Wonderful Matters

The latest from the presidential campaign front is the appearance of both Barack Obama and John McCain at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church. Apparently it was an event of such magnitude it got splashed all over the front of the Los Angeles Times: Each candidate made his case separately from the other, and I believe Rick Warren took turns asking each a number of questions. From the little that I read and heard, the candidates assumed their most pious countenance--obviously one which would appeal to evangelical and modestly conservative sensibilities--and spewed the typical vetted answers. Is it possible that this is all perfectly reasonable behavior by perfectly well-meaning Christian folk? To listen thoughtfully to responses from those seeking the highest political office in the land? To think deeply about who will do the best job leading the country? Isn't this really a most noble endeavor? Aren't we supposed to have a say in who has some measure of authority in critically i...

We've been out and about since I've had some time off, and at one hotel stop I picked up a Wall Street Journal . I've never really read it before, but as I skimmed through this issue--this past Monday the 4th's, by the way--I was amazed at the breadth of material about the highest, greatest, deepest, and--as such, most repulsive value extraction there is. Certainly a publication that goes into great detail about the goings-ons of the commercial and financial realm can't help but quite frequently elaborate on the most upscale human sacrifice practices of the day. Just wanted to briefly mention a couple of articles in the mix there, both in the "Money & Investing" section. First there on the front was a story about how many hedge funds are taking a hit. Nothing really in it about how or why except that they simply guessed wrong about a number of things, like, for instance, the "unforeseen" jump in oil prices that hit some overseas stock markets...

Whoops, I blew it in my last blog post. This morning I blogged on how everything everyone does is rational, everything. There is nothing that is irrational, not a single thing. Then I made a mistake that belied my claim, and I wanted to clear it up here. First, read that post, just below this one, and see if you can spot the error in my logic. Oh, it is a perfectly rational error, and I'll explain that momentarily. Halfway through that post I cited one of those questions asked through the ages. That question was: What is it that is reasonable, and how does one know that? If my premise is true that everything is rational--which I firmly believe that it is true and any discussion about it would certainly bear that out--then guess what? Everything is reasonable, so the question "What is reasonable?" implies that something is unreasonable, a meaningless proposition given the premise. The question should be "What is it that is righteous ?" In the context of the blog ...

A relatively new book by MIT professor Dan Ariely has caught my fancy. It is another of those "Freakanomics" type economics exposes where everything about why people decide to do what they do is thoroughly explained in an easy-to-read way. This particular treatment is called Predictably Irrational , and with it Ariely tries to share how so many things we do are irrational and by gosh why on earth would we do such irrational things? The answer is that we don't . Nothing we do is irrational. Not a single thing. In fact Ariely, when trying to say "Here's an irrational thing look how irrational!" actually shows how perfectly and, yes, predictably rational every single thing any given individual does. The real question is this: Is any particular decision any given individual makes righteous? The reason no one ever asks that question is because that would require some kind of moral judgment, and that, as we all know, is absolutely prohibited. That would mean ...

Peeked at The Newshour tonight on PBS and saw Judy Woodruff interview Fannie Mae CEO Daniel Mudd. She asked some pressing questions to a bubbly financial exec who seemed to be going out of his way to distance himself from his company's abysmal performance. Of course none of Woodruff's questions were of any consequence since she herself is a masterful World mouthpiece for further devotion to Caesar. The mere practice of addressing Mudd with such deep concern-- squinting those eyes to sear his soul, turning her head for that penetrating inquiry, jabbing that pencil in the air in front of her-- announces to all World inhabitants that this is serious business, this management of their sin. A telling part of this fact was in one question I want to share here. It was something like, "Has Fannie Mae for some time set itself up to evade regulation? How do you answer that?" Mudd effervescently responded by saying that he was all for the new regulation that Congress was puttin...

An addendum to the folly that is the banking "crisis" addressed in the last post: Today Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson testified before Congress to explain his announcement that the federal government has an unlimited line of credit available for banks, especially those teetering on the brink of insolvency. When asked why he won't declare some quantifiable figure for that amount, he said if he gave a figure it would be completely tapped, but if he just left it as "indefinite" then it won't be. He actually used the analogy of a squirt gun versus a bazooka. If he announces he has a squirt gun, he may have to use it. But having a bazooka will mean he's less likely to have to pull it out. Interesting metaphor, using weapons to make his point. As they said in Rome, Tam Marte quam Mercurio, or "As much by Mars (war) as Mercury (business)." The key is how it is that Paulson can say the feds have an unlimited line of credit. Unlimited ? Well not exac...

Yesterday a pretty decent size bank was taken over by federal regulators. It was IndyMac, and right after I'd heard the news I thought about the branch on the corner of a quaint downtown area in a community near where we live, and the advertisement I'd seen on the side of the building just a couple weeks ago. The ad said, "We want to be your one and only." Next to these words was a nicely drawn picture of a big heart covering someone holding that heart out. I actually thought at the time, "How nice, that they'd use such impassioned language to promise they'd do a good job." Now that the truth about IndyMac's insolvency has come out, that approach sounds quite a bit like that homely person who vies desperately for your affections and must plead in such a way to try to get your commitment. "Please be mine." "Would you say 'Yes?'" "Tell me you love me." What really makes me very sad is that you will hear nothing...