Duane Gran’s log of thoughts

The marketplace is, frankly speaking, a mess right now. Nothing earth shattering or newsworthy in itself, but what is driving the current malaise?

In a word, uncertainty. Take the latest example where the Treasury Department is considering a program to offer fixed mortgages at 4.5%. For the past two months you might say they have done a lot of considering about:

• Bailing out automakers
• Throwing ungodly sums of money into the financial sector
• Nationalizing the main mortgage lendors
• Creating relief programs for people with upside mortgages

Like any rational person on the sidelines, I’m watching to see what happens. When I watch I don’t spend and to a lesser extent I don’t invest. Millions of people who may have planned to execute on a home purchase or refinance are likely putting the brakes on the process to find out which way the wind blows with the Treasury Department.

What we collectively face in the market is fear brought about through uncertainty. Yes, there is a liquidity crises and any number of perfectly clear explanations for why the market is slumping, but beyond that many people are simply waiting for a clear indication of public policy. I’m eager for the hand wringing to cease and to make way for something more productive, even if it means we must wade through a painful market correction.

In the past week we have witnessed serious perturbations in the marketplace. It can shake the confidence of even the most planned investor, but I offer up the following words of advice from Warren Buffet:

Our stay-put behavior reflects our view that the stock market serves as a relocation center at which money is moved from the active to the patient.

I’m cautious about the housing market, but I enjoy reading bearish analysis to keep some perspective. Mike Shedlock asks five questions everyone should consider as they contemplate the housing market place:

Understanding Demand - 3 Questions

1. Who wants a house that does not have one?
2. Who wants a house that can afford one?
3. Who does not have a house and is willing to pay substantially more than rental prices for one?

Understanding Supply - 2 Questions

1. How many have a house they can not afford?
2. How many have a house they soon will not be able to afford?

About a year ago I prognosticated that things were getting dicey for housing. As we enter into a price correction those who must sell due to job changes and other circumstances will be bear most of the cost, but to keep this in perspective most people will continue to do what they have done for years: live in their homes. A price correction in any market is paid for by those who panic or sell low.

On November 23 we celebrate Thanksgiving. It is a time for reflection on the many blessings we hold dear, yet the day after is a time for being unsatisfied with our blessings and filling the void with commerce. How one can go from thankfulness to the orgy of commerce known as Black Friday I’ll never understand. This Friday will yet again be Buy Nothing Day in my household. I encourage you to also prolong the sprit of thankfulness and to count your blessings well beyond the Thursday feast.

A particular portion of the scripture has spoken to me for years about being grateful. Luke 17:11-14 describes how Jesus healed ten people of leprosy. The scripture goes on to say:

One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him — and he was a Samaritan.

Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then he said to him, “Rise and go: your faith has made you well.”

My sincere hope is to live like the one who gave thanks, not like the other nine. The decision is ultimately personal, but resisting consumerism during the holidays is a meaningful protest. It keeps me thankful for what I have and aware that the grace given thus far is sufficient.

I’m saddened to learn about the behavior of students at my alma mater who disrupted a speech by David Horowitz. I’m no fan of Mr. Horowitz and his crowd of Marxists who slid into neo-conservativism, but I’m aghast at the behavior of people who can’t issue an intellectual disagreement.

It’s terribly ironic given that the speaker’s premise is that freedom of expression is constrained by leftist ideology in universities. I disagree with his thesis, but the people who attempt to suppress his right to speak about it do us all a disservice. Horowitz agrees in a sense:

Yet three years later, the issues that I raised — the lack of intellectual diversity on campuses and the intrusion of political agendas into the curriculum — have become topics of discussion at colleges throughout the country. This July, moreover, Temple University became the first institution to adopt a student bill of rights as a response to my challenge.

How did this happen? Oddly enough, no small part of my success can be attributed to my opponents’ tactics.

Today, October 30th, we celebrate UN Day to commemorate the founding of the United Nations on October 24th 1945. Rotary International has a rich history in the founding and support of the United Nations, so the issue is dear to my heart.

These days it is fashionable to critique the UN for its failings, particularly with respect to the oil for food program in Iraq, but I believe the organization holds the promise for promoting diplomacy. Rather than taking the cynical view I believe the UN should undergo continual reformation to meet the challenges of our age in order to avoid the 20th century warfare. This requires nations to submit a modicum of sovereign will in exchange for lasting peace — a good bargain for all concerned.

On that note, the Miller Center forum is hosting Ambassador William H. Luers, President of the United Nations Associations of the United States of America. He will discuss the relationship between the United Nations and the United States in the aftermath of 9/11. The event is sponsored in conjunction with the The Blue Ridge chapter of UNA-USA. If you are in the Charlottesville area it is well worth your time to attend.

“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have little.” — FDR

In 1978, US Sociologist Christopher Lasch argued that a ‘culture of narcissism’ was infecting family, work, sport and education. Lasch described people’s uncertainty about the boundaries between the self and the world - which results in delusions of empowerment as well as paralysis. Today we are even more confused about where the boundaries of responsibility lie. At issue is if we labor for service or to be served.

There are several theories that point to the beginning of the end for social responsibility. I personally believe it started with Reagan’s famous quip, in response to the Carter administration, when he asked the American people if “you are better off than you were four years ago.” Others believe it happened when people quoted the Gordan Gecko character in the film Wall Street without a hint of irony, declaring “greed is good.” Wherever the point may lie, social critics can agree that “I” has eclipsed “we.”

One of the last great pleas for the common good came from Barbara Jordan’s keynote to the 1976 Democratic Convention when she said the following.

But this is the great danger America faces — that we will cease to be one nation and become instead a collection of interest groups: city against suburb, region against region, individual against individual; each seeking to satisfy private wants. If that happens, who then will speak for America? Who then will speak for the common good?

At some point in the late 70s between the time that the Representative Jordan urged us to keep lit the candle of social justice and greed became good, the battle line shifted. No longer would writers need to extoll the virtue of selfishness, it’s “virtue” became self evident. Instead, in modern times writers conjure memories of Solidarity, asking us to revive our social consciousness:

As the American right offers that redundant canard “moral values” as its lodestar, the left should offer solidarity. Not retrograde brotherhood, or faith-specific fellowship, but something more robust and difficult and rewarding. The uplift of collective enterprise.

Another plea comes by way of Jared Bernstein’s promising new book, All Together Now, which implores us to think differently about our national priorities and the dead end of hyper individualism. Bernstein describes his vision as “creating an economic architecture that reconnects our strong, flexible economy to the living standards of all, not just to the residents of the penthouse.” How refreshing!

What remains to be seen is whether the muscle of social justice has lied dormant too long. Can it be called to service after three decades of neglect, and more importantly will people respond to the call for action? I hold out optimism and believe we should start by asking if we are better off than we were two decades ago.

I previously wrote about new companies which remove various smut and violence from popular films. Because they operate on a legally purchased copy of the media it was presumed that the producers would be content with their profits and allow the niche service to carry on.

Unfortunately the courts have decided that the practice violates copyright. Michael Apted, president of the Directors Guild of America, commented on the ruling:

Audiences can now be assured that the films they buy or rent are the vision of the filmmakers who made them and not the arbitrary choices of a third-party editor.

Yes, the producers can rest easy knowing that their vision of violence and sexual permissiveness will be preserved. The sad part is that the producers appear to make no effort to acknowledge legitimate interests of media consumers who seek a third way between accepting their vision and not patronizing film. Such a third way would have opened to door to various re-imaginations of film, but the companies which produce the material also dictate its final format.

What the plaintiffs fail to understand, or respect, is that the media consumer is a participant and that once a work is made public it takes on a form of community ownership. We sing the “happy birthday song” at birthdays because we know it (but beware since its copyright status is in limbo) or we recognize the 1812 overture as distinctly Russian because it borrows from thematic elements of previous Russian classics. While the producer should retain certain rights, common ownership of media is diminished by the recent court ruling.

Update (11 July 2006): An alternative option, called Clear Play may be useful in the wake of the ruling.

A must read Rolling Stone article by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cites many reasons to doubt the legitimacy of the 2004 Presidential election results. In particular:

In precincts where Bush received at least eighty percent of the vote, the exit polls were off by an average of ten percent. By contrast, in precincts where Kerry dominated by eighty
percent or more, the exit polls were accurate to within three tenths of one percent — a pattern that suggests Republican election officials stuffed the ballot box in Bush country.

I’m not disposed to conspiracy, but I do believe that people are prone to dishonesty when passions flare. Every election is a composite of the 13,000 polling precincts and is bound to involve some fraud, but we hold out hope that a) the fraud is minimal and b) that it is counter balanced. The article seems to demonstrate, through statistical analysis and firm research, that there was significant fraud weighted heavily in favor of the incumbent President.

Kerry supporters will be dismissed for grousing about the results, but for the sake of our democracy we need to address the facts raised by this article before the next election.

It isn’t often that you get 250+ people, many without chairs, to attend a lecture concerning global politics in the post cold war era. Unless, of course, the speaker is Francis Fukuyama — The author of The End of History and America at the Crossroads. He is, by many accounts, the most prominent Neo Conservative in academic circles, but lately he has been unpersuaded by the rationale for war and the Neo Conservative agenda. I had the priviledge of hearing him speak at The Miller Center.

In the course of tracing the roots of Neo Conservativism from depression-era leftists, he cites three mis-applications of the Wilsonian doctrine:

1. Pre-emptive war — We have conflated our worries about stateless terrorism with the relative pre-2003 stability of Iraq. While the underlying sensibility of pre-emption — to strike first those who intend you harm — is nearly accepted fact, it hinges on solid intelligence. Furthermore, many cases of preemption require that you predict the future.
2. Benevolent hegemony — The current imbalance of political and military power is unprecedented in history, but we presume it to be the natural order. American exceptionalism, which condones our invasion of Iraq while demanding that India not invade Pakistan, is predicated on the belief that we are benevolent with our power. While many Americans believe this to be so, the contradictions inherent in the policy undermine what benevolence we proclaim to posses.
3. Nation building — If you had asked a political scientist in 1988 about a hypothetical end to Communism few would have predicted its end and nearly all would have expected it to be violent and protracted. The quiet demise of Communism set up an expectation that all enemies of America are paper tigers. This hubris has lead us into what is characterized now as a long war.

I’m a skeptic of Fukuyama’s thesis (see my previous notes) and still believe there is room in the world for grand re-ordering of society. I didn’t ask any questions, as the audience of professors, statesmen and one ambassador were better suited to the dialog. The audience was respectful but many questions probed the internal consistency of Neo Conservativism, particularly on the matter of vigorously endorsing democracy in one place (Iraq) while sanctioning obscene failures of human rights in another (Saudi Arabia). Fukuyama acknowledged these deficiencies as collateral for any administration and emphasized that devoting resources to one cause necessarily depletes options for another.

Had I wished to ask a question, I would have asked the following:

• Is the Bush doctrine Wilsonian?
• Realizing that hegemony — benevolent or not — breeds discontent among nations, what can America do to engage other nations to be part of the solution such that we are not acting as the world police?

Update: (26 May 2006): Helena Cobban, a fellow writer in Charlottesville was also at the event, summarized her experience with far more comprehension than I’ve given.

Ambrose Bierce once quipped that “War is God’s way of teaching Americans geography.” Were that this silver lining were true, but unfortunately after decades of war American geographic literacy is, to put it bluntly, in a dismal state of affairs. Take for example the findings from a 2002 National Geographic survey which sadly reports that:

Despite the threat of war in Iraq and the daily reports of suicide bombers in Israel, less than 15 percent of the young U.S. citizens could locate either country.

In all fairness, the report explains that most nations exhibit a certain amount of a blind spots toward geographic regions which don’t frequent their news cycle. All hand wringing aside, are geography nuts like myself making a Mount Fuji out of a Saharan sand dune? (extra credit if you can point at these on a map)

Not at all. The world is becoming ever smaller and approachable, but the ability of the American electorate to grasp basic facts about nations, as well as our place in the worldwide community, will be vital to attain peace between nations. Any nation possessing nuclear weaponry (or other weapons of mass destruction) owes it to the international community to promote geographic understanding at home.

There may be some hope yet. The recently released 2006 National Geographic survey shows some improvement, as now 37% of young adults can find Iraq on a map. There is much work yet to be done.

An excellent article in The Guardian puts in stark relief the subculture most overlooked in America:

A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit’s streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.

I wish I had a solution so compelling by sheer fact that we would rally together to solve this problem, but as the article points out, the problem is systemic — the American zeal for individualism declares victory for the strong and failure for the weak.

In related news, it is with sadness that John Galbraith has passed away. His legacy will remembered, and if possible, rekindled.

He remained optimistic about the ability of government to improve the lot of the less fortunate. “Let there be a coalition of the concerned,” he urged. “The affluent would still be affluent, the comfortable still comfortable, but the poor would be part of the political system.”

A report (pdf file) from Public Citizen details “how 18 families worth a total of $185.5 billion have financed and coordinated a 10-year effort to repeal the estate tax, a move that would collectively net them a windfall of $71.6 billion.” I’m not disposed to elaborate explanations or conspiracy, but the group has done an effective job of unmasking the layers of anonymity which a handful of wealthy people have used to fund a campaign to discredit the estate tax, leading to its temporary repeal.

The legislation is up for renewal in 2011, but we can hope that the congress disregards the anti-estate tax lobby’s rhetoric. See my previous notes about the history behind the re-branding of the estate tax for some context on the issue.

Update (9 June 2006): The LA Times reports that Republicans don’t have the votes necessary to make the repeal permanent. This is a victory for the 98% who would not have benefited from the repeal.

Jaun Cole has launched The Global Americana Institute, an ambitious project to coordinate the translation and dissemination of classic American thought, such as the writings of Paine, Jefferson and Franklin. Cole’s announcement of the initiative reveals that America’s founding principles aren’t communicated in Middle Eastern languages. Occasionally they are studied at Universities in English, but the knowledge of American ideals remain a sort of dark net. Naturally, misinformation and mythology consume the darkness.

Cole goes further to challenge municipalities and historical societies to join the effort. In particular, he speaks to my community:

What about Virginia and especially Charlottesville? Don’t they want Thomas Jefferson available in Arabic? Can anyone there help with putting us in touch with funders?

I don’t have a definitive answer, but if someone connected with Monticello is reading, maybe we can put our heads together on this (my contact info). I’m sure we can forge a public-private partnership to raise funds for the translation.

cenSEARCHip is a clever project from the Indiana University School of Informatics which produces a visualization of the variant results given between Google’s regional search engines. The differential between the Chinese and US versions of Google has been of particular interest in the media and to members of Congress. Debate ranges whether google.cn represents a carrot-and-stick or if search corporations neglect an implicit interest in advancing human rights. I debate the issue and frankly, I don’t think it is possible to be sure either way, but I am certain that the tech-saavy populace within China knows how to circumvent content restrictions.

One hint of this comes by way of searching for “freedom”. See the image below for a curious term that comes up frequently in google.cn:

WordPress is a blogging software system. If that doesn’t make any sense, this site is a WordPress blog — a writing space for discussion, debate and commentary. It is also interesting that software is also a key term associated with freedom, but does this signify anything more than a curiosity?

I hold out hope that it in fact means that people are exercising freedom through writing — the ability to comment, critique and analyze the world around us. This may represent an undercurrent of actually existing freedom in China that is more powerful than the suppression of search engine results. You say freedom, I say WordPress.

Because I’m disposed to ironic behavior, I brought along a copy of John Stuart Mill’s On Liberty essay to read on an airplane flight. What better place to witness the tension between security and liberty than the friendly skies? We are free to travel, but under restriction and investigation so numerous that shoeless men are icons of modern travel. But my point isn’t to argue that security restrictions are bad, but I think that we put inordinate attention to securing passengers at the expense of securing cargo. That remains a point for another day, and I don’t believe Mill envisioned this sort of tension.

After all, the Liberty that Mill speaks of is primarily that of speech, thought and privacy, of which the former two are in abundance and the latter has never had much of a foothold. As it happens, my luggage contained the now-familiar notice that its contents had been inspected, ostensibly for the good of all concerned. I wish I had thought of it myself, but a clever blogger has made his own 4th Amendment shipping tape, so that metaphorically the TSA can shred the 4th amendment as they conduct unreasonable searches. Mill would be amused, I think.

A BBC article reports that Americans know more about The Simpsons TV show than the First Amendment to the Constitution.

Only one in four could name more than one of the five freedoms it upholds but more than half could name at least two members of the cartoon family.

About one in five thought the right to own a pet was one of the freedoms.

I’m sure there are a good number of things of which I’m ignorant about, but this is basic stuff. I’m glad we are exporting Democracy elsewhere, because I don’t know how it can continue here.

Democracy Now! | Venezuelan-Owned Citgo Faces Congressional Inquiry For Offering Discounted Oil to U.S. Poor

Republican Congressman Joe Barton of Texas has launched an investigation into one of the world’s major oil companies. But he is not investigating whether any of the oil giants are engaging in price gouging at a time when gasoline and heating oil casts are skyrocketing. Instead Barton has set his sights on the only oil company that actually dared to lower its prices last year - at least for the poorest Americans. Last week Barton demanded the Venezuelan-owned company Citgo produce all records, minutes, logs, e-mails and even desk calendars related to the company’s novel program of supplying discounted heating oil to low-income communities in the United States.

Maybe there is more to the story, but it is patently brazen to look the other way as ExxonMobile posts a 38 Billion dollar profit last year and to investigate Citgo when they help the poor. Possibly it is embarrassing that a state owned company, in a Socialist nation, helps poor Americans when the invisible hand does nothing.

A cynical explanation, related to Representative Barton’s financial allegiance, comes by way of a New York Daily News article, which refers to Barton as “the closest thing on Capitol Hill to a mouthpiece for Big Oil.” He was “was second only to fellow Texan Tom DeLay in the amount of oil industry contributions” in the last election cycle.

Monied interests always play a role, but this investigation is poor form any way you cut it. In the meantime, I believe I’ll go out of my way to locate a Citgo station.

Opinions vary, but if it should come to pass that we are actually in a housing bubble, an analysis from SearchLight Crusade will certainly seem prophetic. The author of the essay consistently shares poignant insight from his perspective as a mortgage broker. I’ve recommended his writing to several people considering a home purchase or sale, given his keen ability to separate emotions from fact.

A clever essay puts to words several thoughts I’ve had about the mindset of Libertarians:

For those who don’t know, corporations are totally a form of socialism, allowing folks to group together their resources so they can do things that they couldn’t do by themselves. And that’s what socialism is all about. Grouping resources together to do things that you can’t do as individuals. And that’s what unions are all about. And so why is it that libertarians totally defend the concept of corporations, while totally attacking the concept of unions? One is based upon economic strength, and the other is based upon labor strength; but essentially, they’re the same idea.

Most Libertarians I’ve met are either stuck on theory or only appreciate the viewpoint for its ability to validate their innate selfishness.