JPMorgan Chase
For JPMorgan Chase, all things being equal (which they are not), the new lower tax rates added $3.7 billion to net income. For the long term, we expect that some or eventually most of that increase will be erased as companies compete for customers on products, capabilities and prices.
One of the reasons for JPMorgan Chase’s enduring success is we have always recog-nized that long-term business success depends on community success. When everyone has a fair shot at participating in and sharing in the rewards of growth, the economy will be stronger and our society will be better.
Closing the racial wealth gap is good for Americans, and it makes good business sense. We know employees from diverse backgrounds offering different perspectives drive better corporate outcomes. A recent study showed that businesses with diverse leadership generate 19% more revenue than non-diverse companies.
We have been raising wages for our 22,000 employees at the lower end of the pay range. For those earning between $12 and $16.50 an hour in the United States, we have been increasing hourly wages to between $15 and $18, depending on the local cost of living. For employees making $40,000 a year or less in the United States, our average pay increases are around $4,800. This is the right thing to do, and we now offer well above the average hourly wage for most markets.
Good leaders have the humility to know that they don’t know everything. They foster an environment of openness and sharing. They earn trust and respect. There are no “friends of the boss” – everyone gets equal treatment. The door is universally open to everybody
And true leaders don’t just show they care – they actually do care. While they demand hard work and effort, they work as hard as anyone, and they have deep empathy for their employees under any type of stress.
Many people still ask me about the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), a government program that provided funding to banks in the midst of the crisis. JPMorgan Chase did not want or need TARP money, but we recognized that if the healthy banks did not take it, no one else could — out of fear that the market would lose confidence in them. And while it helped create the false rallying cry that all the banks needed support, the government, both the Federal Reserve and the Treasury, was trying everything it could in addition to TARP. And the Federal Reserve and the Treasury should be congratulated for the extraordinary actions they took to stave off a far worse crisis. In hindsight, it is easy to criticize any specific action, but, in total, the government succeeded in avoiding a calamity.
Shareholders may be surprised to find out that, fundamentally, we are not a risk-taking but rather a risk-mitigating institution. Risk mitigation is not guessing – it is a thoughtful, detailed analytical process that leads to measured decision making.
I want to be very clear that we do not advocate for the repeal of Dodd-Frank. We believe that the strength and resilience of the U.S. financial system have benefited from the law. Ten years out from the crisis, however, it is appropriate for policymakers to examine areas of our regulatory framework that are excessive, overlapping, inefficient or duplicative. At the same time, they should identify areas where banks can promote economic growth without impacting the very important progress we have made on safety and soundness. In fact, a stronger economy, by definition, is a safer economy. Our goal should be to achieve a rational, calibrated approach to regulation that strikes the right balance. This should be an ongoing and rigorous process that does not require any significant piece of legislation and should not be politicized
While we do not believe that the rise in non-banks and shadow banking has reached the point of systemic risk, the growth in non-bank mortgage lending, student lending, leveraged lending and some consumer lending is accelerating and needs to be assiduously monitored. (We do this monitoring regularly as part of our own business.) Growth in shadow banking has been possible because rules and regulations imposed upon banks are not necessarily imposed upon these non-bank lenders, which exemplifies the risk of not having the new rules prop-erly calibrated. An additional risk is that many of these non-bank lenders will not be able to continue lending in difficult economic times – their borrowers will become stranded.
In fact, contrary to popular belief, capital expenditures as a percentage of GDP are higher today than in the “good old days” of the 1950s and 1960s....The benefit of tax reform is the long-term (multi-year) cumulative effect of capital retained and reinvested in the United States. And third, the capital that was used to buy back stock did not disappear – it was given to share-holders who then put it to a better and higher use of their own choosing.
...large swings seemed to be an overreaction, but they highlight two critical issues. One, which we never forget, is that investor sentiment can veer widely from optimism to pessimism based on little funda-mental change. And second, for the fourth or fifth time in this recovery, there were excessive moves in the market with rapidly increasing volatility accompanied by steep drops in liquidity
The Chinese lack enough food, water and energy; corruption continues to be a problem; state-owned enterprises are often inefficient; corporate and government debt levels are growing rapidly; financial markets lack depth, transparency and adequate rule of law; and Asia is a very complex part of the world geopolitically speaking. Just as important, not enough people participate in the nation’s political system....We should also point out that over the last 30 years, the Chinese have been on a high-speed path that includes increasing transparency and economic reform, and while the momentum slows down periodically, they have continued relentlessly on that path. We believe the odds are high that a fair trade deal will eventually be worked out – but if not, there could be serious repercussions.
China can deal with many serious situations because, unlike developed democratic nations, it can both macromanage and micromanage its economy and move very fast. Government officials can pull, in a coordinated way, fiscal, monetary and industrial policy levers to maintain the growth and employment they want, and they have the control and wherewithal to do it. That being said, the American public should understand that China does not have a straight road to becoming the dominant economic power. The nation simply has too much to overcome in the foreseeable future. If China and the United States can maintain a healthy strategic and economic relationship (and that should be our goal), it could greatly benefit both countries – as well as the rest of the world
America’s debt level is rapidly increasing but is not at the danger level. While America does owe in excess of $6 trillion (essentially 40% of its publicly held debt) to creditors outside the country, U.S. companies and investors hold more than $25 trillion in total claims on foreigners, including more than $12 trillion of foreign portfolio holdings, and the U.S. economy is worth more than $100 trillion. So we earn more on foreign assets than we pay to foreign creditors. This is not a major issue. However, our country’s debt level over the next 30 years will start to increase exponentially, and at a certain point, this could cause concern in global capital markets. We have time to address this problem, but we should start to deal with the issue well
before it becomes a crisis.
... I feel compelled to emphasize an obvious point: Bad public policy is a major risk. It could be central banks and monetary policy, trade snafus or simply deep political gridlock in an increasingly complex world – but bad policymaking is definitely an increasing risk for the global economy.
70% of today’s youth (ages 17–24) are not eligible for military service, essentially due to poor academic skills (basic reading and writing) or health issues (often obesity or diabetes).
Forty percent of foreign students who receive advanced degrees in science, technology and math (300,000 students annually) have no legal way of staying here, although many would choose to do so. Most students from countries outside the United States pay full freight to attend our universities, but many are forced to take the skills they learned here back home. From my vantage point, that means one of our largest exports is brainpower. We need more thoughtful, merit-based immigration policies. In addition, most Americans would like a permanent solution to DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) and a path to legal status for law-abiding, tax-paying undocumented immigrants — this is tearing the body politic apart. The Congressional Budget Office estimates the failure to pass immigration reform earlier this decade is costing us 0.3% of GDP a year.
Irrational student lending, soaring college costs and the burden of student loans have become a significant issue. The impact of student debt is now affecting mortgage credit and household formation — a $1,000 increase in student debt reduces subsequent homeownership rates by 1.8%. Recent research shows that the burdens of student debt are now starting to affect the economy.
Many countries are called social democracies, and they successfully combine market economies with strong social safety nets. This is completely different from traditional socialism. In a traditional socialist system,
the government controls the means of production and decides what to produce and in what quantities, and, often, how and where the citizens work rather than leaving those decisions in the hands of the private sector.
I am not an advocate for unregulated, unvarnished, free-for-all capitalism. (Few people I know are.) But we shouldn’t forget that true freedom and free enterprise (capitalism) are, at some point, inexorably linked.
We need to set aside partisan politics.
None of these issues is exclusively owned by Democrats or Republicans. To the contrary, it is clear that partisan politics is stopping collaborative policy from being implemented, particularly at the federal level. This is not some special economic malaise we are in. This is about our society. We are unwilling to compromise. We are unwilling or unable to create good policy based on deep analytics. And our government is unable to reorganize and keep pace in the new world. Plain and simple, this is a collective failure to put the needs of society ahead of our personal, parochial and partisan interests. If we do not fix these problems, America’s moral, economic and military dominance may cease to exist.
While it is a constitutional right to petition our government, and many organizations legitimately fight for the interests of their constituents, we all may have become too self-inter-ested. I fear that this self-interest is part of what is destroying the glue that holds our society together. We all share a collective responsibility to improve our country
Thursday, April 4, 2019
Monday, February 25, 2019
The Making of an Historian - Garry Will's
Between the slave power and states rights there was no necessary connection. The slave power, when in control, was a centralizing influence, and all the most considerable encroachment on states' rights were its acts. The acquisition and admission of Louisiana; The embargo; the War of 1812; the annexation of Texas by "joint resolution" [rather than treaty]; the war with Mexico, declared by the mere announcement of President Polk; the Fugitive Slave Law; the Dred Scott decision - all triumphs of the slave power - did far more than either tariffs or internal improvements, which in their origin were also southern measures, to destroy the very memory of states' rights as they existed in 1789. Whenever a question arose of extending or protecting slavery, the slaveholders became friends of centralized power, and used that dangerous weapon with a kind of frenzy. Slavery in fact required centralization in order to maintain and protect itself, but it required to control the centralized machine; it needed despotic principles of government, but it needed them exclusively for its own use.
This eighteenth-century document is still the law of the land, and it must be construed as such. How can it give us infallible guidance when it is fallible? The answer is obvious, though unacceptable to some. It must be treated as what it is, as a fallible thing. It is a great human achievement, but it reflects a society that was deeply flawed (as all societies must be). The idea of human dignity in that society was very far from ours. It denied basic human rights not only to slaves, but to women, to Native Americans, to recent and propertyless immigrants. Yet some would reimpose the norms of that society on our time - for instance, in the constitutional definition of "cruel and unusual punishment." The eighteenth century routinely practiced things we now consider barbaric - public lashing, for instance, judicial mutilation, punitive treatment of the insane, public execution, capital punishment for minor felonies. Thomas Jefferson proposed the lex talionis for the state of Virginia. Here is his prescription for sexual offenses:
The idea that Americans can be neatly sorted into Jeffersonians or Hamiltonians brings to mind the W.S. Gilbert lyric in Iolanthe:
What is it to have that new-old thing, a "revolutionary tradition"? If it is a tradition, it should preclude or evade the need for revolution. If it is still revolutionary, it should be fundamentally remaking itself on a continuing basis...
Some think this problem is solved by the fact that America's basic values are capitalistic, and capitalism is itself a blend of revolutionary mobility and traditional stability. As Joseph Schumpeter demonstrated, there is nothing less rooted in the past - more ready for gambles on the future and risk in the present - than capitalism. It professes to remake anything and everything at the whim of the market. Yet those with the biggest stake in the profits of the system are determined to hold on to the power they wield, resisting at least one kind of change, that which would replace them. There, then, you have a revolutionary tradition.
Yet where is this to be found in the Constitution? The capitalist system is no more present there than is the political party system. Protection of property and trade is there. But that is not the same thing as the capitalist system....
The Jeffersonians helped bring about a country different from the one they had to deal with in 1800. The very terms used to describe it had changed radically in meaning. "Nation" no longer referred to a collection of states. The new country envisaged things the old one had not - projection of American power abroad, and energetic adoption of the means of western expansion, greater hesitancy to punish "heresy," a governmental patronage of science. These could not be crammed back into the old straitjackets of prior ideology. Attempting to do that is what has made people misread the History, thinking Jefferson, if he stopped acting like a Republican in the John Randolph mode, had to become a Federalist in the Hamilton mode, as if there were no alternatives to the one or the other. This or that. Either-or. Adams says both-neither. History is far more complex than the interplay of two (or many) ideologies. Chance, mistakes, opportunism, progress, reassessments, forgetfulness - all of them and more concatenate something less neat than anyone envisaged.
There was no going back to Jefferson's or Hamilton's "original intent."
This eighteenth-century document is still the law of the land, and it must be construed as such. How can it give us infallible guidance when it is fallible? The answer is obvious, though unacceptable to some. It must be treated as what it is, as a fallible thing. It is a great human achievement, but it reflects a society that was deeply flawed (as all societies must be). The idea of human dignity in that society was very far from ours. It denied basic human rights not only to slaves, but to women, to Native Americans, to recent and propertyless immigrants. Yet some would reimpose the norms of that society on our time - for instance, in the constitutional definition of "cruel and unusual punishment." The eighteenth century routinely practiced things we now consider barbaric - public lashing, for instance, judicial mutilation, punitive treatment of the insane, public execution, capital punishment for minor felonies. Thomas Jefferson proposed the lex talionis for the state of Virginia. Here is his prescription for sexual offenses:
"Whosoever shall be guilty of Rape, Polygamy, or Sodomy with man or woman shall be punished, if a man, by castration, if a woman, by cutting thro' the cartilage of her nose a hole of one half diameter at the least."Since he proposed these punishments, he obviously did not think them cruel or unusual. To say that we are bound by the view of his society is to deny all possibility for moral progress.
The idea that Americans can be neatly sorted into Jeffersonians or Hamiltonians brings to mind the W.S. Gilbert lyric in Iolanthe:
I often think it's comicalYet Americans continue to think we must get right with the Founders.
How Nature always does contrive
That every boy and every gal
That's born into the world alive
Is either a little Liberal
or else a little Conservative.
What is it to have that new-old thing, a "revolutionary tradition"? If it is a tradition, it should preclude or evade the need for revolution. If it is still revolutionary, it should be fundamentally remaking itself on a continuing basis...
Some think this problem is solved by the fact that America's basic values are capitalistic, and capitalism is itself a blend of revolutionary mobility and traditional stability. As Joseph Schumpeter demonstrated, there is nothing less rooted in the past - more ready for gambles on the future and risk in the present - than capitalism. It professes to remake anything and everything at the whim of the market. Yet those with the biggest stake in the profits of the system are determined to hold on to the power they wield, resisting at least one kind of change, that which would replace them. There, then, you have a revolutionary tradition.
Yet where is this to be found in the Constitution? The capitalist system is no more present there than is the political party system. Protection of property and trade is there. But that is not the same thing as the capitalist system....
The Jeffersonians helped bring about a country different from the one they had to deal with in 1800. The very terms used to describe it had changed radically in meaning. "Nation" no longer referred to a collection of states. The new country envisaged things the old one had not - projection of American power abroad, and energetic adoption of the means of western expansion, greater hesitancy to punish "heresy," a governmental patronage of science. These could not be crammed back into the old straitjackets of prior ideology. Attempting to do that is what has made people misread the History, thinking Jefferson, if he stopped acting like a Republican in the John Randolph mode, had to become a Federalist in the Hamilton mode, as if there were no alternatives to the one or the other. This or that. Either-or. Adams says both-neither. History is far more complex than the interplay of two (or many) ideologies. Chance, mistakes, opportunism, progress, reassessments, forgetfulness - all of them and more concatenate something less neat than anyone envisaged.
There was no going back to Jefferson's or Hamilton's "original intent."
Monday, February 11, 2019
"Only the destitute are innocent ...
"Only the destitute are innocent ...
Only those without bread are without fault."
Jesus of Nazareth, as translated/interpreted by John Dominic Crossan
Embedded within imperfection is perfection.
Before something is everything.
i am a butterfly or a tree. perhaps a mountain stream, or a beam of sunlight early in the morning. i am buddhist, and christian, and muslim and jew and hindu too. my creed is silence. there are no capitals in my name nor capitols where i come from. my flag is weaved from cotton still dotting fields like snow and its pole stands uncut amongst the ponderosa forest. i am brown and red and white and black. i am man and woman, mother and father, son and daughter, sister and brother. i am stranger and friend, never enemy. now you see me and then you don't but i am here with you just the same as you are with me. we are as inseperable as one photon of light is from another. i am on the no way to a land infinitely near and forever present.
Embedded within imperfection is perfection.
Before something is everything.
i am a butterfly or a tree. perhaps a mountain stream, or a beam of sunlight early in the morning. i am buddhist, and christian, and muslim and jew and hindu too. my creed is silence. there are no capitals in my name nor capitols where i come from. my flag is weaved from cotton still dotting fields like snow and its pole stands uncut amongst the ponderosa forest. i am brown and red and white and black. i am man and woman, mother and father, son and daughter, sister and brother. i am stranger and friend, never enemy. now you see me and then you don't but i am here with you just the same as you are with me. we are as inseperable as one photon of light is from another. i am on the no way to a land infinitely near and forever present.
Thursday, March 29, 2018
THE DEMISE OF HABEAS CORPUS AND THE RISE OF QUALIFIED IMMUNITY:
THE DEMISE OF HABEAS CORPUS AND THE RISE OF QUALIFIED IMMUNITY:
What can possibly be wrong with the elementary concept that if a defendant has been convicted or sentenced by a state court in violation of the United States Constitution, that person should not be executed or imprisoned for a term of the rest of his natural life, or indeed for any term at all?)35
As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling . . . was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement. 37
Although there are many reasons why state courts are unable or unwilling to afford the same dedication to federal constitutional rights as are federal courts, the most obvious is that federal judges have life tenure and salary protection, while many state judges do their job under the threat of an election challenge if they issue or join in unpopular decisions, especially in death penalty cases.54 While state judges who decide criminal appeals face the possibility that they will be labeled “soft on crime,” federal judges are free to decide such issues secure in the knowledge that the unpopularity of their decisions can pose no threat to their job security. Federal judges also have the advantage of more experience enforcing individual constitutional rights, as well as a special obligation to the Constitution.55 Indeed, the protection of the federal Constitution is the fundamental reason we have federal courts: that is simply the most important function federal judges perform.
In Andrade, the defendant was convicted of two counts of petty theft for stealing approximately $150 in videotapes from two Kmarts.67 Under California’s Three Strikes law, a state court sentenced the defendant to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, and a state appellate court (in an unpublished opinion) rejected his argument that his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment.6
Once again, the Court’s concern for protecting government officials in general and state and local law enforcement officers in particular has prevailed over the constitutional rights of individuals. In recent years, the Court has used the qualified immunity doctrine, which shields officials from civil liability as long as their actions do not violate “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,”128 to severely restrict the ability of individuals to recover for constitutional violations that they suffer at the hands of law enforcement.
The Court has often remarked that “to perform its high function in the best way[,] ‘justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.’ ”165 In a country in which a disproportionate number of individuals who are behind bars or have been treated unlawfully by law enforcement are minorities—indeed, a country in which black juveniles are more than four times as likely as white juveniles to be incarcerated, even though evidence shows that they commit many offenses at similar rates166—satisfying the appearance of justice means ensuring that individuals do not remain in prison in violation of the Constitution or face excessive force at the hands of law enforcement without a proper remedy. On this score, the Court has simply failed in its mission
After all, a Court that was attentive to the unequal treatment of minorities would fulfill its obligation to enforce the law regarding discrimination, rather than facilely asserting that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”172 Surely, the Court would not abdicate its role with respect to the criminal law on the ground that “the way to stop murder is to stop murdering,” or that “the way to stop crime is to stop committing it.” More basically, a Court that understood the injustices faced by minorities every day in this country would not assume that the time of the postracial society has arrived and that the effects of our deeply rooted history of racial discrimination have been eradicated.173
“that the law is not an abstract concept removed from the society it serves, and that judges, as safeguarders of the Constitution, must constantly strive to narrow the gap between the ideal of equal justice and the reality of social inequality.”175
To be clear, while I disagree with what the Supreme Court has done to federal habeas review and to the doctrine of qualified immunity, the problem is that my colleagues and I are, in fact, bound to follow its rulings—not because these rulings are consistent with the text or purpose of AEDPA, and not because the Court’s approach to qualified immunity is necessary to the welfare of law enforcement officers; rather, we follow the Court’s rulings because the system of law that we so admire and respect contains a hierarchy in which the Supreme Court rests at the top. Nevertheless, I must express my regret that the Court’s jurisprudence in the two areas discussed in this Essay risks turning federal judges from protectors of the Constitution into unreasoning deniers of worthy claims of constitutional rights. It is unfortunate that even reasonable, moderate rulings of federal courts meant to preserve fundamental values against state abuses are now denounced as extreme. The result is an unnecessary and unjust process that values other concerns of far less importance over the constitutional rights of individuals—rights that lie at the heart of our judicial system.
I am an optimist. I still believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”178 As we look back on our constitutional history, I see a trend toward progress and social justice, sometimes after painful battles and sometimes after painful lapses or even painful defeats. Yet this is a nation that in most respects continues to improve its democracy, sometimes dragging the Supreme Court with it and sometimes being dragged in that direction by its judiciary. I would hope that some of the recent errors the Court has made will be corrected as the arc of history unfolds and that the Court will in the long run recognize that we are a single nation, with a Constitution dedicated to promoting the general welfare, ensuring the equality of all individuals, and guaranteeing liberty and justice to all—a Constitution that lives and breathes as our great nation evolves in light of the moral, economic, and scientific forces that shape our destiny
What can possibly be wrong with the elementary concept that if a defendant has been convicted or sentenced by a state court in violation of the United States Constitution, that person should not be executed or imprisoned for a term of the rest of his natural life, or indeed for any term at all?)35
As a condition for obtaining habeas corpus from a federal court, a state prisoner must show that the state court’s ruling . . . was so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement. 37
Although there are many reasons why state courts are unable or unwilling to afford the same dedication to federal constitutional rights as are federal courts, the most obvious is that federal judges have life tenure and salary protection, while many state judges do their job under the threat of an election challenge if they issue or join in unpopular decisions, especially in death penalty cases.54 While state judges who decide criminal appeals face the possibility that they will be labeled “soft on crime,” federal judges are free to decide such issues secure in the knowledge that the unpopularity of their decisions can pose no threat to their job security. Federal judges also have the advantage of more experience enforcing individual constitutional rights, as well as a special obligation to the Constitution.55 Indeed, the protection of the federal Constitution is the fundamental reason we have federal courts: that is simply the most important function federal judges perform.
In Andrade, the defendant was convicted of two counts of petty theft for stealing approximately $150 in videotapes from two Kmarts.67 Under California’s Three Strikes law, a state court sentenced the defendant to two consecutive terms of 25 years to life, and a state appellate court (in an unpublished opinion) rejected his argument that his sentence violated the Eighth Amendment.6
Once again, the Court’s concern for protecting government officials in general and state and local law enforcement officers in particular has prevailed over the constitutional rights of individuals. In recent years, the Court has used the qualified immunity doctrine, which shields officials from civil liability as long as their actions do not violate “clearly established statutory or constitutional rights of which a reasonable person would have known,”128 to severely restrict the ability of individuals to recover for constitutional violations that they suffer at the hands of law enforcement.
The Court has often remarked that “to perform its high function in the best way[,] ‘justice must satisfy the appearance of justice.’ ”165 In a country in which a disproportionate number of individuals who are behind bars or have been treated unlawfully by law enforcement are minorities—indeed, a country in which black juveniles are more than four times as likely as white juveniles to be incarcerated, even though evidence shows that they commit many offenses at similar rates166—satisfying the appearance of justice means ensuring that individuals do not remain in prison in violation of the Constitution or face excessive force at the hands of law enforcement without a proper remedy. On this score, the Court has simply failed in its mission
After all, a Court that was attentive to the unequal treatment of minorities would fulfill its obligation to enforce the law regarding discrimination, rather than facilely asserting that “[t]he way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.”172 Surely, the Court would not abdicate its role with respect to the criminal law on the ground that “the way to stop murder is to stop murdering,” or that “the way to stop crime is to stop committing it.” More basically, a Court that understood the injustices faced by minorities every day in this country would not assume that the time of the postracial society has arrived and that the effects of our deeply rooted history of racial discrimination have been eradicated.173
“that the law is not an abstract concept removed from the society it serves, and that judges, as safeguarders of the Constitution, must constantly strive to narrow the gap between the ideal of equal justice and the reality of social inequality.”175
To be clear, while I disagree with what the Supreme Court has done to federal habeas review and to the doctrine of qualified immunity, the problem is that my colleagues and I are, in fact, bound to follow its rulings—not because these rulings are consistent with the text or purpose of AEDPA, and not because the Court’s approach to qualified immunity is necessary to the welfare of law enforcement officers; rather, we follow the Court’s rulings because the system of law that we so admire and respect contains a hierarchy in which the Supreme Court rests at the top. Nevertheless, I must express my regret that the Court’s jurisprudence in the two areas discussed in this Essay risks turning federal judges from protectors of the Constitution into unreasoning deniers of worthy claims of constitutional rights. It is unfortunate that even reasonable, moderate rulings of federal courts meant to preserve fundamental values against state abuses are now denounced as extreme. The result is an unnecessary and unjust process that values other concerns of far less importance over the constitutional rights of individuals—rights that lie at the heart of our judicial system.
I am an optimist. I still believe that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”178 As we look back on our constitutional history, I see a trend toward progress and social justice, sometimes after painful battles and sometimes after painful lapses or even painful defeats. Yet this is a nation that in most respects continues to improve its democracy, sometimes dragging the Supreme Court with it and sometimes being dragged in that direction by its judiciary. I would hope that some of the recent errors the Court has made will be corrected as the arc of history unfolds and that the Court will in the long run recognize that we are a single nation, with a Constitution dedicated to promoting the general welfare, ensuring the equality of all individuals, and guaranteeing liberty and justice to all—a Constitution that lives and breathes as our great nation evolves in light of the moral, economic, and scientific forces that shape our destiny
Wednesday, November 29, 2017
Why Buddhism is True - Robert Wright
is the struggle for enduring peace also the struggle for truth?
It would be nice to know that when people pursue the path to liberation - ...- they are helping humanity broadly, that the quest for individual salvation advances the quest for social salvation.
feelings are said to be true of false depending on whether they align with their evolutionary purpose. If the feelings promote well-being they are considered good or true; if they lead to things that are ultimately bad for a person, then we could say they are false.
environmental mismatch = a feeling designed by natural selection that is true in one natural environment, but false in another.
natural selection didn't design your mind to see the world clearly; it designed your mind to have perceptions and beliefs that would help take care of your genes.
false positive - you take remedial action even when its not called for
1. Our feelings weren't designed to depict reality accurately even in our natural environment.
2. The fact that we're not living in a "natural' environment makes our feeling even less reliable guides to reality.
3. Underlying it all is the happiness delusion. The longing for happiness itself is a delusion that leaves us with a desire for more of what we think makes up happy.
'The cost of survival might be a lifetime of discomfort' Aaron Beck - Cognitive Therapy and The Emotional Disorders.
One thing all feelings have in common is that they were originally "designed" to convince you to follow them. They feel right and true almost by definition. They actively discourage you from viewing them objectively.
default mode network - a network in the brain that remains active when you're doing nothing. It is the network our mind wanders when it is wandering. What you're not doing in the default mode is focusing on the present moment. It is easy to overcome the default mode by participating in a task that requires active concentration.
concentration meditation = focus one's concentration on breath, a mantra, a visual image, a bodily sensation, a physical sound.
mindfulness meditation = experiencing whatever you are experiencing.
enlightenment - ridding yourself of the illusion of what is going on inside yourself, and outside of yourself.
asymptote - something you can get closer to but never quite reach.
insight = apprehending the 3 marks of existence: impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and non-self.
deeply realizing that you are selfless - ...- can make you selfless in the more familiar sense of the term.
self - control, persists through time
in the deepest sense the self doesn't exist, human language isn't very good at describing reality at the deepest level. So as a practical matter - as a linguistic convention - we have to talk about there being an I and a you and a he and a she. In other words, the self doesn't exist in an "untimate" sense, but it exists in a "conventional" sense.
The Buddha believed that the less you judge things - including the contents of your mind - the more clearly you'll see them, and the less deluded you'll be.
We think we're better than average at not being biased in thinking that we're better than average.
So, all told, we're under at least two kinds of illusions. One is about the nature of the conscious self, which we see as more in control of things than it actually is. The other illusion is about exactly what kind of people we are - namely, capable and upstanding. You might call these two misconceptions the illusion about our selves and the illusion about ourselves.
benneffectance - the tendency to take credit for success, while denying responsibility for failure.
modular mind - the mind is composed of lots of specialized modules... and it's the interplay among these modules that shapes your behavior. And much of this interplay happens without conscious awareness.
three ways you shouldn't conceive of modules:
1. the modules aren't like a bunch of physical compartments.
2. The different modules aren't like the blades on a Swiss Army knife or the apps on a smartphone.
3. The modules aren't like departments in a company's organization chart.
Feelings aren't just little parts of the thing you had thought of as the self; they are closer to its core; they are doing what you had thought "you" were doing: calling the shots.
Theory of Mind = thinking about what other people are thinking.
Psychologists who adhere to the modular model of the mind tend toward the idea that the conscious you isn't choosing the different modules so much as being commandeered by the modules that have prevailed....
Thoughts are directed toward what we think is the conscious mind... the conscious mind doesn't create thoughts, it receives them.
modules = attracting mates, keeping mates, enhancing your status, taking care of kin, tending to friendships, etc.
feelings are the things that give a particular module greater influence... "Every thought has a propellant, and that propellant is emotional." Akincano Marc Weber. Feelings are judgments about how various things relate to an animal's Darwinian interests.... feelings are the glue that makes thoughts stick to your consciousness.
Self Control - reason prevailing over feelings. "Reason alone," Hume argued, "can never oppose passion in the direction of the will." Nothing "can oppose or retard the impulse of passion but a contrary impulse."
both the problems we call therapeutic and the problems we call spiritual are a product of not seeing things clearly.
It would be nice to know that when people pursue the path to liberation - ...- they are helping humanity broadly, that the quest for individual salvation advances the quest for social salvation.
feelings are said to be true of false depending on whether they align with their evolutionary purpose. If the feelings promote well-being they are considered good or true; if they lead to things that are ultimately bad for a person, then we could say they are false.
environmental mismatch = a feeling designed by natural selection that is true in one natural environment, but false in another.
natural selection didn't design your mind to see the world clearly; it designed your mind to have perceptions and beliefs that would help take care of your genes.
false positive - you take remedial action even when its not called for
1. Our feelings weren't designed to depict reality accurately even in our natural environment.
2. The fact that we're not living in a "natural' environment makes our feeling even less reliable guides to reality.
3. Underlying it all is the happiness delusion. The longing for happiness itself is a delusion that leaves us with a desire for more of what we think makes up happy.
'The cost of survival might be a lifetime of discomfort' Aaron Beck - Cognitive Therapy and The Emotional Disorders.
One thing all feelings have in common is that they were originally "designed" to convince you to follow them. They feel right and true almost by definition. They actively discourage you from viewing them objectively.
default mode network - a network in the brain that remains active when you're doing nothing. It is the network our mind wanders when it is wandering. What you're not doing in the default mode is focusing on the present moment. It is easy to overcome the default mode by participating in a task that requires active concentration.
concentration meditation = focus one's concentration on breath, a mantra, a visual image, a bodily sensation, a physical sound.
mindfulness meditation = experiencing whatever you are experiencing.
enlightenment - ridding yourself of the illusion of what is going on inside yourself, and outside of yourself.
asymptote - something you can get closer to but never quite reach.
insight = apprehending the 3 marks of existence: impermanence, suffering or unsatisfactoriness, and non-self.
deeply realizing that you are selfless - ...- can make you selfless in the more familiar sense of the term.
self - control, persists through time
in the deepest sense the self doesn't exist, human language isn't very good at describing reality at the deepest level. So as a practical matter - as a linguistic convention - we have to talk about there being an I and a you and a he and a she. In other words, the self doesn't exist in an "untimate" sense, but it exists in a "conventional" sense.
The Buddha believed that the less you judge things - including the contents of your mind - the more clearly you'll see them, and the less deluded you'll be.
We think we're better than average at not being biased in thinking that we're better than average.
So, all told, we're under at least two kinds of illusions. One is about the nature of the conscious self, which we see as more in control of things than it actually is. The other illusion is about exactly what kind of people we are - namely, capable and upstanding. You might call these two misconceptions the illusion about our selves and the illusion about ourselves.
benneffectance - the tendency to take credit for success, while denying responsibility for failure.
modular mind - the mind is composed of lots of specialized modules... and it's the interplay among these modules that shapes your behavior. And much of this interplay happens without conscious awareness.
three ways you shouldn't conceive of modules:
1. the modules aren't like a bunch of physical compartments.
2. The different modules aren't like the blades on a Swiss Army knife or the apps on a smartphone.
3. The modules aren't like departments in a company's organization chart.
Feelings aren't just little parts of the thing you had thought of as the self; they are closer to its core; they are doing what you had thought "you" were doing: calling the shots.
Theory of Mind = thinking about what other people are thinking.
Psychologists who adhere to the modular model of the mind tend toward the idea that the conscious you isn't choosing the different modules so much as being commandeered by the modules that have prevailed....
Thoughts are directed toward what we think is the conscious mind... the conscious mind doesn't create thoughts, it receives them.
modules = attracting mates, keeping mates, enhancing your status, taking care of kin, tending to friendships, etc.
feelings are the things that give a particular module greater influence... "Every thought has a propellant, and that propellant is emotional." Akincano Marc Weber. Feelings are judgments about how various things relate to an animal's Darwinian interests.... feelings are the glue that makes thoughts stick to your consciousness.
Self Control - reason prevailing over feelings. "Reason alone," Hume argued, "can never oppose passion in the direction of the will." Nothing "can oppose or retard the impulse of passion but a contrary impulse."
both the problems we call therapeutic and the problems we call spiritual are a product of not seeing things clearly.
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Global Wealth Report 2017
Global Wealth Report 2017
Wealth per adult across countries
Switzerland (USD 537,600), Australia (USD 402,600) and the United States (USD 388,600) continue to occupy the first three positions in the ranking of wealth per adult .... The ranking by median wealth per adult
favors countries with lower levels of wealth inequality and produces a somewhat different ranking. In contrast, high wealth inequality pushes Denmark (USD 87,200) out of the top ten list, while median wealth of USD 55,900 relegates the United States to 21st place, alongside Austria and Greece
Once debts have been subtracted, a person needed only USD 3,582 to be among the wealthiest half of
world citizens in mid-2017. However, USD 76,754 is required to be a member of the top 10% of global
wealth holders, and USD 770,368 to belong to the top 1%. While the bottom half of adults collectively
own less than 1% of total wealth, the richest decile (top 10% of adults) owns 88% of global assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for half of total household wealth.
Monitoring world wealth
Wealth is a key component of the economic system, valued as a source of finance for future consumption
particularly in retirement, and for reducing vulnerability to shocks such as unemployment, ill health, or natural disasters. Wealth also enhances opportunities for informal sector and entrepreneurial activities, when used either directly or as collateral for loans. These functions are less important in countries that have generous state pensions, adequate social safety nets, good public healthcare, high-quality public education, and well-developed business finance...Valued at current exchange rates, total global wealth increased by USD 16.7 trillion, or 6.4%, in the year to mid-2017. Controlling for exchange rate movements, the rise was a little larger, at USD 18.9 trillion. The United States again led the way with a gain of USD 8.5 trillion, most arising from financial assets. Elsewhere, however, the gains derived primarily from non-financial assets.
Wealth varies greatly across individuals in every part of the world. Our estimates suggest that the lower
half of global adults collectively owns less than 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own
88% of all wealth and the top 1% account for half of all global assets.
Wealth per adult across countries
Switzerland (USD 537,600), Australia (USD 402,600) and the United States (USD 388,600) continue to occupy the first three positions in the ranking of wealth per adult .... The ranking by median wealth per adult
favors countries with lower levels of wealth inequality and produces a somewhat different ranking. In contrast, high wealth inequality pushes Denmark (USD 87,200) out of the top ten list, while median wealth of USD 55,900 relegates the United States to 21st place, alongside Austria and Greece
Once debts have been subtracted, a person needed only USD 3,582 to be among the wealthiest half of
world citizens in mid-2017. However, USD 76,754 is required to be a member of the top 10% of global
wealth holders, and USD 770,368 to belong to the top 1%. While the bottom half of adults collectively
own less than 1% of total wealth, the richest decile (top 10% of adults) owns 88% of global assets, and the top percentile alone accounts for half of total household wealth.
Monitoring world wealth
Wealth is a key component of the economic system, valued as a source of finance for future consumption
particularly in retirement, and for reducing vulnerability to shocks such as unemployment, ill health, or natural disasters. Wealth also enhances opportunities for informal sector and entrepreneurial activities, when used either directly or as collateral for loans. These functions are less important in countries that have generous state pensions, adequate social safety nets, good public healthcare, high-quality public education, and well-developed business finance...Valued at current exchange rates, total global wealth increased by USD 16.7 trillion, or 6.4%, in the year to mid-2017. Controlling for exchange rate movements, the rise was a little larger, at USD 18.9 trillion. The United States again led the way with a gain of USD 8.5 trillion, most arising from financial assets. Elsewhere, however, the gains derived primarily from non-financial assets.
Wealth varies greatly across individuals in every part of the world. Our estimates suggest that the lower
half of global adults collectively owns less than 1% of global wealth, while the richest 10% of adults own
88% of all wealth and the top 1% account for half of all global assets.
Waking Up - Sam Harris
paradox of spiritual seeking = the deepest goal of spirituality is freedom from the illusion of the self - and to seek such freedom, as though it were a future state to be attained through effort, is to reinforce the chains of one's apparent bondage in each moment.
the urge to attain self-transcendence or any other mystical experience is a symptom of the very disease we want to cure.
Consciousness is already free of anything that remotely resembles a self - and there is nothing that you can do, as an illusory ego, to realize this.
most effort arises from the very illusion of bondage that one is seeking to overcome.
[If bondage to the self is an illusion, then how can mindfulness of the illusion free one from the bondage, the bondage was never real]
If freedom is possible, there must be some mode of ordinary consciousness in which it can be expressed?
[If "I" am going to die, who or what is the "I" that is going to die?]
"The mind is a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is a thinker. The thinker is the ego. The ego, if sought, will automatically vanish." Ramana Maharshi
[ mind = thoughts (caused by) thinker; therefore, if thinker is sought, thinker vanishes, and thoughts vanish. If thoughts are sought, thoughts vanish and thinker vanishes]
Direct method = Reality is simply the loss of the ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself.
[the problem is reality is not simply the loss of the ego. In fact, the ego, the thinker, and the thoughts produced are an intricate part of the fabric of reality]
Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling "I," and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of consciousness - free, undivided, and intrinsically uncontaminated by its ever-changing contents.
Today, a red-golden leafs falls aimlessly to the ground,
only yesterday, it seems, it was a green bud in spring
that clung tenaciously to its tree for life
deriving its essence and giving back sustenance;
Only, tragically, it seems, to finally release its grip.
Blown, raked, and swept into a pile,
it is, seemingly, no more clinging or falling.
Looking back, it seems, it was only an illusion.
a thing, seemingly, that once never was.
a thing, seemingly, forever no more.
pondering a leaf, it seems the illusion is only an illusion.
thinking about what is beyond thought is still thought... Being able to stand perfectly free of the feeling of self is the start of one's spiritual journey, not its end.
[a glimpse of selflessness is still self-ful. The only way to get a glimpse of selflessness is to be unaware of it.]
mindfulness must be synonymous with dispelling the illusion of the self....one "takes the goal as the path," freedom from self is the very thing one practices.
consciousness is intrinsically free of self... the truth of nonduality, once glimpsed, is obvious and always available. self transcendence is the experience that there is no self to transcend.
the implied center of cognition and emotion simply falls away, and it is obvious that consciousness is never truly confined by what it knows. That which is aware of sadness is not sad. That which is aware of fear is not fearful.
thoughts and emotions arise in consciousness the way that images appear on the surface of a mirror.
[consciousness is the mirror, you are consciousness, you are the mirror]
Meditation doesn't entail the suppression of thoughts, but it does require we notice them as they arise and that we recognize their transitory nature
consciousness is free. Meditation is the practice of of finding this freedom, by breaking one's identification with the thoughts and emotions that arise, and to experience them just as they are.
"I" am not even an ingredient, necessary or not, of my own mind, much less of the universe.
selflessness is not a deep feature of consciousness; it is on the surface.
If you are in pain, there is a simple way out. Accept the pain as it arises and do not fight it. It is a transitory experience.
“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self”. Albert Einstein
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”
Albert Einstein
boredom - is simply a lack of attention
many people renounce the world because they cannot find a place in it
there is only consciousness and its contents; there is no inner self who is conscious.
The truth is that, whatever happens after death, it is possible to justify a life of spiritual practice and self-transcendence without pretending to know things we do not know.
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness... Every waking moment - and even in our dreams - we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness we value.
the brain does exclude an extraordinary amount of information from consciousness.
One thing is certain: The mind is vaster and more fluid that our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests.
Happiness and suffering, however extreme, are mental events. The mind depends on the body, and the body upon the world, but everything good or bad that happens in your life must appear in consciousness to matter.
consciousness has no form because anything that would give it form must arise withing consciousness. Consciousness is simply the light which the contours of mind and body are known... Consciousness can appear to take shape for a time, but over time it is possible to recognize it never does.... Consciousness is itself divisible, as in the split-brain patients, but even in intact brains consciousness is blind and unaware of most of what the mind is doing. Everything we believe ourselves to be.... depends upon distinct processes that we are unaware of and don't fully understand, and are spread our over the whole brain.... The sense therefore that we are unified subjects - the unchanging thinker of our thoughts is an illusion. The self we experience can only be experienced in the present moment for it is a transitory experience. Each of us is identical to same principles that bring value to the universe
We are always and everywhere in the presence of reality. Indeed, the human mind is the most complex and subtle expression of reality that we have thus far experienced.
[There is nothing we think or do in this life or in this world, that can be undone in another life or another world. If there is a reality that is larger and more vast than the one we experience, then we are already a part of it.]
the urge to attain self-transcendence or any other mystical experience is a symptom of the very disease we want to cure.
Consciousness is already free of anything that remotely resembles a self - and there is nothing that you can do, as an illusory ego, to realize this.
most effort arises from the very illusion of bondage that one is seeking to overcome.
[If bondage to the self is an illusion, then how can mindfulness of the illusion free one from the bondage, the bondage was never real]
If freedom is possible, there must be some mode of ordinary consciousness in which it can be expressed?
[If "I" am going to die, who or what is the "I" that is going to die?]
"The mind is a bundle of thoughts. The thoughts arise because there is a thinker. The thinker is the ego. The ego, if sought, will automatically vanish." Ramana Maharshi
[ mind = thoughts (caused by) thinker; therefore, if thinker is sought, thinker vanishes, and thoughts vanish. If thoughts are sought, thoughts vanish and thinker vanishes]
Direct method = Reality is simply the loss of the ego. Destroy the ego by seeking its identity. Because ego is no entity it will automatically vanish and reality will shine forth by itself.
[the problem is reality is not simply the loss of the ego. In fact, the ego, the thinker, and the thoughts produced are an intricate part of the fabric of reality]
Consciousness is the prior condition of every experience; the self or ego is an illusory appearance within it; look closely for what you are calling "I," and the feeling of being a separate self will disappear; what remains, as a matter of experience, is a field of consciousness - free, undivided, and intrinsically uncontaminated by its ever-changing contents.
Today, a red-golden leafs falls aimlessly to the ground,
only yesterday, it seems, it was a green bud in spring
that clung tenaciously to its tree for life
deriving its essence and giving back sustenance;
Only, tragically, it seems, to finally release its grip.
Blown, raked, and swept into a pile,
it is, seemingly, no more clinging or falling.
Looking back, it seems, it was only an illusion.
a thing, seemingly, that once never was.
a thing, seemingly, forever no more.
pondering a leaf, it seems the illusion is only an illusion.
thinking about what is beyond thought is still thought... Being able to stand perfectly free of the feeling of self is the start of one's spiritual journey, not its end.
[a glimpse of selflessness is still self-ful. The only way to get a glimpse of selflessness is to be unaware of it.]
mindfulness must be synonymous with dispelling the illusion of the self....one "takes the goal as the path," freedom from self is the very thing one practices.
consciousness is intrinsically free of self... the truth of nonduality, once glimpsed, is obvious and always available. self transcendence is the experience that there is no self to transcend.
the implied center of cognition and emotion simply falls away, and it is obvious that consciousness is never truly confined by what it knows. That which is aware of sadness is not sad. That which is aware of fear is not fearful.
thoughts and emotions arise in consciousness the way that images appear on the surface of a mirror.
[consciousness is the mirror, you are consciousness, you are the mirror]
Meditation doesn't entail the suppression of thoughts, but it does require we notice them as they arise and that we recognize their transitory nature
consciousness is free. Meditation is the practice of of finding this freedom, by breaking one's identification with the thoughts and emotions that arise, and to experience them just as they are.
"I" am not even an ingredient, necessary or not, of my own mind, much less of the universe.
selflessness is not a deep feature of consciousness; it is on the surface.
If you are in pain, there is a simple way out. Accept the pain as it arises and do not fight it. It is a transitory experience.
“The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained liberation from the self”. Albert Einstein
“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. The striving to free oneself from this delusion is the one issue of true religion. Not to nourish it but to try to overcome it is the way to reach the attainable measure of peace of mind.”
Albert Einstein
boredom - is simply a lack of attention
many people renounce the world because they cannot find a place in it
there is only consciousness and its contents; there is no inner self who is conscious.
The truth is that, whatever happens after death, it is possible to justify a life of spiritual practice and self-transcendence without pretending to know things we do not know.
Everything we do is for the purpose of altering consciousness... Every waking moment - and even in our dreams - we struggle to direct the flow of sensation, emotion, and cognition toward states of consciousness we value.
the brain does exclude an extraordinary amount of information from consciousness.
One thing is certain: The mind is vaster and more fluid that our ordinary, waking consciousness suggests.
Happiness and suffering, however extreme, are mental events. The mind depends on the body, and the body upon the world, but everything good or bad that happens in your life must appear in consciousness to matter.
consciousness has no form because anything that would give it form must arise withing consciousness. Consciousness is simply the light which the contours of mind and body are known... Consciousness can appear to take shape for a time, but over time it is possible to recognize it never does.... Consciousness is itself divisible, as in the split-brain patients, but even in intact brains consciousness is blind and unaware of most of what the mind is doing. Everything we believe ourselves to be.... depends upon distinct processes that we are unaware of and don't fully understand, and are spread our over the whole brain.... The sense therefore that we are unified subjects - the unchanging thinker of our thoughts is an illusion. The self we experience can only be experienced in the present moment for it is a transitory experience. Each of us is identical to same principles that bring value to the universe
We are always and everywhere in the presence of reality. Indeed, the human mind is the most complex and subtle expression of reality that we have thus far experienced.
[There is nothing we think or do in this life or in this world, that can be undone in another life or another world. If there is a reality that is larger and more vast than the one we experience, then we are already a part of it.]
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