"LAGOM": A New Life Style for Post Recession Americans

This recession hasn't finished teaching us that American idol of Darwinian-capitalist pursuit of riches, where a neighbor in difficulty automatically becomes a "loser" to be put out of mind and forgotten, just doesn't cut it when "we" are coming close to becoming one of "them".

This recession is marked by a frightening prospect overnight conversion from plush to bust that can reach all levels, just ask Bernie Madoff's "clients". We all feel the anxiety of material failure, of being second, being the loser when we are nicely comfortable. It all doesnt make sense, we intuit, but who has the time to contemplate when we are so driven to materially excel and garner more than our neighbor in the race to see who next will be the winner, or loser.

The essence of this recession is the repeated lesson that wild frontier, laissez faire (self-regulated, NOT!) capitalism ala Ayn Rand is just a dream, actually a dangerous nightmare because it creates a false theater of false fronts, and actors in false face, where "dollars are the ultimate". And time after time all of these falsities come tumbling down killing the fortunes and hopes of many many people, families, countries. However, America is not down and out for good. We can move on to a higher level of maturity by adopting a life style of moderation, suitability (LAGOM) from one of the most advanced cultures on the planet, and perhaps the culture with the highest standard of living and certainly the first or second highest in cultural well being, Sweden.

The cultural happiness can be summarized in the following observation about purely economic success (which seems to be the current way America values itself):

For all its prominence, GDP is only one yardstick of economic performance and it is no guide to social progress. It simply indicates the market value of all goods and services produced in an economy. It takes no account of how income is shared out, or of how it is generated. Few would celebrate a boom in costly divorce cases – but it would be great for GDP.

America is ready for a new way of living life. It is in our best interest to try a new way of valuing life than material accumulations. That is to say, let's try on "Lagom".

"LAGOM" has no exact translation in English. But good translations of lagom are: "enough, sufficient, adequate, just right". Lagom is also widely translated as "in moderation", "in balance", "optimal", and "suitable", also "sustainable" as a way of life.

Lagom also carries the connotation of perfection through appropriateness.

The value of "just enough" can be contrasted to the value of "more is better". It is viewed favorably as a sustainable alternative to the hoarding extremes of consumerism

"Lagom" is said to describe the basis of the Swedish national psyche,..of consensus and equality. It is ... to be modest and avoid extremes.

Similar to Lagom" is the Middle Path in Eastern philosophy, and Aristotle's "golden mean" of moderation in Western philosophy.

So, America, let's have "Lagom" meals; "Lagomish" houses, cars, and visible material wealth in general.

Public Policy Follies, #1: Whence Cometh the Recession and Health Care Crisis

This is written in the spirit of not so much as to be fair-minded, but to express my wonderment at the current wringing of hands and woe-crying from the media and public about the "apparent" causes of the current recession,the health care crisis, and the supposed "greed and excess of business, that I felt the whole picture needed to be discussed and perhaps explained. I am not necessarily pro-business but like to think I am clear minded in some areas, or try to be.

Our business institutions are not parasitic!! In truth, they are staffed by human beings who learn to do their jobs well. As businesses, they are doing what they are supposed to do – maximize profit. They were granted permissions to excess, and freed from common sense regulatory boundaries, by deregulations granted by a series of free-market ideological administrations ... and “voila” here we are deep in the muck of confusion. We've become entrapped in an ideological mire of our own, maybe misguided, making...believing that we can have a "free" market that we can just walk away from and it will govern itself. Wrong! A simple understanding of human nature would tell us, "WRONG". "For-profit", "Privatizing" and de-regulating have naturally given us "health care" INSURANCE institutions that pay most attention to the profit line and least to actual health COVERAGE". De-regulating banking and investment opened the gates to rampant “greed” - profit seeking, searching for regulatory and tax loop holes (“cheating”?), and big rewards – what businesses normally do, and eventual collapse of the economy. What do you expect!!!! Come on.

If you deregulate the business environment for these institutions, you get the plainly obvious - a collection of runaway (but focused) bulls in a china shop. Perhaps more to the point, you can't hope that lions can be made to like oatmeal.

So what is the problem? Less than well-thought out, though perhaps sincere, privatizations and deregulations have given us the current recession, the current health care problem, and more public policy confusions. The solution? Stop the crying and repair the financial regulatory fences and estqablish a public health care "coverage" through a one-payer system. Then let the business Bulls play to their hearts’ content and restore the economy. We can then watch the show in safety.

Pres. Obama Cautions CEO's "Excess is Out of Fashion" : The Time is Right for "LAGOM" , A Life Style of Moderation for Post-Recession America

This recession hasn't finished teaching uof Fashion" : The Time is Right for "LAGOM" , A Life Style of Moders that the 30 year American idol of Darwinian-capitalist pursuit of riches, where a neighbor in difficulty automatically becomes a "loser" to be put out of mind and forgotten, just doesn't cut it when "we" are in danger of becoming one of "them". President Obama's recent caution to corporate CEO's that "excess is out of fashion" underlines America's need for a less showy of living and a more realistic way we value ourselves. Suggested here is a new valuation scale and life style incorporating the Swedish concept of "LAGOM" , which translates to living in moderation, suitability and balance.

"Lagom" is similar to the Middle Path in Eastern philosophy, and to Aristotle's "golden mean" of moderation in Western philosophy. "Lagom" places value on "just enough" as contrasted to "more is better". "Lagom" values quality over quantity, and favors "sustainable" to the hoarding extremes of consumerism. "Lagom" is modesty and avoiding extremes...to value "just enough" as contrasted to "more is better".

This recession is marked by the frightening prospect of overnight crash from 'plush to bust' that can reach all levels, just ask Bernie Madoff's "clients". But even in better times, most of us have felt the anxiety of not meeting material standards (not having a flat screen tv, not having the most computer memory, and no backyard pool, etc.),]and of being second (the "loser") when we are safe, clean, not hungry and comfortable. Many of us intuited this anxiety didn't make sense or certainly was some kind of monkey best to be gotten off our backs, but who had the time to contemplate when we were so driven to materially excel and garner more than our neighbor in the race to see who next would be the winner, or loser, i.e., the 'rat race'. The rat race to be king of the hill, or certainly not the loser, applies especially to our current form of economic capitalism which has led the recession, to bubbles abd busts in the past, all from a national pusuit of gross accumulation of wealth at all costs - by cheatng corruption, market manipulation, and more ugliness.

The lesson of this recession is that wild frontier, free-market capitalism (theoretically self-regulated, but really NOT!) ala Ayn Rand is just a dream, and worse, a dangerous nightmare of false theater with false fronts, and actors in false face, where "dollars are the ultimate". Time after time all of these falsities come tumbling down killing the fortunes and hopes of too many people, families, countries. However, America can make something good from the current recession by moving to a higher level of maturity - adopting a life style of "LAGOM".

Cultural happiness can be summarized by the following observation about purely economic success (which seems to be the current way America values itself):

"For all its prominence, GDP is only one yardstick of economic performance and it is no guide to social progress. It simply indicates the market value of all goods and services produced in an economy. It takes no account of how income is shared out, or of how it is generated. Few would celebrate a boom in costly divorce cases – but it would be great for GDP."

America can benefit from a new way of living and valuing life, than by valuing soley material accumulations.

So, let's try "Lagom". This does not mean the end of capitalism, just the form we have allowed to become grossly unregulated, out of control and socially irresponsible. Let's have "Lagom" meals; "Lagomish" houses, cars, and apply "Lagom" generally to our lives.

Hanging Ten on the Recession

This recession is like a ten mile high Tsunami suspended over the lands and most everyone are scurrying around pointing fingers and yelling at each other but only a few are bothering to look up.

Still Undercover - What about, again, Tarp-1 Section 8? Hmmm Where's the Money?

Still haven't heard what happened to the first $350 Billion (otherwise known as a big lot of bucks).

Bank CEO Testimonies Before House FSC

After looking at Rep Frank's House Financial Services Committe grilling of the TARP CEOs on the morning of February 11, '09, Pericles21 feels the CEOs deserve no heavy blame. Further, at this point, blame talk is pointless. It is simply a bad financial situation that needs fixing. But, the public wants to see the wringing of hands and several kinds of mea culpa. So, the Frank Committee hearings were useful. And so, what now? We are still left with the problem of how to save the financial sector loans from defaulting and homes from foreclosure. That problem will require cleverness and innovation because the solutions will have to go against the ABC's of economics which is bad debt should be dropped and bad businesses should die off as a natural culling process leading to the better health of thebusiness organism. The problem is things have gone so far into badness that bad business represents a major portion of the organism. Letting "bad" die off will be like cutting off a leg to save the foot.

Recession, Let It Be

Perched Eye had a worrisome dream that it is too early to see how to fix this recession. So, unpleasant as it seems, would it be best to let things get worse until patterns and critical variables are clearer? Will money spent now actually work? Does government need to excercise a kind of national triage for the time being, maybe until unemployment reaches around 8.5%?

Nice compromise for Congress: Repubs won't have to spend money, Dems won't have to stick their necks out. Just have to accept a few million more job losses. Hmmmm?

MBA Follies #1: The Public as Labor [Or, MBA wet dreams gone bad]

From the PERCHED EYE.
The Blue-Red economic ideolgy clash is easy to sum up. The Blue(DEMS) regard Americans as citizens first without whom the nation is, ipso facto, meaningless. The Reds(GOP) define citizens of whatever nation, but especially so it seems American citizens, as a nameless labor pool to be traded about as pawns on the corporate strategy board (or left idle to fend for themselves, as whim dictates). At best, Red political policies rend to treat American citizens like a miscellaneous account of some kind of imagined mega-corporation. Americans take on favored status, however, when they are needed to fight wars which especially nowadays support or benefit real commercial corporate interests. Reds seem to so invested into corporate lingo they visualize non-Wall Street American people as simply labor that deserve nothing more than what might trickle down from the tables of the Masters of the Universe (MUs). This Red POV has obvious, curious and dangerous fallacies. One, in bad times, unlike with corporate concerns, a nation can't just fire the citizenry and expect them to disappear from view and concern, or, rather, a nation's leaders might contemplate this action if they had no brains. Two, citizenry just can't up and walk to another country, that easily... unless the other country is ...well that's another blog. But given the reality of America, Americans are in no way going to "walk", emigrate,...just try to fire them (us..see what I mean). We'll see who fires who, as happened last November 08 in the election. American history is chock full of legend about citizens' responses to that kind of challenge. What are the Red thinking?

Recession, Bail Outs and Stimulus - "Remember Section 8"?

Section 8 of the TARP plan (the Troubled Asset Relief Program) was a troubling part of Treasury Secretary Paulson's early September 2008, $700+ Billion, Wall Street bailout plan. Section 8 read, “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Section 8 exempted the administration (and specifically Paulson) from ANY and ALL oversight regarding his administrative actions in handing out $700 Billion of public money.

As the New York Times put it (NYT Sept 22, 2008, A.R. Sorkin), "with those words, the Treasury secretary...will be vested with perhaps the most incredible powers ever bestowed on one person over the economic and financial life of the nation."

Section 8 did not appear in the final bail, out but it didn't have to since it was de facto enacted on the first $350 billion dole-out about which no details yet have been offered, by whomsoever as to where, when and how those funds were distributed. But maybe worse, no one is effectively asking. It's like a predator picked off cows from the herd while the other cows just went on cud chewing. So, since section 8 continues in left over spirit like a bad odor, here're some thoughts about that from a Perched Eye.

Quick Glance:
Section 8 was unprecedented in American history. But the scam was unprecedented in scope. The Bush administration wanted a HAIL MARY bailout to save the day because the economy was about to tank but with a quick miracle, maybe GOP could save its rear or at least delay the collapse until after the election. Solution?- a midnight-hour, grandstand, outrageous play that relied on cowing the press, Democratic innocence (gullibility, naivete, etc) and a public that was only sporadically tuned in (apathetic). It almost worked.

Rose Glass:
The Bush administration was in truth caught unawares and was simply excercising (resorting to) a grosser version of executive privilege. 'Hey we have the best interests of (fill in good nice things);...just believe in us [and go back to your reality tv]."

The Gut (says):
The administration was passing bricks since early 08 trying to figure a spin on how to explain that Wall Street had done it again...despite the good guy faith the administration had placed in the eight year handshake with the financial sector, 'we trusted you guys....we're one of you...WTF..., and one more thing, don'hat you guys know when to stop, huh? Paulson, get out there; do your thing; we got one chance.... yeah, say anything...Congress are asleep at the wheel...tell em you don't need oversight. Don't worry, Pelosi and Reid haven't a clue where this thing has gone. Jeez, what would RN have done...sure he's not around?'

That basically sets the stage for everything that has happened from October 08 until now, February 6, 08. Think about it. GOP's still touting "wealth" as the only worthwhile passenger to be saved on this sinking ship, while the DEM's are still trying to mouth their position that the people deserve consideration too, and appear stunned that anyone in their right mind can forget this. Well, the GOP core can, could, and will continue quite well to forget the public (er, labor...lay em off... or something).