Ron Paul $ and another topic:[lpsf-discuss] Average annual death toll went down after Saddam removed

Discussion
1

This note is from me personally and does not in any way represent the views of the SFLP or any other of it's members.
While writing the rant-istle below, the phone rang and it was The Ron Paul campaign, in fact it was Mr. Snyder , the head of the campaign. Mr. Snyder. He asked me to do what I can to bring as many donors as possible to the fundraiser brunch on the 13th. One of the most important ways for Mr. Paul to get press attention is his coffers are stoked at the end of the quarter.

( It seems to me that a lot of money is being spent on his behalf at the grassroots level, below the radar, but the press doesn't see that. Please did deep and come to the brunch. Also , please don't forget the Christine Smith needs funds if she is to get the libertarian nomination.
and now back to rant-pistle....
"England, Italy, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Greece, Germany, Austria, "
Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Kurdistan, Haiti, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, -----

One can never make definitive alternative scenarious of what would happened if another course had been taken, but there are some indications that the disaster of WWII ,was in some part the result of US intervention in WWI. Had there been no US intervention in the Great War to make the world safe for Democracy, it is likely that the" war would have ended in a stalemate. This would have left the Austor Hungarian , and the Ottoman Empires ntact to naturally find solutions to ethnic and terriitorial issues. Both empires were notoriously weak at the central level leaving considerable autonomy and freedom to the varied populations. The splendor of Eastern Europe that still stands is testiment to the prosperity of the pre world war era. The collapse of the ottoman empire as a result of WWI and it's arbitrary replacement with nation states whose borders were drawn at the wim or convenience of the British foreign office, created the disaster of the modern middle east.,

In my humble opinion the absolute disastter that was the US intervention into WWI , overshadow on the darkest way any benefits from interventions that are not absolutely demanded by the immediate defense of the terriitorial United States.

Disparaging people who hold anti interventionist views does not change that a reasonable interpretation of history and human action form the basis of some anti interventionists strongly held beliefs.

Original Message -----

2

Phil Berg wrote:

PB) One can never make definitive alternative scenarious of what would
happened if another course had been taken, but there are some indications
that the disaster of WWII ,was in some part the result of US intervention
in WWI. (PB

This thesis about 20th century history suffers from misunderstandings about
path dependence and the difference between necessary and sufficient causes.
When looking for turning points at which Europe's mid-twentieth-century
horrors could have been averted, there are far better candidates:

* If France had used its overwhelming military superiority to oppose
Hitler's 1936 re-militarization of the Rhineland, Hitler's triumph would
instead have been a humiliating retreat -- a retreat he had secretly already
ordered if the French tried to stop this blatant treaty violation.

* If central banks had in the 1920s been more competent, then European
hyperinflation and the global Great Depression would have been largely
avoided, making Nazi totalitarianism effectively impossible.

* If France hadn't demanded ruinous reparations from Germany in the
1919 Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar Republic would almost certainly not
have been replaced by Nazi totalitarianism.

Compared to these multiple chances to save Germany after World War I, it's
just not tenable to lay Hitler at Wilson's feet for the latter's decision to
enter that war on the side of the democracies.

Strategic isolationism was good idea for the decades and centuries of
imperial rivalry leading up to the early twentieth century, but it is now
two epochs out of date. The first epoch that obsoleted isolationism began
when imperial rivalry gave way to ideological rivalry in an era whose
technological advances allowed totalitarians to kill tens of millions and
threaten hundreds of millions more. The second epoch began when that
ideological rivalry was settled c. 1989 in an era whose economic advances
had rendered territorial conquest obsolete as a way to increase national
prosperity. In the penultimate epoch, the stakes were too high for
strategic isolation to be wise. In the current epoch, the humanitarian
cost-benefit ratios of certain interventions are too low for strategic
isolation to be conscionable.

PB) Disparaging people who hold anti interventionist views does not change
that a reasonable interpretation of history and human action form the basis
of some anti interventionists strongly held beliefs. (PB

I've never "disparaged people who hold anti-interventionist views". My
position has always been that reasonable Libertarians can disagree about
libervention, and in response Libertarians have called me "fascist" and a
"traitor" and a "war pig" and not a libertarian and unfit for membership in
the LP.

3

How was England any more of a Democracy than Germany at the eve of WWI?

4

Phil Berg wrote:

BH) it's just not tenable to lay Hitler at Wilson's feet for the latter's
decision to enter that war on the side of the democracies. (BH

PB) How was England any more of a Democracy than Germany at the eve of WWI?
(PB

In WWI, America fought alongside France and Britain, against an alliance
that included not only the Germany of Emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II but also the
Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires. While the Central Powers were also
opposed by the non-democratic Russia, it is untenable to suggest that
America wasn't on the more democratic side of the war.

PB) Einstein once said words to the effect that every person at some point
makes the decision wether the universe is fundamentally a hostile place or
not. (PB

Einstein advocated world government and wrote
<http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_n8_v40/ai_6944290/pg_5> "I
am for socialism", so citations of his muddled thinking on politics don't
impress me.

PB) This decision informs all other opinions. (PB

The fundamental question here is whether the landscape of attainable levels
of liberty has no local maxima, i.e. whether an investment in force
initiation could ever lead to a net reduction in the overall incidence of
force initiation. I don't see any sticker on the store packaging of this
universe that guarantees that all ethical judgments inside the box involving
political theory have to be simple ones. Nobody can certify for us that for
the tool-using speech-capable pair-bonded omnivorous bipedal primates on
this planet, it just so happens that 100% absolute abstinence from
force-initiation is always the optimal strategy for minimizing the net
incidence of aggression in the societies such primates form. I can take very
seriously the detailed consequentialist arguments of a David Friedman or
Fred Foldvary for advocating such abstinence, but I see very little merit in
simplistic deontological arguments for it. It's obvious to me and to most
Americans that aggression will never end up minimized if liberty-lovers
simply promote aggression abstinence through the example of their chastity.
I'm a libertarian, and so I value the actual real-world protection of
liberty -- i.e. the minimization of aggression -- over maintaining the
non-coercive purity of my white-gloved hands.

PB) For that reason I will never change Brian Holtzs mind on the wisdom of
intervention in Iraq nor him mine. (PB

You're too late to change my mind; Iraq's Sunnis and Shias already changed
my mind in 2006 by demonstrating their desire to hold an unpredicted civil
war. Since I'm free of any dogma that requires deciding a priori that
intervention is always good or always bad, I'm free to evaluate past and
proposed interventions with an open mind, and to change how I evaluate
proposed interventions as new data become available.

Mike Denny wrote:

BH) My standard list of places where America has used its military for the
goal of local democratic sovereignty includes: England, Italy, France,
Belgium, Luxembourg, Holland, Denmark, Iceland, Norway, Greece, Germany,
Austria, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Grenada, Panama, Kuwait, Kurdistan,
Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq. (MD

MD) Please show me where in your blog it discusses how our military
activities in these countries have "benefited the goal of local democratic
sovereignty". (MD

I don't debate basic facts of history. Please cite your evidence for any
country in my list that American military intervention didn't aid the cause
of local democratic sovereignty there. (I dropped Haiti from the list,
since you're now talking about actual "benefits" whereas my list was about
intentions.)

MD) I'm especially interested in your take on Taiwan.a place my wife and I
lived for 6 years. We had many discussions with locals about the local
political scene. [...] The war and power mongers on both side of the
Straights are the ones that benefit from the policy.the people who have
heard it all couldn't care less. (MD

It's simply not credible to report that the people of Taiwan were
indifferent to the prospect of invasion and conquest by the Communist
mainland. If you want me to believe that, then the anecdotes above don't
come anywhere near convincing me.

MD) The primary beneficiaries of this policy are in my humble opinion the
likes of GE, Bechtel, Boeing, Lockheed, Halliburton, Carlyle Group (MD

You need to question more deeply the lefty propaganda you've absorbed.
Regarding Halliburton, I've written:

BH) It would be untenable to claim that Iraq was invaded to get oil for
America or profits for Halliburton. America hasn't stolen -- or even gotten
a discount on -- Iraq's oil. Only about a third of Halliburton's modest
$20B/yr revenues come from Iraq contracts, and its 1.1% profit margin on
them is less than on its core energy business. Start at p. 47 of its 2005
annual report for details. If Bush and Cheney were just out to generate a
few hundred million in extra profits for Halliburton, they could have done
it the way Republicans always do that for the energy and agriculture
sectors: with the outright subsidies that each year total tens of billions.
Halliburton's Iraq profits are a drop in the bucket by comparison. (BH

Regarding Carlyle Group:

BH) Fahrenheit 9/11 famously says that Carlyle "gained" from 9/11 by its
stake in United Defense, which makes the Bradley armored fighting vehicle.
What Michael Moore's film fails to mention is that the $11 billion Crusader
artillery rocket system to be built by United Defense is one of the only
weapons systems ever canceled by the Bush administration.

The Carlyle Group is a private equity investment firm. Its investors are
very diverse, and include George Soros (the leftist billionaire bitterly
critical of the Bush Administration) and CalPERS (the Democrat-dominated
California public employee retirement fund, renowned for its left-leaning
shareholder activism). According to Wikipedia:

Critics refer to Carlyle as a private military contractor, but it is more
accurate to say it is a private equity firm that owns controlling or partial
interests in several military contractors. For example, it used to own
United Defense Industries, which was developing the Crusader artillery
project. This project was funded in eight consecutive Clinton budgets but
was cancelled soon after Bush became president, which eliminated the
remaining $9 billion of the original $11 billion contract.

In the book House of Bush, House of Saud, author Craig Unger states that
Saudi Arabian interests have given $1.4 billion to firms connected to the
Bush family. That figure was again quoted by Michael Moore in his film
Fahrenheit 9/11. Nearly 90% of the 1.4 billion, about 1.18 billion, refers
to Saudi Arabian government contracts awarded to defense contractor BDM in
the early to mid 1990s. Carlyle, however, sold its interest in BDM before
former President George H. W. Bush joined as an advisor. Former President
George H.W. Bush retired from Carlyle in October 2003. George W. Bush served
on the Board of Directors of early Carlyle acquisition Caterair, but was
asked to leave two years later by one of the founders and has had no
personal dealings with Carlyle ever since.

Less than 25% of Carlyle's holdings are defense-related. Estranged relatives
of Osama bin Laden had a modest $2M investment in Carlyle that they
terminated in Oct 2001. For more, see
http://www.911myths.com/html/carlyle_group.html. (BH

Halliburton and the Carlyle Group are supposed to be the two most egregious
cases of war profiteering, so I leave GE, Bechtel, Boeing, and Lockheed as
an exercise for the reader.

MD) It would be interesting to know the percent of taxes paid by those
companies who's revenue stream is nearly entirely derived from Ill-begotten
blood money. (MD

The way to know things is to fact-check claims against primary sources and
the commentary of informed people who disagree with the claim. At a
minimum, you should try to spend more time reading things you disagree with
than things you agree with. Surely Dr. Edelstein has warned here before
about http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias . Other traps to
beware are listed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Cognitive_biases
. If you enjoy watching extremely smart people rigorously examine their
thinking for bias, then you might agree with me that the best blog on the
planet is http://www.overcomingbias.com/ .

5

Brian...I'll concede the Carlyle issue...but that's about it. Without
some clear idea about what you mean by democracy gaining ground thanks
to our military interventions in that list of nations...we'll just have
to leave that as an ill-defined statement and an unsubstantiated claim
which is fine. We both have plenty to do.

Regarding Taiwan...prior to 1987 I might have agreed with you...but
since then authorities on both sides of the Straights relaxed civil
exchanges and Taiwan individuals and businesses rushed to invest nearly
$200B in China....hardly an example of hostility. Despite the saber
rattling of politicians...most Taiwanese have no quarrel with China. The
people of Taiwan realized their future was going to be intimately
involved with China on their own and began their own sort of integration
with the Mainland. Even if you disagree with that statement...the margin
of difference in elections between pro-independence vs reunification
advocates is razor thin. So the issue is certainly not clearly on one
side or the other.

Of course the Chinese have a pretty good historical quarrel with Taiwan
and the US about the subject since Chiang Kai-shek looted China upon his
retreat to Taiwan and everything he stole was carried to Taiwan on
American military ships. Just check out the Chinese cultural museum in
Taipei to see but a small sample of the Mainland Chinese treasures
housed there. The Mainland Chinese will never forget that this happened.

After the 2004 elections, Pan Blue signs saying, "Democracy is Dead"
were everywhere. The people of Taiwan live under and have lived under is
basically the same system and people who ran it under Chiang Kai-shek in
conjunction with the strong influences of occupational Japanese who are
the MOST concerned about Taiwan and China reunification. They know under
some new system with China...they will definitely be politically out so
they are fighting this tooth and nail and will use every real or
imagined position to achieve the goal.

An interesting situation has developed in Taiwan though...while the
native Taiwan aboriginal people and native Taiwanese speakers (Chinese
derivative language) were formerly despised by the Chiang Kai-shek
Chinese power elite (who mandated Mandarin be taught in the schools)
along with their Japanese allies (who mandated Japanese be taught in ALL
Taiwan schools for a very long time), the pro-independence movement led
by these same people are now embracing the fashionable revival of the
Taiwanese language to popular use. If I as a visitor speak (as little as
I am able) to a taxi driver in Mandarin Chinese...they ask me why I'm
not learning Taiwanese. But for most people, it's just about
re-discovering their heritage as most people leaned this language from
their families even though it couldn't be taught in schools. Like most
people everywhere, they have nothing to do with the power elite anyway.
But that hasn't stopped the pro-independence powers from exploiting the
phenomenon...successfully I might add.

To give you a sense of how little legitimacy the pro Taiwan independence
Chen regime enjoys, after the election Chen immediately ordered all ROC
Air Force F-16 and Mirage fighters grounded, indefinitely. Despite the
very real possibility (as presented by pro-independence forces) that the
PLA Air Force could attack the island at any moment, no weapons of any
kind may be loaded aboard ROC military aircraft until further notice. It
is speculated he did this because the he was terrified of what patriotic
ROC Air Force pilots might do to him - perhaps shoot down his
presidential airplane then fly off to the mainland with costly and
irreplaceable combat aircraft?

It is also surely true also that the authors of the Taiwan Relations Act
are exactly the same people who brought us the war in Iraq...Dick
Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, William Krystal and the Project
for the New American Century and more. In fact Cheney publicly warned
PRC President Hu Jingtao that the Taiwan Relations Act, or TRA, "legally
obligated" the US government to intervene militarily on behalf of Taiwan
in the event it was attacked. In fact the TRA does not "obligate" the
US government to intervene militarily in the defense of Taiwan. The TRA
merely stipulates that the US government will sell American weapons to
Taiwan, and only defensive weaponry at that. And it is not an
international "Treaty" as such. Why would he "stretch" the truth about
this in public? Has he ever done that before or since? I wonder? What
could his reasoning be?

Regarding your assertion that "It would be untenable to claim that Iraq
was invaded to get oil for America or profits for Halliburton" and that
"only about a third of Halliburton's modest $20B/yr revenues come from
Iraq contracts, and its 1.1% profit margin on them is less than on its
core energy business"...well that's a pretty astounding statement. Are
you suggesting that 1/3 of a company's profit (profit margin aside)
isn't an incentive to manipulate public policy if one has the political
means to do so? ONLY about $7B a YEAR? Come on Brian. Maybe that's chump
change to you but I can imagine that it represents very real money to
someone.

You then say..."they could have done it the way Republicans always do
that for the energy and agriculture sectors: with the outright subsidies
that each year total tens of billions." And that "Halliburton's Iraq
profits are a drop in the bucket by comparison"....combine all this with
the very real and subsidized interests of the military industrial
complex....and you have quite a pork barrel....IN ADDITION to all those
outright subsidies they already get AND an outright protection deal
built upon a direct subsidy in their use of the US military to defend
their interests...well again...that's quite a nice piece of pork. Good
for them. But it doesn't support your point. The evidence, the money,
the connections and the smell are too powerful to ignore...unless
someone has some kind of personal stake in ignoring it.

Thanks for the links to the "Bias" web sites...

Best regards,

Mike

6

Mike Denny wrote:

BH) Please cite your evidence for any country in my list that American
military intervention didn't aid the cause of local democratic sovereignty
there. (BH

MD) I'll concede the Carlyle issue.but that's about it. Without some clear
idea about what you mean by democracy gaining ground thanks to our military
interventions in that list of nations.we'll just have to leave that as an
ill-defined statement and an unsubstantiated claim (MD

I'm content to note that you declined my request, and to leave it to our
audience to recognize whether American military intervention promoted local
democratic sovereignty in places like, say, Vichy France. :slight_smile:

MD) Regarding Taiwan.prior to 1987 I might have agreed with you (MD

Note that my list was temporally ordered, and that I included Taiwan between
Japan and South Korea. Thus I'm talking about the efforts and guarantees
America made in the decade or two after WWII to prevent Taiwan from falling
under the rule of the regime that R.J. Rummel in Death By
<http://humanknowledge.net/Thoughts.html#PoliticalScience> Government called
the 2nd-most murderous in human history (35M murdered, trailing only the
Soviet Union's 62M). Yes, the Kuomintang were bastards, and trail the Nazis
to come in 4th with 10M murdered, but I'd be shocked in in the 1950s the
flow of refugees across the Straights wasn't overwhelmingly one-way.

BH) It would be untenable to claim that Iraq was invaded to get oil for
America or profits for Halliburton" and that "only about a third of
Halliburton's modest $20B/yr revenues come from Iraq contracts, and its 1.1%
profit margin on them is less than on its core energy business (BH

MD) .well that's a pretty astounding statement. Are you suggesting that 1/3
of a company's profit (profit margin aside) isn't an incentive to manipulate
public policy if one has the political means to do so? ONLY about $7B a
YEAR? Come on Brian. Maybe that's chump change to you (MD

You're confusing revenue and profit. A 1.1% profit margin on $7B/yr yields
$70M/yr. It's just ludicrous to suggest that the Iraq invasion was the
result of Bush and Cheney sitting down to try to figure out how to get
Halliburton an extra $70M/yr in profit -- a figure that is well under 1/10th
of 1% of the ongoing cost of the war. Heck, the Pentagon's budget for
military bands in the 1980s was running over twice the amount of Halliburton
Iraq profits -- more like triple if you adjust for inflation. Like I said,
a drop in the bucket.

BH) they could have done it the way Republicans always do that for the
energy and agriculture sectors: with the outright subsidies that each year
total tens of billions. (BH

MD) combine all this with the very real and subsidized interests of the
military industrial complex..and you have quite a pork barrel (MD

This is like that line in The Matrix that tried to explain why the robots
were growing humans in pods to harvest bioelectricity: "Combined with a form
of fusion the machines have found all the energy they would ever need".
It's like me talking about using my 7-year-old to push my minivan --
combined with my ability to buy gasoline, that's all the locomotive energy
my Toyota will ever need. The fact remains that Halliburton's Iraq profits
are a drop in the pork barrel.

MD) The evidence, the money, the connections and the smell are too powerful
to ignore.unless someone has some kind of personal stake in ignoring it. (MD

This smells like conspiracy-think, and it's dangerous to the credibility of
the LP. My Green opponent for Congress in 2006 is a national leader of the
9/11 "Truth" movement, and she's the reason I had already investigated
Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. If you want details of other debunked
leftish conspiracy-theory claims, see
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/knowinghumans?p=391 . I debated three of these
"Truthers" on cable-access for an hour, and then analyzed the transcript and
documented them making 19 outright fabrications or distortions.

7

Well Brian....you are a cagey one...so until you define the times,
places and situations for those countries...I doubt anyone would know
where to begin. So I'll just say you presented a statement that was so
broad that it was impossible to understand the context of what you
meant...note below that we started talking about current Taiwan and you
instantly shifted to old Taiwan...so unless you define exactly what you
are talking about...we can't have a discussion. Feel free to be content
and proud that someone having a discussion with you doesn't have the
ability to answer something that isn't a real question or a precise
statement.

Your point about Taiwan is well taken... a murderous dictator like Mao
is certainly worse than a significantly less murderous dictator like
Chiang Kai-shek...but it has nothing to do with democracy and America's
military intervention, the original point....right? Now we are
discussing the relative merits of dictators. And we were not talking
about Taiwan then...we were talking about it NOW. How is American's
military intervention in the Straights of Taiwan helping Democracy in
Taiwan NOW? Just look at the election results...hardly a mandate for
either side of the issue. Are you saying that without American military
intervention the pro-independence or pro-unification forces would be
stronger or weaker? And how do you know?

Sorry for the confusion about revenue vs profit. But are you saying $70M
per year isn't enough to motivate a political animal because it is small
relative to the rest of the "pork"? You probably know what kind of
fallacy argument that is better than I do. I'd say it takes a lot less
than that to motivate an entity towards self-serving political activity.
Just because the number is relatively small for Iraq...doesn't render
the overall incentive to subvert the political process for self-serving
gains across all "markets" inconsequential. Halliburton and the other
companies mentioned in my original post are involved in a lot more than
Iraq...so focusing purely on the Iraq numbers doesn't trivialize the
overall motivation those entities have to meddle in global political
affairs. And they do most whole-heartedly.

Your Matrix example is cute...but it doesn't diminish the role these
people and organizations (not just Halliburton) have in global affairs,
their politics and the benefit they receive from participating actively
in the politics that directly affect their revenues. I say this taints
them and their motivations without having to resort to conspiracy
theories. To prove me wrong...all they have to do is make their funding
voluntary rather than via forced taxation. I'm sure the American people
will be happy to pay for whatever yields them a direct benefit just like
anyone else would. How about a check box in our tax returns asking if we
want to add a few bucks to our taxes to pay for their activities? An
itemized list would be helpful.

I challenge all these entities to demonstrate their contribution to the
American people who pay the bills and ask for their support...it would
be interesting to see how many bake sales are initiated on their behalf.
What could be more democratic than that?

Best

Mike

8

Wether Einstein was a Socialist or not, his onbservation is thought provoking and does seem to explain much in human behavior. As Bill Bonner often reminds his reeaders, humans evolved in groups of about 150 people. We all seem to work very well in units of thatsize. In aggregates as large as nation states we are simply not equipped to know what is going on. We reason by anology to the smaller group. The anologies are often clouded by our personal upbringing and genetics. Many of the habits of thinking are formed as anology to family structure. Those who grew up in an authoritarian father centric family often project the necessity of authority onto the larger unknowable world of tens of millions or billions. Others who grew up in a family of maternal influence tend to reject authority and violence. The spectacle of the national and world stage never ends. As Mr. Mr. Bonner reminds it often begins earnest, morphs to lies, then spectacle than farce, then disaster. This is certainly the progression in Itraq and the progression of the Federal Reserve over the last two decades. Freedom and liberty will hopefully bring more power down to the most local level where most people know what is going on and how to handle i

Dismissing all the ideas of an individual just because from thedelusion is absurd. Both Marx and Minski were socialists, yet both had considerable insight into the depravity of central banking.

9

Philip Berg wrote:

PB) humans evolved in groups of about 150 people. [...] Many of the habits
of thinking are formed as anology to family structure. Those who grew up in
an authoritarian father centric family often project the necessity of
authority onto the larger unknowable world of tens of millions or billions.
Others who grew up in a family of maternal influence tend to reject
authority and violence. (PB

Yes, I too am a big fan of evolutionary psychology, and I know some of its
Jedi tricks. For instance: evolutionary pressure to anticipate intra-tribal
Survivor-style social machinations probably contributed to what in
psychology is known as the
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error -- the
well-documented tendency of humans to believe too much that outcomes are
more the result of somebody's plans or intentions than they are the result
of complex situational, environmental, and path-dependent influences. This
leads people to make mistaken judgments about the extent to which there has
been a conspiracy behind events related to, say, Iraq or the Federal Reserve
-- to pick two random examples.

PB) This is certainly the progression in Iraq and the progression of the
Federal Reserve over the last two decades. (PB

OK, not so random. :slight_smile:

PB) Dismissing all the ideas of an individual just because [he suffered?]
from the delusion [of socialism?] is absurd. (PB

Giving special credence to the political views of a socialist physicist just
because his name was Einstein would be equally absurd. There's only one
thinker who I hear quoted with more misplaced reverence than Einstein is,
and that's Wittgenstein.

I didn't "dismiss all the ideas" of Einstein. I was just trying to say that
I know enough modern physics and enough political philosophy not to be
star-struck by Einstein's pronouncements on politics. Einstein's physics
made him a one-name-on-the-marquee titan of intellectual history, but I'll
credit the randomly-chosen sociopolitical pronouncements of a Starchild over
that of an Einstein six days a week and twice on Sundays.

10

Democracy
does not
translate
directly into
greater
liberty.The
Austro
Hungarian
and Ottoman
Empires
were
notoriously
weak,
allowing for
considerable
local
autonomy, or as Lew
Rockwell calls them,
Zones of Liberty.
Gold was the
coin of the
realm in the
austro
hungrian
empire. The
wealth of the
pre WWI era
is palpable in
every city
and town in Eastern and
Central Europe that
has treasures
of
architecture
surviving
from that era.
The Kaiser was as much
a figurehead as the
British Monarch at the
eve of the great War.
Germany had
sufferage.Britain was
brutal in it's occupation
of Ireland and India.
The Treaty of Versailles
was an unmitigated
disaster that haunts us to
this dayin the middle
east, in the Balkans, and
in the the results of the
humiliation of Germany.
The failure of the US
power elites to grasp the
full measure of the
disaster that resulted
from surrendering our
national interests to the
romance of Anglophiles
and the ambitions of
British empire in 1917
directly contributed to
dthe disaster of 2003.
The dog wagged the tail.
Tony Blair, immersed in
the undying sentiments
of superiority of the
British class, and
following the lead of
Maggie in 1991, teamed
up with an all too
willing GWB. It is no
accident the Bush was
the first to lay his head
down in Buckingham
Palace since Wilson. I
often wish we had
inherited from the
British the long standing
tradition of punishing
treason with drawing
high rnaking traitors,
sometimes post mortem,
and quartering and
placing the head on the
London Bridge to rot for
20 years. Oliver
Cromwell suffered this
fate, buried in
Westminister Abbey he
was dug up by Charles
II and given the
treatment. Wilson
deserves no less,
perhaps with his head
left on the Woodrow
Wilson to remind the
neo cons the price of
treason.

The recent and ancient
history of conquest and
occupation of theMiddle
East in general and Iraq
in particular, was
available to thinking and
concerned people prior
to 2006, as were the
warnings of Reagan,
Eisenhower, and
Washington. The war
was a clear abomination
from it's inception.
However I concede
flexability of mind sure
beats what we have in
the neo con camp.

--- In lpsf-
discuss@yahoogroups.com,
"Brian
Holtz" <brian@...>
wrote:

Phil Berg

wrote:

BH) it's

just not
tenable to lay
Hitler at
Wilson's feet
for the latter's

decision to

enter that
war on the
side of the
democracies.
(BH

PB) How

was England
any more of
a
Democracy
than
Germany at
the eve of
WWI?

(PB

In WWI,

America
fought
alongside
France and
Britain,
against an
alliance

that

included not
only the
Germany of
Emperor
Kaiser
Wilhelm II
but also the

Austro-

Hungarian
and Ottoman
empires.
While the
Central
Powers were
also

opposed by

the non-
democratic
Russia, it is
untenable to
suggest that

America

wasn't on the
more
democratic
side of the
war.

PB)

Einstein once
said words to
the effect that
every person
at some point

makes the

decision
wether the
universe is
fundamentally
a hostile
place or

not. (PB

Einstein

advocated
world
government
and wrote

<http://

findarticles.com/
p/articles/
mi_m1132/
is_n8_v40/
ai_6944290/
pg_5> "I

am for

socialism",
so citations
of his
muddled
thinking on
politics don't

impress

me.

PB) This

decision
informs all
other
opinions. (PB

The

fundamental
question here
is whether
the landscape
of attainable
levels

of liberty

has no local
maxima, i.e.
whether an
investment in
force

initiation

could ever
lead to a net
reduction in
the overall
incidence of

force

initiation. I
don't see any
sticker on the
store
packaging of
this

universe

that
guarantees
that all
ethical
judgments
inside the
box involving

political

theory have
to be simple
ones.
Nobody can
certify for us
that for

the tool-

using speech-
capable pair-
bonded
omnivorous
bipedal
primates on

this planet,

it just so
happens that
100%
absolute
abstinence
from

force-

initiation is
always the
optimal
strategy for
minimizing
the net

incidence

of aggression
in the
societies
such
primates
form. I can
take very

seriously

the detailed
consequentialist
arguments of
a David
Friedman or

Fred

Foldvary for
advocating
such
abstinence,
but I see
very little
merit in

simplistic

deontological
arguments
for it. It's
obvious to
me and to
most

Americans

that
aggression
will never
end up
minimized if
liberty-lovers

simply

promote
aggression
abstinence
through the
example of
their chastity.

I'm a

libertarian,
and so I
value the
actual real-
world
protection of

liberty --

i.e. the
minimization
of aggression
-- over
maintaining
the

non-

coercive
purity of my
white-gloved
hands.

PB) For

that reason I
will never
change Brian
Holtzs mind
on the
wisdom of

intervention
in Iraq nor
him mine.
(PB

You're too

late to
change my
mind; Iraq's
Sunnis and
Shias already
changed

my mind

in 2006 by
demonstrating
their desire
to hold an
unpredicted
civil

war.

Since I'm
free of any
dogma that
requires
deciding a
priori that

intervention
is always
good or
always bad,
I'm free to
evaluate past
and

proposed

interventions
with an open
mind, and to
change how I
evaluate

proposed

interventions
as new data
become
available.

Mike

Denny wrote:

BH) My

standard list
of places
where
America has
used its
military for
the

goal of

local
democratic
sovereignty
includes:
England,
Italy, France,

Belgium,

Luxembourg,
Holland,
Denmark,
Iceland,
Norway,
Greece,
Germany,

Austria,

Japan,
Taiwan,
South Korea,
Grenada,
Panama,
Kuwait,
Kurdistan,

Bosnia,

Kosovo,
Afghanistan,
and Iraq.
(MD

MD)

Please show
me where in
your blog it
discusses
how our
military

activities

in these
countries
have
"benefited
the goal of
local
democratic

sovereignty".
(MD

I don't

debate basic
facts of
history.
Please cite
your
evidence for
any

country in

my list that
American
military
intervention
didn't aid the
cause

of local

democratic
sovereignty
there. (I
dropped
Haiti from
the list,

since

you're now
talking about
actual
"benefits"
whereas my
list was about

intentions.)

MD) I'm

especially
interested in
your take on
Taiwan.a
place my
wife and I

lived for 6

years. We
had many
discussions
with locals
about the
local

political

scene. [...]
The war and
power
mongers on
both side of
the

Straights

are the ones
that benefit
from the
policy.the
people who
have

heard it all

couldn't care
less. (MD

It's simply

not credible
to report that
the people of
Taiwan were

indifferent

to the
prospect of
invasion and
conquest by
the
Communist

mainland.

If you want
me to believe
that, then the
anecdotes
above don't

come

anywhere
near
convincing
me.

MD) The

primary
beneficiaries
of this policy
are in my
humble
opinion the

likes of

GE, Bechtel,
Boeing,
Lockheed,
Halliburton,
Carlyle
Group (MD

You need

to question
more deeply
the lefty
propaganda
you've
absorbed.

Regarding

Halliburton,
I've written:

BH) It

would be
untenable to
claim that
Iraq was
invaded to
get oil for

America or

profits for
Halliburton.
America
hasn't stolen -
- or even
gotten

a discount

on -- Iraq's
oil. Only
about a third
of
Halliburton's
modest

$20B/yr

revenues
come from
Iraq
contracts,
and its 1.1%
profit margin
on

them is

less than on
its core
energy
business.
Start at p. 47
of its 2005

annual

report for
details. If
Bush and
Cheney were
just out to
generate a

few

hundred
million in
extra profits
for
Halliburton,
they could
have done

it the way

Republicans
always do
that for the
energy and
agriculture

sectors:

with the
outright
subsidies that
each year
total tens of
billions.

Halliburton's
Iraq profits
are a drop in
the bucket by
comparison.
(BH

Regarding

Carlyle
Group:

BH)

Fahrenheit 9/
11 famously
says that
Carlyle
"gained"
from 9/11 by
its

stake in

United
Defense,
which makes
the Bradley
armored
fighting
vehicle.

What

Michael
Moore's film
fails to
mention is
that the $11
billion
Crusader

artillery

rocket
system to be
built by
United
Defense is
one of the
only

weapons

systems ever
canceled by
the Bush
administration.

The

Carlyle
Group is a
private
equity
investment
firm. Its
investors are

very

diverse, and
include
George
Soros (the
leftist
billionaire
bitterly

critical of

the Bush
Administration)
and
CalPERS
(the
Democrat-
dominated

California

public
employee
retirement
fund,
renowned for
its left-
leaning

shareholder
activism).
According to
Wikipedia:

Critics

refer to
Carlyle as a
private
military
contractor,
but it is more

accurate to

say it is a
private
equity firm
that owns
controlling or
partial

interests in

several
military
contractors.
For example,
it used to own

United

Defense
Industries,
which was
developing
the Crusader
artillery

project.

This project
was funded
in eight
consecutive
Clinton
budgets but

was

cancelled
soon after
Bush became
president,
which
eliminated the

remaining

$9 billion of
the original
$11 billion
contract.

In the book

House of
Bush, House
of Saud,
author Craig
Unger states
that

Saudi

Arabian
interests have
given $1.4
billion to
firms
connected to
the

Bush

family. That
figure was
again quoted
by Michael
Moore in his
film

Fahrenheit

9/11. Nearly
90% of the
1.4 billion,
about 1.18
billion, refers

to Saudi

Arabian
government
contracts
awarded to
defense
contractor
BDM in

the early to

mid 1990s.
Carlyle,
however,
sold its
interest in
BDM before

former

President
George H.
W. Bush
joined as an
advisor.
Former
President

George

H.W. Bush
retired from
Carlyle in
October
2003.
George W.
Bush served

on the

Board of
Directors of
early Carlyle
acquisition
Caterair, but
was

asked to

leave two
years later
by one of the
founders and
has had no

personal

dealings with
Carlyle ever
since.

Less than

25% of
Carlyle's
holdings are
defense-
related.
Estranged
relatives

of Osama

bin Laden
had a modest
$2M
investment in
Carlyle that
they

terminated

in Oct 2001.
For more, see

http://

www.911myths.com/
html/
carlyle_group.html.
(BH

Halliburton
and the
Carlyle
Group are
supposed to
be the two
most
egregious

cases of

war
profiteering,
so I leave
GE, Bechtel,
Boeing, and
Lockheed as

an exercise

for the
reader.

MD) It

would be
interesting to
know the
percent of
taxes paid by
those

companies

who's
revenue
stream is
nearly
entirely
derived from
Ill-begotten

blood

money. (MD

The way to

know things
is to fact-
check claims
against
primary
sources and

the

commentary
of informed
people who
disagree with
the claim.
At a

minimum,

you should
try to spend
more time
reading
things you
disagree with

than things

you agree
with. Surely
Dr. Edelstein
has warned
here before

about http:/

/
en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/
Confirmation_bias
. Other
traps to

beware are

listed at http:/
/
en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/
Category:Cognitive_biases

. If you

enjoy
watching
extremely
smart people
rigorously
examine their

thinking

for bias, then
you might
agree with
me that the
best blog on
the

planet is

http://
www.overcomingbias.com/ .

11

"Profit" means nothing. It's all about cash flow -- net income (as it's generally referred to in GAAP, or Generally Accepted Accounting Principles), serves as an estimate of a corporation's performance, but is not perfect. It's possible for a profitable corporation to go bankrupt due to negative cash flow (as has happened many times in high technology), and for an unprofitable corporation to generate billions in cash while posting GAAP "losses" (as Apple Computer did in the mid 1990s).

"Profit margin" is less a measure of operations than gross margin. "Profit margin" is an estimate of the performance of the company after ALL bills (including exceptional compensation) are paid, and additional non-cash expenses (such as depreciation and amortization) are booked. In the situation of Halliburton, it's instructive to note that its gross margin is a very healthy 40%, and its pro-forma earnings are in the 16% range.

It's also interesting to note that in 2006, Halliburton posted over $2 billion in net income on revenues of about $19 billion -- a profit margin that is an order of magnitude higher than the 1% being thrown around. It generated an ENORMOUS amount of cash flow -- with reserves increasing by over $2 billion despite a decrease in long term debt.

Another crucial area to examine is shareholder's equity. This term, from the balance sheet, is a calculation of the amount of value that the shareholders "own" -- i.e. the book value of what they would receive, in cash, if the entire company was liquidated at book value and all debts were paid with the proceeds. In 2006, this number was a healthy $6.3 billion -- up impressively from only $2.5 billion in 2004.

In 2003, Halliburton was highly leveraged (i.e. heavily in debt) and illiquid (i.e. lacked sufficient cash to operate its daily business reliably). Shareholder's equity in 2003 at the start of the Iraq War was only $1.1 billion.

A quick look at the $3.6 billion in additional average annual revenue that the Iraq War provided to Halliburton provides a clue as to where all that extra cash -- translating directly into shareholder's equity -- is coming from. In years where Iraq War revenue declined, Halliburton had negative net income, but still strongly positive cash flow, as a result of non-cash depreciation. That's where the misleading "1.1% profit margin" comes from.

Just a quick look at the balance sheet and income statements of Halliburton underscores that the Iraq War has earned billions upon billions of dollars for Halliburton's shareholders. It also shows that, based on cash flow trends, had the war not taken place, Halliburton likely would have needed to file for bankruptcy to conserve cash as its operations continued in a heavily cash-flow-negative direction.

Cheers,

Brian

Brian Holtz <brian@...> wrote:
You're confusing revenue and profit. A 1.1% profit margin on $7B/yr yields $70M/yr. It's just ludicrous to suggest that the Iraq invasion was the result of Bush and Cheney sitting down to try to figure out how to get Halliburton an extra $70M/yr in profit -- a figure that is well under 1/10th of 1% of the ongoing cost of the war. Heck, the Pentagon's budget for military bands in the 1980s was running over twice the amount of Halliburton Iraq profits -- more like triple if you adjust for inflation. Like I said, a drop in the bucket.

12

Brian Miller wrote:

BM) in 2006, Halliburton posted over $2 billion in net income on revenues of
about $19 billion -- a profit margin that is an order of magnitude higher
than the 1% being thrown around. (BM

I said that 1.1% was the profit margin on 2004 Iraq operations, not the
overall business. It's either ignorant or mendacious of you to conflate the
two. Halliburton's primary business is related to oil. Have you checked
the price of oil lately? "During 2006, the Energy Services Group (ESG)
produced revenue of $13.0 billion and operating income of $3.4 billion,
reflecting an operating margin of 26.1%." Thanks to increases in these
non-Iraq operations, revenue from Iraq operations declined from 27% of
revenue in 2004 to 25% in 2005 to 19% in 2006. Profit on Iraq operations in
2006 was $166M on revenue of $4.7B, "resulting in a 3.5% margin before
corporate costs and taxes". "In 2005, Iraq-related work contributed
approximately $5.4 billion to consolidated revenue and $172 million to
consolidated operating income, a 3.2% margin before corporate costs and
taxes."

BM) Just a quick look at the balance sheet and income statements of
Halliburton underscores that the Iraq War has earned billions upon billions
of dollars for Halliburton's shareholders. (BM

Halliburton shareholders have seen their equity increase by billions during
the timeframe of the Iraq war, but just a quick look at its annual reports
shows that profits from Iraq operations have totaled only $416M across 2004,
2005, and 2006. If you could show that Halliburton has earned "billions
upon billions of dollars" from its government contracts in Iraq, you'd be
famous, and the Halliburton executives who faked the annual reports would be
in jail. Be sure to let us know when that happens. In the meantime, feel
free to keep fantasizing that the $500B war to liberate Iraq was just a
conspiracy to generate $500M in extra profits for Halliburton.

Phil Berg wrote:

PB) One picture is worth a thousand words, (especially when the words are
Mr. Holtz's.) (PB

Translation: I can't refute Mr. Holtz's facts about Halliburton, so I'll
throw up a smokescreen by citing how an energy services company's stock has
gone up during a time that increased Asian demand for oil -- along with
short-lived supply shocks like the 2003 Iraq production shortfall and the
2003 PDVSA strike in Venezuela -- has pushed prices from $30/barrel to
$60/barrel.

PB) [...] The failure of the US power elites to grasp the full measure of
the disaster that resulted from surrendering our national interests to the
romance of Anglophiles and the ambitions of British empire in 1917 directly
contributed to the disaster of 2003. [...] I often wish we had inherited
from the British the long standing tradition of punishing treason with
drawing high ranking traitors, sometimes post mortem, and quartering and
placing the head on the London Bridge to rot for 20 years. (PB

Um, OK. If you claim that any sentence in your discourse rebuts any
sentence I've ever written, feel free to pair them up for us and I'll
explain why my sentence is still true.

13

Brian,

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't say any of the things you
suggest below. All I said is that Halliburton has a financial incentive
to use their political muscle to shape policy in the region to their
benefit. And...the problems in the region have certainly raised the cost
of doing business for everyone and raised the price of oil. That could
mean that political problems in the region may be a contributing factor
to the profits of Halliburton and others.

Having private businesses that can profit from political problems of
their own making directly involved in shaping foreign policy is not a
good thing in my opinion. That's all. Would you disagree with that
statement?

Mike

14

Brian said "Einstein's physics made him a one-name-on-the-marquee titan
of intellectual history, but I'll credit the randomly-chosen
sociopolitical pronouncements of a Starchild over that of an Einstein
six days a week and twice on Sundays."

Well said Brian....and I'll take Starchild's sociopolitical
promouncements over most of Hollywood too...speaking of marquees...:>)

Mike

15

Brian:

If you're not going to read and respond to what I actually wrote about net income versus EBITDA versus cash flow, and just keep parroting "net income" numbers, I'm not going to be keen on continuing this discussion, since it's obvious that my POV isn't even being considered.

If you'd like to respond to my post's specific examination of cash flow and discussion of how creative amortization and depreciation can depress "net income" while still providing cash flow (the goal of major corporations), I'll be happy to pick up where we left off and continue the discussion.

Your call!

Cheers,

Brian

Brian Holtz <brian@...> wrote:
Brian Miller wrote:
    BM) in 2006, Halliburton posted over $2 billion in net income on revenues of about $19 billion -- a profit margin that is an order of magnitude higher than the 1% being thrown around. (BM
I said that 1.1% was the profit margin on 2004 Iraq operations, not the overall business. It's either ignorant or mendacious of you to conflate the two. Halliburton's primary business is related to oil. Have you checked the price of oil lately? "During 2006, the Energy Services Group (ESG) produced revenue of $13.0 billion and operating income of $3.4 billion, reflecting an operating margin of 26.1%." Thanks to increases in these non-Iraq operations, revenue from Iraq operations declined from 27% of revenue in 2004 to 25% in 2005 to 19% in 2006. Profit on Iraq operations in 2006 was $166M on revenue of $4.7B, "resulting in a 3.5% margin before corporate costs and taxes". "In 2005, Iraq-related work contributed approximately $5.4 billion to consolidated revenue and $172 million to consolidated operating income, a 3.2% margin before corporate costs and taxes."
    BM) Just a quick look at the balance sheet and income statements of Halliburton underscores that the Iraq War has earned billions upon billions of dollars for Halliburton's shareholders. (BM
Halliburton shareholders have seen their equity increase by billions during the timeframe of the Iraq war, but just a quick look at its annual reports shows that profits from Iraq operations have totaled only $416M across 2004, 2005, and 2006. If you could show that Halliburton has earned "billions upon billions of dollars" from its government contracts in Iraq, you'd be famous, and the Halliburton executives who faked the annual reports would be in jail. Be sure to let us know when that happens. In the meantime, feel free to keep fantasizing that the $500B war to liberate Iraq was just a conspiracy to generate $500M in extra profits for Halliburton.
  
Phil Berg wrote:
    PB) One picture is worth a thousand words, (especially when the words are Mr. Holtz's.) (PB
Translation: I can't refute Mr. Holtz's facts about Halliburton, so I'll throw up a smokescreen by citing how an energy services company's stock has gone up during a time that increased Asian demand for oil -- along with short-lived supply shocks like the 2003 Iraq production shortfall and the 2003 PDVSA strike in Venezuela -- has pushed prices from $30/barrel to $60/barrel.
    PB) [...] The failure of the US power elites to grasp the full measure of the disaster that resulted from surrendering our national interests to the romance of Anglophiles and the ambitions of British empire in 1917 directly contributed to the disaster of 2003. [...] I often wish we had inherited from the British the long standing tradition of punishing treason with drawing high ranking traitors, sometimes post mortem, and quartering and placing the head on the London Bridge to rot for 20 years. (PB
Um, OK. If you claim that any sentence in your discourse rebuts any sentence I've ever written, feel free to pair them up for us and I'll explain why my sentence is still true.

16

LPSF,

Please count me as a fan of Starchild's sociopolitical pronouncements, too.

Sincerely,

Don Fields