Some blogs are well-focused, some are random reflections, some well thought out, some not.

Twitter has helped the blogosphere by providing a home to those of limited thought to reach out to those of limited attention span. Twitting is to communication what candy floss is to nutrition. Initially a quick hit, but, in the end, unsatisfying. Yet this is a welcome evolution in the blogosphere, because it implicitly reserves blogging to those who think before they speak, who want to reach out to those who reading appetite extends beyond the candy floss.

An economist by training, and whose interests are diverse and eclectic, the challenge for me is to develop a coherent terms of reference for my blog. Indeed, what attracted me to the discipline of economics was the balance of perspectives, the macro and the micro view of the world, the theoretical and the empirical, the political and the historical, all with a policy and problem-solving bent to help improve the world, a region, a country or a company, and arguably the individual. I share the view of John Maynard Keynes  that an economist “must be mathematician, historian, statesman and philosopher.” And he must write well enough to stir the imagination of lay readers. “Words ought to be a little wild,” he said, “for they are the assaults of thoughts upon the unthinking.”

I have finally discovered my inspiration in Benjamin Franklin’s Junto Society in drafting a terms of reference for my blog.

 In 1727, Benjamin Franklin convinced 12 of his friends to form a club dedicated to mutual improvement. Meeting one night a week, these young men discussed the topics of the day. The group lasted for 40 years and eventually became the nucleus of the American Philosophical Society.

Junto, pronounced who-n-toe, was a private forum for discussion and as a surreptitious instrument for leading public opinion. One of the functions of the group was to brainstorm publicly beneficial ideas.

Franklin described the Junto this way in his Autobiography

“I should have mentioned before, that, in the autumn of the preceding year, [1727] I had formed most of my ingenious acquaintance into a club of mutual improvement, which we called the JUNTO; we met on Friday evenings. The rules that I drew up required that every member, in his turn, should produce one or more queries on any point of Morals, Politics, or Natural Philosophy [physics], to be discussed by the company; and once in three months produce and read an essay of his own writing, on any subject he pleased. Our debates were to be under the direction of a president and to be conducted in the sincere spirit of inquiry after truth, without fondness for dispute or desire of victory; and to prevent warmth, all expressions of positive opinions, or direct contradiction, were after some time”

The blogosphere offers a different sort of meeting place. The guiding principle for this blog is to develop essays on any subject or point of morals, politics, science or philosophy.

To frame the discussion beyond the guiding principles, Franklin set out 24 questions to act a guideline, which I have reduced to four

• What is the most interesting thing that you have read, seen or heard in the last month, particularly in the arts, sciences, humanities travels or other parts of knowledge?
• What is the most interesting thing you have learned about life in the last month based on the success or failure of persons or organizations?
• What social goal, strategy, policy or law is most in need of reform in order to improve general welfare of the community, region, country or world?
• What matters of practical ethics have come to your attention in the last month, including manners of living (temperance/intemperance, imprudence/prudence, passion, vice, folly/moderation, virtue, wisdom, actions) with both intended and unintended consequences?

The benefits of this approach for me are several. Developing an essays forces one to develop an argument in a logical and yet persuasive way. It forces one to test the initial enthusiasm they may have toward a subject and to place it before a public forum for comment and discussion. Even without comment, authors are one step ahead in their own development. Indeed, if my experience is not unique, the mind continues to examine an argument even if others do not, such that the author may ultimately challenge and evolve their own position. That others participate in any of several ways, to comment, to brainstorm, to disagree or discuss will further increase the benefits.

One of my favorite quotations is Ecclesiastes 9:11 (New King James Version)
 11 I returned and saw under the sun that-

The race is not to the swift,
Nor the battle to the strong,
Nor bread to the wise,
Nor riches to men of understanding,
Nor favor to men of skill;
But time and chance happen to them all.

George Orwell (”Politics and the English Language,” in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays [New York, 1950,]p84 “translated” the verse into nominalized modern sociological jargon:
“Objective consideration of contemporary phenomena compels the conclusion that success or failure in competitive activities exhibits not tendency to be commensurate with innate capacity, but that a considerable element of the unpredictable must be invariably be taken into account.”

Jaan Puhvel, professor of classics and Indo-European Studies at the University of California notes that Orwell’s rendering amounts to parody (retaining content, but debasing form)

Or, as the popular idiom puts it, life is a crapshoot.

Reminds me of a great book cover.

Maybe it’s based on a game-changing idea.

Maybe it’s time for J.J. Jones as CEO of the year.

Back to John Gray on the crisis, from the attached Guardian clip. It is not possible to get the show back on the road. We are at the end of debt-based financial capitalism. There is no obvious replacement paradigm , thus we are in for an extended period of uncertainty.

• The largest bubble and the biggest bust will likely lead to regime instability and geopolitical change. Think China.
• Falling back on Keynesianism is a chimera. The situation is different. We are in a different world. IN the 1930s the US was the world’s manufacturing base. Today it is China.
• Once deflation is over, prices, energy prices, will rise quite quickly.
• Neither the political leadership nor the intellectual leadership have grasped the magnitude of the problem. Dave here – this is an interesting point and begs the question of whether it is indeed even possible. Are we dealing with what Donald Rumsfeld might call an “unknown unknown?”

Two worthy policy options placed by Gray are:

• One: treat banks as utilities. This policy option needs serious debate. If banks are the life-blood of our economic  system, is it prudent to leave them to the private sector. Are not the externalities associated with banking so huge as to require utility designation. What is the point of boundless creativity if it comes at the risk of total destruction?
• Two is to the return of the welfare state so as to provide state assurance in the time of social and economic  crisis.  This is a vital form of risk mitigation in times of crisis, so as to maintain the fabric of society and civility when all may be lost and animal spirits turn to the dark side.

The authors go on to ponder what this means in terms of the anthropic principle: the idea that we exist in a universe that’s got conditions favorable to life largely because anything else would preclude any life arising that could ponder the universe. They suggest that there’s another layer of complexity on top of that, namely that we only recognize that there is an anthropic principle observationally verify that we live in a very special time in the evolution of the universe!”

http://arstechnica.com/