Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Top 10 Millitary Leaders in World History




10 Takeaki Enomoto Genius of diplomacy, language, and tactics. He attempted to establish the federal republic of Japan instead of Meiji restoration

9 Saladin He defeated many crusaders to save peaceful Islamic communities. He was famous for his mercifulness.

8 Friedrich Barbarossa Joined 3rd Crusader. Emperor, scientist ,and artist. He lead Tutonic empire to be unified and expanded.

7 Julius Caesar Charismatic Roman General. Known for ordering troops and the great usage of siege weapons.

6 Elwin Rommel The Desert Fox. His tactics brought German various victories in Africa. The best general ever in German History!

5 Genghis Khan Unified scattered normad trivals into one huge empire. Known for his great usage of mounted archer bands.

4 Oliver Cromwell Lord Protector of Great Britain. Founder of New Modelled Army. He brought meritocracy into British military.

3 Napoleon Bonaparte Established a great new law and order. Genius of artillery usage. His great usage of cannons lead France to invade Italy.

2 Zhuge Liang Kongming The genius Chinese from the state of Shu-Han. His knowledge was beyond humans' at the contemporary time period

1 Alexandros The Great No one can be more famous tactician than him! His tactics is still influential in this modern world military tactics

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

On Keynes and Hayek: Macroeconomics is Geographical rather than Political

Both the traditional Kenyesian and Hayekian macroeconomic policies are no longer effective in this current world where the systemic risk in the global market is high. Unless it stimulates all countries' economy simultaneously, Keynesian stimulus package does not work. Unless there is an extremely universal consensus, Hayekian structural reform does not work. The universal government is less likely to be wanted so that both policies won't be accepted. Nowadays, the world economy seems to be turning back to focus on more Microeconomics like in the past. We are no longer able to expect the aggregate level to be either up or stabilised. Each economic agent now has to rely on his/her own risk management analysis, which is a microeconomic subject, in order to survive in this unpredictable macroeconomic environment.....



I admire Keynes himself because he accused Ricardo's theories for his misunderstanding of how the real world economy actually functions. Keynes was successful to offer the theories which are more correlated to the real world situation unlike Ricardo's ones. His critical analyses about the aspect that all classical economists ignored are very clear and sophisticated.

However, Keynes' fault is that he did not clearly mention "how exactly and effectively" pour their stimulus money into economy. This was the crucially weak characteristics of Keynesian theory.

I don't see Hayek as an economist; He is more likely a political economist / political philosopher.

I strongly argue that macroeconomics is more geographical rather than political i.e. passive than positive



Speaking of Monetary Economy, both Keynes and Hayek do not answer fully about how individual economic agents respond to the interest rate. The central bank's interest rate is (as long as it is operated rationally without any politicised ideological bias) merely determined to adjust the real interest rate to be zero as much as possible. If it is deviated from zero, it of course negatively affects macroeconomic environment. But, it does not mean the zero rate stimulate economy: The stimulus is very different from the central bank's interest rate.

Neither the animal spirit nor the long term expectation is fallacy. The right answer to describe the investment motive in the monetary economy is "There is nothing to specify a factor that stimulates in the macroeconomic level"! There is even a possibility that in a chaotic depression, the investment motive dramatically increases because of the possibility to win the gamble! Furthermore, in the economic boom, the interest rate tends to be "lowered" because the "risk of bankruptcy" of borrowers goes down.

This does not mean irrational; This is actually a very rational acts by economic agents because they act owing to their own surrounding environment, information obtained from their own sources, and psychological preference. Thus, Keynes' animal spirit fails. In addition, these economic agents do not too much care about the structural issues so much.

They decide their investment plan by means of the "form of contract" with their clients, rather than the structure of the borrowers' business. The contract differs across different types of borrowers. So, as long as the contract ensures to bring some business gain, investors are quite happy to lend money to mal-structured businesses. Thus, Hayek's focus on the long term structural issues fails.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

On Augustine, Aquinas, and the transition from Roman Empire to the medieval, and to the pre-modern

Unlike Aquinas, Augstine was very autocratic and dogmatic. Augstine believed that how human-beings, at the current (contemporary) time, are not how they ought to be. Therefore, they need a strict principle like the "idea" (This indicates Augstine was strongly influenced by Plato) to guide them to how they should be. The problem of his idea is that there is "no stop point" where all human-beings are fulfilled in what God, the idea, claim. That's why Augstine stated. Aquinas was more realistic and Augustine. Aquinas at least knew how human-beings are at the current (contemporary) is what God initially planned them to be. So, we can neither complain nor expect them to be at the ideal state. Aqunas argued that we coexist with our sins but we have to resist against it as much as possible. However, from my point of view, sin is a reality, and sin can be necessary. I do not see sin to be always something to be avoided; it is often a necessary to enjoy our life !!


Well, you have to imagine what the community was like in the early medieval age. Collapse of Roman Empire, havoc everywhere, and so people lost their direction in their life. Unlike nowadays when we can access to various information resource and be educated with Copernican world view, people at the medieval age were disparate to believe in something superstitious.... oh it should be said the superstitious worship was "necessary" to give people a certain principle as the "natural law", the universal invincible law. But, this explanation does not mean I support it: Actually I think of this divine rule was necessary evil at the contemporary time period. As a matter of fact, I reckon the late medieval age (about from the 3rd Crusader period) when people gradually became independent from this Christian autocracy. This was the sign that that part of the world became more stabilised, the technology advanced, and the information flow grew.

Furthermore, I highly admire all 3 Palestinian religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. These religions enlightened people to think independent from the nature surrounding them. Neither all ancient religion nor all oriental religions have ever done in such a way! The Palestinian religions enabled individual human-beings to think rationally (beyond their surrounding nature and their box of thought), and established strongholds! Augstine and Aquinas definitely contributed in this great work!

Thursday, January 12, 2012

US Political Compass (American Political Compass)


Reference:

http://www.lts.com/~cprael/Meade_FAQ.htm

http://paulbrazeau.com/?p=484







Quotes from “Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World” by Walter Russell Meade

- P.g.11: It was only when Germany and Japan began to take lessons from the lecklessly idealistic United States – An emphasis on commerce rather than military
- P.g.12: The …. Statemen of the U.S. often devoted more of their attention to foreign policy questions before and … the Civil War
(The chart shows that only Eisenhower and Bush Sr. have had experience in foreign affairs)
- P.g.13: Their children and grandfather never forgot their dependence on foreign customers and on the means of transporting their … (production) to the market
- P.g.18: Unlike Jackson, politicians like the Hamiltonian Daniel Webstar who were seen as “Soft on Great Britain.
- P.g.24: After indeed usually, the American government was more pacific and isolationist …. opinion
- P.g.25: Jefferson’s dispatch to Tripoli and Algiers of a … mission against the Berbary privates was ….
- P.g.59: Debt from the Civil War: Borrowed from Europe
- P.g.73: Both the liberal democrats who care to power with President Jimmy Carter and the Conservative Republicans who came in with Ronald Reagan focus years later moved …. Away from the Nixon & Kissinger approach
- P.g.78: Economics, Morality, and Democracy are these things that Continental Realism largely seeks to banish from the realm of high international politics
- During the Bretton Wood acting, the U.S. economic policy affected the entire world economy. The globalisation is new to America and the U.S.A. is actually an endebted nation.
- P.g.87: Hamiltonians against the treaty of Versailles E.g. Bush Sr.
- Continental Realism more during the Cold War
- Hamiltonian learns from British imperial order
- P.g.110: Hamiltonian economic policy changes fluctuately
E.g. opentrade ←→ protectionism owing to American economic interest
- P.g.110: Hamiltonians have never believed in using tarrifs simply as a revenue tax nor lowering tariff in line with the fiscal needs of government
• Read upto p.g.123
- P.g.126: Hamiltonians were quick to grasp the implication for American interest of British decline and they understand how to build a new hegemony as the old one collapsed
- P.g.130: The Hamiltonian grandfather had been contest to be free riders as long as British hegemony was ….
- P.g.131: As long time free riders in the British system American industries had enjoyed a …. of domestic production and global markets
- P.g.135: British liberal fought against the pragmatic tilt toward the Ottoman Empire that British imperial interests seemed to require ….that Ottoman aristocracies in the Balkans demanded what we would now call a human rights
- P.g.135: (Wilson’s) his strongest foreign affairs were found in the British Labour party, and the most savage attacks on the shortcoming of the Versailles treaty were …ed by John Maynard Keynes, the towering intellect of British Liberal thought in the 20th century
- P.g.136: More broadly the New Labour government. (Tony Blair) he has built is attempt to reconstruct the Old Labour party and tradition on the ruins of British socialism ……… voice recalling fro “idealistic” politics on
• Wilsonian is also related to the “non-conformist”
- P.g.158: Basically ………… with the modern Middle East plus much of South-Eastern Europe, this regain was the object of the first great missionary endeavour of the American missionary movement.
- P.g.161: The secular contributions of the missionary movement may, on a global scale. ultimately have more impact than do their religious achievements
- P.g.180: The Jeffersonian view of the U.S.A. as a revolutionary nation with a revolutionary mission runs deep … The Jeffersonian party locks of American Revolution with something of the same emotion with the USSR good Bolsheviks once viewed Lenin’s October revolution.
- The original Jeffersonians were steeped in the rich tradition of English & Scottish descent. They often saw the American Revolution as the least something as a secular – step in the British Reformation and they saw themselves as Cromwellian Round-Heads attempting to complete that Reformation against the opposition of the Hamiltonian Cavaliers
- P.g.181: Wilsonian could be called the Trotskyites of the American Revolution. They believe that the securities and success of the Revolution at home demands its universal expansion thought the world
- Jeffersonians take the Stalinist point of view. Building democracy in one country is enough challenge for them, and they are both sceptical about the prospects for revolutionary victories abroad and concerned about the dangers to the domestic revolution that might result from excessive …… in foreign ….
- P.g.182: (Jeffersonians) They believe that democracy is a fragile plant – difficult to grow, harder to propagate. Looking lack at long struggle in Britain – The Magna Carta, the Reformation, the Civil War, the Glorious Revolution, etc
- P.g.204: The Great Dilemma after the collapse of British Empire their ideality and the Homeland Security especially during the cold war.
- P.g.209: Jeffersonians used to be anti-federalism. But, …. The human right activity, they standed supporting the federal government power
- P.g.210: Both Jeffersonians and Wilsonians against …. With a tyrannical regime for anti-commercialism case
- P.g.212: Jeffersonian voice was minority during the Cold War
- P.g.224: Like Jeffersonians, Jacksonians are profoundly suspicious about elites. They generally prefer a loose federal structure with as much power as possible retained by states and local government
- Suspicious of ….. federal power, sceptical about the prospects for domestic and foreign do-gooding (Welfare at home, foreign aid abroad,) opposed to federal taxes but obstinately fond of federal programs seen as primarily helping the middle class (Social security, Medicare, mortgage interest subsidies)
- But, the difference between the two movements run very deep, so deep that during the Cold War: Jeffersonian = Dovish: Jacksonian = Hawkish
- P.g.225: Both Jeffersonians and Jacksonians are civil libertarians, passionately attached to the constitution and especially to the Bill of Right. But, Jeffersonians are most profoundly devoted to the First Amendment, protecting the freedom of speech and prohibiting a federal establishment of religion
- Jacksonians join the National Rifle Association (NRA)
- Jeffersonians join the American Civil Liberty Union (ACLU)
- P.g.232-233:
• Jacksonians support regional social securities such as discounting transportation prices for elderies, and caring communities.
• Jacksonians also believe in equality among community members: Supporting socialism in small community
• Many American Labour Unions are Jacksonians

Sunday, January 01, 2012

Wish A Happy New Year in 2012 although this year will be dread full for the majority of people in this world...!

The proverb for this year:


"Live like we die tomorrow; Talk like we live forver" (Mahatma Gandhi)


This year will be even tougher than the last year! Everyone has got to prepare for it!! The majority of people are in a bloody hell condition this year!!!

But, I still wish us A Happy New Year even though we may have got to prepare for this dreadful time period!

Lord of Mercy....... Amen!