As of this writing, the Dow is down more than a hundred
points. It was up over a hundred the
other day, just after it was down over a hundred. This is not a Good Thing for many
reasons. From a historical and
psychological point of view, it desensitizes people to fluctuations in the
market, increasing what psychologists call “the zone of indifference,” i.e., “Ho-hum. It’s down a hundred, up a hundred . . .
what’s on TV?”
Why is that bad? The
wild swings in the market in late Spring and early Summer of 1929 led many
people to think that this was “normal” market activity when the stock market
got into the rarified atmosphere when the Dow reached heights it never had
before. There was nothing to compare it
with, so how did you know it was not
normal at that price level?
Consequently, when the stock market started to skyrocket in
the Fall, nobody really got worried except a few diehard conservatives, like Roy
Archibald Young, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, whose differences with others
on the Federal Reserve Board were on how best to stop money creation for stock market speculation, not how to flood
the country with debt-backed funny money as advised by John Maynard Keynes.
But we continue doing what we can to restore sanity to
economics and finance —
• Some relatively good news this week
on the Burundi front. The CESJ core
group had a discussion with an immigration lawyer who was cautiously optimistic
about Jean-Marie’s efforts to be granted political asylum in the United
States. By the way, if you would like to
contribute to the legal costs, we haven’t started an official fund drive yet,
but keep in mind that, one, lawyers don’t seem to work much for free any more
(even on an initial consultation), and, two, CESJ is a 501(c)(3) organization,
so contributions are tax deductible in the United States. Some of what we hope to collect will go to
CESJ for overhead and the direct expenses of assisting Jean-Marie, and if
anything is collected in excess, it will probably be put toward the overall
project for Burundi and Guinea that Jean-Marie was working on when events
interfered.
 |
| Pierre Nkurunziza, President of Guinea |
• According to a report in the Washington Post this morning (“Digest:
Burundi, Catholic Bishops Pull Support for Elections,” A8), another development
in the Burundi situation is that the Catholic bishops of Burundi have withdrawn
their support for the election next month.
The current president, Pierre
Nkurunziza, is seeking a third term when the constitution limits him to two,
and has been having people intimidated and killed to ensure his victory. The Catholic Church had agreed to provide
priests to monitor the elections. The
European Union is also suspending its election observer mission.
 |
| More than 100,000 people have so far fled Burundi. |
• Also in connection with the Burundi situation, Jean-Marie
was interviewed this morning by Voice of America as an expert on the
environmental impact of the Burundi refugees.
The interview was very well received, and they indicated they might want
Jean-Marie back for other interviews. If
a recording of the broadcast becomes available, we will post a link.
• As of this morning, we have had
visitors from 47 different countries and 45 states and provinces in the United
States and Canada to this blog over the past two months. Most visitors are from
the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Switzerland, and Australia. The
most popular postings this past week were “Thomas Hobbes on Private Property,” “Halloween
Horror Special XIII: Mean Green Mother from Outer Space,” “Knute Rockne and
Social Justice,” “Religion v. Science? Or Faith AND Reason?” and “The Lost
Speech of Peter S. Grosscup, V: Financing Widespread Ownership.”
Those are the happenings for this week, at least those that
we know about. If you have an
accomplishment that you think should be listed, send us a note about it at
mgreaney [at] cesj [dot] org, and we’ll see that it gets into the next
“issue.” If you have a short (250-400
word) comment on a specific posting, please enter your comments in the blog —
do not send them to us to post for you.
All comments are moderated, so we’ll see it before it goes up.
#30#