Review: The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto

The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto by Mario Vargas Llosa

Fucking brilliant. Here's some quotes:

On sex: "All human activity that does not contribute, even indirectly, to testicular and ovarian arousal, to the meeting of sperm and egg, is contemptible... as well as everything that distracts us from the truly essential purpose of human life, which, in my opinion, is to satisfy desires. I see no other reason for our being here, spinning like slow tops in a gratuitous universe."

On the nation: "'Nation', that ridiculous politico-administrative contrivance manufactured by statists greedy for power and intellectuals in search of a master, that is, a Maecenas, that is, a pair of prebendal tits to suck on - is a dangerous but effective excuse for the countless wars that have devastated the planet, for despotic impulses that have sanctified the domination of the weak by the strong, and for an egalitarian smoke screen whose noxious fumes, indifferent to human beings, clone them and impose on them, under the guise of something essential and irremediable, the most accidental of common denominators: one's place of birth."

On law: "How could I avoid being the most ingenious tangler or disentangler of juridicial arguments when I discovered in my first law class that so-called legality is, in great measure, an intricate jungle in which technicians of obfuscations, intrigues, formalisms, and casuistries would always come out ahead? And that the profession has nothing to do with truth and justice but deals exclusively with the fabrication of incontrovertible appearances, with sophistries and deceptions impossible to clarify."

And sex again: "It is also true that without their prohibitions, sins, and moral fulminations, desires - especially sexual desire - would not have achieved the refinement they have reached at certain times. Consequently - and this is not theoretical but practical - as the result of a modest personal survey of limited scope, I affirm that people make love much better in religious countries than in secular ones (better in Ireland than in England, in Poland than in Denmark), better in Catholic countries than in Protestant ones (better in Spain or Italy than in Germany or Sweden), and that women who have been educated in nuns' academies are a thousand times more imaginative, bold, and delicate than those who have studied at secular schools."

National debt hangover

World Economy in Flux As America Downshifts

"For years, economists have warned that the U.S. can't run up endless charges on the national credit card to cover its huge appetite for imported cars, oil, electronics and other goods. Someday, they said, the bill will come due."

...here's a sober treatment of why "'we have to tighten our belts here at home'".

Blame evolution

Homo politicus: brain function of liberals, conservatives differs

"Aristotle may have been more on the mark than he realised when he said that man is by nature a political animal.

Dozens of previous studies have established a strong link between political persuasion and certain personality traits.

Conservatives tend to crave order and structure in their lives, and are more consistent in the way they make decisions. Liberals, by contrast, show a higher tolerance for ambiguity and complexity, and adapt more easily to unexpected circumstances.

The affinity between political views and "cognitive style" has also been shown to be heritable, handed down from parents to children, said the study, published in the British journal Nature Neuroscience."

read it and find out

US rate cuts: Like a blow to the head by Julian Delasantellis

"CNBC's Maria Bartiromo was so gushingly giddy in her coverage of the [stock market] rally that you would have thought that Starbucks had opened a coffee stand in her electroshock therapy suite. ... [But the rate cut which sparked the rally has already caused, and will likely lead to further, dollar devaluation] China [which has close to a trillion and a half dollars in its reserves] could decide that it's a choice between losing a lot of money, fast, by selling its dollars, or losing a lot more, slowly, by keeping its dollars. ...so the US feels China will not do it. ...it probably hurts less to do it fast. Or, China could do it smart, slow and gradual; that's the way China likes to manage change. There are some indications that this is exactly what is happening. ...China probably is already diversifying away from the US dollar, but among all the cacophonous noise of the glorious roiling tsunami of inanity that is US public life, the actual signal information is being missed."

A flight from the dollar to a better world

U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel by Mike Whitney

What's really interesting for leftists about pessimistic economic forecasts like this one is the thought of what will happen in a world with a devalued dollar. During the Vietnam war, when the US government was (customarily) spending beyond its means on means of killing people, it was forced to abandon its commitment to sell gold for $35 an ounce. But since foreign nations since then have lent us back so many of the dollars that have been created and spent, the dollar hasn't suffered the kind of major devaluation that would occur to any other country's currency if its government pissed money US-style. The situation that has developed pretty much gives the US government carte blanche to, well, write checks.

Bottom line being, a flight from the dollar might eventually take the form of cargo planes flying troops and material home from their hundreds of overseas bases. (And then, perish the thought, we'll have no worldwide base structure to protect ourselves from the USSR!)

The p-word

Either way, it could be an unkind cut by Henry C.K. Liu

(panic) Nothing more exciting than a few thousand-word analysis of the state of the world economy, eh? (panic) This one, written by one of many analysts who predicted the subprime bust far in advance, is a bit dire. (panic) In that, it differs a bit from what I'm reading in the WSJ these days. (panic) But then, no one in their right mind writing - or editing - for the WSJ or major US media would ever publish such an alarmist perspective. (panic) Don't want to spark a panic.
Time will tell whether Liu's analysis is on point - following an interest rate cut on Tuesday, the Dow is now not very far off from its all-time high.

Even Veblen might be surprised

Small Collectors

"Encouraged by wealthy, art-loving parents, children are collecting Warhols and even Rembrandts. Kelly Crow on their kid-centered tastes, 'art allowances' and why auction paddles aren't toys."

Keep this article on hand, in case you ingest a toxic substance and need to vomit.

In the end, though, it's not all bad - where better to store something by Jeff Koons than in a kid's room next to crayons, finger paint, pens, pencils, craypas, sledgehammers, chainsaws, industrial-grade incinerators, etc.?

Interesting how not only have kids become articles of conspicuous consumption - I just heard the other day that the median income of a white couple with toddlers in Manhattan is a few hundred g's - but you gotta accessorize them too!

This is the world's most influential magazine

The Economist: The World’s Sleaziest Magazine by Mark Ames

"...The Economist's record is so appallingly deceitful that it would require a separate article, and scores of beta-blockers just to read through without suffering a 10-valve thrombo." This article does not examine The Economist's entire record - only its recent coverage of Putin.

The Economist was founded by one James Wilson, who instituted an export-driven public finance strategy for India during the first years of direct British rule. Which happened to coincide with famines that killed tens of millions of Indians (but which shouldn't be considered to be caused by 'capitalism' in the way that 'communism' is surely to blame for the famine deaths in Mao's China, wink wink). Ah but the Market moves in mysterious ways, and The Economist has been there to praise It, whether It be starving millions of Indians or Irish to death.