StephenKMackSD's Blog

Posted on February 3, 2021 by stephenkmacksd

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Aug 29, 2025

Title this ‘The Enlightenment of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown’ ? Mr. Ganesh doesn’t need to dust off his Madame Arcati shtick, he uses C-Span to demonstrate that Bill Clinton’s utter betrayal of the New Deal Tradition, in America, might just work in Britain: thus was born, the post WWII Labour Party and its Welfare State morphed into ‘Thatcherism Light’? Political opportunism, wedded to what would evolve into the myth of ‘The Third Way’ (Edward L. Bernays wrote the manuel.)that led to the economic/political catastrophe of 2008!

The archive of the US broadcaster C-Span is among the internet’s little wonders. In January 1993, an “Anthony Blair” toured Washington with another British MP named Gordon Brown. Their brief: to divine how president-elect Bill Clinton had won office and what their four-times defeated Labour party might learn. Their interview with a C-Span anchor of the just-the-facts school (“How many MPs in the House of Commons?”) is immortalised.

That ‘C-Span anchor‘ is Brian Lamb. He conducts a polite, and informative interview, aimed at an American audience. Not much more to be said. Except, of course, from Mr. Ganesh’s lofty perch.

Then the reader confronts more Ganesh mis-readings, misapprehensions, or just ideologically inflected chatter e.g. :

President Joe Biden’s centre-left peers are out of power and often out of sorts in the UK, France, Australia and the Netherlands.

A vexing question arises: how can a Neo-Liberal be ‘Center-Left’? The ‘Center’ in Western political life is now defined by the alliance between the Neo-Liberals and the Neo-Conservatives. Such is the toxicity of a collapsed Neo-Liberalism, that an actual rational political Center cannot exist. Except as a pose, a self -created mirage, a simulacrum.

If the Democrats stand out from a centre-left malaise, it is for reasons that are not much imitable outside the US.

I’ve run out of patience with Mr. Ganesh! How telling that Right-Wing Populism is the watershed of a failed Neo-Liberal Swindle? After the Crash of 2008, the fate of the Working and Middle Classes left to a rapacious Capitalism, and a politics controlled by sycophants to that Capital, and their Media allies.

On that ‘Center-Left Malaise’ in Europe see Phillip Ther’s ‘Europe since 1989: A History’ Chapters 4 & 5 that describes the toxic effects, that a fully embraced Neo-Liberalism, that left the Mitteleuropean states ripe for the Populists. That might just be first step toward an understanding of the ‘center-left malise’? Mr. Ganesh’s ‘center -left’ could be a stand-in for ‘Liberal’ or even ‘Left-Wing Social Democrats’?

With his political parameters in place, Mr. Ganesh is at full political gallop, the ‘Left’ in all its political iterations, is the enemy of choice. But the garnish is all important, the catalogue of reasons, a political symptomology is offered.

What can the reader make of the continuing rebellion, in France, against the Neo-Liberal Macron, which the Corporate Media ignores, although twitter is its life blood. And Corbyn’s ‘Project for Peace and Justice’ are the signs that the ‘Rebellion Against the Elites’ has simply reached a new stage of political development, maturation?

Mr. Ganesh final paragraph, the highfalutin notion of ‘the social contract’ dresses up his intervention with a quandry, or is it a conundrum?

What is distinctively American is the gap between the two parties on the social contract. And the subsequent indispensability of the Democratic voice. That the Biden and Republican plans for pandemic relief are $1.3tn apart could not be more eloquent of the stakes. To look at their electoral record, then the lot of the US poor, it is hard to tell if the Democrats are the most successful progressives in the rich world or the most consistently disappointing.

Political Cynic

https://www.ft.com/content/7f9e8797-a6a0-4ff8-a25d-ea2bad3e2d3c

Political Cynic on the end of ‘reading’ replaced by ‘Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics’ !

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Aug 29, 2025

Political Cynic.

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Aug 29, 2025

https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-trump-can-control-fed

How Trump Can Control the Fed

Could President-elect Donald Trump end Fed independence on monetary policy? A legislative anomaly gives him a way.

Post by Benn Steil and Elisabeth Harding

November 18, 2024 12:10 pm (EST)

In Barron’s last Thursday, I (Benn) argued that a dusty legal anomaly could help president-elect Donald Trump—who has questioned the logic and legal basis of Fed independence—to wrest control of monetary policy away from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

The FOMC, composed of the seven Board of Governors members and five Reserve Bank presidents, has sole legal authority to conduct monetary policy. But legislation gives the power to control interest on bank reserves—the primary tool by which the Fed implements monetary policy—solely to the Board of Governors. As shown in the graphic above, all of the Board’s seven members are presidential appointments, whereas five of the twelve FOMC members are Reserve Bank presidents—not chosen by the White House. In theory, as explained in the column, the FOMC could decide to raise rates while the Board, perhaps in deference to the president, could order them cut.

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Though Trump cannot fire Jay Powell as chair of the FOMC, it is an open legal question as to whether he could fire him as chair of the Board. Law scholars generally say “no,” but Powell would likely have to fight a firing on his own—as the Fed lacks standing to contest it. If Trump were successfully to replace Powell as Board chair, we would effectively have two antagonist monetary “popes”—one chairing the FOMC, and the other chairing the Board.

Still, chairs are firsts-among-equals, and do not have any greater say, legally at least, than other Board or Committee members. And Trump could not, in any case, fire Powell as a Board governor, except with “cause.”

Could Trump find valid “cause” to fire Powell—or indeed other Board members? It is certainly possible. In the case of Democratic Board appointee Adriana Kugler, her term expires, in any case, at the end of January 2026, after which she will certainly be replaced by a Trump loyalist. Two other board members, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, were appointed by Trump in his first term, and might, one could speculate, be induced thereby to do his bidding. We think that unlikely, particularly in the case of the academically reared Waller, but we take note of the recent praise heaped on Bowman’s speech, connecting immigration with rising housing unaffordability, by vice-president elect JD Vance. Other Board members, all Biden appointees—Michael Barr, Philip Jefferson, and Lisa Cook—could well be induced to pursue other opportunities before their terms expire, thus creating openings for Trump without the need for dismissals.

We have heard a wide range of views on the plausibility of a Trump takeover of monetary policy by way of the Board, as laid out in the Barron’s piece. These range from “it’s terrifying” to “nah.” But in any case, draft legislation (in the form of Richard Shelby’s 2015 Financial Regulatory Improvement Act) already exists to eliminate the anomaly of Board control over interest-on-reserves. We would urge Congressfolk who believe in the importance of central-bank independence to act on it.

https://www.cfr.org/blog/how-trump-can-control-fed

Political Observer !

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Aug 28, 2025

Political Observer.

Stephen K. Mack : I have read Daniel Larison since he was writing for The American Conservative, and was eventually fired! This writer/thinker deserves your attention!

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Aug 28, 2025

SKM: Here is his latest essay:

The Colossal ‘Snapback’ Error

The three European governments risk driving Iran to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Daniel Larison

Aug 28

France, Britain, and Germany are about to make a colossal error:

The UK, France and Germany were preparing on Thursday to trigger a UN process to reimpose sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme, European officials have said, in a move that would heighten tensions between the west and Tehran.

The three European governments risk driving Iran to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Even if Iran doesn’t quit the treaty entirely, it is practically guaranteed that their government would no longer cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). As an Iranian diplomat said this week, it will make “no sense” for Iran to cooperate with inspectors if the sanctions are put back on. It is likely that Iran would then rebuild and expand their program even more. Using the snapback mechanism is insane, and it makes a new crisis over the nuclear issue more likely rather than less.

Iranian withdrawal from the treaty is a real possibility. Iranian officials have repeatedly warned that Iran would leave the NPT if UN sanctions were reimposed. The Iranian government may conclude that it may as well quit the treaty if it is not going to be permitted to develop its nuclear program in peace as the treaty allows. If Iran is going to be put under such massive sanctions anyway, they have few incentives to remain in the treaty when they aren’t allowed to benefit from it. The Iranian leadership may also decide that withdrawing from the treaty is the only action they can take that will be significant enough to make Western governments rethink their position.

Withdrawal from the treaty doesn’t necessarily mean that Iran will pursue nuclear weapons. As Mark Fitzpatrick and Mark Goodman say in this article, “It is conceivable that Iran could withdraw from the treaty and maintain a policy of nuclear hedging, even as it reconstituted its enrichment program in secret.” Unfortunately, it is a certainty that warmongers in Israel and the U.S. will not see it that way and will likely use Iranian withdrawal as a new pretext for aggression.

Iran would be fully within its rights to withdraw from the treaty if it believes that it is necessary for its national security. The treaty states that a party to the treaty has the right to withdraw “if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.” The Iranian government could point to the U.S. and Israeli attacks on their nuclear facilities and the possibility of more attacks in the future as their reasons for withdrawing. Fitzpatrick and Goodman note that Iran’s claim won’t be questioned in the same way that North Korea’s was: “In Iran’s case, such questions are unlikely to be raised, since the “extraordinary events” are obvious.”

It would be ideal if the European governments did not trigger the snapback mechanism and Iran remained in the treaty. There is no good reason to reimpose UN sanctions now, and it will just create more problems for all parties. The British, French, and German governments seem determined to make the situation worse. It was better when these governments were useless spectators. Now they suddenly want to do something on the nuclear issue, and they have landed on the stupidest possible thing to do short of war.

The Iranian government has been open to finding a diplomatic solution, and its reward has been relentless hostility, economic warfare, and bombing. Reimposing UN sanctions could very well be the last straw. The Iranian government might conclude that if it is going to be treated like North Korea no matter what it does it might as well build a deterrent to stop future attacks on their country. If that happens, the moronic hawks that brought us to this point will own the results.

StephenKMackSD

Reader dare to take apart this political chatter, and realize that it is’s Stephens attempt at Sturm und Drang?

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Aug 26, 2025

Editor: This first paragraph: Is an American Conservative consonant with a Neo-Conservative?

Ask an American conservative what makes America great, and at least until about a week ago, he might have said that, among other virtues, it’s a country in which the government stays out of the business of getting in business.

Editor: the cast of characters in Stephen’s Economic Melodrama:

Fannie Mae and Amtrak, but their record of mismanagement and mediocrit, like the Airbus consortium in Europe, But American conservatism under President Trump is changing into something unrecognizable, Trump called for the resignation of Lip-Bu Tan, Intel’s new chief executive, based on vague allegations, Trump also decided to convert nearly $9 billion in government funding promised to Intel under the 2022 CHIPS Act, “You know what? I think the United States should be given 10 percent of Intel,” Trump says he told Tan in a White House meeting on Friday. Tan speedily agreed. Intel, which had a $500 billion market cap at the turn of the century, is now at $107 billion. What’s to keep it from going lower and taking taxpayers down with it? …that it’s systemically important to the U.S. economy (as the banks were in the 2008 financial crisis), that it’s vital for national security (as the critical minerals industry is today)…The ecosystem of American chip makers, from Nvidia to Micron to Qualcomm, is thriving….it would simply join the long gray line of America’s corporate has-beens, from Sears to Chrysler to IBM to General Electric….Intel will now join the stable of other cowed and compliant corporations, universities and law firms living in fear of the next Truth Social post, funding revocation or regulatory obstruction….Republicans now cheering Trump for his daily Big Dog performance should at least wonder what the consequences for America’s economic freedom and competitiveness will be once he makes America statist again….A current of neosocialism now runs through parts of MAGA land, particularly among those who confuse Catholic social teachings with economic reality. This crew should remember that in democratic politics, two can play the game….And what Trump is doing with Intel could soon become a template for dozens, if not hundreds, of U.S. companies in which Uncle Sam demands a golden share….

Old Socialist.

Political Observer celebrates Amartya Sen: ‘Western leaders continue to use energy as a foreign policy tool — but are not ready to face the true consequences of sanctions tightening.’

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Aug 26, 2025

Opinion Markets Insight

US tariff threat over Indian imports of Russian oil could backfire

If New Delhi reduced its purchases to zero, oil prices and inflation would jump.

https://www.ft.com/content/7dc2c278-dcf2-4141-8913-068d6ba75859

The writer is co-founder and director of market intelligence at Energy Aspects.

If Donald Trump really wanted to drive India’s oil imports from Russia down to zero, the consequences might not be what the US president intended. Trump has threatened to impose an additional 25 per cent tariff on Indian goods from Wednesday over the country’s purchases of Russian oil. That would increase total tariffs to 50 per cent.

Indian imports of Russian crude average anywhere between 1.5-2mn barrels a day, based on OilX data. If this were stopped overnight and India had to buy elsewhere, oil prices would jump massively and inflation would be pushed up in the US and elsewhere. For the oil market, the question is: does Trump have the stomach to raise prices on US consumers?

The pressure might be partly eased if some of the oil was redirected to China, which would reduce its buying elsewhere. However, the country is already close to taking the maximum volume of Russian oil it can absorb, and recent experience shows the risks.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the EU and US threatened some of the biggest sanctions in history. Oil prices surged above $100 in the aftermath before these sanctions started to be watered down. The US government was even led to pre-emptively releasing a historic 180mn barrels of the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve from May 2022.

The G7, led by the US, agreed to amend its sanctions policy to introduce a price cap in September 2022. This allowed Russian oil still to be bought as long as the price was below $60 a barrel. The logic? It would hurt Russian oil revenues but keep Russian oil flowing globally to prevent an oil price surge.

The EU also banned imports of Russian oil in late 2022 and petroleum products in early 2023, barring a few exceptions, but even as the US encouraged Russian oil flows elsewhere.

Janet Yellen, as Treasury secretary, told Reuters in November 2022 that the US was happy for India to continue buying as much Russian oil as it wanted. It just had to steer clear of western insurance, finance and maritime services bound by the cap, which would give countries leverage on price negotiations with Moscow. Russian oil “is going to be selling at bargain prices and we’re happy to have India get that bargain, or Africa or China. It’s fine,” she said.

Analysis of Chinese data by Energy Aspects estimates that China’s buying of Russian oil via various means increased from 1.5 mb/d before the war to above 2 mb/d, with several grades of oil bought above the price cap. China does not have the refining capacity to absorb significantly higher volumes of Russian oil than they used to buy. Thus, geographically India became the logical clearing country for the Russian barrels.

Now the US is singling out India for profiteering from Russian oil. It is not clear what concessions the US may want from New Delhi regarding volumes or timing in any compromise, putting the onus on India to act if it wants to avert additional tariffs. Unlike China, India does not have a shadow banking network to avoid sanctions and tends to operate within global policy frameworks. The precedence for this is clear with the country having halted all Iranian imports during the first Trump term when secondary sanctions were announced.

One path to a resolution could be some combination of Indian concessions on US agricultural tariffs, some pledged reduction in Russian oil purchases (a rebalancing that seems to be happening already) and/or an increase in commitments to buy energy from the US. However, this will need to be spelled out clearly and officially.

Have Indian refiners gained somewhat from discounted Russian oil? Yes, they have, as initial discounts ballooned to above $20 versus the Dubai benchmark, although higher costs of shipping following sanctions reduced the discounts India received. However, these discounts were also enjoyed by China, Turkey and Brazil (which buys Russian diesel) alike. And since 2022, India’s refinery production has barely risen on average and product exports are fairly steady as domestic demand has been rising and absorbing the increase.

Editor: Sen’s final paragraph is about facing inconvient facts!

The challenge is that, if the west is serious about sanctions on either Russia or Iran or both, it will have to contend with the loss of more than 6 mb/d of crude, a number that is much larger than Opec+ spare capacity. This would lead to a surge in oil prices, probably to well above $100 — a level that Trump and Europe would be likely to balk at. Western leaders continue to use energy as a foreign policy tool — but are not ready to face the true consequences of sanctions tightening.

Editor: Reader never forget Sen’s ‘Identity and Violence’!!!

Identity and Violence: The Violence of Illusion with Amartya Sen

Nobel laureate Amartya Sen is widely recognized for his ability to join economics and philosophy, reflected in his work through ethics and a sense of common humanity. In this Hitchcock Lecture from UC Berkeley he explores the violence of illusion. Series: UC Berkeley Graduate Council Lectures [5/2005] [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 9459]

Editor: Amartya Sen and his revelatory ‘Identitity and Violence’ remaines an indispensable book, he is also a writer/thinker with a self-depricating sence of humor!

Political Observer.

Political Observer only has so much tolerance!

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Aug 25, 2025

Editor: The first sentence demonstartes Friedman’s utter Moral/Ethical vapidity!

I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. But what is absolutely clear to me right now is that this Israeli government is committing suicide, homicide and fratricide.

It is destroying Israel’s standing in the world, it is killing Gazan civilians with seemingly no regard for innocent human life, and it is tearing apart Israeli society and world Jewry, between those Jews who want to still stand with Israel no matter what and those who can no longer tolerate, explain or justify where this Israeli government is taking the Jewish state and now want to distance themselves from it.

I was struck by this paragraph in The Times’s story from Israel on Monday about the Israeli strikes on a hospital in southern Gaza, killing at least 20 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry — including five journalists who worked for international media outlets, plus medics and several others: “The Israeli military said it had carried out a strike in the area of Nasser Hospital, without saying what the target was. The statement said the military regretted ‘any harm to uninvolved individuals,’ adding that its chief of staff had ordered an immediate inquiry.”

Obviously sensing that many around the world were appalled by this explanation — I mean, how many times have we heard this? — the office of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, issued a rare statement of contrition, saying that “Israel deeply regrets the tragic mishap.”

…

Editor: Reader only 1030 words left of this shit! But the final two paragraphs embraces, indeed releases all the toxic devils that Thomas L. Friedman helped to spaun: ‘I will leave it to historians to debate whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza’ Equivocation is the Master Key, employed by Friedman, that leaves himself without blame!

…

It is also going to rip apart the Democratic Party, between those who are afraid to defy the influential Israeli lobbying group AIPAC, for fear of losing campaign funding to their Republican opponents, and those who just can’t stand it any longer.

Alas, if this is geopolitical suicide, as I believe, it has become assisted suicide. There is one person who could stop it all right now, and that is President Trump. I hope that I am wrong, but I fear that — just as Trump was duped by Vladimir Putin into giving up on a cease-fire in Ukraine and opting instead for the chimera of total peace — Trump has been duped by Netanyahu into giving up on a cease-fire in Gaza in pursuit of Bibi’s fantasy of “total victory.”

Political Observer.

Political Cynic.

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Aug 24, 2025

Political Cynic.

Political Observer explores the available resources !

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Aug 23, 2025

Headline: Britain | Bagehot

What it means when Britain talks about “Bosh”

A desperate political class is out of ideas

https://www.economist.com/britain/2025/08/20/what-it-means-when-britain-talks-about-bosh

Editor: This weak attempt at humor, wedded to a critical evaluation of ‘the British version of “The Apprentice”, uses an etiolated, vulgerised version of Bagehot! The Oxbridgers have reached a point of desperation?

Editor: An exploration of Bagehot is in order. Reader look at the available resources!

The ‘Greatest Victorian’ Is Largely Forgotten. His Biographer Wants to Change That

Posthumous illustration of Walter BagehotCredit…via W.W. Norton

By Benjamin Schwarz

July 23, 2019

BAGEHOT
The Life and Times of the Greatest Victorian
By James Grant

…

Grant is a biographer of Bernard Baruch and John Adams, and the founder and editor of the cheeky and stylish Grant’s Interest Rate Observer. The characterization that the highbrow Labour Party politician Richard Crossman (another Bagehot devotee) bestowed on Bagehot’s writing — a “mixture of rollicking cynicism and cool analysis” — applies to Grant’s own brilliantly contrarian criticism in the Interest Rate Observer, The Financial Times and elsewhere of market recklessness, bankers’ irresponsibility and (to Grant) their concomitant, the expansive monetary policies of the Federal Reserve that have defined the booms and busts of the past 30-odd years.

This biography, though, takes wing only when it treats Bagehot’s role as a banker and financial journalist. That these are the very aspects of Bagehot’s work that have been relatively neglected by most scholars, who have tended to concentrate on his literary, political and sociological oeuvre, might be reason enough to commend Grant’s excellent if uneven biography. Bagehot scholarship, however, isn’t accretive, and the 1959 book “The Spare Chancellor,” by the worldly British journalist Alastair Buchan, remains the most astute, elegant and historically informed assessment of Bagehot’s entire life and work — including his participation in and analysis of the powerful and precarious world of finance.

Culture | Study of a sage

A new biography of Walter Bagehot, “the greatest Victorian”

And The Economist’s greatest editor

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/4351/4351-h/4351-h.htm

https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2019/08/08/a-new-biography-of-walter-bagehot-the-greatest-victorian

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/bagehot-the-english-constitution/2E5DFE4840159D204BD5FAC00663C5FF

Alexander Zevin is an Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and an editor at New Left Review.

Political Observer.