All Life Is Problem Solving

President Obama thinks that the best thing to do for an economy that has yet to turn around on jobs is to wait to see how the stimulus bill works, before seeking a second stimulus. This may seem reasonable, especially in the face of the widespread reports about opposition to a second stimulus from Republicans […]

[Read more →]

In this blog I continue my discussion of reflexivity by clarifying the differences between sequential and simultaneous reflexivity. If reflexivity is sequential, then the effects of our actions on the world and on our thinking at a later time, that is, “the interference” is sequential. Specifically, we cognize and come to an understanding of situation […]

[Read more →]

One of the concepts George Soros emphasizes the most is “reflexivity.” Here’s his presentation of the idea from The Age of Fallibility (pp. 6-7). ”On the one hand, we seek to understand our situation. I call this the cognitive function. On the other hand, we seek to make an impact on the world. I call […]

[Read more →]

George Soros has written a number of very interesting and influential books over the past 20 years including, among others: The Alchemy of Finance, Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism, The Age of Fallibility, and The Crash of 2008 and What It Means. All of these present and apply a conceptual framework he has worked with […]

[Read more →]

This talk by Jane Hamsher to Congressional Staffers on July 8th distills what this American fight for health care reform is about, and what is at stake. It also provides a good feel for the hard slogging that is going on to being forth a bill that will introduce real change and begin to break […]

[Read more →]

Again, it’s funny how US Administrations can’t simply admit error and then act accordingly. No, they have to try to persuade us that their error wasn’t really an error because of x, y, or z. President Obama has now tried to ”correct” Joe Biden’s statement about “misreading” the economy by saying that there was no […]

[Read more →]

It’s funny how US Administrations can’t simply admit error and then act accordingly. No they have to try to persuade us that that everyone else committed the error in question too. Remember, the Bush Administration’s insistence that no one could have anticipated an attack on high value US targets using hijacked airliners? The Bush Administration […]

[Read more →]

Step One: The Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate both come out in support of the single payer bills currently introduced in their respective Houses, introduced by John Conyers (D-MI) and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), explaining that they are doing this because a majority of Americans favor single payer. They then whip single payer, […]

[Read more →]

In an article by Ceci Connolly appearing in WaPo yesterday, President Obama, in a “pre-holiday call” with a small group of six high-level Democrats from both Houses of Congress expressed concern over efforts by progressive advocacy groups in online campaigns and advertisements to target “moderate” Democrats whose positions on health-care reform have expressed opposition or […]

[Read more →]

Once a friend from New England (who by the way was a strict Episcopalian who delighted in calling himself an Anglican to emphasize what an Anglophile he was) told me that the culinary thing to do on Independence day was to eat salmon and green peas, practicing a kind of symbolic cannibalism celebrating the American […]

[Read more →]