As to your general question, I don’t know if there are natural opponents to the financial industry like the natural opposition between labor and management.
It was for most of history, social conservatism. The Abrahamic religions all have rules governing the money business, in some cases banning it entirely.
In American history specifically, that the Republican party currently has the bulk of the more religiously observant (christians) as well as the bulk of Wall Street is a historical aberation.
Vietnam, then, is also long and thin, the economy centered on the coast, has some of the richest fisheries in the world - and unlike Japan, wasn't able to keep Europeans from taking over for a time in the age of empires.
I agree that in 1500 Europe had the right balance between fractiousness and coherence to enable the rise of (what is now the default) political entity of the nation-state, (and the age of sail empires which lasted until WW2) while China was too unified and nearly all the rest of the world was too isolated, too underpopulated, and/or too fractious.
I disagree that this is an inevitibility of geography - Europe (read - the Mediterranean world) was pretty darn unified for a period of close to 5 centuries. (A snapshot of 250 CE would show it arguably *more* unified than China). That Europe was in a 'goldilocks' political unity level in 1500 was an accident of history and timing. "China" has similarly oscillated between times of feudalism, protacted wars, and unity, peace&prosperity. And of course, linguistically, the native tongues of Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong are as different as those of Madrid, Paris, and Rome.
Guns Germs and Steel is overrated in this regard - it explains well why peoples from Eurasia conquered those in Africa, the Americas, and Australia starting in 1500 and not vice versa, but doesn't have a lot to say why Europeans conquered various people from the Indus Valley to the East China Sea, and not vice versa. (nor really anything at all about post 1500 and particularly post Industrial Revolution pattern of development - for example Japan is, at the first order, as mountainous and islandish as Papua New Guinea)
A medium term problem is even if Murbarak were to leave the country in the next hour, it will take years to undo the sclerosis in the economy that creates the 20% unemployment & whatever % under employment. I fear the embryonic stab at real political pluralism will be aborted in the lack of patience to take the time that's required to undo this economic status quo. Unless, however, the 'provisional' government is smart enough to let the 'shadow' economy prosper - and co-opt it later. Though, it's problematic, if not impossible, for provisional governments to do this, because they generally need all the taxes they can get their hands on, and of course, a shadow economy by definition pays no taxes)
A short term problem is people are starting to run out of food and fuel because Egypt's entire transportation & banking systems have ground to a near halt.
It may be a good idea to keep a few AOL CD's in the (repurposed) Y2K bunker with the beans and the bullets. Apparently, an important way of getting around the internet shutdown was through dial-up connections.
Stolen from a private twitter stream, which in turn stole it from a public twitter stream-
"Shut down the internet, and guess what? Everyone under thirty has nothing better to do *but* to go out in the streets"
I always thought there was some sort of homestead exception to bankruptcy - it was how I thought OJ, for example, was able to keep his house despite owing 30+ million dollars to the Goldmans.
3) As much political self-determination as possible at the local level. I’d be really happy if we could cut out the states as middle men and just have the federal government and local governments.
Maybe you have expanded on this elsewhere, but a question being begged here is 'what is local?' Political boundaries at all levels are somewhat arbitrary (some more than others), but you can almost always divide the smallest divisions that exist now -- towns, cities, and counties - into even smaller 'sovereign' units with sufficiently coherent political interests.
Speaking of 'oh tempura', during the same era that BlaiseP discussed, although the Keirestsu were famously buying up America*, ironically(?)in many other sectors, particularly retail and restauranting, the Japanese had significant cultural and legal obstacles towardly 'wal-marting' all their mom&pop operations. (Still do, I think - it's one of the many facets of their long term malaise, as a lot of these small firms are also tied up in the banking/real estate clusterfark that hampered them for over a decade)
The most genius thing someone in the Don Draper generation at Hasbro did was predicting that if you called dolls "action figures", you can sell twice as many dolls (if not many times more)
I'm thinking that by now, changing the manner that the Senate is elected or even abolishing it entirely wouldn't alter the centralization of power all that much.
To create a real sea change, to radically shake up the status quo, repeal the commerce clause. Allow states all manner of regulatory and taxation authority that are now pre-empted by the federal government, and then one will see some real devolution.
I'm not really in favor of this, but it's probably the only path for the time being to restore (or alter) the balance. The South pushing state sovereignty every hundred years for all the wrong reasons has poisoned the well pretty badly.
Maybe this comment belongs on the last thread, but here it goes.
I'm not sure that 'nationalism' is the right prism in which to analyze what is being discussed. Arguably, the problem in Afghanstan (for example) is not too much nationalism, but too little. (There are portions of the insurgency that do not believe the current Kabul government is legitimate, but there are others that do not believe that *any* Kabul government is legitimate)
The most pervasive, persistant and damaging legacy from colonialism was the semi-arbitrary (and by now, more or less permanent) division of the world by cartographers that lumped together peoples who, at best, had little contact with each other, but more commonly and for the worst, were ancient rivals.
That the Army, in particular, can continue to maintain such standards despite its continued need for significant numbers of new accessions every year is frankly impressive.
When the economy was going good and the war wasn't, they didn't
Scott
As I understand things (which is of course, by no means meant to be authoritative)
1) Yes
2) Yes. It is posible that if their break in service is both short enough but caused them to miss a promotion board, they may be retroactively be eligible for that board. It happens sometimes for those that are deployed during the promotion cycle (or two) and are not available to take the tests.
3) Honorable, but most were administratively separated which is for the most part a 'neutral' designation. Appeals for recharacterization if needed to obtain benefits will proably be approved. Likewise, one will almost always have to seek out a re-characterization of service; it will not happen automatically or en masse.
4) They will receive no credit for the break in service, but will for the most part not be penalized for the break either in terms of promotions and assignments. (there are numerous cases of people who seperate from the miltary for one reason or another, and decide to rejoin some years later, for one reason or another. I anticipate treatment the breaks in service will be similar for the two groups.)
5) Gay marriage will not be recognized for the provision of benefits due to the defense of marriage act and that military benefits are solely conferred by marriage - domestic partners of whatever orientation (guy-girl, girl-girl, guy-guy, etc) get nothing*. This will become, I imagine, the next fight.
*you can, however, put whomever you want as benneficiary on the govt subsidized life insurance policies. There are some extreme outliers in getting extended family members defined as 'dependents' but they are almost invariablely disabled in some way to the point where they can't take care of themselves.
I think they were just trying to make the revolution as legitimate as possible and appeal to the French.
Um, yeah, and the small r republican Dutch (sort of) and a few others. And how did they do that? By selling their cause as a universal thing and not just an American thing. Which for your run of the mill Enlightment-minded aristocrat and/or person of means had some resonance.
Appealling to one's vanity and aspirations is a pretty good sales technique whether one is selling light beer or revolutions.
(and yes, for the most part the founding generation did believe that all men were created equal, and had a heckuva blind spot, to understate things, regarding the status as 'men' of those who were not white, and those who were not men.)
We're within six months or so of the point that 'Twenty years ago' was when Grunge wiped out Hair Metal. My personal memories of the Seventies are confined to Big Bird, Scooby Doo, and the rest of the Henson and Hanna Barbera pantheons.
This *was* one of the identified trade offs between going to a state school and an Ivy school twenty years ago, at least for me (except the tuition & fee + room & board ratio between the schools was more like 4:1)
On “The State of the Unions”
"For person A to borrow money, person B must save it. Money does not grow on trees"
Fractional reserve banking and the Federal Reserve* (both separately and together) create money ex nihilo.
*and other central banking entities
On “The Financial Class and the Middle Class”
As to your general question, I don’t know if there are natural opponents to the financial industry like the natural opposition between labor and management.
It was for most of history, social conservatism. The Abrahamic religions all have rules governing the money business, in some cases banning it entirely.
In American history specifically, that the Republican party currently has the bulk of the more religiously observant (christians) as well as the bulk of Wall Street is a historical aberation.
On “Categorical Imperatives”
Don't blame me, I knocked up Kodos.
On “Maps”
Vietnam, then, is also long and thin, the economy centered on the coast, has some of the richest fisheries in the world - and unlike Japan, wasn't able to keep Europeans from taking over for a time in the age of empires.
"
I agree that in 1500 Europe had the right balance between fractiousness and coherence to enable the rise of (what is now the default) political entity of the nation-state, (and the age of sail empires which lasted until WW2) while China was too unified and nearly all the rest of the world was too isolated, too underpopulated, and/or too fractious.
I disagree that this is an inevitibility of geography - Europe (read - the Mediterranean world) was pretty darn unified for a period of close to 5 centuries. (A snapshot of 250 CE would show it arguably *more* unified than China). That Europe was in a 'goldilocks' political unity level in 1500 was an accident of history and timing. "China" has similarly oscillated between times of feudalism, protacted wars, and unity, peace&prosperity. And of course, linguistically, the native tongues of Beijing, Shanghai, and Hong Kong are as different as those of Madrid, Paris, and Rome.
"
Guns Germs and Steel is overrated in this regard - it explains well why peoples from Eurasia conquered those in Africa, the Americas, and Australia starting in 1500 and not vice versa, but doesn't have a lot to say why Europeans conquered various people from the Indus Valley to the East China Sea, and not vice versa. (nor really anything at all about post 1500 and particularly post Industrial Revolution pattern of development - for example Japan is, at the first order, as mountainous and islandish as Papua New Guinea)
On “Egypt Open Thread”
A medium term problem is even if Murbarak were to leave the country in the next hour, it will take years to undo the sclerosis in the economy that creates the 20% unemployment & whatever % under employment. I fear the embryonic stab at real political pluralism will be aborted in the lack of patience to take the time that's required to undo this economic status quo. Unless, however, the 'provisional' government is smart enough to let the 'shadow' economy prosper - and co-opt it later. Though, it's problematic, if not impossible, for provisional governments to do this, because they generally need all the taxes they can get their hands on, and of course, a shadow economy by definition pays no taxes)
A short term problem is people are starting to run out of food and fuel because Egypt's entire transportation & banking systems have ground to a near halt.
It may be a good idea to keep a few AOL CD's in the (repurposed) Y2K bunker with the beans and the bullets. Apparently, an important way of getting around the internet shutdown was through dial-up connections.
Stolen from a private twitter stream, which in turn stole it from a public twitter stream-
"Shut down the internet, and guess what? Everyone under thirty has nothing better to do *but* to go out in the streets"
On “Wealth Transfer”
I always thought there was some sort of homestead exception to bankruptcy - it was how I thought OJ, for example, was able to keep his house despite owing 30+ million dollars to the Goldmans.
On “Oh the times! Oh the customs!”
3) As much political self-determination as possible at the local level. I’d be really happy if we could cut out the states as middle men and just have the federal government and local governments.
Maybe you have expanded on this elsewhere, but a question being begged here is 'what is local?' Political boundaries at all levels are somewhat arbitrary (some more than others), but you can almost always divide the smallest divisions that exist now -- towns, cities, and counties - into even smaller 'sovereign' units with sufficiently coherent political interests.
"
Speaking of 'oh tempura', during the same era that BlaiseP discussed, although the Keirestsu were famously buying up America*, ironically(?)in many other sectors, particularly retail and restauranting, the Japanese had significant cultural and legal obstacles towardly 'wal-marting' all their mom&pop operations. (Still do, I think - it's one of the many facets of their long term malaise, as a lot of these small firms are also tied up in the banking/real estate clusterfark that hampered them for over a decade)
*how'd that work out, btw?
On “Another Open Thread”
I second the endorsement. Cooper's is what I used in my homebrewing novice 'Bisquick' phase in my college days.
On “Space Oddity”
John F Kennedy?
On “Government and Violence”
which means we’re going to be hearing before long that “smoking marijuana has consequences”
Already done: http://www.frumforum.com/did-pot-trigger-giffords-shooting
On “Seasonal Words of Wisdom”
Hey, the side bar is back. D.A.R. must be one of those insurance agent genies.
On “Occasional Notes: The Most Genderful Time of the Year”
The most genius thing someone in the Don Draper generation at Hasbro did was predicting that if you called dolls "action figures", you can sell twice as many dolls (if not many times more)
On “A Modest Proposal”
I'm thinking that by now, changing the manner that the Senate is elected or even abolishing it entirely wouldn't alter the centralization of power all that much.
To create a real sea change, to radically shake up the status quo, repeal the commerce clause. Allow states all manner of regulatory and taxation authority that are now pre-empted by the federal government, and then one will see some real devolution.
I'm not really in favor of this, but it's probably the only path for the time being to restore (or alter) the balance. The South pushing state sovereignty every hundred years for all the wrong reasons has poisoned the well pretty badly.
On “The death of custom ctd.”
Maybe this comment belongs on the last thread, but here it goes.
I'm not sure that 'nationalism' is the right prism in which to analyze what is being discussed. Arguably, the problem in Afghanstan (for example) is not too much nationalism, but too little. (There are portions of the insurgency that do not believe the current Kabul government is legitimate, but there are others that do not believe that *any* Kabul government is legitimate)
The most pervasive, persistant and damaging legacy from colonialism was the semi-arbitrary (and by now, more or less permanent) division of the world by cartographers that lumped together peoples who, at best, had little contact with each other, but more commonly and for the worst, were ancient rivals.
On “3/4ths Under 24 Inellgible for Armed Service; 23% Can’t Pass Entrance Exam”
That the Army, in particular, can continue to maintain such standards despite its continued need for significant numbers of new accessions every year is frankly impressive.
When the economy was going good and the war wasn't, they didn't
On “DADT Open Thread”
Scott
As I understand things (which is of course, by no means meant to be authoritative)
1) Yes
2) Yes. It is posible that if their break in service is both short enough but caused them to miss a promotion board, they may be retroactively be eligible for that board. It happens sometimes for those that are deployed during the promotion cycle (or two) and are not available to take the tests.
3) Honorable, but most were administratively separated which is for the most part a 'neutral' designation. Appeals for recharacterization if needed to obtain benefits will proably be approved. Likewise, one will almost always have to seek out a re-characterization of service; it will not happen automatically or en masse.
4) They will receive no credit for the break in service, but will for the most part not be penalized for the break either in terms of promotions and assignments. (there are numerous cases of people who seperate from the miltary for one reason or another, and decide to rejoin some years later, for one reason or another. I anticipate treatment the breaks in service will be similar for the two groups.)
5) Gay marriage will not be recognized for the provision of benefits due to the defense of marriage act and that military benefits are solely conferred by marriage - domestic partners of whatever orientation (guy-girl, girl-girl, guy-guy, etc) get nothing*. This will become, I imagine, the next fight.
*you can, however, put whomever you want as benneficiary on the govt subsidized life insurance policies. There are some extreme outliers in getting extended family members defined as 'dependents' but they are almost invariablely disabled in some way to the point where they can't take care of themselves.
On “Will “History” Ever End?”
I think they were just trying to make the revolution as legitimate as possible and appeal to the French.
Um, yeah, and the small r republican Dutch (sort of) and a few others. And how did they do that? By selling their cause as a universal thing and not just an American thing. Which for your run of the mill Enlightment-minded aristocrat and/or person of means had some resonance.
Appealling to one's vanity and aspirations is a pretty good sales technique whether one is selling light beer or revolutions.
(and yes, for the most part the founding generation did believe that all men were created equal, and had a heckuva blind spot, to understate things, regarding the status as 'men' of those who were not white, and those who were not men.)
On “Some Noise About Signals, Education & Other Likely Stories”
Nice that you avoided hyperbola.
Alas, despite exploring a vast swath of history, he didn't have any real roots.
"
Although I do seem to rememeber schools in the University of California system having $0 for in-state tuition in the Barron's (etc) college guides.
"
We're within six months or so of the point that 'Twenty years ago' was when Grunge wiped out Hair Metal. My personal memories of the Seventies are confined to Big Bird, Scooby Doo, and the rest of the Henson and Hanna Barbera pantheons.
"
This *was* one of the identified trade offs between going to a state school and an Ivy school twenty years ago, at least for me (except the tuition & fee + room & board ratio between the schools was more like 4:1)
"
When your hear you kid squeel because she got bit on the heel, that's a moray.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.