This is getting out of hand...

it's hilariously hilarious!

Lost in translation

Oh my God — literally. Conservapedia is trying to produce a “fully conservative translation” of the Bible — although “translation” seems to be a misnomer, since they’re apparently going to start with King James and fix it, rather than go back to the original texts.

getting to the best parts, read some commnet postings...

I’m waiting to see how the parabel of the “Good Samaritan” is re-written to express its “full free-market meaning” to avoid financial responsibility for the health care of others.

— M. Nelson

These are people who know God’s will far better than God.

— Jan Baer

I especially like guideline number 7:

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Remember Jesus’s rage against the temple merchants? How dare Jesus think that free-market competition at the temple did not end up with the best goods and services at the temple mount!

— edkw

Overheard in Texas, in my youth: “If the King James version was good enough for the Apostle Paul, it’s good enough for you.”
— James

In this the version where Jesus is a supply sider and marries Ayn Rand?
— rp

“Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for capital gains tax reductions.”
-Republican Jesus
— Al R.

In this new version of the bible, Jesus asks the lepers what health care plan they’re on before he cures them.
— Tim

They will probably add how to protect the big corporations, how Christ favors no taxes, how there are no climate problems and many more :)
— Chris

A version prepared at the behest of an absolute monarch is too liberal for these guys. That says alot—about them!
— MinuteMan

Every time scripture is edited or re-written through the prism of man’s political worldview, we become subtly more and more aware that it is only man’s political worldview that has indeed ever been dictated as scripture.
— Valpey

Of course they’re going to put their own spin on it. I wonder how many people will look at their efforts and say “Right!, now bring me the real book.”

Due to the vagaries of life I’ve had occasion to learn a bit of Greek & Latin (mostly for taxonomic purposes) & amused myself at one point in that endeavor by reading the New Testament in both languages. The KJV may have bits wrong here & there, but not THAT wrong.

I feel that their attempts at “improving” will just obfuscate matters more … but I guess obfuscate is what they do best.
— Fred in Colorado

Yet another piece of evidence that the words “conservative” and “conserve” having nothing to do with each other.
— Bryan

Uh, there aren’t any “original texts.” A great deal of biblical scholarship is about trying to get as close to the originals as possible, but this is still a pretty long way in terms of time and iterations of the texts. For example, see Bart D. Ehrman, MIsquoting Jesus, for a popular account of the scholarship by a top scholar. Richard Elliott Friedman does something similar for Hebrew scripture.

Needless to say, the conservative agenda is beyond ridiculous from a scholarly point of view. It is purely propaganda for their curious ideology, which shows little in the way of historical roots.
— Tom Hickey

There are theological reasons to take a KJV update approach. Part of the mystique of the KJV was that it was an “inspired” work, allegedly produced with God’s direction and guidance, much as the Torah, while recounting events which its author according to tradition (Moses) could not have known but was allegedly inspired in writing from the prior oral and fragmentary tradition. A similar process blessed the finalization of the Biblical canon.

Skeptics, myself among them, have doubts about the usefulness of this approach, but it dos have some theological merit and precedent — many of the first vernacular Bibles were derived not from original sources, but from St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation, and many more recent vernacular Bible translations (often partial) into lesser spoken languages outside Europe have used the KJV as a source.

Conservatives also have a barrier to working from the original sources. Most people today who have done the academic work necessary to read the texts in the original languages are, like most academics, more libeal than the Evangelical Christian laity. In contrast, the KJV translaters were, by contemporary standards, more theologically conservative.

Indeed, it is the direct access to the Bible that the KJV made widely available is one of the forces that made it possible for marginally educated evangelists, first in the Methodist movement and then in the Second Great Awakening that created what we know call Evangelical Christianity in the South in what had previous been the most secular part of the U.S. Fundamentalism in Christianity, with its strongy Biblical and literalist focus, is to a great extent a rejection of the gloss that more educated scholars put on Christianity through doctrine.
— ohwilleke

The bible may have been rewritten, but not a blatant attempt to change it so all that peace, love and forgiveness stuff can be toned down. These people are scary crazy.
— chris

Well, let’s see how that one develops. Self-proclaimed God’s lawyers usually end up being evil. We might be in 2009, but there are plenty of Inquisitors and Crusaders out there, not to mention a few KKK die-hards.

A former professor of religion suggested to me some 20 years ago the following scenario.

Jesus comes down to earth again, this time He visits New York City. He wants to see His Church. He opens a phone book at a public phone booth, looks for a church and surprise!, there are plenty of choices. “Where do I begin?”, Jesus says. He continues, “There are all sorts of churches with all sorts of names, all of them Christians. I think they mean by that that they are spreading my teachings and the love of our Father, but which one is my Church?” After a few weeks in the Big Apple, Jesus begins to wonder, do they all love God? And if so, why don’t some of those churches talk to each other? Why do some of their Christian followers simply hate each other so much?

…and now we are going to get another “new and improved” translation, with its self-proclaimed experts, interpreters, and, unavoidable, eventual earth-bound gate keepers. LOL!

Sadly, churches are like Cable TV or Satellite Dish: hundreds of options, some boring, some entertaining, some great, some disgusting, some profitable, some bankrupt, some center-left, some center-right, some extreme-left, some extreme-right, some open-minded, some close-minded, some egalitarian, some working-class, some ecumenical, and some just happen to be the right place for your heart! Professor, dealing with non-eternal economic matters is far more easier, safer, and educational than giving an opinion in an over-saturated field where every one with his or her bible feels like that they have Nobel Prize from God in religion interpretation.

Let’s stick to the numbers please. Thanks! I will pray for that.
— ANSFA

How can you change the literal words of God? Either the conservatives believe the bible is the word of God or they don’t.

If they do believe that then they are desecrating God’s words. Where are the OTHER conservative religions objections to this?

So it looks like what many of us have been saying, and illustrated by so many conservative scandals, that some conservatives use the bible for political gain when it suits them and ignore it when it doesn’t.

Now they are making a conservative “politically correct” version of the bible. Where’s the outrage? Hey PC police why are you ignoring this?

Hey Fox “News” where’s your “war on the bible” 24/7 coverage? Just think of the reaction if the liberals did this!
— J.H.

There’s King James and there’s whatever they are using. Judging from the excerpts I have seen, this is not the elegant King James version, possibly the Gideon Bible. Doesn’t ultimately matter since the point is to create a politically correct “Bible” of a modern GOP conservative slant. The whole idea is hilariously ridiculous especially since what we know of Jesus (Isa) is that he was a pretty radical guy who would be utterly condemned if he showed up at a Republican (or even “moderate” Democratic) gathering nowadays.
— Jim Tarrant

It’s a wiki project, which means that people are going to decide God’s will by popular vote.

It’s much easier to follow the rules if you write them yourself, I guess. What I don’t get is why they need a religion at all if they’re just making it up.
— Jennifer

After that lot have finished with the bible there is no chance that the meek will be inheriting the earth.
— Richard

“Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio”

Because Conservatives have such a low word-to-substance ratio, just listen to one of Sarah Palin’s 90 minute speeches…
— Scott MacGregor

I assume that they will “clarify” God’s opinion on public healthcare options.
— Viktor

This is what George Orwell would have called an “ideological translation”
— Laurence

In the beginning, was the word… Reaganomics. And the Lord sayeth, it is good.
— Shane

I’d have to agree with nyet, based on what I’ve read from Ehrman, this is nothing particularly new. Whether part of an organized group effort or the work of an individual’s intent or error, the Bible has been undergoing revisions of varying levels of impact throughout its history.

It’ll be fascinating to see what they do…
— Rob Milcik

There are no original texts of the Bible. That’s the problem with it. We have extent copies of the originals that do not agree with each other. If only there were one canonical “original draft” of that darn book, I feel many lives would not have been wasted through the centuries.
— Joe J.

If they start from the King James Version I hope they keep the unicorns.
— AgnosticOracle

This one is seriously funny...

We are all sinnners. We need the Bible and other books that tell us of Gods and their relatives so that we may know how to live our lives.

Many parts of the Old Testament sound rash and foolish at first glance, but on further study become clear, especially in the movie versions.

The books about the return of Jesus are particularly interesting because, as they have been interpreted, one may enter the kingdom of heaven by simply accepting Jesus as one’s savior and be taken–actually removed from one’s clothes–with him into Heaven.

It is not clear to me where that is, but perhaps I would know more about it if I had studied the Bible more critically. If it is someplace like west Texas, I am not sure I would want to go. On the other hand if it is more like Nice or Carmel-by-the-Sea, then I would think of getting clothes after I arrived.

There are a lot of wars and murders and people killing their brothers and people being crucifiied. Frankly, it was scarier than the soldier’s manual you receive when you enter the military. But not so boring.

There is a real problem with the Bible, and not only with Jesus and his Dad, but with all biblical stories from all faiths, and I have read some, and a few very intensly as a young man…the Greek and later the Roman Gods…pretty much cousins you might say. Famlies very similar. But very, very entertaining Gods. They actually “get it” about being Dieties. It’s about the fun times…and good, solid revenge.

But the problem with any of those stories is that I don’t know what the hell they want me to do. The Hindus contradict the Buddhists and the Shintos contradict the Christians and the Muslims contradict the Mormons.

Listen, I’m glad to do what I’m told, when I’m told, where I’m told to do it. I am nothing if not a good toady. I was a pretty good soldier. Followed orders. Never quite court-martialed. But I don’t know which of all these thousands of different immutable truths is immutable.

And now we’re going to have a new version by the same guys that brought us two wars, a mild Depression or a severe Recession…take your pick….and want to deny health care to my granddaughter…which won’t happen as long as I, too, have a gun. A new version of their idea of truth and beauty…fried chicken, NASCAR fumes, shooting up grade schools, high schools and deciding that all college students should be armed so we can have a total shootout there?

If that’s the new bible, I’ll stick with Zeus. If you disobeyed him you were literally toast.
— Joseph O’Shaughnessy

i can't stop laughing...

In a way, there is precedent for this nonsense. The King James Bible, for all its masterful English prose, is itself not a translation, but merely a “version.” It is a revision of translations such as the Geneva bIble, which had too many notes about the evils of kings. The difference between the King James and the (proposed) King Rush versions is that the KJV was not trying to correct political apostasies in the text.
— rbh

Serious, serious...

If it is a non-profit-work it will be much easier to revise the King James then to start from the beginning.

Easier, but both also lazy, non-scholarly, and unreliable. We’re not talking Sumerian, here, we’re talking about competency in something realistically achievable: koine Greek for the New Testament, Hebrew for the Old Testament. And, if I understand them correctly, they’re not interested in the OT, so that means only competency in koine Greek. (Though there’s a substantial number of transliterations from Aramaic and Hebrew into Greek in the NT, so any true quality translation would require fluency in those languages, as well as a fluency in the relevant cultural history.)

But, putting that objection aside, there’s also the problem that the King James version is not a very reliable translation. With regard to the New Testament, anyone with a small degree of competency in koine Greek today can read the texts which were its base and find numerous translation errors. This is because scholarly competence in classical Greek at the time of the KJV was not that high, for a number of reasons (mostly, though, that they had far fewer texts available from which to derive fluency and a consequentially much smaller body of reference works).

It’s also worth mentioning the Early Modern English, in which the KJV is written, is an archaic and unfamiliar dialect of English for most modern speakers and requires a certain degree of fluency in its own right. Just as many contemporary readers misunderstand Shakespeare (e.g., “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”), many contemporary readers misunderstand KJV text.

Given this, then a “re-translation” of the Bible beginning with the KJV will compound its unreliable translations with misunderstandings of its text.

It’s hard to imagine a more incompetent supposedly scholarly project. There is no excuse for this sort of thing. Many American evangelicals learn some koine Greek—it’s not asking very much for the Conservapedia folk to attain even the barest minimum competency for such a project.
— Keith M Ellis

The Conservative Bible Project calls for explaining Jesus’ parables about money as “free market parables.” They do not list any examples; however, I would counter that there are no “free market parables.” All the parables that include an illustration of money are of the coming of the Kingdom of Heaven, how Christians are to think about God and treat each other as children of God, or are about stewardship. Although Jesus commends giving liberally (sorry, just couldn’t help myself) and with generosity, he is not giving a Dave Ramsey or Suze Orman seminar on investing or economics. In fact, his anger and rampage over the money changers in the Temple is an example of Jesus condemning unchecked and unethical free market practices.

The Christian Bible Project plan and intent, however, is far more dangerous than just spinning a passage to suit their ends. What they propose is tantamount to presenting another gospel. Hans Kung, the preeminent German Catholic theologian, in his book, The Church (Verlag Herder KG, 1967) says this is schisma of the worst kind:

“When the expression “heresy” is used in the New Testament, not in a neutral sense meaning “school” or “party”, but in a definitely negative sense, it implies something more than the word “scisma”. . .which indicates a “split” in the community based above all on personal quarrellings. “Heresy means a fellowship which questions the whole faith of the ecclesia by presenting “another gospel” (cf. Gal. 1:6-9), and which is therefore in opposition to the ecclesia (p 315).”

Heresy? Perhaps, perhaps not. But the authors of this version walk perilously close to “presenting another gospel” discounting 2000 years of scholarship and orthodoxy.

Dr. David Waggoner, PhD
http://www.extremethinkover.com

TSG (#100) writes:

“Does that mean they are going to edit out the New Testament?”

Edit it, not edit it out. There are a few parts that can stay, e.g.:

Luke 3:14: “Be content with your wages.”

Matthew 20: 15: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own?”

Mark 4:25: “For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.”

But from the OT, some things will have to go, such as all that those pesky prophets said about justice to the poor, too copious to do justice to in this comment. But one chapter I like is Micah 3, in which oppression of the poor is likened to cannibalism.

Then there’s Proverbs 21:13:

“Who stoppeth his ears at the cry of the poor, he also shall cry himself, but shall not be heard.”
— miriam

i don't think they are serious... OMG! They are.

19 Dec 2009 (ROD 17th Anniversary)

Socially useless occupations

Krugman: "Darling, i love you"

OK, that’s way too strong. But Alistair Darling’s new super-tax on bank bonuses sounds like a good idea, on first read. Or as Justin Fox puts it, why the heck not?

Are we afraid that the best and the brightest will leave high finance and pursue other occupations? That strikes me as a good thing: everything we know suggests that the rapid growth in finance since 1980 has largely been a matter of rent-seeking, rather than true productivity. (As Paul Volcker says, it’s hard to come up with any clearly productive financial innovations of recent decades other than the ATM).

Or are we worried that it’s just unfair to discriminate against high-earning bankers? Bear with me while I stop laughing. More seriously, the whole sector has just been bailed out at immense taxpayer expense. Some payback seems entirely reasonable.

So, the details need analyzing. But on the face of it this looks entirely reasonable.

10 December 2009

it's not over

The Big Story, by Low Chee Kong of the Todayonline

GOVERNMENT interventions around the world may have staved off what was initially touted as the second Great Depression but they have created a dire side effect: Painful lessons have not been learnt as the global economy resumes business as usual.

As Financial Times associate editor and chief economics commentator Martin Wolf laments, there is a palpable air of complacency given how the global economy emerged relatively unscathed.

Speaking to Weekend Today, the renowned British economist-turned-journalist dismissed as "completely laughable" the idea that the global economy is back on the path of sustainable recovery.

Instead, he warns that the global economy could be set for a big, ugly fall should bullish political and business leaders believe too much of their own rhetoric. And if the cards are not played right, a fiscal and currency crisis could be just round the corner - triggering another recession which could usher the end of liberal trade as we know it.

Prominent figures around the world have been proclaiming that the worst is over - backed up by the economic statistics that are, generally, looking better by the day. How would you convince people that the global economic crisis is far from over?

A turnaround is not the end of the crisis - the crisis ends when you get back to where you were before.

The main reason for this turnaround has been massive - indeed completely unprecedented - stimulus policies around the world, particularly in the Western economies and in China. None of this is sustainable in the long run.

At some point, all these exceptional policies will have to be reversed. (Then) the private sector will have to take up the strain of spending. And we are years - and I mean years - away from seeing that sort of private sector upsurge.

One of the main reasons is there was an extraordinary debt accumulation in the households and the financial sector during the boom time. The deleveraging of this debt accumulation is a long-term process and it has barely begun.

Finally, there is a real risk that a fiscal and currency crisis will emerge, affecting some of the world's most important currencies, and particularly, the US dollar.

Public debt is rising very rapidly ... the dollar is under strain and monetary policy is extremely aggressive. It is possible that there will be, at some point, a flight from the dollar which will force higher long-term interest rates in the United States and (set off) another recession.

Some commentators, including yourself, lament the speed at which the crisis has apparently been resolved. They believe that, as a result, lessons have not been learnt ...

We have encouraged the financial sector to go back to doing business as normal but with even more 'too-big-to-fail' firms than before, and even more confidence that they are too big to fail.

That's a recipe for a very substantial financial crisis again at some point in the future ... This does not mean that I think it would have been right to allow another Great Depression but one of the consequences of the tremendous government-led rescue effort is that we may have become too complacent.

What are the 'massive changes' that you believe are still needed to ensure a sustainable recovery?

If export demand is to play a much bigger role in income generation in countries like the US and the United Kingdom then, by definition, other countries in the world, which previously have large surpluses, must undergo a structural shift towards deficit - with demand rising faster than GDP.

At the moment, nearly all the strain (in the global economy) has been taken by increases in public sector demand and exceptional monetary policy designed to maintain private sector spending in the affected economies, rather than a long-term structural rebalancing of the world economy.

The Asian growth model - characterised by export-led growth, strong current account - is no longer a sustainable model because it has simply run out of credit-worthy spenders on the other side of the equation.

So the most pressing change is an adjustment in that model. It would also mean changes in exchange rate policy.

Meanwhile, in the developed countries, there's going to be a huge fiscal consolidation which is going to take many years. And all these changes have to occur together.

You believe that inaction could even mean the end of this era of globalisation. Is that too alarmist?

If the US does not get a healthy private sector-led and export-led growth, unemployment will not fall by any significant amount over the next year or so.

If, at the same time, the US current account deficit starts to expand again while the Chinese current account surplus starts rising again - add to that the possibility of rising oil prices which further exacerbates the global imbalances - then I think it's going to be very difficult to maintain liberal trade.

People underestimate the possibility that, if unemployment remains persistent in the US, the political commitment to open trade is going to collapse. This is a society extremely resistant to high unemployment and there is a very good chance that it's going to last for a very long time.

People are far too complacent, in my view, about the maintenance of the open world economy.

How much has the political dimension been a factor in what is essentially an economic problem?

An event of this kind is political in the highest degree. Just think of some of the political aspects: The imperative to avoid mass unemployment and depression; the immense unpopularity of being seen to help the financial sector; a very large potential for international friction over who is doing the right thing to save the financial sector and the world economy; and, particularly, the potential for conflict between China and the West, particularly the US.

Success or failure in managing the crisis is clearly regarded by policy-makers as determining their ability to hold on to power - that's true in a democratic system and probably even true in a non-democratic system.

I'm sure that one of the reasons the Chinese government was so aggressive in its stimulus programme is that it recognises the danger to political stability of a long-term fall in China's growth rate.

The question is whether the political realities allow policy-makers the right policy choices which would actually deliver results they want ...

To give you one example: At some point we are going to have to have a massive fiscal consolidation in the developed countries where the deficits are so large.

And it's not clear at the moment whether the countries will be able to make the commitments to massive tax rises and expenditure cuts which will be needed. So, that's again politics.

Mr Martin Wolf is associate editor and chief economics commentator at the Financial Times. He will be speaking on Dec 2 at the Global Insights Series organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

24 Nov 2009

But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table

Banks do God's Work

The Great Wealth Transfer

Paul Krugman wrote this in Nov 2006:

"Why doesn't Bush get credit for the strong economy?" That question has been asked over and over again in recent months by political pundits. After all, they point out, the gross domestic product is up; unemployment, at least according to official figures, is low by historical standards; and stocks have recovered much of the ground they lost in the early years of the decade, with the Dow surpassing 12,000 for the first time. Yet the public remains deeply unhappy with the state of the economy. In a recent poll, only a minority of Americans rated the economy as "excellent" or "good," while most consider it no better than "fair" or "poor." Are people just ungrateful? ..."

hmm... sounds familiar.

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." Matthew 15:27 (NIV)
 
 
From Matthew Henry's concise commentary, read for the proper context of the above verse.
 

15:21-28 The dark corners of the country, the most remote, shall share Christ's influences; afterwards the ends of the earth shall see his salvation. The distress and trouble of her family brought a woman to Christ; and though it is need that drives us to Christ, yet we shall not therefore be driven from him. She did not limit Christ to any particular instance of mercy, but mercy, mercy, is what she begged for: she pleads not merit, but depends upon mercy. It is the duty of parents to pray for their children, and to be earnest in prayer for them, especially for their souls. Have you a son, a daughter, grievously vexed with a proud devil, an unclean devil, a malicious devil, led captive by him at his will? this is a case more deplorable than that of bodily possession, and you must bring them by faith and prayer to Christ, who alone is able to heal them. Many methods of Christ's providence, especially of his grace, in dealing with his people, which are dark and perplexing, may be explained by this story, which teaches that there may be love in Christ's heart while there are frowns in his face; and it encourages us, though he seems ready to slay us, yet to trust in him. Those whom Christ intends most to honour, he humbles to feel their own unworthiness. A proud, unhumbled heart would not have borne this; but she turned it into an argument to support her request. The state of this woman is an emblem of the state of a sinner, deeply conscious of the misery of his soul. The least of Christ is precious to a believer, even the very crumbs of the Bread of life. Of all graces, faith honours Christ most; therefore of all graces Christ honours faith most. He cured her daughter. He spake, and it was done. From hence let such as seek help from the Lord, and receive no gracious answer, learn to turn even their unworthiness and discouragements into pleas for mercy.

 

Just being cheeky with the title.

 

18 Nov 2009

Mr Yuan

Senior monetary officials usually talk in code. So when Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, spoke recently about Asia, international imbalances and the financial crisis, he didn’t specifically criticize China’s outrageous currency policy.

But he didn’t have to: everyone got the subtext. China’s bad behavior is posing a growing threat to the rest of the world economy. The only question now is what the world — and, in particular, the United States — will do about it.

Some background: The value of China’s currency, unlike, say, the value of the British pound, isn’t determined by supply and demand. Instead, Chinese authorities enforced that target by buying or selling their currency in the foreign exchange market — a policy made possible by restrictions on the ability of private investors to move their money either into or out of the country.

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with such a policy, especially in a still poor country whose financial system might all too easily be destabilized by volatile flows of hot money. In fact, the system served China well during the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s. The crucial question, however, is whether the target value of the yuan is reasonable.

Until around 2001, you could argue that it was: China’s overall trade position wasn’t too far out of balance. From then onward, however, the policy of keeping the yuan-dollar rate fixed came to look increasingly bizarre. First of all, the dollar slid in value, especially against the euro, so that by keeping the yuan/dollar rate fixed, Chinese officials were, in effect, devaluing their currency against everyone else’s. Meanwhile, productivity in China’s export industries soared; combined with the de facto devaluation, this made Chinese goods extremely cheap on world markets.

The result was a huge Chinese trade surplus. If supply and demand had been allowed to prevail, the value of China’s currency would have risen sharply. But Chinese authorities didn’t let it rise. They kept it down by selling vast quantities of the currency, acquiring in return an enormous hoard of foreign assets, mostly in dollars, currently worth about $2.1 trillion.

Many economists, myself included, believe that China’s asset-buying spree helped inflate the housing bubble, setting the stage for the global financial crisis. But China’s insistence on keeping the yuan/dollar rate fixed, even when the dollar declines, may be doing even more harm now.

Although there has been a lot of doomsaying about the falling dollar, that decline is actually both natural and desirable. America needs a weaker dollar to help reduce its trade deficit, and it’s getting that weaker dollar as nervous investors, who flocked into the presumed safety of U.S. debt at the peak of the crisis, have started putting their money to work elsewhere.

But China has been keeping its currency pegged to the dollar — which means that a country with a huge trade surplus and a rapidly recovering economy, a country whose currency should be rising in value, is in effect engineering a large devaluation instead.

And that’s a particularly bad thing to do at a time when the world economy remains deeply depressed due to inadequate overall demand. By pursuing a weak-currency policy, China is siphoning some of that inadequate demand away from other nations, which is hurting growth almost everywhere. The biggest victims, by the way, are probably workers in other poor countries. In normal times, I’d be among the first to reject claims that China is stealing other peoples’ jobs, but right now it’s the simple truth.

So what are we going to do?

U.S. officials have been extremely cautious about confronting the China problem, to such an extent that last week the Treasury Department, while expressing “concerns,” certified in a required report to Congress that China is not — repeat not — manipulating its currency. They’re kidding, right?

The thing is, right now this caution makes little sense. Suppose the Chinese were to do what Wall Street and Washington seem to fear and start selling some of their dollar hoard. Under current conditions, this would actually help the U.S. economy by making our exports more competitive.

In fact, some countries, most notably Switzerland, have been trying to support their economies by selling their own currencies on the foreign exchange market. The United States, mainly for diplomatic reasons, can’t do this; but if the Chinese decide to do it on our behalf, we should send them a thank-you note.

The point is that with the world economy still in a precarious state, beggar-thy-neighbor policies by major players can’t be tolerated. Something must be done about China’s currency.

Paul Krugman

28 Oct 2009

The Singapore Business Model

The SDP opposes plans to close five wet markets in Singapore to be replaced with supermarkets. This will increase the cost of doing business and raise prices of produce and other foodstuff.

Supermarket chain Sheng Shiong announced that it was buying over five wet markets in various housing estates and converting them into air-conditioned market facilities. The plan has sparked off unhappiness among Singaporeans.

The Singapore Democrats are concerned that such a conversion will mean that the stallholders will end up having to pay more for operating in the new facilities. The higher costs will be passed on to the shopper and add to the already high cost of living of Singaporeans.

At a time where inflation is already outstripping wages, such a move is reprehensible. It will only lead to more difficulties for the people.

If the idea is to create a one-store supermarket, the vendors will lose their independent livelihoods and may end up becoming workers of the supermarket. They will then have to compete with foreign workers which means that their income will be drastically reduced.

For these reasons, the Singapore Democrats are opposed to HDB approving the sale of the wet markets to Sheng Shiong. Among the five markets that are affected are: Choa Chu Kang Street 62, Choa Chu Kang Avenue 1, Serangoon North Avenue 3, Bukit Batok West Avenue 8 and Fajar Road.

The SDP will take the case to Singaporeans especially the residents at the Bukit Panjang constituency where we contested in the last general elections.

In our regular and on-going visits to the estate, we will draw attention to this unthinking and uncaring move, and will call on residents there to reject the politics of greed and profit-making at the expense of the economic well-being of the people.

We will ask the residents to oppose the sale of the wet market at Fajar Road and in so doing keep prices of foodstuff and other essentials from going up even further.

Singaporeans must put a stop to this hawking of the people's interests to the highest bidder. This has caused much hardship for the people as prices continue to escalate beyond our means.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I agree with SDP that the government's system of allowing private vendors to bid for and operate basic facilities, amenities and services such as hawker centres, markets, carparks, traffic and parking warden services, postal services, factory spaces, building of public flats, etc.

These private bodies, whose sole prerogative is profit-making, only act as an additional cost layer that inflates prices to the lay consumers while providing minimal or no value-add. They also usually charge a premium to merely act as middle-men to resell the facilities to the final retailers.

Anecdotal evidences indicate that they do not provide a higher quality of services than that of the statutory boards or ministries who used to run these.

If the statutory boards and ministries profess themselves to be bodies of efficiency and cost prudence, then they should not take an easy way out by devolving basic responsibilities to private vendors.

If the statutory boards' and ministries scope of responsibilities have been reduced over the years, then there should be a corresponding reduction in budget allocated to them.

SDP should be commended if it can keep tab on how the government allows the private sector to encroach on basic services to the people. This article itself represents a measure and balanced approached taken by the party without innuendos and undue politicking. Kudos and keep it up.

Comments by BryanT

On a similar note: Third-party service provider business model enslaves the common worker.  Business owners have to out-bid their rivals to secure the contract at cut throat prices. As a result, workers (rank and file) terms of employment are most often unfavorable (Long hours and at low pay). Supervisors and managers have to juggle between the interest of their employer and their client. On the one hand, managers have to ensure the company make a profit and on the other, fulfil the demands of the client, of which the company is held bond by the terms of the service contract.

Where and who to squeeze? The lowly educated, out of options common worker. "You don't want this job?", "I can easily find foreign workers to fill in you know..."

Business owners need to maintain profit which leads to manpower and material constraints, which put the manager/supervisors in a precarious situation which, eventually (one of these days) leads to a breach of service contract. Lowered service quality impact the client  "business". In the case where the public is the end consumer, growing dissatisfaction ensue.

And where does all the profits go to?

While the rest of us are mirred in the blame game, workers blaming fellow workers (and even blaming foreign workers for taking away our jobs), the owners of capital (are government owners of capital?) are laughing to the bank.

05 October 2009

High Falutin

Dr Wong Wee Nam

Like the majority of Singaporeans, I learned to say the National Pledge when I was in school. Since then I think I have lived by the vow that I had made. I am still committed to building a democratic society as I am to speaking out against injustice and inequality. To me a pledge is a solemn promise or a vow. It is not like a New Year’s resolution that you make on the first day of the year and forget it immediately the next day.

When Mr S Rajaratnam crafted the National Pledge, I don’t think he meant it to be just a New Year’s resolution. I believe he wrote it with conviction. It is not just an aspiration to be desired but a goal to be attained.

The words in the National Pledge meant a lot to me as it was to the founding fathers of Singapore. After being suffocated by the turbulent years in Malaysia, all Singaporeans wanted was to breathe the air of freedom.

We had lived through authoritarianism. We were ruled by a government with such an overwhelming majority that it could easily, and did, brow-beat its opponents. We lived under a government with a more than two-thirds majority that could push through any law it wanted. It was a government that cared more for its political base than the general population.

Singaporeans were made to feel like second class citizens and we could do nothing about it. True, there were elections but that does not mean there was democracy, even though all the constituencies were single-seat constituencies.

The Press and the Media at that time were so biased and pro-Alliance that if there had been a ranking at that time, they would have ranked more than 150th. Sounds familiar doesn’t it?

Fortunately, the situation was slightly better for the opposition then because the PAP in Singapore, at least, had the resources to counter the Malaysian government’s propaganda with Singapore’s own Radio and Television station and a government publication called the Mirror.

As a result, the separation from Malaysia came as a relief and the pledge was designed as a vow so that Singaporeans would not be subjected to the same conditions that we had broken away from.

Thus, the National Pledge is not just about protecting any racial minority. It is also about working towards social and economic justice. More so, it is about doing away with an authoritarian system and building a more democratic society.

Having gone through that period as an opposition political leader, one can understand why Mr Rajaratnam wrote those words and the spirit with which he crafted them.

As an ordinary young citizen who had lived through the period, I am, like all other Singaporeans, able to embrace the ideals behind the National Pledge.

After having lived under a government that bases its policies on the supremacy of race, language and religion, words like “regardless of race, language or religion” are like water in a dry season. After having lived under a system of injustice, inequality and a government-controlled media, we wanted change and more political freedom.

This is the reason why the pledge says we must strive to build a democratic society based on justice and equality. That is also why we believe, as the craftsmen then believed, that it is through democracy, justice and equality that we can bring happiness, prosperity and progress for our nation.

44 years on, times have changed. The National Pledge appears to have lost its original spirit. For every day of their school lives, young Singaporeans recite the Pledge over and over again. However, do they care to understand the meaning of democracy, justice and equality? When we were in Malaysia, these concepts were so important to us that we had a series of radio courses teaching us these concepts. Why are these concepts now not important enough to be taught to the young?

Thus it is a shame that after years of repeating it, one-third of Singaporeans still are unable to say it correctly, let alone understand the spirit behind the Pledge.

Whether the Pledge is recited at 8.22pm on National Day by everyone together or repeated everyday alone by oneself, it is meaningless if we do not believe in what we say.

How can we strive to build a democratic society based on justice and equality when the general population is so apathetic, the climate of fear still exists, the level of the political playing field uneven, the media is still state-controlled and when our leaders of a party, whose founding fathers introduced the Pledge, do not believe that democracy is the formula for happiness, prosperity and progress?

How can we talk about justice and equality when there is such a large income disparity after 44 years of pledge-reciting?

What is the meaning of putting our fists onto our heart and saying a vow when we are not likely to walk the talk?

Ten days before National Day, a telling phenomenon took place at the National Stadium. 50,000 fans converged on the National Stadium all dressed in Red. Many, if not all, had said the National Pledge in school. Unfortunately, they were not there to have a pre-National Day celebration. Neither were the majority there to support the National football team that was playing Liverpool. Instead they were there to support the Liverpool team, to turn the National Stadium into Anfield and to sing the Liverpool anthem, “You’ll Never Walk Alone”.

This may be a football match, but the display by the fans is a symptom of a national disease. I watched Manchester United played against Hangzhou Greentown. The Chinese supporters were cheering their team (even though not a National one) even when they were 6 nil down. And when their team scored the two consolation goals, they cheered as if they had won the match.

Alas, pledge or no pledge, Singapore has still a long way to go to achieve nationhood. I weep.

So besides Harry, there are others " who had lived through that period " ...

22 August 2009