Deficits are good

Can be, anyway. This is something all economic historians understand, primarily from the experience of Great Britain, which deliberately created a permanent debt in 1694 and became the most powerful economy the world has seen subsequently.

Tea Partiers are death on debt, which is why I never pay any attention to them. Life is way too short to listen to ignorant fools.

Economic history, regrettably, is not part of any American school curriculum, and while it is easy -- though time-consuming -- to learn about it on your own, hardly anybody does. So I was pleased to read Paul Krugman's column called "Debt is good" -- with links. Even Krugman, who is a mathematical economist not an economic historian, seems a bit surprised. Nut graf:

In other words, the great debt panic that warped the U.S. political scene from 2010 to 2012, and still dominates economic discussion in Britain and the eurozone, was even more wrongheaded than those of us in the anti-austerity camp realized.

 And you know what? Trade deficits are good, too. Can be anyway.

It is largely a function of what you do with the imports. Again, Britain is our teacher. Even centuries before the creation of the Bank of England, Britain ran a big trade deficit with the eastern Baltic.

It exported woolen cloth, ironmongery etc. and imported hemp, flex, timber and resin. These were used to build its merchant navy and warships. This deficit was out of balance in one direction -- in favor of the Baltic provinces -- for 500 years.

And after all those deficits, which side was rich and which was poor?

Caveat: For this to work well, you need a popular government that recognizes social responsibilities.

Once again, something the TP gets all wrong.
 

A really contented cow

I find all supernatural beliefs weird but some are weirder than others.

Our savior?

The Tablet has some thoughts:

Would you pay $18 to help produce an immaculate cow? If so, Jerusalem’s Temple Institute, dedicated to doing “all in our limited power to bring about the building of the Holy Temple in our time,” has just the crowdfunding campaign for you: Launched earlier this month, it hopes to raise $125,000 in order to implant the frozen embryos of Red Angus cattle—a hardy breed popular everywhere from Australia to the American West—in Israeli cows, introducing the animals to the Holy Land in the hope that the herd soon produces an unblemished red heifer.
Such a creature—a Parah Aduma—plays a significant part in the ancient Jewish ritual of purification. The Mishnah devotes an entire treatise to the mystical animal, explaining precisely how it ought to be slaughtered—hyssop and silkworms play a central part—in order for its ashes to be mixed with spring water and sprinkled on the priest, making him spiritually clean. Should she materialize—not exactly a certainty, as the Mishnah teaches us mankind was only blessed with seven such animals throughout history, the first having been spotted by Moses himself—the red heifer would take us a few cloven-hoofed steps closer to redemption, making it a little bit easier to rebuild the Temple.

I am not an expert but I believe this conflicts with the New Testament requirements for bringing on Armageddon, so presumably Christian evangelicals will not be contributing their shekels, even if Mike Huckabee -- the most evangelical evangelical of them all -- was over in Israel collecting shekels himself the other day.

Nothing to do with cattle -- except maybe the Republian primary cattle calls -- but Huck did not impress the Guardian:

Mike Huckabee blunders his way through Israel press conference 

I am puzzled by the silkworms. I thought they were introduced into the Middle East late.

I am even more puzzled that the Israeli government allows evangelicals into their country. This Armageddon they hope will happen soon will not be good for Jews. It won't be good for anybody, but especially not for Jews.

I urge you, even if you do not ordinarily click through to links, to click through to this one, and to note the button at top right asking for donations. This is what it says:

 Donate to the Another Jewish Holocaust Fund 

Really.

The cow is funny. The evangelicals are evil.

 

How the freest market in the world really works

Short answer: Not on your behalf.

Longer answer from Matt Levine at Bloomberg News.

In 2009 and 2010, according to the SEC order, "ITG explored initiatives to increase diversification and revenues," and someone came up with a very clever initiative. ITG gets all these customer orders to buy stock, see.  So why not -- just hear me out here -- why not look at the customers' orders, buy the stock ahead of them, and then sell it immediately to the customers at a higher price? That's a pretty good risk-free profit.

You know, I remember when Bush II wanted to take all your Social Security money and give it to people like ITG. I don't recall his mentioning anything about front-running, dark pools and whatnot.

Some people think that free markets do not really operate to give everybody a fair shake, and they are right. Regulators even allow for special categories of players who known to enjoy insurmountable advantages.

Remember that the next time some big-time lawbreaker -- I am looking at you, Jamie Dimon -- tells Congress that more regulation would be a bad thing.

My tool shed

For an hour or so after sunrise, I have the prettiest tool shed on the island. You cannot see them, but bees were swarming all over, fat black bumblebees and little brown solitary bees. There were flowering oleander, gardenia, bougainvillea, stephanotis, jade plant and dandelion nearby, but the bees were interested only in the night-blooming cereus.

Do coral reef ecosystems need fresh water?

Frank Kovalchek's photo of water flowing to the ocean at Oheo

The answer is obvious: No.  Nevertheless, it is a fairly commonly held belief on Maui. (I don't know about elsewhere.)

It came up, briefly, in the First Friday in Wailuku webcast that Jason Schwartz and I do (www.wailukucam.com, usually from about 5-7 p.m.). We interview passers-by, tell jokes (Jason does blonde jokes, I do dog-walks-into-a-bar jokes) and talk about issues that interest us: food poisoning in China, affordable housing on Maui (Jason's big idea) and municipal water (my big idea).

People interested in restoring normal stream flows in east Maui rivers (that would be Steve, our technical master, who offers an unseen commentary as we talk) sometimes assert that fresh runoff is necessary to maintain the health of the offshore ecosystem.

Where this idea came from, I don't know, but for sure it doesn't argue for restoring stream flows. (There are other, better arguments for that.)

The reasons that it doesn't arise from natural phenomena that everybody on Maui experiences but few understand quantitatively. An immense amount of rain falls on east Maui, but about 94% falls on just 6 days out of  typical year.

These would be a couple of 3-day tropical storms, which drop several feet of water. Some soaks into the enormous fresh aquifer but most runs into the ocean.

Nahiku Stream ordinarily runs around 10 million gallons a day, or it would if East Maui Irrigation didn't divert most of it. Nahiku is one of the biggest rivers in east Maui but there are three dozen other rivers.

In a storm, the flow at Nahiku has been measured as high as 9 billion gallons per day.

EMI's ditches can carry off, at most, 200 million gallons per day, so Nahiku all by itself drops 50 times as much water into the ocean as can be diverted to central Maui.

Fresh water is poisonous to coral; that's why entrances through the reefs are at stream mouths.

But the dose makes the poison. It's a big ocean. 9 billion gallons are dispersed quickly.

If it were true that offshore ecosystems required fresh water, then we wouldn't have thriving systems on the leeward side, where most streams are dry nearly 99% of the time and it is usual for 10 months to pass between rainfalls.

A pause for reflection

Today, as on every anniversary of the first atomic bombing in warfare, I will pause to reflect.

Not about the people killed in Hiroshima. But about the millions upon millions who had already been murdered by the Japanese and the millions more who would have been murdered had the war continued beyond August 15, 1945.

And on the moral emptiness, lack of imagination and sympathy and all around ignorance of those people who will gather at "peace bells" on Maui and other places to stroke their own egos.

I have written often on this topic, mostly in book reviews. My fullest statement came in a review published in The Maui News before there was RtO, but available at Amazon.

Other reviews (including one that I would rewrite in part if I were to do it today) were here and here.

The Washington Post has a story today about how the bombing is taught around the world. It isn't a well-done story, but the striking thing about it is that despite the strong emotional reaction that still exists about the use of the bombs -- pro or con -- little attention is given to teaching about it; and there is no evidence that the people in the story made any effort on their own to become well informed.

If it is important enough to commemorate every year, you'd think it would be important enough to learn about.

Salad bar morality

Hands off the ox, Bub!

When I was taught the Ten Commandments, long ago, it was my understanding that they were all equal: It is just as sinful to bear false witness as it is to covet an ox.

It is unusual for RtO to quote Denis Prager approvingly, so watch closely (it won't happen again):

 The Ten Commandments are predicated on the belief that they were given by an Authority higher than any man, any king, or any government.

But it seems that nowadays, some Christian teachers have discovered a way to rank the commandments. I can see that, in the 21st century, amassing oxen might seem to be of less moment than, say, dishonoring parents. But I cannot find any warrant for treating one commandment as less authoritative than another.

Another Republican "inoperative statement," apparently

I bring this up in the context of the Republican assault on Planned Parenthood, which is based on false testimony (forbidden by God Almighty, in Commandment 8 or 9, depending on who's counting).

This is more than somewhat ironic, given the clamor to republish the commandments on every government lawn and foyer. Possibly the Christians treat the Decalogue more as a talisman than as a directive. In any event. there is not much evidence that they have ever read the document, let alone taken it to heart.

UPDATE Can't count, doesn't think, don't talk too good neither. Did Jeb learn nothing from Mitt?