Daniel Little — Rationality over the long term

Here I want to look more closely than usual at what is involved in reflecting on one's purposes and values, formulating a plan for the medium or long term, and acting in the short term in ways that further the big plan. My topic is "rationality in action", but I want to pay attention to the issues associated with large, extended purposes -- not bounded decisions like buying a house, making a financial investment, or choosing a college. I'm thinking of larger subjects for deliberation -- for example, conquering all of Europe (Napoleon), leading the United States through a war for the Union ( Lincoln), or becoming a committed and active anti-Nazi (Bonhoeffer).

Understanding Society
Rationality over the long term
Daniel Little | Chancellor of the University of Michigan-Dearborn, Professor of Philosophy at UM-Dearborn and Professor of Sociology at UM-Ann Arbor

Lord Keynes — Why Hayek’s Theory of Prices and Knowledge is Flawed

Frederic S. Lee explains in the passage below from insights by the British economist George Richardson....

Social Democracy For The 21St Century: A Post Keynesian Perspective
Why Hayek’s Theory of Prices and Knowledge is Flawed
Lord Keynes

Bernanke Not the Only One Telling Romney to Bug Off?

DoD Not Making Plans for Sequester Cuts

"For months, even as congressional negotiations have faltered, defense officials have insisted that they aren’t planning for harsh automatic budget cuts slated to go into effect in January because lawmakers will find an alternative solution."

Read into this as much as you want. One way or another, could sanity still prevail?

Or, could things get much worse?

Pentagon press secretary George Little called the automatic cuts “irresponsible” and repeated that “it is time for Congress to enact a balanced reduction in the deficit and a law halting the entire sequestration.”

“It’s pretty difficult for members to make informed decisions about the issue if they don’t fully understand the consequences ... ,” another committee staffer said. “It’s hard to create enough urgency to solve the problem.”

For Pete's sake! If they only knew how true that was.  More than they're letting on publicly.

"... failing to present realistic alternatives to lower the national deficit and prevent a national security disaster."

That's a very twisted way to present voluntary austerity, depression, and economic suicide. It actually is a national security disaster, but not in the way they're representing it.  We better hope that sanity actually could prevail.

The Defense Department isn’t the only federal agency left in the budgetary limbo. In July, the Office of Management and Budget issued guidance to federal agencies instructing them to continue normal spending and operations “to avoid unnecessarily diverting scarce resources.”

Could it be that the whole fiat deficit issue could go away after the election ... by fiat?