Curt Doolittle

Source: Original Site Post

  • What Policies Have Helped The U.s. Come Out Of Recession While Europe Has Failed To Do So?

    In simplest terms, none.  No policies made the difference. The reason the US began (and has now stopped) coming out of recession, and europe has continued to decline, is that in europe, the protestant germanic states are unwilling to subsidize the catholic mediterranean states.  In the USA, this same  anti-subsidy conflict is conducted along racial and urban rather than national lines. The difference is, that in the USA, we are powerless to stop that subsidy because the monetary and fiscal power is centralized, and the government can inflate away debt across all people, whereas in europe the EU cannot inflate debt away because the monetary (central) and fiscal power (local) is separated.  However, there is very little difference in practice. In the States we are a polarized society, and in Europe they are a polarized society.  So, the difference in the duration of the recessions is structural, not one of policy.  This is why the left economists favor centralization and the right economists favor breakup of the eurozone by german exit: its a moral conflict.

    https://www.quora.com/What-policies-have-helped-the-U-S-come-out-of-recession-while-Europe-has-failed-to-do-so

  • How Corrupt Is The U.s. Government?

    Government by it’s nature, because it is a monopoly, and concentrates capital, draws corruption.  In the USA, corruption tends to be systemic rather than individual. Meaning that the system encourages politicians to work for special interests, and government workers to collect extraordinary benefits – on avearage have retirement benefits equivalent to something like 750K in savings, compared to 50K for the average citizen — plus they cannot be fired and unlike the rest of us are insulated from market pressures.  Monetary corruption, meaning, the privatization of public funds or goods, in exchange for favors, is actually amazingly rare in the USA.  Almost all of it is systemic.

    Americans are somewhat unique in their belief that it is possible to construct virtuous politicians and insert them into a system that encourages systemic corruption. We attempt to change the human to fit the system, rather than change the system to fit human nature.

    https://www.quora.com/How-corrupt-is-the-U-S-Government

  • Do Machiavellian Philosophies Carry Over Into The Modern World?

    You’d need to define what you mean by Machiavellian tactics.  Machiavelli was the first political scientist after Aristotle, and arguably the father of politics as a scientific endeavor.  He entreated rulers to move away from ancient traditions, religious or abstract moral principles, to material, logical, evidence based, principles necessary for the state to persist in the interests of its citizens. At the time of his writing, trade was moving north, and the principalities were being both threatened externally and undermined from within. 

    In this sense, almost all political action in the contemporary world is Machiavellian.

    So if you mean some other sense, then state it, and I’ll try to answer.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-Machiavellian-philosophies-carry-over-into-the-modern-world

  • How Corrupt Is The U.s. Government?

    Government by it’s nature, because it is a monopoly, and concentrates capital, draws corruption.  In the USA, corruption tends to be systemic rather than individual. Meaning that the system encourages politicians to work for special interests, and government workers to collect extraordinary benefits – on avearage have retirement benefits equivalent to something like 750K in savings, compared to 50K for the average citizen — plus they cannot be fired and unlike the rest of us are insulated from market pressures.  Monetary corruption, meaning, the privatization of public funds or goods, in exchange for favors, is actually amazingly rare in the USA.  Almost all of it is systemic.

    Americans are somewhat unique in their belief that it is possible to construct virtuous politicians and insert them into a system that encourages systemic corruption. We attempt to change the human to fit the system, rather than change the system to fit human nature.

    https://www.quora.com/How-corrupt-is-the-U-S-Government

  • Do Machiavellian Philosophies Carry Over Into The Modern World?

    You’d need to define what you mean by Machiavellian tactics.  Machiavelli was the first political scientist after Aristotle, and arguably the father of politics as a scientific endeavor.  He entreated rulers to move away from ancient traditions, religious or abstract moral principles, to material, logical, evidence based, principles necessary for the state to persist in the interests of its citizens. At the time of his writing, trade was moving north, and the principalities were being both threatened externally and undermined from within. 

    In this sense, almost all political action in the contemporary world is Machiavellian.

    So if you mean some other sense, then state it, and I’ll try to answer.

    https://www.quora.com/Do-Machiavellian-philosophies-carry-over-into-the-modern-world

  • Is Democracy A Viable System For Everyone?

    Democracy is, at best, a means of peacefully transferring power. If you mean, can representative democracy (a republic) or even a direct democracy (versus an economic democracy), serve the interests of everyone, the answer is apparently “no” for the following reasons.
    a) Majority rule is a means by which a group with similar moral codes and material interests can set PRIORITIES for the use of scarce resources.  It is not possible to use majority rule for groups with competing moral codes and competing material interests to resolve conflicts over GOALS.  Democracy is a means of obtaining majority rule.
    b) the lower, working and lower middle classes are and will always be, the largest pool of potential voters.  Therefore elites with a variety of interests will simply compete for their votes.
    c) the protestant west was unique in that the church managed to break familial bonds by the long term prohibition of intermarriage, and by granting women property rights. Combined with germanic individualism, and the common law, this made possible the fairly low level of corruption in the west, that is endemic elsewhere.  It also gave rise the the universalist ethic, which is contrary to the natural familial and tribal ethic. This is a very long topic on it’s own, but basically the west is fairly unique.  China and India cannot solve the problem of corruption for example from different ends of the spectrum. India remains familial and china authoritarian.
    d) We have fairly good data now, that moral codes vary considerably, and that they are slanted toward the reproductive strategies of the two genders.  Therefore those things that serve one moral code often violate another.  Those things that violate some moral codes (famlilialism) are necessary for democracy to function.
    e) it appears that the philosophers were right, and that a population that can vote itself payments from others will create a fragile economy.  This is a particular weakness of the western model versus say the Singaporean and Galveston models, whereby individual accountability is maintained.
    f) there are dominant cognitive biases on the left and right. the left is victim of the false consensus bias, and the right overestimates threats and risks, and the libertarians overestimate human beings.  These cognitive problems are impossible to resolve by majority rule.

    I have to rush so hopefully this brief outline will illustrate the problem.

    https://www.quora.com/Is-Democracy-a-viable-system-for-everyone

  • What Examples Are There Of Chaotic And Inexorable Processes Through The Free Market, Technology And The Global Society?

    I will answer this question if you will provide examples of “blind additions” and “these decisions”  and why our attempts at controlling them would be ‘better’. Without those bits of information it is very hard to deduce what it is that you’re asking.

    https://www.quora.com/What-examples-are-there-of-chaotic-and-inexorable-processes-through-the-free-market-technology-and-the-global-society

  • The Two Sources Of Belonging

    We all want to belong to a group. Some of us less or more than others. But few of us want to be ostracized from it. We can obtain that sense of belonging through empathy if we are similar, and duty if we are not. Empathy through shared interpretation. Duty through shared action in pursuit of mutually beneficial ends. Women vary less. They sense more. At least, on average, they tend to belong through empathy. Men vary more. They sense less. They are action rather than perception oriented. Dominance is the corollary of empathy. We must learn to use our dominance against the physical world, and in defense of life and property, and not as a means of self expression or control of others. Misused empathy is just as dangerous as misused dominance. The damage we have done to the world by our supposedly charitable activities is as great as the damage we have done by war. We have lost the ancient understanding of our dual natures. To cohabitate and to cooperate politically we must master both empathy and dominance in relation to how we possess them. And in doing so create belonging by both empathy and duty.

  • What Are The Most In-depth Geopolitical Intelligence Websites?

    The best site, hands down, is STRATFOR. It’s worth the subscription.
    Between STRATFOR, Foreign Policy and the Economist, you’ll get the in-depth understanding.  To go for more granularity you have to pretty much subscribe to the think tanks in each country.  That actually who does most of the talking internationally. Especially between the USA and Asia.

    https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-in-depth-geopolitical-intelligence-websites

  • Riffing On Scott Sumner: German Membership In The Euro Is Preventing The Advancement Of The Poorer Countries

    The eurozone excludes Norway, Iceland, Sweden, Denmark, Britain and Switzerland. …Germany is one of the few northern countries that’s actually in the eurozone… And it seems to me that here you have a massive adverse selection problem. Because of Abraham Lincoln, affluent states like Massachusetts can’t suddenly decide they want no part of our fiscal union, and would rather just reap the benefits of our large single market. But Switzerland, Norway can and did make that choice. Britain almost certainly would, and both Sweden and Denmark might as well. In contrast, Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia would like nothing more than to join such a union. And all the likely future expansion of the EU is into areas further east, and much poorer than even Greece and Portugal. Places like Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine (a country nearly the size of France) Belarus, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Moldova (the saddest place on Earth—even the name is depressing.) And did I mention Turkey? Indeed why not Russia at some distant point in the future? People often compare Europe to the US. That’s wrong; the eurozone is sort of like the US, although a bit poorer. But Europe as a whole is far poorer than the US, far more corrupt, backward, inefficient, whatever other pejoratives you want to apply. Even America at its worst (say the treatment of ethnic minorities) isn’t as bad as the treatment of gypsies in Eastern Europe. My point was not to predict the future, but rather to provide a warning. Once you start down that road [to creating a united states of europe], there will be constant pressure to go further. Quite likely at some point the northern European taxpayers will rebel, and we won’t end up with a United States of Europe. The policy will collapse. The eurozone really only has two options; a more expansionary monetary policy or a breakup. There’s no point in looking for alternative solutions.

    The argument I consistently make, is that of course Germanic Protestant northern tax payers will rebel. And likewise, so will germanic northern european americans rebel. Which is what they’re doing today. We call it polarization. Germany, Austria and the Netherlands, should leave the eurozone and germany should reissue the Mark. (Belgium is already divided between french and german cultures, and they despise each other as much as the french and english canadians do.) The success of the euro then, will be as a vehicle for poor countries to unite, and possibly (I say with uncharacteristic hope) focus on group improvement, rather than transfers from the north to the south. In fact, the most important and valuable strategy that the United States could adopt for the world today, is to dismantle the empire both domestically and internationally. The anglo people have succeeded in spreading consumer capitalism. We’ve modernized the planet. But it’s one thing to invent and evangelize a technology. It’s another to try to control it. Europe doesn’t need one federation. It needs two or three. Because germanic, latin, and byzantine europe are different cultures if not different civilizations. They always have been. They always will be. And multiculturalism is impossible.