Hitler’s National Security Courts…and Ours..

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Jacob Hornberger of the Future of Freedom Foundation notes that when people ask for a national security court in the US, they are unwittingly following in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler:

“Hitler established the People’s Court after the terrorist bombing of the German parliament building, the Reichstag. After a trial in a regularly constituted German court, many of the people charged with that terrorist act were acquitted, which, needless to say, outraged Hitler as much as it would have outraged current U.S. proponents of a national security court. After all, Hitler argued, those people who were acquitted were terrorists — otherwise they wouldn’t have been charged and prosecuted — and, therefore, they deserved to be convicted and punished, not acquitted and released.

To ensure that terrorists and other criminals were never again acquitted, Hitler established the People’s Court. Like the national security court that some Americans are now advocating for the United States, the purpose of the court was to create the appearance of justice while ensuring that terrorists and other criminals were convicted and punished.

Proceedings before the People’s Court would easily serve as a model for U.S. advocates of a national security. The trial of Hans and Sophie Scholl was over in less than an hour. Criminal defense lawyers were expected to remain silent during the proceedings, and did so. Defendants were presumed guilty and treated as such. Hearsay was permitted, as was evidence acquired by torture. There was no due process of law. Confessions could be coerced out of defendants. The judges on the tribunal would berate, humiliate, convict, and then swiftly issue sentences, including the death penalty.”

Hornberger points out that Hitler’s regime also included all those kinds of welfare programs that are admired today in America (public schooling, social security, national health care, public-private partnerships, the military industrial complex, the Interstate highway).

Hornberger doesn’t make the point explicitly, but the two things –  popular acceptance of gross violations of law and morality and the rapid expansion of the welfare state – go together. Bluntly, people “sell” their consciences because of the advantages dangled before them.

In “Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State,” respected historian of the Third Reich, Goetz Aly of the Fritz Bauer Institut in Frankfurt, suggests that the Nazis had German popular support all through their “final solution” – not because of wide-spread terror or wide-spread anti-Semitism, but because they’d bribed the population with a generous welfare state and “bennies.”

Happy Birthday, Johann Sebastian Bach

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Norwegian soprano Sissel Kyrkjebo (also excellent as a cross-over singer) sings Bach’s well-known Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 645). I originally had a Michelangeli performance of the D Minor Chaconne up here, but though that felt right as a general reflection on the state of the economic world, it was a tad somber for the vernal equinox, March 21, also Bach’s birthday……

[Correction: this year the vernal equinox was actually on March 20, which makes my greeting belated twice over]

…so I exchanged it for one of the great sacred cantatas.  I think Bach would approve of Sissel’s upbeat version: Sleepers wake, for night is flying…..

The word “sleepers” is a reference to the parable of the ten virigins in the Bible (Matthew 25: 1-13) .

In a bridal party, ten virgins awaiting the bridegroom fall asleep. Five of them have run out of oil in their lamps and ask the others to give them some at the last minute. The parable is pretty fitting for the times. For “oil,” just substitute savings, hard assets, land, precious metals, undervalued stocks.

….And the foolish said unto the wise, Give us of your oil; for our lamps are gone out. But the wise answered, saying, Not so; lest there be not enough for us and you: but go ye rather to them that sell, and buy for yourselves…..

Rabbi Daniel Lapin On the Morality Of Capitalism, At Loyola University, Baltimore, March 24

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Correction: I originally had this as David Lapin..it’s Daniel Lapin (here’s a link to his Mises archive)
Tom di Lorenzo writes:

“The next speaker in my Moral Foundations of Capitalism lecture series at Loyola University Maryland is Rabbi Daniel Lapin, whose topic is: “Do The Right Thing: Get Rich.”

Rabbi Lapin is one of the most skilled rhetorical defenders of private property and free enterprise that I have ever encountered. He combines his knowledge of ancient Hebrew wisdom and economics to explain the morality of economic freedom.

Time: 7 PM Wednesday, March 24

Place: Andrew White Center, 4th Floor Program Room, Loyola University Maryland, 4501 N. Charles St., Baltimore

Henry Hazlitt On The Nature Of Credit

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Henry  Hazlitt in Economics in One Lesson, on the nature of credit:

“There is a strange idea abroad,  held by all monetary cranks, that credit is something a banker  gives to a man. Credit, on the contrary, is something a man already has. He has it, perhaps, because he already has marketable assets of a greater cash value than the loan for which he is asking. Or he has it because his character and past record have earned it. He brings it into the bank with him. That is why the banker makes him the loan. The banker is not giving him something for nothing. He feels assured of repayment. He is merely exchanging a more liquid form of asset or credit for a less liquid form.“

or, to put it another way, even less palatable to modern sensibilities:

“The wicked borroweth and payeth not again” (Psalms. 37:21 a).

Tocqueville On Morals Versus Laws

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“The best laws cannot make a constitution work in spite of morals; morals can turn the worst laws to advantage. That is a commonplace truth, but one to which my studies are always bringing me back. It is the central point in my conception. I see it at the end of all my reflections.”

—  Alexis de Tocqueville

Blair’s “Oily” Deals Greased His Iraq War-Mongering

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Turns out Tony Blair had his hand in the oil jar, while he was talking up the Iraq war….and after. The Daily Mail (UK) reports:

Last night Tory MP Douglas Carswell said of Mr Blair’s links to UI Energy Corporation: ‘This doesn’t just look bad, it stinks.

‘It seems that the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom has been in the pay of a very big foreign oil corporation and we have been kept in the dark about it.

‘Even now we do not know what he was paid or what the company got out of it. We need that information now.

“This is revolving door politics at its worst. It’s not as if Mr Blair has even stepped back from politics, because he is still politically active in the Middle East.

‘I’m afraid I have no confidence at all in the committee that vets these appointments. It’s no good telling us these deals may be commercially sensitive – we are talking about the appointment of our former Prime Minister and the public interest, rather than any commercial interests, must come first.’

Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker said: ‘These revelations show that our former Prime Minister is for sale – he is driven by making as much money as possible.

‘I think many people will find it deeply insensitive that he is apparently cashing in on his contacts from the Iraq war to make money for himself.’

“The committee said yesterday that Mr Blair had taken a paid job advising a consortium of investors led by UI Energy in August 2008. The exact nature of the deal is unknown, but UI Energy is one of the biggest investors in Iraq’s oil-rich Kurdistan region, which became semi-autonomous in the wake of the Iraq war.

“Mr Blair’s fee has not been disclosed but is likely to have run into hundreds of thousands of pounds.

“The secrecy is particularly odd because UI Energy is fond of boasting of its foreign political advisers, who include the former Australian prime minister Bob Hawke and several prominent American politicians.

“Mr Blair successfully persuaded the committee that the appointment was ‘market sensitive’ and could not be made public.”

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259030/Tony-Blairs-secret-dealings-South-Korean-oil-firm-UI-Energy-Corp.html#ixzz0iduagoIm

Third Point, Goldman Trading Chiefs Exit Together, Madoff Programmers Indicted

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A rather odd coincidence.

Two top hedge-fund managers from the purported Wall Street mafia have left the scene, in different ways.

Goldman’s chief hedge-fund manager, Pierre-Henri Flamand (chief of GS Principal Strategies), retired in February after 15 years at Goldman. Flamand was with Principal Strategies from 2002 -2007, and then turned it into a hedge-fund in 2008, is starting his own fund. He’s being replaced by another manager from GSPS. Goldman has been accused of conniving with select hedge-funds to conduct bear raids on banks and governments.

Meanwhile, Adam Sackett, co-chief of trading at Third Point Capital, died on March 11, March 10, Wednesday night, apparently from a sudden bacterial infection. Third Point is one of the hedge-funds accused of colluding with David Einhorn’s Greenlight and SAC’s Steven Cohen in manipulative activities. Sackett had previously worked at Jim Chanos’ hedge-fund Kynikos (suspected by some to be part of that group), according to this death notice in the New York Times.

Note: Bankruptcy examiner Anton Valukas’ report on the demise of Lehman came out on March 11, 2010, the day after Sackett died.

Our condolences to the family.

In a letter to investors, posted at scribd, Daniel Loeb, Sackett’s co-chief at Third Point, called him “brilliant, kind, and funny, ” says the WSJ.

Last year, Third Point lost three senior officers, its chief operating officer, Brian Wilson, chief risk officer, Devin Dellaire, and head of investor relations, Tom Kratky.

And what’s been happening on the Madoff front? According to a long Wall Street Journal piece, he was allegedly beaten up in prison in December by another prisoner serving time for a drug conviction. He’s also been seen socializing with a Colombian crime family boss, Carmine Persico.

(From wiki:

“As of November 2007, Carmine “Junior” Persico still remains the reputed Boss of the Colombo crime family, with current street boss Thomas “Tommy Shots” Gioeli, and former Persico rival, John “Sonny” Franzese as the Underboss, but due to parole violations, Andrew “Andy Mush” Russo is the acting Underboss instead of Franzese, with the Aloi brothers, Vincenzo and Benedetto, as alleged Consigliere.

Carmine Persico has reportedly been running the Colombo crime family since the 1970s, days after Joseph Colombo was shot, and Persico’s name has been mentioned in dozens of murder-cases since then, as he has been in charge of the Colombos for over three decades. During his 50-year-membership with the Colombo crime family, he has survived three internal wars, his life sentence, and allegedly been shot more than 20 times. Persico is also only one of three defendants from the Mafia Commission Trial who received 100 years and is still alive.

Still, Persico remains the Boss of the Colombo crime family. As of March 2009, Persico is serving a life imprisonment at the Butner Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) Medium in North Carolina. His projected release-date is March 20, 2050, effectively a life sentence.[1] It has been reported that Persico socializes with fellow inmate Bernard Madoff.[4])”

Meanwhile, court appointed trustee Irving Picard is suing Madoff’s sons for $198 million, for dereliction of duty as his employees.

The two sons, as well as Madoff’s brother, are being charged with tax fraud.

Altogether five others have been charged in connection with this scheme, two having pleaded guilty and the rest maintaining their innocence.(Lila: I’m not clear from the WSJ piece if the two sons are part of the five or in addition.)

On March 17 (Wednesday) a federal grand jury also indicted Jerome O’Hara and George Perez, two programmers who allegedly developed the software that helped Madoff with his scheme. (More at Daily Finance).

China Bubble: State Firms Bid Up Land Prices To Record Levels

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China Daily:

“In spite of all the government’s tough talk against excessive home price hikes, the record land price for residential housing in Beijing was broken twice on Monday thanks to aggressive bids by State-owned enterprises.

The weeklong postponement of the land auction seemingly served to save policymakers, who were explaining to the National People’s Congress how they would prevent housing bubbles, from trouble.

Yet, the jaw-dropping results only underscored how differently these cash-rich State firms think about housing prices. It seems that all the measures that the government adopted to raise capital requirements and leverage restrictions have so far worked only to discourage private property developers while doing little to restrain the appetite of State firms for a bigger market share.

The record land sales on Monday certainly cast doubts on a previous official claim that not a single cent of the country’s 4-trillion-yuan stimulus package has flowed into the real estate sector. Worse, they fueled expectations of more price hikes to undermine government efforts to prevent housing bubbles.”