there is none so subtle but love doth him abuse

I'm drafting my thesis these days. I just completed a first-draft section on the English writing masters of the early-modern period. These were men who taught good penmanship. Their students, who mostly aimed at employment in the business world, needed to be able to make documents that were legible and accurate without taking a long time in doing it. I'm just starting a second section on the commercial arithmetic that these writing masters also taught. During the period, use of roman numerals was giving way to arabic ones and side-by-side use of tally sticks, counting boards, and abacuses was giving way to computing with pen on paper. No matter how they were done, multiplication and particularly division were very difficult to master. Only with the gradual adoption of algebra would these tasks be made easy.

So, in doing this draft I've been putting some last touches on the research that supports it. And in doing this I searched the word "casting" in a database of early modern books. Casting was what you did on a counting board: you placed the counters (small stones or the like) in columns representing numerical place as you would when using an abacus. But the word casting shows up in lots of other documents of the time, mostly having to do with casting out devils, or feigning to cast out devils, or pretending devilry in order to take credit for casting it out ... like that.

And I came across the following fragment, which is one page someone saved from a larger text. Why they saved it and how it came to be in the database I do not know.

I could not resist taking a few moments to at least determine what it is and what it says.

Turns out it is a page from a poem from Robert Copland. He was an associate of England's first printer William Caxton and a printer himself. The book carries the very early date of 1530. You can read about him here. John Payne Collier gives more information about the man and his poem in his Illustrations of Early English Popular Literature, of 1863. The poem is a translation from an anonymous French author, though Copland does not trouble to tell us this (England's early printing was rife with unacknowledged translations). Just for context: the year of its publication was in the middle of the reign of Henry VIII and the heyday of the Protestant Reformation. His daughter Elizabeth, future Elizabeth I, Queen of England, would not be born for another three years.

Here is my fragment, followed by the whole text of the poem:


My fragment reads:

With her eyen pleasaunte castynge a regarde
In chastynge a laughter amerous,
Than with a praty smyle she doth me larde,
And that maketh me somewhat joyous;
But comynge to a bed delycyous
For to holde the spere in a full hande,
It plyeth and fayleth, for wyll not stonde.
Whan I herde her bable and langage,
Her gentyll termes spoken so properly,
I do me wyshe for to be in to the age

Of eyghten, neyntene, or foure and twenty:
Suche assautes than gyue wolde I,
That for it sholde haue no nede to craue
Of the grete pleasure that she sholde haue.
If that she go to banckettes and daunces,
She doth none offence therin certayne:
Nedes she must haue her pleasaunces
In some place to make her glad and fayne;
Wherfore I dare well say and susteyne
That after with me I wolde haue her ledde,
If ony soner I had ben to her wedde.
We twayne sholde haue all our yongenesse,
After maryage custome and ryght,
Passed in joye, solace, and gladnesse,
And is wherfore I haue me pyght:
Force it is to me that the fyre be night,
That at a nede I can not haue quenched.
To late maryed is for to be complayned.

Here's the whole (lengthy) work:

Copland, R.

Here begynneth the complaynte of them that ben to late maryed.

1: After playes, sportes, and daunces of solace,
2: We must thynke to come to prosperyte,
3: After that God of his haboundaunte grace
4: Wyll prouyde how that I may gouerne me,
5: In mynde I purpose wedded to be.
6: In a better lyfe may no man lyue in
7: Than to be maryed, and lyfe out of synne.
8: All yonge louers sholde them so affyle,
9: That they loue trewely, and so for to lyue;
10: With ardaunte wytte and perfyte style,
11: All vnto goodnesse themselfe for to gyue:
12: Than may they be sure that they shall thryue.
13: So wyll I lyue in maryage clene and pure,
14: To Goddes be houe and increasinge of nature.
15: To longe haue I lyued without ony make,
16: All to longe haue I vsed my yonge age;
17: I wyll all for go, and a wyfe to me take
18: For to increase both our twoos lynage:

page 4

19: For saynt Iohn sayth that he is sage
20: That ayenst his wyll doth him gouerne,
21: And our Lordes preceptes hym selfe for to learne.
22: There is no greter pleasure than for to haue
23: A wyfe that is full of prudence and wysdome.
24: Alas, for loue nygh I am in poynte to raue!
25: These cursed olde men haue an yll custome
26: Women for to blame, both all and some;
27: For that they can not theyr myndes full fyll,
28: Therfore they speke of them but all yll.
29: Now syth that I haue my tyme vsed
30: For to folowe my folyshe pleasaunces,
31: And haue my selfe oftentymes sore abused
32: At plaies and sportes, pompes and daunces,
33: Spendynge golde and syluer and grete fynaunces,
34: For faut of a wyfe the cause is all:
35: To late maryed, men may me call.
36: The holy sacramente of maryage,
37: Before holy chyrche, was ordeyned
38: For to increase humayne lynage:
39: He that doth other wyse is not receyued
40: Before God: thus was man guerdoned
41: With woman for to lyue at his owene wyll:
42: He is a fole that elles where doth nature spyll.

page 5

43: I haue done as the labourer doth
44: That somtyme is payned with trobyll grete,
45: For he leseth his payne, for certayne soth,
46: That in the hye waye soweth his whete:
47: Well I perceyue that I dyde me forgete,
48: Or that I put me in to housholde;
49: I haue lost my seed, my worke is but colde.
50: Women and maydens, both good and yll,
51: With me I helde my selfe for to please,
52: The one dyde rebell, the other abode styll,
53: Other made me well at myn ease.
54: Cupydo than came me for to cease,
55: Venus lyghted her bronde of fyre:
56: For such seruyce, suche guerdon and hyre.
57: Thus rauysshed in this sayd abusion,
58: I was taken with a cantelous wyle,
59: That me thought to make conclusyon
60: Of my weddynge within a whyle.
61: But yet dyde they me begyle;
62: They caused me for to make grete dyspence,
63: For I was no soner wed, through my neglygence,
64: I wolde do make comune, I wys,
65: My proper goodes; so was I lyght
66: Of wytte, and was all wayes redy, as is

page 6

67: A man of armes in poynt to fyght.
68: Other whyles I went me ryght
69: In to places my selfe solysytynge;
70: But nother frequented that beynge.
71: Yf I withhelde ony praty one,
72: Swetely ynough she made me chere,
73: Sayenge that she loued no persone
74: But me; and therto she dyde swere:
75: But whan I wente fro that place there,
76: Vnto another she dyde as moche,
77: For they loue none but for theyr poche.
78: I had fyue or sixe companyons
79: That haunted with me euery houre;
80: But I haue knowen to suche garsons
81: In secrete they haue done socoure,
82: Yf that they enioyed my paramoure,
83: With grete payne durste I it to them saye:
84: Force me was to kepe counseyll alwaye.
85: I wote well that I haue ryght sore varyed,
86: For to haue wylled for to lyue alone,
87: For to haue ben to late maryed,
88: For that I haue herde so longe a gone,
89: For she that abandoneth to more then one,

page 7

90: I dare wyll swere, and ther with it sust[a]yne,
91: That she abandoneth vnto a dosayne.
92: Folysshe regardes, full of vanyte,
93: I kest ouer twarte and eke contrauers;
94: To daye I had peas, rest and vnyte,
95: To morowe I had plete and processe dyuers:
96: Breke I dyde dores and fenesters;
97: Sargeauntes met me by the waye,
98: And enprysoned both me and my praye.
99: Subiecte I was to a meyny of bawdes,
100: And vnto a grete company of brothelles,
101: Whiche to me brought an hepe of rybaudes,
102: Dronkardes that loued well good morselles,
103: Knaues and theues that wolde pyke quarelles.
104: I gaue them clothes, I knewe not theyr vse;
105: There is none so subtyll but loue doth hym abuse.
106: Alas! I haue all my tyme spent and lost,
107: Whiche for to recouer is impossyble;
108: Spent haue I nature, at grete expens and cost;
109: Agenst the ryght canon and of the holy byble,
110: Offens done to God neuer ceasyble;
111: In daunger for to forfayte bothe soule and lyfe,
112: By defaute for to haue taken vnto me a wyfe.

page 8

113: Lyke vnto a best, an hors, or an asse,
114: That careth not for to tomble in the fen,
115: Yf that ony with me playenge there was,
116: An other to helpe I wolde go then:
117: Mo gallantes a man sholde se than ren
118: After a wentche, and lepe and hytche,
119: Than dogges do about a farowenge bytche.
120: She wolde to no maner a man escondyte;
121: Eche one she appetyted for to receyue,
122: Takynge therein pleasure and delyte,
123: To the ende theyr syluer for to haue:
124: But in the stede chyldren to conceyue,
125: Botches, pockes and goutes they engendre,
126: In hedes and in legges and in euery membre.
127: In this maner of sykenesse many ther be
128: That ben Impotentes hanged and dede,
129: But lytell semblaunce they make on to se
130: Taken as they ben, not beggynge theyr brede.
131: Hast you to be wedded, thus I you rede,
132: Vnto the ende that ye be not cappable
133: Of this grete daunger, deedly and vncurable.
134: Now am I out of this daunger so alenge,
135: Wherfore I am gladde it for to perseuer;
136: Longe about haue I ben me for to renge,

page 9

137: But it is better to late than to be neuer.
138: Certes I was not, in my lyfe tyll hyther,
139: So full of ioye that doth in my herte inspyre:
140: Wedded folke haue tyme at theyr desyre.
141: Out am I now of thought, dole and mone,
142: Lyuynge euer more ryght amorously,
143: For I haue a wyfe by my selfe alone,
144: At my commaundement both late and erely;
145: And yf it happen that I loke heuely,
146: My wyfe me kysseth, and than she me colleth,
147: And ryght woman there she me consolleth.
148: To that I wyll haue done she is redy,
149: Neuer wyll she ayenst my wyll saye:
150: She doth to me the best that she can truely,
151: Nothing of my volenty she doth me naye.
152: Yf I be angred or trobled ony waye,
153: Redy she is to chaunge my purpose,
154: Vnto the ende that I may haue all my repose.
155: I haue me all to longe refrayned;
156: Furnysshe I can not to all her pleasyre,
157: And for to promyse her I am constrayned
158: More then I can do to her desyre.
159: She appetyteth it moche, and doth me enspyre,

page 10

160: Gorgyously shewynge her fayre corsage,
161: But I am all caduc, and wery for age.
162: I ought to haue by this many chyldren,
163: Some sporte and playe, & some at fyre syttynge,
164: Other in the felde to shote, lepe and ren,
165: And some hardy, some mery and tryumphynge,
166: In whom I sholde haue all my delytynge;
167: But to late maryd, withouten dout,
168: May neuer se his chyldren ren out.
169: My wyfe shewed to me her proper dugge,
170: On the mornynge her delyte for to make,
171: And to haue me for to playe nugge a nugge.
172: Alas! I wolde it full fayne forsake,
173: But force it is suche lessons to take,
174: And to ryse vp erly, as I thynke best,
175: In the mornynge, and go vnto my rest.
176: Whan I se her lye in shetes fayre and whyte,
177: As rede as the button of the rose,
178: With good wyll wolde I take than delyte;
179: Neuertheles I lete her haue her repose,
180: For it is force that I cast agayne on the close,
181: And to make a pawse than I am conioynt,
182: For thynstrument is not yet well in poynt.

page 11

183: But yet somtyme I me constrayne
184: To take nature solace, thus thynke I,
185: But all sodeynly I me refrayne,
186: For I do fere to be to soone wery,
187: And than I slepe with courage all drery,
188: And yet am I, I can not passe
189: Vpon women more than euer I was.
190: Constrayned I am to be full of Ialousy,
191: Seynge that I can not content her mynde
192: Touchynge the playe of loue all softely:
193: Often ynough, the experyence to fynde,
194: She me assayeth and tourneth by kynde,
195: Castynge vnto me her beggynge legge,
196: But I do slepe; I care not for suche a begge.
197: With her eyen pleasaunte castynge a regarde
198: In chastynge a laughter amerous,
199: Than with a praty smyle she doth me larde,
200: And that maketh me somewhat joyous;
201: But comynge to a bed delycyous
202: For to holde the spere in a full hande,
203: It plyeth and fayleth, for wyll not stonde.
204: Whan I herde her bable and langage,
205: Her gentyll termes spoken so properly,
206: I do me wyshe for to be in to the age

page 12

207: Of eyghten, neyntene, or foure and twenty:
208: Suche assautes than gyue wolde I,
209: That for it sholde haue no nede to craue
210: Of the grete pleasure that she sholde haue.
211: If that she go to banckettes and daunces,
212: She doth none offence therin certayne:
213: Nedes she must haue her pleasaunces
214: In some place to make her glad and fayne;
215: Wherfore I dare well say and susteyne
216: That after with me I wolde haue her ledde,
217: If ony soner I had ben to her wedde.
218: We twayne sholde haue all our yongenesse,
219: After maryage custome and ryght,
220: Passed in joye, solace, and gladnesse,
221: And is wherfore I haue me pyght:
222: Force it is to me that the fyre be night,
223: That at a nede I can not haue quenched.
224: To late maryed is for to be complayned.
225: It is sayd, that a man in seruytude
226: Hym putteth whan he doth to woman bende;
227: He ne hath but only habytude
228: Vnto her the whiche well doth hym tende.
229: Who wyll to householde comprehende,

page 13

230: And there a bout studyeth in youth alwayes,
231: He shall haue honoure in his olde dayes.
232: Some chyldren vnto the courtes hauntes,
233: And ben puruayed of benefyces;
234: Some haunteth markettes and be marchauntes,
235: Byenge and fellynge theyr marchaundyses,
236: Or elles constytuted in offyces;
237: Theyr faders and moders haue grete solace,
238: That to late maryed by no waye hase.
239: I be wayll the tyme that is so spent
240: That I ne me hasted for to wedde,
241: For I shall haue herytage and rente,
242: Both golde and syluer and kynred;
243: But syth that our Lorde hath ordeyned
244: That I this sacrament take me vpon,
245: I wyll kepe it trewely at all season.
246: Theophrastus vs sheweth in his prose
247: That in maryage all is out of tune;
248: So doth also the romanute of the rose,
249: Composed by mayster Iohan de mehune:
250: Yet neuertheles it is all comune,
251: That they neuer were in bonde of maryage,
252: Wherfore at all auentures is theyr langage.

page 14

253: Matheolus, that was holden so wyse,
254: For to blame women was all his ebate,
255: Suppose that he was maryed twyse,
256: For he was so olde that balde was his pate;
257: For he came the last tyme so very late,
258: That in hym there was no puyssaunce,
259: Amyte, solace, joye ne pleasure.
260: But whan that a man may do no more,
261: He blame that that he can not do:
262: To late wedded the surplus, therfore,
263: May not furnysshe as other may do;
264: For whan he wened to satysfye, lo,
265: Nature at nede wyll not hym preuayle:
266: Suche wenes do to well that other whyle fayle.
267: Yf that there be ony tryfelers
268: That haue wylled for to blame maryage,
269: I dare well saye that they ben but lyers,
270: Or elles God fayled in the fyrste age:
271: Adam bereth wytnesse and tesmonage,
272: Maryed he was, and comen we ben;
273: God dyde choyse maryage vnto all men.
274: Now sith it is thus befall,
275: Why than ought we it to blame,
276: Vs for to put we ben holden all,

page 15

277: So sholde we alwayes holde with the same;
278: Or elles holy scrypture sayeth it is shame,
279: And that alleggeth all predycatours,
280: Our Lorde God hateth all fornycatours.
281: I am now sory that I haue no rathe
282: Put my selfe into maryages rout,
283: For many a folysshe loke it hathe:
284: It hath me cost here and there about;
285: But yet my soule is in grete doute,
286: For God fornycatures punyssheth,
287: And out of this realme he them banyssheth.
288: There is no man lyuynge that can commyt
289: Without outen the worke of nature,
290: But he in maryage doth commyse it,
291: As vs telleth the holy Scripture:
292: It is than foly to ony creature
293: Thus for to blame his creason
294: For ony maner of folysshe opynyon.
295: All they that by theyr subtyll artes
296: Hath wylled for to blame maryage,
297: I wyll susteyne that they be bastardes,
298: Or at least waye an euyll courage,
299: For to saye that therin is seruage

page 16

300: In maryage, but I it reny,
301: For therin is but humayne company.
302: Yf ther be yll women and rebell,
303: Shrewed, dispytous and eke felonyous,
304: There be other fayre and do full well,
305: Propre, gentyll, lusty and joyous,
306: That ben full of grace and vertuous;
307: They ben not all born vnder a sygnet:
308: Happy is he that a good one can get.
309: To late maryed now helpe than me
310: To make my sorowes and complayntes;
311: For by my fayth, I swere to the,
312: I haue suffred many dolours and crayntes,
313: And haue sustayned mo attayntes
314: Than euer dede Wat after the hounde:
315: At dyspence I lyued, and that haue I founde.
316: Galantes, playne ye the tyme that ye haue lost,
317: Marry you be tyme, as the wyse man sayth:
318: Tossed I haue ben fro pyler to post
319: In commyssynge natures werke alwayes:
320: I haue passed full many quasy dayes,
321: That now vnto good I can not mate,
322: For mary I dyde my selfe to late.

page 17

323: Rychely in a raye ought for to go
324: These women that be obedyent;
325: Better than these cursed wyues do
326: That ben not to theyr husbandes pacyent.
327: To take a wyfe was myn intent,
328: Goddes lawes to kepe and them to obserue,
329: Sauynge of nature, and heuen to preserue.
330: Afore that euer I was maryed
331: Bordeles I haunted, and places of infame,
332: But I am now vnto a wyfe alayed,
333: The worde to holde, and honoure Goddes neme.
334: That wycked man I holde to blame
335: That foloweth eyyll ruell, and wyll not amende,
336: Vnto his soulles helth, and honoure to pretende.
337: Whan a man to olde age is faden and fall,
338: Lerne this lesson, herken my sentence;
339: Fewe frendes meteth he with all
340: That wyll to his pouerte take ony intellygence.
341: Wo worthe, than crye they, of the expence
342: That they haue spent vnto youthes lust!
343: And now they must dye for hunger and thurst.
344: Better it is in youth a wyfe for to take,
345: And lyue with her to Goddes pleasaunce,

page 18

346: Than to go in age for Goddes sake,
347: In wor[l]dely sorowe and perturbaunce,
348: For youthes loue and vtteraunce,
349: And than to dye at the last ende,
350: And be dampned in hell with the foule fende.

The auctour
351: Rychenes in youth, with good gouernaunce,
352: Often helpeth age whan youth is gone his gate;
353: Both yonge and olde must haue theyr sustenaunce
354: Euer in this worlde, soo fekyll and rethrograte:
355: Ryght as an ampte, the whiche all gate,
356: Trusseth and caryeth for his lyues fode,
357: Eny thynge that whiche hym semeth to be good.
358: Crysten folke ought for to haue
359: Open hertes vnto God almyght,
360: Puttynge in theyr mynde thyr soule to saue,
361: Lernynge to come vnto the eternall lyght,
362: And kepe well theyr maryage and trouth plyght;
363: Nothynge alwaye of theyr last ende,
364: Durynge theyr lyues how they the tyme spende.
365: Here endeth the complaynt of to late maryed,
366: For spendynge of tyme or they a borde,

page 19

367: The sayd holy sacramente haue to long taryed,
368: Humayne nature tassemble, and it to accorde.
369: Enprynted in Fletestrete by Wynkyn de Worde,
370: Dwellynge in the famous cyte of London,
371: His hous in the same at the sygne of the Sonne.
FINIS.

Source:
English Poetry Database
Copland: Complaynte of them that ben to late maryed
Poet: Robert Copland
fl.1505?-1547
The Assemble of Foules. Here foloweth the assemble of foules veray pleasaunt and compendyous to rede or here compyled by the preclared and famous clerke Geffray Chaucer
City: London
Publisher: Imprynted ... by ... Wynkyn de Worde
Date: 1530
Description: [27] p.
Only introductory and concluding poems by Copland included

making nice to foreigners

An article in the Washington Post makes a point that should be obvious, but wasn't to me. The falling value of the US dollar makes life easier for companies that have goods to sell foreigners (Harley Davidson Motor Cycles, I hope). It also makes more expensive the million things Americans buy from abroad. And it helps US tourism; visiting here becomes the thing for foreigners to do. Just as predictably it encourages European and other overseas buyers to pick up pieces of us -- our real estate, our companies; farms, factories, and franchises. Here's the citation: What Can They Buy? A Good Bit of Us., by Moisés Naím (Washington Post, Sunday, April 27, 2008; Page B04). The author says,

U.S. companies have rarely been so cheap. Five years ago, a German or Spanish company that coveted a U.S. competitor worth $500 million needed almost 550 million euros to purchase it. Today, it would take just 319 million euros. The U.S. marketplace will be altered by an infusion of new foreign competitors that will manufacture their own products in the United States. These firms will use their new American base both to export to the world -- including their own European markets -- and to serve the U.S. market from inside its borders.

Such a transatlantic shift will inevitably, ignite a political firestorm on both sides of the Atlantic. [But] it will be impossible for U.S. politicians to stop the Euroinvasion, and European politicians will prove equally helpless in preventing their companies from moving to the United States. While blocking a few large investments by foreign government-owned funds in U.S. ports, defense industries and oil companies may be possible, preventing thousands of private companies from investing in the United States is not. Although difficult economic times always create political opportunities for demagogues and populists, the United States is far from ready to repeal capitalism. And stopping the Euroinvasion will require nothing short of that.

An article from Agence France Presse adds a bit of spice to this thought. Although much of the foreign investment in the US is coming from individuals and private corporations, much is also coming from large financial concerns, among them the huge sovereign wealth funds that governments have set up to manage their budget surpluses. The article says these surpluses are large and growing. Here's the head and lede:
Sovereign wealth funds hit 3.5 trillion dlrs in 2007: US firm.

Sovereign wealth funds have mushroomed 24 percent annually over the past three years to hold a total of 3.5 trillion dollars in 2007, a US economic firm said Monday.

Global Insight said that projected on that annual growth pace, sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) would surpass the entire current economic output of the United States by 2015, and the European Union by 2016.

As always, there's concern that these government-run funds will be used for political not just economic purposes. Of course the unbelievably large US deficit makes this country vulnerable to blackmail by other governments simply because we rely so greatly on them to help cover our debt through purchase of US Treasuries and the like. The potentially inimical actions of sovereign wealth funds adds spice to the paranoiac mix. It's not just the uncomfortable feeling one gets on realizing that -- more and more -- foreigners "own" us; it's also the risk that they'll let it be known that they will do some destabilizing action, like a sudden shift in investment that puts thousands of Americans out of work, unless the US government takes a position that agrees with theirs (reduces or eliminates US subsidies for farm products for example).

Along with these two somewhat scary stories comes one of a type that's becoming increasingly familiar. The price of the energy we use is likely to continue to rise. As Al Jolson said "You ain't seen nutt'n yet." From the Financial Times: Opec says oil could hit $200, by Carola Hoyos in London. The article says that oil continues to cost more partly because the US dollar is worth less and less. But, as we all know, the price is also manipulated by suppliers. There's no free market for oil. The wonderful discipline of oil producing nations enables them to screw the rest of the world if they wish, and apparently they do. There's nothing new about this state of affairs. For a long time we've been living in paranoia over the havoc that OPEC could wreak in the US economy. In fact our carefully maintained good relations with Saudi Arabia might be something of a bellwether for our life a world of cheap dollars where foreigners buy up America. I mean to say the huge diplomatic, commercial, and political efforts to stay on the good side of the Saudi ruling family may be a useful learning experience as we find ourselves required to make nice to many others who could do us harm.

Addendum:The Washington Post has an excellent article on the global escalation of food prices: The New Economics of Hunger, A brutal convergence of events has hit an unprepared global market, and grain prices are sky high. The world's poor suffer most. For the 1 billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the world's worst food crisis in a generation is a matter of survival. By Anthony Faiola, Washington Post Staff Writer, Sunday, April 27, 2008; Page A01

The article makes it plain that nations are interdependent and there's no policy that is purely domestic. We no long live in a world where any nation can act unilaterally to protect its citizens. For example, a country that fears the consequences of rising grain prices may wish to stockpile grain, but this stockpiling makes prices rise higher and faster and consequences are bad for all. Similarly, fears of dwindling supplies may cause grain producing nations to control exports. That action reduces world supply of course, driving prices higher, even within the nation that's trying to control exports. (And resorting to price controls to prevent price rises can destabilize the country's financial markets with further unfortunate consequences.)

It's another indication, for me, that the US habit of acting unilaterally has had its day. We're still the dominant world power, but our ability to influence affairs with selfish arrogance is growing weaker and weaker.

the inimitable Anita

It's the birthday of Anita Loos. I most happily first made acquaintance with her in a paper my daughter wrote in high school. A Hollywood brat when Hollywood was itself infant, she was a child actress but quickly transformed herself to screenwriter. Much of her fascination comes from this early decision. Glamorous, charming, and well-connected with studio big shots, she was a celebrity of a different sort. One that's still surprisingly rare.

Today in Literature profiles her today: Loos, Lorelei, Literature

The collection on her given by Answers.com is excellent.

Career highlights include the comic novel Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Her screen credits are summarized in the poster images (below) I've taken from the Answers.com presentation.

She also wrote for Broadway: The Whole Town's Talking (1932), Happy Birthday (1946), and her dramatization of Colette's novel Gigi (1951).

She wrote for high-brow magazines like Harper's Bazaar, Vanity Fair, and -- take note -- The New Yorker.

Memoirs include her successful autobios A Girl Like I (1966) and Kiss Hollywood Goodbye (1974), as well as books on Broadway such as her 1972 book Twice Over Lightly: New York Then and Now, written in collaboration with friend and actress Helen Hayes.

Posters of some of the movies for which she wrote scripts:


Some quotes:

"Fate keeps on happening."

"The people I'm furious with are the Women's Liberationists. They keep getting up on soapboxes and proclaiming women are brighter than men. That's true, but it should be kept quiet or it ruins the whole racket."

"If we have to tell Hollywood good-bye, it may be with one of those tender, old-fashioned, seven-second kisses exchanged between two people of the opposite sex, with all their clothes on."

"There is a serious defect in the thinking of someone who wants -- more than anything else -- to become rich. As long as they don't have the money, it'll seem like a worthwhile goal. Once they do, they'll understand how important other things are -- and have always been."

"I really think that American gentlemen are the best after all, because kissing your hand may make you feel very good but a diamond and a sapphire bracelet lasts forever."

"A girl with brains ought to do something with them besides think."

"I once witnessed more ardent emotions between men at an Elks' Rally in Pasadena than they could ever have felt for the type of woman available to an Elk."

"Show business is the best possible therapy for remorse."

"The rarest of all things in American life is charm. We spend billions every year manufacturing fake charm that goes under the heading of public relations. Without it, America would be grim indeed."

Wikipedia gives some good anecdotes:

In 1921, Loos was among the first to join the Lucy Stone League, an organization that fought for women to preserve their maiden names after marriage.

Asked how to say her name, she told The Literary Digest "The family has always used the correct French pronunciation which is lohse. However, I myself pronounce my name as if it were spelled luce, since most people pronounce it that way and it was too much trouble to correct them." (Charles Earle Funk, What's the Name, Please?, Funk & Wagnalls, 1936.)

She once commented. "I've had my best times when trailing a Mainbocher evening gown across a sawdust floor. I've always loved high style in low company." Anita Loos died in New York City at the age of 93 from natural causes. She is interred in Etna Cemetery, Etna, California, with her second husband, John Emerson, her parents, her brother and sister, and maternal relatives.

Pearlstein on burst bubbles

I've written before about how low interest rates have fueled consumption in the US and how, in turn, this consumption has helped countries that export to the US, notably the oil producing nations and China. I've been a little fuzzy about one aspect of this bilateral binge. The cycle of accelerating indebtedness and import frenzy has been accompanied by the purchase of huge chunks of US debt by foreigners (among them the oil producers and China). But with low interest rates these investors in American debt might have sought to put their money elsewhere, where it would earn a greater return.

Why have foreigners continued to invest in US debt when there has been more money to be made through investments elsewhere at higher return?

To some extent they put money into the US financial markets because that enabled Americans to continue buying from them. To some extent because the huge imbalance of trade between the US and other nations resulted in huge stores of US dollars that needed, one way or another, to be repatriated. To some extent since the US dollar is the defacto medium of exchange across the globe and, because of that, all nations have an interest in preventing its collapse. (A collapse that would probably result from failure of foreign nations to finance US deficits and its those foreigners financing US deficits enabled the US to keep interest rates low.)

But to some extent the put their money into the US financial markets because they see the US mainly as a customer for their output (whether oil or t-shirts). They see themselves as producers more than as investors. Their dollar hoards are more of a problem for them than an opportunity. Yes, they represent wealth, but -- such is their abundance -- these hoards need to be carefully managed to insure that the main business -- production -- continues to grow.

All this is long preamble to a link to a current article by Steven Pearlstein. He writes today about how the habit we Americans have of living beyond our means is a main source of the financial crisis we have created and the world now suffers from. In doing so he draws attention to the phenomenon I've just drawn attention to. I urge you to read the article.

Its upshot is what many have already said, global prosperity cannot be sustained simply by the huge amounts of over-consumption we've seen in the US over recent years. There has to be an international rebalancing. He says we Americans have been living way beyond our means, consuming more than we produce and investing more than we save. Other nations, such as China and Saudi Arabia have been willing to finance our trade deficit on easy terms because it allows them to peg their currencies to the dollar in a way that generated higher job creation and economic growth in their home markets. This mutually advantageous imbalance in trade and investment flows has created a huge supply of cheap dollar-denominated credit that virtually invited the bankers and brokers and rating agencies and private-equity firms in U.S. markets to throw caution to the wind and make ill-advised lending and investing decisions.

Some excerpts:

If this is the case -- if the story of the credit bubble and its bursting is more fundamentally about macroeconomic imbalances than microeconomic failures -- that has very different implications for where we go from here.

For what it means is that things won't be "fixed" simply by having the financial sector write off its losses and bad loans and promise to do a better job next time with risk management. Rather, it will require a reduction in the overall standard of living in the United States so that the country as a whole begins to live within its means.

What does that mean exactly?

In practical terms, it means that households will have to reduce consumption, increase savings and stop piling up credit card debt or using home equity as an ATM.

It means that the federal government stops running huge operating deficits by raising taxes or dramatically cutting national security and entitlement spending.

Such a broad reduction in wealth and living standards will take many forms. It will come in the form of higher unemployment and stagnant wages and falling income, which take statistical form in slower or even negative economic growth. It will come in the form of inflation and its first cousin, a lower value for the dollar. And it will manifest itself in lower values for pension funds, 401(k) accounts, university endowments and house prices.

You don't have to have a PhD in economics to see that this adjustment is underway. But it would be folly to assume that it is anywhere near completion. After all, it took many years for our collective standard of living to get out so far out of whack, and it's highly unlikely that we are somehow going to reverse things in a couple of quarters. And the bubbles in commodities and commercial real estate are still to pop.

What Pearstein doesn't say, because it's not his subject, is that the producing nations whose exports we have been consuming are becoming disenchanted with the US market and the US dominance in world finance. China is diversifying its manufacturing, finding a growing number of customers outside the US, and, by the growing prosperity of its citizens, making its own internal markets. Saudi Arabia and the other oil producers are finding other markets as well, notably within the newly-emerging economic powerhouse countries -- that is China, India, much of South-East Asia, and, eventually within Latin America as well. Along with this the decline in value of the US dollar is encouraging money men to think of international finance in terms of a market basket of currencies, including notably the euro as well as the dollar. The evolutionary impulse of these two shifts will reinforce the changes that Pearlstein predicts.

Davis Phinney

Update: The outcome of surgery has been good so far. An article on Yahoo Sports says Davis Phinney experienced the expected immediate relief Doctors promised. The article quotes his wife: '“We saw an almost immediate response,” Connie Carpenter-Phinney said. “The actual tremor is almost gone but not totally gone. His gait was really good. His arms were swinging. I’m super-relieved. Literally, it brought tears to my eyes to watch the process, and it’s a very moving experience to watch what might be possible down the road.”

Davis Phinney was exhausted after Friday’s procedure, but squeezed in one key event before settling down for an afternoon nap.

“We went out for a celebratory ice cream,” his wife said.'

I watch videos of old bike races while I tread the mill for exercise. Currently, I'm engrossed in the 1987 Tour de France. Lately I've been reading about the struggles with Parkinson's Disease of a bike racer of that time, Davis Phinney. He's just undergone surgery to reduce some of the worst symptoms. He and his family won't know whether the surgery worked until this Friday. His wife, Connie Carpenter Phinney, is a world champion cyclist and now their son Taylor looks to be following in their footsteps.

Davis won a stage in the 1987 Tour, one of the few Americans to claim that victory at the time. He spoke to the camera a couple of times early in the race, always charming, articulate, upbeat, and interesting to hear. Then he caught a bug and had to retire. (Professional cyclists are particularly vulnerable to infections; one of the many mishaps that can sideline them.) Seeing the man in his 1987 prime brought out much compassion in me toward his 48-year-old self brought low by Parkinsons.

makes you think

In his blog, Science and Reason, Charles Daney has a current post on Consciousness, free will, etc.. It deals with experiments that show our conscious decision-making to be strongly influenced by our subconscious decision-making, and in some cases not just influenced but fully determined by the subconscious.

He and the scientists he quotes tend to conclude from these experiments that there's precious little free-will, Untainted, conscious, decision-making may be much more rare than we have thought it to be.

The evidence seems strong and there's lots of it. He quotes one experiment reported in New Scientist in which computer brain scans showed subconsious decision-making to precede conscious decision-making by a full seven seconds: "Researchers pinpointed a signal that divulged the decision about seven seconds before people ever realised their choice."

I know something of this from self-observation. I've always been uncomfortable at how susceptible I am to manipulation by sales people, whether car salesmen (invariably men for some reason) or people trying to get me to buy a time-share (having been enticed to listen to the sales pitch by a valuable perk of some kind).

On the other hand, an article to which Daney points, tells us that "using subtle cues for self-improvement is something like trying to tickle yourself, priming doesn’t work if you’re aware of it. Manipulating others, while possible, is dicey." It quotes one researcher: “We know that as soon as people feel they’re being manipulated, they do the opposite; it backfires."

And so, though I'm sure I've been unwittingly manipulated time and time again, I've found I tend to end up purchasing my car from the least-overtly manipulative sales people and I've never signed on the dotted line for a time-share.

The article quoted above, from the NYT in July 2007, also reminds us that "subliminal suggestion" was a hoax. Flashing the names of foods on a movie screen too rapidly to be perceived by our vision does not increase sales of Coke and pop corn. So too, we found that you couldn't learn a new language or finally come to understand algebra by putting a cassette player under your pillow to instruct you while you slept. Another hoax.

Still, it's disconcerting how easy it is to manipulate people without their knowledge. The experiments are generally trivial in nature, but they point to ominous conclusions. Among these are the sorts of mass hysteria that lead to the obliteration of entire peoples -- the Jews in Europe by the Germans, Muslims in Bosnia by Christians, ethnic Africans in Darfur by ethnic Arabs, urban residents in Cambodia by the Khmer Rouge. These tragedies must partly be caused by subconscious effects of political rhetoric. Daney links to an article that deals with this subject. The research sought to find out whether "reminders of death increase the need for psychological security and therefore the appeal of leaders who emphasize the greatness of the nation and a heroic victory over evil." And the experiment found that subjects were eight times more likely to choose a charismatic political candidate over others who were either pragmatic or relationship-oriented.

I'd like to believe this crude manipulation could not occur on subjects who were alert to its likelihood. And, indeed, half of American voters might be said to have some resistance to fear mongering by the Bush presidential campaign of 2004.

Daney's blog post proceeds from subconscious manipulation to consider other ways in which our consciousness is altered by external conditions. He brings up the fixation of memories, the importance of attention and its connection to memory, and the effects of mind-altering drugs. It's worth a read.

I'll close with an extract from the New York Times article:

Who’s Minding the Mind?, by Benedict Carey. Published: July 31, 2007

Extracts:

“When it comes to our behavior from moment to moment, the big question is, ‘What to do next?’ ” said John A. Bargh, a professor of psychology at Yale and a co-author, with Lawrence Williams, of the coffee study, which was presented at a recent psychology conference. “Well, we’re finding that we have these unconscious behavioral guidance systems that are continually furnishing suggestions through the day about what to do next, and the brain is considering and often acting on those, all before conscious awareness.”

Dr. Bargh added: “Sometimes those goals are in line with our conscious intentions and purposes, and sometimes they’re not.”

The results suggest a “bottom-up” decision-making process, in which the ventral pallidum is part of a circuit that first weighs the reward and decides, then interacts with the higher-level, conscious regions later, if at all, Dr. Frith said.

Scientists have spent years trying to pinpoint the exact neural regions that support conscious awareness, so far in vain. But there’s little doubt it involves the prefrontal cortex, the thin outer layer of brain tissue behind the forehead, and experiments like this one show that it can be one of the last neural areas to know when a decision is made.

Using subtle cues for self-improvement is something like trying to tickle yourself, Dr. Bargh said: priming doesn’t work if you’re aware of it. Manipulating others, while possible, is dicey. “We know that as soon as people feel they’re being manipulated, they do the opposite; it backfires,” he said.

And researchers do not yet know how or when, exactly, unconscious drives may suddenly become conscious; or under which circumstances people are able to override hidden urges by force of will. Millions have quit smoking, for instance, and uncounted numbers have resisted darker urges to misbehave that they don’t even fully understand.

Yet the new research on priming makes it clear that we are not alone in our own consciousness. We have company, an invisible partner who has strong reactions about the world that don’t always agree with our own, but whose instincts, these studies clearly show, are at least as likely to be helpful, and attentive to others, as they are to be disruptive.

disgrace

I'm ashamed for the nation, this nation, of which I am a citizen. Here, where I live, more than 3 percent of adults are either incarcerated, on parole or probation or under the supervision of a state or local authority. That's one in 32. Marie Gottschalk writes about this in today's Washington Post. She tells us eleven percent of young African Americans is in prison or jail. Half the people in American prisons are black.

Do they deserve it? No. The incarceration rate in the US is 12 times greater than the rate in comparable industrial nations. We don't really have 12 times more law-breakers. What we have is a sentencing policy that puts people away and keeps them there. The prisons are full and prison populations are growing faster than the rate of population increase simply because sentences are too long. Gottschalk says: 'Even former president Bill Clinton, whose administration was an accomplice in the largest prison buildup in U.S. history, conceded in a keynote address at a University of Pennsylvania in February: "Most of the people who went to prison should have been let out a long time ago."'

She says "The leading presidential candidates have not identified mass imprisonment as a central issue, even though it is arguably the country's top civil rights concern. Many of today's crime control policies fundamentally impede the economic, political and social advancement of the most disadvantaged blacks and members of other minority groups. Prison leaves them less likely to find gainful employment, vote, participate in other civic activities and maintain ties with their families and communities."

Source: Bureau of Justice Statistics Correctional Surveys (The Annual Probation Survey, National Prisoner Statistics, Survey of Jails, and The Annual Parole Survey) as presented in Correctional Populations in the United States, Annual, Prisoners in 2006 and Probation and Parole in the United States, 2006*.

BOJ Probation and Parole Statistics say that the number of people on parole is increasing at a slower rate than in the past partly because of a change in policy: some states have abolished parole board authority for releasing prisoners. Also: although half the prison population is black, only 29% of parolees are black.

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*About This table the Bureau of Justice Statistics says:

In 2005, over 7 million people were under some form of correctional supervision including:

Probation - court ordered community supervision of convicted offenders by a probation agency. In many instances, the supervision requires adherence to specific rules of conduct while in the community.

Prison - confinement in a State or Federal correctional facility to serve a sentence of more than 1 year, although in some jurisdictions the length of sentence which results in prison confinement is longer.

Jail - confinement in a local jail while pending trial, awaiting sentencing, serving a sentence that is usually less than 1 year, or awaiting transfer to other facilities after conviction.

Parole - community supervision after a period of incarceration. These data include only adults who are on active or inactive parole supervision or some other form of conditional release, including mandatory release, following a term of incarceration

a wind that harps on the wall

I've long been fond of Rosemary Sutcliff's historical novels. She wrote for young adults intelligently, without condescension. Some of her best track descendants of Marcus Flavius Aquila who lived in Roman Britain ca. 133 A.D. and who possessed a dolphin ring which turns up on the hand of his successors as the centuries pass.

Frontier Wolf is one of my favorites in this series. Its hero, Alexios Flavious Aquila, overcomes many difficulties eventually to make his mark.

You can read plot summaries in Amazon and literary appreciation web sites such as: (1) The Dark Age Novels of Rosemary Sutcliff, (2) Rosemary Sutcliff: An Appreciation, and (3) The Eagle of the Ninth, The Silver Branch, Frontier Wolf. She wrote -- like Kipling -- about the soldier's life, about encounters of alien cultures, and about the ways, by trial and error, we each come into our own sense of rightness and honor, our own ways of making and keeping friends, our knowledge of the peculiar workings of our own individual courage.

Like Kipling, Sutcliff knew how to tell a story without oversell or cheap drama.

And like his, her descriptions sometimes take your breath away. In Frontier Wolf she tells how a "brief wing of sunlight brushed along the flank of the little glen," describes the "dark soughing of the wind across the dead heather," and reveals for us "the green rooty smell of things growing, and the air full of the lonely bubbling mating-call of curlew." On a hunt together Alexios and a native chieftain become close friends and "the first pollen scattered from the whippy sprays so that they rode through a sudden golden mist."

In one passage Alexios is leading a small group of survivors from a northern outpost that has been attacked by overwhelming numbers of enemy tribesmen. It is midwinter and the troop is cold, hungry, exhausted, and aware that their enemies are close behind them. Sutcliff's language lets us know that there is a small, bleak hope for them in the midst of this awfulness. She describes the scene thus: "Snow was still spitting down the wind as they rode out, but the sky was less full than yesterday; and presently as they rode, the low dawn showed a bar of cold daffodil yellow through a break in the cloud-room far down to the south-east."

Days later most of the troop has managed to survive, still harried and now grievously saddened by discovery that a fort where they sought refuge had already been sacked by their enemies. Somehow they find the strength to continue and Sutcliff again signals the small element of hopefulness that is theirs: "Somewhere in a bare thicket of rowan and hazel a robin sang as though there was no sorrow in the world, and from the skein of men behind him someone whistled back."

Finally regaining the safety of a fort on the Roman Wall far to the south of their starting point Alexios observes the land to the North and Sutcliff tells us Spring is near: "A puddling of snow still lingered in the hollows; and far off, the higher hills of the Frontier Country were still maned and crested with white; but nearer moors showed the sodden darkness of last year's heather, and the wind that always harped along the Wall had gone round to the West, and the green plover were calling."

whither China?

Newspapers are reporting that China's currency has appreciated against the US dollar to the highest point since 1994. This pleases US policy makers who maintain that the Yuan has been artificially low.

As the Yuan rises in value, Chinese exports become more costly to Americans. Americans who spend a lot of time in Wal-Mart and Target have benefited from the cheap Yuan. They'll regret the appreciation of the currency. American producers consider the cheap Yuan to be unfair competition. American politicians dislike the unequal trade balance that has resulted, as exports from America to China represent only a tiny offset to the enormous volume of American imports from China.*

Things are much more complicated than that.

China has been constrained from letting the Yuan rise in value because its factories provide employment to millions of its citizens. The nation set a fixed ratio of the Yuan to the dollar at least partly in order to stimulate exports and thus provide jobs to those who were barely surviving on subsistence agriculture. Chinese factories produced cheap clothing and other low-wage goods, Americans bought this output, and the Chinese economy grew at a rapid rate.

China sees that there are limits to this policy and has more recently begun to diversify its manufacturing. It has been purchasing high-tech production equipment and improving educational opportunities so that it can develop a better-trained workforce and produce more sophisticated goods and services.

It has been induced to make this change partly because its currency manipulation has stimulated inflation and partly because middle class Chinese people need better investment opportunities: it does not make sense for them to continue to invest in low-end manufacturing.

Chinese policy makers also realize that as Chinese people gain wealth (or at least reasonable incomes) from exports, their desire to consume high-end goods and services increases. The Chinese government would prefer to meet this need from within China rather than by way of imports.

Inflation is a world-wide concern. The price of oil continues to rise and now rises in the price of food are causing great concern. China has to worry about the rising price of rice as much as do its Asian neighbors. There's great risk that people who can't afford food will rebel against their governments.

Echoing many financial experts, a blogger says China should be more aggressive in revaluing its currency:

China's PMI Numbers Are Too Strong, by Michael Pettis.

Extracts:

China should have begun the appreciation of [its currency] much earlier than it did and it should have appreciated more aggressively. Unfortunately, perhaps because of the excess global liquidity of the past few years and especially of the past few months, China is now caught in a monetary trap in which the high trade surplus forces the central bank to buy large amounts of foreign exchange, which of course causes very rapid domestic money expansion. This money expansion feeds directly into excessively high levels of investment, which force up industrial production and so causes the trade surplus to rise or remain high. It will be extremely difficult for China to get out of this trap.

As China’s labor force, especially in the wealthy south and southeast, move out of low value-added assembly and into higher quality manufacturing and service jobs, companies that rely on cheap, unsophisticated labor will necessarily find conditions more difficult and may even go out of business.

Policies aimed at creating a higher quality manufacturing and service base in places like Guangdong are succeeding. As long as overall exports continue to grow it is hard to see how the rising RMB** has caused trouble for Chinese exporters in general.

In China, appreciation will not reduce inflationary pressures through the price impact on imported goods. It can only really reduce inflation if it reduces the amount of foreign exchange the central bank has to buy every month, and so reduce the growth of the domestic money supply. As long as China’s money supply keeps expanding at such a fast pace, it will be impossible to bring inflation down, and as long as the central bank is forced to purchase very high levels of foreign exchange every month, China’s money supply will keep growing too quickly. The recent appreciation has done nothing to slow the trade surplus but it may have increased speculative inflows, so it actually causes an even further increase in the money supply.

Chinese policy makers say this analysis overstates their ability to revalue the Yuan. There is a limit to how quickly the country can replace low-level manufacturing with manufacturing that requires a more educated workforce. Moving too fast could cause economic chaos world-wide.

The US and other western governments don't substantially disagree, but see it as in their interest to keep the pressure on China.

Coincidentally, the global concern with inflation and the rising price of food comes as China is attempting to show the best side of itself with the coming Olympic games. Its difficulty in answering critics of its civil rights policies in general and in particular of its policies toward Tibet is only one of many concerns connected with this aim to look good.

China thus has lots of reasons to allow its currency to continue to appreciate.

One final complication, however, is the expected recession in the US and (to a lesser extent) around the globe. That event will cause American imports to decline and the decline in imports from China will provide counter-pressure against appreciation of the Yuan. The logic is thus: appreciation increases the price of exports and reduces the expansion of the Chinese money supply through purchase of dollars. US recession reduces the volume of exports and this makes it less necessary to purchase dollars. The result is less need to purchase dollars and consequently less inflationary pressure on the economy.

If China succeeds in controlling the rise in prices of oil and food imports, the recession in the US and slowed growth throughout the world may give Chinese policy makers greater flexibility in transforming the country's industrial infrastructure from low-end toward high-end manufacturing. If they do get this flexibility and use it wisely, expected benefits should flow over from China to the global marketplace. That is to say, all of us stand to benefit from Chinese modernization. However, these benefits will not be evenly distributed (whenever are benefits evenly distributed?) and, in the long run, while the US may be able to increase exports to China, it will not be easy for Americans to make a transition from prosperity based on expanding consumption (driven by low interest rates and manifested substantially in an abundance of cheap imports from China) to one in which interest rates are more rational (i.e., higher) and prosperity is achieved by growth in production as much as by growth in consumption. Along the way, as I've said, there's a good chance that the US will lose its status as preeminent financial power.

One last quote. Here is the head of the IMF on the Chinese economic situation. Note that he mentions social inequality, energy efficiency, and social services as areas that the Chinese government should address in addition to more purely economic and financial ones. He doesn't say so outright, but it's implicit that carbon emissions and other forms of pollution are and should be a major concern. It's not his place to add that China needs to address the corruption of its political regime. Although China has immensely talented and well-educated bureaucrats and policy makers, Party hacks block needed economic, social, and political reforms, and -- to some extent -- permeate the government from top to bottom. And the Chinese judicial system is unable to insure due process either for the Chinese people or those who do business with them.

Statement by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn at the Conclusion of his Visit to China.

Extract

The Chinese government is confronting several macroeconomic policy challenges, including preventing inflation—largely the result of food price increases in recent months—from becoming entrenched, and rebalancing growth away from heavy reliance on exports and investment toward consumption. Addressing social inequalities and improving energy efficiency are also priorities.

We agreed that continued tight monetary policy will be important in containing investment growth and inflationary pressures. The government's emphasis on reorienting the budget toward improving social services—including health and education programs—can also help both to reduce disparities and rebalance growth. In addition, we also see the government's focus on financial sector reforms as key for achieving these goals. On exchange rate policy, we welcome the authorities' objective of allowing greater flexibility over time. However, we encourage a faster pace of appreciation that would be helpful for addressing China's key economic challenges and would also contribute to preserving global economic stability.

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* The BEA reports that the Chinese trade surplus with the US was $20 billion in January and a little less in February. $20 billion is more than a quarter of the total January deficit in US import/export of goods.
**RMB: The renminbi (literally "people's currency") is the currency of the mainland of the People's Republic of China whose principal unit is the yuan. (Wikipedia)

proportional representation

Earlier this week we spent our dinner hour watching Jonathan Demme's film, Jimmy Carter Man from Plains. It's a fine movie though its eulogistic tilt can be annoying (however much agreed with). Discussion of opinion within Israel about the rights of residents in the Palestinian territories reminded me about the perils of proportional representation, a well-intentioned electoral policy from which Israel suffers.

Today, the papers tell us Carter will soon be meeting with an exiled Hamas political leader in Syira. The accounts bear out something that's made plain in Demme's film: While popular with Jewish voters in the U.S., Israel's policy of ostracizing Hamas is not universally approved within Israel. A recent poll, reported by the Israeli paper, Haaretz, showed a surprising 64 percent of Israelis to favor direct talks with Hamas. I've quoted the article below.

The connection with proportional representation is not brought out in the news accounts but seems plain to me. PR results in coalition governments in which minority parties can frequently dictate policy. As I understand the situation, Israeli settlers in the territories are supported by one such minority party which, as things turns out, has sufficient leverage to insure that Israel rules out any possibility of negotiation as it continues to use military force against Hamas and the Palestinian terrorists in the territories. This policy results in actions aimed at protecting Israeli settlers at the expense of the Palestinian population in general (that is to say there is little attempt to protect the civil rights of Palestinians, at least partly on the assumption that since they elected Hamas, they must sympathize with the terrorists though not engaging in terrorists acts themselves).

Here is the official Israeli explanation of its proportional representation system:

The Electoral System in Israel

Summary:
Israel has an electoral system based on nation-wide proportional representation, and the number of seats which every list receives in the Knesset is proportional to the number of voters who voted for it. The only limitation is the 1.5% qualifying threshold. In other words, a party must receive at least 1.5% of the votes in order to be elected. According to this system, the voters vote for a party list, and not for a particular person on the list. Since the institution of the primaries system in some of the parties, these parties directly elect their candidates for the Knesset. Some of the parties elect their candidates via the party's institutions. In the ultra-religious parties their spiritual leaders appoint the candidates. The Knesset elections take place once every four years, but the Knesset or the Prime Minister can decide to hold early elections, and under certain circumstances can serve for more than four years.

The electoral system
Israel has an electoral system based on nation-wide proportional representation. In other words, the number of seats that each list receives in the Knesset - the House of Representatives - is proportional to the number of votes it received. Unlike most of the Western parliamentary democracies, the system in Israel is followed in an extreme manner, and the only limitation on a list which participated in the elections being elected is that it should pass the qualifying threshold, which is currently 1.5% (until the elections to the 13th Knesset the qualifying threshold was only 1%).

Historical background
The State of Israel inherited the rigid system of proportional representation from the political system of the yishuv (the organized Jewish community) in mandatory times. This system was based on the zeal with which the various political parties - in which ideology and personalities played a major role - fought to preserve their independence. The justification given for the large number of parties resulting from the system was, that in a period in which major, far-reaching and rapid changes were still taking place in the population make-up as a result of immigration, it was important to enable maximal representation for various groups and opinions.

Here is the text of the Haaretz article on the opinion poll:

Sixty-four percent of Israelis say the government must hold direct talks with the Hamas government in Gaza toward a cease-fire and the release of captive soldier Gilad Shalit. Less than one-third (28 percent) still opposes such talks.

The figures were obtained in a Haaretz-Dialog poll conducted Tuesday under the supervision of Professor Camil Fuchs of Tel Aviv University.

According to the findings, Israelis are fed up with seven years of Qassam rockets falling on Sderot and the communities near Gaza, as well as the fact that Shalit has been held captive for more than a year and a half.
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An increasing number of public figures, including senior officers in the Israel Defense Forces' reserves, have expressed similar positions on talks with Hamas.

It now appears that this opinion is gaining traction in the wider public, which until recently vehemently rejected such negotiations.

The survey also showed that Likud voters are much more moderate than their Knesset representatives. About half (48 percent) support talks with Hamas.

In Kadima, 55 percent are for talks, while among Labor voters, the number jumps to 72 percent.

With regard to Tuesday's High Court ruling rejecting petitions against ex-president Moshe Katsav's plea bargain, about half of those polled said the decision was not justified.

Supreme Court President Dorit Beinisch, who was part of a minority position against the plea bargain, can thus take some comfort that many people are with her. About one-third of those polled supported the majority opinion in favor of the plea bargain.

On the suspended sentence and fine Katsav is likely to receive, about half of those asked (47 percent) said the sentence was not harsh enough, as opposed to 29 percent who said the punishment was "fitting," and 8 percent who said it was "too harsh."

Here is a link to the news account in the Washington Post which brought the poll to my attention: Former President Carter to Meet With Hamas Chief. The relevant paragraph reads: "However, Carter's trip would also come at a time when a growing number of experts in the United States and Israel have argued that isolating Hamas is not productive. A poll published in February in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz found that 64 percent of Israelis favor direct talks with Hamas. Both Efraim Halevy, a former head of the Mossad spy agency, and Shlomo Ben-Ami, a former foreign minister, say Hamas can no longer be ignored."

a time for committed and credible American leadership

In last Sunday's Outlook Section, a Washington Post columnist made some of the same arguments about international finance which I made in a recent post (a process of mutual understanding). The article is No Cushion Against Hubris, by Jim Hoagland. Here are a few extracts:

"The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war." -- Ernest Hemingway, Esquire magazine, September 1935

There is still time to covet and honor the American greenback as the strongest link of stability in the international financial system. [But] the "golden moment" that enveloped the global economy for most of this decade is fading -- at least psychologically if not materially -- as we reach the end of an era of hubris in global affairs.

[The moment is fading] not just because President Bush will leave the White House next year, although that will help. The brash Texan has personified the global zeitgeist of his time: one of audacity curdling into hubris. He was elected to pursue a powerful nation's impulses and ambitions to be stronger and richer than any country in history, and he and his compatriots have pursued those dreams into the ditch.

However necessary and skillfully managed, the rescue efforts [of the Federal Reserve] add devastating new pressure on the dollar's value as a traded currency (which then affects oil and other commodity prices) and on rising U.S. inflation rates. They also eat into the fixed-income investments of many retirees. Like so much that has happened on Bush's watch, the bill for today's maneuvers will come due after he has gone.

It is hard to see how the world's global trading and financial systems can be fixed or even rebalanced without committed and credible American leadership based on realism and not hubris. But it is even harder to see that leadership coming forth unless the United States can first put its own house in order.

Hoagland doesn't say so directly, but it's implicit in his argument that we're at risk of destroying the status of the dollar as the world's standard currency. This de-facto standard has given Americans the ability to set internal monetary policy without considering international repercussions. As this site points out:

Today over half of all dollar notes in circulation are held outside the borders of the US. Almost half of US Treasury securities are owned by foreigners, mainly held as reserves by foreign central banks. The dollar is the main currency in international capital flows, as well as the currency of invoice for commodities and for many manufactured goods and services. All countries that trade directly with the US invoice both imports and exports in US dollars. . . . The US can issue dollar-denominated claims to the rest of the world which may never have to be redeemed so long as it maintains the domestic purchasing power of the dollar. While this gives the US a unique advantage in terms of borrowing in its own currency, the existence of a safe reserve asset is a great convenience to other countries. Only a serious loss of confidence in the dollar could depose it as the primary medium of international exchange, such as might be due to a prolonged major inflation in the US.

It's the "loss of confidence" in the dollar that's now becoming a realistic possibility and the failure of Americans to recognize this fact is part of the hubris that Hoagland warns against.

a political question

E.J. Dionne Jr. helps to answer a question I've been asking myself lately. Long ago when I was young the Democratic Party was a coalition of unlikely forces: liberal urban elites, old-line progressives of the West, minority groups such as Jews and Negroes, voters in cities run by machine politicians, members of trade unions, working-class whites whether union members or not, and -- jarringly -- virtually the whole South. This coalition fell apart in the third quarter of the 20th century.

Liberals and minorities remain generally Democratic. The western progressives and machine politicians have gradually died off I think. I knew the South switched its loyalty during the sea-change in Federal race policy during the 1950s and 60s. That was pretty easy to see. In the 1970s many young men and women who would naturally have become Democrats became independent voters in reaction to the war in Vietnam.

I couldn't recall what caused the working-class whites -- many of them union members -- to join the Republican ranks.

In Washington Post column today, Dionne dates the disaffection of blue collar white men with the publication of the Kerner Commission report, which blamed white racism for riots in black ghettos. In this article, When Liberalism's Moment Ended, he says:

A shrewd politician named Richard Nixon sensed the direction of the political winds. When President Johnson's commission on urban unrest released its report in early 1968 and blamed the previous year's rioting on "white racism," Nixon would have none of it. The commission, he said, "blames everybody for the riots except the perpetrators of the riots." He urged "retaliation." . . . It is easy to forget that the core themes of contemporary conservatism were born in response to the events of 1968. The attacks on "big government," the defense of states' rights, and the scorn for "liberal judicial activism," "liberal do-gooders," "liberal elitists," "liberal guilt" and "liberal permissiveness" were rooted in the reaction that gathered force as liberal optimism receded.

more on Joost's win

About his win today Joost says, "Hier even een berichtje van mij. Het was vandaag een superdag. Ik had gehoopt om de tijdrit te winnen, maar dat ik dan ook de Driedaagse van De Panne win, is helemaal fantastisch. Het draaide gewoon super. Ik had echt power vandaag. Bij het eerste meetpunt had ik een goede tussentijd en de laatste vier kilometer ben ik op de elf vol doorgereden richting de finish. Vorig jaar kwam ik een paar seconden tekort en nu heb ik er een paar over. Fantastisch! Ik ga nu samen met Rick Flens, die ook al fantastisch heeft gereden, naar Lanaken toe. En dan op naar de Ronde van Vlaanderen. Groeten, Joost."

This roughly translates into:

Here's a quick message. This was a super day. I had hoped win the time trial, and winning the whole three-day race is entirely fantastic. My form was great. I had real power today in the time trial. I was riding well at the first time check and in the last four kilometres I kept on driving driving hard to the finish. Last year I finished second overall in the race. And now I have two podium finishes in it. Fantastic! I'm on my way to Lanaken now with Rick Flens, who also rode a good race. [Lanaken is site of the Amstel Gold race later this month.] And then on to the Ronde van Vlaanderen [on Sunday]. Greetings, Joost.

Cyclingnews says Posthuma's win was most impressive. The article says last year's winner of Three Days of De Panne went on to win the Ronde van Vlaanderen, but Joost isn't saying he can do that (I quoted him on this in the previous post). The article quotes him as saying the win is a very special victory for him and a totally unexpected one. He was surprised when he proved able to overcome a 27 second deficit in the afternoon TT, and didn't really think he had a chance until he found himself passing the rider who had started a minute before him. That gave him confidence to give it all he had up to the finish. The author also says he's got the knowledge and skill to win other big stage races and quotes him as saying "I'm not a specialist in the high mountains, but I can climb for sure. Overall, I'm a very constant rider."

Velonews calls Joost a "Dutch flier" and says he credits hard winter training for his time trial success.

Joost wins

Today Joost Posthuma won a major stage race, the Three Days of De Panne. He did this by placing high in the first three stages and acing this afternoon's time trial. The race is ideal for him since many of Europe's top riders are focussing on Sunday's Ronde van Vlaanderen, a one-day race that is one of Europe's most hotly-contested. Asked about prospects for that race, Joost told an interviewer that Rabobank's Juan Antonio Flecha will be the protected rider. "Flecha is our absolute leader for Sunday," he said, "But if I am in the right place at the right time, I might try for the win. Why not? I exclude nothing."

I post more on this from Joost's web page when he puts something up.

Here are final results from the Belgian site, sporza.

1. Joost Posthuma (Ned)	in 14u15'05"
2. Manuel Quinziato (Ita)	op 2"
3. Enrico Gasparotto (Ita)	8"
4. Niki Terpstra (Ned)	10"
5. Simon Spilak (Svn)	40"
6. Rick Flens (Ned)	46"
7. Alessandro Ballan (Ita)	53"
8. Magnus Bäckstedt (Zwe)	58"
9. George Hincapie (VS)	59"
10. Luca Paolini (Ita)	1'04"
18. Leif Hoste	1'38"
19. Kurt Hovelynck	1'41"

Joost Posthuma update

Time for an update on Joost Posthuma. You'll recall that he was hit by a car while on a training ride last summer. His injuries mended and he recovered his form late in the season. He generally served the Rabobank team in a supporting role through the fall races, but won one race in September, the Sachsen Tour.

Early winter, he took a holiday in Egypt and then went to the team training camp in Spain where he showed himself to be one of the better riders on this very strong team. He gave an Interview in January in which he said he expected his 2008 season to be much like 2007's with the addition of the Olympics. In answers to questions about illegal performance enhancing he said he's sorry drugs have given the sport a bad name and said he supports the stepped-up enforcement that's taking place this year. Concerning his role as support rider rather than team leader he said he likes Rabobank because, though he's not one of the stars, there are still races in which he gets to be the team leader (the protected rider).

He caught the 'flu during one of the season's first races. On recovering, he regained his form and was designated as the team leader for the Tirreno-Adriatico. In this race, a couple days after his 27th birthday, one of the riders in front of him crashed, bringing him down hard and causing a serious injury to his shoulder. He's since recovered from that injury and again regained his form. Today, in his first day back in on the team, he rode very aggressively in an extremely tough race, the Dwars door Vlaanderen. On a cold, wet, and windy day, he kept close to the front of the pack through most of the race then pushed forward to join a group of eight riders who were chasing down a leading group of three. The chase group came very close to closing the gap and in the end Joost made a highly respectable ninth.

Some Joost photos here.

Here are a few from his own web site and other sources (via Google image search):

a process of mutual understanding

It's been quite a while since I wrote a post here on financial matters. In fact, though the US is in the midst of a meltdown and on the cusp of recession, there hasn't been much change in the global situation. It's simply becoming more clear that there are serious problems which are not being addressed. The oil-producing states are more than ever awash in US dollars, but haven't shown inclination to redirect their investment of these dollars in the economies of third-world developing nations. The developing nations haven't reformed themselves enough, in fact, to give the oil-rich nations much inclination to invest in them. The newly-rich nations on whom Americans rely for cheap imports and off-shore contract services -- China and India -- haven't been able to lessen their dependence on export of goods and services to the US. The US hasn't reduced its dependence on foreigners to cover its deficits. And the old industrial nations of Europe continue to suffer from low productivity growth.

It seems obvious that concerted international action is needed to make the changes necessary to bring international imbalances into a new dynamic equilibrium in which the US has greater household savings, reduced importation of oil, and stable export growth; in which China has lower household savings and is finally able to cease artificially enhancing the value of its currency; in which Japan solves its interest-rate problems; in which Europe reduces its government-funded social entitlements; and of course in which economic growth in the third-world is sustained by investments by oil producers. But there's little effort being made, that I can see, toward coordinated action to achieve this obvious set of goals.

A Bloomberg reporter named Rich Miller has put together a neat summary of financial difficulties facing Americans at the moment: Recession in U.S. Sows Slower Growth, Weaker Dollar. It's too compact to lend itself to summarizing, so just click and read.

Notice that it almost entirely ignores the global implications of US policy. Difficult though our domestic situation may be, it's made that much more difficult by the interconnectedness of the world's economies. There's great risk in policy decisions which ignore this fact of life.

The biggest of these risks is also one of the least likely, at least in the short run. That is the abandonment of the US dollar as the defacto international standard monetary unit. The existence of this defacto standard permits the US Federal Reserve to undermine the value of the dollar by reducing interest rates and helping to rescue the failing financial system. Foreigners -- the oil producers, export giants, and our partners in the Euro-area -- are all hurt by this devaluation. They see this unilateral action as arrogant and selfish, but -- at least this time around -- there's not much they can do about it.

It's a open question what lesson they will learn from it. If they follow the lead of the US and they too behave defensively, protectively, and selfishly, all will lose. They understand this, but circumstances may make it impossible, or maybe just imprudent, for them to act collectively to solve mutual problems. When one economic entity fosters its own economy at the expense of others, its international partners -- all the world's other economic entities -- come under pressure to do the same.

Isn't this what happened when the US adopted protectionism in the 1920s and didn't the world economy then fall apart in the 1930s? I'm not saying the current situation has much in common with that one, but the same sequence of unilaterality could now be disastrous as it was then.

A book review in the New Yorker calls attention to the need for global ethics. It's germane since world financial polices are a major aspect of these ethics. The book is The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama by Pico Iyer. Here are extracts from the review:

In his public appearances before English-speaking audiences, he prefers to speak of “global ethics” rather than of the abstruse Buddhist concept of Nirvana. Doubtless he doesn’t want to put off the largely secular middle-class Americans in weekend casuals who crowd Central Park to listen to him, but, as Iyer points out, this is also a reaffirmation of a Buddhist philosophical vision in which all existence is deeply interconnected. Indeed, this notion may be why the Dalai Lama was early to grasp the existential and political challenges of globalized human existence, decades before they were underlined by the disasters of climate change.

“For the first time in history,” Hannah Arendt wrote in 1957, “all peoples on earth have a common present. . . . Every country has become the almost immediate neighbor of every other country, and every man feels the shock of events which take place at the other end of the globe.” Arendt feared that this new “unity of the world” would be a largely negative phenomenon if it wasn’t accompanied by the “renunciation, not of one’s own tradition and national past, but of the binding authority and universal validity which tradition and past have always claimed.” . . . .

As China grows unassailable, it is easy to become pessimistic about Tibet, and to imagine its spiritual leader becoming increasingly prey to fatalism. The Dalai Lama’s retreat from the exclusivist claims of ancestral religion and the nation-state can seem the reflex of someone who, since he first copied out his predecessor’s prophecy, has helplessly watched his country’s landmarks disappear. The bracing virtue of Iyer’s thoughtful essay, however, is that it allows us to imagine the Dalai Lama as something of an intellectual and spiritual adventurer, exploring fresh sources of individual identity and belonging in the newly united world.

Certainly, Arendt’s “solidarity of mankind,” enforced by capitalism and technology, has become, as she observed, “an unbearable burden,” provoking “political apathy, isolationist nationalism, or desperate rebellion against all powers that be.” There are few things that Tibetans lashing out at the Chinese presence in Lhasa today fear more than absorption into the ruthless new economy and culture of China. Iyer’s book makes it plausible that the boy from the Tibetan backwoods may be outlining, in his own frequently Forrest Gumpish way, “a process of mutual understanding and progressing self-clarification on a gigantic scale” — the process that Arendt believed necessary for halting the “tremendous increase in mutual hatred and a somewhat universal irritability of everybody against everybody else.” It is hard to see the Dalai Lama bringing about mutual understanding in the world at large when he has failed to bring it about between China and Tibet. Such, however, are the advantages of being a simple Buddhist monk that he is less likely—indeed, less able—than most politicians to compromise his noble ends with dubious means, even as he, following the Buddha’s deathbed exhortation, diligently strives on.

{Photo source: The New Yorker}