Depressions, demand, and money: An economic puzzle.

Some years ago, I posted the following in the Comment section of a major newspaper. I can't recall the details of the story, but there was the threat of an economic downturn.

A puzzle about Depressions keeps bothering me: In a Depression there is tremendous demand for goods, mostly consumables. There is a pool of workers willing to produce and satisfy that demand. It looks to me like a Depression violates the "law" of Supply and Demand.

So why doesn't production match demand? The culprit seems to be "debt", which must be paid at all costs. Even if it prolongs the Depression by reducing the profits needed to pay the debt.

Something is seriously wrong with an economic theory that can't explain why its founding principles don't work.

Another reader commented as follows:

@Wolf Kirchmeir 

Something is seriously wrong with your understanding of the economic dynamics of depressions. In a depression contrary to your assertion there is NOT a tremendous demand for goods. In fact, due to massive unemployment demand plummets, as does the incentive to supply that demand. The result is spiral where decreasing demand and the decrease incentive to supply feedback on one another. The dirty little secret about capitalism is that distressed markets when left to their own devices will collapse without outside i.e. government intervention in the form [of] fiscal and monetary policy and massive fiscal stimulus which creates enough demand to literally resuscitate a distressed economy until markets are able to function without that assistance.

This was my answer:

@[name] You're using classical economics, which equates "demand" with the amount of money available to spend. But demand is what I need and want. Money is merely a measure of my ability to satisfy my demand, and that's not the same thing at all.

In short, the classical explanation doesn't resolve the puzzle, it creates the puzzle.

My need and desire for stuff doesn't depend on the amount of money I have. It depends on how much food, shelter, clothing etc that I have. Demand rises and falls with that supply of needs and wants. To repeat: Money is just a measure of my ability to satisfy my demand. Not enough money means incomplete satisfaction of demand. It does not mean reduction of demand. On the contrary. The less money I have, the more demand I have. So if you use available money as a measure of "demand", that shows that there is something wrong with how money is distributed.

The reference to the "dirty little secret of capitalism" I think reinforces that point, if I understand it correctly. Government's injection of money doesn't "create demand", it just reduces the mismatch between demand and money.

The puzzle remains, because it's about  psychology, not about finance.

Dyer foresees the Future (Future: Tense, 2004)

 Gwynne Dyer.  Future: Tense (2004)

I’ve watched a video of Dyer making the same points as he makes here: Terrorists cause very little damage compared to other risks, but because they choose their targets carefully, they get an enormous amount of publicity. They also get a disproportionate response. These two effects make terrorists seem more dangerous than they are, help spread their ideologies. and lend legitimacy to their claims of political importance. The ripple effects are increased risks of wars between nations.

The context of Dyer’s remarks is the Middle East, the economic and political decline of the Muslim world, and the rise of the West. (An irony he doesn’t emphasise is that the Islamic terrorist groups are incapable of making the weapons systems they use, which they buy from Western sources).

Dyer makes a few predictions, which have failed only in details such as timing and who did what to whom. The general forecast, that the Middle East is the most likely place for triggering a world-wide war, seems at present only to prescient. He also called for a stronger consensus that such a war must be avoided. We can only hope that such a consensus will stop and reverse the current escalation of the quarrel between Israel and Iran.

Dyer says that the Israel helped Hamas establish itself, calculating that political rivalry with the PLO would prevent the Palestinians from achieving their goal of nationhood. The Wiki article on Hamas does state that “Numerous Islamist leaders, including senior Hamas founder Mahmoud Zahar, met with Yitzhak Rabin as part of "regular consultations" between Israeli officials and Palestinians not linked to the PLO.[27]”, which supports Dyer’s claim.

The “new world order” foreseen by Dyer is a shifting in the economic and military balance between the US, Russia and China, expressed in part by proxy wars and skirmishes. Most of those will be in the Muslim world. Terrorism will continue to be a useful bogeyman for any politician who needs some street-cred. In other words, business as usual. Dyer did not foresee Putin’s rise and his goal to Make Russia Great Again.

Dyer is a dispassionate observer of power politics. Power hunger is a widespread human trait. There’s an equally wide-spread hunger for rule by a powerful leader, arising from the mistaken belief that only a strong leader can protect the tribe and keep order. That is one of the main drivers of war.

A book worth reading. ***

Econ 101: The supply web.

Consider the ball point pen. It’s cheap, it’s everywhere, it’s still useful despite the increased digitisation of our everyday lives. Millions are sold every day. Millions are discarded every day, too.

The earliest versions of the ballpoint pen date from the 1800s. They were unreliable. The ink usually blobbed and smeared, or dried out. The ball didn’t transport the ink reliably, so the pen skipped, and the writing felt rough. Its modern version was invented by Laszlo Biro, with the help of his brother Gyorgy and friend Juan Meyne. It’s a triumph of technology. Without modern applied chemistry and physics, the pen would be neither reliable nor cheap. Only pencils are cheaper. The vast majority of ballpoint pens are disposable. Even refillable ones are usually thrown out.

The simplest ball point pen is the Bic Cristal™. It has seven components:

1. Barrel: plastic. 2. Cap: plastic. 3. Plug: plastic. 4. Ink reservoir: plastic. 5. Ink: dyes, alcohols, fatty acids. 6. Ball: metal. 7. Ball socket: metal

All parts begin as ores and oil, raw materials which are refined to make feedstock (plastics, metals, ink) with which to make the parts of the pen. The pen is made by the thousands on machines that began as raw materials that were processed into parts for assembly. The pens are packaged, warehoused, and eventually shipped to the retail store. The packaging, warehousing, and transportation also began as raw materials.

The sequence from raw material to final product is called the supply chain. But it’s really a supply web. I have two observations about the supply web.

One, it’s fragile, because every member of it tries to reduce costs. A failure by any member to deliver what’s asked will ripple through the web, sometimes causing shortages of apparently unrelated products. Resilience requires excess capacity, but excess capacity is unused most of the time. That looks like unproductive cost to the accountant, so it’s reduced and even eliminated.

Two, we rely on people to do their work well at every step. The ballpoint pen has involved hundreds of people, from the producers of the ores and oil to the truckers that delivered the product to your local store,. Of these hundreds of people, the only one you deal with in person is the store clerk.

Edited for clarity 2023-10-25

Cigarette advertising of the 1950s

This ad from the 1950s shows how carefully the nicotine drug trade hid the health risks from their clients. Camel cigarettes are made by R. J. Reynolds. They were introduced in 1913. Early ads boasted that the high quality of the tobacco prevented the offering of prizes or premiums, which was a common marketing ploy at the time. (See also cigarette cards.)

The obvious ploy of this ad is of course the link to doctors, who presumably wouldn’t smoke unhealthy cigarettes. The “T-Zone” blurb reinforces that message, as does the cosy middle-class ambience of a well-dressed mother (note the hat) with her well-dressed and intelligent daughter (her plaid skirt hints at a school uniform) facing an avuncular doctor dressed in medical whites and with reassuring grey at the temples. This is a doctor with experience. The books ranged behind the mother tell us he’s well-educated as well as kindly. A doctor to trust.

The ad copy is careful to say exactly what the surveys found, that the most-named brand was Camels. The copy doesn’t give us all the survey data, though. It doesn’t, for example, tell us how many doctors said they didn’t smoke. It doesn’t even tell us how many doctors named Camels, because a smallish number might suggest that many other brands were also popular, or that most doctors didn’t smoke at all. But it does tell us that 113,597 doctors were asked. A reassuringly large, and above all precise number.

The ad is a nice example of how to use images, words, and numbers to create an impression. That the impression may be misleading or false is not, of course, the advertiser’s fault. After all, there isn’t a single false statement anywhere. If the reader of the ad comes away believing that Camel cigarettes are healthy, well, you can’t control people’s thinking. Can you?

Advertising is applied poetry and fiction in the same sense that engineering is applied physics and chemistry. Reading a poem or story creates an imagined experience. So does reading an ad. Watching a story on film or TV creates an imagined experience, too. So does the commercial that interrupts the program. Narrative art controls the reader’s attention. So does an ad. Done skilfully, the ad creates an experience that will prompt the viewer to choose the product the next time they are shopping.

215 Graves

 

I wrote this a week ago, it's a little rough around the edges.

 215 Graves

215 Graves with no names
215 names lost forever
215 sparks of God's fire
drifting away on the river.

They were worlds of wonder loving God's bounty
Loving the earth and the sky and the river.
It carried them on, it swept them away,
Time’s cruel waters drowned love's fire.

215 Graves with no names...

Pride and power took them from family
Took them for shaping as if they were clay
But God's spark within them resisted the potter
Flamed bright and loving until they gave way.

215 Graves with no names...

Then they were buried, discarded, forgotten;
The warm earth received them and held them safe,
Safe from the beatings, the scoldings and pain,
Dreaming of fathers and mothers and home.

215 Graves with no names...

Now we have found them, now their bones cry to us,
Were you the ones who talked of Christ’s love?
Now we must reckon with guilt of our ancestors,
But power and pride live on in us.

215 graves with no names....

We’re all one family, children of Earth,
Earth-mother who offers us love of each other,
Love that can heal us, love that can lift us
Above pride and power, above guilt and fear.

215 graves with no names....

When we let go of the greed that defines us,
The greed that we think will free us from fear,
Then the bones of the children will rise up and embrace us
And love will reshape us into children of light.

215 graves with no names
215 names to recover
215 sparks of God’s fire
lighting the way to love.

 

© 2021 W. Kirchmeir

Burgess Writes about Writing (mostly)

 

Anthony Burgess. But Do Blondes Prefer Gentlemen (1986) A collection of “other writings”, mostly book reviews, with occasional travel pieces and general interest essays. Loosely organised by topic, eg, there are several essays about James Joyce all in a row.
     Burgess has a lively, well-stocked mind, and knows his opinions well. His pieces are a pleasure to read, especially when you have some knowledge of his subject, and even when you disagree with him. I don’t think Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses are the greatest novels of the 20th century, but Burgess almost convinces me to take another read at them.
     He doesn’t like Orwell’s writing, but can’t help admiring his honesty, and his attempts to say things as truthfully as possible. I wonder what he would now make of Orwell’s insight into how surveillance generates paranoia, which kills empathy.
     He doesn’t think science fiction is really literature, because its focus on ideas prevents its being literary art. Literature as art is finally what attracts Burgess. Using language as the medium for creating – what, exactly? He’s right that what separates entertainment from art is style (for want of a better word), and that writers can use language to help or make us imagine what we could or would not imagine otherwise, which is the function of art in any medium. But I think he undervalues craft. There’s an irony in that. He’s is a superb craftsman. His essays are learned without being pedantic, entertaining without being superficial, and satisfying for both their ideas and the skilful exposition.
     The pieces are undated, and there is no index, both serious lacks. Nevertheless, recommended, if you can find a copy. I’ll probably keep this one for the occasional re-read. ***

 

Nobody wins wars

Illustration by The New York Times; Photographs by U.S. Department of Justice, via Associated Press and Srdjan Suki/EPA, via Shutterstock

A comment on a piece by Margaret Renkl about the conviction and deportation of 95-year-old Friedrich Karl Berger, who worked as a concentration camp guard in the last months of the war in 1945, when he was 19 years old. He emigrated to the USA in 1959, and lived in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The essay writer tried to find a satisfying answer to the question whether trial and conviction at this late date served any kind of justice. Renkl was uncertain, ending her essay “So which is it: real justice, or too little too late? I honestly don’t know.” Of the many comments, this one caught my eye.

John
California March 8

@Ronald Grünebaum My father was an infantry man in the Second World War and horrifically wounded as he crossed into Germany. Like most veterans, he didn't talk about it often and never at length. Except, that is, for one day he sat on the porch with my neighbor, Mr. Rupple, a navy veteran on the German side; they spent the afternoon in quiet conversation. My mother sent me to get my father for dinner and, as we walked home, I asked him if it was awkward talking with Mr. Rupple. He asked why I thought it would be awkward and I said, my 14 year old brain abuzz, that "we won and they lost." We walked a few steps then he said, "I'm surprised you still think people win wars."

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is gone

 

Trump left the White House an hour or two ago. So he's gone.

The Wizard of Oz ends with the assurance that once the Wizard is exposed as a fraud, the world will be set to rights. Eventually, everything will be as it was supposed to be. Dorothy will get back home.

But this wizard has left behind a mass of Munchkins that still believe there's a Wizard behind the curtain. What would L. Frank Baum make of this awkward reality?

Christmas Wishes

 

The Winter Solstice has been marked in the Northern Hemisphere throughout human history, and certainly before. The feast celebrates the return of the Light, the victory over the darkness.

 Whatever tradition  guides your celebrations, I wish you all possible comfort and joy. My the Light that shines in each of us vanquish fear and give you hope.

Covid-19 denial by people who have it:

 

An ER nurse in South Dakota tweeted about some of her patients who deny they have covid-19.: 

How does one react to this report? I can see that some people would deny their peril in any case. We don't want to face  the near-certainty of death. But I suspect that most such denials would be versions of hope, a clinging to the near-zero chance of recovery. What this nurse reports is something else: denial triggered by politics, by ideological poison, by delusions promoted by a demagogue. What's worst about is that it prevents the comfort of family connection, of seeing and talking with loved ones.

Update: On reflection, I think that in these cases politics and ideology complicate what is a normal human reaction to the prospect of imminent death. I don' t think it's common, though.

Update 2021-09-09: I've now read stories about the Delta variant surge in Oregon and other places. The anecdotes are heartbreaking. Yet vaccine-denial and covid-denial continue, even in those places hardest hit by the latest surge in infections and death. The sad fact is that an unvaccinated person admitted to ICU has a less than 50% chance of surviving.

 

Long Covid

Comment on a report in New Scientist, October 31-November 6, 2020, pp. 10-13.

The latest data show that symptoms of covid-19 persist for up to four months in some people. Probably longer, as the study stopped at that point. The symptoms range from fatigue through “brain-fog” and memory loss through problems breathing. Blood clots threaten to provoke strokes. Headaches are common. Damage to heart, lungs, and other organs has been observed. Hospitalised people appear most likely to suffer these symptoms. The data are incomplete, but it’s likely that around 5% of people who recover from covid-19 will experience more or less serious symptoms two months or more after the onset of the infection.

I think that somewhere between one and five percent will suffer from “long covid”, defined as debilitating symptoms for two months or longer. That’s a serious consequence, since these people will need some continuing care, and/or accommodation at work. The more severe cases will be unable to work at all. The economic losses will be high, combining lost productivity and cost of care. Or, to put it another way: a significant proportion of human and other resources will be diverted from the usual economic activities.

Unanswered questions: Who is most likely to be affected, and why? What kinds of treatment will mitigate long covid? How long will it actually last?

Plagues and the Fall of Empires

 

 Plague in Marseilles, 1720

Yesterday (November 2nd), I read an article in Junior Skeptic (included in Skeptic Magazine). It told the history of plagues, of epidemics, of pandemics. How an unknown disease killed upwards of 20% of the population of Athens (404 BCE). How a plague during Marcus Aurelius’s reign (161-180 CE) killed 20% or more of the citizens of Rome. How the first wave of bubonic plague killed somewhere between 25 and 50 million people in Europe (it reached Constantinople in 542). The second plague pandemic killed about 1/3rd of the European population, and some settlements were wiped out completely. (The last plague epidemics occurred in the 1600s and 1700s.) How smallpox ravaged Europe. How the Europeans brought smallpox to the Americas, killing up to 90% of indigenous populations.

In every case, major political and economic change followed. Athens lost the Peloponnesian War. Rome became weak, and finally lost its hegemony a couple of centuries later. The bubonic plague finished off the western Roman Empire. And so on. A little extra research showed that the second and third waves of bubonic plague caused Europe-wide wars and re-arranged the remnants of the Roman Empire. Even the Spanish Flu of 1918-19 caused disruption: the Roaring 20s were as much a reaction to it as to the Great War.

And generally speaking, people forgot the great plagues almost as soon as they fizzled out. School histories tend to ignore them. In fact, I didn’t know about the Athenian epidemic until I read this article; and I thought I had learned a pretty good overview of ancient Greek history.

We don’t want to be reminded that we are subject to the random appearance of pathogens. Even now, when SARS-COV-2 is infecting people, there are many who claim it’s a hoax, or no worse than the flu, or caused by G5 phone towers, or whatever. Anything, it seems, rather than face up to the terrifying truth: we have no defences against new pathogens. And another, much less convenient, truth: that these new pathogens transfer from animals to us. Which means that as climate change alters ecosystems, it also alters the interactions between humans and other animals, and so increases the odds that a new pathogen will emerge.

One of the factors in today’s US presidential election is covid-19. Mr Trump persists in downplaying its severity and perils. Mr Biden persists in using covid-19 as a symbol for Mr Trump’s failures as a President.

We shall see what happens. But in any case, the American Empire has begun its downward trajectory.

See Wiki’s article on SARS-COV-2

Pandemic statistics: bad news, good news.

Katharine Cove, Lake Superior, 2001

 

This morning's US covid-19 death count is 231,566. Canada stands 10,262. See Johns Hopkins Covid-19 Dashboard for more. That's the bad news. The good news is that the case-fatality rate is decreasing: fewer infected people are dying. The reason is a mix of good and bad news: In both countries the infection rate of younger people has gone up. Older people die at ten times the rate (or more) of younger people. So there's what at first glance looks like a paradox: much higher daily case numbers, not many more daily deaths.

Other considerations: 

a) Younger people tend to be the wage earners, so their higher case numbers affects the labour market, which is already a mess because the pandemic has reduced demand, and so reduced the need for labour.

b) The long-term effects of covid-19 range from longish recovery times to varying degrees of physiological and cognitive damage. The data suggest that 5% or so of covid-19 recover with such in long-term effects. In the long run, that could have worse effects than the present infection rates.

c) The economy is in serious trouble, because too many people are still thinking in terms of getting back to normal. The pandemic has shown that a very large segment of our economy has relied on discretionary spending, aka as whim and desire. This segment will not return to its former profitability.

d) We hear a lot about anti-mask demonstrations, but in general, most people do wear masks, which I think means that we are generally more aware of our connections to the larger community. Which brings me to that last comment for today:

e) Most of us have found that we haven't taken the casual daily contacts, the greetings, and chats etc seriously enough. We need social connection, we need face-to-face connection. Screens and tinny voices coming from inadequate speakers aren't enough.

 

Mermaids greet a Captain Hailborne

A mermaid from a clip-art collection. The picture caption reads "Capt. Hailborne At St. Johns Newfoundland", the details suggest the 1600s, but the mermaid's welcoming gesture is a fantasy.

Once more with feeling: Climate Change (longish read)

A comment based on my current understanding of the science

     Climate is a chaotic system. It consists of a web of interconnected feedback loops. For example, cloud cover cools the ground below, which reduces evaporation, which reduces the amount of water in the air, which reduces the odds that there will be rain. However, water doesn’t cool as rapidly as the ground, so evaporation from large lakes continues, which increases the amount of water vapour in the air, which increases the odds that there will be rain. Which is why cloud cover over the Great Lakes usually signals rain, while cloud cover over the Prairies does not.

     These links between feedback loops makes it difficult to precisely model the weather and hence the climate. Some feedback loops cancel the effects of other loops, and some feedback loops enhance the effects of other loops, and all of them are entangled with one or more other feedback loops. Such systems are characterised by non-linear relations between causes and effects. Small (sometimes very small) changes in some factor can become magnified into huge effects. Hence the sometimes rapid development of afternoon thunder storms after a bright, cloudless morning.

     A chaotic system cycles through a series of states ("the seasons") that vary within some range but average out over time (average annual seasonal temperatures, etc.) This average is called the attractor. "Regression to the mean" is a common effect: Think of a baseball pitcher's performance over time. Pitching is the influenced by many factors, most of which affect each other. The pitcher's performance is a chaotic system: sometimes he's hot, sometimes he's not, most of the time he performs near his average level.

     Chaotic systems can change radically. If some factor or factors exceed some limit (too much or too little), the whole system will shift into a new series of states, some or all of which are radically different from the previous ones. Hence climate change, or global warming.

     There is no question that burning fossil fuels has increased CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, now (about 400 parts per million) coming closer to double the concentration of pre-Industrial Revolution levels (about 280 parts per million). (See this graph) This is having an effect on climate, the  annual weather cycles. The important questions IMO are:
a) How fast is this happening?
b) Is it happening faster in some climate zones than others?
c) How far will it go?

     Answer to a) Unknown, but climate models so far have understated the expected changes. This is shown in:
     Answer to b) Yes. For example, the Arctic is warming about twice as fast as the temperate zone. Predictions of the extent of summer sea ice have repeatedly underestimated the numbers. The general trend is melt beginning earlier and proceeding more quickly than predicted by the models available at the time. Thus, there is less sea ice, and it’s thinner. The last ten years or so have seen record ice loss almost every year.
     Answer to c) Nobody knows for sure how far climate change will go. Models are continually updated and tested with new data, both current and historical (from Greenland ice cores, for example). As these models get better, they imply what I think are several important conclusions:

1) Climate can change very rapidly from one normal limit to the other. For example, the Little Ice Age, a fairly sudden cooling of the northern winter, which among other things destroyed the Viking settlements in Greenland.

2) Seasonal weather patterns can change in opposite directions, for example, rainfall shifting from winter and summer, hence wetter springs and falls, and dryer summers and winters. This means flash flooding and drought when neither was common in the past.

3) Weather patterns can change from historic averages within two or three years, for example the now five-year drought on the West Coast of the USA.

4) There's a lag between the warming effects of CO2 and climate change because of heat-sinks, chief of which is the ocean: Over half of the recent rise in ocean levels is caused by the expansion of water as the oceans warmed up.

It's true that climate models aren't good enough to satisfy the non-scientist's yearning for certainty. But I think the certainty is higher than required in a civil law case ("balance of probabilities"), and close to that required in a criminal case ("beyond reasonable doubt”, emphasis on "reasonable").

(Revised 2020 09 21)

A Brief History of English

Beginning of Canterbury Tales

The history of English has two main themes: first, the words (lexicon) come from many sources, and second, the grammar is fundamentally a simplified Germanic one, marked by an almost complete absence of grammatical gender. English is essentially a multi-layered creole.

The prehistoric peoples (who settled the islands 5,000 years ago or earlier) as far as we know left no traces in the English language. Then there were the Britons, a motley crew of miscellaneous Celtic tribes. These were conquered by the Romans, whose language had some influence on the Celtic dialects, mostly in place names. They built forts and roads, and romanised the indigenous people. Many place names date back to the Roman occupation, for example London (from londinium), and names ending in -chester, -cester, or -caster (from L. castellum).

From about 450 AD, several northwest European peoples invaded the Island. First came the Angles and Saxons, followed by the Danes and the Norwegians. The Anglo-Saxons brought their languages with them, and adopted or adapted some words and place names from the Celts they displaced or enslaved. For example car (originally from Latin), the Avon, Salisbury (Salis- from Celtic Sorvio, a personal name, plus Anglo-Saxon burh, a fortified settlement), and many other place names in southwestern England. The Danish and Norwegian invasions affected the northern and eastern Anglo-Saxon dialects, which are still distinct from the southern and midland dialects that became the language of the court. Anglo-Saxon as written is a jumble of dialects that are mutually intelligible enough that they form a language.

In 1066, William the Bastard of Normandy conquered England and brought Norman French with him as the language of government and trade. Over the next couple of centuries, the existing Anglo-Saxon dialects and Norman French blended into what we now think of as Middle English. By 1400, it was not only a practical language but a literary one: Geoffrey Chaucer wrote his Canterbury Tales (1387-1400) in his Middle English, London-centric dialect. It became the source of modern English, which in vocabulary is basically Anglo-Saxon with an overlay of French, and a grammar regularised and simplified as Anglo-Saxon and French speakers mashed up their languages into a mutually intelligible creole. Hence cow, bull, cattle for the animals, beef for their meat. Anglo-Saxon houses and fields made up French real property. French and English shared a plural ending -s, which became the near-universal way of making plural nouns, and gender survived only in the third person pronouns and some feminine suffixes.

During the Roman era and throughout the Middle Ages, Latin and Greek words were adopted into the vernacular all over Europe. In English, that produced “church”, “bishop” and “bible”, for example. During the Renaissance, English speakers, like other Europeans, adopted many more Latin and Greek words. By the later Middle Ages, scholars had developed the habit of using Latin and Greek terms when writing in their local languages, and still do so today.

In 1473, Caxton brought printing to England. During the 1400s and 1500s, Middle English was evolving into Early Modern English (the language of Shakespeare). Printers wanted standard spelling (and to some extent also standard vocabulary) to widen the market for their books. Thus, English spelling became standardised at a time when its pronunciation changed rapidly. The result is the most inconsistent spelling system in the world: each of the main streams of language that make up the Modern English lexicon has its own spelling system.

Here's the Lord's Prayer in Anglo-Saxon:

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice (note: the old english "þ" is pronounced "th")

Read more at: https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/lord_old_english_medieval.html

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum;
Si þin nama gehalgod
to becume þin rice
gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum
urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg
and forgyf us ure gylta
swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum
and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge
ac alys us of yfele soþlice 

Note on pronunciation:
There are no "silent letters".
Anglo-Saxon "þ" is pronounced "th" as in "thin";
Anglo-Saxon "ð" is pronounced "th" as in "this";
The vowels are pronounced as in "pat, pet, pit, pot, put";
"y" like "ee" in  "beet".
"æ" is a vowel about halfway between "pat" and "pet";
both vowels in double vowels are pronounced;
"c" before e and i is pronounced like "ch"  in "chin",
otherwise like "k"

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice (note: the old english "þ" is pronounced "th")

Read more at: https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/lord_old_english_medieval.html

Fæder ure þu þe eart on heofonum; Si þin nama gehalgod to becume þin rice gewurþe ðin willa on eorðan swa swa on heofonum. urne gedæghwamlican hlaf syle us todæg and forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfað urum gyltendum and ne gelæd þu us on costnunge ac alys us of yfele soþlice (note: the old english "þ" is pronounced "th")

Read more at: https://www.lords-prayer-words.com/lord_old_english_medieval.html

 

Hong Kong should be independent

Hong Kong

From a NYT piece by Samuel Chu, who is a U.S. citizen, a pro-democracy activist and wanted by the Hong Kong police.

I had violated Article 38 of the new law, which states: “This Law shall apply to offenses under this Law committed against the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region from outside the Region by a person who is not a permanent resident of the Region.”

This law violates all standards of international law. No country may extend its jurisdiction beyond its borders without a treaty. (A treaty is a mutual recognition of some limited jurisdiction.)

I think the Chinese Government has over-reached. It has violated the treaty which granted it jurisdiction over Hong Kong. It has violated international law with this unilateral claim to jurisdiction outside its borders.

I think the citizens of Hong Kong have every right to protest this law, to agitate against it, and to advocate democratic freedoms for Hong Kong. If the Chinese Government is unwilling to accept these rights, then Hong Kong citizens have the right to secede.

I support the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. I oppose the Chinese Government’s attempt to reduce and eliminate Hong Kong citizens’ rights and freedoms. I advocate for the independence of Hong Kong as a sovereign state.

Oh dear, it seems I may have broken the law. So under article 38, the Chinese Government will have to issue an arrest warrant for me.

Econ 101: Market Failure.

Econ 101: Market Failure

On a radio talk show this morning (June 14, 2020), I heard a guest use the phrase "The market didn't work as it should".

Where, pray tell, is it written that the market should work in any particular way? It's quite obvious to me that the market simply works as it works. There is no "should" about it. Unless you adhere to Neo-liberal economics, which has more than a whiff of elitist arrogance about it, and with its indifference to human psychology clearly implies that if only people behaved rationally, the world would unfold as it should, rewarding the right people with riches, and punishing the wrong ones with poverty.

And how does the market actually work? It aggregates human choices, is all. Left to itself, "the market" demonstrates that human desires, whims, greed, ignorance, powerlust, etc drive buying decisions far more often than rational self-interested understanding of the long-, medium-, or even short-term consequences of those decisions. When the unpleasant consequences appear, the Chicago School refers to "market failure".

"Market failure" is in fact the Chicago School's failure to account for reality.

The market never fails. It shows us what we believe is important. Important enough to spend money on, anyhow. Too often, those beliefs are mistaken. And that's a polite way to say it.

The US President: An Elected Monarch

The American President has the following powers (some with the "advice and consent" of Congress):

a) Propose legislation
b) Pardon felons
c) Issue edicts ("executive orders")
d) Conduct foreign policy and make Treaties with foreign powers
e) Veto or adopt legislation passed by either or both Houses of Congress
f) Appoint Officers of the State
g) Act as Commander in Chief of the armed forces

This makes the American President an eighteenth century King in all but name.

When the Founders of the United States composed the Constitution, they had a problem: How were the Powers of the State to be exercised, and by whom? The models of governance that they knew all had Rulers. A Ruler is both Head of State and Head of Government. Since the Founders knew that Rulers tended to morph into Tyrants, they saw their problem as that of limiting the power of the Ruler. And since the popular assemblies tended to replace law with current popular prejudice, they had to limit the power of Congress. And since Judges could make arbitrary rulings, they had to limit the powers of the Court. Hence the "three-legged stool", in which  Congress (which represented the People), the Supreme Court (which represented the Law), and the President (who represented the State) were set up to limit each other's powers.

So far, it's worked quite well. But as Mr Trump's Presidency shows, there was a weakness: The Constitution combines the roles of Head of Government and Head of State. This gives a rogue President the ability to ignore the checks on his power, especially when a political party sees him as an agent or instrument of their special agenda. No Ruler has ever been willing to be a mere instrument of some constituency, although they have been more than willing to use that constituency to acquire and consolidate power..

The irony is that while the Founders erected a Republic with an elected monarch, the hereditary monarch of the United Kingdom had already lost almost all the powers of a King. The  Declaration of Independence refers to the tyranny of the King, but it was Parliament that denied the Colonies their rights. It was Parliament, controlled by landowners and merchants, that saw the Colonies as both a source of raw materials and a market for their surplus goods. That  these factions were developing a party-controlled Parliament could also have served the Founders as warning. The Constitution makes no mention of political parties, and hence contains no mechanisms for controlling them.

The final accountability in America rests with the People, who every four years must elect their President, legislators, and other officers of government. In the long run, the People will choose freedom and responsibility, but in the short run they will often choose oppression and  licence.

Terry Fox (Repost)

Some time ago, sitting in the waiting room at the Health Center waiting for blood to be sucked from my arm for a PSA test, I saw Terry Fox's picture on the cover of an old Maclean's Magazine.

I remembered the time I saw Terry run.

I was on the way to the Sudbury airport to catch a flight to Toronto in order to attend a meeting that at the time seemed important, but whose purpose I have long since forgotten. The bypass had not yet been built, so I was driving through a light rain along the old two-lane road. Near Lively, the traffic slowed down. I saw flashing police lights ahead and thought, O damn, an accident, that'll make me miss my flight. And braked to a stop.

Then I noticed that the police car was approaching me, its red and blue lights reflected in the water lying on the pavement. Behind it I saw Terry Fox. I knew immediately who he was, even though his van was some 50 yards behind him. He shifted his weight onto his good leg, made a skipping hop, threw his prosthesis in front of him, and used it as a pivot to bring his good leg over to the front again. His good leg hit the pavement, and he raised himself again in that skipping motion to lift the prosthesis off the ground and bring it to the front again.

Step, skip, swing. Step, skip, swing. Step, skip, swing. He came towards me, step skip swing, step, skip, swing, step, skip, swing. I began to imagine how many times he must have done that since he'd left the East Coast. Thousands of times, tens of thousands of times. And wondered how his leg stump could stand the pounding. How the heel of his good foot could tolerate the repeated thump into the asphalt. How his back could take that twist and lift needed for each step.

My line of traffic began to move again, and I briefly saw Terry's face as he step-skipped past me. A couple weeks or so later we heard that he had to stop near Thunder Bay because the cancer had come back. I thought, He knew it even then, in Sudbury That was not just physical pain that marked his face, it was fear that he might not finish his run. I knew then that I had seen courage in his face.

Before I saw Terry, I'd dismissed his run as mere publicity hunting. Then I saw him. I saw that Terry knew he wouldn't make his mark as the rest of us have done, in our work, in our families, in our communities. He would never succeed at any career. He would never be proud of his children. He would not earn the respect of neighbours and friends. Because he wouldn't live long enough.

He could have waited for death, he could have worked with the doctors to delay it for as long as possible. No one would have faulted him for doing that. But he felt the need to do something worthwhile. What could he do? He had no skills, no special talents, no training or education. He had only his body and his determination. So he did the only thing he could do.

He used his body, he used himself, to draw attention, to enlist the rest of us in the struggle to understand the disease that was killing him, and would kill many others, and continues to kill.

Terry used himself up in doing this. He died doing this.

Every time we drive west through Thunder Bay, we stop at the monument beside the highway, and I remember. We stopped there again a few years ago. I sat and looked up at his face, a face that I remembered from a brief glimpse in the rain, and I noticed that people spoke softly as they read the inscription and gazed at the statue of Terry Fox.