advantageous if it is in my self interest. Period. That simple.
I feel all of us consciously or unconciously take decisions in their self interest i.e after weighing the pros and cons (by whatever factors they have in their mind) a cost benefit analysis if their decision makes them happier. I digress.
Re. Rohit's statement that he is proud of India because that is where his parents live, grandparents came from ...
I find it hard to fathom. He owes nothing to India . Whatever he or I have achived is INSPITE the govt of India and not because of it!
It is an accident of birth that he or I was born in India. I wonder if he'd have the same sentiment had he be born in CAR (Central African Republic)
People who are "patriotic" remind me of a dialogue from an Dilip Kumar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilip_Kumar) movie I think Vidhaata. He tells this in front of the villain played by Amrish Puri
"Tum kamine jaade ho ya befkoof!" Translated means "Are you more of a scoundrel or a moron?"
We easily know examples of scoundrels name any politician! As for morons it is the soldiers.
I think that most people (I say most, they might be some idealistic morons) who join the armed forces of any country do it for purposes other than patriotism. Maybe it a career, a means of getting an education as it is in the US by means of the GI bill.
I don't know about you but the only people I'm willing to lay down my life for are my kids. This is makes evolutionary sense as your kids are the propogators of your genes.
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