Current Events

Human Capital Diversification vs Pancake Mix

Rick Weber Comments, Current Events, Economics , , , ,

I went to the grocery store yesterday (late morning) expecting either business-as-usual or empty shelves. I was surprised to see both. I’m currently regretting not taking photos because it probably will be business-as-usual by the time I go back.

Some shelves were empty, and others were full. What I saw was a direct visualization of what my neighbors don’t know how to cook.

Going through my store I could see that my neighbors know how to put jarred sauce on pasta. But I saw the opportunity to blend some canned whole tomatoes and make my own sauce. “International” foods were largely untouched, but anything in the local culinary lexicon was sparse.

The whole Baking Needs aisle was basically fine, except for the pancake mix which was all gone. This is really the whole story. Who buys pancake mix? Culinary illiterates.

(Disclaimer: I’m a biased source when it comes to pancakes. I take pancakes as seriously as 75th percentile Bostonian takes the fact that the Yankees suck.)

It takes a modest amount of skill to make pancakes, but the ingredients are cheap and YouTube wants to help you. Now is a great time to up your pancake game. But even if you just follow the directions on any random pancake recipe you’re stirring together flour, salt, baking powder, sugar, eggs, oil, and milk.

The mix will either give you a crappy shelf-stable replacement for the eggs and/or milk (yuck!) or hold your hand as you stir together some powder with eggs, oil, and milk.

Thinking back to my career as an omnivore, I can recall a time when I’ve bought ingredients I really should have made. I’m not judging people who don’t know how to cook, because I’ve been there.

What I’m pointing out is that those people are always going to have the hardest time when it comes to food shortages. I’d be in the same boat if I was shopping at a store that didn’t sell the limited set of ingredients I know how to use.

There’s a tension in economics that we don’t pay enough attention to: gains from specialization vs. gains from diversification. At a system level (and in a Principles class) the two go together. But at the level of individual there is a lot to be said for diversification–you’re more robust to change, resilient in the face of problems, and perspectives gained in one domain may have lessons to apply to others.

I’m grateful I haven’t taken my own human capital specialization so far that I can’t make my own pancakes.

Coronavirus and the spirit of internationalism

Tridivesh Singh Maini Current Events , , , , , , ,

Introduction

Iran has asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for emergency funding (it is for the first time since 1962 that Iran has sought IMF assistance) to fight the deadly Corona Virus outbreak (COVID19).

As of Saturday, March 14, 2020, Iran reported over 600 deaths (611) and over 12,000 cases arising out of the deadly virus. That makes Iran the third most affected country in the world after China and Italy. A number of prominent personalities, including the country’s Vice President (Eshaq Jahangari) and two other senior cabinet members, have contracted the virus.

On Wednesday, March 4, 2020, the IMF’s managing director, Kristilina Georgieva, stated that developing countries will be supported in their efforts to take on the Corona Virus through the Fund’s Rapid Financial Instrument. The IMF announced a $50 billion aid package with the aim of specifically assisting ‘low income’ and ‘emerging market’ economies. (On Monday, the World Bank had announced a $12 billion package to deal with the epidemic.)

Iran’s Central Bank chief, Abdolnaser Hemmati, said on Thursday that he had written to the IMF requesting $5 billion in emergency funding via the latter’s Rapid Financing Instrument. In a tweet on Thursday, the Iran’s Foreign Minister, Javad Zarif, urged the IMF to release this amount immediately. The Iranian Foreign Minister also said that Iran was facing a severe shortage of medicines and equipment. US sanctions on Iran, which have prevented it from selling oil or participating fully in the world’s financial ecosystem, have had a detrimental impact on the country’s economy. Iran, in a letter to the UN Secretary General Antonio Guerres, stated that US sanctions should be suspended keeping in mind the current crisis.

Iran’s apprehensions

Even if the IMF were to agree to releasing $5 billion for Iran, there are a number of obstacles that may result in Iran not being able to get the money from the IMF. First, the US is part of the IMF’s decision-making board (interestingly, in his tweet Zarif had stated that the IMF/IMF board should act responsibly) and even if the IMF agrees to disburse the amount, given the strains between Washington and Tehran it is quite possible that the US will veto such a move by the IMF. If Trump is willing to annoy US allies like the EU (on Wednesday, Trump took a decision to suspend flights from 26 Schengen countries to US, for a period of 30 days without consulting the EU), there is no reason why he will adopt a nuanced approach towards Iran.

Second, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has blacklisted Iran, which means that even if IMF agrees to provide the loan, banks and financial institutions can block such transactions.

Corona Virus is an opportunity for the US to exhibit statesmanship and maturity, and also lower tensions with Iran. While Trump has claimed to being open towards engaging with the Iranians, and seems to have changed his approach towards Tehran, he has not really exhibited much statesmanship in dealing with Tehran. Ever since the killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleiman (a major general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) in a drone attack, in January 2020, ties went further downhill.

Opportunity for the US

This is an opportunity for the US to send a positive message to the international community, and to also distinguish between the Iranian public and its political class. China’s messaging with regard to helping the international community has been far better. On March 12, 2020, a team of Chinese doctors reached Italy (Italy, which is the most worst hit nation after China, had requested assistance from the latter). A number of Italian leaders have also criticised EU countries for being slow in reacting to Italy’s call for assistance.

Positive steps taken by China

What is also significant is that at a time when Washington and Beijing have been engaged in unnecessary mud-slinging with regard to the virus, with the US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo dubbing the Corona Virus as ‘Wuhan Virus’, and a senior Chinese diplomat responding by calling it a ‘conspiracy’ by the US army, on Friday March 13, 2020, Chinese billionaire Jack Ma stated in a tweet that he would donate one million face masks and 500,000 corona virus testing kits to the US. Earlier, Jack Ma’s charitable foundation, and his China-based company’s foundation, the Alibaba Foundation, had already donated supplies to a number of countries including  Japan, Korea, Italy, Iran, and Spain.

Conclusion

In case, the US does not agree to provide immediate assistance to Iran, other countries should step in including US allies like the UK, EU member states, and Japan. It is also important for multilateral organizations to show their teeth and not allow petty politics to come in the way of the fight against COVID 19. The Corona Virus is a clear reiteration of the point that while there may be numerous problems with economic globalization, we live in a truly interconnected world however much we may try to obliterate this fact. Humanity should trump petty politics and bickering, and this is an opportunity to revive the true spirit of internationalism.

I stopped French kissing. (Coronavirus alert!)

Jacques Delacroix Current Events , , , , , ,

About 40 US deaths so far. The French have double that with 1/5 the population. My skeptical fiber is on full. Still I am washing my hands. When I run out of rubbing alcohol, I will use cheap brandy – of which I have plenty, of course. Oh, I almost forgot: I have decided to stop French kissing completely if the occasion arises! Extraordinary times require extraordinary measures! Count on me. I am wondering what the libertarian response should be to this public crises (plural).

My best to all.

Prediction: Online Adjuncting is About to Boom

Rick Weber Current Events, Economics , , ,

SUNY has been pushing for more online for some time. It means an increased ability to sell credentials to a broader market with lower real estate costs.

As far as I can tell, the primary constraint has red tape. I don’t know who put it there (unions? accreditors? governments?), but getting a class certified to go online on my campus has meant going through a steep enough up front cost that few people bother. Combine that with the fact that an online class is simply less fun and you’ve got a recipe for a mercifully slow expansion of online teaching.

That changed this week. Now almost all of SUNY is online, like it or not. The red tape might be there when we get back to normal, but the up front cost to getting a class online will fall enough that many adjuncts will get in on the action next fall.

About 15% of summer 2020 classes are slated to be led by adjuncts. I predict that by summer 2021 that will increase to 25% and that will just be the start of a much larger trend of adjunctification of online classes.

Coronavirus and takings

Ethan Blevins Current Events, Law, Liberty, Politics , , ,

City governments are flirting with a ban on evictions during the coronavirus pandemic. I doubt, however, that doing so comports with the Constitution’s takings clause or, perhaps, the contracts clause.

San Jose has introduced legislation that will ban evictions due to un/underemployment resulting from coronavirus. Seattle’s socialist firebrand, Kshama Sawant, calls for similar action. Her letter, though, betrays the truth behind many proposed emergency measures–she’s leveraging the crisis to further her political agenda, particularly her hatred of capitalism. In the letter, she froths: “The status quo under capitalism is deeply hostile to the majority of working people, and it would be unconscionable to place the further burden of the Coronavirus crisis on those who are already the most economically stressed.” Never mind that the status quo in the absence of capitalism would be grinding poverty.

But, in any case, the proposal to ban evictions and force landlords to renew leases as the pandemic sweeps across the states raises serious constitutional concerns. Even in times of crisis, observance of constitutional norms remains essential. In part, this is because laws passed as emergency measures tend to hang about long after the emergency subsides. New York rent control began as a wartime measure, for instance, and that curse still plagues the New York rental market. The other reason, of course, is that the Constitution is built for just these moments. The pressure to invade rights, after all, comes when things are not going well. As Justice Sutherland once put it, “If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch, as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned.”

Forcing landlords to either renew leases or forego eviction for lease violations likely raises at least two constitutional problems: takings and impairment of contractual obligations. While such laws don’t literally seize property, they effectively impose a servitude on landlords’ property, stripping them of control over the disposition and occupation of their land. When an essential attribute of property ownership is destroyed by regulation in this manner, the government must offer compensation. We already know this compensation requirement applies during national emergencies. During World War II, for instance, the Supreme Court held that the United States had to compensate property owners and leaseholders when it temporarily seized factories for wartime production.

The contract clause problem is also straightforward: barring landlords from enforcing lease terms impairs obligations under pre-existing contracts. The contracts clause, though, has been severely undermined in recent decades, such that a showing of a compelling interest like mitigating the impact of the pandemic may well satisfy the flaccid demands of the modern contracts clause.

It may seem profoundly harsh to impose constitutional constraints on governments trying to resolve a crisis. But three things ought to be kept in mind.

First, an emergency certainly means that some will face a heavy burden, but that fact tells us nothing about how that burden should be allocated. Why should landlords bear the costs? Indeed, As the Supreme Court said in Armstrong v. United States, the takings clause exists to avoid imposing societal burdens on specific individuals: “The Fifth Amendment’s guarantee that private property shall not be taken for a public use without just compensation was designed to bar Government from forcing some people alone to bear public burdens which, in all fairness and justice, should be borne by the public as a whole.”

Second, we should keep in mind that lease agreements already account for risk. That’s baked into the price and terms that give rise to a mutually agreeable arrangement between parties. To simply allow one party to slip out of the terms of the lease distorts that arrangement.

Third, the takings clause does not bar emergency measures, including the seizure of property, but only upon just compensation. No exigency should excuse cities like San Jose or Seattle from compensating for the costs they’re hoisting upon landlords. And in the case of the contracts clause, the government could still honor existing leases by acting as a guarantor for tenants who can’t pay the rent.

All of these points apply to a world in which landlords do not voluntarily exercise leniency. But I think we’ll find that most landlords are forgiving during a temporary crisis. Most landlords have an extreme aversion to evicting tenants–it’s the nightmare, last-ditch option that they try hard to avoid. That, plus the simple dose of compassion that many landlords will feel inspired to offer, may do more toward helping see us through than any emergency measures.

Biden vs. Sanders: The view from New Delhi

Tridivesh Singh Maini Current Events , , , , , , , ,

After Joe Biden’s remarkable performance on Tuesday, March 3, 2020, where he won 10 states, Wall Street surged on Wednesday. Many argue that the former Vice President, with his centrist economic views as compared to Senator Bernie Sanders, would be more acceptable not just to centrist supporters of the Democrats, as well as US corporates, but interestingly even some Republicans who are not comfortable with Trump’s economic policies. Donors of the Democratic Party are also rallying behind Biden, and Sanders is trying to use this point in his favor, saying that the ‘political establishment’ is not happy with his rise. The Vermont Senator, with his radical economic policies, has based his campaign on challenging the current status quo (where a section of the elite have disproportionate influence).

If one were to look at Biden’s key stand on foreign policy issues, his remarks on Afghanistan were criticised not just by Afghan leaders but also strategic analysts. Biden stated that US should not be concerned with ‘nation building’ in Afghanistan, but rather with countering terrorism. Reacting to his remarks, spokesman for Afghan President Ashraf Ghani stated:

Afghanistan fought and stood as a whole nation to the face of tyrants such as the Soviet Invasion, Terrorism invasion and now, it is in the front lines so that the other nations are safer. ISIS [Daesh] & the Taliban, the major terror networks and the enemies of the world are defeated here.

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that Biden’s remarks were ‘unrealistic and immature’ and sent a message that US was not really concerned about nation building in Afghanistan. Other observers of Afghanistan were also surprised by Biden’s remarks (as number 2 in the Obama Administration, he played a key role in the formation of the Unity government in 2014).

On China, Biden’s approach seems to be more nuanced than Trump’s. In May 2019, he stated that while US needed to watch its own interests, excessive paranoia vis-à-vis China was uncalled for. A month later (in June 2019) he stated that “China poses a serious challenge to us, and in some areas are a real threat.”

At the same time, like the Republicans and Democrats, Biden has opposed the entry of Huawei into the United States’ 5G network, arguing that this would be a security threat (in a presidential primary debate, Biden alluded to this point along with other candidates). Interestingly, an article in China’s main English-language daily, Global Times, argues that Biden would be a better bet for China than Bernie Sanders given that he is more predictable and has experience in dealing with China.

One issue on which Biden has drawn flak from Bernie Sanders is the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), a brain child of former President Barack Obama (TPP was an important component of Obama’s ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy which sought to counter China’s economic and strategic influence in the Asia-Pacific region – now referred to as Indo-Pacific).

Sanders’ approach to TPP is identical to that of Trump (whose first decision was to pull out of the TPP). Sanders had praised Trump’s decision saying that this decision was in the interest of American workers.

The Vermont Senator has argued that Biden supported the TPP, which would be damaging to American workers. While seeing the popular mood, Biden has revised his stand and stated that he would go ahead with the deal but will renegotiate it (interestingly, Trump’s 2016 opponent Hillary Clinton also turned against the TPP even though as Secretary of State she had fervently backed the deal).

When in power, the approach to crucial policy issues changes and that could be the case as far as Joe Biden is concerned. On issues like China and TPP it is highly unlikely that Biden will take a fundamentally different position from the Republican Party given the current narrative prevalent in the US. Having been an insider, it is likely though that he will follow a more cautious approach and not upset the apple cart too much.

My Political Paranoia on Speed

Jacques Delacroix Current Events, Politics , ,

I gave myself a little time to react to the Super Tuesday Democratic Party primary results (in the US). I wanted to examine my own head and my own heart first. Incidentally, I don’t feel shy about spouting off today. The professional pundits have proven again that they don’t know much of anything.

V.P. Joe Biden came up from behind in an astonishing sweep of several states. First, I don’t know how it happened. It’s credible that the heart of the Dem. Party was always sort of moderate although we were misled by the hype about socialist Sen. Sanders. Second, it’s possible that the Dem leadership, national and local, worked double time toward an unlikely Biden victory. All the same, it remains hard to believe.

I have two fears, a little one and a big one. The little one first: Should VP Biden actually get the nomination and should Pres. Trump agree to debate him, I am afraid he, Mr Trump, will not be able to restrain himself, that he will bully Mr Biden on stage, even make him cry. That would be a disaster big enough to guide tender-hearted undecided voters away from the president. In a close election it might just make the difference.

Now, about my second fear, but let me start with a reminder. Those who know me a little are aware of the fact that I don’t readily adopt conspiracy explanations (of anything). I also have a record of keeping paranoia at bay. Ordinary human folly and bad luck explain almost everything I don’t like. This time is different.

It’s almost impossible to not see what I see: Mr Biden is not capable of being president. He is too old to sustain the stress. He is too mentally fragile. The fact that he gave a decently coherent victory speech Tuesday night does not modify much my opinion. Mr Biden and I are the same age and I am well aware of the short term miracles that pharmacology can produce. (And by the way, I don’t make much of the fact that he briefly confused his wife for his sister. That may just have been a shout out to Rep. Ilhan Omar.) Moreover, Mr Biden is corrupt if not directly, for his relatives. Corruption and senility make an explosive mixture.

So, if the Dem apparat is aware, it may never have to worry about Mr Biden’s ability to govern, or not for long. If he obtains the nomination, the Dem elite will produce yet another Clinton miracle. Hillary Clinton will become the VP nominee. If they win, soon after President Biden’s inauguration, he will retire informally, or even formally. Ms. Clinton will then at last have the presidency that is owed to her.

Alternatively, the Dem elite is not cured of its identity obsession and confusion and it will choose as a V.P candidate, the low-achieving, snobbish, and anti-American Michelle Obama. Same scenario except that the occult Dems will exercise even more power.

Tell me I am crazy. Please.

One good thing has come out of this 2020 Dem. primary: The myth has been put away for a while that one can buy an election, at least as directly as Mr Bloomberg tried to do. He may yet try to buy if for Mr Biden, of course.

“Medicare For All” will never work: a Brazilian view

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, Economics, Liberty, Politics , , , ,

Even though I don’t follow the news, it’s somewhat impossible not to know that Bernie Sanders is making a lot of buzz as the possible Democrat candidate for the coming presidential elections. I know: he presents himself as a democratic socialist; he says that some European countries are good examples for the US. I believe that as a Brazilian I have something to say about that.

Bernie Sanders often compares the US with countries like Denmark or Sweeden. I believe there is a fundamental problem with that: the US is a gigantic country with a gigantic population. And a very diverse population at that! Nordic countries are tiny, with a tiny and homogenous population. How about comparing the US and Brazil? The two countries have about the same size and the population is not too different. Besides, Brazil is as culturally diverse as the US. Maybe more!

So here are some things about Brazil that I think people should know. Brazil is by definition a social democracy. That is not written anywhere, but one has only to read our constitution to be aware of that. Brazil’s constitution is very young: it was promulgated in 1988. As so, it reflects more recent political ideas. For example, it basically puts healthcare as a human right that the government has to provide for the population. So, Brazil has (in theory) a free universal healthcare system.

How is healthcare in Brazil in reality? Horrible. Inhumane. Media news are basically the same every week: long waiting lines for the most basic treatments. People dying without care. Few doctors. Overprice. Medication and equipment rooting without use. I don’t think that people in Brazil are different from people in the US. We have the same chromosomes. The difference is in how we deal with the issue. Brazil decided that healthcare is a right and that it should be provided by the government. The result is that we don’t have healthcare.

I believe I know why things are the way they are in Brazil: healthcare is a need. No doubt about that! But there is something really bad when a need is turned into a right. A right means that you have to get it, no matter what. But, really? No matter what? Second, there is something very deceiving when one talks about “free” healthcare. Really? Free?! Doctors have to get paid. Medicine costs money. One can’t possibly be serious when they say “free healthcare”. Finally, I suspect that the Austrian School of economics has something very important to say about the government running the healthcare system. More than anyone else, Friedrich Hayek pointed to how free prices are important for the economy. In a truly free economy, supply and demand interact with prices: high prices mean low supply; low prices mean high supply. This simple mechanism functions as a compass for everyone. However, when the government interferes, the result is inefficiency.  Too much medicine is bought and just rots. Or too little, and people die.

I’m not sure how many Bernie supporters read Notes on Liberty. But I really wish some of them would check what happens in Brazil. We tried to have a free universal healthcare system. We tried to have free college. We tried all these things. It didn’t work. I believe that the Austrian School can explain why. I know, it’s a bummer. There is nothing nice about people dying for lack of treatment. However, if you agree with me that this is a problem, I believe I’m in the right position to say that socialism – democratic or not – is not the solution.

Bernie fans should want Bernie to lose the primary

Bill Rein Current Events, Politics , , , ,
In politics, sometimes it’s best to play the long game.
 
Pro-liberty people, and everyone else, will have two options in November. They will have Donald Trump, of farm subsidies, bump stock bans, and tariffs fame, who has overseen us first run a trillion-dollar federal deficit, and they will have Democratic Candidate-Chemical X, who is probably going to be mostly for free college, radically centralized health care, injected with nuclear levels of woke ideological steroids, and will have a “B” somewhere in their name.
 
Of Buttigieg, Beth, Biden and Bernie, only one has a grassroots, large-scale, young-and-old movement behind them, and far more meaningful for the long game of politics is going to be this movement, not the person with their name on the campaign. Leftists are fighting to capture the eternal soul of the States, and therefore the effective ones will use weapons that puncture more than flesh, build infrastructure that survives short-term failure, and mobilize voters past one election cycle.
 
The 2016 Bernie primary voters came back to Bernie at a remarkable rate. This animation is the sign of a movement, and it rings a bell for libertarians from 2008 and 2012. Now, the best case scenario for a Bernie voter is for Bernie to win the nomination. But the best case scenario for a Bernie revolutionary is for Bernie to lose the primary, far before the election.
 
If Bernie wins the nomination, he will certainly lose to Trump in the election. When he loses to Trump in the election, the Democrats will slide more toward centrism, having seen populist leftism crash and burn when it’s on the big stage. There’ll be a bifurcation of the socialists and moderates, with the socialists losing all their Sisyphean-gained infrastructure, and the establishment Democrats disavowing the radicals just like the conservatives disavowed the ethnonationalists last season (notice how right now, Bernie is the most untouchable candidate in the debates — the DNC is seeing how it goes). The momentum of the socialists’ movement will take a huge hit; it almost certainly won’t last four years later. This way, their ideas simply lose. They get close, then they give up.
 
However, if Bernie loses the nomination, another candidate will move forward and take the beating. And no one else pulls off Bernie’s brand and essentializes American socialism like he does. Bernie losing is American socialism losing, just like Labour and Corbyn’s defeat is British socialism losing; Warren or Buttigieg or Biden losing is respectively less and less symbolic. Inversely, Klobuchar, Buttigieg, and Biden taking the punch in November would seem to be a dramatic indictment of the moderate Democrats.
 
Sanders is very popular with a very young crowd. This group has the stamina for a grassroots movement that lasts. And that’s the long game. The American government-electing machine is a gigantic servo, absorbing constituent stress in armored heat baths, depressurizing with fluctuations between Democrat and GOP success, pulling in billions of minute feedback points and stabilizing itself against any revolutionary change. What happens if Sanders does get elected President this year? Four years max — there’s no way he runs at 82. And then another Republican, much, much more conservative than Trump, to undo the welfare additions. The movement dies either way if Bernie proceeds.
 
Bernie fans should want their candidate to lose the primary, so that the base feels cheated by their own, so that another candidate takes the fall against the Emperor, so that the young people voting in their first election get disillusioned with the polls — so that they decide there’s more to instituting reform than checking a box for one person every four years. The Presidency is not necessary to the movement. The influx of successful hard-leftists in lower and federal office came from Bernie’s defeat and the anger thereof — Ocasio-Cortez might never have made it to office without the group Justice Democrats, half of which the founders came directly from the 2016 Bernie Sanders for President campaign.
 
It’s obvious the analogy here. Ron Paul lost painfully twice in a row; if he had beat McCain or Romney, we probably would have had President Obama either way. But him losing to McCain — getting his voice to the millions, with coerced delegates exposing the party corruption, legions of supporters birthed out of thin air, committed to a vast litany of pro-liberty pursuits that exist to this day — was the real victory. President Paul lasts eight years maximum, and might have the prestige of Reagan today (how many Reagan-esque Presidents have we had since?). Failed candidate Paul, on the other hand, is a God.
 
I think some of Sanders’ staff, especially Briahna Joy Gray, know this on an intuitive level. They’re committed to the movement after the man, not the man. But we’ll see where it goes.
 
The most important thing this time, though, will be Bernie not making the mistake of endorsing the DNC candidate, as he did with Clinton. 

That day when the communists tried to seize power in Brazil

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, History, Liberty, Politics , , , , , , ,

On March 31, 1964, the military seized power in Brazil. Between 1964 and 1985, five generals assumed the presidency of the country. The period is generally called the Military Dictatorship. Although it ended more than 30 years ago, this period is still influential in Brazil’s political environment. A part of the Brazilian right still praises the military regime as a golden period in Brazilian history. A part of the left still condemns the regime as the darkest period in our history. Jair Messias Bolsonaro, the current president of the republic, is an admirer of the military regime and considers that not only was this necessary but also beneficial for the country. Dilma Rousseff, the former president impeached in 2016, was an urban guerrilla during the military regime and as far as I know, she has never publicly regretted this episode of her biography. Hardly a week goes by without the mainstream media and left-wing observers warning that Bolsonaro intends to strike a blow and reinstitute the dictatorship. Although the military regime was undoubtedly striking in the Brazilian reality, I would like to remind you today that Brazilian history did not begin in 1964.

1935. Brazil is governed by President Getúlio Vargas. Vargas came to power in 1930 through a coup. Defeated candidate for the presidency that year, he did not accept the result of the elections and with the support of the army, he took the power. Vargas was provisional president until 1934 when he was indirectly elected by Congress to remain in office. Vargas is pressured on the one hand by Integralistas, a group with fascist characteristics, and on the other by the Communist Party of Brazil. Faced with this scenario, with support from the USSR, the communists led by Luiz Carlos Prestes decided to take power by force.

The attempted coup took place between November 23 and 27, 1935. Low-ranking leftist militaries revolted in barracks in several cities in the country, including the capital Rio de Janeiro. The military who participated in the coup attempt believed that the working class would support them. The Communist International, in particular, saw Brazil as a “semi-colonial” society, in which a revolt against the government would be enough to lead the population to a spontaneous upheaval. That’s not what happened. The coup d’état had no expressive support from the population and the revolutionaries were soon defeated by legalistic forces.

The consequences of the coup attempt were dire. Luiz Carlos Prestes could not accept that his movement had simply been poorly organized and that the population did not support communism. There had to be a culprit. Prestes decided that it was the fault of Elza Fernandes, code-named Elvira Cupello Colonio, then about 16 years old. Elvira joined the group of communists of the 1930s under the influence of her boyfriend, Antonio Maciel Bonfim, code-named Miranda, general secretary of the Brazilian Communist Party. Prestes suspected that she was a police informant and decided that she should be killed. Elvira was murdered by strangulation on March 2, 1936.

In response to the coup attempt, Vargas hardened his regime, effectively becoming a dictator in 1937. The entire period from 1930 to 1964 would be deeply influenced by him.

After 1935, the Brazilian army became progressively more anti-communist, culminating in the 1964 coup.

There is no doubt that the leaders of the movement were paid (and very well paid) by the Comintern. There is no doubt that they were aided by foreign spies, mostly Europeans.

I don’t want to fall into the Tu quoque fallacy here, but my experience is that Brazilian leftists hardly remember the country’s history before 1964. Many criticize the anti-democratic character of the regime that was established in the country that year. Many denounce that the 1964 coup was carried out with US support. But I don’t remember many leftists making similar criticisms to the 1935 coup attempt.

I don’t want to be unfair. I have friends who identify themselves as leftists and who value democracy. But I must say: socialism can start democratic, but it inevitably leads to dictatorship. This is the only way to have their plans realized. People don’t seem to have learned that in Brazil. Or in other parts of the world.

Brazil, the country of Carnival (?)

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Comments, Culture, Current Events, History, Liberty, Philosophy, Politics, Religion , , , , ,

Maybe for most English speakers it isn’t even known, but we are in the Carnival week. Carnival is a festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March. It typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments. I’m unashamedly taking some elements from Wikipedia here to try to explain it. It is basically equivalent to Mardi Gras. Carnival (or Carnaval, as we say it in Portuguese) is a big thing in Brazil. Or maybe not. That’s what this post is about.

Carnival is a Christian feast, at least in its origin. It occurs right before lent. Lent is the forty days that antecede the Passover. The idea was that people would fast (at least to some degree) during the forty days of lent. Therefore, Carnival was the last opportunity for forty days to indulge in some pleasures of the flesh. Carnival literally means “remove meat”, from the Late Latin expression carne levare. “Farewell to meat” is another possible translation. However, carne is not solely meat in Latin; it also refers to the flesh, especially in the Christian association between sin and flesh. Carnaval, therefore, is the feast of the flesh – taken literally or not. At least in Brazil, to my knowledge, the relationship between Carnival, Lent and Passover is little known. I believe that most people just take it to be a major party that happens sometime between February and March.

Brazil is popularly known as the country of Carnival, Samba and Soccer. Of these three, I kind of like the last one. Not so much the first two. To my knowledge, Carnival has always been very popular in Rio de Janeiro, at least since the early 19th century. At that time, it was known as Entrudo, a celebration in which mostly people throw water on one another, like in a water balloon fight. However, there were some improvements: people started throwing some liquids other than water if you know what I mean and that even at strangers. The party was also an opportunity for slaves to poke on their masters. Carnaval eventually became associated with the slaves’ African culture, and I suppose that’s how the Christian origins were somewhat lost. Today, Carnaval in Rio is strongly associated with Samba music.

I haven’t done a very scientific research for this, but to my knowledge, most people in Rio actually don’t like Carnaval. Carnaval is a street party, with all that comes with it: people leave tons of trash behind; people get drunk, and often violent; the music can get really loud and sometimes going on for hours, even into the night. Given the specific nature of the festival, there are people having sex on the street and other things happening as well. It is hard to say this without sounding moralistic, but the thing is that Carnaval ends up being the most anti-libertarian thing one can imagine. If “don’t do onto others what you don’t want to be done onto you” is the golden rule we’re trying to put into practice, Carnaval is the undoing of this.

In the late 19th century, some authorities already realized that the festival was getting out of control and tried to organize it somehow, mostly to no avail. But things really got out of control in the early 20th century. Coming out of the monarchy, Brazilian intellectuals were dedicated to the task of identifying the Brazilian identity. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda made a huge contribution to this with is Roots of Brazil (Raízes do Brasil), in which he said that Brazilians had a hard time understanding and applying the impersonal relationships necessary for a modern capitalistic society. Another major contribution in this conversation was done in 1933 by anthropologist/sociologist Gilberto Freyre in his book Casa-Grande e Senzala (English: The Masters and the Slaves). In this book, Freyre argued that the Brazilian national identity was the result of miscegenation (both biological and cultural) between masters and slaves.

On the one hand, I want to say that Freyre’s argument was revolutionary because he was saying that Brazilians were not an “inferior race” because of race-mixing. Just the opposite: Brazilian culture was permeated by highly positive elements exactly because of miscegenation. Consider that Freyre was saying that in the 1930s, when race-mixing was still a major taboo in the US, not to mention Nazi Germany. But on the other hand, I believe that Freyre contributed to a movement that gave up trying to “civilize” Brazil.

The topic of civilization is always a polemic one because it implies that some cultures are superior to others. I don’t want to go that way. But I also don’t want to be a cultural relativistic. Some cultures are superior to others in some aspects. There is nothing culturally superior in leaving tons of trash in the streets after a street party. There is nothing culturally superior in imposing your music taste on others. There is nothing superior in imposing your take on sexuality on others.

In the late 19th century, some authorities were trying to organize Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro because things were getting out of control. In the early 20th century, most authorities gave up that enterprise because they decided that Rio de Janeiro (and Brazil) is that “mess”. Instead of trying to correct the bad aspects of Carnaval, they decided to celebrate it as the very essence of Brazilian culture. Eventually, into the 20th century, Carnaval became a great example of panem et circenses policy.

I understand that in the early 21st century more and more people in Brazil are getting sick and tired of Carnaval, and that has some connections with politics. Typically (though definitely not always) people on the left want to celebrate Carnaval. People on the right typically (though definitely not always) don’t want to. Some people on the left are already saying that Bolsonaro’s government represents the taking over of government by Christian fundamentalists. I doubt. They may be right at a very low degree. But for the most part, what is happening is that Brazil is too diverse for a single project of nation to work for everybody. Ironically Gilberto Freyre was right: we are the result of this mixture, and this is not a bad thing. People only need to learn to respect the opinions, tastes and preferences of the other elements in this mix.

Edge of Democracy in Brazil?

Bruno Gonçalves Rosi Current Events, History, Liberty, Philosophy , , ,

The past few days Brazilian internet was packed with commentaries about The Edge of Democracy (Portuguese: Democracia em Vertigem), a 2019 Brazilian documentary film directed by Petra Costa that was nominated for Best Documentary Feature at the 92nd Academy Awards (and lost). To be honest, I didn’t watch this movie and I’m not planning to. My life is already quite busy as it is. However, judging by the trailer and by what people were saying, “The film follows the political past of the filmmaker in a personal and intimate way, in context with the first term of President Lula until the events leading to the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, analyzing the rise and fall of both presidents and the consequent sociopolitical crisis that swept the country. The arrest of Lula paved the way for the rise of Jair Bolsonaro and his eventual presidency” (from Wikipedia). Vox says this: “Filmmaker Petra Costa grew up in a politically involved family in Brazil, and that’s her starting point for The Edge of Democracy, in which she traces recent developments in Brazilian politics and shows how the country moved so quickly from a fledgling democracy toward far-right authoritarianism”. So, it seems to me that the movie is about how Brazil was becoming a vibrant democracy under the rule of the Workers’ Party and now it’s becoming a far-right autocracy. Judging by that, these are some thoughts on how I see democracy in recent and past Brazilian history.

Brazil was a Portuguese colony, but this was different from America being an English colony. There were not thirteen colonies in Brazil. Portugal’s oversight of Brazil was stronger than England’s over America. There was basically no space for local rule in Brazil. Therefore, Brazil came from its colonial days with basically no self-government experience.

Brazil became independent from Portugal in 1822. But again, this was different from America’s independence. In 1808 the Portuguese royal family came to Brazil, running away from Napoleon. Brazil became a United Kingdom with Portugal in 1815. Dom João VI, the Portuguese king, gave in to the court’s pressure and went back to Portugal in the early 1820s. However, he left his son Dom Pedro I as prince regent in Brazil. And at this Pedro declared Brazil’s independence in 1822.

Dom Pedro I was crowned as Emperor of Brazil and ruled until 1831. Suffering multiple pressures, he went back to Portugal like his father before him. From 1831 to 1840 Brazil was ruled by several regents. In 1840 Dom Pedro I’s son, Dom Pedro II, became emperor. He ruled until 1889, when he was deposed by a military coup.

Brazil has been a republic ever since, but not like America. We didn’t simply have presidential elections every four years. The first two Brazilian presidents were virtually military dictators. Civilians came to power in 1894 and ruled until 1930, but these were not exactly democratic times. Mostly the country was ruled by coffee oligarchs.

The last of these coffee planter presidents ruled until 1930. Then Getúlio Vargas came to power in a coup. He ruled until 1945. Vargas was deposed but continued to be a major political player. So much so, that he came to the presidency in the 1950s. He committed suicide in 1954, while still in office. Basically, the country was still under Vargas’ shadow from 1945 to 1964. And that’s when the military came to power.

Brazil was under military governments from 1964 to 1985. This is the historical period that people tend to remember and refer to the most. The military came to power because the population asked them to. There was a great fear of communism, and the army would theoretically defend Brazil against this. I am not saying that this fear was justified or that military governments was the right solution, but this is how most people thought at that time.

The last military president surrendered power in 1985. Since then, Brazil has been ruled by civilians. The Workers’ Party (or Partido dos Trabalhadores, PT, in Portuguese) became one of the most competitive political forces in Brazil in this period. Officially founded in 1980, it always had Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva as one of its main leaders. The Workers’ Party always presented itself as broadly leftist, without further specification. Among its founders were sympathizers of Roman Catholic Liberation Theology, radical socialists who defended armed opposition to the dictatorship, and union workers (Lula among them).

Lula was presidential candidate in 1989, 1994 and 1998, always coming in second place with about 30% of the votes. During those years Lula and the Workers’ Party were radically opposed to the economic reforms Brazil was going through. Like in other countries, Brazil was suffering from the crumbling of years of populism. The Washington Consensus was the order of the day, but the Workers’ Party was against everything it called “neoliberalism”. “Out with FHC (Fernando Henrique Cardoso, Brazil’s president from 1995 to 2002) and the IMF” was their usual chant. The party even defended not paying Brazil’s staggering international debts. Lula still hung out with socialist leaders, mostly Fidel Castro. However, in 2002 he presented a different platform. Advised by advertising professional and political strategist Duda Mendonça, he announced that, if elected president, he wouldn’t undo FHC’s economic reforms. Plagued by several international economic crises (Mexico, Asia, Russia, Argentina), Brazil was having a hard time entering the free-market world. The once highly popular FHC came out from office with low popularity. The combination of these factors (FHC’s low popularity at the time and Lula’s promise to pursue a less radical path) opened the way for the Workers’ Party to come to Brazil’s presidency.

In the first years of his government Lula was true to his promise. He not only maintained but deepened FHC’s economic reforms. After the initial shocks, Brazil slowly reacted to the free-market medicine and the economy started to grow. This guaranteed Lula’s reelection in 2006, although by then major corruption scandals already surrounded his presidency, centrally the Mensalão scandal. This scandal broke in 2005 when it was discovered that the Workers’ Party gave monthly payments to several deputies from other parties to vote for legislation that was favored by the ruling party. Although the investigations implicated some of Lula’s closest allies, the president himself managed to get off scot-free.

Lula’s second term in office marked a change from the first and even from his party’s historical stand up until then. The Workers’ Party since its inception always posed as a firm adversary to corruption. Political corruption is hardly something new in Brazil. Going back to the beginning of this text, one of Brazil’s historical problems has always been the difficulty of separating public and private. This was ironically famously observed by Raymundo Faoro, one of the Workers’ Party initial supporters. In Donos do Poder (Owners of the Power) Faoro observed that Brazil has always been led by ruling elites who saw public property as their property. In this scenario the very idea of corruption becomes fuzzy since ruling elites believe they are not stealing – they are simply using what is rightly theirs! It is against this scenario that Faoro and others proposed a technocrat professional bureaucracy. After the Mensalão scandal, however, the Workers’ Party became cynical towards corruption. Their usual response to it became to say that previous governments also did it, that they didn’t invent corruption or simply to say that Lula was an innocent man being politically persecuted by the elites. In sum, Workers’ Party officials and supporters were divided between those who, while not denying the veracity of the corruption scandals, tried to minimize it, and those who completely denied it.

Lula left his second term in office still high on popularity. So much so that he was able to elect his successor, Dilma Rousseff. Dilma, however, would face several difficulties in her presidency. Number one, although somewhat forgotten by the general public, the corruption scandals were still a reality that would surface every now and then. Second, Brazil was suffering the effects of the 2008 world economic crisis. Finally, Dilma was herself a shamefully inept leader.

As I mentioned before, Lula came to power in 2003 mainly because he and others in the Workers’ Party were able to (partially) come to terms with the fact that the Washington Consensus is called a consensus for a reason: as much as some things in political economy are debatable, some are not – centrally, you can’t spend money that you don’t have forever. Dilma would have none of that. Although she is famously very confused in the way she speaks, all things point to the fact that Dilma is trapped in a painfully outdated Keynesian mentality. Trapped in this mentality, she overspent – against Brazilian law. For this reason, she was impeached.

Dilma’s impeachment was followed by a short government of her vice-president, Michel Temer, and now the country is governed by Jair Messias Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro was for many years an obscure politician from Rio de Janeiro, elected mostly to corporately defend the military as workmen. Almost an unofficial union leader for soldiers. Bolsonaro, however, is also an admirer of the Brazilian army in general. He graduated from Academia Militar das Agulhas Negras, something akin to West Point. As a reformed army captain, he fiercely believes that the military did save Brazil from communism in the 1960s. As I mentioned before, that’s exactly what people in the 1960s believed. I’m not saying that they were right.

Ironically, leftists greatly benefited from the military governments of the 1960s-1980s. The guerrilla in Brazil’s countryside was crushed by the armed forces and the urban armed resistance was mostly weak and disorganized. Some important leaders in the Workers’ Party came precisely from these two. But Brazilian armed forces were shamefully unprepared to fight a cultural war. While some sectors of the left were still following Mao Zedong or Che Guevara, trying to reach power by force, others were reading Gramsci and the Frankfurt School, following a more cultural path to power.

In any case, the left was very good at posing as victims. In the years that followed the military governments, there was a tendency to romanticize the resistance. Some people, artists and politicians, made whole careers on that. To be “persecuted by the dictatorship” became a major asset.

But the truth is that Brazilian left never fought for democracy. This isn’t meant to depreciate them. It’s just a statement of fact. Actually, what I meant in the first paragraphs was to show that Brazil has a very weak democratic tradition. Beginning very early in the 20th century, shortly after the Russian Revolution, communists tried to take power in Brazil by force. Again, this is just a statement of fact. This continued up to the early 1960s when, fueled by Cold War fear (some might say paranoia, I don’t really mind), people begged the armed forces to take power. Has it not lasted for so long, the military governments would probably have been long forgotten or taken as something positive. But because they lasted for so long, the left was able to play its cards and pose as democratic victims of an authoritarian regime.

And this is, I believe, how we come to 2020. Bolsonaro has, I believe, a wrong idea about the military governments. Even if they were truly necessary to avoid a communist coup, they shouldn’t have lasted for so long. Besides that, the military presidents had their ups and downs in how they governed the country. Bolsonaro mostly can’t see that. The left, on the other hand, romanticizes the dictatorship. Some of them seem to actually believe in the lie that they were fighting for democracy. They were not. Had they won the war against the military forces, Brazil would have become something akin to Castro’s Cuba or Mao’s China. Had the military not won against the guerrillas, Brazil would have something akin to Colombia’s FARCs.

In sum, Brazil is still trapped in things that happened in the 1960s. Socialists, of course, wanted a big state. That’s basically their ideology. Ironically, in order to fight that, the military built an equally gigantic state. Petra Costa’s family got rich, fabulously rich, during the military governments. Today her family has contracts with the Workers’ Party. Some things change, but others remain the same: some people don’t care if governments are red or blue. All they care about is the green of the dollars. And a smaller state would be bad business for this kind of people.

Be Our Guest: “Elizabeth Warren’s Degrading Diversity Plans”

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Politics , , , ,

The significance of an individual from a disadvantaged group earning a respected occupation and excelling displays the potential of people from that group to overcome prejudice and contribute to the betterment of the world, thus providing distinction for the individual and garnering pride and acclaim for the group. Shoehorning disadvantaged groups into positions as a political statement renders their presence as purely symbolic.

This is from John Lancaster, and it’s excellent. John likes to Be Our Guest here at NOL. Please, read the rest. And if you’ve got something to say, why not say it?

Be Our Guest: “Sailing a Catholic Ship on Modern Seas”

Brandon Christensen Culture, Current Events , , , ,

Jack Curtis is back with another excellent guest post, this time on Catholicism and it’s place within the modern world. An excerpt:

The Church is losing ground among the powerful while it is gaining among lesser folk; how will the Church’s captain plot its course among such shoals?

Its Cardinals are obviously concerned; they have violated a heretofore unbroken rule by electing the Church’s first Jesuit pope. Jorge Mario Bergoglio is also the first Pope from the Americas, the first from the southern hemisphere and the first from outside Europe since the 8th century.

And, a little further down:

To date, he seems to have succeeded in scandalizing the conservatives and progressives equally without actually altering his Church very much, which must be doubly frustrating for an intended savior.

Read the rest.

Wanna get something off your chest? Be our guest and do it.

The open secrets of what medicine actually helps

Kevin Kallmes Current Events, Liberty , , , ,

One of the things that I was most surprised by when I joined the medical field was how variable the average patient benefit was for different therapies. Obviously, Alzheimer’s treatments are less helpful than syphilis ones, but even within treatment categories, there are huge ranges in actual efficacy for treatments with similar cost, materials, and public conception.

What worries me about this is that not only in public but within the medical establishment, actually differentiating these therapies–and therefore deciding what therapies, ultimately, to use and pay for–is not prioritized in medical practice.

I wrote about this on my company’s blog, but its concept is purely as a comment on the most surprising dichotomy I learned about–that between stenting (no benefit shown for most patients!!) vs. clot retrieval during strokes (amazing benefits, including double the odds of good neurological outcome). Amazingly, the former is a far more common procedure, and the latter is underprovided in rural areas and in most countries outside of the US, EU, Japan, and Korea. Read more here: https://about.nested-knowledge.com/2020/01/27/not-all-minimally-invasive-procedures-are-created-equal/.