history: September 2008 Archives

The U.S. Congress is working "to finalize the language of an agreement," reports the NYTimes this morning, concerning "the bailout" of what has been called "the financial crisis" and/or "the economic crisis" in the United States.

Overthinkingit.com imagines "put[ting] Bruce Wayne in charge of the SEC." Surrealism of The Dark Knight aside (compliance or complicity?), critique and background information (listen to Jim Crotty's interview) has been issuing from my University for weeks. I admitted to a friend,

"I don't know enough about macro-economics to argue [against the opinion that the bailout is the only option], and certainly have no idea regarding the other consequences (intended and not) that will rain down upon us little people if they do not bail out the banks, but letting people keep their homes seems good to me. Let the major players take the hit and figure out new, better rules."

Perhaps a naive stance, but I want to bridge the harder science of physics with this soft science of economics. I missed most of last Friday's live broadcast from CERN about the next operational steps for the Large Hadron Collider. When I did tune in, one of the scientists was responding to a concern that iron might bend against the steel floor (or some such) because certain experimental results differed from simulated results in an earlier test.

The point the responding scientist emphasized, was that the data is the information, not the simulation: "We won't fit the data to the simulation," he said (quoted from memory), "We will believe the data, as we always should." Someone else argued: "We must do a risk versus benefit analysis for every intervention we imagine we want to make.... according to the Alara Principle - you must do it now" (in this case, install a pre-shower). The question CERN scientists are debating is:

The CERN debate regards when to determine priorities - now, or after some weeks of data has been secured? In another email, I wrote:

I believe [the critique emerging from my University and others] engage[s] the matter of the government tending to bail out the large investors and major institutions (even if the premises for their business are shaky - such as financing purchases that people cannot afford) instead of, or without also bailing out the individuals who suffer the most direct and dire consequences.
I do not want a debate between conservatives (keep traditional, established systems in place) and progressives (change everything), rather, I'd like to figure out ways to change our basis of comparison to long-term sustainability with evidence of gradual improvement for everyone: this is my understanding of U.S. banking policy after the Great Depression, and especially after WWII. Indeed - up through the 1960s, ALL social classes improved their status. Of course markets are more complicated now, but that is just an excuse for a lack of creativity and policy innovation.

Of course, it always matters which data one chooses to pay attention to, and there is always information left out. So illustrates another article in today's NYTimes, describing the participation of Goldman Sachs in negotiations to save American International Group. Gretchen Morgenson explains that the housing collapse is often cited - i.e., framed - as the "cause" of the problem, but argues that A.I.G. is a better exemplar, much closer to - and indicative of - the root of the problem:

the virus exploded from a freewheeling little 377-person unit in London, and flourished in a climate of opulent pay, lax oversight and blind faith in financial risk models.

I am astonished at how easy it has been for the housing market as symptom to become the scapegoat for the problem.

"We have to commit [the bailout agreement] to paper so we can formally agree," Nancy Pelosi is quoted in the NYTimes headline story quoted above. The language is the crux of the matter.

The BBC's Newsnight reported (introduced with a dramatic actionflick score) on Friday's imminent challenge to the U.S. Congress about dealing with the U.S. economy. This clip was shared with my academic department (Communication) with this intro:

"If you are interested in English humor, BBC-interview techniques and reporting, and want to learn a thing or two about the current 'Wall Street' crisis, which you may have missed in the [U.S.] mainstream media, watch [it]."

I learned a thing or three about the dynamic forces at play: financial interests, political imperatives, the role of the presidential campaign debate as a factor in Congress' negotiations. Responses from Communication Department faculty included "Stephen Colbert's razor sharp take on the financial crisis," and a multilayered observation comparing British and U.S. modes of humor and reporting.

In addition to Colbert's labeling of the (apparent) need for the U.S. to decide "in a panic" the largest financial overhaul in our lifetimes, is that while the BBC may have more of a history of engaging "troubling questions," such difficult questions "are [being] posed of those proposing the bailout, questions that used to be hard to pose here [in the U.S.]. Now, though," explains another faculty member, "they're surfacing, e.g. on Rachel Maddow (weeknights, MSNBC, also mainstream)."

Maddow's metaphor of kids in a candy store is excellent. Robert Reich also weighs in on the sugar high. Addiction. That is what this behavior reminds me of - junkies who will do anything in order to score the next hit. Addicts need treatment, and toxic substances (such as those emitting radiation) need careful, deliberate, and open handling. We need to weigh the financial and economic priorities at stake - those in potential as well as those at risk.

Any language used to describe the situation is tricky; ignorance is helpful. (No one expects an American to know anything substantive: "How do you know?!" one man asked, amazed I even had a clue.)

I first learned about the Belgian language crisis from Jeff. Hints had been percolating but I had not followed up: this is not what I'm here to study. Nonetheless, the conjunction is amazing. One could write off the coincidence with a cynical attitude, but that's not my style (how unzeitful, eh?!) Seriously, I am here to study the use of simultaneous interpretation as a democratic means of multicultural governance (to what extent does interpretation guarantee participation and voice?) at the EU's seat - the European Parliament - which just happens to be (largely) based in a country (Belgium) engaging in linguistic conflict.

Getting my French lessons underway (back so long ago in August, ahem), Jeff dug up a news article about the address given by Belgium's King to all citizens on the recent national holiday. The article summarized the crisis (a year without a national government while the northern Flemish speakers of Dutch withheld agreement with the southern Walloonian speakers of French) as a matter of entrenched politicians playing nationalistic sentiment against the majority public will. A few days later, as I was on the phone with someone from the Belgian Consulate in the U.S. concerning my passport, she expressed horror that the foolish King had addressed the country only in French! Jeff, and others who I have spoken with since, were skeptical that the King would neglect speaking also in Flemish (a regional variation of Dutch). Maggie confirmed that the King is well beloved (even though it seems we ascertained that the King's power is more symbolic than literal).

Bill had pieced together a similar account: that economics is driving the current impulse for separation. A gentlemen who helped me board the Antwerp Express from the Brussels airport (who was surprised I knew enough to even ask about the situation) explained that separation is inevitable, because "the Nouth is tired of paying for the Sorth." Dorothee said as much, without the economic angle. She's from France, and her take is that the Flemish are "most powerful" in the debate so far, at least as represented by French news (television and papers). She was unclear if French Belgians actually would want to join France if the Flemish north succeeds in breaking away, although France certainly wants to gain the territory!

Meanwhile, José says the political battle is "ridiculous!" And others have also said the greatest schism is between the Flemish politicians fighting for separation and the broad Flemish majority who perceive no practical issue and would prefer to put governmental energy to other projects, rather than "[trying to] convince us that we are enemies."

Maggie's overview was particularly helpful, as she provided a longer-term economic history. Here is her summary:

Until the 1950s, all the economic wealth was in Wallonia, in coal and steel; the Flemish were poor then. When coal and steel dried up, Flanders took off.

Although Flanders is the name that seems inevitable if the Dutch-speaking north secedes, the actual historical lines shifted so much that there may be room for quibbling. Antwerp was (according to one source) originally part of Brabante, not Flanders. (You see the political landmines?! One's choice of vocabulary assumes or projects an alignment - whether one wishes so or not!)

A fascinating language-based phenomena that Maggie shared led her also to make a prediction that in the future ("ten years") the wealth will re-shift back to the Walloon region:

In the 1980s, all Dutch-speaking college graduates were trilingual (Dutch, French, and English). [During the same period], French-speaking college graduates only knew French and some English. Now [two decades later], French speakers are required to take two years of Dutch in college and English too.

Maggie thinks the status quo will reign until then. The gentleman I spoke with on the bus, however, was convinced separation will occur because "people feel it in their pockets." This linkage of money with language seems rife (first of all) with capitalistic entrepreneurialism, which radically privileges the short-term. (Can there be a capitalism that truly engages the long-term? Or is this when socialism comes into play?) Secondarily, the linkage of language with nationality is reminiscent of Benedict Anderson's argument concerning the appropriation of language for nationalism (see last paragraph). An idealistic American might wish that Europe - let alone one of its pinnacles! - would be beyond such politics, but good old-fashioned rhetoric may be as effective here as we have witnessed it to be in the U.S.

The statue series is by Erica Chaffart; I stumbled upon it today walking through Antwerp's Botanical Garden.

There is always so much going on.

Too much?

I've been trying to sort out some distinctions between "being spiritual" and "being religious" (after being tag-teamed by an Eastern European cynic and an Undertaker from India for the past six years, it seems I've finally cracked). ;-) I know I become overwhelmed, often, trying to make sense of the whole - yet . . . the alternative doesn't appeal. If we give up trying to grasp the whole, then what? Well, people carve out a niche for themselves, making intellectual, emotional, aesthetic choices and compromises and doing the best they can. Meanwhile, social forces twist and buckle the fabric of communities and our cross-cultural relations with each other.

When, I wonder, do we decide it is time to work together? And on what basis? At a community meeting yesterday, someone raised a concern with the erosion of constitutional rights, and someone else objected to the extremity of the claim. But world-class journalists are not supposed to get arrested in America. This occurred at the Republican National Convention, where riot police are keeping protesters as far as possible from the convention center. Since when did protests become such a problem in the land of free speech, the home of originary revolution?

Speaking of which, can you imagine the conversation in Governor Palin's family? "Uh, mom, it's great you just got selected to be the next Vice-President of the United States, but, uh, I've got to tell you something." When does the generosity and understanding that we give our own children extend to other kids' parents?

I was recently at a yoga center where hundreds of earnest persons went about their spiritual work. "Practice," I thought to myself, "for being soon in another country." All the anonymous people were nice enough: polite and indifferent. Don't get me wrong, I was the same way: there to do what I came to do for me, open to engagement if it happened but not seeking interpersonal connection. It was a mild form of alienation. I "belonged" there as much as anyone else who had paid the fee. I look like 95% of the people who were there, and I behave similarly in culturally substantial ways. But I was bothered - it's a commercial place from which collaborative social action might grow but (it seems) only on the basis of similarity.

In the U.S. (the one that I grew up in, have been shaped by, and currently worry about), the emphasis on individuality leads to the massive reproduction of independent spiritualists who - typically, usually - fail to commit to work together for any coherent social action. Even if people are atheists, that identity is defined in opposition to the notion of some kind of spiritual center. With secular yoga, the body has replaced god as the object of worship. In politics, the body is also central: "what" one looks like, and "how" one sounds become the basis for argumentation and persuasion.

Still . . . it is a measure of how far America has come that both candidates for President of the United States are members of multiracial families. (This point was also raised by a participant during that community meeting.) In my opinion, the most important thing Senator Obama said during the Democratic National Convention (quoted from memory) was to assert

We can continue to live as Americans without a common "religion," or as Americans whose religion has become a narrowly-defined nationality, or we can find ways to build common cause with the very material of difference itself.

"This" - all of it - is about us. All of us.