1. TRANSPORT ECONOMICS!!! — having been a victim of traffic in the South…hehe…I’ve started to be passionate about traffic, cars, the LRT and MRT and transportation in general. I just love how mobility facilitates economic growth!
2. BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS, especially crimes haha — I am very interested with the demography of criminals and the economics behind it..It’s really very very interesting for me, especially when I read why should suicide bombers get life insurance in SuperFreakonomics…I like how economics can reveal a lot about our criminal side/our bestiality..hehe
3. INFORMATION ECONOMICS – I just found out there is such several seconds after writing the statement above. I just speculated about the possibility of its existence then when I searched it online, lo and behold! there really is such a field as information economics! Anyway, in relation to what I have just mentioned in number 2, I like how powerful information is. With economic tools I’m so sure it would even be more powerful.
In most industries the law of supply and demand is an accepted theory to explain the price of products and services. One industry that overlooked the significance of the law of supply and demand in the past is the stock market. Experts attributed the Stock Bubble of the 1990s to an overly simple theory; it was believed that rising prices in stocks were caused by an underlying rise of companies’ value. The price of stocks in the 1990s is today better understood as derived from a shortage of equities in the market (Oswin, 2005). The law of supply and demand is a fundamental concept in economics that explains market factors such as the quantity of a product or service demanded by consumers, the supply of products or services that suppliers are willing to produce and the relationship between supply and demand to create market equilibrium. The law of supply and demand also tries to explain what conditions in the market create changes in quantity demand and supplied in the market (Colander, 2008).
In his essay, The Relative Shortage of Equities, Oswin (2005) describes some of the conditions that affect stock market activity and explains the theories behind the demand and supply of equities, which drive the prices of the market. According to Oswin (2005), the law of supply and demand is the cause behind bear and bull markets. Investors use the term bear market to describe markets in which the prices of stocks are stubbornly declining. A bull market is characterized by a strong upward trend in the prices of stocks. According to the law of supply and demand, the increase in the price of a product is caused by a shortage of supply or excess demand, and a decline in price is associated with a surplus in supply or a decrease in demand (Colander, 2008). Oswin (2005) states that during the Great Stock Bubble “ Investors’ determination to buy equities exceeded issuers willingness to satisfy their demand for stocks” (p. 4). Furthermore, Oswin (2005) notes, “issuers competed with investors in buying back company shares, contributing to the shortage” (p. 4).
What is unique about the stock market is that the value of securities is largely dependent on speculation. In essence market expectations are what drive the demand and supply of securities. Thus, understanding how the law of supply and demand affects stock prices is much more complex than in other industries. To simplify, it can be said that when investors expect market prices to rise and believe they can make a profit, the demand for securities will also rise, the opposite is true when individuals expect declining prices. The law of demand also states that when prices are lower demand rises, and this is also true for securities when combined with reinforcing market expectations. A lower price for a security, especially when that security is expected to increase in value will cause a rise in demand. On the supply side, issuing companies are more apt to sell securities when the price of their stock will be high as to maximize capital to finance growth. This is in accordance with the law of supply that states supply increases when prices are high and profits are expected to increase. However, the demand for supply is also affected by outside forces such as a company’s need for raising capital. If a company has enough capital to finance growth operations and does not need to borrow, there will be no need for companies to issue additional securities. In a booming market, in which corporate profits are steady and growing, and the need for issuing additional securities is low, stocks will be in high demand and prices will rise. Additionally, sellers and buyers of securities in the secondary market create supply in the market. When prices are rising, investors are willing to hold on to their stocks for longer periods of times and there is a shortage of sellers. When prices are declining, investors are more eager to sell their securities to protect their paper profits or to minimize exposure. Equilibrium of price is created when potential buyers willingness to pay for a security matches what suppliers are willing to sell their securities for.
References
Colander, D. C., (2008). Economics (7th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Oswin, J. (2005). The relative shortage of equities. Capital flow Analysis. Retrieved onMarch 13, 2010 from: http://www.capital-flow-analysis.com/investment-theory/shortage-of-equities.html
Economists call for growth as a remedy to the recession. With the current economic recession winding all-too-slowly down, I have heard some economic experts telling the media that we need “more growth, more and faster growth”. How long does anyone think we can continue to fix our economic problems by “developing” (or is it “blighting”) more land and burning up more resources? Isn’t that just pushing down on the gas pedal as our car heads straight towards a cement wall? Where do the media find these so-called experts? How can the “growth mantra” be expected to continue indefinitely in a finite world? What proportion of the population are smart enough to understand this and similar issues, and how can it be increased? In the United States, we can’t keep our current infrastructure in good repair. How do we expect to take care of even more after we build it?
I will write another email to my government representatives on this. Uncontrolled and unthinking growth is self-destruction, in the final tally. I want my grandchildren to have as good a life as possible, though I currently believe it will be no better than I have today, and possibly much worse. I encourage you the reader to contact your representatives and push them to think long-term and recognize that most of what we consider changing now, such as reducing carbon emissions, does little in the face of the global population explosion. The correction to that, and the only one that seems to have the potential to move us towards sustainability, is for people to have smaller families. I can’t think of anything else with any probability of success. I also think we all want to deal with overpopulation ourselves as opposed to letting Mother Nature deal with the problem for us.
The situation is not hopeless. I have written before about the factors that have been proven to reduce family size: education, birth control, and better economic situations. If we put a small part of the resources and funding we put into wars and war-like activities into those three factors, especially in the developing world, I think we could make a big positive difference in our descendants’ lives. Unfortunately our mostly-unregulated form of capitalism puts extremely powerful interests behind short term measures and often-destructive endeavors that benefit them, but harm all of us in the long run. We have a chance if we *all* get involved and make our voices heard. We created government to protect us, and if we don’t stop the subversion of our government for corporate profits we will all suffer, and our descendants will suffer far more. Please write your congresspeople.
As the name says, something is accounted for the current period of study. Usually a financial year. What do we do in accounting? Calculate inflows and outflows. Current account is exactly the same. It’s just the accounting for a country’s inflows and outflows.
Current account = balance of trade + Income (a.k.a Factor Income) + Transfer Payments.
Balance of trade – difference between the export and import of a country. It does not include the financial transfers or investments.
Income- Income earned on investments made by a country abroad like interest earned or dividends received. This will be accounted as (+) value, and paid to foreigners by a country will be accounted as (-) sign. (You should note that this will take only income out of investments. Original investments/capital investments will be accounted in a different head Capital accounts) The Income, also includes the infamous Remittances made by our Non residents… (Thanks to millions of SW geeks and labors from across the globe. – We might even say a malayali chai shop or someone working in a construction site, in Arab countries, indirectly influences the Moody’s rating for India J
Transfer of Payments- cash transfers from abroad like foreign aid, charity aid etc… Money spent on society directly than on economy.
So in short,
A current account deficit occurs when Imports are more than Exports (when a country’s total imports of goods, services and transfers is greater than the country’s total export of goods, services and transfers.)
A current account surplus occurs when Exports are more than Imports. (When a country’s total exports of goods, services and transfers is greater than the country’s total import of goods, services and transfers.)
We (India) are in a deficit situation every year… Might be we would have been in surplus before the East India Company or the Moguls ventured in . Currently our fiscal deficit stands at 5.8 billion USD.. .. needless to say, the Chinese are in huge surplus of 284 billion USD, and they say it has come down from 368 billion USD.. and guys, we have more or less the same work force compared to china….( hmm… its all the government /ruler who makes the difference…)
In the next post , lets see about what is balance of payments…
According to the Washington Post, bankers and lobbyists are out in force in Washington, determined to defeat or greatly weaken Sen. Dodd’s Financial Reform legislation.
If not for the sea of navy business suits and the hotel ballroom’s chandeliers, the gathering Wednesday morning might have seemed more like a pep rally than a meeting of the American Bankers Association. But the 900 bankers were preparing to storm Capitol Hill, and they were getting revved up.
“We have a lot of work cut out for us,” David Bochnowski, an Indiana bank executive, said to the troops, who had assembled just after 8 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel downtown. “Our job is to have an impact on the Hill. Are we going to have that impact?”
“Yeah!” the bankers shouted, as applause broke out.
“We need to shape what’s in and what’s out of any reform legislation,” Michigan banker Art Johnson told his peers from every corner of the country. “All of us know what’s at stake. It’s really about our industry’s future . . .[...]
The bankers soon headed to Capitol Hill, talking points in hand — white folder for House visits, blue folder for Senate visits. They were to protest the creation of a new consumer financial protection regulator, to argue that national banks should remain exempt from state consumer laws and to advocate that the Federal Reserve keep oversight for some state-chartered banks, among other issues.
While the bankers showed up in force this week, they are not the only ones with a hefty stake in the financial regulatory overhaul under consideration in Congress. Investment banks, hedge funds, student loan firms, coal companies, automakers and credit card companies are among those seeking to influence the reforms.
Of course, partisan politics reared its ugly head, once again, as Republicans signaled their rejection of any Democrat-sponsored legislation. At the gathering of bankers before they left for Capital Hill, House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) acted as their pep rally leader, urging the crowd to “stand up for themselves” and defeat Sen. Dodd’s legislation.
With 900 bankers and thousands of lobbyist, all carrying sacks of money with which to influence Congress, it’s going to be nearly impossible to get good legislation that actually does regulate the banking industry…and brings some sunlight into shadow banking. But good legislation that protects both consumers and investors and brings a lot of the risky financial instruments out in the open and manages the level of risk any bank can take with customers’ money is a necessity.
I hope voters care enough about their wallets and savings to stand up to the bankers and tell their Congress members to stand firm for the American people. After all, bankers are not Gods and should not be treated as such!
Oh, and in case anyone has forgotten what happened over the last two years ago, here’s a reminder of why regulation is necessary.
With the heated back and forth of the health reform, very little has been reported on the new financial reform bill….Sen. Dodd and some Repub from Tennessee are quietly negotiating for the passage of a financial reform bill….now that it is pretty close Dodd has hit the airways to try and block any “tea bag”-esque attacks that the health reform bill has received.
I was going to write a piece trying to explain Dodd’s lame attempt to regulate the thieves but the Washington Post beat me to it and theirs is a lot simple and more understandable than mine would have been:
1 A Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, housed inside the Federal Reserve, would write and enforce rules protecting borrowers from abuse by lenders.
WHAT IT MEANS: The location of the agency is a nod to Republicans and conservative Democrats who oppose the creation of a free-standing consumer agency, but everything else about this proposal is designed to please liberals, giving the consumer agency sweeping powers and imposing few checks on that authority.
2 A Financial Stability Oversight Council, chaired by the Treasury secretary, would coordinate federal efforts to identify and manage risks to the financial system and the broader economy.
What it means: Dodd wanted to give the council broad responsibility for policing systemic risks. After massive administration pressure, he agreed instead to give much of that power to the Fed. The oversight council will instead function essentially as the Fed’s board of directors on regulatory issues, signing off on its decisions.
3 A new process would allow for the liquidation of large, failing financial firms.
WHAT IT ME ANS: Companies could be liquidated by joint agreement of the Treasury Department, the Fed and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which already administers bank failures and would play a similar role in the new process. Costs would be paid from a $50 billion pool of money gathered from large financial companies.
4 Credit-rating agencies would be regulated and liable for errors.
WHAT IT MEANS: Breaking with the administration and the House version of financial reform, Dodd’s bill would hold Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s and other rating agencies potentially liable for their judgments about the safety of bonds and other investments. The industry also would be regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
5 Banks would face new limits on trading and investment activities.
WHAT IT MEANS: The bill would restrict banks from running their own investment portfolios or hedge funds, an administration proposal known as the “Volcker Rule” that Dodd initially had rejected. The bill also would regulate the massive trade in derivatives, increasing the proportion of such trades that are publicly reported.
6 Some renovations would be made to the structure of federal banking regulation.
WHAT IT MEANS: Dodd abandoned his earlier proposal to create a single banking regulator after critics argued that the upside was not worth the effort. The bill still would eliminate the Office of Thrift Supervision. The Fed’s authority over smaller banks would be split between the FDIC and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency.
Is something better than nothing? I hear a lot of the henceforths and heretowiths …..in other words legal-ese and the “too big to fail” group will still have its relief valve….US, we will still be on the hook whenever they screw up….I guess it is a start….but like health reform…..it is NOT reform….it is a tweak of an already broken system.
This art exhibition is opening at the Museum of Sydney next week – it looks fascinating.
From the link above:
Skint! Making do in the Great Depression, a Museum of Sydney exhibition that opens on March 27, traces this period, which began with the New York sharemarket crash of 1929. More than 80 years later, mementoes of this period still draw an emotional response, even from those not directly affected.
An example of the items from the era is a Depression peg, which was fashioned from remnants of wire and sold door-to-door by the unemployed. In some cases men would steal wire from farm fences or suburban gates. It’s a grim reminder of how desperate people were. Another poignant symbol is the toy train made from scraps of timber, including a fence paling. It’s a prime example of the “making do” philosophy.
My grandparents were children in the Depression (in the US). They weren’t personally too badly affected, as my granddad’s family kept their farm going, and my grandma’s father kept his job (as a grocery buyer). I’ve always been very moved by stories from tis time, and will definitely be checking this exhibition out, and posting my thoughts.
Jamaica and organised crime: Seeking Mr Coke | The Economist.
The longer Dudus goes free, the more bad press for Jamaica. Bad press shakes up our fragile economy like a rag doll in the mouth of a rabid dog. I just hope that the Prime Minister knows what he’s doing.
The big question is:
Is the “protection of the rights” of this one man worth the rights and dignity of all other Jamaicans whose lives are getting rattled as much as it is?
An FT article titled in jocose fashion something like “beware of the beardies”, drew attention towards those elements in the LibDem Constitution designed to prevent any radical changes to the party’s relationship with other parties.
A series of obscure rules buried in the Lib Dem “constitutions” (184 pages) and “business motions” give the party’s left-leaning activists considerable clout over their leader, particularly when it comes to deals with minority governments.
The so-called ‘triple lock’ was appparently introduced under Ashdown, and leaves the leadership obliged to seek several different supermajorities in certain situations.
On the surface, such attention is unwelcome, given Nick’s superb recent efforts (also FT) to get the Lib Dems rebranded as the party that holds the sensible middle ground between nutcase spendingcutters on the Right and wishful deficit deniers on the Left. It is no good having the most respected Shadow Chancellor in modern history and a sound grasp of the difficult dynamics of this situation (see Chris Giles’ wondeful post on this) if you can’t do anything about it, without a cumbersome and uncertain process of internal party haggling.
Martin Kettle in the conference programme makes a flattering comparison between LibDem Conferences and the ’stage managed rallies’ with ‘heavily vetted and coached speakers’ of the other Parties. He writes:
“Among the main UK-wide parties, Liberal Democrats are the only ones whose conference is not from beginning to end a stich-up”.
And I love every minute of them. But I am not sure that a bond market investor eavesdropping upon a ferocious speech defending public spending at all costs would applaud the democracy, rather than question the maths. From the FT article:
Richard Batty, investment director of strategy at Standard Life Investments, said: “This is a laborious process, which could take time to resolve and lead to a delay in the setting up of a coalition government. That creates short-term risks for the government bond markets.”
I agree with Liberal Vision that the triple lock needs to be neutralised for Parliamentary negotiations about taxing, spending, and repaying our creditors. The vast majority of the voters who will be responsible for sending (we hope) 60+ Lib Dems into Westminster this spring think they are in a representative democracy, selecting a man or woman to take his or her own choices in Parliament. They do not think they are giving something they have never heard of a final say over our credit rating, no matter how diligent and worthy the members of that body might be. And if this worries someone like me, imagine how it could be used during the campaign.
As Angela writes, “If we want to claim that a hung Parliament is not necessarily a bad thing and that the markets needn’t panic, we at least need to have our own rules sorted out”
I would love to be able to twist this post around and say “surface impressions are misleading”. But in this case they strike me as true. The FT article suggests, somewhat optimistically, that Nick may be able to use a threat to ‘take it to the beardies’ as a way of gaining negotiational traction with a Conservative or Labour adversary this summer. I cannot imagine this working in the LibDems’ favour. Pure democracy is much easier in the wilderness, and in this case it could be a good way of staying there.
First there was ‘compassionate conservatism’, then there was a duck house, an alliance with dodgy Polish right wingers, slagging off the NHS, then Ashcroft, promises to abolish fox hunting and rich folk taxes, and now Tories block a bill to curb the blood sucking activities of vulture funds. To be honest, I was surprised that the bill got as far as it did; Labour play stooges to big money too. So we shouldn’t be surprised that someone stepped in on behalf of the scumbags which profit from the misery of others, and neither should we be shocked that it was a Tory.
What this episode should confirm is that compassionate conservatism is genuine, but reserves all it’s compassion for the rich.
Podcast: Why GDP Matters For Schoolkids – Planet Money Blog : NPR.
Planet Money, a part of the NPR brand, took a look at Jamaica and Barbados to try to observe the effects of GDP on the quality and availability of education in these two countries.
Barbados, which is quite a bit smaller than Ja has a GDP that is three times as large as Jamaica’s. Because of this fact, the Barbadian state can support its schools more comprehensively than Jamaica’s government can theirs.
In the bit (which is available below), Education Minister, Andrew Holness admits that we do not have enough spaces to accommodate the appropriate education and training for our youth for the future. Only 65% of eligible youth will be afforded the opportunity to improve their plight through further education (at the secondary level) and I assume that there is quite a bit less space in our tertiary institutions.
It is important that the students that do get a chance are given the optimum education they need and that they are encouraged to share their knowledge.
There is just so much I want to say on this topic! But for now, listen to the podcast below and comment. I thought that overall, it was a good piece. But, it is more of an introduction of the problem we have, than a full analysis. It will do for now..
The Honourable Rob Norris
Minister of Advanced Education, Employment and Labour
Legislative Building
2405 – Legislative Drive
Regina, Saskatchewan
S4S 0B3
Dear Mr. Norris,
As a faculty member of the First Nations University of Canada, I am writing to you about your recent decision to withdraw funding from the First Nations University of Canada, a much need institution of higher learning for First Nations and non-First Nations students and society.
I am a self proclaimed returnee to Saskatchewan, after two decades working as an Alberta citizen. In 2005 my wife and I and four children moved back to Regina after getting an offer to teach Indian Fine Arts at the First Nations University. I am one of those who moved back to Saskatchewan responding to a public pitch by government officials that Saskatchewan has become revitalized, has gone back to being one of the most prosperous growing provinces in Canada. Since I was raised and educated on the economically challenged Red Pheasant Reserve nearby Saskatoon, I found this news to be very uplifting. By contrast, the news today is not so good – the possibility of closing down the university was the most demoralizing news of my career and I am now beginning to regret my move.
Provincial and Federal governments have always encouraged higher education of First Nations people to solve the problems of drugs, alcohol, the soaring rate of illiteracy, poverty, gangs, suicide and incarceration. For over thirty years the First Nations University (formerly the Saskatchewan Indian Federated College) has been in the forefront of realizing an all important goal of improving the lives of young First Nations students by graduating thousands of youth. In the five years I have had the privilege of working in this magnificent building, I have witnessed the success stories of students who were once destitute and who are now major contributors to our economy. Closing down the First Nations University of Canada would be a devastating blow to all students who prefer taking these unique courses and programs that are offered nowhere else in the world.
Since your announcement to discontinue FNUC funding, I have been in a state of denial that hundreds of students will not be able to realize their dream, that hundreds of faculty and staff will possibly lose their jobs because of mismanagement by a hand-full of individuals. Three unqualified individuals in Senior Management controlled our academic offerings, finances, and who we hired as compared to at least 70 faculty who were powerless to make the governance changes that we all wanted and deemed essential for our survival. 3 against 70-some equation that is. The threat of firings by Senior Management and the Board of Governors – all of whose record has to be one of total and absolute incompetence – of those who spoke out in favor of a better governance system was a real possibility so faculty were afraid to speak for change, to hold a vote of non-confidence. We had to try to teach under a regime that knew next to nothing about academic freedom, about academic governance and when it came time to implement or try to make those badly needed changes, could care even less. Now that FSIN has taken the leadership, under Chief Guy Lonechild, to let us make our own governance decisions and systems work, we feel more confident that we are now on the right road and I feel, as a faculty member, that we as a group are more confident than ever before. I continue to trust that Prime Minster Harper’s government officials will work hard to develop a constructive solution to avoid affecting our innocent workforce. I just cannot see any valid reason to close down a university where all the hype in the media in Saskatchewan is about how productive this province is that economically, we are the fastest growing province in Canada. Synchronize this with the fastest growing population of First Nations people in Canada and I continue to ask, is this the proper time and place for your withdrawal of urgently need funding and what looks to be the ultimate closure of this university?
The First Nations people are still on this long journey to recovery from the effects of colonization and residential schools. The irony here is that the Canadian government through the DIA has been on the forefront of demanding that First Nations people become educated, for well over a century. What is happening now? Just when First Nations students and the people themselves are beginning to have some faith and trust in the validity and pedagogy of their own restored educational foundations and systems, you pull the funding! How realistic is that? Your actions make absolutely no sense. I continued to have anxiety and mistrust in the western education system as applied to First Nations people by non-Indians. It was only when the government made a public apology to all First Nations people of Canada, when the churches of Canada publically admitted their duplicity in the colonization of First Nations people and what a sorry chapter in Canadian history that is, did I have a glimmer of hope that our students education will finally be taught by First Nations professors with unique but solid qualifications, expertise, empathy and sincerity. The oppression of residential school continues to affect our children and will continue to affect our grandchildren as well and it is only through our own efforts, as First Nations professors and people, will First Nations people finally be able to eradicate over 200 years of colonial oppression, theft of land and resources, eradication of our spiritually and moral base and mismanagement of our lives by those in Ottawa.
To cut funding at this time, is a step backwards by your ministry, by the Harper government, not just one step backward but a step back entirely into the Nineteenth Century.
The First Nations University can be thought of as a valuable place for sharing common experiences and concerns, of the healing and bringing together of all races in Canada by finally being given the opportunity to teach and learn our languages, traditions, cultures and spirituality that were severed by the Federal Government in the Nineteenth Century, a policy that still has lasting effects on all of us today, including you and your grandchildren. It appears that you are taking us back to that earlier time where only the white man’s knowledge was deemed to be appropriate and necessary for the education of First Nations people. In this contemporary world of the ubiquitous internet, cell phones, satellite television, cars that park themselves, the globalization of education and on and on, that can hardly be the case. Our First Nations students need the experience, the wisdom and sagely advice of First Nations elders, the knowledge and expertise of First Nations professors.
The impending possible closure of the First Nations University of Canada is a mirror image of the negative historical and destructive effects of the so-called education of First Nations people in Canada’s past and should never be allowed to happen or to be repeated. “Those who do not know their history are condemned to repeat it”, as the saying goes.
Do not be one of those who do not know Canada’s own history. On behalf of our future leaders we trust you will continue to be our sincere partner in making First Nations University of Canada, the province of Saskatchewan, and the country of Canada wonderful and unique places in which to live and work.
Thank you for your attention to this matter.
Respectfully,
Lionel Auburn Peyachew Assistant Professor of Indian Art Department of Indian Arts First Nations University of Canada (306) 790-5950 Ext. 3290 lpeyachew@firstnationsuniversity.ca
WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama’s health care bill would change federal policy on abortion, but it may not open the spigot of taxpayer dollars as some abortion opponents fear.
Health care bills would alter US abortion policy (Madera Tribune) Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:06:50 GMT
The key word in this article is fear. It says that the opponents of abortion might fear the ramifications from the change in the health care bill. My questions are very simple. What are the white fundamentalist Christian men afraid of? Given the fact that 78% of all the women who are murdered in these United States are being killed by pro-life. White fundamentalist Christian men, why are the white fundamentalist Christian men afraid of giving women the right to arbitrate with their creator regarding their own spirituality? Are the white fundamentalist Christian men afraid the if they give women the right to be able to talk to God and around it day, the white fundamentalist Christian men may not be able to kill as many women as they are currently murdering every year? It’s very interesting. Because the white fundamentalist Christians and the abundance claim to be pro-life and yet they are involved in more killing that any group in American history. Which of course makes her actions nothing but one of the biggest lies that has been told in the United States in the history of this nation.
So again, what are the white fundamentalist Christian men afraid of? Are they afraid that if they give women the right of being able to talk to God on their own that women very well may refuse to have children altogether. And then of course the freshest you go of these white fundamentalist Christian men with not have a child to carry on? Or are the white fundamentalist Christian men afraid that they won’t be able to do to women what the Catholic Church did to my mother, which is basically to be able to kill women so that they can steal their child but The church murdered my mother in 1950 and then stole me from her and then sold me on the black market?
So exactly what are the Christian conservatives and the Republican Party so afraid of? I mean, what they’re really trying to fight for is not being pro-life. But they’re trying to maintain their control over women. So that they can do to women with the Catholic Church did to my mother in 1950. Because the Christian conservatives and the Republican Party want right to kill women and then steal their children. Just with the Catholic Church murdered my mother in 1950 in and stole me from her and sold me on the black market. And we know that this is true because in Utah the government of Utah is already planning on building death camps or newly designed Christians, where women who refuse to their children will in fact be sentenced to go to the gas chamber and be killed routinely. So that the Utah government can force them to pregnancy and as soon as they are written Utah government plans on murdering the woman and stealing her child. Because the Utah government doesn’t care about women’s rights. They only care about getting that fetus. That’s exactly why the Christian conservatives Republican Party never talk about women’s rights because they want the same right to do to women with the Catholic Church did to my mother in 1950. They want to force women in the urgency and then once they are pregnancy they wanted and murder that and steal that child so they can sell them on the black market.
That’s why the Christian conservatives and the Republican Party never talk about women’s rights. Because they don’t care about women they just want that fetus. So again, what are the Christian conservatives Republican Party afraid of? That they are not they get the chance to continue their mass murdering of women? Because that’s exactly what the Christian conservatives, and Republican Party are doing. 78% of all the women in the United States are being killed by filthy liars who are pro-life Catholics and stupid bastard to her fundamentalist Christians. And that is a statistical fact.
The Christian conservatives and the Catholics don’t ever want to be responsible for the fact that since 78% of the United States is pro-life Christian that basically means that 78% of all the women and children murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics. It also means that Christians in United States are demanding that the world understand that to them being pro-life means killing, because while the Christian conservatives and Catholics are demanding that everyone understand they are pro-life. They are with their own actions, supporting a number of forms of killing, which means that they are NOT pro-life..
78% of all the women murdered in the United States are killed by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the children abused in the United States are abused by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the children murdered in the United States are murdered by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the murders that take place in the United States are committed by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the soldiers in the United States, who go out and kill are pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of the membership of the National Rifle Association, which support GUNS THAT KILL are pro-life Christians and Catholics .
Every single white supremacist group in the history of United States has always been white fundamentalist pro-life Christian. And these white supremacist groups are dedicated to killing anyone who is not white and Christian.
The Army of God is a white fundamentalist Christian group who is dedicated to murdering and killing every single nonwhite Christian in the United States.
78% of all the people who favor and support the death penalty meaning killing people for committing crimes are pro-life Christians and Catholics.
78% of all the ministers in the United States who carry firearms to church and are threatening to kill anyone who comes near the church was not white and Christian are pro-life Christians and Catholics .
78% of all the crimes against gay people in the United States are done by pro-life Christians and Catholics .
Every month between one and two transgendered females are murdered and every single one of these killings is done by pro-life Christian.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who demand the right to own black Americans and to kill them whenever they wanted to during the signing of the Declaration of Independence .
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party during the battle of Washington and try to overthrow the United States government under president Hoover at the battle of Washington in 1932.
White fundamentalist Christians were the ones who took over the Republican Party on the evening before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation during the American Civil War . And who then used the Republican Party to hire John Wilkes Booth to murder Pres. Abraham Lincoln .
When you have all these forms of killing being supported by pro-life Christians and Catholics it’s easy to understand that the pro-life Christians and Catholics are demanding that everyone else be responsible for their own actions. But the white fundamentalist Christians and Catholics under no circumstances want to be responsible for anything they do because they are demanding that the entire world understand that to them being pro-life means killing, because that’s what they support killing. That’s why that those who claim to be pro-life are now becoming known as nothing more than, “Killers For Christ”. And of course it the white fundamentalist Christians and Catholics don’t like what I’m saying or want to take exception to what I’m saying they need to disprove every single item in this journal entry and my see also section below. See Also:
Jesus Christ
The Sermon On The Mount
God
The Bible
The Ten Commandments
John The Baptist
The Burning Times
The Crusades
Joan Of Arc
The Children Of Lourdes
The Children of Fatima
The Spanish Inquisition
The American Civil War
Slavery
The Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln
John Wilkes Booth
The Christian Conservatives
World War I
Prohibition
The Great Depression
The Battle of Washington
World War II
The Korean War
The Vietnam War
Richard Nixon
Oliver North
The Iran-Contra Affair
The Gulf War
The Savings-And-Loan Crisis
Bill Clinton
The Balanced Budget Amendment
The Iraq War
The Kondratieff Wave
Profitability Analysis
Financial Analysis
Vance Packard
Laissez-Faire
Capital Punishment
Homophobia
Xenophobia
Racism
Prejudice
Bigotry
Fascism
Eugenics
White Supremacy
Mein Kampf
Adolf Hitler
The Ku Klux Klan
The Army of God
US Domestic Violence Statistics
US Child Abuse Statistics
US Child Mortality Statistics
US Religious Demographic Statistics
Gay-Rights
Transgenderism
Women’s Rights
Pro-Choice
NRA
Oliver Wendell Holmes
The US Constitution
The Bill Of Rights
Recording Telephone Conversations
Treason
Sedition
How The Republicans Use The Constitution To Lie (article 1, section 6, subsection b) of The US Constitution
My Biographical Profile
My Philosophy Of Life
24 Hour Suicide And Crisis Help Center
For Those Who Said I Never Knew Ronald Reagan, They Lied
My Encounter With Joan Baez
My Time Studying The Anasazi Indians
My 250 Million Variable Characteristic Hieroglyphic Language
My Tribute To Jim Varney
The Pebble And The Penguin
A Diamond On A Sea Of Glass
Regarding Me And My Journal
My Spinal Fusion And Me Doing 250 Situps
An Installment Notation of The Maschke Family History and Legacy
It’s A Crime
Hey God! You There? I’m Tired… Ok?
In The Midst Of Darkness The Smallest Spark Lights My Way…
I Wrote Something A Long Time Ago…
Kmart To Close Five More Ohio Stores
The Vanishing Of America
A Place Called Earth
How Ya Gonna Keep ‘Em Down On The Farm
Sounds
Reality …
Second Gear
My Financial Analysis Of The Global Economic System
Adventures In Technocracy
An Explanation Of Vernacular Dynamics and Sequencing Regarding Various Forms of Advocacy
The Tortoise and the Hare
Quantum Mechanics And Newtonian Metaphysics
My Global Warming Research
For the record, I am pro-life. I do not support violence against, or the killing of any human being under any circumstances! And the only way that I ever deviate from that stand is that I do not believe that God has ever given any human the right to dictate to any woman how she is to arbitrate her life with the Almighty, and/or God. Therefore, I believe that all women deserve the right to choose for themselves the fate of their own bodies, pursuant to their relationship with the Almighty, and/or God. For an expanded explanation please see my article entitled: "Second Gear"
Did Bush over-simplify both the depths of the neocons and the American left? Do you partially blame the current state of the left to not martial better arguments in the run-up to the Iraq war?
Is it still too soon to pass judgment on the war?
Hurlbert worries that the application of the idea of the “Clash Of Civilizations” is too simple.
See Also On This Site: The previous post: From The Atlantic: Samuel Huntington’s Death And Life’s Work…A Few Thoughts On The FATA Region Of Pakistan…From The New Perspectives Quarterly: Francis Fukuyama’s ‘Is America Ready for a Post-American World?’
Why GDP Matters: Compare Jamaica To Barbados
March 5, 2010 by Alex Blumberg
When it comes to economic indicators, none may be more abstract than GDP per capita. It is the measure of all goods and services a country produces, divided by its population. Take two countries that seem alike in almost every important way — from geography, climate, colonial history and government structure — but one has a much lower GDP. The differences between Jamaica and Barbados are striking.
We’ve come a long way since the days of minority segregation in sports. It has been 74 years since Jessie Owens won gold and Matthew Robinson won Silver in the 200-meter dash at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, right under the nose of Adolf Hitler. Matthew’s brother Jackie would break the color barrier in Major League Baseball 11 years later. Doug Williams was the first black quarterback to win a Superbowl when he played for the Washington Redskins, a traditionally white-led team even in the mid-1980s. In a majority of traditionally “white” sports and competitive events today, minorities playing hardly causes one to bat an eye. It is hardly true the other way around, however.
It seems that the winners of the first ever Sprite Step Off competition will have to share their first-place trophy. Coca-Cola made the decision on March 1st after reviewing hundreds of comments when a white sorority from the University of Arkansas won the competition at the end of February. Citing a “scoring discrepancy” Coca-Cola (the major sponsor via its Sprite brand) awarded Alpha Kappa Alpha, a team from Indiana University, the first-place tie.
Message boards were filled with vitriolic comments after the ladies from Arkansas won, much of it racially charged. According to the Associated Press:
The uproar began when the all-white Zeta Tau Alpha team from the University of Arkansas beat out five other sorority teams to win last weekend’s national final in the Sprite Step Off competition. A YouTube video of their performance, inspired by the movie “The Matrix,” generated hundreds of comments.
Posters questioned everything from whether a white group should have been allowed to compete to whether judges wowed by the unlikely competitors inflated their scores to let them win.
“Good Job but let the Black folks have their own thing for once!!!” wrote one commenter posting under the name “titetowers” who said the Zeta Tau Alpha team did well but should not have won.
This is a lose-lose situation for Coke. Because of the racial component of the controversy, they can’t take one side or another. This isn’t baseball or the NFL, after all. Nor is it even gymnastics, where the official competition, its rules and scoring procedures have been established for decades. This is the very first year of the competition and so every rule or ruling is easily challenged as arbitrary or even biased. If Coca-Cola sides with the white Arkansas team, then they could upset minority sensitivities and lose 20% or more of their market share to Pepsi, Royal Crown and Cadbury-Schweppes. That loss could last for a generation or more. If they side with the black Indiana team, whites might get upset about racial preferences and the company could face a similar backlash. So Coke took the only ground available to them: Straight down the middle, awarding first place to both teams.
From my moral perspective, I’d like Coke to have taken a stand and said, “No, our competition was fair, and a white team has just as much chance as a black team to win.” Realistically, the backlash that could have resulted was too dangerous for the company’s leaders to explain to their shareholders.
Still, the idea that members of minority groups would be upset about whites winning in “their” competitions is disturbing. One supposes that, by this standard, minorities should not be allowed to compete in hockey, auto racing, baseball, or, say Country Music. It’s not like non-African cultures have ritually or culturally significant dance forms, even ones that involve rhythmically stepping with one’s feet.
Lawrence Ross, author of “The Divine Nine: The History of African American Fraternities and Sororities, said the increased interest in stepping is a natural evolution, much like other urban staples such as rap music that went from an underground phenomenon to mainstream.
“Others are always going to be attracted to what you’re doing and are going to want to participate,” said Ross, a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, a historically black fraternity.
He said the nation is integrating more than ever and blacks who embrace President Barack Obama making inroads into previously all-white bastions can’t have a double standard.
“If (black Olympian) Shani Davis was prevented from speed skating simply because traditionally, no African-Americans were in the field, we African-Americans would be up in arms,” he said.
I couldn’t have said it better myself, Mr. Ross. Fortunately, the girls of Zeta Tau Alpha aren’t disappointed with having to share:
Arkansas senior Alexandra Kosmitis said she and her teammates had worked hard and were very excited when they heard they had won Saturday. They didn’t feel their title was diminished when Coca-Cola told them they’d have to share it.
“We feel truly blessed to have been part of the competition and to have gotten scholarship money to further our educations,” the 21-year-old Pine Bluff, Ark., native said. “The AKA chapter from Indiana University were really nice girls throughout the competition, and we’re glad they are also getting scholarship money too.”
It’s unfortunate your detractors couldn’t show that kind of class, Ms. Kosmitis. Very unfortunate, indeed.
You can’t spend yourself rich. You can’t spend yourself solvent. And you can’t get rich by working the government’s printing presses either. Is that so hard to understand? Apparently, it is, probably because it’s hard to persuade people when they don’t want to know.
If we’ve had a half century and more of inflation (and that’s just what we have had), what’s so wrong with a little deflation? In fact, what’s so wrong with a lot of deflation? Given that the alternative is more of the same, and a currency crash at the end of the process…
The following article from The Daily Bell begins with a lengthy pro-inflationist quotataion, then proceeds to demolish its assumptions. They need demolishing.
Central Banks Can’t Stop Global Unraveling
Tuesday, March 02, 2010 – by Staff Report
Don’t go wobbly on us now, Ben Bernanke (left) … Mervyn King, the Bank of England’s Governor, seems strangely alone in … seeing the absurdity of a recovery strategy where everybody tightens at once and surplus states keep on dumping excess capacity abroad. “I was struck by the mood at the G7, where several of the major economies around the world said quite openly that they were relying on external demand growth to generate growth. That can’t be true of everybody,” he said. The West risks a slow grind into debt-deflation unless central banks offset fiscal tightening with monetary stimulus – QE, of course – to keep demand alive. Yet the Fed and the European Central Bank are letting credit contract. … Fed chairman Ben Bernanke told us in his 2002 speech “Deflation: Making Sure It Doesn’t Happen Here” that: 1) Japan’s slide into deflation was “entirely unexpected”, and that it would be “imprudent” to rule out such a risk in America; 2) “Sustained deflation can be highly destructive to a modern economy and should be strongly resisted”; 3) that a “determined government” has the means to stop deflation, if necessary by use of the “printing press”. Yet here we are, facing exactly that risk, unless you think one good quarter of inventory rebuilding has conjured away our debt bubble. The one-off inflation blip caused by a doubling of oil prices is already fading, revealing once again the deeper forces of deflation. Core prices fell 0.1% in January. They plummet from here. So why has Bernanke broken ranks with King and begun to flirt with disaster by tightening too soon? Has he lost control to regional hawks, as in mid-2008? Have critics in Congress and the media got to him? Has China vetoed QE, fearing a stealth default on Treasury debt? Don’t go wobbly on us now, Ben. If the governments of America, Europe, and Japan are to retrench – as they must – their central banks must stay super-loose to cushion the blow. Otherwise we will all sink into deflationary quicksand. – UK Telegraph
Dominant Social Theme: Liquidity is necessary to avoid a deflationary depression.
Free-Market Analysis: This article by the Telegraph’s best financial writer, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, is a stunner because it shows us the fallacies of Keynesian economics in real time. The article, when we picked it up initially and decided to analyze it, wasn’t getting a lot of play, but then the Drudge Report posted a link as well. But even though we try not to cover articles that are too well disseminated, we can’t resist with this one. Does Evans-Pritchard believe what he writes in this article? We suppose it is obligatory if he wishes to keep his job. Mainstream media does not take kindly to free-market Austrian monetary analysis.
But we do not write for the Telegraph, and we don’t have the pressures that Evans-Pritchard evidently writes under. We have come to quite different conclusions, therefore. We are learning as we go. Yes, every day we observe the differences between current reality and analyses of the Great Depression of the 1930s, especially as regards America. We are increasingly in a position to make a determination over what was covered up or twisted to buttress certain arguments. Since we have written about these issues – and speculated about them for several decades – the ability to live through them, while exceptionally painful is also in a sense gratifying.
For instance, there are those who maintain that the Roaring 20s was a time of monetary scarcity, and that a lack of money printing led to the market crash and the Depression. This in fact is a quasi-Keynesian argument so far as we can tell, designed to support the idea that more fiat money is always better (and if they’d only printed enough in the 1920s, the Depression would never have happened). But now, based on real-life observations in the 21st century of the current financial crunch (and others before it) the idea that the Roaring 20s was a time of monetary scarcity is hardly credible to us.
Then there is the monetarist perspective – that the Fed, by tightening in the 1930s, or at least not loosening enough, turned a downturn into a disaster. This was a far more feasible scenario to us and others, and has been vehemently debated for decades. But now we have had the opportunity to watch a major credit crisis unfold in the 21st century. Lo and behold, we have seen to our satisfaction that it has NOTHING to do with monetary policy after-the-fact and everything to do with an over-printing of fiat money for months, years, even decades, prior to the latest great unraveling.
Murray Rothbard and the Austrians had it right after all! Friedman had it wrong. It is the overprinting of money that causes the crash – not central bank tightening or other maneuvers late in the day that “trigger” what was actually unavoidable. It is the unrestrained build-up of fiat money in the system that causes the problem. Yet Evans-Pritchard – a reporter of incisive monetary vision – sees none of this. This article of his, excerpted above, is a funny combination of monetarist and Keynesian theory – for both theories attribute to central banks the ability to ameliorate or even avoid a lengthy depressive economy worldwide with the right series of monetary actions.
Read it for yourself. Central banks, he writes, have to print money fast and furiously and make sure that there is enough credit and money available to avoid a dread “contraction.” Has he been living through the same financial crisis we have? There are several obvious problems with this analysis, in our opinion. First, according to Austrian monetary theory it is GOOD if there is disinflation or even deflation during an economic downturn. This means the money that people have lasts longer and gives them additional capital opportunities. Second, and perhaps more important, central banks have no ability to stuff the cooked carcass of a moribund economy, locally or globally, with cash and expect it to waddle to its feet and take flight.
This has been the most important insight. And doubtless many Bell readers and feedbackers have reached the same conclusions we have simply by living through this horrid experience. There is no way, as we see it, that central banks can print enough money to make things right. The distortions of the economy go back a half-century or more. The amount of material goods, of wrong-headed industrial and investment decisions, of misaligned resources are deeply rooted indeed. To some degree, printing money may prop up some of the worst of these excesses for a period of time. But once the economy has decided to purge – it will purge. Does anyone believe for instance that GM is going to survive and thrive by building tiny, green, government-mandated cars?
Mercantilist central banks can print all the money they want, but in a Great Unraveling such as we have today there is nowhere for that money to go. People have realized that there is ruin all around them. The scales have fallen from their eyes and they understand for the first time in years – perhaps in their entire lives – that much of what they understood to be normal and natural in society was the product of the overprinting of fiat money, of monetary stimulation in fact. Many cannot put it into words, exactly, but they “feel” it nonetheless and act accordingly. They pay down debt. They do without. They live simper lives.
We are paleontologists transported back to the age of dinosaurs. We can see clearly now, what we only speculated about before. The Austrians were correct. Evans-Pritchard is wrong. Once an economy has been driven fully off a cliff by fiat money there is no way to salvage it by printing yet more money. These are fictions prated by Keynes after-the-fact in the 1930s to justify whatever it was that politicians wanted to do at the time. Neat fictions wrapped in impenetrable numerology and other mumbo jumbo.
Central banks can print all the money they want. But there is nowhere for the money to go. Economies must purge themselves. Government “stimulus” programs only prolong the pain by propping up businesses that need to fail – simply put, they will attract capital that ought to go to healthy new businesses. Depressions and recessions are economic signals too, and their messages are easy to foul up. Let government inject trillions in jobs programs, let central banks distribute more trillions to too-big-to-fail entities, and the market itself will grow confused and aimless. Real capital will be dissipated. Growth will never occur, save in the most artificial and manipulated sectors of the marketplace –equity markets and in multinational sectors where globalist entities do government business or are involved in various military and security endeavors.
Conclusion: This is what happened in Japan. This is what is happening now in America. This will surely happen in Europe as EU-crats prepare to bail out Greece and Lord knows how many other countries. A short, terrible downturn may have been turned into a decade’s worth of agony or worse. Of course, it doesn’t have to be that bad for everyone. We can still buy gold and silver and take delivery. We can trim our debts and streamline our finances. We can do for ourselves, all the sensible things that government – and those who stand behind it – will not.
The aggregate produce of the labour of a savage tribe is small, but each member is capable of an independent life. He can build his own habitation, hew out or stitch together his own canoe, make his own clothing, manufacture his own weapons, snares, tools and ornaments. He has all the knowledge of nature possessed by his tribe-knows what vegetable productions are fit for food, and where they may be found; knows the habits and resorts of beasts, birds, fishes and insects; can pilot himself by the sun or the stars, by the turning of blossoms or the mosses on the trees; is, in short, capable of supplying all his wants. He may be cut off from his fellows and still live; and thus possesses an independent power which makes him a free contracting party in his relations to the community of which he is a member.
Compare with this savage the labourer in the lowest ranks of civilised society, whose life is spent in producing but one thing, or oftener but the infinitesimal part of one thing, out of the multiplicity of things that constitute the wealth of society and go to supply even the most primitive wants; who not only cannot make even the tools required for his work, but often works with tools that he does not own, and can never hope to own. Compelled to even closer and more continuous labour than the savage, and gaining by it no more than the savage gets-the mere necessaries of life-he loses the independence of the savage. He is not only unable to apply his own powers to the direct satisfaction of his own wants, but, without the concurrance of many others, he is unable to apply them indirectly to the satisfaction of his wants. He is a mere link in an enormous chain of producers and consumers, helpless to separate himself, and helpless to move, except as they move. The worse his position in society, the more dependent is he on society; the more utterly unable does he become to do anything for himself. The very power of exerting his labour for the satisfaction of his wants passes from his own control, and may be taken away or restored by the actions of others, or by general causes over which he has no more influence than he has over the motions of the solar system. The primeval curse comes to be looked upon as a boon, and men think, and talk, and clamour, and legislate as though monotonous, manual labour in itself were a good and not an evil, an end and not a means. Under such circumstances, the man loses the essential quality of manhood-the godlike power of modifying and controlling conditions. He becomes a slave, a machine, a commodity-a thing, in some respects, lower than the animal.
I am no sentimental admirer of the savage state. I do not get my ideas of the untutored children of nature from Rousseau, or Chateaubriand, or Cooper. I am conscious of its material and mental poverty, and its low and narrow range. I believe that civilisation is not only the natural destiny of man, but the enfranchisement, elevation, and refinement of all his powers, and think that it is only in such moods as may lead him to envy the cud-chewing cattle, that a man who is free to the advantages of civilisation could look with regret upon the savage state. But, nevertheless, I think no one who will open his eyes to the facts, can resist the conclusion that there are in the heart of our civilisation large classes with whom the veriest savage could not afford to exchange. It is my deliberate opinion that if, standing on the threshold of being, one were given the choice of entering life as a Terra del Fuegan, a black fellow of Australia, an Esquimaux in the Arctic Circle, or among the lowest classes in such a highly civilised country as Great Britain, he would make infinitely the better choice in selecting the lot of the savage. For those classes who in the midst of wealth are condemned to want, suffer all the privations of the savage, without his sense of personal freedom; they are condemned to more than his narrowness and littleness, without opportunity forthe growth of his rude virtues; if their horizon is wider, it is but to reveal blessings that they cannot enjoy.
…namely over at my newest blog, The Celebrity Industrial Complex, over at True/Slant. Today’s celebrity-based blog topic? Pondering the purchasing power of prominent posteriors. And Irish saints. Because we’re all eclectic an shizz.
Pidato Lengkap Boediono Tanggapi Paripurna DPR Kasus Century
lokasi: Home / Berita / FOKUS / [sumber: Jakartapress.com]
Jumat, 05/03/2010 | 18:27 WIB
Jakarta – Mengenakan baju warna biru tanpa jas, Wakil Presiden (Wapres) Boediono menyampaikan pidato menanggapi hasil paripurna DPR kasus Century selama 20 menit. Boediono menjelaskan mengenai bailout Bank Century. Dia menegaskan tidak mengambil keuntungan pribadi sedikit pun.
Boediono menyampaikan pidatonya di Istana Wakil Presiden, Jalan Medan Merdeka Selatan, Jakarta Pusat, Jumat (5/3). Boediono didampingi Menko Perekonomian Hatta Rajasa, Menko Polhukam Djoko Suyanto, dan Menkeu Sri Mulyani.
Seperti biasa, Boediono menyampaikan pidatonya dengan intonasi yang cukup datar. Berikut pidato lengkap Boediono:
Bismillahirrohmanirrohim
Assalamualaikum Warohmatullahi Wabarokatuh, Salam sejahtera untuk kita semua
Saudara-Saudara sebangsa dan setanah air.
Sekarang sudah saatnya saya berbicara mengenai persoalan Bank Century.
Pertama-tama, perkenankan saya menyampaikan bahwa dalam Pemilu Presiden April lalu, saya terpilih sebagai wakil presiden mendampingi Bapak Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY). Hasil pemilihan umum itu telah disahkan oleh Mahkamah Konstitusi dan Komisi Pemilihan Umum (KPU).
Konstitusi mengamanatkan, presiden dan wakil presiden terpilih menjalankan fungsi eksekutif penyelenggaraan negara. Begitu pula DPR sebagai hasil pemilu yang sah menjalankan fungsi legislatif, termasuk fungsi pengawasan terhadap eksekutif. Fungsi yudikatif dijalankan oleh Mahkamah Agung dan Mahkamah Konstitusi.
Pembagian tugas ini adalah untuk menjamin bahwa tidak ada satu pun institusi penyelenggara negara yang mempunyai kekuasaan tidak terbatas. Masing-masing menjaga dan dijaga, agar roda penyelenggaraan negara berjalan dengan transparan, akuntabel, dan penuh tanggung jawab.
Kebijakan penyelamatan Bank Century pada penghujung 2008 yang lalu, adalah langkah untuk menyelamatkan perekonomian nasional dari badai krisis yang melanda seluruh dunia. Sejauh ini, hasilnya sudah terbukti. Kita selamat melalui krisis global tersebut.
Tidak terbersit sedikitpun niat dari saya maupun Ketua KSSK, Sdri. Sri Mulyani Indrawati, untuk mengambil keuntungan pribadi dari kebijakan itu. Apalagi berniat merugikan negara.
Sejauh ini belum ada kerugian negara sebagai akibat dari penyelamatan Bank Century. Seandainya pun kelak kerugian itu terjadi, saya yakin biayanya akan lebih kecil ketimbang kerugian nyata yang pasti terjadi bila Bank Century ditutup pada waktu itu, dalam bentuk pembayaran jaminan simpanan.
Namun, kerugian yang justru jauh lebih membahayakan jika Bank Century ditutup adalah rusaknya sistem keuangan dan perbankan kita karena terseret krisis global. Jika sistem perbankan kita rusak, bukan hanya bankir atau pemiliknya yang menanggung akibatnya. Dampaknya akan memukul seluruh rakyat, baik yang memiliki dana di bank maupun yang tidak.
Kita tentu belum lupa bagaimana krisis keuangan pada 1998 yang lalu sedemikian parahnya mengguncang ekonomi kita, bahkan mengguncangkan sendi-sendi sosial politik negara kita.
Saudara-Saudara Sebangsa dan Setanahair,
Pada saat mengambil keputusan untuk menyelamatkan Bank Century, saya mendapatkan laporan bahwa Bank tersebut dalam keadaan memprihatinkan. Di dalam bank itu sendiri belakangan terungkap banyak terjadi salah urus dan manipulasi oleh manajemen maupun pemiliknya. Pelanggaran hukum itu juga sudah terbukti di pengadilan. Namun demikian, sebuah keputusan harus diambil dengan cepat demi menghindari risiko yang lebih besar.
Pada waktu itu, Bank Century ibarat sebuah rumah yang terbakar di sebuah kampung yang rentan oleh bahaya api. Rumah itu harus kita selamatkan agar api tidak menjalar, meskipun pemiliknya seorang perampok. Jelas, si perampok harus ditangkap, tetapi kita tak bisa membiarkan kebakaran di rumahnya turut memusnahkan seluruh kampung.
Sebagai Gubernur Bank Indonesia saat itu, saya juga sadar akan berbagai kekurangan di lembaga yang saya pimpin. Kekurangan-kekurangan itu baru mulai saya benahi dalam bulan-bulan awal penugasan saya di tempat baru ini. Tetapi kekurangan ini tidak boleh menjadi penghambat sebuah tindakan yang harus dilakukan dengan cepat. Sebuah pilihan yang sulit harus dijatuhkan demi kepentingan yang lebih besar.
Saya yakin, keputusan yang saya ambil itu benar dan terbaik bagi perekonomian kita pada waktu itu. Oleh karena itu saya mengatakan bahwa saya siap mempertanggungjawabkannya di dunia dan akhirat.
Dalam momen-momen yang sulit dan penuh ketegangan itu kita melihat ada pejabat-pejabat di berbagai instansi yang dengan niat tulus bekerja untuk mengatasi keadaan kritis yang kita hadapi pada waktu itu. Kepada mereka saya menyampaikan penghargaan sebesar-besarnya.
Saudara-Saudara sekalian,
Setelah menguraikan dasar-dasar kebijakan itu, perkenankan saya sekarang menyampaikan pandangan mengenai situasi politik di negara kita.
Dalam upaya bersama membangun demokrasi, saya sangat menghormati DPR RI dan semua unsur masyarakat yang bersungguh-sungguh berupaya menciptakan pemerintahan yang bersih dan efektif. Saya juga memahami dan menghargai dibentuknya Panitia Angket Bank Century. Ini untuk menegakkan prinsip transparansi dan akuntabilitas dalam sebuah pemerintahan yang bersih.
Namun demikian, harus kita akui kontroversi penyelamatan Bank Century ini telah menyita begitu banyak waktu dan energi bangsa ini. Perhatian kita beralih dari berbagai tantangan berat bangsa untuk memperbaiki nasib rakyat banyak. Karenanya saya berharap, bila kemudian langkah-langkah lanjutan perlu diambil, langkah-langkah itu dilaksanakan secara proporsional, berkeadilan, dan dilakukan oleh lembaga hukum yang berwenang.
Saya berpandangan, DPR dan partai politik adalah pilar-pilar penting demokrasi, di samping kebebasan pers dan masyarakat madani. Kiprah masing-masing pilar demokrasi ini perlu dipelihara dengan ketekunan dan kesabaran, dengan menghindarkan diri dari desakan nafsu jangka pendek terhadap kekuasaan.
Kita membangun demokrasi bukan untuk saling menghabisi pesaing atau lawan. Tetapi untuk berlomba-lomba menciptakan kemakmuran yang berkeadilan. Belajar dari sejarah di negeri kita sendiri, dan negara-negara lain, nafsu berpolitik sempit yang berlebihan dapat menghancurkan cita-cita dan sistem demokrasi itu sendiri. Kita tentu tidak ingin mengulang kesalahan di masa lalu itu.
Saudara-Saudara Sebangsa dan Setanahair,
Apa hikmah yang bisa kita petik dari perjalanan kontroversi penyelamatan Bank Century ini?
Telah terkuak beberapa kelemahan dalam sistem administrasi kenegaraan kita. Kasus ini antara lain menimbulkan kekhawatiran akan terhambatnya proses pengambilan keputusan eksekutif. Muncul kegamangan para pejabat negara untuk bertindak cepat karena tidak ada kepastian hukum dan tingginya risiko politik. Masalah ini harus kita atasi bersama.
Saya juga sangat bersyukur kepada Tuhan Yang Maha Kuasa bahwa selama ini saya telah mendapatkan kesempatan untuk mengabdikan diri kepada bangsa dan negara dalam batas-batas kemampuan saya. Saya berterimakasih kepada Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono yang telah memberi kepercayaan kepada saya untuk mendampingi dan membantu beliau sebagai wakil presiden.
Saya menganggap jabatan itu sebagai amanah. Saya tidak pernah memandang diri saya sebagai seorang politisi. Saya tidak pernah memperjuangkan sasaran-sasaran politik kelompok maupun partai tertentu. Dalam melaksanakan tugas pedoman saya selalu kepentingan negara.
Harus saya akui, saya tidak pernah memperkirakan sebelumnya bahwa jabatan ini dapat menjadi beban politik bagi Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono dan beban pribadi bagi keluarga saya.
Berlarut-larutnya persoalan Bank Century telah menyita waktu dan pikiran Presiden sehingga sedikit banyak mengganggu konsentrasi beliau dalam melaksanakan mandat rakyat untuk menjalankan pemerintahan.
Saya sadar benar, jabatan saya saat ini adalah jabatan politik dan karenanya saya harus siap setiap saat menghadapi tantangan-tantangan politik, baik dalam bentuk kritik maupun hujatan.
Saya juga mendengar tekanan bertubi-tubi dari beberapa kelompok agar saya sebaiknya mengundurkan diri. Tuntutan sebagian pihak tersebut saya dengar. Tapi, bila saya memenuhi tuntutan tersebut, saya akan tercatat dalam sejarah sebagai pemimpin yang lari dari tanggung jawab, sebagai pemimpin yang melecehkan kehendak rakyat yang telah memberikan suara. Di samping itu, saya tidak akan mengkhianati kepercayaan Presiden dan meninggalkan beliau.
Semua ini tidak dimaksudkan untuk mengatakan bahwa jabatan saya sebagai wakil presiden tidak dapat dihentikan di tengah jalan. Bila mayoritas wakil rakyat di Majelis Permusyawaratan Rakyat (MPR) menghendaki, dan bila semua ketentuan dalam Undang-Undang Dasar dan peraturan perundangan lainnya terpenuhi, apapun keputusan akhir MPR akan saya patuhi.
Marilah kita jaga agar demokrasi kita berkembang dengan leluasa dan mantap. Untuk itu marilah kita jaga salah satu asas utama hak asasi manusia, yaitu asas praduga tak bersalah. Marilah kita tidak menjadikan demokrasi kita sebagai arena adu massa dan adu kekuatan dana.
Hanya dengan itu, kita bisa bekerja bersama untuk masa depan Indonesia yang lebih jaya.
Amin ya robbal alamin.
Wassalamualaikum warohmatullahi wabarakatuh.
“Drop the ‘mickey mouse’ degrees” says head of Royal Society of Chemistry
It’s silly season again. According to a blog post from Richard Pike of the RSC:
‘Mickey Mouse’ degree courses should be swept away, and priorities in university education and research should reflect the challenges facing the country over the forthcoming decades. No longer should the government be paying 18-year-olds to start courses on celebrity journalism, drama with waste management, or international football business management.
This seems to be prompted by new constraints in HE funding and suggests that not only is utilitarianism a primary consideration but that university autonomy is also secondary to the perceived national need. Anyway, whatever the philosophical basis of the approach it’s always fun to pick on bonkers degree courses. Which probably explains why the story was swiftly picked up by the Telegraph which quotes Dr Pike:
“We need a population with an enduring set of skills, such as an understanding of the physical world around us, literacy and communication, numeracy, how to function and continue to learn in a complex society, and above all creativity, rather than an ability to satisfy some ephemeral demand that in 10 years’ time will be viewed as a curiosity.”
Further analysis of the courses he lambasts is also offered by the paper:
Celebrity Journalism is a new three-year course to be offered at Staffordshire University from this autumn. It includes topics such as interviewing celebrities and understanding celebrity culture. International Football Business Management is offered by Bucks New University and covers coaching, government policy, and issues in sport and leisure, among others.
All highly entertaining stuff therefore and really nothing new as previous posts on the launch of an MA in Beatles Studies and the offer of a degree in Northern Studies show. For the really masochistic there is also a podcast on “bonkers or niche” degrees.
Earlier this month I was able to attend the New Partners for Smart Growth conference in Seattle. I’ve been meaning to post a recap of what I heard there, and I still hope to, but today I’d rather write about something mentioned by one of the keynote speakers, Angela Glover Blackwell, the President & CEO of PolicyLink. She spoke about the role of smart growth in relation to social equity and creating a sustainable, green economy. The thing that struck me from her speech was her view of the three E’s of sustainability (environment, equity, economic). Most all of us would agree that equity often gets shoved aside in favor of economic and environmental concerns and that it should be given equal consideration among the three. Blackwell, however, argued that equity should rise above the other E’s and be the “growth model” going forward.
I’m not sure if this is a familiar argument or not, but it was the first time I’d heard it put this way and it got my attention more than anything else she spoke about. Too often we think of “growth” as both necessary and good. But what do we mean by growth? Typically it is measured by GDP, but does that really measure anything positive? I would argue that it doesn’t. Prior to the current recession, we saw America’s GDP rise, but the gap between rich and poor grew and incomes for most everyone but the wealthy remained stagnant. Putting GDP on such a pedestal and assuming that its growth leads unquestionably to good things has in reality lead to some pretty negative results. Much of our population, certainly those most in need, has been left behind by growth. From an ethical perspective, this is obviously quite bad. Unfortunately, many people look at things through a primarily economic lens and lose sight of the various externalities that result.
It doesn’t have to be this way. As Blackwell argues, we can achieve both “growth” and increased equity for everyone simultaneously. First, though, I think we need to either drop the term growth or at least redefine what it means. At minimum, a new measure needs to be developed that measures overall quality of life improvements. Gross National Happiness is an example of this, although I think it would have to be renamed in the United States to have any hope of catching on with the business community. This way of thinking falls in line with what that of the Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen. Sen argues that economic growth should not be our concern, but instead human development. Development is defined as enhancing human capabilities through greater political freedom, increased economic opportunities, better social opportunities, increased transparency, and protective security (think social safety nets). Sen sees these elements as the expansion of human freedoms and as both the ends and means of development. If we used increased human development as our overarching objective (with the Human Development Index (HDI) as our metric), we would then be working towards a greater quality of life for all populations. I would argue that this would result in a much better outcome for nearly everyone, rather than pursuing growth for growth’s sake. Maybe the elite will accumulate slightly less wealth, but the rest of the world would be in much better shape.
I worry, though, that this approach is too pie in the sky given the general culture and nature of politics in our nation. We’ve basically developed our entire economic philosophy around the notion that a growing GDP is necessary for increased prosperity. The frustrating thing is that the vague objectives we all generally associate with growth are not that different between growing GDP and growing HDI. The idea is to improve our overall standard of living, but our chosen metric of GDP doesn’t actually measure that. It seems to me that this isn’t widely understood and that resistance would be quite stiff to ditching GDP in favor of HDI or some other similar metric. Perhaps the best chance would be to take advantage of the recession and attempt to explain this issue. In conjunction, some sort of panel or committee could be appointed by the President or Congress that would develop a new metric that fits the American ethos but does a better job of actually measuring growth in equitable prosperity rather than growth in goods produced. Of course, even if we actually started using a new measure (likely alongside GDP at first), it would probably take a generation or two for our national philosophy to shift to supporting HDI. But the rewards could be great and I’d still like to see us try, even if it is a long shot.
Does anyone think otherwise? Are there better ideas out there? I’d like to hear what you’ve got to say.
Companies operate in a world of uncertainty. Candidates for employment can only communicate so much information to differentiate themselves, with the result that firms search for innovative ways to identify talented graduates.
Whether you call it networking, cronyism or simply the Old Boys’ Club – using contacts and connections to obtain an edge in the job market seems necessary in today’s competitive world. Should proponents of meritocracy really condemn such mechanisms?
Graduate recruiters spend an awful lot of time and money trying to identify talented prospects, something which is only profitable because it is so difficult to do well. For example, this author has been brought to dinner on more than one occasion by firms simply by virtue of being a scholar.
This uncertainty can be a frustrating curse or fortuitous blessing, depending on your perspective. However, it is certainly something which can be exploited for your interest. How? Since firms are seeking credible demonstrations of talent, students in their penultimate year of university should by all accounts be competing as vociferously for internships as they will for eventual employment – knowing that such a policy will reap dividends the following year. But such action though might not even be enough to land employment with the best firms. Why?
Frustratingly, many positions seem to the outsider stitched up by virtue of connections and contacts. The solution: adapt to market conditions by choosing your references wisely, and considering any possible links that you or your lecturers might have to the organisation in question. Of course, the alternative would be to claim that the market is corrupt and full of nepotism. Does this imply that it’s not meritocratic? Not necessarily.
When your connection make a plea on your behalf, it’s not a costless endeavour for them. If you secure a job for a friend or (say) family member who turns out to be completely useless, it hurts. Your networking contacts will see you as either a poor judge of candidate quality or a more concerned with nepotism than providing reciprocal and mutually beneficial recommendations. Either way, they won’t be listening to your advice in filling future positions.
So if a friend puts in a good word for you, it’s a credible signal of your talent because it costs your friend to put his reputation on the line. It’s a credible signal that you’re determined too. How can we deduce this? Presumably, because otherwise you wouldn’t be getting your friend to do the favour for you. After all, there’s no such thing as a free lunch and you must be offering him something in return for getting you the interview (or whatever).
In the end, employers will only adhere to recommendations from the Old Boys’ Club if they end up being profitable. Otherwise, such companies will lose custom to more efficient competition and perhaps go out of business. There’s still plenty of room for abuse through cronyism – After all, your recommendation need only be slightly better than operating under uncertainty to be worth listening to.
There are limits to the extent that the Old Boys’ Club contributes to meritocracy. If contacts are incredibly important in the actual business of work, then talent may eventually take a back-seat. This is clearly unfair to individuals who are talented but didn’t have the benefit of attending the right school or mixing in the right social circles.
There’s also collateral damage to these same people even if cronyism does make the market more efficient. If employers couldn’t receive advice from networks and connections, they would have to find the most talented recruit using more conventional methods. Unfortunately for some, that would make the company less profitable than under the status quo.
Last week, just prior to the Health Care Summit, the president posted his “final” word on the proposed legislation. It was basically the Senate bill with a few of the House versions more egregious programs tacked on. This was the party line until this afternoon. Now we hear that he will instead offer a stripped down version this week. The polling numbers really sucked over the weekend and now it’s a free for all.
The Summit failed to sway anyone, and the president’s poll numbers dropped. Over the weekend, Nancy Pelosi stated that “The health care bill can be bipartisan even though the vote may not be bipartisan.” She said this on CNN and the peanut gallery is still howling with laughter.
A number of leading Democratic senators have come out against using the reconciliation process to pass the health care bill, and with the opposition of various factions in the House to each others nonnegotiable demands, the whole thing is turning into a Marx Brothers movie with guns. Meanwhile, Charlie Rangel is hiding in the closet hoping no one knocks on the door.
The Republicans, who actually made a little sense at the summit, are on the sidelines almost as confused as everyone else except they’re avoided stepping in the dog poop. They have been very clearly told they are irrelevant, so now the Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.
On the funny pages also known as Op/Ed, Paul Krugman has taken leave of his senses and is now drooling in the corner after a nervous breakdown while E.J. Dionne is restating the party line faster than Pravda during Glasnost. His latest on the subject is that the reconciliation mess staring Congress in the eye is actually a great big fuzzy bunny because the Senate already passed a bill and all the House has to do is agree. Al Hunt is urging the president to go gangster on Congress and strong arm them the Chicago way into doing his bidding.
Pretzel logic is the order of the day. It would actually be funny if we didn’t have so many other pressing matters.
. Currently our fiscal deficit stands at 5.8 billion USD.. .. needless to say, the Chinese are in huge surplus of 284 billion USD, and they say it has come down from 368 billion USD.. and guys, we have more or less the same work force compared to china….( hmm… its all the government /ruler who makes the difference…)
Companies operate in a world of uncertainty. Candidates for employment can only communicate so much information to differentiate themselves, with the result that firms search for innovative ways to identify talented graduates.