Sambal

If every single Arab state suddenly got democracy, should we expect their foreign policy towards Israel to change?

No.

Perhaps the state funding of terrorist groups would cease, but they could still be funded privately. Perhaps active recruitment of military and police officers to train terrorists would have to go underground. Perhaps the rhetoric would be moderated somewhat (as it has been in Egypt and Jordan which are “moderate” if not democratic.)

But anti-Israelism is a popular opinion in the Arab world. How can we expect a popular elected government to do other than reflect the attitudes of their population?

Does this mean that we shouldn’t support efforts to democratize these states? No. Democracy for the Arab states is not a means to peace in the Middle East; it is a worthy end in itself. We expect wealth, education, and prosperity to follow on the heels of democracy. Years from now, in a generation or six, perhaps peace will come.

Much concern has been aired in the media about bloodthirsty attitudes of Americans. Apparently, we want our soldiers’ lives to be preserved, our enemies killed, and we don’t care very much about foreign civilian casualties.

Now, I don’t see how this is at all unexpected. The United States is a nation, much like any other. (Americans like me are likely to believe that it’s better than most.) A nation is a group; and when a group is threatened, it responds in a predictable way.

We are not above hating our enemies. We are not above disregarding the lives of the innocent. We know how to hate, and we know how to make war. And in the recent history of the world, we have made war better than anyone else on earth. Perhaps it’s because World War II was so long ago; and perhaps it’s because Korea, Vietnam, and the first Gulf War were small and far away, but everyone has forgotten this fact. The hand-wringers among us have forgotten; the Europeans, our erstwhile allies, have forgotten; and most of all, our enemies have forgotten this one simple fact:

The last time an enemy started a war with an attack on the soil of the United States, we ended that war by detonating two nuclear devices on the soil of that enemy.

Addendum:

I am not trying to take a position in the debate over whether the U.S. was right to use atomic weapons in Japan. I merely point out that the U.S. has a history of using brutal violence gainst its enemies with the full approval of the U.S. public.

(The use of atomic weapons was wildly popular in 1945. Even today, most Americans appear to approve of the decision — 1999 Gallup poll: Americans over 50 approve, under 30 disapprove; results not available at press time).

A rather long review and criticism of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel by Garrett Hardin. Hardin criticizes Diamond’s biology, and argues that the burden of proof is on Diamond to explain why genetic difference is not responsible for differences in human outcomes.

An interesting point is that, to the extent IQ scores are a fair measure of “civilizedness”, it’s not surprising that Asians — especially people of Chinese background — score higher than European whites. China has been civilized for a lot longer than Europe has.

Greenspan’s irrational exuberance speech is making me think more about monetary policy, in particular with respect to inflation and deflation.

Inflation and deflation affect stored and borrowed money: they affect savers/lenders and borrowers. Inflation (especially unforseen inflation) helps borrowers at the expense of savers, allowing the borrower to repay the debt with money that’s worth less. Deflation has the opposite effect: it makes the borrower repay the debt with money that’s worth more.

After Japan’s stock market and real estate market crashed, Japan entered a period of zero money supply growth or even deflation. The Bank of Japan’s published interest rate is still hovering around zero.

Why won’t the same thing happen in the U.S.? The stock market is thinking about crashing now. Real estate will be next, if the stock market does collapse to pre-1990 levels: it’ll take longer because a margin call is immediate and a foreclosure takes months.

Although I’ve thought for a long time that deflation would then come to the U.S., as it did in the early years of the Great Depression (1930:-2.4%, 1931:-9.4%, 1932:-10.4% source). But now I think deflation is less likely — at least as a deliberate act of monetary policy.

The United States is still a borrower of foreign capital, and it would be against the U.S.’s interests as a borrower to allow deflation of the U.S. dollar as long as foreign lenders are willing to lend us money in dollar-denominated notes. I believe Japan is a net lender of capital, so deflation is less serious there.

Expect to see this played out as rich vs. poor, whether inflation or deflation happens — inflation “steals the savings of the poor”, while deflation “breaks the back of the indebted poor”.

It’s clear: Israel should never have become a state in the first place.

Without statehood, there would be nobody to complain against in the U.N. We see the reaction of the international community when people without a state violate international law (combatants out of uniform, combatants wearing the enemy uniform, deliberate targeting of non-combatants): there’s no reaction. The terrorists, Palestinian and otherwise, who commit these violations of international law, these war crimes, in the occupied territories and Israel, are not censured or blamed by the international community.

If Israel had never been founded — if the state of Israel had not been declared — if the Jewish people who live there were struggling to maintain their very existence against a more numerous and better-armed and better-funded foe just as they are today, but without the trappings of statehood — then the Europeans and the liberals and the news media would be much more sympathetic, right?

Right?

After all, they’re not acting on any anti-Jewish bias. Are they?

Here’s an article by Arianna Huffington about financial scandals. Huffington, you will recall, is the former wife of multimillionaire Michael Huffington, former candidate for the Senate in California.

Among the gems of self-contradiction in this piece are:

– raillery against “corporations”, while the whole piece is copyright to “Christabella, Inc.”

– comparison of the distinctions between “right and left or black and white” to the distinction between an asset and a liability

Okay, Arianna, here’s a quick refresher course: Money is not real. Accounting is not real. Accounting models of financial systems are the best way we have of understanding those systems, but they’re still not real.

Oh yes, and the IRS and SEC use different rules, so it’s perfectly reasonable for a clever person to be able to find something which is an asset in one set of books and a liability in the other. (Case in point: future employee stock option payments.) It may well be dishonest, but I’m sure it’s technically legal — and the law is technical.

I don’t use accounting tricks like that in my small business because I can’t be bothered to find the accountant who’ll teach me how to do them — and I probably couldn’t afford to pay that accountant, anyway. How about you, Arianna — can you say you honestly stand behind everything that’s on the books of Christabella, Inc.? Do you even know?

Israel’s foreign ministry has a propaganda page with some flash presentations. The propaganda is viscerally unconvincing, and appeals to the viewer at the level of reason. Don’t the Israelis get it? Propaganda is supposed to convince irrationally.

On the other hand, it’s not like the base message — that Palestinian “militants” intentionally murder Jewish children and other non-combatants — gets through. Why not try this strange appeal-to-reason propaganda, on the off chance it will?

Tom Tomorrow has a big “I told you so” section at the end of a recent web log entry. Yes, Virginia, there really was a bubble.

In coming months and years we should expect to hear:

– that we have not yet seen the full productivity improvements to be expected from the use of PC’s in business

– that prosperity is “just around the corner”

– that America’s economy is fundamentally sound

– that we all should have known this was going to happen, all along

Well, we did! Alan Greenspan said “irrational exuberance” in 1996. Turns out it was true: irrational exuberance caused undue escalation of asset values. It will likely take the stock market 20 years to recover a DJIA at its over-10,000 level. The collapse should stop with the DJIA in the 3,000-5,000 level, but it may fall as far as 1,000.

So what? I heard on the radio that 65% of the households in Alberta have at least one member who regularly uses the Internet. Merely 10 years ago, virtually nobody was aware of the Internet. Here’s how it works: Market bubbles are how we finance infrastructure development.