PEB

Election Day.

Get out and vote.

West Virginia's Dunkard Creek

A major fishkill was first detected in West Virginia on September 1st and reported a week later. The problem occurred in Dunkard Creek, a beautiful stream along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border. An article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette by Don Hopey explained that a bloom of toxic algae was being blamed for killing thousands of fish, mussels, and other aquatic creatures in more than 30 miles of the creek. The type of algae, golden algae, is usually found in hotter and desert environments, so it is baffling how this algae ended up in the creek. There are two mine treatment facilities in the area near St. Leo, West Virginia. There is also a new borehole which was being used as an injection well for drilling wastewater.

Consol Energy operated the two deep mines. A subsidiary of Consol, CNX Gas Company, is also involved with these mine operations. CNX had been cited for violations at its Morris Run injection well in 2007-2009 and fined $157,500. It is possible that these mines are not the source of the polluted creek water. Several environmental groups, watershed and sportsmen's organizations, and the PA Campaign for Clean Water are calling on the EPA to stop all gas well drilling discharges into Dunkard Creek and require Marcellus shale gas drilling operations to document where they are disposing of all wastewater.

Meanwhile, many people who have enjoyed the creek are devastated by what has happened. Betty Wiley, president of the Dunkard Creek Watershed Association, said,"We've just been decimated down here. Everything is being killed almost from the headwaters of the creek to where it flows into the Monongahela River. It's such a tragedy for the creek. An ecosystem has been destroyed."

Dunkard Creek

I dont know Louisiana.

A few weeks ago I heard the story of the Justice of the Peace in Louisiana who had refused a marriage license to a couple on the grounds that they were from different races. The Justices logic revolved around the product of the union - as this couple's children would undoubtedly be bi-racial, the union/marriage was not to be contemplated.

I don't exactly know where Louisiana is, I have never been there; of course I know its in the South and I know about Mardi-Gras in the Big Easy; in any case who can forget those horrific Katrina images of hopeless desperate (mostly black) people who were left to fend for themselves after the hurricane leveled the place. But I really don't know Louisiana in that I can't imagine living in a place where a State official can openly voice those views without sanction being taken against him. I don't know Louisiana like I don't know South African apartheid. To me, its all entirely scandalous.

I was discussing this issue with a good friend who couldn't understand my reaction. According to her the only difference between down South and up North is that people in the South tend to say what people in the North think.

The purpose of ideology and the role of economics ...

The purpose of an ideology is not to mystify but to clarify,; not to mislead the lower classes but to enlighten all classes, in particular the ruling class. Economics does not "legitimate" that in fact the ruling class knows in its heart of hearts to be wrong. It succeeds in offering definitions right and wrong that exonerate the results of market activity.

Thank you Jeremy Bentham.

According to Heilbroner in the the Nature and Logic of Capitalism, utilitarianism provided the final resolution of the moral dilemas of the economic process by its assertion that whatever served the individual served society. by logical analogy, whatever created profit also served society so that a blanket moral exemption was extended over the entire range of activity that passed the profit and loss test of the marketplace.

In a curious use of language Heilbroner refers to the "de-moralization" of the economic process. This demoralization in effect extends a moral pardon that is applied to all licit of the capital accumulating sector.

The Christian Right in the US

The 'Christian Right' has been a major power broker in U.S. politics for 30 years, having played especially important roles in the 1980, 1994 and 2004 presidential elections, and in Republican administrations since the tenure of former President Ronald Reagan. It appeared at its apex after the 2004 'values vote' election, but now seems on the decline under President Barack Obama. The Christian Right has no clear leader or central movement organization to guide it, and many younger evangelicals are turning away from their parents' emphasis on a narrow set of contentious social issues. Nevertheless, it remains a powerful political force capable of resurgence.

The Christian Right.

Paradigms

According to Burrell and Morgan (1979), there are four paradigms in social, economic and financial theory. The four paradigms are "defined by very basic meta theoretical assumptions which underwrite the frame of reference, mode of theorizing and modus operandi of the social theorists who operate within them. It is a term which is intended to emphasize the commonality of perspective  which binds the work of a group of theorists together in a way that they can be usefully regarded as approaching social theory within the bounds of the same problematic.

The paradigm does … have an underlying unity in terms of its basic and often “taken for granted assumptions, which separate a group of theorists in very fundamental way from theorists located in in other paradigms. The unity of the paradigm thus derives from  reference to alternative views  of reality which lie outside its boundaries and which may not necessarily even be recognized as existing.” 

_Burrell and Morgan (1979; Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis, Gower Publishing Company Limited, pp23-24)

Business Schools as the Pedagogy of the Priveliged.

61 Business - Schumpeter

40% of Business Schools graduates found their way to Wall Street before the crisis. Its clear that the Business Schools were therefore in large order the agents of the last years catastrophic collapse and now questions are being asked around what should the schools do to change their performance?

This Economist podcast feels like I do that more history classes would help. The graduates need to learn that there have been at least 124 bank centered crisis since 1970 and that booms inevitably give way to busts, and that the business cycle continues to prey on the modern economy. In almost all the cases, crisis was preceded by sharp increases in either housing values, stock values, large capital inflows or rising public debt. Such a training would enable the graduate to identify bubbles and thereby risk when she sees it. 

As incredulous as it may appear to be a vast array of prestigious Business Schools led by Harvard all purporting to be devoted to teaching the management of risk failed to spot the most obvious financial bubble as it gathered momentum. Why?

A part of the answer lies in a sort of moral hazard whereby professors, bankers, rating agencies and financiers are intimately connected in a web of consultancies. Business schools need to make more room for people who are willing to bite the hand that feeds them. Skepticism and cynicism ought to be encouraged when high math in a model points to the abolition of such perennials as risk and uncertainty.

Fred Magdoff and Michael D. Yates-The ABCs of the Economic Crisis

“Rich, powerful, highly-educated people created the economic crisis of 2008–09, while hundreds of millions of working people suffer the consequences—lost homes, lost jobs, rising insecurity, and falling living standards. How could this happen? In The ABCs of the Economic Crisis, Fred Magdoff and Michael Yates tell the story clearly, simply, and briefly. Here’s one way to become part of the solution: think hard about everything Magdoff and Yates write in this book.”

—Robert Pollin, Professor of Economics and Co-Director, Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), University of Massachusetts, Amherst

“Fred Magdoff and Michael Yates have written a sorely needed and extremely clear guide to the economic crisis. They pull back the curtains to reveal the role and power of the Wall Street financial interests and the economic policies that brought us to this point. The book is both a quick read and a clear, easy-to-understand explanation of the economic system and how it has been rigged to benefit corporate and financial interests at the expense of working people. The glossary alone is worth the price of the book but the chapter detailing the role and influence of Wall Street in the U.S. government is invaluable.”

—Carol Lambiase, UE Education Director and International Representative

ABCs Crisis

Employment in September Declined by 263,000

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to decline in September (-263,000), and the unemployment rate (9.8 percent) continued to trend up, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. The largest job losses were in construction, manufacturing, retail trade, and government. Unemployment rates for the major worker groups--adult men (10.3 percent),adult women (7.8 percent), teenagers (25.9 percent), whites (9.0 percent),blacks (15.4 percent), and Hispanics (12.7 percent)--showed little changein September. The unemployment rate for Asians was 7.4 percent, not seasonally adjusted. The rates for all major worker groups are much higher than at the start of the recession.

The BLS.