It looks like America’s libertarians are in dire need of an Establishment. Hi, Hi, Hi.

Sir, I refer to Jacob Weisberg “A missed opportunity for America’s libertarians” June 4.

When it would look that more American’s would prefer a none-of-the above than the candidates presented by the Republicans and Democrats, it is clear that both these organization’s establishments have failed. And so it would seem that even though it is anathema to them, if the libertarians had the benefit of some type of functional establishment, they could represent an important alternative in upcoming elections. Or is libertarian establishment too much of a contradiction in terms?

But then on another issue, Jacob Weisberg writes: “Libertarians… regard the failure of policies they support, such as the self-regulation of financial markets in the 2008 crisis, as evidence that government still managed to play some corrupting role. When facts come into conflict with theory, they reject the facts.”. And to that I must most strongly object.

For purposes of setting the capital requirements for banks, the regulators set risk weights of zero percent for friendly governments, 20% for members of the AAA-aristocracy, 35% when financing residential housing, and 100 percent when financing not rated SMEs, entrepreneurs and citizens in general. And Sir, that is corruption with a big C. That allowed banks to earn much higher risk adjusted returns on what is ex ante perceived, decreed or concocted as safe, than on what is perceived as risky.

What was the 2008 crisis made off? The stuff all major bank crises are always made of, namely excessive exposures to something ex ante perceived safe but that ex post turns out not to be.

Sir, again, the question of rigor: With what can banks build up dangerously large exposures that could threaten the system, with prime AAA rated or with speculative and worse below BB- rated? And having answered that reflect again on that the AAA rated were assigned a 20% risk weight while the below BB- an astounding 150%. Does this sound like the regulators have any idea of what they are up to? And so, if there are some who have really rejected the facts when these come into conflict with their “theories”, that is the whole bank regulatory community, that which has been frantically circling the wagons against any attack.

Sir, if there are two great flags that libertarians could fly, though I also welcome democrats and republicans to waive these, those are: getting rid of the distortions produced by current bank regulations in the allocation of bank credit to the real economy, and the use of a well funded, no funny money, Universal Basic Income, a Societal Dividend, to fight inequality and stimulate the economy, while keeping the redistribution profiteers at bay.

@PerKurowski ©

Our valuable reservoirs of gullibility

Sir, can you imagine if we were not able or allowed to be gullible? What an awfully boring world it would be, drowned in rationality without being able to let our fantasies run wild, like Jacob Weisberg does when after drinking several cups of some green tea that on the label sells “a wisdom beyond wisdom” he comes to the joyful conclusion of a “I do believe it works”, “Green tea, the elixir of false virtue”, April 5.

And that is nothing when compared to analyzing gullibility from an economic perspective. Without it, can you imagine how much we would have to wipe out of the world’s GDP? In a world where so many jobs are currently being lost in the name of efficiency there can be no doubt that our last hopes of respectful employment lie in the hands of our reservoirs of gullible behaviours, and which thankfully seems to be quite renewable, at least as long we keep gullibility destroyers like Ralph Nader very far away from them.

As my own humble contribution to job creation I am currently giving a lot of credence to that innovative urban rumour that says that for an elevator to be able to offer a smooth and really “lucky” ride, it needs to be manned by a lift attendant who plays a solitary game on his or her computer while working.

Would Jack Bauer be a good president?

Sir, although Jacob Weisberg’s much fun “How to tell a killer from a future president”, March 22, might no be that saloon-clean article you want to associate yourself with, I cannot resist but to remark on the somewhat irrelevant title since in order to elect a future president, you might not necessarily have to tell him from a killer. I mean we should not completely discard the possibilities that someone of those serial killers listed by Weisberg could in fact have turned out to be a good president (I did not say better) if given a chance for a carrier change. At the end of the day whom we elect is probably the candidate that projects our own wishes the better, and luckily, the majority of us wish more to be president than serial killers. Let us pray it stays that way… I mean in these days of Jack Bauer’s as heroes you might never really know.

'American Union' passports could work

Published in FT, April 10, 2006

Sir, It is sad in today’s globalized world to still find so many local Americans who believe that when they ship a criminal band member over the border, to someone much less resourceful, they have gotten rid of their problem.

In this respect, Jacob Weisberg, ("Immigration ideas bordering on perverse”, April 6), aghast with the current ideas on immigration law reform in the US, proposes not passing any reforms but to keep going as if nothing’s happening.

Another more transparent route would be to bite the bullet and accept that an “American Union” between North and Central America already exists, de-facto, and issue a common passport for all the citizens of the enlarged American Union.

Such a strategy would make it possible for many of the over 11 million illegal immigrants that dare not leave the US because they do not know whether they can later return, to be freed from their (also de-facto) mother of all jails, and go home, even on a temporary basis.

It would also help to realize that had the US spent an Iraq-war sized budget assisting Central America, as the European Union did with Spain and others, the whole immigration debate could have been a moot issue, with exception perhaps of all the aging baby boomers moving south to find care and services.

Finally, the fact is that when you see how all the Central Americans toil away in the US and help their families back home, you have to ask yourself whether this is not just part of the process whereby the US manages to renew its working and family ethics, in order to remain strong.

PS. A letter in the Washington Post: How many of those governments not wanting to have their emigrants move back to their homeland, feel so because they do not want to renounce the family remittances that helps to keep them in power?

https://perkurowski.blogspot.com/2009/09/mcprison.html

https://voiceandnoise.blogspot.com/2003/02/snowing-in-washington-my-first.html