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Apr-09 ^{link »}

Harvard ignored warnings about investments - The Boston Globe

Summers had a huge influence over Harvard money matters during his tenure, according to several people who worked with him. Known for his love of intellectual debate, he would hear out the opinions of others but ultimately was forceful in his own views. He was more financially sophisticated than most other Harvard presidents, and more deeply involved in decisions, from how to maximize returns on Harvard's cash to using financial instruments called swaps, to hedge against the risk of rising interest rates - a hedge that would ultimately backfire. ^{link »}

"In the years after Summers left, market conditions and Harvard's liquidity changed dramatically. The university's financial strategies could have and should have changed with them.'' ^{link »}

Members of the financial staff, a broader financial advisory committee, and the university's elite six-member board all weighed in. But Summers was a powerful advocate, and with the returns so good for so long, there was little support for exercising caution. ^{link »}

The power is just in the hands of too few people with too little accountability.'' ^{link »}

The very thing that the former endowment chiefs had worried about and warned of for so long then came to pass. Amid plunging global markets, Harvard would lose not only 27 percent of its $37 billion endowment in 2008, but $1.8 billion of the general operating cash - or 27 percent of some $6 billion invested. Harvard also would pay $500 million to get out of the interest-rate swaps Summers had entered into, which imploded when rates fell instead of rising. The university would have to issue $1.5 billion in bonds to shore up its cash position, on top of another $1 billion debt sale. And there were layoffs, pay freezes, and deep, university-wide budget cuts. ^{link »}

Even with the losses, Rothenberg said, the cash strategy has earned Harvard returns averaging 8.9 percent over the past 10 years. He and other university officials say the cash pool is still ahead of where it would have been, if invested more conservatively all along. But no one could be specific about what that net gain has been. ^{link »}

Human Nature: Justice versus Power, Noam Chomsky debates with Michel Foucault

And so I think that the student-revolutionaries, if you like, have a point, a partial point : that is to say, it's a very important thing in a modern advanced industrial society how the trained intelligentsia identifies itself. It's very important to ask whether they are going to identify themselves as social managers, whether they are going to be technocrats, or servants of either the state or private power, or, alternatively, whether they are going to identify themselves as part of the work force, who happen to be doing intellectual labour. If the latter, then they can and should play a decent role in a progressive social revolution. If the former, then they're part of the class of oppressors. ^{link »}

Production at the heart of the proletariat? A society should protect those who produce value. ^{link »}

I think we're safer in hoping for progress on the basis of those human instincts than on the basis of the institutions of centralised power, which, I believe, will almost inevitably act in the interest of their most powerful components. ^{link »}

It seems to me that modern technology, like the technology of data-processing, or communication and so on, has precisely the opposite implications. It implies that relevant information and relevant understanding can be brought to everyone quickly. It doesn't have to be concentrated in the hands of a small group of managers who control all knowledge, all information and all decision-making. So technology, I think, can be liberating, it has the property of being possibly liberating; it's converted, like everything else, like the system of justice, into an instrument of oppression because of the fact that power is badly distributed. ^{link »}

Well, civil disobedience in the U.S. is an action undertaken in the face of considerable uncertainties about its effects. ^{link »}

I think this is really what being a progressive is about - progress despite the uncertain nature of our conceptions a just society towards which we are progressing. It means taking action despite our knowledge of the fact that intrinsic cultural conditions, parochialisms, human mind limit our access to truth. ^{link »}

I would think that ultimately it would make very good sense, in many cases, to act against the legal institutions of a given society, if in so doing you're striking at the sources of power and oppression in that society. ^{link »}

Obligatory behavior to confront oppressive aspects within any system - Note: doesn't require one to reject that system ^{link »}

Only creativity is possible in putting into play of a system of rules; it is not a mixture of order and freedom. ^{link »}

I would claim then that this instinctive knowledge, if you like, this schematism that makes it possible to derive complex and intricate knowledge on the basis of very partial data, is one fundamental constituent of human nature. In this case I think a fundamental constituent because of the role that language plays, not merely in communication, but also in expression of thought and interaction between persons; and I assume that in other domains of human intelligence, in other domains of human cognition and behaviour, something of the same sort must be true. Well, this collection, this mass of schematisms, innate organising principles, which guides our social and intellectual and individual behaviour, that's what I mean to refer to by the concept of human nature . ^{link »}

And contrary to what you think, you can't prevent me from believing that these notions of human nature, of justice, of the realisation of the essence of human beings, are all notions and concepts which have been formed within our civilisation, within our type of knowledge and our form of philosophy, and that as a result form part of our class system; and one can't, however regrettable it may be, put forward these notions to describe or justify a fight which should-and shall in principle--overthrow the very fundaments of our society. This is an extrapolation for which I can't find the historical justification. That's the point. ^{link »}

Daring Fireball: Pay Walls

. They are small, flat organizations where most of the employees are producing actual content. ^{link »}

I'm interested in some serious thought here. Is the answer really to scale down the size of newspapers operations? Doesn't the economy of size work the other way - where large companies have lower relative overhead? If newspapers disaggregated, wouldn't it be fair to think that administrative costs relative to content production costs would increase in each constituent, because the wedding announcement team would have to pay for its own executive leadership/office/all those costs, just like the sports team, just like the war correspondent team? I really am not sure. Also, I wonder about what "new, online-only publications" he's talking about that are lean and mean and operating at a profit. ^{link »}

Sick in the head: Why America won't get the health-care system it needs—By Luke Mitchell (Harper's Magazine)

still are part of a culture predisposed to virtuality, a culture where in every realm of endeavor, from industry to politics to art, the word trumps the deed and the immaterial emotion trumps the material fact. ^{link »}

How, though, is single payer less beholden to "Platonic immateriality". I mean, interesting, beautiful construction. But let's be honest that any universal solution is going to a "system" that abstracted from the individuals within it ^{link »}

How, though, is single-payer any less beholden to the "needs of the 'system'"? ^{link »}

defined by the passivity of a people that has sacrificed its own, dem ocratic power of large numbers on the altar of strange and unstated beliefs. ^{link »}

His anger—and his emphasis on “a man” as the relevant object of social consideration—were unusual. ^{link »}

As we get better at understanding why people get sick, we will also get better at deciding whether or not to insure them. Ultimately, the entire nation could be reduced to two perfect circles: the people who pay for insurance and don’t need it, and the people who need insurance but can’t pay for it. “I mean, asymptotically,” I said, “you will slowly approach perfect knowledge . . .” ^{link »}

The argument for single payer is straightforward. ^{link »}

The demand for not dying, to give just one example, is pretty much unlimited. ^{link »}

Overtreatment, of course, is another word for growth, and it is the natural consequence of a market-driven system. ^{link »}