References I used today in writing my summaries and beyond:
The Reckoning Series of articles in the New York Times on what went wrong and why. This explanation may be more detailed than some of you want. If so, look to my Level 2: Summaries of Sources I Consulted, and see if those will satisfy your need to know more in your scheduling of reality.
Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism. By Ha-Joon Chang. Published by Bloomsbury Press, 2008. ISBN: 10 1-59691-399-1
I had a hard time putting this book down. Respected economists, including a Nobel Laureate, speak of it as "provocative," and suggest that we need to look at such different perspectives of globilization before we can make wise decisions about the best way to support and develop open societies in the real world we live in.
Remember that I'm not an economics expert, but that I, like all the rest of us, will be making major decisions about our economic pathways when I vote for our next president. Part of my accountability to all of us is to make the best effort I can to understand our choices, at least to the point of recognizing that they exist. Noam Chomsky says of this volume of Bad Samaritans that it is "[l]ucid, deeply informed, and enlivened with striking illustrations." I agree. Neither I nor Noam Chomsky are conservatives. But in today's financial meltdown, our worlds are melting together. I hope you'll take the time to read at least my summaries and/or excerpts, whatever I have the time for. My bet is that no single perspective has all the answers. We'll need to try to learn from them all. Sometimes, in reading the opposition's argument, you understand your own arguments, or other's arguments better. Susan and I can't tell you which perspective or proposed solution is right. No one can. But it helps if you see the many sides. Easier to be creative that way. Think outside the box. jeanne
I.O.U.S.A.. One Nation. Under Stress in Debt. By Addison Wiggin and Kate Incontrera. John Wiley & Sons.2008. ISBN: 978-0=470-22277-5
I had trouble putting this one down, too. Interviews with economists from many perspectives, including Warren Buffett, Ron Paul, and Laffer. This book is readable and goes directly to how we are going to manage capital investment, healthy growth and development, and debt. But it's a book, and how much "discretionary time" are we going to have for reading before we have to vote on a president whose ideas on how to do this will lead us for the next four years?
Keating 5 ring a bell?
McCain's past collides with the present Wall Street debacle. By Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times, September 25, 2008. I included this article because it fits the substantive issue of how Mr. McCain acted in a previous very expensive financial crisis. To the extent that his past actions are indicative of his belief about financial crises should be handled, the article is relevant to this issue. jeanne
The Need to Talk About What's Happening
Talking Politics in the Office, By Lisa Belkin, New York Times, October 2, 2008, at p. E2.
Lisa Belkin's article offers in the first paragraph some statistics to validate the changing norms. Habermas must be as happy as I am that patterns of discourse are beginning to reflect something more substantive than the weather and who's dating or not dating whom. But would you believe that I came across this article this morning in the Thursday Styles Section? This is way more than styles, folks. If we don't start talking seriously about this stuff, I'm tempted to say we're going to deserve what the "criminals" on Wall Street are doing to us.
Yeah, several commentators are referring to the Wall Street debacle as "criminal." And with good reason. In the law, we consider that being negligent (Not knowing what's really going on in your markets is negligence, when that's your job.) without consideration for the harm it can do others to whom you have a duty (like the fiduciary duty to protect the financial interests of another) is a crime.
If the guys whose job it was to protect and advise us financially misread the markets, doesn't that suggest that reading the markets isn't as simple as it's cracked up to be? Does that excuse them from asserting with confidence and arrogance that "they know"? - consider the arrogance of knowledge here - and what does that suggest for the tremendous recent push to take social security private? meaning that we could have lost our whole investment if we bet wrong or were advised by a "financial specialist" who bet wrong. What does this tell us about where risk belongs, and about who should be allowed to bet on our futures.
No, I don't have the answers. Would that I did. But, wow, do I have lots of questions. Hope you do, too. Especially, now that it's OK to talk about it all. Oh, and please don't forget about the humility of knowledge. Respect the Other. No one really knows who's going to have the next big brainstorm, as Einstein did about relativity. Einstein flunked math when he was in school. You can't necessarily tell who's brainstorm will pay off. jeanne
A Justice Site
jeannecurran@habermas.org
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