Rape, Abortion, and Reproductive Violence

The other day, I watched Animal Planet. The episode showed lions in Africa, and how, when a new dominant male takes over a pride, he systematically kills all the cubs that are not self-sufficient or able to defend themselves. This automatically brings the female lions into heat. The lion then copulates with the females, replenishing the stock of cubs in a pride, and insuring that all of them are fathered by the dominant male. 

  

This is what I would term reproductive violence. It isn’t random or capricious violence, nor is it violence committed in order to secure food or some other resource. Rather, it is violence that has a clear reproductive objective: To make sure the pride’s focus and resources go to the upbringing of the dominant lion’s offspring, and none other. 

  

The rape of a woman by a man is similarly reproductive violence. 

  

A man ordinarily woos a woman, in order to convince her to have sex with him, get pregnant by him, and ultimately carry his child. But wooing—in all cultures—takes time, effort, expense. Resources.   

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Was Stagflation in ‘79 Really Hyperinflation?

If my best friend is the truth, then my next best friend is history. 

I’ve been writing about the possibility of hyperinflation, if there is ever a run on Treasury bonds. My argument has been, Treasuries are the New & Improved Toxic Assets, a termite-riddled house waiting to collapse. If and when there is a run on them, money will flow to a safe haven, which I am predicting will be commodities. As a byproduct of this sell off in Treasuries and buy up of commodities, consumer prices will rise catastrophically in a hyperinflationary event—and the dollar will be left dead on the highway like roadkill. 

  

This scenario got me thinking about the last time there was a panicked run-up in commodities: The stagflation of the 1970’s in the United States, specifically the period 1979–1983. Oil nearly doubled in price, gold and silver went hyperbolic. Gas shortages were rampant—the situation almost got to the point where the government considered rationing gasoline. In fact, ration cards were printed—that’s how bad things got. 
  
Because of the Oil Shock, the inflation index rose to a peak of 15%—yet unemployment also exploded, reaching almost 11%. This combination of unemployment and inflation was what gave the period its name—stagflation: “Stagnant inflation”. 

  

Thinking about this period, I asked myself a simple question: Could the ‘79 Oil Shock, and subsequent bout of stagflation, be better understood as a period of incipient hyperinflation? And if so, what lessons could it teach us about today? 

  

First, a bit of history:   

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Reprint: Wall Street’s Revenge On Hollywood

This post originally appeared in naked capitalism on April 18, 2010. At the time, debate was raging about a “futures market” for films, similar to the futures markets in other commodities. 

  

Traditionally, the way that the Wall Street-Hollywood relationship works is, Wall Street arrives in Hollywood with much pomp and circumstance, carrying boatloads of cash to invest in movies. Hollywood—delighted with this new money—steers Wall Street towards some “premiere” and “prestige” projects. Wall Street—like a wide-eyed rube—invests in these seemingly prestigious, supposedly top-tier project—and promptly loses all that fresh cash on these box office duds.

Wall Street screams and curses and moans and belly-aches, and finally gets back on the red-eye for JFK, broke and defeated. Hollywood, of course, stays behind in California, working on her tan as she waits for that sweet Arab money to come to town. Or maybe some shy German with a clever tax incentive will save the day. Or maybe some exotic Latin American cell-phone money will show up. Who knows who it will be—Hollywood doesn’t care. All Hollywood knows is, some new sucker will come to town, thinking he’s King of the World—another sucker just begging to be fleeced. 

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Reprint: “Systemic Contradictions”: The Eurozone De Facto Currency Peg, and the Death Spiral We Are Currently Witnessing

This originally appeared in naked capitalism on April 11, 2010—right smack in the middle of the Greek debt crisis. My basic point still stands: The euro is essentially a very complex currency peg among a group of disparate nations that happen to share a continent, but little else. And though the IMF and the EU put together a rescue package for Greece, the stresses and strains of that currency peg still remain.
  

Critics of free-market capitalism, especially of the Marxist persuasion, love talking about its “systemic contradictions”. Especially European critics—they adore using that steam-roller phrase: “systemic contradictions”. It sounds so thrillingly lapidary, so discussion-ending, so terminal. Nothing can escape its grasp, or the base indignity of it. “They will fail because of Systemic Contradictions!!”—like a cross between a nasty form of cancer, and some unmentionable venereal disease. And of course 100% fatal.

It’s ironic that European critics of free-market capitalism love that phrase—because it aptly describes the Europe of today, and the European monetary union that was hailed as the way of the future.

I would argue that, with the way things are going, it’s Europeans and their Eurozone which will soon be relegated to the dustbin of the past. Precisely because of its “systemic contradictions”.

The end of the Eurozone will be a tragedy—and I would argue, we are currently witnessing it.

Let’s review: 

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Why Paul Krugman Is An Imbecile—or a Fraud

Update I, below. Update II, below. 

  

There’s a saying in Spanish: Por la boca muere el pez. “A fish dies by its mouth.” Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman has a recent op-ed piece in the New York Times which goes an awful long way to showing that he is a complete and utter imbecile—or the worst sort of cheap huckster imaginable. 

  

It is one or the other—there are no other alternatives. This wasn’t a casual blog where Krugman “misspoke”—this was a full-on editorial in the Sunday edition of the Times on Labor Day weekend. So what Krugman said was thought out, and dead serious—and so foolish or ridiculous (depending on your point of view) that he can no longer be taken seriously: 

  

In the piece, titled “1938 in 2010”, Krugman argues that 1938 was similar to 2010, in that the Federal governments’ stimulus program—then implemented by FDR—was insufficient to pull the country out of the Great Depression. Krugman argues that this is similar to what has happened to the Obama administration—Krugman has forever been arguing that the Obama stimulus package was “not enough”. 

  

This in itself is not objectionable—in fact, I think policy disagreements are a good thing. They lead to ultimately better solutions, if all sides of a policy debate allow that opposing sides might have very valid points. Krugman’s very valid point is, unemployment in the current Global Depression is severe—therefore, the quick-fix of fiscal stimulus might be best, in order to assuage people’s suffering. 

  

But then, in order to make his point that more stimulus is needed, Krugman crosses the line:

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Reprint: The Chilean Earthquake from a First Person Perspective

This post originally appeared on Zero Hedge on the morning of February 27, less than eight hours after the Great Chilean Quake of 2010. It certainly was a “Great Quake”—the second most intense earthquake ever in Chile, after the 1960 Valdivia Earthquake, which is acknowledged to have been the greatest earthquake in recorded history. 

Hello Gringos!

I've been under the weather for the last few days. So last night I went to sleep early, around 11pm.

Around 3:15am, I suddenly woke up, even though I usually sleep straight through until the dawn. There was no obvious reason to wake up at such an odd hour. Claire, my dog, was sound asleep. Out my window on the 15th floor of my building, all the buildings across from the Los Leones golf course were quiet.

But I was wide awake.

So finally, I decided to make the best of it—I got my laptop and surfed the net, wide awake, reading (of all things) about what the iPad might mean to newspaper publishing—when the earthquake hit.

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The Prosecution’s Case Against Alan Greenspan

Should Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board (1987–2006), be tried for Crimes Against the Economy, put up against a concrete wall, handed a cigarette, offered a red blindfold, and then executed by firing squad?
  

“What, me worry?”

Yes—absolutely. No question. (And this coming from an anti-death penalty, anti-abortion Catholic.) Herewith, the case for the prosecution. 
  
There are four main charges against the so-called “Maestro”: 
  
One—Irresponsible Market Liquidity, Which Created Rampant Moral Hazard:
  
The Accused was instrumental in creating the pernicious policy mentality of “providing markets with necessary liquidity”—essentially, throwing money at every problem. 
  
This first started within days of Greenspan’s assuming the role of American central banker: The frenzy that caused the stock market crash of October 1987 was doused by Greenspan’s pledge to provide “all necessary liquidity, should the need arise”. This instantly soothed the markets as surely as a hit soothes a heroin junkie—within a few months, it was as if the panic had never happened. 

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