Predatory lenders vs. irresponsible borrowers

When the housing bubble went up, there was much criticism of predatory lenders, preying on innocent borrowers. In other circles (a circle in which I spend a lot of time) there was also criticism of people who borrowed more than they could afford. People went into mortgages they could barely afford in good times, let alone tough times.
When the tough times came, the roof was too expensive.
Something similar has been going on in the Greek crisis with the Eurozone. In this case, the blame went to the Greek people for demanding (and receiving) services they could not afford. Less blame, at least as it seemed from here, went to the lender countries and institutions that lent Greece the money to pay for those services.
Only a mean-spirited person would berate the family losing their house for their prodigality. By the same token, now is not the time to explain to the Greeks that they should have promised less to their citizens. It is time for the parties involved to figure out how to resolve the issue. The Tsipras government has to figure out how to lighten the burden of austerity and still keep the creditors at least a little confident that Greece can meet its obligations. That is no small task, when the government was elected on the basis of relieving that austerity.
But the Grexit won't help anyone; the Eurozone should not welcome a crack in the already-fragile facade of European solidarity. The Greeks will really see austerity if they run out of cash and the Eurozone; a return to the drachma would be a nightmare.
It is to the best interest of both parties to keep the self-righteous rhetoric to a minimum and figure out how to assist the Greek people without subsidizing profligate spending . . . or predatory loans made with arrogance in the belief they will be guarantees. Just like the housing bubble.

The discernment and management of moles

A mole, in the language of spycraft, is a person who infiltrates an organisation with the intention of ferreting out information for a hostile party. During the Cold War, the superpowers insinuated moles in each others' defense, intelligence and diplomatic apparat to gain information that could discern then disrupt or deflect the opponent's intentions.
But moles can exist in any organization. Any bureaucracy can have members of lower rank who long for the privileges, power and prestige of the higher ranks. Those bureaucrats, if they are sufficiently unscrupulous, may become moles of a sort. They report the sarcastic or 'insubordinate' remarks or forbidden deeds of their coworkers to one of more authority. The goal is to curry favor and advance some day to the exalted ranks of the managers, executives, the administrators.
Identify the mole) This may be the most difficult task. Without vigilance, the mole may go undetected for months or years. But when certain phrases shared in the confidence of the group make their way back, or policies suddenly forbid some hitherto unknown (to the upper echelons) practice, you may suspect you have a mole. With great caution, you may narrow down the candidates. One person will be common to the conversations or other information that suddenly seems less private. If you are diligent and lucky, that person will be your mole. What to do next?
Feed the mole) Before going any further in your countermole campaign you should be very certain you have correctly identified the mole. The mistaken identification of the mole not only brings a fellow prole under suspicion but lets the real mole do his or her work in obscurity. You must feed the mole. Feeding the mole means dropping bits of information to the mole, letting the mole see things, and waiting for a response. Did a certain specific phrase make it back from Olympus? Is a hitherto unknown or rarely practiced act suddenly forbidden? Then you can relax; you have identified your mole. Keep feeding the mole, sparingly, to mislead the Golden Ones as to the security of their source. Then you have two choices.
Turn the mole, or burn the mole) The first option really only has a place in spycraft. If you can offer the mole more than he or she is getting from the adversary, or threaten the mole with dire consequences, you can turn the mole. The mole will give up the name of the handler, the one soliciting the inside information, and you can feed false information back. Again more useful in the the cloak and dagger world of intrigue. What can you offer a fellow hewer of wood and drawer of water that the aristocrats cannot surpass? And given workplace rules, the law, and common decency, let alone discretion, what threat could one possibly make that would not result catastrophically for all involved? Better to take the second choice.
Burn the mole) When the bloom is off the rose so far as feeding your mole and tweaking the beak of those who lead, you still have a mole. You still must guard every conversation, every email, every act. And really, what employee can survive on that basis? So you feed the mole something so stupendous, so valuable, that the mole cannot wait to run and tell, having finally secured that bit of information that will unlock the door to privilege. Just make sure it is absolutely refutable, that all involved will (convincingly) disavow all knowledge of the incident, and in the eyes of the handler, make the mole appear to be, at the least, no longer useful, at the best, capable of fabricating tales to curry favor. Either way, the mole is of no use. Then start looking for the next mole . . .    

Occupy Wall Street - Biting the Hand That Feeds

Bear with me a minute here; in the classic 1960s TV show The Prisoner, there is an episode in which three kinds of rebellion are described. I chose this show because it is unusual in being influential while only running 17 episodes, and because under the direction of Patrick McGoohan, who also starred, the show explored the place of the individual versus the gently Orwellian world in which he finds himself. In some ways it could be seen as a Libertarian opus. I highly recommend it.
In this episode, the three types of rebellion described are:

• Biting the hand that feeds; the bureaucrat who protests the system while gaining all the advantages of the system.
• The rebellion of the young; the exuberant rebellion of those whose actual reasons for rebellion are unclear, who rebel because that is the popular thing to do.
• The rebellion of the individual; the man or woman who struggles with the state or system for his own reasons and in his own way.

Seen from the outside, it appear to me the OW protesters are both biting the hand that feeds and living the rebellion of the young, protesting of ill-defined reasons and because it carries a status.
I have yet to hear a coherent program from the OW protesters. If you watch five different news reports you will see the same vague envy against the rich, but no clear program, certainly nothing that could be proposed as legislation. Part of this may be because life is pretty mundane for most of us, and protesting and being the darlings of the media is much more interesting.
These children of the social network revolution are protesting the very companies that make it possible. One would assume they are funded by someone; no one eats for free.
Comparisons to the Arab Spring are ridiculous and self-dramatizing. And lest anyone draw that comparison too closely, none of those 'Arab Spring' protests have led to democracy yet. The very comparison to the Prague Spring is an insult.
The OW protesters have an incoherent program that will not be achieved, and that cannot be achieved by rule of law. Vaguely, they would like jobs, and the rich to give up their earnings, and for the rich (define that one please) to pay more than the 40% of taxes the 1% pays. And iphones for all . . .
It is class envy fueled by an awful economy and sustained by the media and the fact that manning the imaginary barricades is more fun than looking for a job, or paying your student loans.
But they are getting their 15 minutes of fame, and a distraction from working and raising families and the seemingly mundane but ultimately much more important work of living. When the first autumn rains hit, the casual protesters will leave, and this will have been a few weeks of self-dramatizing indulgence, 'full of sound an fury, signifying nothing'. 

Leaving your faith at home

We are encouraged in this politically correct society to leave our faith at home. We are (as Christians) admonished not 'impose' our beliefs on others. It is acceptable, it seems, to be devout at home, as long as we are thoroughly secular at work and in the public square.
No Christmas carols, just Christmas songs. No public prayer, unless it is so sanitized as to be meaningless. Eliminate any sort of mention of God in any school or government context, or on public property; atheists are so threatened by the cross that they want it gone from memorials and city seals.
Well the issue is not about imposing views or forcing anyone to anyone. It is about integrity. It is about being the same person on Sunday morning as on Wednesday at noon. It is also about protecting free speech as well as freedom of religious faith and practice. The secularists are consistent in their secularism; how dare they ask us to be inconsistent in our faithfulness.
It is true; political correctness reigns when all other kinds of correctness are deposed.

Easy choice at election time

Much as I would like to see the 'spend it like a drunken sailor' crowd out of power in the US Senate, I will not be voting for the Republican candidate for the senate. Nor will I be voting for his ridiculously bad Democratic opponent.
Sometimes 'single issue' politics get a bad rap. Sometimes, though, the single issue overwhelms everything else. In this case, we have a likely crooked, inexperienced, tainted, pro-death Democrat in Giannoulias, and fiscally conservative pro-death Republican in Kirk. There isn't 10 cents worth of difference in their stances on life issues, and that means I will write in Mike Ditka or leave it blank. The destruction of children, born or unborn, is the one issue we can't compare to others, because it is literally, dramatically, a matter of life and death.

Human Rights and Wrongs

To those (including our president) who are offended by Arizona's immigration bill: have you read it? Do you know what it really says, or have you let other people read (and distort) it for you? Our president, who cannot bring himself to call for freedom and fair treatment for Christian minorities anywhere, has created a false human rights issue and shamed his country by reporting it as a human rights deficiency.
There is no country in the world that allows unlimited immigration to undocumented aliens. None. Arizona's law embarrasses Mr. Obama because it holds the federal government to enforcing its own laws. This administration would rather wound our friends and coddle our enemies. That makes us complicit in very real human rights abuses throughout the world, and yes, to a very significant extent, the Muslim world.

9/11 Commemoration

Had we still been at war with Japan in 1950, would the president have spent the time rallying the troops, or would he have ignored the battle and deaths of American troops to preach tolerance (of what of course, no one is sure)? Can you imagine, from President Obama's remarks on the anniversary of that deadly sequence of attacks, that we are still at war, that we are still threatened daily, and that it takes the most vague and frankly inaccurate definition of Al Queda to say that is the only enemy.
We are not at war with Islam, per se. We are at war with a virulently anti-American form of Islam that cheers our every tragedy and threatens death at every perceived insult. It is more than Al Queda. There are groups that identify themselves with Islam all over the world that rejoiced at 9/11. Tolerance of those groups is suicide. Our president can't bring himself to say a mosque at Ground Zero is provocative. And he wonders why some Americans question his religious affiliation . . .
I don't think he is a Muslim. I think he is throroughly secularized very nominal Christian, whose creed is 'progressive' politics and whose patriotism, if any, is poorly expressed.