Category: Uncategorized

This little news item tends to demonstrate why looking to the monetary authorities to lead the economy out of the hole created by the financial institutions doesn’t make a whole lot of sense:

Stephen Friedman, the chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, abruptly resigned on Thursday, days after questions arose about his ties to Goldman Sachs. Mr. Friedman was chairman of the New York Fed at the same time he was a member of Goldman’s board. He also had a substantial stake in the firm as the Fed was crafting a solution to keep Wall Street banks afloat.

Meanwhile, another Goldman capo was running the U.S. Treasury until recently. And Larry Summers, Obama’s economics advisor, collected 135,000 from Goldman for a one-day visit.

Our favorite community college figure continues to snipe away safely from the sidelines. It’s a pity he’s still afraid to engage in any form of debate that threatens to unmask his intellectual inferiority in front of his howling herd of scat-throwing science fetishists. Yesterday, he posted about a letter to the editor of the Independent from an Irish fan of TIA:

Really, you can’t make this stuff up. An angry letter writer hates those atheists who are making all that racket, and believes that Vox Day’s awful little anti-atheist book refutes them all perfectly. You’re probably already questioning his sanity and intelligence, but then he takes one more step to impeach his own judgment.

“This brilliant critique clearly demonstrates why a mere anti-blasphemy law is not sufficient. In the interests of rationality and common sense, the legislation should go further and label atheism a thought crime.”

Wait, what? Has he read 1984? Does he understand what a thought crime is? Does he understand that the book is a critique of totalitarianism?

The Fowl Atheist is such a parochial little peasant sometimes. He clearly has no idea that the European nations already possess a host of laws banning thought crimes; the Irish writer is merely suggesting that atheism merits being added to the long list of them. The list already includes such crimes as “xenophobia against non-nationals, particularly migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers”, “aggressive nationalism”, and “denial of the Holocaust and crimes against humanity”. And then, there is the notorious case of the English schoolgirl arrested for “racism”. The EU is actively attempting to standardize and codify these various thought crimes across Europe as per The European Framework Convention on Promoting Tolerance and Combating Intolerance. One would think that even a community college professor would have understood this context since that he is clearly aware of the UN resolution calling for all countries to alter their legal and constitutional systems in order to prevent “defamation of religions”.

Given the TIA reader’s reference to current European legal debate, it’s pretty obvious he was reasoning that because “denial of the Holocaust” is a crime, there is absolutely no logical reason why “denial of God” should not be as well. There is no scientific evidence for either, after all, the only evidence for either is all that eyewitness testimony, archeological material, and historical documentation that atheists find so unreliable. And one could quite legitimately argue that there is actually greater justification for banning the “denial of God” since it’s a well-documented fact that those guilty of denying the existence of God have committed far more, and far worse, material crimes in Europe than those those who have denied the existence of the Holocaust.

Moreover, if Myers had actually read The Irrational Atheist – by his own admission, he has not – he would know that I spend an entire section, entitled “Resurrecting the Red Hand of Reason”, showing how the secular Enlightenment humanism being pushed by the likes of Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett is directly connected to the increasingly totalitarian organization that is actually doing what PZ hypothetically fears, the European Union. This philosophical blind spot is exactly why I wrote the following in TIA: “The terrible tragedy of the New Atheists is that they are laboring to lay the foundation for yet another reprisal of the very horrors they think to permanently prevent in the name of Reason.”

Now, I can’t claim to know exactly what Mr. Conway was thinking when he wrote his letter, but given that he thinks so highly of a book written by an extreme libertarian that explicitly warns of the growing danger of European totalitarianism, I tend to suspect his call for making atheism a thought crime is more than a little tongue-in-cheek. Since PZ has repeatedly shown himself to be incapable of either rational debate or substantive criticism, it should come as no surprise that he should also be unable to detect such sarcasm.

As for the comments, I merely note the irony inherent in fans of the New Atheists attempting to question the logical capacities of their critics. Finally, since PZ so fears verbal debate, let him know that I am perfectly willing to engage him in a written debate concerning any argument I have made in the book that he describes as “awful”. I’m sure many people on either side of the discourse would be interested to know which of the many refutations it contains are believed by PZ to be insufficient, especially since Sam Harris has openly conceded a number of them. After all, if the book and the arguments it contains are actually as awful as he claims, he should have absolutely no problem demonstrating that in a format that does not require the mental quickness that he lacks.

It’s make or break time for the Keynesians… again:

The Obama administration today unveiled program details of a $3.4 trillion federal budget for the fiscal year beginning in October.

Assuming that the economy will shrink six percent in 2009, this means that federal spending will account for more than a quarter of the national GDP. That’s in excess of the 1942 wartime figure of 21 percent. Of course, when it doesn’t work, Obama or his successor will need their own war to get the economy out of the depression by blowing the hell out of some future markets.

And John Stewart was correct to say so, his subsequent retreat notwithstanding. It’s no surprise that those attempting to make a national interest case for defending torture should bend the truth so radically in defense of the intentional mass murder of Japanese civilians:

We can all thank Clifford May for having gotten Jon Stewart to say (at least for a while) that President Harry S. Truman was a “war criminal” for, among other things, the two atom bombs that he ordered dropped on Japan…. This began to emerge even before Iraq, George W. Bush, and the issue of “torture,” in the late 1990’s, when the Smithsonian mounted a display of the Enola Gay suggesting the bombing was a matter of race-induced genocide, and forgetting to mention such things as a) the fact that Japan started the war with the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, b) the Japanese atrocities against helpless civilians, and c) the thousands and thousands of Allied and American servicemen whose lives had been saved by the end of the war.

Both (a) and (b) are true. They are both also irrelevant. And (c) is simply incorrect. Japan is an island nation and in the summer of 1945 it was completely surrounded by the U.S. Navy, which had roundly defeated the Imperial Japanese Navy and left Japan without any means of obtaining the oil which was required for it to continue the war. There was no need for a costly invasion of the home islands; in fact, there was no need for most of the island hopping that cost so many American lives. And it is not true that the atomic bombings caused Japan to surrender:

“There is little point in attempting precisely to impute Japan’s unconditional surrender to any one of the numerous causes which jointly and cumulatively were responsible for Japan’s disaster. The time lapse between military impotence and political acceptance of the inevitable might have been shorter had the political structure of Japan permitted a more rapid and decisive determination of national policies. Nevertheless, it seems clear that, even without the atomic bombing attacks, air supremacy over Japan could have exerted sufficient pressure to bring about unconditional surrender and obviate the need for invasion. Based on a detailed investigation of all the facts, and supported by the testimony of the surviving Japanese leaders involved, it is the Survey’s opinion that certainly prior to 31 December 1945, and in all probability prior to 1 November 1945, Japan would have surrendered even if the atomic bombs had not been dropped, even if Russia had not entered the war, and even if no invasion had been planned or contemplated. “
– The United States Strategic Bombing Survey, July 1, 1946

More importantly, it is also not true that Japan had been unwilling to surrender prior to the atomic bombings, because it is an established and readily verifiable historical fact that the Japanese had offered to surrender on almost exactly the same terms that were subsequently accepted months before the bombs were dropped.

“In an article that finally appeared August 19, 1945, on the front pages of the Chicago Tribune and the Washington Times-Herald, Trohan revealed that on January 20, 1945, two days prior to his departure for the Yalta meeting with Stalin and Churchill, President Roosevelt received a 40-page memorandum from General Douglas MacArthur outlining five separate surrender overtures from high-level Japanese officials. This memo showed that the Japanese were offering surrender terms virtually identical to the ones ultimately accepted by the Americans at the formal surrender ceremony on September 2 — that is, complete surrender of everything but the person of the Emperor. Specifically, the terms of these peace overtures included:

* Complete surrender of all Japanese forces and arms, at home, on island possessions, and in occupied countries.
* Occupation of Japan and its possessions by Allied troops under American direction.
* Japanese relinquishment of all territory seized during the war, as well as Manchuria, Korea and Taiwan.
* Regulation of Japanese industry to halt production of any weapons and other tools of war.
* Release of all prisoners of war and internees.
* Surrender of designated war criminals. “

There is simply no room for debate on this. The historical facts are documented and indisputable. There is no honest, informed defense of the Truman administration’s actions. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were completely unnecessary war crimes worthy of being ranked with the Holocaust and other great historical atrocities.

UPDATE: Nathan asked about the contrary “historical evidence” presented by Bill Whittle. The problem with Whittle’s attempted rebuttal is that he compounds historical ignorance with illogic, then throws in a substantial amount of irrelevance for good measure. For example, Whittle ludicrously cites the battle for Okinawa and quotes a Japanese military figure in an attempt to prove what a deadly threat that 20 million kamikazes would have posed to the U.S. Navy. He does so in obvious ignorance of the fact that Japan only produced a grand total of 11,100 planes in 1945, 2,000 of which had already been destroyed in the battle he references. Moreover, they had no experienced pilots and no fuel with which to fly their few remaining planes.

The “official policy” quote from the God-Emperor Hirohito was obviously just rhetoric for public consumption since Hirohito had never set military or any other official policy for Japan. “Japan’s governmental structure was such that in practice the Emperor merely approved the decisions of his advisers. A consensus among the oligarchy of ruling factions at the top was required before any major question of national policy could be decided.” – US Strategic Bombing Survey.

So, Bill Whittle clearly knows nothing of the historical US military reports, the post-war interviews of Japanese government figures, or the MacArthur memorandum. He may be a fine guy – I know Rachel Lucas likes him, but on this subject he is just a talking head with no credibility whatsoever. I suspect he obtained much of his information from this document or its equivalent.

Then there’s no need to vote ever again:

THE SECOND referendum on the Lisbon Treaty will be held in the autumn, Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche said yesterday. He added that as part of the process of steering its way out of recession Ireland needed to secure its position within the European Union.

Speaking in Berlin to the German Council on Foreign Relations, the Minister said he wanted to deliver the message that Ireland was coming to grips with its problems and taking decisive action to bring the Government’s finances under control, ensure the health of the banking system and improve competitiveness.

“Part of this determined effort to steer Ireland out of recession involves securing our position within the European Union by dealing decisively with the implications of last year’s referendum result and drawing the necessary lessons from it,” said Mr Roche.

The Irish would have to be insane to approve the European ConstitutionLisbon Treaty in this second go-round. The EU is the cause of their current difficulties; every boom has its bust. One hopes that the Irish are smart enough to beware of Eurocrats waving financial incentives under their noses, but in hard times, desperate people often do foolish things.

Contrary to the news announced on April 9, I was informed today that The Irrational Atheist will not be published in the UK after all. I’m sure you will all be astonished to know that an individual on the pub board of the Christian publishing house concerned felt very strongly that my controversial views on equality rendered the book unpublishable. Because, after all, it’s women’s rights that are really at the true heart of Christianity and only nice, polite people should disagree with Christopher Hitchens. So long as, you know, he doesn’t mind.

Ironically, a very similar thing happened at the publishing house that first pursued and then rejected Spiting Their Pretty Faces: Why No One Wants to Marry Thirty-Something Women when a single, forty-something woman on the pub board took great exception to the subject matter. Can’t imagine why. But that’s not ironic, you say? Well, perhaps you might agree once you understand that this happened at the same publishing house that is publishing my forthcoming book this fall. The commissar, she is gone.

I suppose I would probably be more disappointed if I hadn’t just signed a contract to write a screenplay yesterday. I guess if you can’t make it in the hyper-competitive world of Christian publishing, there’s always Hollywood.

It doesn’t come as a massive surprise to learn that the billions in government money to Chrysler have already vaporized:

Buried in the Chrysler filings was the revelation that US government investments in Chrysler will not be paid back, though the government will probably take an 8% equity interest in Chrysler: Chrysler LLC will not repay U.S. taxpayers more than $7 billion in bailout money it received earlier this year and as part of its bankruptcy filing.

This revelation was buried within Chrysler’s bankruptcy filings last week and confirmed by the Obama administration Tuesday. The filings included a list of business assumptions from one of the company’s key financial advisors in the bankruptcy case. Some of the main assumptions listed by Robert Manzo of Capstone Advisory Group were that the Treasury would forgive a $4 billion bridge loan given to Chrysler in the closing days of the Bush administration, a $300 million fee on that loan, and the $3.2 billion in financing approved last week by the Obama administration to fund Chrysler’s operations during bankruptcy.

Only $7.5 billion for an 8 percent share of a bankrupt company owned by the United Auto Workers in a dying industry? Yeah, these financial whizzes are going to do a bang-up job “fixing” the economy. And just in case you weren’t convinced that the economy is doomed…

“Mindful of his predecessor, Barack Obama seems to be trying harder to make sure he hears all sides. On the night of April 27, for instance, the president invited to the White House some of his administration’s sharpest critics on the economy, including New York Times columnist Paul Krugman and Columbia University economist Joseph Stiglitz. Over a roast-beef dinner, Obama listened and questioned while Krugman and Stiglitz, both Nobel Prize winners, pushed for more aggressive government intervention in the banking system.”

Summers: “Do you think we ought to give Citi and BOA two trillion apiece or three trillion to recapitalize?”

Krugman: “More, more! Spend more!”

Summers: “How much more?”

Krugman: “Um, fiver?”

Stiglitz: “My bearded little buddy is right. Increasing banker bonuses will reduce the wage sluggishness effect, so the more you give them, the less sluggish they’ll be and the more loans they’ll make, thus jump-starting the economy. It is science.”

Obama: “Um, ah, ha ha ha ha ha!”

Summer: “Ignore him, he’s just a little punch-drunk after celebrating the Cinco de Cuatro. Fiver it is.”

Setting aside the fact that Krugman’s sharp “criticism” of Obama is that he hasn’t been quite as stupendously wonderful as Krugman believes he has the potential to be, the idea that the architects of the Chrysler deal should more aggressively intervene in any enterprise more complicated than a lemonade stand is risible. In fact, I expect that if Obama, Geithner, and Summers ever did run a lemonade stand, they’d somehow manage to drive away half the customers while poisoning the other half.

While I don’t agree with Melzer’s historical prescription – just have a look at Japan’s total credit market debt to figure out why – Jonah Goldberg brings our attention to a legitimate “appeal to my own authority” slap-down of an economist who likes nothing better than to do the same:

After I published a piece in the New York Times op-ed page warning of future inflation (see: “Inflation Nation“), Paul Krugman claimed to offer me a “history lesson” on his Times blog (see his post: “A History Lesson for Alan [sic] Meltzer“).

In the piece I argued that no country with rapid money growth, a large budget deficit, and an expected depreciation of the exchange rate has ever experienced deflation, always inflation. He claims Japan’s “lost decade” as a counterexample. It is not. I am very familiar with Japan during this period—I served as honorary adviser to the Bank of Japan and met often with the then Governor Hayami. He opposed using monetary expansion, and I did not convince him that he was making a mistake. In the midst of the deflation, he raised the interest rate to avoid “sloppy” money markets. That was the wrong thing to do as several of us told the Bank of Japan at the time.

When Governor Fukui replaced Governor Hayami, he carried out the policy that I had urged Governor Hayami to follow. He bought long-term bonds. The deflation ended, contrary to the advice of Professor Krugman, who claimed at the time that monetary policy was in a “liquidity trap” and useless.

The amusing thing about Paul Krugman isn’t that he’s so reliably wrong. It’s that he so readily forgets how reliably wrong he was.