Robert Reich gave a speech at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley entitiled 'How Unequal Can America Get Before We Snap?'. He also recently commented on problem of declining real wages for most Americans in his blog. He also correctly points out that since 2001 even wages for those with undergraduate degrees have stagnated or declined (I am not counting those with grad school.)

Dr Reich talked about ‘snap back’ versus ‘snap break’ UC Berkeley speech. ‘Snap back’ being some kind of natural self correcting mechanism to the rising economic inequality operating within legal and normal political channels. ‘Snap break’ being something more radical.

I do not see people seeing a decreased value in their paycheck and somehow blaming government - at least not initially. People seem to want to blame themselves for their own failures. This is even more the case when looking at other people who have 'failed' economically.

Conversely people see the causality of success due to the individual who achieves it.

Now if the situation becomes rather more extreme I still do not necessarily see any meaningful snap back for a few reasons.

1. There is a sense that Lyndon B. Johnson's great society failed. This is now coupled with the failure of communism. This culminated in the 1990s where People saw ‘welfare’ as a black mark. The flip side of the coin on this issue is that people ironically do not have a problem with privileging rich interest groups while they are stingy to welfare mothers. Look at farm subsidies for example or the billions given to telecoms companies to build out a high speed internet infrastructure.

2. People will blame easy targets like immigrants, minorities, criminals, a lack of patriotism or a lack of social morals before dealing with a complex economic system.

3. As I said above we love to blame the individual for their own failings.

4. If we do get to 2020 and there is no change we will be faced with the following situation. We will find that all of a sudden we can’t fund Medicare and we have massive structural deficits, there will be millions more uninsured Americans, a majority of new college graduates will find themselves in crushing debt and the majority of the middle class will find themselves in significantly depressed economic circumstances.* Under such strains I am not sure that the populace will be particularly enamored by 'moderate' solutions. Such a scenario will be a platform for demagogues, not for thinking people. I see a snap break. (Of course if we get to 2030 and no such thing has occurred I will be relieved to be proven wrong.) I.e. if it gets bad enough for people to finally notice the problem we will have problems that challenge our political system as a whole.

*The paradox of such a situation is that real GDP per capita in the USA will probably be at least 25% more than what it is currently. Economic growth as a whole will not necessarily be in peril - its benefits will just be allocated to a very few.

Iran and its Credibility

Iran refuses to budge on nuclear plan. 'The European Union's foreign policy chief said Friday he was "disappointed" by the latest talks with Iran over the nation's nuclear program, a failure that could result in more sanctions for the Middle Eastern nation.' (CNN)

It is sheer madness to expect Iran to climb down on the nuclear issue. They wont. It goes to the core of their national self esteem - their credibility. It is why countries hang on in crazy situations. It is why the US holds on now in Iraq and why it held on so long in Vietnam and the USSR held on so long in Afghanistan.

Déjà vu - The madness of it all

There is no obvious rational for the placing of sanctions on Iran. Hell will freeze over before they work. This reminds me of the madness of invading Iraq in 2003. What did Saddam have to do with events of 9/11? Why was suddenly more of a threat that a few years earlier. Would not the consequences of invasion be awful for everyone involved?

Same points here:

Faulty Rational:

If the ostensible reason for sanctions is to prevent or inhibit the development of nuclear technology it will not work.

Negative Consequences:

Imposing sanctions on Iran will just make them even more intransigent and even more determined to develop nuclear technology.

Perhaps we should engage Iran in meaningful dialog? Yes clearly they are adversaries as of right now. But we did engage the USSR during the cold war. Yes, it does seem quite obvious that they are pursuing nuclear weapons - however we need to consider what is realistic in that regard.

Why the hell does anyone bother with sanctions on Iran?

I do not understand why anyone is advocating placing sanctions on Iran. The regime is hell bent on ignoring them. The population by large margins supports the use of nuclear technology. Sanctions have the effect of bolstering the popularity of the regime. Is this a game as a pretext to later bomb Iran? By using sanctions when they are quite clearly impotent one devalues their importance. It also makes the average Iranian suffer enormously. So why is it morally acceptable to impose sanctions?

Private Consciousness Raising



We have all have heard of those times in the late 70s and early 80s when a bunch of women would discuss and discuss and somehow from it all they would alter their perceptions, their consciousness and their sensibilities. But what if it could be done be done alone – by consideration alone. And then one communicates that social change to others. Now x is wrong, not right. Y is ambiguous and no longer certain. And that arcane subject other yonder is of paramount importance. But no-one has heard of the discussion leading to such change. The new purveyor of such new ideas is utterly alone. Such a situation opens itself to ridicule. And such pain…