I have lived in New York my entire life and it resembles nothing less than a banana republic. We now have an accidental governor, long known in the state as a light weight, in office by virtue of his predecessor catching himself money laundering via a high priced prostitute (Spitzer was one of the main motivators behind the money laundering laws that caught him when he tried to hide the source and destination of his prostitute's fee), preparing to Knight (Senator?) a never-before-elected-to-anything young woman because she has a celebrity name. This follows another never-previously-elected woman joining the Senate because she had a celebrity name. It also follows the Uncle of the soon-to-be-named Senator being elected primarily because he had a celebrity name. Beyond that we have had a, barely, two party corrupt state government for years and now have a corrupt one-party government. And let us not forget our renowned Congressman who chairs the committee that writes our tax laws, who having run afoul of said laws, complains that he didn't understand the laws he supposedly wrote.
Those who have spent their entire lives feeding off the public trough and have never produced anything of any value think that the way to run New York is to promise their friends our money and keep raising taxes on the rich, who are increasingly either poor (because so many were working in the Finance Casinos on Wall Street and rolled snake eyes) or leaving the state for more clement weather, financial and otherwise. If a state could have an IQ, New York's would be about 20 points lower than New Yorkers think it is.
On a related note, Siggy noticed an interesting pattern. Can you guess what the ten poorest cities in the country all have in common?
As the learned solons in Washington debate how much of our money to give to their friends and supporters to save their failed businesses, I wonder if anyone has given any consideration to some of the unintended consequences of their largess.
First of all, it is doubtful any amount of money will save the Big Three Auto makers as long as so few people think their products are as good as the competition's cars. There is likely to be lots of good money following bad before GM, Chrysler, and Ford become profitable again, if ever. But that is only the tip of an iceberg and brings to mind the questions of who chooses, and how they choose, which businesses to rescue? Do you want to put your money into a company's stock not knowing how bad things are going to get and not knowing whether or not that company has donated enough political capitol to warrant a bailout?
And then don't forget Bernie Madoff. Not only is the Madoff fraud a spectacular triumph of greed and ego over prudence, but it also suggests some major issues related to the Financial meltdown have not yet been addressed. For example, if Madoff could commit such a huge fraud and get away with it for so long because the financial bubble was so frothy, how many other frauds have not yet seen the light of day? If banks can still not figure out what their own exposures are, how can they be expected to loan to others whose exposure is even more opaque? The government has already spent $750 billion of our future money (or of our conjured up money, or some money, who knows where it came from) to get the financial markets moving again, yet until most of the bad paper clears, which will take a very long time, it is simply not credible to think that lending will pick up. Certainly the government can step in and guarantee everyone's loans will be paid back but who is going to want to invest based on the "full faith and credit" of a country that is trying so hard to bankrupt itself? I am not a financial wizard but I don't see how this recession ends any time soon.
Here's another conundrum: If, as the New York Times gleefully reports, the Arab world hates George Bush and the shoe thrower has become a hero, doesn't this support the notion that they are deeply enmeshed in tribalism? The Times story briefly notes or ignores that most of those cheering on the shoe thrower have had a longstanding and pre-existing animus toward America, pre-dating George Bush. Further, most of them are Sunni Muslims who were the primary targets of the invasion of Iraq. If the Arab world hates that George Bush has freed the Shia Arabs of Iraq and their countrymen from Sunni fascism and delivered an imperfect democratic state to the inhabitants of Iraq, does this imply that even the most horrific torment of Arabs is preferable to non-Arab intervention, even when it introduces freedom and saves lives? This would support the notion that the Arabs are stuck in an honor-shame dynamic that precludes much forward progress. The question answers itself, but alas, the New York Times writers never seem to be able to pursue a useful line of inquiry.
Dennis Prager notes that while we have spent the last 30 or 40 years cheering ourselves on in the name of group pride (Black, Gay. Lesbian, Transgendered, Dwarf, et al) where have been the signs of reasonable Identifty Group Shame, which in many ways is a far more useful emotion?
Expressing group shame when morally necessary is not airing dirty linen or giving solace to ones ideological enemies. It is, rather, one of the highest expressions of moral development. And it is therefore universally applicable. Being a minority doesn't exempt its members from moral responsibility. It will be a great day for America and the world when minorities begin to express shame as well as pride. In fact, there is real pride in expressing shame. Minorities should give it a try.
And now for a little balance:
The future of Medicine will be here sooner than many expect, the limits to our imaginations shrink, and a mystery is solved.
Recent Comments