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SWJED
05-11-2007, 06:23 AM
11 May Washington Post - Gen. Petraeus Warns Against Using Torture (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/10/AR2007051001963.html?hpid=artslot) by Tom Ricks.


The top U.S. commander in Iraq admonished his troops regarding the results of an Army survey that found that many U.S military personnel there are willing to tolerate some torture of suspects and unwilling to report abuse by comrades.

"This fight depends on securing the population, which must understand that we -- not our enemies -- occupy the moral high ground," Army Gen. David H. Petraeus wrote in an open letter dated May 10 and posted on a military Web site.

He rejected the argument that torture is sometimes needed to quickly obtain crucial information. "Beyond the basic fact that such actions are illegal, history shows that they also are frequently neither useful nor necessary," he stated...

SWJ Blog
05-14-2011, 12:51 AM
McCain on the Use of Torture (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/2011/05/mccain-on-the-use-of-torture/)

Entry Excerpt:



CBS News: Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) about his decision to speak out against government torture of terrorists.

Senator John McCain on the Use of Torture (http://smallwarsjournal.com/blog/journal/docs-temp/mccainontorture.pdf) - Full text of remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate, 12 May 2011. Introduction follows:

“Mr. President, the successful end of the ten-year manhunt to bring Osama bin Laden to justice has appropriately heightened the nation’s appreciation for the diligence, patriotism and courage of our armed forces and our intelligence community. They are a great credit and inspiration to the country that has asked so much of them, and like all Americans, I am in their debt."

“But their success has also reignited debate over whether the so-called, ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ of enemy prisoners, including waterboarding, were instrumental in locating bin Laden, and whether they are necessary and justifiable means for securing valuable information that might help prevent future terrorist attacks against us and our allies and lead to the capture or killing of those who would perpetrate them. Or are they, and should they be, prohibited by our conscience and laws as torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment."

“I believe some of these practices – especially waterboarding, which is a mock execution, and thus to me, indisputably torture – are and should be prohibited in a nation that is exceptional in its defense and advocacy of human rights. I believe they are a violation of the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, the Military Commissions Act of 2006, and Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions, all of which forbid cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of all captured combatants, whether they wear the uniform of a country or are essentially stateless."

“I opposed waterboarding and similar so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ before Osama bin Laden was brought to justice. And I oppose them now. I do not believe they are necessary to our success in our war against terrorists, as the advocates of these techniques claim they are."

“Even more importantly, I believe that if America uses torture, it could someday result in the torture of American combatants. Yes, I know that Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations do not share our scruples about the treatment of enemy combatants, and have and will continue to subject American soldiers and anyone they capture to the cruelest mistreatment imaginable. But we must bear in mind the likelihood that some day we will be involved in a more conventional war against a state and not a terrorist movement or insurgency, and be careful that we do not set a standard that another country could use to justify their mistreatment of our prisoners."

“And, lastly, it is difficult to overstate the damage that any practice of torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by Americans does to our national character and historical reputation – to our standing as an exceptional nation among the countries of the world. It is too grave to justify the use of these interrogation techniques. America has made its progress in the world not only by avidly pursuing our geopolitical interests, but by persuading and inspiring other nations to embrace the political values that distinguish us. As I’ve said many times before, and still maintain, this is not about the terrorists. It’s about us."



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Kiwigrunt
12-29-2012, 01:56 AM
Torture has been discussed here several times and the general consensus seems to be a negative stance towards it, both in term of morality/ethics and of course law.
The concept of collateral damage seems to be a bit harder to put into a single basket, and we generally accept it much more readily.

Sam Harris has some interesting views (http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/response-to-controversy2/) on this, which I tend to find quite compelling:


…I briefly discuss the ethics of torture and collateral damage in times of war, arguing that collateral damage is worse than torture across the board. Rather than appreciate just how bad I think collateral damage is in ethical terms, some readers have mistakenly concluded that I take a cavalier attitude toward the practice of torture. I do not. Nevertheless, there are extreme circumstances in which I believe that practices like “water-boarding” may not only be ethically justifiable, but ethically necessary. This is not the same as saying that they should be legal (e.g. crimes like trespassing or theft may sometimes be ethically necessary, while remaining illegal).


What say you?

carl
12-29-2012, 06:07 PM
He is trying to have it both ways. He is against it but can see where it can be useful and should be winked at, but only if he is certain that it will work and the person to be tortured deserves it. It is one of those arguments self-absorbed intellectuals please themselves with that ignore the reality of the situation. The reality is somebody ties somebody else down and does things to them. And they continue to do things to them until they feel like stopping. Would Mr. Harris volunteer to do that? Would he say to his son "Go ahead son, I'll be proud of you." Would he approve of his daughter marrying somebody who did that for a living? I doubt it. Intellectuals talking about things they won't do nor do they want their kith and kin to do but it is still ok with them.

The other thing he does is equate the certainty of his musings with the uncertainties of the real world. The "But what if we knew for sure how about then?" argument. Well sir, if you knew for sure then you'd be God and you ain't.

As you can tell, these kinds of arguments really frost me.

His point about us not taking collateral damage seriously enough is good. We should start by stop using such a sterile phrase, 'collateral damage.' We should say what it actually is "Today will killed bad guy B. We also killed a bunch of innocent people who hadn't done anything to us but they happened to be standing nearby bad guy B when we shot a missile at him. That isn't good but bad guy B was so bad they deserved to die too." If we appended that statement to each press release trumpeting our killing of every mid-level leader we might take it more seriously.

davidbfpo
12-29-2012, 07:05 PM
Kiwigrunt,

I am not sure this helps, but as a Canadian victim of rendition and torture it may help to learn what they say:
It is about time our governments realise that torture inflicts moral damage on our society, as severe as the pain felt by the people who are physically and psychologically tortured. Our reputation has been stained and tarnished enough.

His short article opens with:
To torture or not to torture, why is this question being asked in America? The answer you will receive is different depending on who you speak to.

Link:http://prism-magazine.com/2012/12/to-torture-or-not-to-torture/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Prism-magazine+%28Prism+Magazine%29

I expect the questions asked over torture extend far beyond the comforts of American debate, although one wonders if it was Americans being tortured at home or abroad that the US public would think torture works.

carl
12-29-2012, 07:14 PM
David:

Americans were tortured in the Pacific, Korea and Vietnam. We didn't think it a good thing then. We seem to have become so smug in the belief that nobody will ever be in a position to do that to us again that we are willing to let the beast out because, after all, we are the Yanks, it will never bite us.

motorfirebox
12-29-2012, 07:48 PM
His conclusion depends on there being a high likelihood of retrieving good, actionable intelligence through the use of torture. All the evidence I've seen indicates that this likelihood is extremely low compared to other methods of retrieving intelligence from a prisoner. I don't have a problem labeling torture too immoral to use, but morality can get low-contrast under extreme circumstances, while facts don't. The fact is that torture doesn't work well enough to employ. This makes it all the more aggravating when attempts are made to defend it on moral grounds.

jcustis
12-29-2012, 08:14 PM
David,

As always, you've added a rich notation which took me on a morning's bounce around wiki pages, blogs, and news articles, and left me more informed than when I woke up.

:D

carl
12-29-2012, 08:25 PM
I've always wanted to ask guys like Mr. Harris this.

'Ok Mr. Harris, we know that devil incarnate bad guy knows where the ticking bomb is. Unfortunately we can't get at him to use our sure fire enhanced interrogation techniques that would be applied by highly trained career professional torturers under closely supervised conditions. But we can get to his wife and children. In fact we have them.

Now Mr. Harris you must know that if that bomb goes off many many innocents, women and children, will be maimed and killed. They will suffer immensely as will their surviving relations. Is it really so bad Mr. Harris if we were to send an ear of his oldest child to devil incarnate bad guy with the message that this is only the beginning if he doesn't tell us what we want to know? Wouldn't inflicting suffering on those people be worth all the lives we would save?'

I wonder how he would answer.

Kiwigrunt
12-29-2012, 10:28 PM
That’s a straw man Carl. Here’s another one:

My hypothetical child is abducted by a gang. She can just get a phonecall to me describing what they are doing to her (colour that in for yourself). I just so happen to have one of the critters in my hot little hands. How far would I go to discover the whereabouts of the gang?

I think that what Sam is trying to get at regarding torture is that if you can come up with explicit examples where one might consider torture, then you have moved from the absolute to a continuum.

However, I don’t want to get too hung up on whether or not some extremes ‘should’ allow torture. We have discussed that before on a few other threads. I also don’t want to single out the good and the bad of collateral damage per say. What I got from reading Sam’s piece was how we seem to hold torture at a very different ethical level to collateral damage. Torturing one (‘guilty’?) person to achieve X is seen as much worse than bombing a village with some considerable collateral damage to achieve the same X. That could include some dead and injured (tortured?) innocents.

One question that comes to mind is: does our concern regarding torture stem from a genuine consideration for the rights etc. of the recipient or is it more self entered? That is to say, are we more concerned with what the process might do to us and our own morality? This statement quoted by David seems to support that:


It is about time our governments realise that torture inflicts moral damage on our society, as severe as the pain felt by the people who are physically and psychologically tortured. Our reputation has been stained and tarnished enough.

Either way, why do we not hold the same concerns, but stronger, regarding collateral damage? After all, collateral damage often produces more victims, with a greater likelihood of being innocent. (And even there we hold different standards. The comparison of bombing a village in Pakistan versus law enforcers doing similar damage in one of our own towns has been pointed out here previously.)
I think that that is also the main point that Sam is trying to make. (I have not read his book.)

So it is the difference between the two that interests me.

I wonder if we have here a moral conundrum similar to the trolley (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem) problem.

Kiwigrunt
12-29-2012, 10:36 PM
David, I found this one the most profound statements in your linked article:


Opponents of torture have vigorously been embracing the notion that torture produces false intelligence. This implicitly leaves the door open for the possibility of endorsing torture if it were proven to produce sound intelligence.

Fuchs
12-30-2012, 12:49 AM
Societies have progressed and regressed over time, have been replaced by others who did the same, rinse and repeat.
Over time, mankind has learned a few lasting lessons.

One of these lessons - widely understood to be self-evident (save for Hollywood) is that preventive arresting or killing of people who *might* turn into criminals is not appropriate. In fact, it is so utterly inappropriate and proven to be a poor idea that it is almost perfectly universally loathed.
Some practices such as this are so bad, mankind has learned to forego all analysis of costs and benefits in specific cases in favour of a universal maxim of "don't".

This was also true of torture, which was understood to be cruel and a thoroughly poor idea in the Western civilisation.

Sadly, the previous line was written in past tense because a few years ago a really big Western country did a really big regressive leap and actually left the consensus of Western civilisation on torture.
It even did so overtly, officially - unlike a generation or two ago when only a handful people working in the shadows ignored the norms of their civilisation.


The unwillingness to heed the hard-earned wisdom of earlier generations was and is strong in them.

carl
12-30-2012, 01:38 AM
Fuchs:

That was very well said.

Something has happened to ethical standards in the US, especially among the elites. It reminds me of something that my civilian self seems to see happen in the spec ops world, the attitude that they are not bound by rules. If they can do it, it is ok to do.

The elites who advocate torture show the same signs of having been cut loose from any moral base, if they think it is ok, it is.

As a foreign observer, do you think there is something in US culture that states that once you reach a certain status, you are free from any rule? More than in other Western nations I mean. It is almost as if we are creating an aristocracy.

Kiwigrunt:

It may be a strawman or not. But it is the same kind of contrived argument that the ticking time bomb argument is. In both cases, it is designed to justify that which is unjustifiable.

Maybe the difference between torture and killing the wrong people is in one, the rhetorical you is face to face with the victim, in the other it is done from afar. Maybe too, it has to do with growing amorality that infects our elites. It is convenient for them to knock off people who shouldn't be knocked off and who don't have the political power to stop them, so why shouldn't they?

Fuchs
12-30-2012, 01:58 AM
Carl, I think it's a human problem (or probably a "male humans" one, dunno for sure).

It's quite similar to bankers and politicians losing the sense for how valuable money is. 0.5% of a hundred billion don't look to them much different than 0.5% of their latest car purchase any more.
The experience of "unusual" circumstances (such as having power) often leads to the abandonment of "usual" conceptions.


The U.S. is different in many regards from Europe and other places, but the consistently biggest difference is simply size. The U.S. simply has more often the critical mass required to do stuff (good and bad) than other nations do.
Much that's "special" about the US can be traced in part to this difference.

carl
12-30-2012, 02:12 AM
Fuchs:

Very good point about size. I think we often forget how big this country is and how many people over 300 million is. At least I do.

Bill Moore
12-30-2012, 03:50 AM
We regressed morally at so many levels during this conflict. We made a deal with the devil (Pakistan) that allowed AQ senior leadership to escape and plot for another 10 years. We declared war on Iraq based on less than compelling evidence (the 1% doctrine), and shifted forces from an unfinished conflict i Afghanistan to Iraq. We publically endorsed torture as official policy, which as you have pointed out will put our forces at much greater risk at an unknown time in the future. We hired thousands of low quality contractors, many of them based on their political affiliations, to provide poor service at a high price. In many cases creating significant set backs to the overall operation. We aggressively pursued social and political engineering trying to create mirror image societies insteand of facilitating self-determinatio. We foolishly embraced a doctrine that has failed repeatedly throughout history, and now want to capture those lessons for future conflicts. Instead of collective sacrifice, we gave our citizens a tax cut for political expediency at the start of two wars and wonder why we can't manage our budget. We threw billions of borrowed dollars at the problem with no real strategy, and when it didn't work we surged billions more and now are looking for an acceptable exit.

I'm coming to the point where I think a nation's values (real values, values its people live by) are more important than its size, its economy, or the size of its military. Actually the values increase in importance as a nation gains power.

Maybe the pending economic crisis will drive us back to our core values that made us great to begin with.

Fuchs
12-30-2012, 03:54 AM
Maybe the pending economic crisis will drive us back to our core values that made us great to begin with.

Invade neighbours, annex terrain, invite immigrants to take the booty?

carl
12-30-2012, 06:33 AM
Invade neighbours, annex terrain, invite immigrants to take the booty?

Yep. Worked out well for everybody. Those who lived in the annexed part didn't have to live through the various agonies Mexico has gone through and is going through. My Grandfather fought in the Mexican Revolution and he said it was a very unpleasant time. The people in Arizona, New Mexico and California didn't have to go through any of it.

All those immigrants got to make a new start and we got the pick of the litter of all those countries for only those who had get up and go got up and came. Win win again.

carl
12-30-2012, 06:54 AM
Instead of collective sacrifice, we gave our citizens a tax cut for political expediency at the start of two wars and wonder why we can't manage our budget.

Bill:

This brings up a very important point that I try to keep raising. The Americans were not averse to something like a war tax being imposed. We would have gone for it. The political elites were afraid to ask us to do it. They lacked any real backbone or moral courage as evidenced by all their defense of torture. Hell they lack any real moral base.

The Americans do have a moral base (Fuchs, restrain yourself). We are much as we were as far as willing to sacrifice for a war goes. It is the elites who have changed. If they are morally adrift, as I think they are, they will never see the need to sacrifice for anything for there isn't anything really good. Because they only know themselves, they figure everybody is like them and since they don't recognize there is anything worth sacrificing for they figure the rest of us feel the same way. So they won't even ask.

I am convinced it is the same thing when people say Americans are casualty averse. We aren't. The elites are. In their morally relativistic world they see nothing worth dying for so they figure the rest of us are like that.

We have a big problem now and will get bigger if we can't figure some way to address this cultural disconnect between the elites and the rest of us.

p.s. Tax rates don't matter. You can't spend rates, you can only spend revenue. And revenue goes up when you lower rates, generally. We still should have had a war tax though.

Fuchs
12-30-2012, 01:11 PM
(...)revenue goes up when you lower rates, generally.

Trust an economist: That's nonsense.
It has never been observed since the Laffer curve argument has been brought forward that lowering a tax increases its or even only total revenue. The opposite is being observed every single time.

Lower taxes = less revenue. All else is nonsensical propaganda. Period.


There's a theoretical special case in which theoretically lowering the tax rate might increase revenue - this applies to ridiculously high tax rates, far above 50%.
A reduction of a tax rate from say 50% to 49% or 40% or 30% will inevitably deliver a loss of revenue not much smaller than the reduction of the tax rate (reduction from 50% to 40% would yield almost 20% less revenue).



The Laffer curve myth is one of those anglophone speciality myths - the rest of the world is laughing at you (if it knows or learns about he myth) for it.
My whole microeconomics class of more than 60 students laughed heartily, for sure.
That's because we haven't been indoctrinated with big lie propaganda abut the Laffer curve for three decades, of course.

Entropy
12-30-2012, 02:25 PM
Torture versus collateral damage; the bigger evil?

The obvious and biggest difference is intent. With torture you are knowingly engaging in, at best, a morally questionable activity. Your intention is to deliberately cause pain.

"Collateral damage" by contrast is usually unintentional, and often unavoidable.

carl
12-30-2012, 03:29 PM
Trust an economist: That's nonsense.
It has never been observed since the Laffer curve argument has been brought forward that lowering a tax increases its or even only total revenue. The opposite is being observed every single time.

Lower taxes = less revenue. All else is nonsensical propaganda. Period.


There's a theoretical special case in which theoretically lowering the tax rate might increase revenue - this applies to ridiculously high tax rates, far above 50%.
A reduction of a tax rate from say 50% to 49% or 40% or 30% will inevitably deliver a loss of revenue not much smaller than the reduction of the tax rate (reduction from 50% to 40% would yield almost 20% less revenue).



The Laffer curve myth is one of those anglophone speciality myths - the rest of the world is laughing at you (if it knows or learns about he myth) for it.
My whole microeconomics class of more than 60 students laughed heartily, for sure.
That's because we haven't been indoctrinated with big lie propaganda abut the Laffer curve for three decades, of course.

Trust a European economist to tout the conventional wisdom; no its not, as you yourself say above. It has happened several times in American history. IIRC Thomas Sowell say it happened in the Coolidge admin, the Kennedy admin, the Reagan admin and I believe that devil Bush's admin.

Just because a rate is ridiculously high doesn't mean it isn't applied. So if you knock down a ridiculously high rate revenue goes up because economic activity goes up. Which you said. So lower taxes don't equal lower revenues period. Viola.

As far as a bunch of Euroweenie students laughing at the US, weelllll....

Fuchs
12-30-2012, 04:18 PM
It's not relevant what the guy says. It's relevant what happened.

Reagan did cut taxes a lot, lost revenue, had to raise the tax again multiple times. Why do you think did he do so?

I tell you: His best trait was his ability to recognize some of his errors. That's why he ran from Lebanon, that's why he raised taxes.

The only ways how reducing a normal tax rate could increase revenues are
* one-time effects with taxes such as capital gains taxes where the tax subjects have the ability to determine the period in which to pay taxes (they move tax payment into a low-rate period fearing a later rates hike).
* A revenue increase not ceteris paribus, but caused by economic growth from period to period, overcompensating a small rates reduction.

At a very, very high tax rate you cold gain a revenue increase by reducing tax evasion a lot and making the taxed activity substantially more attractive. This is the Laffer curve special case which is pure theory, for such stupidly high effective tax rates are excessively rare. They're even outlawed by constitutional court in Germany, when it said that the Legislative shall ban activities or items it wants to disappear, not strangulate them.

A look at the item to be taxed shows that it never expands nearly as much as required to compensate for the reduced rates.
For example, incomes don't double when you cut income tax by half.

Reagan's tax effects on revenues:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaganomics#Tax_revenue
Vast reduction of revenue by big cut (first tax law), clear gains of revenue by increasing the effective rates again by closing loopholes (second one), gains by increased gasoline tax.

_________


This stuff is actually quite relevant to the torture topic, for the U.S. shows the (a certainly not unique) human susceptibility to the big lie; repeated wrong and seemingly unbelievable assertions begin to accumulate believers over time, and this supports some horrible policies.

I suppose it's especially troublesome in the U.S. because the U.S. has the critical mass to justify the required effort by special interests and it's large enough to sustain an alternate reality in public discourse. "The Netherlands could not sustain an alternate reality such as "torture is fine" or "cut taxes to increase revenues" because it's a smaller country and its people watch a lot of German TV. Dutch special interests would need to manipulate Dutch AND German perceptions, and they cannot muster the money and access for this.


There are not only horrible policies, but also discussions about horrible policies between big lie believers and the unconvinced. The conflict goes on and on and on and the end result is that the U.S. is still discussing or unable to fix problems which have been closed cases in many European countries for between 20 and 110 years.
I suppose these discussions and policies could not be sustained if there were more interactions with non-anglophone countries.


Again; to discuss costs and benefits or torture alone is already a sign of failure. It means one is discussing something which shouldn't even get any attention, but be dismissed because the correct answer should be obvious by now (and probably has been for a long time; one of Reagan's primaries competitors already called the Laffer Curve "Voodoo economics").

Surferbeetle
12-30-2012, 04:22 PM
Just because a rate is ridiculously high doesn't mean it isn't applied. So if you knock down a ridiculously high rate revenue goes up because economic activity goes up. Which you said. So lower taxes don't equal lower revenues period. Viola.

Just to stir the pot a bit...and please keep in mind that I am a fan of the scientific method, not a keynesian, nor am I a fan of either of our currently 'ascendent' political parties...;)

Note to neo-liberals: Earth orbits the sun, John Ross, 24 Nov 2012, Key Trends in Globalization, http://ablog.typepad.com/keytrendsinglobalisation/2012/11/note-to-neo-liberals-earth-orbits-the-sun.html

H/T to Gavyn Davies, FT Macroeconomics Blogger and Goldman Sachs Alum

As for torture...it's a tool of the twisted & weak....karma catches us all in the long run...

Bill Moore
12-30-2012, 05:09 PM
Posted by Carl


This brings up a very important point that I try to keep raising. The Americans were not averse to something like a war tax being imposed. We would have gone for it. The political elites were afraid to ask us to do it. They lacked any real backbone or moral courage as evidenced by all their defense of torture. Hell they lack any real moral base.

I tend to agree, since conservations with most people outside of the self-appointed political elite point to agreement on many of the moral issues we're discussing. However, we have a system that allows us to purge the politically elite and yet we re-elect the same batch of clowns repeatedly. Can we be both moral and apathetic?

As for lowering taxes to raise revenues I'm in strong agreement with Fuchs. I have done a fair amount of reading on this topic, and I tend to believe that big business propaganda is pushing that line, but the numbers don't add up. I'm also of the belief the government should spend less, but that is a different argument altogether. I think we're in agreement that when we go to war the nation goes to war, so everyone should sacrifice. Putting a "I support the troops" sticker on your car isn't sacrifice. Paying additional taxes to support the war effort is, and it should motivate the nation (populace) to more closely watch how the government spends that money in support of the war and put a stop to the multi-million dollar contracts to political croonies who are getting rich off the war and providing no value in return.

This gets back to my previous point can we really be moral if we're apathetic? The political elite count on us being sheep, in military terms it gives them considerable freedom of movement.

Entropy
12-30-2012, 05:49 PM
This brings up a very important point that I try to keep raising. The Americans were not averse to something like a war tax being imposed. We would have gone for it. The political elites were afraid to ask us to do it.

You should go back and look at the debates at the time. In the case of Iraq, the argument was that a tax was unnecessary because the war would be short, of modest cost, and that most of that cost would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues after the war. It's a similar story with Afghanistan, except the cost was modest (15-20 billion a year for the first five years) so a tax wasn't deemed necessary. Tax increases were not considered after that because we were always just a Friedman Unit or two away from winning or leaving....

carl
12-31-2012, 03:12 AM
As for torture...it's a tool of the twisted & weak...

That is a wonderful sentence. I am hereby informing you that I will use it frequently in the future, probably without attribution.

carl
12-31-2012, 04:01 AM
It's not relevant what the guy says. It's relevant what happened.

What happened is relevant. And after the tax rates were lowered, tax revenues went up.

In 1982, the top individual rate was lowered from 70% to 50%. Individual tax receipts were just under 300 billion in that year. In the years that followed, individual tax receipts climbed until they were right around 400 billion. That year the top rate was again lowered from 50% to 28% and individual tax receipts continued to climb until in 1990 they were around 450 billion.

In 2003, the top rate was lowered from 39.8% to 35%. No effect on individual receipts that year and the next but climbing receipts every year until 2007.

And the same thing happened in the Kennedy admin, and according to Mr. Sowell in the Coolidge admin.


The only ways how reducing a normal tax rate could increase revenues are
* one-time effects with taxes such as capital gains taxes where the tax subjects have the ability to determine the period in which to pay taxes (they move tax payment into a low-rate period fearing a later rates hike).
* A revenue increase not ceteris paribus, but caused by economic growth from period to period, overcompensating a small rates reduction.

No. I think you are wrong. What you are assuming is that people don't react to stimuli. People do more when they are not penalized for it. Taxes are a penalty on economic activity. It stands to reason that if you penalize economic activity, you get less of it. If there is less economic activity there is less money available to tax, so over time revenues won't go up. The converse is true too. The less you penalize economic activity, the more there of it there will tend to be so over time revenues go up. That can't not be if people act as people and react to stimuli. If people were mindless drones, then you would be right.


A look at the item to be taxed shows that it never expands nearly as much as required to compensate for the reduced rates.

I disagree.


For example, incomes don't double when you cut income tax by half

We're not talking about incomes, we're talking about revenues.


The conflict goes on and on and on and the end result is that the U.S. is still discussing or unable to fix problems which have been closed cases in many European countries for between 20 and 110 years.

A bit of editorial advice here. You can take or leave it. You probably won't get far with American audiences by telling them how the Europeans have been getting it right for "between 20 and 110 years" and boy are those Yanks thickheaded. We remember too much European history over the past 20 to 110 years for that to be a good approach.


Again; to discuss costs and benefits or torture alone is already a sign of failure.

That I fully agree with.

carl
12-31-2012, 04:04 AM
You should go back and look at the debates at the time. In the case of Iraq, the argument was that a tax was unnecessary because the war would be short, of modest cost, and that most of that cost would be paid for by Iraqi oil revenues after the war. It's a similar story with Afghanistan, except the cost was modest (15-20 billion a year for the first five years) so a tax wasn't deemed necessary. Tax increases were not considered after that because we were always just a Friedman Unit or two away from winning or leaving....

I remember those debates just fine. But your comment doesn't address my point. Those arguments were made by chicken hearted elites, which was my point.

carl
12-31-2012, 04:34 AM
I tend to agree, since conservations with most people outside of the self-appointed political elite point to agreement on many of the moral issues we're discussing. However, we have a system that allows us to purge the politically elite and yet we re-elect the same batch of clowns repeatedly. Can we be both moral and apathetic?

I think we can. I don't think we have fully realized the impact of TV on our democratic structure. The Constitution was made when political discourse was conducted face to face or via the written word. Both of those methods allowed more detail and complexity to be presented. More importantly in my view is that both required the people to pay more attention to what was going on. They had to make an effort to follow a whole speech or discussion just as they had to make an effort to read a written argument.

TV has changed all that. It is easier to get most of what passes for news from the tube. It is normal enough that people will do what is easier. So it is normal for many people to make decisions based upon the ad or the sound bite. That is a huge difference from when the Constitution was written. Centuries of history went into the making of Constitution. TV has only been around for 60 years. I don't think we know how it is going to fully affect our politics yet.

Another thing, 220 years ago there wasn't all that much around in the way or entertainment compared to today. So politics was part of the entertainment available so I think for that reason people paid more attention to it. Nowadays, there are many more things easily available to catch your eye.


As for lowering taxes to raise revenues I'm in strong agreement with Fuchs. I have done a fair amount of reading on this topic, and I tend to believe that big business propaganda is pushing that line, but the numbers don't add up.

Ah but they do. People being people, it can't not be so. I figure if the tax rate were raised to 100% on somebody, tax revenue would soon be zero or close to it. If you lowered that rate, even a little, revenue would go up. If you lowered it a lot, revenue would skyrocket. If you take everything from somebody, they aren't going to work at all. That's normal. If you don't steal so much from them, they get more for working, so they work. People react to the situation.


This gets back to my previous point can we really be moral if we're apathetic? The political elite count on us being sheep, in military terms it gives them considerable freedom of movement.

Like I said, I think we can be moral and apathetic. That is bad because there is no check on the superzips, who have no moral foundation at all beyond what is good for the superzips.

carl
12-31-2012, 04:44 AM
Note to neo-liberals: Earth orbits the sun, John Ross, 24 Nov 2012, Key Trends in Globalization, http://ablog.typepad.com/keytrendsinglobalisation/2012/11/note-to-neo-liberals-earth-orbits-the-sun.html

There are rather a lot of problems with that article.

Fuchs
12-31-2012, 04:58 AM
We're not talking about incomes, we're talking about revenues.
income + tax rate = revenues.

Halve the tax rate and you'll ceteris paribus only have increased revenues with more than doubled incomes. Likewise with other changes of tax rates.


In 1982, the top individual rate was lowered from 70% to 50%. Individual tax receipts were just under 300 billion in that year. In the years that followed, individual tax receipts climbed until they were right around 400 billion. That year the top rate was again lowered from 50% to 28% and individual tax receipts continued to climb until in 1990 they were around 450 billion.

In 2003, the top rate was lowered from 39.8% to 35%. No effect on individual receipts that year and the next but climbing receipts every year until 2007.

Income taxes are very much pro-cyclic, and it wouldn't surprise to see revenues soar after a recession, especially nominal revenues. That's what I meant to cover with

"* A revenue increase not ceteris paribus, but caused by economic growth from period to period, overcompensating a small rates reduction."


Look, discussing counterfactuals is only fun for so long.
Feel free to read some more on the subject (such as studies (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6908/12-01-10percenttaxcut.pdf)), and feel even more free to take into account that there's an economic cycle, tax base and deduction changes play a role as well and taxes don't exist in isolation, but are interacting with other regulation and economic activities. Don't forget inflation, either.

You should also get your figures right. The 70% top marginal rate was lowered in a 1981 bill ( Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981).

Meanwhile, feel free to show the boom in tax revenue in %GDP, that is without lots of GDP change and inflation influences - for I see an income tax revenue slump in the early 80's here.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/include/usgr_chart3p24.png



You probably won't get far with American audiences by telling them how the Europeans have been getting it right for "between 20 and 110 years" and boy are those Yanks thickheaded.

Come back with that when all people in the U.S. have a health insurance and when there's no museum showing human and dinosaur puppets in the same diorama any more.
We left those issues in the 19th century, where they belong.
(Adding more examples wouldn't make it prettier.)

Besides,

There are not only horrible policies, but also discussions about horrible policies between big lie believers and the unconvinced. The conflict goes on and on and on and the end result is that the U.S. is still discussing or unable to fix problems which have been closed cases in many European countries for between 20 and 110 years.
I suppose these discussions and policies could not be sustained if there were more interactions with non-anglophone countries.
was meant as a factual statement.
I don't bend or omit facts to please. I'm no entertainer.

People who don't like to be told facts aren't on my list of people who make me shut up about unpopular facts. That list is occupied by only a single female at a time, and no males.

Surferbeetle
12-31-2012, 05:22 AM
That is a wonderful sentence. I am hereby informing you that I will use it frequently in the future, probably without attribution.

Feel free


There are rather a lot of problems with that article.

It has it's problems, but if you look past the political blather:


there are some interesting numbers in there with respect to the US economy over time

there is the interesting point regarding China's forecasted GDP per capita

there are some interesting quantitative criticisms regarding shock therapy, privatization, etc which fall under his definition of neo-liberalism


I wish he had shown his work/footnotes...gotta do that to receive full credit.... :wry:...then we could take a look under the hood, kick the tires, and check the control surfaces and see if his argument can actually fly...

By the way...some of your statements/opinions regarding taxation/spending levels would be bolstered by some links. This one from the Peterson Institute for International Economics might be of interest to you but perhaps you have some better ones?

http://www.petersoninstitute.org/publications/pb/pb12-15.pdf

In a very general way, given some of the places that I have served I personally feel that I receive good value for my tax money...I would pay more if asked...home is better than Baghdad any day of the week. ;)

carl
12-31-2012, 05:37 AM
First things first.

Like I said, you will get farther with American audiences if you don't use the snooty European approach like the following.


Come back with that when all people in the U.S. have a health insurance and when there's no museum showing human and dinosaur puppets in the same diorama any more.
We left those issues in the 19th century, where they belong.
(Adding more examples wouldn't make it prettier.)

That scores points mainly with other Europeans. Those bumptious bumpkin Americans might point out some salient events in European history in return.


income + tax rate = revenues.

Halve the tax rate and you'll ceteris paribus only have increased revenues with more than doubled incomes. Likewise with other changes of tax rates.

Ceteris paribus...ok repair to the internet...all other things being equal...well why didn't you say so? That is just the point, all other things won't be equal. Human nature decrees that all other things won't be equal.

No, income + tax rate does not equal revenues. 5 + 5% doesn't equal anything. It doesn't make any sense.


Look, discussing counterfactuals is only fun for so long.
Feel free to read some more on the subject (such as studies (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/69xx/doc6908/12-01-10percenttaxcut.pdf)), and feel even more free to take into account that there's an economic cycle, tax base and deduction changes play a role as well and taxes don't exist in isolation, but are interacting with other regulation and economic activities. Don't forget inflation, either.

I get all that. Remember too that in the 70s we had stagflation. Then Reagan came along and Voila! We didn't.


You should also get your figures right. The 70% top marginal rate was lowered in a 1981 bill ( Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981).

Yes, being off by a year is a fatal flaw isn't it?


Meanwhile, feel free to show the boom in tax revenue in %GDP, that is without lots of GDP change and inflation influences - for I see an income tax revenue slump in the early 80's here.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/include/usgr_chart3p24.png

If the tax rate cut causes an increase in the GDP, you can have an increase in revenue while at the same time reducing the % of revenue to GDP. You spend revenue, not %. I figure that low tax revenue as a % of GDP is a good thing. More money in the pocket of them that made it.


Besides,

"There are not only horrible policies, but also discussions about horrible policies between big lie believers and the unconvinced. The conflict goes on and on and on and the end result is that the U.S. is still discussing or unable to fix problems which have been closed cases in many European countries for between 20 and 110 years.
I suppose these discussions and policies could not be sustained if there were more interactions with non-anglophone countries"

was meant as a factual statement.
I don't bend or omit facts to please. I'm no entertainer.

Saying it don't make it so.

carl
12-31-2012, 05:57 AM
Surferbeetle:

I disregarded his US numbers because they attributed everything to his definition of what "neo-liberal" and Keynesian policies were. He ignored things like for a long time the world except us was broke because of WWII; or the growth of the welfare state.

Another thing ignored was how Communist party functionaries stole everything when the Soviet Union fell.

You can probably afford to pay more in taxes and don't mind doing so. The problem is they will never stop asking for more so eventually you won't want to anymore.

I can't remember all the things I've read over the years so links are a bit hard to provide.

Fuchs
12-31-2012, 06:46 AM
First things first.

Like I said, you will get farther with American audiences if you don't use the snooty European approach like the following.

You don't know what you don't know. My blog's reader stats shows that there are enough thick-skinned Americans who have not too much of a problem with my style.
http://s05.flagcounter.com/count/NYo/bg=FFFFFF/txt=000000/border=CCCCCC/columns=1/maxflags=20/viewers=0/labels=1/pageviews=1/


Ceteris paribus...ok repair to the internet...all other things being equal...well why didn't you say so? That is just the point, all other things won't be equal. Human nature decrees that all other things won't be equal.

You don't seem to have understood the meaning of ceteris paribus. It means you change one thing, and but one thing. Everything may change as a result, there's no problem with that.
Ceteris paribus is a necessary guideline for discussing the effect of one action. It's requires for clarity of thought and arguments in such a case.


No, income + tax rate does not equal revenues. 5 + 5% doesn't equal anything. It doesn't make any sense.

And the only one who places a "+" between both here is you.
Tax base * tax rate - deductions + (black box for other complicated exceptions) = revenue
or simplified,
Tax base * tax rate = revenue
Halved tax rate requires more than doubled tax base (income) to generate increased revenues.


I get all that. Remember too that in the 70s we had stagflation. Then Reagan came along and Voila! We didn't.

This was funny. Read a bit about what Volcker did at the time, please.



If the tax rate cut causes an increase in the GDP, you can have an increase in revenue while at the same time reducing the % of revenue to GDP.

You spend revenue, not %.

Actually, you spend %GDP as well, and this is important. Growth in the economy yields growth in wages and public employees will get a (in the long term) corresponding raise, employees of contractors will get a raise, contractor shareholders will expect more profit. This means public expenditures will grow approximately proportional to GDP.
So you better keep your government revenue stable in %GDP terms in the ceteris paribus ('tax rate change and no other change') case.


Summary:
I don't accept nominal dollars revenue as evidence for your assertion because there's too much noise in it.
You don't accept %GDP as evidence.
Anything in between is really messy stuff requiring a lot of (reading) effort.


Anyway, I don't care now any more. I understand there are more than a hundred million people out there who actually fell for the ridiculous notion that cutting taxes increases revenues.
There's no fun in discussing this. I actually spent hundreds of hours on learning fiscal theory stuff at the university, it was one of my specialisations. Your position qualifies as joke in-between, I simply cannot take you and the Laffer curve believers serious enough for a greater discussion effort.
Your opinion is entrenched enough to withstand evidence anyway.


Even Mankiw disagrees, and he's the North American right wing's posterchild economist.
http://gregmankiw.blogspot.de/2007/07/on-charlatons-and-cranks.html

other voices:
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2012/06/laughing-at-people-who-say-tax-cuts-from-present-levels-willmight-increase-revenue.html

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2010/08/where_does_the_laffer_curve_be.html



I figure that low tax revenue as a % of GDP is a good thing. More money in the pocket of them that made it.

This depends on the marginal rate of utility of public and private spending and is an altogether different issue.
State of the art is that there's no answer because scientists and philosophers still have no convincing way of handling diverse preferences.
The largely agreed-upon substitute for now is to simply live with whatever a democratic political system yields.

Dayuhan
12-31-2012, 12:27 PM
What happened is relevant. And after the tax rates were lowered, tax revenues went up.

In 1982, the top individual rate was lowered from 70% to 50%. Individual tax receipts were just under 300 billion in that year. In the years that followed, individual tax receipts climbed until they were right around 400 billion. That year the top rate was again lowered from 50% to 28% and individual tax receipts continued to climb until in 1990 they were around 450 billion.

In 2003, the top rate was lowered from 39.8% to 35%. No effect on individual receipts that year and the next but climbing receipts every year until 2007.

The problem with these formulations is that tax policy is only one among many variables. Just for example, in the 1970s the baby boom generation was in college, consuming much and producing little. In the 1980s they got jobs and started paying taxes. In the 1990s they started earning seriously and investing seriously. The movement of that demographic bulge into a fully productive role was not a function of tax policy, but it certainly had a large impact on government revenues.

In 2003 the country was moving from recession into recovery, a recovery that accelerated (for dubious reasons, but that's another issue) through 2008. The extent to which tax policy alone was responsible for either the recovery or the increase in revenues is highly debatable. As one factor among many, that period was characterized by extremely low interest rates, so it's hard to determine whether an increase in business activity was due to lower taxes or cheap money.

Assigning a causative role to a single variable in a complex system is always a questionable practice.

Entropy
01-01-2013, 12:33 AM
You should also get your figures right. The 70% top marginal rate was lowered in a 1981 bill ( Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981).

Meanwhile, feel free to show the boom in tax revenue in %GDP, that is without lots of GDP change and inflation influences - for I see an income tax revenue slump in the early 80's here.
http://www.usgovernmentrevenue.com/include/usgr_chart3p24.png



The dip in the early 80's was due to a recession. The dip in the early 90's was due to a recession, the dip in the early 2000's...you get the picture.

I don't know how familiar you are with the complex morass called the US tax code Fuchs, much less its sordid history, but what the Reagan reforms did was lower rates, consolidate brackets and eliminate deductions. The result was that revenue did not change at all and effective tax rates (which is what really matters) barely budged. You can look at the effective tax rate tables here and see for yourself. (http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/98xx/doc9884/12-23-effectivetaxrates_letter.pdf)

carl
01-01-2013, 06:10 AM
You don't know what you don't know. My blog's reader stats shows that there are enough thick-skinned Americans who have not too much of a problem with my style.
http://s05.flagcounter.com/count/NYo/bg=FFFFFF/txt=000000/border=CCCCCC/columns=1/maxflags=20/viewers=0/labels=1/pageviews=1/

I stand corrected. Your blog log is irrefutable proof that arch lectures about European superiority play well with American audiences. Who'd a thunk it?


You don't seem to have understood the meaning of ceteris paribus. It means you change one thing, and but one thing. Everything may change as a result, there's no problem with that.
Ceteris paribus is a necessary guideline for discussing the effect of one action. It's requires for clarity of thought and arguments in such a case.

It might be easier if you use English. You have great facility in that. I have none in Latin.


And the only one who places a "+" between both here is you.
Tax base * tax rate - deductions + (black box for other complicated exceptions) = revenue
or simplified,
Tax base * tax rate = revenue
Halved tax rate requires more than doubled tax base (income) to generate increased revenues.

Well no, you wrote in post 30 "income + tax rate = revenues." It is the first line you wrote. Honest. No wonder it didn't make any sense. It was a typo. I should have figured that.


This was funny. Read a bit about what Volcker did at the time, please.

I remember what Volcker did at the time, and I read a bunch of articles just today. He was Carter's second choice and started to try and beat inflation in Sept of 79 and nothing much worked. I remember that Reagan ran political interference for him and reappointed him. And I read that inflation started to go down in Oct of 81, which was when the first of those tax cuts hit.

So I figure that Reagan handled the 'stag' part and Reagan and Volcker probably did the 'flation' part.


Actually, you spend %GDP as well, and this is important. Growth in the economy yields growth in wages and public employees will get a (in the long term) corresponding raise, employees of contractors will get a raise, contractor shareholders will expect more profit. This means public expenditures will grow approximately proportional to GDP.
So you better keep your government revenue stable in %GDP terms in the ceteris paribus ('tax rate change and no other change') case.

What you spend may be viewed as %GDP but you actually spend dollars.

If your prime object is to please gov employees "you better keep your government revenue stable in %GDP terms". But I figure that the object of gov isn't to please gov employees, it is or should be to stay out of the way of the people and take from them as little as possible. So if you act on that, and reduce the burden public employees place upon the taxpayer, then reduction of revenue as %GDP is a good thing.


Anyway, I don't care now any more. I understand there are more than a hundred million people out there who actually fell for the ridiculous notion that cutting taxes increases revenues.

Perhaps more than a hundred million people disagree with you, not because they are gullible, but because you might, possibly, just maybe, be wrong.


There's no fun in discussing this. I actually spent hundreds of hours on learning fiscal theory stuff at the university, it was one of my specialisations. Your position qualifies as joke in-between, I simply cannot take you and the Laffer curve believers serious enough for a greater discussion effort.

Gee. Sorry about that. But be consoled that education is never wasted.


Your opinion is entrenched enough to withstand evidence anyway.

Ohhkkkay.


This depends on the marginal rate of utility of public and private spending and is an altogether different issue.

Yes it does. I figure the private individual is wiser at spending his money than a gov bureaucrat is at spending somebody else's. So it is best to let the private individual keep most of it.

carl
01-01-2013, 06:20 AM
The problem with these formulations is that tax policy is only one among many variables. Just for example, in the 1970s the baby boom generation was in college, consuming much and producing little.

No question there were a lot of variables. But, and just a minor point, the baby boom is figured from the end of WWII to about 20 years later, give or take. That would mean a lot of baby boomers were in the start of their productive years in the 70s.

carl
01-01-2013, 08:18 AM
Here is a link to some tables that show US Fed Gov revenue in dollars over the years.

http://www.truthfulpolitics.com/http:/truthfulpolitics.com/comments/u-s-federal-government-revenue-current-and-inflation-adjusted/

Dayuhan
01-01-2013, 11:00 AM
the baby boom is figured from the end of WWII to about 20 years later, give or take. That would mean a lot of baby boomers were in the start of their productive years in the 70s.

There was a significant acceleration in 1952, and the peak was 1957.

In 1996 the 76 million Americans that make up the baby boom generation were between 32 and 50. In 1986 they were between 22 and 40. In 1976 they were between 12 and 30. How much income tax do you figure they paid, collectively, in those 3 years? Big difference, I'd guess.

Put it another way... in 1980 the 1955-1960 cohort that forms the core of the baby boom was 20-25 years old. From then on, their collective income and collective tax payments would have increased just a bit, don't you think? Then there's all those tax deductions their parents stopped taking when the kids graduated from college. Not saying demographics were the only factor, but I'd guess they have at least as much impact on the increase in federal tax revenue from 1980-2000 as tax policy, maybe more.

Still trying to figure out how this got from torture to tax policy...

motorfirebox
01-01-2013, 12:02 PM
Yes it does. I figure the private individual is wiser at spending his money than a gov bureaucrat is at spending somebody else's. So it is best to let the private individual keep most of it.
Private investment allowed the housing bubble to expand beyond the simple, minimal losses of bad mortgages into the subprime crisis. Private investment is currently allowing housing prices to bubble again even as median wage nosedives. Private investment is a great engine, but a terrible steering wheel.

Surferbeetle
01-01-2013, 12:48 PM
Private investment allowed the housing bubble to expand beyond the simple, minimal losses of bad mortgages into the subprime crisis. Private investment is currently allowing housing prices to bubble again even as median wage nosedives. Private investment is a great engine, but a terrible steering wheel.

Bridge to nowhere

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/41/Bridge_to_Nowhere%28San_Gabriel_Mountains%29.JPG/607px-Bridge_to_Nowhere%28San_Gabriel_Mountains%29.JPG

Trabant, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trabant

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/20/Trabant_1.1_Universal_%2802%29.JPG/320px-Trabant_1.1_Universal_%2802%29.JPG

Central bank, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_bank


The primary function of a central bank is to manage the nation's money supply (monetary policy), through active duties such as managing interest rates, setting the reserve requirement, and acting as a lender of last resort to the banking sector during times of bank insolvency or financial crisis. Central banks usually also have supervisory powers, intended to prevent bank runs and to reduce the risk that commercial banks and other financial institutions engage in reckless or fraudulent behavior. Central banks in most developed nations are institutionally designed to be independent from political interference.

Monetary policy, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monetary_policy


Monetary policy is the process by which the monetary authority of a country controls the supply of money, often targeting a rate of interest for the purpose of promoting economic growth and stability.[1][2] The official goals usually include relatively stable prices and low unemployment. Monetary theory provides insight into how to craft optimal monetary policy. It is referred to as either being expansionary or contractionary, where an expansionary policy increases the total supply of money in the economy more rapidly than usual, and contractionary policy expands the money supply more slowly than usual or even shrinks it. Expansionary policy is traditionally used to try to combat unemployment in a recession by lowering interest rates in the hope that easy credit will entice businesses into expanding. Contractionary policy is intended to slow inflation in hopes of avoiding the resulting distortions and deterioration of asset values.

Supply and demand, From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand


The four basic laws of supply and demand are:[1]
If demand increases and supply remains unchanged, a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.
If demand decreases and supply remains unchanged, a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price.
If demand remains unchanged and supply increases, a surplus occurs, leading to a lower equilibrium price.
If demand remains unchanged and supply decreases, a shortage occurs, leading to a higher equilibrium price.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/7a/Supply-and-demand.svg/500px-Supply-and-demand.svg.png

Entropy
01-01-2013, 12:54 PM
Private investment allowed the housing bubble to expand beyond the simple, minimal losses of bad mortgages into the subprime crisis. Private investment is currently allowing housing prices to bubble again even as median wage nosedives. Private investment is a great engine, but a terrible steering wheel.

None of that exists in a vacuum though. It is, after all, government policy to maintain very low interest rates to boost borrowing and there are many policies specifically designed to boost the housing sector.

Dayuhan
01-01-2013, 10:02 PM
Private investment is currently allowing housing prices to bubble again even as median wage nosedives.

Are housing prices bubbling again? Maybe in Phoenix, but surely not in Detroit or Chicago. In any event, if private capital wants to buy up foreclosed single-family homes and convert them to rentals, why shouldn't they? Bit of a bandwagon, yes, but not much there in the way of collective liability. Rental stock is needed, the homes typically need a fair bit of work, and getting the work done puts people to work. Hard to see it as a terrible thing.

Speaking of a "nosedive" in median wages is a bit exaggerated. Inflation-adjusted median wages have held n a fairly narrow band between $50-55k since the early 90s, and the push toward the higher end of that bad from 2005-2008 was arguably driven by unsustainable bubble conditions, just like the similar push from 1998-2000. Demographics play a role here as well: income peaks at around age 50, a point the peak of the baby boom passed in 2007. I expect median incomes will decline noticeably as the boom moves past that peak and the leading edge of the boom starts retiring.

motorfirebox
01-02-2013, 06:48 AM
Are housing prices bubbling again? Maybe in Phoenix, but surely not in Detroit or Chicago.
Actually... (http://www.freep.com/article/20121227/BUSINESS04/312270092/Rise-in-metro-Detroit-home-prices-outpaces-U-S-)

Home prices rising is not a bad thing, but it's not an indicator of economic health for those who aren't already well off. Renting a home is an economic burden, not an investment; home prices rising while median wages fall (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443890304578006671572581156.html) is how you continue to widen the already-growing wealth gap. The trickle of construction jobs derived from private equity scooping up these devalued homes doesn't go any significant distance towards reversing that.


None of that exists in a vacuum though. It is, after all, government policy to maintain very low interest rates to boost borrowing and there are many policies specifically designed to boost the housing sector.
Sure. But a high-risk mortgage in default is just a high-risk mortgage in default. It only becomes an economy-wrecking problem when the finance industry and the ratings agencies conspire to fraudulently make that high-risk mortgage appear low-risk, thereby attracting significant investment.


Stuff
I'm not arguing that government oversight is a magic tonic that will always fix everything. I'm arguing against the idea that private investment is a magic tonic that will always fix everything.

carl
01-02-2013, 04:21 PM
Private investment allowed the housing bubble to expand beyond the simple, minimal losses of bad mortgages into the subprime crisis. Private investment is currently allowing housing prices to bubble again even as median wage nosedives. Private investment is a great engine, but a terrible steering wheel.

The first thing that popped into my head after reading this was an image of us private individuals as the sturdy draft horse pulling the plow under the wise direction of an experienced plowman, the career professional government bureaucrat. The next thing that popped into my head was the thought of the sturdy draft horse character in Animal Farm who was guided by the pigs. Old Boxer didn't do so hot.

When stripped to its essentials, the recent big economic crash was caused by a bunch of people who couldn't pay their mortgages. These were people who under normal circumstance would not have received mortgages because they were bad risks. Lenders established the criteria that marked them as bad risks because lenders don't like to lose money on loans and they had learned that people fitting those criteria were much less likely to pay back the loan. So why did the lenders lend money to people they knew were much less likely to pay it back? They lent it because is was government policy to strong arm them into making the loans. The gov did that in the pursuit of the political goal of expanding home ownership, and the wise gov figured the way to do that was to make sure more people were able to get home loans, and the way to do that was to force lenders to lower lending standards.

So that is it. Regardless of all the shenanigans that went on with lack of oversight, impunity, sharp practice etc., there would have been no crisis if all those uncreditworthy borrowers had repaid their loans as reliably as the credit worthy borrowers had been doing for years and years. But they didn't because home ownership doesn't confer financial responsibility upon a person, a person who is financially responsible is able to own a home. Those gov types couldn't figure that out.

George Orwell was a very bright guy.

Fuchs
01-02-2013, 06:30 PM
When stripped to its essentials, the recent big economic crash was caused by a bunch of people who couldn't pay their mortgages.

No, that was a mere symptom.
That was (a) the grand scale resource misallocation away from (re)investment in production capacity and infrastructure into consumption.
The banks were (b) incompetent enough to fail entirely in their (systemic) risk management as a system. They believed to have managed their risks with diversion, but the diversion was nil at the aggregate level of the entire banking sector and on top of that they were connected to each other enough (with pointless reciprocal lending) that they turned into dominoes.

So the big story was the gross incompetence of the banking sector and the lack of effective government oversight.

To blame it on lenders is disingenuous.

davidbfpo
01-02-2013, 07:34 PM
This thread started as 'Torture versus collateral damage; the bigger evil?', a valid exchange has followed, although now it appears to more of a debate on economics. I can discern links earlier on, not so much now.

Now please carry on.;)

One day I will try to separate out the diversion.:wry:

carl
01-02-2013, 08:08 PM
So the big story was the gross incompetence of the banking sector and the lack of effective government oversight.

The entities that made the bad loans did so because they were forced to by the gov. Gov oversight made sure that they made the gov imposed quotas of loans to people who were poor risks. So the big story was the gross incompetence of the gov.


To blame it on lenders is disingenuous.

Your right, and I didn't.

carl
01-02-2013, 08:11 PM
This thread started as 'Torture versus collateral damage; the bigger evil?', a valid exchange has followed, although now it appears to more of a debate on economics. I can discern links earlier on, not so much now.

What more can you say about torture beyond it being a tool of the weak and the twisted?

Fuchs
01-02-2013, 09:28 PM
The entities that made the bad loans did so because they were forced to by the gov. Gov oversight made sure that they made the gov imposed quotas of loans to people who were poor risks. So the big story was the gross incompetence of the gov.

AFAIK you're writing about two agencies/entities/organisations here. This doesn't explain why the entire banking sector got involved. To them, it was incompetence on many levels.

There's much style, yet very little substance in banking.
I've come to the conclusion that banks are likely inherently incompetent. My professional experience with banks is that there's no correlation between quality of a credit application and it being approved. They could just as well employ monkeys for approving or disapproving applications: Nobody would notice if they don't tell anyone.
The personal highlight experience of mine was a 99.9% crap credit application being approved. The only good thing about the application was the passport photo of the young blonde asking for the credit!

motorfirebox
01-03-2013, 12:31 AM
So that is it. Regardless of all the shenanigans that went on with lack of oversight, impunity, sharp practice etc., there would have been no crisis if all those uncreditworthy borrowers had repaid their loans as reliably as the credit worthy borrowers had been doing for years and years. But they didn't because home ownership doesn't confer financial responsibility upon a person, a person who is financially responsible is able to own a home. Those gov types couldn't figure that out.
False. The financial shenanigans played by the financial sector could begin with any widely-replicated form of debt. You could do it with school loans (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/20/554321/private-student-loans-subprime-mortgages/). You're blaming the matches for burning down the house, when in reality the landlord stripped out the sprinkler system and fireproofing to sell for a quick buck--and left the renters to burn.

I honestly don't know what any of this has to do with torture, but the factual misrepresentations here are too much to ignore.

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 12:46 AM
Actually... (http://www.freep.com/article/20121227/BUSINESS04/312270092/Rise-in-metro-Detroit-home-prices-outpaces-U-S-)

Detroit's housing market may have shown a bounce but the base of the bounce was desperately low, and it's still a deeply distressed market that's not even conceivably near a bubble. What you're seeing there is less a matter of "home prices rising" than the removal of many the ultra-discounted foreclosure properties from the market. Removing that low-end bulge raises the average and makes the numbers look better, but it doesn't make that market healthy.


Home prices rising is not a bad thing, but it's not an indicator of economic health for those who aren't already well off. Renting a home is an economic burden, not an investment; home prices rising while median wages fall (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443890304578006671572581156.html) is how you continue to widen the already-growing wealth gap. The trickle of construction jobs derived from private equity scooping up these devalued homes doesn't go any significant distance towards reversing that.

Would you have the government tell private equity that houses shouldn't be bought until median wages rise (not likely for a long time, what with the baby boom generation passing the earnings peak and approaching retirement)? How would it help to have those potentially rentable homes sitting around vacant and deteriorating?


I'm not arguing that government oversight is a magic tonic that will always fix everything. I'm arguing against the idea that private investment is a magic tonic that will always fix everything.

Private investment is not a magic tonic, but it's a prerequisite to fixing anything. Government "oversight" is as likely to harm as to help. Government certainly played a role in the last recession, but it wasn't for lack of oversight, it was in the provision of perverse incentives. Intervening to flatten out the 2000/2001 recession, which should have been much deeper given the dimensions of the bubble preceding it, and most particularly intervening to prevent derivatives markets from failing (as they should have in 2001) effectively removed the perception of risk from the financial equation. Keeping interest rates way too low for way too long in an environment where the perception of risk was missing effectively guaranteed excessive speculation. The idea that you can create perverse incentives on that scale and then control the destructive effects with government oversight is an illusion. It can't be done. No amount of regulation or oversight will compensate for bad management of macro incentives. It's easy in retrospect to say that this or that gap could have been plugged, but another would have been found. Once the perverse incentive is in place the speculators will always be a step ahead of the regulators. The need is not for more regulation, it's for better management of incentives.

carl
01-03-2013, 12:52 AM
Fuchs:

Like I said, the whole thing boils down to bad home loans. Everybody piled in but if those loans had been repaid at the rates good home loans were, the problems would not have happened.

So your professional experience with banks is there is no correlation between the quality of a credit application and it being approved. Have you made home loan applications in the United States with some frequency in the past 20 or so years?

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 12:58 AM
I think Entropy effectively addressed the OP's original question: torture is intentional, collateral damage is accidental. Apples and oranges.

The point of thread diversion arrived here, as far as I can tell:


We regressed morally at so many levels during this conflict. We made a deal with the devil (Pakistan) that allowed AQ senior leadership to escape and plot for another 10 years. We declared war on Iraq based on less than compelling evidence (the 1% doctrine), and shifted forces from an unfinished conflict i Afghanistan to Iraq. We publically endorsed torture as official policy, which as you have pointed out will put our forces at much greater risk at an unknown time in the future. We hired thousands of low quality contractors, many of them based on their political affiliations, to provide poor service at a high price. In many cases creating significant set backs to the overall operation. We aggressively pursued social and political engineering trying to create mirror image societies insteand of facilitating self-determinatio. We foolishly embraced a doctrine that has failed repeatedly throughout history, and now want to capture those lessons for future conflicts. Instead of collective sacrifice, we gave our citizens a tax cut for political expediency at the start of two wars and wonder why we can't manage our budget. We threw billions of borrowed dollars at the problem with no real strategy, and when it didn't work we surged billions more and now are looking for an acceptable exit.

I'm coming to the point where I think a nation's values (real values, values its people live by) are more important than its size, its economy, or the size of its military. Actually the values increase in importance as a nation gains power.

Maybe the pending economic crisis will drive us back to our core values that made us great to begin with.

That sparked a digression into the impact of tax rates on government revenues.

Not that it's any less a digression, but I must say I think it would be a good idea to have entry into a war accompanied by a mandatory war tax, partly because that would help pay for a war, but far more because it would make politicians think twice, or thee or four times, before they decide to go to war.

The idea that moral degradation or a lack of moral courage could result in the use of torture may have merit. It's also true, though, that the idea of "moral courage" can also be twisted into a conviction that the morally courageous know what is right and must do what is right no matter where that leads. People who know they are right are a good deal scarier to me than people who accept that they might be wrong, or at least not completely right, even though doubt may in some circles appear to signify a lack of moral courage.

I don't know that moral courage or moral degradation have anything to do with the current economic problems.

carl
01-03-2013, 01:04 AM
False. The financial shenanigans played by the financial sector could begin with any widely-replicated form of debt. You could do it with school loans (http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/07/20/554321/private-student-loans-subprime-mortgages/). You're blaming the matches for burning down the house, when in reality the landlord stripped out the sprinkler system and fireproofing to sell for a quick buck--and left the renters to burn.

I honestly don't know what any of this has to do with torture, but the factual misrepresentations here are too much to ignore.

Pushed beyond your limits you were, sort of like Cincinnatus leaving his plow. Well maybe not exactly but I had to work a Latin word in here somehow.

Nope not false, true. Regardless of the things that were done, those loans were bad and the would not have been made if the gov hadn't forced them to be made. So that is it. Bad loans made under duress that eventually went bad. Some surprise that that led to trouble.

Note: regarding all the games that were played with those bad loans that the gov forced to be made-see Dayuhan's last paragraph in post 53.

carl
01-03-2013, 01:09 AM
I don't know that moral courage or moral degradation have anything to do with the current economic problems.

It may have everything to do with it. Our elites seem to have come not only to the conclusion that in order to gain and retain power they have to tell people that they can have their cake and eat it too; they seem to have come to believe it themselves.

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 01:10 AM
Like I said, the whole thing boils down to bad home loans.

You have to add in the perception that if you pool enough dubious loans together they somehow cease to be dubious. Add that to a huge supply of free money (interest rate below inflation rate = free money), and the incentive to take risks on loans becomes overwhelming. If you set up a situation where people can borrow at 1.5% and lend at 7% with zero perceived risk, no amount of regulation or oversight is going to keep speculators from riding that out of control.

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 01:15 AM
It may have everything to do with it. Our elites seem to have come not only to the conclusion that in order to gain and retain power they have to tell people that they can have their cake and eat it too; they seem to believe it themselves.

I don't see what that has to do with "moral courage". It's not as if there's some clear "right path" that leaders refuse to walk because they haven't the courage. There is in fact nearly infinite debate, even among the qualified and the knowledgeable, over what the right path is. It would be appealingly simple to reduce it all to a lack of courage among the elite, but that explanation doesn't take us very far.

And yes, the electorate does expect to be told what it wants to hear, and gets into a terrible snit when it's told anything else.

carl
01-03-2013, 01:38 AM
You have to add in the perception that if you pool enough dubious loans together they somehow cease to be dubious. Add that to a huge supply of free money (interest rate below inflation rate = free money), and the incentive to take risks on loans becomes overwhelming. If you set up a situation where people can borrow at 1.5% and lend at 7% with zero perceived risk, no amount of regulation or oversight is going to keep speculators from riding that out of control.

Yep. I'll go with all of that as contributing factors. Fannie and Freddie were mixed up in all of this and they were widely believed to be no risk because no matter how bad they screwed up, the gov would step in.

carl
01-03-2013, 01:48 AM
I don't see what that has to do with "moral courage".

I think it does because I think it is clear that there is a right path. We have to cut the expenditure on entitlements. There is no way around that. That may be discussed, but it isn't acted upon. In my view it isn't acted upon because of a lack of moral courage.

That is related to the suits using torture and then using their fine educations to rationalize it. Lack of moral foundation and lack of moral courage...maybe the same animal viewed in different parts of the spectrum.

motorfirebox
01-03-2013, 01:51 AM
Nope not false, true. Regardless of the things that were done, those loans were bad and the would not have been made if the gov hadn't forced them to be made. So that is it. Bad loans made under duress that eventually went bad. Some surprise that that led to trouble.
It is a necessary part of the financial system that some people win and some people lose. In this case, the bad results of those bad loans would be passed back to the government itself and, for the most part, harmlessly absorbed. No, it wouldn't be indefinitely sustainable, but the damage it could do on its own was pretty sharply limited.

What caused it to snowball into an economy-wrecker was actual, intentional fraud. Do you understand that? If you lend me a nickel and I don't pay it back, you're out a nickel, regardless of whether someone forced you to lend me that nickel or not (and the fact that Fannie and Freddie will pay your nickel if I fail to takes a lot of the sting out of it). If you lend me a nickel, and then bet someone else a hundred million dollars that I'll pay you back, and show them fraudulent documents indicating that I'll probably pay you back, you can't blame me when you lose that hundred million. That was all you.


Yep. I'll go with all of that as contributing factors. Fannie and Freddie were mixed up in all of this and they were widely believed to be no risk because no matter how bad they screwed up, the gov would step in.
Uh, Fannie and Freddie weren't the ones who propagated the idea that securitizing risky loans made them less risky. That was... private investment.

Dayuhan, bubbling and nosediving are what I see indicated--I'll admit we're not there yet. As for what we need, re: government oversight and private investment, what we need is for fraudsters and enemies of the state to be thrown in jail for their crimes. We can't function as a society when some groups are above the law, and the group that most flagrantly and exorbitantly flaunts the law in the US these days is investment bankers. It's useless to talk about more or less oversight when that oversight is utterly toothless.

Fuchs
01-03-2013, 02:34 AM
Fuchs:

Like I said, the whole thing boils down to bad home loans. Everybody piled in but if those loans had been repaid at the rates good home loans were, the problems would not have happened.

No, that was just the weak spot where the construct broke.
The basic problem was resource misallocation.

The banking sector is supposed to serve the national economy as a mediator for efficient resource allocation. It failed grossly, and that's how the problems and vulnerabilities were set up in the first place. The exact point where the fracture began which lead to the break is of little interest.

Of much greater interest is whether and how the banking incompetence in credit allocation and risk management can be tackled and what exogenous factors amplified the problems (loose money by Fed, useless SEC and Fed oversight, mandated loans, ...).


You cannot prevent a repeat of the crisis by tackling the subprime mortgage issue only. The roots of the problem would simply manifest themselves elsewhere, maybe in towns going bankrupt or another dotcom bubble or a raw materials speculation bubble etc.).

carl
01-03-2013, 02:38 AM
I understand that if all those loans had not been forced to be made the whole thing would not have happened. I understand to that one reason all the various shenanigans went on was because the gov wasn't doing things like watching what was going on. I understand that the banking sector is too bigger to fail than it was before. I understand that much. What I don't understand is the infield fly rule, or why the Indians don't seem likely to win a pennant in my lifetime. Come on, 1948 was a long time ago, we only live so long.

Uh, Fannie and Freddie were/are monstrous entities that pretend to be private institutions while taking advantage of the perception that any failures they had would ultimately be paid for by the taxpayer so that made them less risky...taxpayer money you see.

One thing I see is investment bankers gave an awful lot of money to the campaign of Mr. Obama and that many of the high up guys dealing with investment banking issues in the gov were formerly investment bankers.

carl
01-03-2013, 02:47 AM
The banking sector is supposed to serve the national economy as a mediator for efficient resource allocation. It failed grossly, and that's how the problems and vulnerabilities were set up in the first place. The exact point where the fracture began which lead to the break is of little interest.

Next time an airplane breaks up in flight and people are investigating to find out where the exact point the fracture began was, I am going to write them and tell them the important thing is that the airplane broke up, not where the exact point of where fracture began was.

The banking sector can't do and efficient job of allocating resources if an important part of its business is mandated by gov fiat. That distorts the thing.


Of much greater interest is whether and how the banking incompetence in credit allocation and risk management can be tackled and what exogenous factors amplified the problems (loose money by Fed, useless SEC and Fed oversight, mandated loans, ...).


You cannot prevent a repeat of the crisis by tackling the subprime mortgage issue only. The roots of the problem would simply manifest themselves elsewhere, maybe in towns going bankrupt or another dotcom bubble or a raw materials speculation bubble etc.).

The problem wasn't banking incompetence. The problem was the gov forcing them to be incompetent to further a political goal.

Not towns going bankrupt, states going bankrupt. And again, that is caused by political decisions.

Fuchs
01-03-2013, 02:47 AM
I understand that if all those loans had not been forced to be made the whole thing would not have happened.

The banking sector would likely have blown up either way.
Too many problems and inadequacies worked together to push for a crash. The U.S. economy produces a crash on the astonishing rate of about every decade. It's simply not stable or well-managed.
The special role of the USD may be a hidden enabler for this, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's just plain old poor regulation and oversight, especially since the 80's.

motorfirebox
01-03-2013, 02:57 AM
I understand that if all those loans had not been forced to be made the whole thing would not have happened. I understand to that one reason all the various shenanigans went on was because the gov wasn't doing things like watching what was going on. I understand that the banking sector is too bigger to fail than it was before. I understand that much.
Then you understand nothing. Silver Thursday happened just fine without the government forcing anyone to buy anything. As for the government not watching what was going on--the government, at the behest of the finance industry, passed that responsibility down to private enterprise. Oops. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/18/ratingagencies-rulings-idUSL2E8JHOBE20120818)


Uh, Fannie and Freddie were/are monstrous entities that pretend to be private institutions while taking advantage of the perception that any failures they had would ultimately be paid for by the taxpayer so that made them less risky...taxpayer money you see.
That's not what was being discussed, and not what you agreed with Dayuhan over. Dayuhan specifically mentioned securitizing bad debt as a factor in the crash. Securitizing bad debt is a completely separate concept from taxpayer backing of bad debt.


One thing I see is investment bankers gave an awful lot of money to the campaign of Mr. Obama and that many of the high up guys dealing with investment banking issues in the gov were formerly investment bankers.
Yes. It's unfortunate. Obama has shown slightly more willingness to restrict the finance industry than the GOP, but won't go so far as to throw people in jail for fraud on a scale that makes Bernie Madoff look like a three card monty hustler. So, because the Tea Party is even worse for the markets than Obama--seriously, trying to cancel the debt limit? Do you want to kickstart the zombie apocalypse? Wait, don't answer that--they've thrown their weight behind the Democrats. For the banks, it's a choice between total disaster and a slap on the wrist. For the lower and middle class, it's a choice between total disaster now and total disaster over the next few decades.

carl
01-03-2013, 03:03 AM
Fuchs:

There is something in what you say about poor regulation and oversight since the 80s. We gave up a lot of the rules that we established during the Depression in the interest of what ultimately turned out the be the interest of the big money men. We also have been developing a culture of impunity for the elites and the institutions dominated by them. That is going to get us in big trouble.

The banking sector may or may not have blown up either way but it wouldn't have blown up in the way it did without gov action.

The last real crash we had was the Depression. These things have been uncomfortable and disconcerting but not crashes on that scale. I don't know if the economy is stable or well managed. That sort of depends on what the definition of stable and well managed is, and that can vary depending on the men making it. That concerns me. It was free more or less. In the long run free is better even with the ups and downs. Creative destruction and all that.

carl
01-03-2013, 03:16 AM
Then you understand nothing. Silver Thursday happened just fine without the government forcing anyone to buy anything. As for the government not watching what was going on--the government, at the behest of the finance industry, passed that responsibility down to private enterprise. Oops. (http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/08/18/ratingagencies-rulings-idUSL2E8JHOBE20120818)

I do too understand stuff. Honest. I understand the offsides rule in soccer/football and I understand why when the Kuwaiti team long ago tried to depend on that they ended up failures. So that is something.

The gov was watching what was going on. They were watching very closely to see that what they figured were enough of what the lending institutions had formerly figured were bad loans were being made to people who were poor credit risks. Then when those people couldn't pay, a predictable event, things fell apart.


That's not what was being discussed, and not what you agreed with Dayuhan over. Dayuhan specifically mentioned securitizing bad debt as a factor in the crash. Securitizing bad debt is a completely separate concept from taxpayer backing of bad debt.

No, what I understood Dayuhan's main point to be was the gov establishing perverse incentives. In my view that sort of institutionalized moral hazard.

carl
01-03-2013, 03:27 AM
(and the fact that Fannie and Freddie will pay your nickel if I fail to takes a lot of the sting out of it).

Oh I forgot to comment on this. Fannie and Freddie may have their name on the check, but it is my money they are spending. That makes that check much easier to write.

As far as that hundred million dollar bet about the nickel, it is a bet that the nickel will be paid, not that a particular person will pay it. Much easier to make that bet when Fannie and Freddie are going to back it with my money.

I already said something about moral hazard didn't I.

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 03:27 AM
Dayuhan, bubbling and nosediving are what I see indicated--I'll admit we're not there yet. As for what we need, re: government oversight and private investment, what we need is for fraudsters and enemies of the state to be thrown in jail for their crimes. We can't function as a society when some groups are above the law, and the group that most flagrantly and exorbitantly flaunts the law in the US these days is investment bankers. It's useless to talk about more or less oversight when that oversight is utterly toothless.

That seems to me a bit like leaving a kilo of ground beef in front of your dog, telling the dog not to eat it, then coming back the next day and whacking the stuffing out of the dog for having eaten the meat. I've no objection to punishing those who committed fraud, but throwing some or a lot of investment bankers in jail is going to provide little more than emotional satisfaction if we don't recognize and stop repeating the perverse incentives that encouraged and rewarded their behaviour. Again, the illusion that regulation or oversight can somehow compensate for bad management of incentives needs to be perforated and dismissed.

Backwards Observer
01-03-2013, 03:29 AM
Enjoy.



U.S. Public Opinion on Torture, 2001–2009

Many journalists and politicians believe that during the Bush administration, a majority of Americans supported torture if they were assured that it would prevent a terrorist attack. As Mark Danner wrote in the April 2009 New York Review of Books, “Polls tend to show that a majority of Americans are willing to support torture only when they are assured that it will ‘thwart a terrorist attack.’” This view was repeated frequently in both left and right leaning articles and blogs, as well as in European papers (Sharrock 2008; Judd 2008;Koppelman 2009; Liberation 2008).There was a consensus, in other words, that throughout the years of the Bush administration, public opinion surveys tended to show a pro-torture American majority.

But this view was a misperception. Using a new survey dataset on torture collected duringthe 2008 election, combined with a comprehensive archive of public opinion on torture, we show here that a majority of Americans were opposed to torture throughout the Bush presidency. This stance was true even when respondents were asked about an imminent terrorist attack, even when enhanced interrogation techniques were not called torture, and even when Americans were assured that torture would work to get crucial information. Opposition to torture remained stable and consistent during the entire Bush presidency. Even soldiers serving in Iraq opposed the use of torture in these conditions. As we show in the following, a public majority in favor of torture did not appear until, interestingly, six months into the Obama administration. (Reed College Symposium)

Public Opinion on US Torture, 2001-2009 (http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/articles/US_Public_Opinion_Torture_Gronke_Rejali.pdf) - Reed College Symposium Paper

+++

Elizabethan Crime and Punishment (http://www.william-shakespeare.info/elizabethan-crime-punishment.htm) - www.william-shakespeare.info

What we can learn from the torture scene in Shakespeare's King Lear (http://my.firedoglake.com/valtin/2010/03/14/what-we-can-learn-from-the-torture-scene-in-shakespeares-king-lear/) - firedoglake - 3.14.2010

+++

Lingchi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_slicing) - wikipedia

+++

Medieval Torture (http://www.medievality.com/torture.html) - medievality.com

+++

The Water Cure (http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/02/25/080225fa_fact_kramer) - new yorker - 2.25.2008

+++

Torture Practices of the Ancient World (http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/the-worst-ways-to-die-torture-practices-of-the-ancient-world-a-625172.html) - spiegel - 5.15.2009

jcustis
01-03-2013, 03:34 AM
What do Fannie and Freddie have to do with waterboarding and collateral damage?:wry:

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 03:35 AM
I think it does because I think it is clear that there is a right path. We have to cut the expenditure on entitlements. There is no way around that. That may be discussed, but it isn't acted upon. In my view it isn't acted upon because of a lack of moral courage.

That is related to the suits using torture and then using their fine educations to rationalize it. Lack of moral foundation and lack of moral courage...maybe the same animal viewed in different parts of the spectrum.

Do you suggest that those who hold opinions other than yours lack moral courage? There's a considerable spectrum of opinion out there on where and how to cut spending and where and how to increase revenue, and I don't see any clear indication of an objectively "right" path within that spectrum of opinion. The common folk, top to bottom, have their own inconsistencies: the prevailing opinion seems to be that somebody else should pay more tax and less should be spent on entitlements that benefit somebody else.

motorfirebox
01-03-2013, 03:36 AM
No, what I understood Dayuhan's main point to be was the gov establishing perverse incentives. In my view that sort of institutionalized moral hazard.
Really? You understood "the perception that if you pool enough dubious loans together they somehow cease to be dubious" to be about government establishing perverse incentives? Because, wow. That's not at all what that phrase means.


I do too understand stuff. Honest. I understand the offsides rule in soccer/football and I understand why when the Kuwaiti team long ago tried to depend on that they ended up failures. So that is something.

The gov was watching what was going on. They were watching very closely to see that what they figured were enough of what the lending institutions had formerly figured were bad loans were being made to people who were poor credit risks. Then when those people couldn't pay, a predictable event, things fell apart.
Yeah, see, you can say you understand "stuff", but when you're flatly ignorant of the role the ratings companies played? That indicates that you actually don't understand stuff.

Regardless, that's twice you've shifted goalposts in a single page, which is more crap than I'm willing to deal with.

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 03:42 AM
What do Fannie and Freddie have to do with waterboarding and collateral damage?:wry:

The link seems to be the proposition that torture, financial crises, and presumably much of the range of unpleasantness between trace back to a lack of some construct called "moral courage". Make of that what you will. I'm still not sure I understand what it's meant to be, beyond vigorous agreement with whoever is making the argument based on "moral courage".

carl
01-03-2013, 04:00 AM
Public Opinion on US Torture, 2001-2009 (http://academic.reed.edu/poli_sci/faculty/rejali/articles/US_Public_Opinion_Torture_Gronke_Rejali.pdf) - Reed College Symposium Paper

That was a great paper. It is filled with all kinds of insight. It gives me hope that what a Sergeant said to a fearful Iraqi in Brandon Friedman's "The War I Always Wanted" is still somewhat true. The Sergeant said "We're Americans. We don't do that ####."

The paper also brings up the question of why segments of the elite in gov, Cheney, Woo etc and the media, Jack Bauer and his ilk, why have they lost their moral foundation?

carl
01-03-2013, 04:06 AM
Do you suggest that those who hold opinions other than yours lack moral courage? There's a considerable spectrum of opinion out there on where and how to cut spending and where and how to increase revenue, and I don't see any clear indication of an objectively "right" path within that spectrum of opinion. The common folk, top to bottom, have their own inconsistencies: the prevailing opinion seems to be that somebody else should pay more tax and less should be spent on entitlements that benefit somebody else.

Hell yea. Sometimes when people act upon opinions that differ from mine, damn right they lack moral courage or moral foundation. If an officer messes with a prisoner and another officer doesn't say anything because he want to get along, he lacks moral courage. When somebody says torture is ok if, if, if...he lack moral foundation altogether. So yea, at times.

That is a good encapsulation of perhaps the prevailing attitude your last sentence is. And not to point out that that is childish and will lead to disaster regardless of the consequences is moral cowardice.

Backwards Observer
01-03-2013, 04:16 AM
why have they lost their moral foundation?

Don't ask me. I just work here.


In sum, the study found, power doesn’t corrupt; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. Which brings to mind another maxim, from Abraham Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”


Why Power Corrupts. (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Why-Power-Corrupts-169804606.html?device=ipad#) - Smithsonian - Oct, 2012.

carl
01-03-2013, 04:18 AM
Really? You understood "the perception that if you pool enough dubious loans together they somehow cease to be dubious" to be about government establishing perverse incentives? Because, wow. That's not at all what that phrase means.

I did understand. Though I had to read it real slow and then put my thinking cap on and cogitate hard before I got it. Because, wow, if government provides perverse incentives and subsidizes moral hazard, it may tend to lead to dubious groupthink.


Yeah, see, you can say you understand "stuff", but when you're flatly ignorant of the role the ratings companies played? That indicates that you actually don't understand stuff.

I already said I understood the offsides rule in soccer/football. That is stuff, I think.

Anyway, I do understand that because ratings companies were paid by financial institutions to rate them and the investments they offered there was an inherent conflict of interest. That was not a good thing. See, not so ignorant, at least not completely, totally, blindingly, maddeningly ignorant.


Regardless, that's twice you've shifted goalposts in a single page, which is more crap than I'm willing to deal with.

I have a question. How come when I wrote #### as part of a quote in post 77 it came out ####, but when you write crap, it comes out crap? I don't understand that.

carl
01-03-2013, 04:28 AM
Backwards Observer:

You provide good links.

That one says more or less that the good stay good and the bad stay bad. Our elites, to me, seem to be trending bad. I don't know why either. Maybe it has something to do with the paramount importance of being nice. That may sound paradoxical but in order maintain the right (thank you RCMP), you have to say no at times, which isn't nice.

I don't know, I am still trying to puzzle this out.

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 04:59 AM
Hell yea. Sometimes when people act upon opinions that differ from mine, damn right they lack moral courage or moral foundation. If an officer messes with a prisoner and another officer doesn't say anything because he want to get along, he lacks moral courage. When somebody says torture is ok if, if, if...he lack moral foundation altogether. So yea, at times.

I would suggest that matters of economic policy may not be one of those times.


I have a question. How come when I wrote #### as part of a quote in post 77 it came out ####, but when you write crap, it comes out crap? I don't understand that.

Try $#!t. It's comprehensible and passes. Or "scheisse", "merde", or the translation of your choice

carl
01-03-2013, 05:04 AM
Try $#!t. It's comprehensible and passes. Or "scheisse", "merde", or the translation of your choice

$#!t you're right! It works!

(Your response made me laugh.)

motorfirebox
01-03-2013, 05:06 AM
I did understand. Though I had to read it real slow and then put my thinking cap on and cogitate hard before I got it. Because, wow, if government provides perverse incentives and subsidizes moral hazard, it may tend to lead to dubious groupthink.
Wow. Just... wow.

Wow.

carl
01-03-2013, 05:07 AM
Wow. Just... wow.

Wow.

Yep. That's what they all say.

(stage direction: that is to be said in a drawling Clint Walker sort of way. Like when he said to Kim Novak in a movie "Just because I talk slow don't mean I'm peculiar.")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOiqicU5-tk

Surferbeetle
01-03-2013, 05:09 AM
Carl,

As long as we are considering things, 'a man's character is his fate' is attributed to Heraclitus...

...PBS Frontline always has some interesting programs:

The Crash: Unraveling the 1998 Global Crisis, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/crash/

Money, Power, & Wallstreet, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/money-power-wall-street/

...and the Open Secrets: Money in Politics website is always interesting, http://www.opensecrets.org

carl
01-03-2013, 05:18 AM
Surferbeetle:

That Open Secrets site had an interesting quote by an airline captain. I'm sure he still has his job. You can do a lot as a captain, sometimes it's sort of fun.

Backwards Observer
01-03-2013, 05:26 AM
Backwards Observer: You provide good links.

Better nip this in the bud.


Dorakyura Tsū: Noroi no Fūin

Simon thought he had destroyed him - but Count Dracula may have the last laugh. Castlevania is facing disaster, and Simon is turning into a vampire. Unless Simon can defeat Dracula once and for all, Castlevania is doomed.


Dorakyura Tsū: Noroi no Fūin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_II:_Simon%27s_Quest)

carl
01-03-2013, 05:28 AM
Backwards Observer:

When did this turn into improv night?

I'm still laughing at that. Castlevania is doomed!

motorfirebox
01-03-2013, 05:36 AM
Yep. That's what they all say.

(stage direction: that is to be said in a drawling Clint Walker sort of way. Like when he said to the dance hall girl in a movie "Just because I talk slow don't mean I'm peculiar.")

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOiqicU5-tk
Mm. I'm posting this so that I'll remember to not engage with you in the future: you are, without a doubt, the least intellectually honest person I've ever tried to have a discussion with. If you put half as much effort into being smart as you do into trying to be clever, you wouldn't have to resort to shifting the discourse every time someone raises a solid point against your position. There are good, reasonable, convincing arguments against the arguments I'm putting forward--I know this, because other people have made them. You haven't. You've obfuscated, you've avoided, you've deliberately misunderstood, but you haven't debated with anything approaching honesty. It's a tiresome habit that you really ought to work yourself away from.

carl
01-03-2013, 05:41 AM
Mm. I'm posting this so that I'll remember to not engage with you in the future: you are, without a doubt, the least intellectually honest person I've ever tried to have a discussion with. If you put half as much effort into being smart as you do into trying to be clever, you wouldn't have to resort to shifting the discourse every time someone raises a solid point against your position. There are good, reasonable, convincing arguments against the arguments I'm putting forward--I know this, because other people have made them. You haven't. You've obfuscated, you've avoided, you've deliberately misunderstood, but you haven't debated with anything approaching honesty. It's a tiresome habit that you really ought to work yourself away from.

We all have our faults. But at least my mother liked me.

Or alternatively- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C6cxNR9ML8k

Bill Moore
01-03-2013, 05:48 AM
I think Entropy effectively addressed the OP's original question: torture is intentional, collateral damage is accidental. Apples and oranges.

The point of thread diversion arrived here, as far as I can tell:



That sparked a digression into the impact of tax rates on government revenues.

Not that it's any less a digression, but I must say I think it would be a good idea to have entry into a war accompanied by a mandatory war tax, partly because that would help pay for a war, but far more because it would make politicians think twice, or thee or four times, before they decide to go to war.

The idea that moral degradation or a lack of moral courage could result in the use of torture may have merit. It's also true, though, that the idea of "moral courage" can also be twisted into a conviction that the morally courageous know what is right and must do what is right no matter where that leads. People who know they are right are a good deal scarier to me than people who accept that they might be wrong, or at least not completely right, even though doubt may in some circles appear to signify a lack of moral courage.

I don't know that moral courage or moral degradation have anything to do with the current economic problems.

Actually Carl responded promptly to my post and addressed the issue I was addressing regarding morals, but then he had to add a p.s. and Fuchs couldn't let go and several posts later we get torture:o

I think your point about moral degradation having nothing to do with our current economic problems is about as far from reality as one can drift and not disappear into a black hole. It certainly wasn't the sole factor, but it definitely contributed to it.

One can argue the morality associated with torture, and while I may be wrong, I generally assumed our intelligence agencies (not the military) always were prepared to use coercive interrogation methods in extreme cases if they truly believed it was the only method to prevent an atrocity. That sure as hell doesn't mean it should have been approved as general policy, or to make matters worse then out sourcing it to incompetent contractors who had no expertise in conducting interrogation.

carl
01-03-2013, 05:57 AM
One can argue the morality associated with torture, and while I may be wrong, I generally assumed our intelligence agencies (not the military) always were prepared to use coercive interrogation methods in extreme cases if they truly believed it was the only method to prevent an atrocity. That sure as hell doesn't mean it should have been approved as general policy, or to make matters worse then out sourcing it to incompetent contractors who had no expertise in conducting interrogation.

If it is done by intel agencies doesn't that make it a de-facto approved policy?

Bill Moore
01-03-2013, 07:38 AM
There is a big difference between extremely limited (assuming it ever happened prior to the Bush administration) exceptions to policy that are not overtly advertised as a change in policy by an administration.

We're discussing the possibility for an exception to policy, not a change to policy, and keeping it on the low. I still agree it is a method the weak and twisted, but I still allow for a potential exception.

Kiwigrunt
01-03-2013, 10:17 AM
New title:

Torture versus taxation; the bigger evil?

That should make for a short thread.:D

- - - - - - -


Torture is intentional, collateral damage is accidental.

The first part seems obvious. But I’m not sure that the intentionality of the act is what makes it intrinsically immoral. Going to war in the sandbox was also intentional, and so is the death penalty.

Collateral damage may be unintended, but I should think that in many cases it is clearly possible and probable. So it would seem an accepted side effect to the intentional action.
Is the acceptability contingent on the (un)predictability of its scope? Does that provide a smoke screen over the morality of it?
Craphappencidental seems to hover somewhere between accidental and intentional.

carl
01-03-2013, 03:45 PM
We're discussing the possibility for an exception to policy, not a change to policy, and keeping it on the low. I still agree it is a method the weak and twisted, but I still allow for a potential exception.

That isn't an exception to policy. It is still a policy to torture. If we torture but only sometimes and keep it quiet, we still torture. That is just an attempt to convince ourselves we aren't weak and twisted

Fuchs
01-03-2013, 04:03 PM
In the long run free is better even with the ups and downs. Creative destruction and all that.

You're also talking about the "too big to fail" sector here...

Seriously, there's not much creative destruction any more in the U.S. economy or in European economies. Cassette tapes got pushed aside by CDs and there are some other anecdotes, but the big creative destruction moves don't happen because the existing winners are entrenched and have much influence on politicians and media. They can also pervert the patent and other copyright laws to their ends, by using them to kill off true innovators with fraudulent challenges.
It's also very difficult to innovate and destroy something old in a world where technology has advanced so much that tech wizards in garages simply don't cut it any more. You need teams of dozens of people even for smallish development enterprises. There aren't many Dysons around.

carl
01-03-2013, 05:07 PM
Fuchs:

Sadly I must agree. Little that is established is allowed to fail, especially in the financial world. We made noises about not letting things be to big to fail but the banking world is more concentrated than ever. I read an article in the Atlantic (that used to be a good magazine until it went straight party line about two years ago) years ago that said if the IMF was handling the US crisis in 2008, all those big banks would have been nationalized, broken up and sold. But of course it wasn't because the too many of the superzips would have been hurt. As you say, the existing winners protecting themselves.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/05/the-quiet-coup/307364/

Dayuhan
01-03-2013, 10:33 PM
I think your point about moral degradation having nothing to do with our current economic problems is about as far from reality as one can drift and not disappear into a black hole. It certainly wasn't the sole factor, but it definitely contributed to it.

Again, setting up circumstances that seem almost designed to reward and encourage "immoral" financial behavour and then blaming "moral degradation" for the consequences seems... well, see the analogy above with the dog and the ground beef.


The first part seems obvious. But I’m not sure that the intentionality of the act is what makes it intrinsically immoral. Going to war in the sandbox was also intentional, and so is the death penalty.

Collateral damage may be unintended, but I should think that in many cases it is clearly possible and probable. So it would seem an accepted side effect to the intentional action.
Is the acceptability contingent on the (un)predictability of its scope? Does that provide a smoke screen over the morality of it?
Craphappencidental seems to hover somewhere between accidental and intentional.

Has there ever been a war that was not marked by accusations of torture, atrocity, etc? One might call those parts of collateral damages, as they inevitably seem to accompany war. Of course it was... clumsy, to put it mildly, for the administration to openly sanction that behaviour, rather than expressing shock and carrying on, as the habit of the past has generally been.

Going to war brings a host of miseries, torture and collateral damage among them. It guts the finances too, if we want to get taxes back into he picture. Still we do it... because we believe we must? Because we know it's right? Because we have the "moral courage" to stiffen our upper lips and take on the grim tasks that we know, or maybe believe, must be done?

davidbfpo
04-22-2014, 05:45 PM
An academic paper 'The (in)effectiveness of torture for combating insurgency' by an American academic; the abstract is quite long, so this is from the opening passage:
It is commonly believed that torture is an effective tool for combating an insurgent threat. Yet while torture is practiced in nearly all counterinsurgency campaigns, the evidence documenting torture’s effects remains severely limited. This study provides the first micro-level statistical analysis of torture’s relation to subsequent killings committed by insurgent and counterinsurgent forces. The theoretical arguments contend that torture is ineffective for reducing killings perpetrated by insurgents both because it fails to reduce insurgent capacities for violence and because it can increase the incentives for insurgents to commit future killings. The theory also links torture to other forms of state violence. Specifically, engaging in torture is expected to be associated with increased killings perpetrated by counterinsurgents. Monthly municipal-level data on political violence are used to analyze torture committed by counterinsurgents during the Guatemalan civil war (1977–94). Using a matched-sample, difference-in-difference identification strategy and data compiled from 22 different press and NGO sources as well as thousands of interviews, the study estimates how torture is related to short-term changes in killings perpetrated by both insurgents and counterinsurgents. Killings by counterinsurgents are shown to increase significantly following torture. However, torture appears to have no robust correlation with subsequent killings by insurgents. Based on this evidence the study concludes that torture is ineffective for reducing insurgent perpetrated killings.

Link:http://jpr.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/03/25/0022343313520023.full

davidbfpo
12-09-2014, 08:00 PM
I am sure SWC readers, many of them in the USA, have seen the media flurry over the US Senate report on the CIA's use of torture. There are many arguments over the report's contents, whether it should have been released and what has been / is the impact.

I shall link only one UK press report:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11283035/CIA-torture-report-summary.html and one desscriptive piece on the abuses:http://www.vox.com/2014/12/9/7360823/cia-torture-roundup

I did find the remarks of John McCain worth reading in full; his stance on torture is well known and he does ask questions the USA should get answers to:http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1a15e343-66b0-473f-b0c1-a58f984db996

Instead of citing Ali Soufan, the ex-FBI Agent, I have chosen an ex-British Army interrogator. His short piece ends with:
I personally think that one of the key weapons which will defeat Islamic fundamentalism is the moral superiority of the plurality of those who oppose it, whether Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, secular or whatever, and what the Senate Intelligence Committee has told us today suggests that, for a time, the CIA gave up that superiority. How can we now claim that we are better than they are?Link:http://adrianweale.com/2014/12/09/interrogation-and-torture/

(Added later) A detailed riposte by:
....former CIA Directors George J. Tenet, Porter J. Goss and Michael V. Hayden (a retired Air Force general), and former CIA Deputy Directors John E. McLaughlin, Albert M. Calland (a retired Navy vice admiral) and Stephen R. Kappes.
Link to WSJ article:http://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-interrogations-saved-lives-1418142644

OUTLAW 09
12-10-2014, 06:24 AM
I am sure SWC readers, many of them in the USA, have seen the media flurry over the US Senate report on the CIA's use of torture. There are many arguments over the report's contents, whether it should have been released and what has been / is the impact.

I shall link only one UK press report:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11283035/CIA-torture-report-summary.html and one desscriptive piece on the abuses:http://www.vox.com/2014/12/9/7360823/cia-torture-roundup

I did find the remarks of John McCain worth reading in full; his stance on torture is well known and he does ask questions the USA should get answers to:http://www.mccain.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/press-releases?ID=1a15e343-66b0-473f-b0c1-a58f984db996

Instead of citing Ali Soufan, the ex-FBI Agent, I have chosen an ex-British Army interrogator. His short piece ends with:Link:http://adrianweale.com/2014/12/09/interrogation-and-torture/

(Added later) A detailed riposte by:
Link to WSJ article:http://www.wsj.com/articles/cia-interrogations-saved-lives-1418142644

David---an interesting and timely thread which ties into two other ongoing threads.

I will comment more later when I have read through the main document but as someone who was a strategic debriefer here in Berlin for over 15 years at eight hours per day five days a week and year after year working in two languages and using interpreters for four others.

And having been a CWO Interrogation Technican and having been an a defense contractor interrogator in both Abu Ghraib and in the field with the 3/3 BCT in Baqubah Diyala AND having been in the IC when the Nixon years forced the system to use effectively for years the "intelligence bible" as what one could and could not do--people need to go to jail.

Why--we sent young soldiers to military prison for their actions in Abu G but not a single senior personality went with them---and now what we just look the other way again?

I spent hours talking with some of the hardest of the hardest Salafists in Abu G, Bucca and in the field---and regardless of their and my personal biases using rapport and respect I had conversations that would raise the eyes and ears of the current senior civilian leadership.

Mistakes that were serious from the beginning;

1. we use often unexperienced interrogators on the military side who where often under the age of 22

2. they had absolutely no understanding of Salafism, insurgency and or it's TTPs and only simply wanted to put people in prison

3. large numbers of these interrogators had never worked with interpreters at all before Iraq

4. a large number of Intel analysts spoke no Arabic and were under the rank of SGT

davidbfpo
12-10-2014, 10:16 AM
Strangely and from Twitter:
Remember this: to date, only CIA officer jailed over torture program is guy who helped reveal it.

From the cited, long report:
In January of this year, the 15-year CIA veteran was sentenced to two and a half years in prison on charges of revealing classified information, including the name of a covert CIA operative. But he and his supporters claim that the government's case against him was a matter of political retaliation, part of an aggressive targeting that began when he became the first CIA employee to speak publicly, in 2007, about the CIA's use of waterboarding.
Link:http://motherboard.vice.com/en_uk/blog/torturer-whistleblower-reporter-spy-john-kiriakou

OUTLAW 09
12-10-2014, 11:38 AM
David---an interesting and timely thread which ties into two other ongoing threads.

I will comment more later when I have read through the main document but as someone who was a strategic debriefer here in Berlin for over 15 years at eight hours per day five days a week and year after year working in two languages and using interpreters for four others.

And having been a CWO Interrogation Technican and having been an a defense contractor interrogator in both Abu Ghraib and in the field with the 3/3 BCT in Baqubah Diyala AND having been in the IC when the Nixon years forced the system to use effectively for years the "intelligence bible" as what one could and could not do--people need to go to jail.

Why--we sent young soldiers to military prison for their actions in Abu G but not a single senior personality went with them---and now what we just look the other way again?

I spent hours talking with some of the hardest of the hardest Salafists in Abu G, Bucca and in the field---and regardless of their and my personal biases using rapport and respect I had conversations that would raise the eyes and ears of the current senior civilian leadership.

Mistakes that were serious from the beginning;

1. we use often unexperienced interrogators on the military side who where often under the age of 22

2. they had absolutely no understanding of Salafism, insurgency and or it's TTPs and only simply wanted to put people in prison

3. large numbers of these interrogators had never worked with interpreters at all before Iraq

4. a large number of Intel analysts spoke no Arabic and were under the rank of SGT

After reading in excess of 500 pages it struck me that a number of things came out that even surprised me;

1. many of those CIA personnel conducting interrogations were not even trained interrogators or even strategic debriefers

2. and actually how little they themselves even knew of the Salaifst movements

3. how little those involved in the actual interrogations actually raised their voices and stated this is not working--almost to a degree a cognitive dissonance thing

What is not discussed is that after the Abu G scandal and until this released document no one has seen fit to go back and look at the enhanced interrogation techniques being used at Abu G and what was ongoing in the CIA program---it was one and the same thing--AND this is key just how did the military side fully understand them and or felt they were "allowed" to use them? We sent low ranking military personnel to jail for what the CIA was doing and yet none of them have been charged.

There were some serious rumors that CIA civilians were also in Abu G at the same time as the scandal but never verified which is easy of one takes the time to investigate as a number of civilian contract interrogators can verify it.

I arrived at Abu G right after the scandal and the lines of what were allowed and what were not was strictly enforced---came back in early 2006 and presto there were again "enhanced measures" in play that I even asked questions about and everyone pointed upwards and stated---they have been approved from MNF-I---but still they were a "modified enhanced concept" that pushed my GC buttons.

One of the most serious mistakes made by the Bush administration was the definition they used to define who was and was not an "enemy combatant"--as that determined whether one was a POW and or just a "civilian" with no rights.

By denying thousands POW status the Bush administration basically under cut the GC which in the end is the only protection a US soldier has when captured.

Yes POWs can refuse to answer questions---so what --it makes the job a little harder but it still can work and did work well with those interrogators who knew what they were doing.

Again back to US Army interrogators---most Americans would be totally surprised if they knew the interrogators often had absolutely no idea about any of the Iraq insurgent groups, understood very little about guerrilla warfare ie the TTPs and just about anything else in Iraq---even up to 2010 they were still having problems in the field and at Abu G.

Example---with a prison holding 6000 prisoners one would expect to find similar ongoing issues that one sees in US prisons but with an insurgency focus--there was ongoing "rock mail" where the detainees knew everything that was ongoing in the camp and what questions were being asked and held recruitment, indoctrination training and IED training all within the prison and under the noses of the guards---when I brought that to the attention of the IC and asked for collection guidance--was told we are not interested.

Only after forcing on to the IC several reports about the ongoing insurgent training inside Abu G ---then finally the national level IC sent down collection guidance---this was early 2006 three years into the war.

Another example--in 2006 due to the extreme shortage of trained interrogators the Army in all of it's wisdom sent a strategic debriefing BN from of all places Korea-- who spoke only Korean and had not an earthly idea even where Iraq was and or who was QJBR/AQI? It took them almost six months to get settle in and then they were mentally "going home" three months later.

OR the other services would send volunteers ie Navy and AF to the Army interrogation school and then off to Iraq where they went home after six months creating a massive amount of churn and instability in the collection processes.

It just was not the CIA--the entire US intelligence interrogation system had serious issues and yet no one talks about it.

The overall failures of the Army interrogation program in Iraq is a little know disaster that no one wants the rug lifted on because someone might just ask-- Why?

OUTLAW 09
12-10-2014, 05:56 PM
My response on the current SWJ thread COIN--Failure? Reading the 2007 interview is critical as the same writer now a professor wrote an editorial that was in the NYTs today ---the Abu Ghraib scandal has never been fully investigated. See:http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/10/opinion/the-torture-report-reminds-us-of-what-america-was.html?_r=0

Then my friend you have not fully understood one of the key reasons we and COIN failed in Iraq---which by the way I have often called a war of perception.

Your problem is you throw so much theory, academic readings, books,and quotes that you simply fail to both "see" and "understand"---until you do you will never progress. You would do well to fully understand the concept "seeing" and "understanding"--ie reality on the ground vs reality in books.

Remember people die from reality not books.

I knew this individual you did not thus you do no have any concept of the reality of Iraq thus the "war of perception."

You have never had an Iraqi insurgent look you in the eyes and say---"what if I do not say anything-- you will send me to Gitmo anyway right or to Abu Ghraib anyway"--that my friend is and was Iraq---so get out of the books and into the field.

You have never had to be a prosecutor, defense lawyer, jury, and judge and make decisions on individuals that had second and third or even fourth order of effects if you made one wrong decision.

You have absolutely no true knowledge of Iraq and yet you seriously think Iraq was a COIN success.

Would do yourself well to read the article and to think about it since the release yesterday of the CIA report.

AND then ask yourself how did that drive the insurgency against the US--and in that part of the world "perception matters".

An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801680.html

Network News

By Eric Fair
Friday, February 9, 2007


A man with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.

That dream, along with a host of other nightmares, has plagued me since my return from Iraq in the summer of 2004. Though the man in this particular nightmare has no face, I know who he is. I assisted in his interrogation at a detention facility in Fallujah. I was one of two civilian interrogators assigned to the division interrogation facility (DIF) of the 82nd Airborne Division. The man, whose name I've long since forgotten, was a suspected associate of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, the Baath Party leader in Anbar province who had been captured two months earlier.

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

While I was appalled by the conduct of my friends and colleagues, I lacked the courage to challenge the status quo. That was a failure of character and in many ways made me complicit in what went on. I'm ashamed of that failure, but as time passes, and as the memories of what I saw in Iraq continue to infect my every thought, I'm becoming more ashamed of my silence.

Some may suggest there is no reason to revive the story of abuse in Iraq. Rehashing such mistakes will only harm our country, they will say. But history suggests we should examine such missteps carefully. Oppressive prison environments have created some of the most determined opponents. The British learned that lesson from Napoleon, the French from Ho Chi Minh, Europe from Hitler. The world is learning that lesson again from Ayman al-Zawahiri. What will be the legacy of abusive prisons in Iraq?

We have failed to properly address the abuse of Iraqi detainees. Men like me have refused to tell our stories, and our leaders have refused to own up to the myriad mistakes that have been made. But if we fail to address this problem, there can be no hope of success in Iraq. Regardless of how many young Americans we send to war, or how many militia members we kill, or how many Iraqis we train, or how much money we spend on reconstruction, we will not escape the damage we have done to the people of Iraq in our prisons.

I am desperate to get on with my life and erase my memories of my experiences in Iraq. But those memories and experiences do not belong to me. They belong to history. If we're doomed to repeat the history we forget, what will be the consequences of the history we never knew? The citizens and the leadership of this country have an obligation to revisit what took place in the interrogation booths of Iraq, unpleasant as it may be. The story of Abu Ghraib isn't over. In many ways, we have yet to open the book.

OUTLAW 09
12-10-2014, 06:20 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-us-must-open-the-book-on-the-use-of-torture-to-move-forward/2014/04/11/67925756-c18e-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2014/1210/CIA-torture-report-In-Iraq-US-abuses-and-their-consequences-are-old-news?cmpid=addthis_twitter

Well worth the read.

davidbfpo
12-10-2014, 08:11 PM
First John Schindler, ex-NSA, who was serving after 9/11, has a long column and I cite only one passage:
Let there be no misunderstanding. While CIA officials are now insisting, contra the SSCI report, that the special interrogation program was a success, having prevented terrorism — and there is no doubt their claims are largely correct, in a technical sense — from any big picture view, it was a disaster, having delivered minimal gains at vast and enduring political cost.
Link:http://20committee.com/2014/12/10/cia-torture-an-insiders-view/comment-page-1/#comment-30998

Second Nigel Inkster, ex-SIS (MI6) and now @ IISS. Again one passage:
The entire global history of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency shows that when governments are suddenly confronted by a seemingly existential threat they do not understand, they invariably overreact and resort to illiberal techniques to address the threat. This appears to be part and parcel of the human condition.
Link:http://www.iiss.org/en/iiss%20voices/blogsections/iiss-voices-2014-b4d9/december-78da/inkster-torture-c673

Firn
12-11-2014, 11:37 AM
Looking back it is amazing how quickly key institutions of the USA endorsed wide-spread torture and too which degree they tried to justify with 'legal' arguments. Considering the incredible investment into that whole aspect of the war against terrorism it is just astonishing how little mostly rational and objective arguments for the long-term benefit of the USA as a nation seem to have played. Insititutional imperatives, often self-interested actors, social and political pressure and other internal dynamics trumped them badly, with some good 'ol gut feeling thrown in at the highest decision levels. In the end the ever present ordinary men tortured on the orders of other ordinary ones sitting at their desks. Many around the world, US citiziens obviously included, already payed a high price and will many more will likely pay for those actions by the US and to a lesser degree by some of it's allies.

I feel mostly sadness, so much blood, effort and capital invested, so much pain inflicted and so much wasted for so little overall gain, if at all.

davidbfpo
12-11-2014, 05:23 PM
In an article in Strife (from KIngs War Studies) a former US Army colonel asks questions that maybe fit here better than the partisan politics in the USA:
There are important questions about how the program may have affected the conduct of the wars, including:


To what extent did the perceptions and justifications of the program, to include the actual and perceived use of torture, affect our soldiers and their mission?
To what extent did senior leaders’ public justifications of the program affect broader policy and strategy options in the conduct of the wars?
To what extent did perceptions and justifications of the program promote an ends-justify-the-means mentality within the military in Afghanistan and Iraq?
To what extent did the perceptions and justifications foster a belief in the military that such practices were acceptable and could be used by them in combat?
To what extent did ‘false positives’ or erroneous reports, perhaps made out of fear of torture, lead to military actions that cost lives (civilian and military) and created unnecessary enemies?
To what extent did the actual and perceived use of torture compromise the military’s moral standing in the eyes of the people in Afghanistan and Iraq? In what ways did that affect the mission and its prospects of success?

Link:http://strifeblog.org/2014/12/11/did-torture-cost-american-lives/

OUTLAW 09
12-11-2014, 06:32 PM
In an article in Strife (from KIngs War Studies) a former US Army colonel asks questions that maybe fit here better than the partisan politics in the USA:
[/LIST]
Link:http://strifeblog.org/2014/12/11/did-torture-cost-american-lives/

Bluntly put---it killed any chance of a success in Iraq---the CIA program was only one part of a systemic intel problem throughout the entire military detainee and interrogation program in Iraq that "cost" the US in the long run the support of the Sunni population.

Firn
06-24-2015, 06:27 PM
I just came across the latest global surveys by Pews (http://www.pewglobal.org/2015/06/23/global-publics-back-u-s-on-fighting-isis-but-are-critical-of-post-911-torture/). It is important to conserve a critical view, especially in some cases of some countries but it is still highly interesting stuff:

http://www.pewglobal.org/files/2015/06/PG_15.06.22_TortureScatter.png

Despite all the reservations it is stark stuff to see where the US are on that chart and in which company...