Prosperity or poverty as a result of culture

I am writing this in response to some recent posts I’ve seen online that make statements to the effect of, “Within 30 years, people of color will be the majority in the United States, so if the economy is going to succeed, then people of color must succeed.”  Okay.  Since this debate has been going on since the mid-1960’s and we have no resolution yet, maybe it’s time to dissect the issues and see why.

I will start with the concept of “culture”.  For practical purposes, people of different races are genetically indistinguishable.  We’re all the same beneath the skin.  What most often separates people of different races is culture.  And paradoxically, what joins people of different races is often culture.  Culture is the entire complex of beliefs, values, and behavior that an individual’s world view derive from, and that guide the actions of that individual.  We often equate race and culture.  It’s easy, it’s obvious, and like most things easy and obvious, at best it’s only partially right.

What we commonly refer to as “culture” is actually what I refer to as “inherited culture”.  It’s the culture we learn from our parents, siblings, family, and very often, community during our formative years.  This inherited culture is the framework within which we place ourselves as a means of individual identity in the larger world.

This inherited culture always includes a second, embedded culture.  The inherited culture sets the norms for patterns of speech, family and community structures, means and methods of survival tasks (what we call today “getting a job”), entertainment and community bonding, traditions and cultural memory.  The second, economic, culture is embedded within this inherited culture, but it is separate from, and independent of, the characteristics of our inherited culture.

We can choose which economic culture we will identify with, and that choice is not dependent upon changing or retaining our inherited culture.  There are many inherited cultures, and each one enriches the overall society through its unique contributions.  But there really are only two economic cultures: the economic culture of prosperity, and the economic culture of poverty.

There are examples of individuals from every single inherited culture being a member of either the economic culture of prosperity, or that of poverty.  The genius of certain inherited cultures is that their core coding includes functionality to adopt the culture of prosperity is, wherever they may reside.  So members of Culture X will be more likely to adopt the local culture of prosperity, whether they reside in Jamaica, Cambodia, or Finland, while retaining their inherited cultural identity.  And members of Culture Y will be less adaptable in decoupling their inherited culture from their economic culture, so they will have less individual control over their economic result.

The most prominent and readily quantifiable Culture X’s (decouple inherited culture from economic culture, adapt the local economic culture of success) are the Asian, Hindu, and Jewish cultures.  This is not because their inherited cultures have magic prosperity coding, or because of some worldwide cabal.  Rather, it’s because those inherited cultures include instructions that encourage and enable their members to adapt the local economic culture of prosperity.

They separate their identity from their prosperity.

Any inherited culture that ties and binds its members to economic behaviors that are embedded in the inherited culture is placing a crippling burden on every child born into that culture.  Every individual should be free to select the economic culture of prosperity, regardless of that individual’s inherited culture.  Yet that is absolutely not the case today in America, and that worries me more than just about anything else.  Cultural and community pressure to remain bound to an embedded culture of poverty (of which there are numerous examples) is a major contributing factor to the persistence of poverty in America.

The government can’t fix that.  In fact, the government is making it worse.  The government encourages kids who are unsuited to academics to go to college.  From college, these unsuited students will get an undistinguished liberal arts degree, graduate with a mountain of debt, into a job market that offers few or no job prospects.  The government does this despite the fact that most high school graduates should be going into vocational programs and learning a useful skill.

To sum this up, if a person desires prosperity, they are much more likely to achieve that goal if they adopt the local economic culture of prosperity.  The most successful inherited cultures, worldwide, are those that separate inherited from economic culture, and encourage their children to adopt the local patterns of prosperity.  Finally, any inherited culture that stubbornly insists that a child’s inherited culture must determine the young adult’s economic culture only limits the options and opportunities of their children.

G’day all, and may God continue to bless America.

Israel and the American Progressive

All 5th Gen American Progressives don’t despise Israel, but in concert with a large percentage of their Old World social democratic soul mates, there are many who do.

This comes out as cleverly crafted anti-Israel sentiments, though no amount of rouge and lipstick can conceal the element of underlying anti-Jewish foundation to all this.

But it’s become clear to me that there’s more to this anti-Israel sentiment than just traditional Old World anti-Jewish sentiment imported to the New World via the school of social democratic philosophy.

Now I think I understand what that is.  Social democracy, and 5th Gen American Progressivism are founded upon the core belief that society is inherently unjust, the the strong benefit at a cost to the weak, and that government must exist to counterbalance this inherent injustice.

Now, put this in terms of Israel’s situation in the MidEast.  Israel has no advantage of natural resources, or location, or anything else to explain why the median household income in Israel is 3X to 10X higher than in any of their neighbors.

So the social democrats and the 5G Progressives arrive at the logical conclusion that there must be an injustice taking place, which supports their world view and preferred solution: government intervention to remedy inherent injustice.  This school of political philosophy does not want equal opportunity, these social democrats and 5G Progressives demand equal outcomes.

This leads the social democrats and 5G Progressives to violate every principle they stand for, to grasp at straws in condemnation of Israel. 

They demand a liberal Western democracy, Israel is a liberal Western democracy, in rankings far ahead of any neighboring state, equal to others, and far ahead of any liberal Western democracy that has even tried to survive while under rocket attack.

These social democrats and 5G Progressives demand an open and free press, Israel is the only nation in the entire area that has an open and free press.

These social democrats and 5G Progressives demand equal rights and protections for LGBT, including open service in the military.  Israel is the only nation in the entire area that has equal rights and protections for LGBT, including open service in the military.

These social democrats and 5G Progressives demand open and democratic elections with a peaceful transition between governments chosen by the people.  Israel is the only nation in the entire area that has open and democratic elections with a peaceful transition between governments chosen by the people.

These social democrats and 5G Progressives demand universal suffrage. Israel is the only nation in the entire area that has universal suffrage.

These social democrats and 5G Progressives demand universal, affordable, and effective healthcare. Israel is the only nation in the entire area that has universal, affordable, and effective healthcare.

These social democrats and 5G Progressives deny that a liberal Western democracy has an inherent right of self defense, and insist that this be a suicide pact.

Conclusion:  Place a demand for equal outcomes (rather than equal opportunities) atop the ages-old Old World anti-Jewish sentiment, we have the situation that exists today.  That situation is an irrational, unthinking, unseeing, visceral hatred of one nation  – - – Israel – - – which embodies liberal values in the face of constant physical threat.

I would say that it’s a shame that the social democrats and 5G Progressives will never achieve their political objectives until they cast out these bigots, but it isn’t, really.  It’s the nature of social democracy and 5G Progressivism.  Both rely on the misery of the proletariat for their entire appeal, and any school of political philosophy that is so based is bound to ultimate failure.  But in the realm of ages-old anti-Jewish sentiment, the naïve 5G American Progressive is carrying the Old World social democrat’s baggage.  So they are doubly damned: bad philosophy, and bad relatives.  No wonder American Progressives are so frustrated and angry today.

Gnight all, and may God continue to bless America!

Osama bin Laden is dead

And he didn’t die in his sleep.  My undying gratitude and respect for the special forces who executed this mission, all those who supported them with a myriad of assistance, those who planned the operation, and the Command-in-Chief, President Obama, for authorizing the mission at no small risk to himself (success has a thousand parents, failure is an orphan).

I understand the jubilation, the relief, the sense of closure and warmth of being an American.  I wish I weren’t seeing video of Americans dancing jubilantly in NYC and DC.  I know it’s asking the superhuman, but I know inside the hearts of every American, given the few moments to reflect, a candlelight vigil would be so much more appropriate.

G’nite all, and may God, as he has on this day, continue to bless America!

Why Keynesian deficit spending will fail

In a previous post, I established that it is demand that creates jobs and I explained the mechanism and mathematics behind that fact.  In another post, just recently, I showed that Keynesian deficit spending is powerless to help the current dysfunction of the American economy, and the wider world economy, as well.  Now it’s time to explain why a Keynesian “spend our way out of this” approach is not only hopeless for America today, it is actually the equivalent of putting America on an arsenic diet … eat all you want.

The premise behind federal government deficit spending to lessen the effect and quicken the recovery from a recession is precisely to create demand, and instill confidence.  Both are required for a recovery, otherwise a jobless recovery, with hording by those individuals and corporations who are able, is the result.  Sound familiar?  I’d love to retroactively claim foresight, but of course my ability to see the future is only slightly better than the formally trained economists.  Where the formally trained economists fail spectacularly, in ways I can only envy, is to take all the wrong lessons from history.

Demand creates jobs, and confidence results in spending.  Why isn’t it working?  Two problems, two reasons.

First, the problem of “lack of confidence in the United States”.  The world has never seen deficit spending like the United States is doing right now.  Perhaps no other nation could.  Since much, most, or all international commerce is conducted in US Dollars, other nations are impelled to maintain discipline, otherwise their currency will shrivel in relationship to the reserve currency.  We in the United States, on the other hand, can and are creating as many US Dollars as we need to sustain our unsustainable lifestyle.  This sends chills down the spines of much of the rest of the world, but the markets are taking care of this.

As the United States spends in deficit, and worse yet prints rather than borrows the money, the world markets are solving the problem for us.  They are making these US Dollars worth less with ever passing day.  The more we spend in deficit, the less each dollar is worth.  And the less confidence that foreigners, and our own reasonably successful citizens, have in the federal government.

Everyone who is able is moving away from the US Dollar, either to more stable currencies, or to gold (or other commodities).  In time, if the federal government doesn’t balance the budget and reduce the debt, the only people who will accept US Dollars will be poor Americans, because as dependents of the government, they will have no choice.

Second, there is the issue of “creating demand and jobless recoveries”.  Frankly, I don’t know the cardinal order of ‘lack of confidence’ and ‘lack of jobs’, I wouldn’t argue with anyone who put either first.  But lack of growth in well paying jobs is certainly a crippling problem and a major factor in the inevitable failure of Keynesian deficit spending.

Federal government deficit spending is intended to stimulate demand, thereby creating jobs.  The problem is, of course, that demand in the United States creates jobs in China.  So the federal government’s deficit spending is simply pouring an increasingly diluted (inflated) transfusion of American currency into an economy that is bleeding out on the other end.  At least during the Great Depression, there was a glimmer of a hope that increased demand from government deficit spending would reinvigorate the mines and factories and farms of America.  Today, that line of reasoning is simply retrospective and reactionary.

So in summing up, there you have it.  Federal government deficit spending decreases confidence in the currency and in the Nation.  As confidence crumbles, each new dollar is worth less.  And it doesn’t create demand for the labors of the citizens whose children will stagger under the debt load they will receive in bequest.

Starting this year, 2011, the rest of the world doesn’t care a snap whether we have a “social contract”, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, welfare transfer payments, or any other government largess for the citizens. The rest of the world knows two things.  We have the 101st Airborne Division, and about 1500(?) thermonuclear weapons that we can deliver to any spot on Earth in 20 minutes.  The value of a currency is based on the level of confidence that the holder has that the issuer can meet their commitments.  You now know what the guarantor of that promise is.

G’nite, all, and may God continue to bless America!