Comments on: Economic Donkeys

By: Silke

Silke — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:05:42 +0000

for all of you who like to refer to Rome here is a nice and informative audio which tells the story as I know it ;-).
If you listen carefully you realize that it was a long drawn out event with lots of ups and downs and btw in the beginning when the interviewee says the Rhine he mis-speaks it is of course the Danube and I didn’t hear him mention that the Goths of Adrianople had been PERMITTED if not invited to enter the Roman empire
btw I like the audio because it makes very clear that the situation became so dramatic when the pressure came from several sides simultaneously …

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?i=59633209&id=268551358

By: Silke

Silke — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 10:01:58 +0000

I cannot claim to get your meaning but shudder at “rigidly conform”
- what I liked about the Olympians when reading about them first as a kid of about 9 was how fickle and unpredictable and thus true to life around me they seemed – nothing rigid there just common alternately benign and mad humans

By: Silke

Silke — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 09:02:54 +0000

the task as I understood it was NOT to replace God in anything but to take the 10 commandments as a framework to formulate rules for behaviour in finance
and in my book you do not need to evoke God (to me the constant evocation of God seems quite often against the 2nd commandment in Luther’s wording – sorry to use the German again but as I discovered only yesterday the Anglos and we seem not to use wording with the same emphasis)*) – there are millenia of human thinking available in writing that have defined again and again in the most detailed ways what and how we should deal respectfully and humanely with our co-human beings, rules which in the past and the present have quite often been misused by the christian churches – latest example from yesterday’s reading http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/books/non-fiction/article6828043.ece
and no this is not sensationalist as every person having been a teenager in the 50s in Germany could tell you – the threat of being taken away to a home was ever present especially for single moms and their children and due to the war there were a lot of them – ours probably didn’t send their catches into adoption though, just kept them as cheap labour – I understand laundry work was quite “popular”

Both Hitler and Stalin either believed strongly in an “ism” or proclaimed to do so and to be under superior guidance by their understanding of the mumblejumble of it (a simple reading by my “greek guy” would have dismantled most of it – do not underestimate the decency of so-called simple people) – and that they both didn’t have a god in their sick ideas doesn’t disqualify it as a religion-like thing
and btw according to Arnold Toynbee whose 12 volume study of history is one huge effort to destroy the M..rxist view on history and who was to the best of my knowledge so much of a Christian that he said especially for a historian quite unpalatable things about the big mistake of a people who had missed out on J..sus c..ommunism is a kind of stepchild of christianity (I am quoting from memory having read the 4 volume version a bit more than thirty years ago)

and last but not least – no I am not a Bible student, I read it as I read any other book and I am most decidedly not an atheist I am an agnostic and believe me there is quite a difference and that difference is very dear to me -

Das zweite Gebot
Du sollst den Namen des Herrn, deines Gottes, nicht mißbrauchen.

PS: sorry of the acrobatics in the text – I am trying to outsmart the automatic censor

By: Stephan

Stephan — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:20:25 +0000

You’re right and I’m wrong. My apologies.

By: Frederik Marain

Frederik Marain — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 07:04:49 +0000

Paul De Grauwe is a Belgian economist (University of Louvain).

By: Uncle Billy Cunctator

Uncle Billy Cunctator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:38:12 +0000

Dewd, if you weren’t making me look half-sane, I’d say knock it off.

By: Uncle Billy Cunctator

Uncle Billy Cunctator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 06:37:03 +0000

People can be full of many different things: ideas, joy, religious fervor. You, senor, are full of gold.

By: Uncle Billy Cunctator

Uncle Billy Cunctator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 04:03:28 +0000

Let’s try Marxism again, but this time with ubiquitous webcams and no death. It’s got to be better than this.

By: Uncle Billy Cunctator

Uncle Billy Cunctator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:52:17 +0000

Well there are those that think they came from a primeval soup made of stardust, formed with a bang, in an endless universe possibly created by a girl named Suzy. For these people, we might want to tell them that the only thing that gives their lives meaning is making good decisions. We could define good decisions as those that contribute to the well being of their family. We could extend the definition of family to be “every living thing.” In this case though we probably need to make an exception that says: Never eat any animal that is cuter than you are.

By: Uncle Billy Cunctator

Uncle Billy Cunctator — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:21:16 +0000

We have our starting points, and they do not have to be considered a “religious” problem by the state.

1) Only do to others what you would want them to do to you.

2) Do not do anything to others that you would not want them to do to you.

3) If anyone looks like they’re going to take advantage of your adherence to 1 and 2, kick their ass.

Blast that into their brains every morning with the pledge of allegiance and have Beyonce and Taylor Swift do a couple of catchy tunes based on their wisdom, and we might be off to a start, again, maybe.

{Rabbi Hillel shakes his head in bewilderment.}

By: thenomad

thenomad — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 03:15:46 +0000

I second that opinion. But please be reminded of the fact that the line separating Wall St and lawmakers is often thin and blurred. At this point of time, all the major banks have a firm grip on Washington.

By: Bayard

Bayard — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:33:15 +0000

All of this just indicates very clearly that all of our leadership, all whom we elected to take care of business, so to speak, has completely and utterly lost its moral compass. As Bond Girl said earlier, it is truly and pathetically hard to determine where the government ends and the oligarchy begins. It seems to be all within the power continuum that seeks only its enrichment, and has no concern at all about the public weal. Such a shame. Politics has always been this way to some extent, but usually there has been a core of the leadership with the courage and clear headedness to pull us back from the abyss. Amongst todays leaders, there seem to be almost none who wish to stand and be counted. There are a few, and those (among them Elizabeth Warren, Barney Franks, Sheila Baer, and — perhaps — Ben Bernanke) frequently are drowned out by the stentor of the oligarchy.

I noted the march over the weekend. Some good, some bad in all that. I can foresee this kind of demonstration becoming open rebellion if things don’t change. Since our leadership seems to have lost or abandoned its moral compass, there is little else that might shake them outside of real revolution (see France circa 1775-8). This could rip apart the social fabric of this nation, and ultimately the globe at large.

Your article points out not just the core problem in the finance world, but the more serious underlying tears in our social fabric.

By: notabanker

notabanker — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 00:04:56 +0000

Silke,
I note your amendment ‘replace God with a vote for human dignity’

Now, in the absence of God’s rule (external absolute?), who interprets what ‘human dignity’ comprisees in each case? Should we just leave it to the ‘greek guy’? I would not like to have left such ruling to Hitler. Stalin is quoted as saying ‘gratitude is for dogs’ and I understand he oversighted a famine when 7 million people died. Hardly a person to inspire trust?

Then if a personal interpretation is sufficient how do we manage for consistency? Why not use the same process to manage road traffic. A reasonable defense for drivers would then be ‘I considered my actions good for the life’?

Seems like this may need a little tightening up?

By: notabanker

notabanker — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:39:50 +0000

Sorry Silke I have enough trouble with English language. Are you a Bible student? Not much point being moral if you are an atheist?

By: notabanker

notabanker — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 21:35:25 +0000

Yakkis,
As per my comment to Uncle Billy, my thought was re the brevity of the rules. A good example for regulators/politicians?

No lies (of course for some folk who believe they are the product of primeval soup it hardly matters)? But I can say amen to that.