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Monday, July 20, 2009

The Undismal Weekly Wrapup - July 12-18, 2009

Analytical Summaries of Key Stories of the Week on Economics and Public Policy

Interesting week, with major themes focusing on cautious optimism on signs of recovery (but with a tone of expectations management on its pace) and next moves for the Fed.

America Needs a National Manufacturing Policy. Now. (Huffington Post)
In a guest column for the Huffington Post, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), Chairman of the Senate Banking Subcommittee on Economic Policy, points to the pivotal role of the declining manufacturing base in the U.S. in the current plight of the middle class, and argues for an urgent need for “a national plan … that aligns federal actions with the goal of strengthening our manufacturing sector.”

Experts Tell Congress to Lay Off the Fed (Wall Street Journal)
David Wessel of the Wall Street Journal reports that 250 noted economists, including Robert Shiller, have urged congress not to cave in to pressure to intervene in the Fed’s policy making efforts, driven by critics of the central bank. They also caution that efforts currently under discussion to revisit the Fed’s powers and governance structure could backfire.

Geithner Says Global Economy Faces Recovery Setbacks (Bloomberg)
Speaking in Saudi Arabia, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner cautions that the recovery of the global economy is likely to be gradual with a higher than normal share of temporary fluctuations and reversals, due to such factors as wealth lost during the crisis and the heavy increase in public debt, according to this report for Bloomberg from Rebecca Christie.

McCulley Says Fed Needs To ‘Be Irresponsible’ If Prices Tumble (Bloomberg)
Dakin Campbell reports for Bloomberg on advice to the Fed from Paul McCulley of Pacific Investment Management Co., who argues that, if the U.S. economy falls into a protracted slump similar in character to Japan’s lengthy recession, the central bank may need to initiate radical interventions that set aside the normal context of keeping inflation within a targeted level.

Paulson Defends His Response to Economic Crisis (Associated Press)
Responding to the substantial second-guessing of the Bush administration’s responses to the economic crisis toward the end of 2008, former Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson contends, according to this report from AP’s Ann Flaherty, that the actions prevented suffering of a “far more profound and disturbing level.”

Summers: Economy Has Moved Back from Catastrophe (Associated Press)
Obama economic advisor Larry Summers makes a case, as reported by AP’s Jim Kuhnhenn, for cautious optimism -- based on several indicators, including a decrease in public gloom evidenced by declining Google searches for the phrase “economic depression,” a slower pace of economic contraction, improving consumer confidence, and stronger quarterly earnings reports.
Sphere: Related Content

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Brought to You by Big Government

This Plant Has Worked 307 Days Without a Lost Time Accident.
The Best Previous Record Was 286 Days.
Report All Unsafe Conditions to Your Foreman.

My diverse and rather circuitous professional life has taken me at times to facilities where signs are displayed that read like my subhead above. It strikes me that these signs probably wouldn’t exist without unions and their negotiating power, without government regulations, and without “big-government” agencies like the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

There would be far fewer, if any, people who have job titles like Safety Director. Industrial plants would be less likely to hold regular safety meetings, during which rank-and-file workers report and discuss hazards they have observed and brainstorm with their peers and superiors about creative ways to eliminate them. Workers would not have the benefit of the increasing body of knowledge, accumulated through such processes, about how to work safely, provide safety training to new employees, and stay proactively on the lookout for previously unknown hazards as they emerge constantly in the work environment.

Those from a more laissez-faire point of view would argue that, in a truly free market, industry self-regulation would take care of all that. But history, let alone a common-sense understanding of human nature and its unchecked workings in pursuit of short-term gain, tells us otherwise.

During the years when I used to ride the Metrorail daily from suburban Maryland into Washington D.C., a hand-painted sign showed up at a construction site near the Catholic University of America station. It read:

Unions -- The People Who Brought You the Weekend

The sign made a good point, and there are many other rights, privileges, benefits, and protections, taken for granted by the U.S. workforce of today, that originated with unions, big government, and other elements of the so-called Left:
  • The 40-hour, five-day workweek -- brought to you by unions and big government
  • Child labor laws -- brought to you by big government
  • Laws prohibiting minors from performing certain hazardous duties -- brought to you by big government
  • Required Material Safety Data Sheets instructing employees on how to safely handle toxic or otherwise hazardous substances -- brought to you by big government
  • Overtime pay at time-and-a-half -- brought to you by big government
  • Companies no longer able to recklessly expose their employees to hazardous materials like asbestos without proper protection -- brought to you by big government
  • Companies required to provide adequate safety equipment to employees doing hazardous work -- brought to you by unions and big government
  • No more non-illicit sweatshops in the U.S. -- brought to you by big government
  • Workers’ compensation laws and insurance coverage -- brought to you by big government
  • Unemployment compensation for laid-off workers -- brought to you by big government
  • Minimum wage laws -- brought to you by big government
  • Laws prohibiting racial and gender discrimination and sexual harassment -- brought to you by big government
  • The Internet as an important tool for conducting daily business in the workplace -- brought to you by big government
I could go on and on. But I think this list of twelve good things is already long enough to make you wonder just what it is that those who bash big government and unions really want. Sphere: Related Content

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Flaws of Quasi-Darwinist Arguments for a Pure Laissez-Faire System

Adam Smith, having published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, in which the theory of “the invisible hand” first appears, precisely a century before Darwin’s Origin of the Species, created a model involving a “selection process” in the realm of commerce that could be said, from an analogous perspective, to anticipate Darwin’s theory of natural selection in the realm of biology.

Just as sexual selection in Darwin is a force that drives “the survival of the fittest,” Smith’s invisible hand of self-interest in the marketplace could be said to drive a selection process by financially rewarding the most innovative and efficient individuals and organizations, while destroying those that are not effective. The strong businesses survive and the weak fail.

Since Darwin, however, links between laissez-faire and Darwinist thinking have appeared frequently, at least in popular parlance, with the survival-of-the-fittest concept supporting the premise that a pure laissez-faire system is more efficient because it is more natural. In this line of reasoning, pure laissez-faire prevents weaker entities from being propped up artificially by having resources allocated to them based on factors other than their fitness for survival, such as government controlled protections, privileges, subsidies, etc.

The same kind of reasoning is also applied to debate on such issues as minimum wage laws, environmental and safety regulations, union organizing rights, and executive compensation. Those whose opinions lie in the further reaches of the free-market side of the continuum argue that such regulations interfere with the natural ability of the market to maintain efficiency by rewarding the fit and penalizing the unfit.

However, like many attempts to take ideas from the natural sciences and apply them to the social sciences, the use of Darwinist concepts in economics is highly prone to error. In the natural world, the question of which individual organism or species is more fit for survival is context-specific. And the physical contexts are, in effect, immutable. For example, an alligator is not at all fit to survive in an arctic environment, but a polar bear is. Move either of these creatures out of its native environment, and survival is virtually impossible.

If we set aside for a moment the current controversy over the accuracy of the global warming theory and man’s role in causing it, it is for practical purposes an immutable reality that it is very cold in the arctic and very hot in the tropics. These conditions impose hard physical constraints on what determines fitness for survival.

But socioeconomic environments are far from immutable. Free societies have the ability to decide what rules will apply to the economic playing field, and what we ask in return from those who benefit from society’s provision of a marketplace and labor force from which a profit can be made. And -- forgive the cliché -- if you choose not to decide, which is exactly what laissez faire thinking asks society to do in relation to the rules of business, you still have made a choice.

In a market entirely free of regulations, society makes a choice that creates a situation in which he who already has the gold rules. Already-accumulated wealth creates a distinct -- though not entirely insurmountable -- advantage in the competitive playing field and sets up a situation in which, to resort to another cliché, the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

The problem with all this is that a fully unregulated free enterprise system with no governmentally imposed checks and balances would inevitably end up allocating some rewards to businesses and individuals that are based on factors other than efficiency, effective performance, and fitness for survival.

For example, in a market without minimum wage levels or provision for organizing unions, businesses would be free to pay the lowest wages they could possibly get away with and pay employees a much smaller portion of the value they produce. Businesses that get so large that they become monopolies can drive out any attempts at competition and continue to be rewarded based solely on their size and accumulated capital, even though they may, as they grow in size and power, lose much of their efficiency and ability to innovate.

Large, well financed entities can acquire powers, almost governmental in nature, to control their markets, such as by restricting access to vendor relationships or distribution channels. This can keep inferior products on the market well after they have passed their “natural” life cycles, because would-be innovators have too many barriers to market entry.

Misallocation of rewards can occur on the individual level as well. Some of the earliest people to succeed financially in the American colonies were not among the most successful in their native countries. Otherwise, they would have had no incentive to come to The New World.

Aside from those coming to escape religious persecution, we could make a simple division of the earliest generations of Europeans in the American colonies into three basic categories:

1. People who were wealthy -- but not among the wealthiest of the wealthy -- who had the personal funds, social standing, or connections to acquire the financial backing to come and seek greater fortunes that they hoped would gain them entry to the ranks of the wealthiest of the wealthy. In this category were those, for example, who received the first land grants from the King of England.

2. “Middle class” people, such as merchants and skilled tradesmen, artisans, and craftsmen, who sought opportunities to increase their economic and social status by providing goods and services to those in the first category.

3. People from lower social strata who came as indentured servants or paid workers in more menial categories, expecting to increase their standing by providing labor to those in the first two categories.

By omitting from the discussion those who did not arrive by choice, I mean no offense. The history of slavery in America could be the subject of another, even longer post on how a virtually unregulated market perpetrated a gross abuse of human potential.

Granted, this sketch of the earliest Europeans in the colonies is one that undoubtedly omits many complexities. Nevertheless, I think it’s valuable for illustrating (1) that those in all three categories were not among the most successful of their peers in Europe; (2) that choosing to change their socioeconomic environment -- to a new and more open market -- enabled them to use their native abilities to a greater benefit than they would have achieved in Europe ; and (3) that, therefore, their status in the European hierarchy was determined by factors other than their inherent “fitness for survival,” which could be altered by a change of socioeconomic context.

In other words, in a new market in which basic resources were not controlled by the wealth and power of an existing hierarchy, individuals throughout the food chain could achieve a level of success that would be unlikely in their “native” environment.

But as we moved through subsequent generations, the playing field changed, and a new hierarchy emerged here in the United States. Those whose families were here first, when resources were more freely available, could benefit simply by virtue of connections to those who were here first.

In spite of this, the nation was -- and still is -- a land of opportunity. But the accessibility of opportunity has arguably diminished with each generation as control of resources has become more concentrated. So even though survival of the fittest was likely to have been an important factor among all three categories of the original settlers, as time went on it became less of a factor as various persons and entities gained control over more of the playing field.

If you’re not convinced, let’s look at a very tangible -- and personal -- example of the diminution of opportunity, to which many readers should be able to relate: the declining affordability of higher education.

When my older brothers and sisters went to college in the 1970s, it was very possible for a college-age kid to earn enough from part-time and summer jobs, paying not substantially more than minimum wage, to pay tuition at an above-average state university.

But between their college years and mine, and through all the years since, the wages accessible to a high school graduate by no means kept up with the inflation rate of college tuitions. When my older siblings went to school, “working your way through” without becoming encumbered with loans was entirely feasible. By the time I entered college, it was still feasible, but quite difficult. Tuition, at the same university my older siblings attended, inflated so rapidly that it nearly doubled between my freshman and senior years.

So higher education has become less accessible. It is a major key to success in the competitive world of business, and an important means of measuring, on a basis that is largely independent of one’s initial station in life, one’s ability to succeed.

Today, I believe it would be virtually impossible for a student at my alma mater to complete an undergraduate degree in four years without extensive financial help from family, scholarships, grants, or heavy loan debt. Marked obstacles limiting access to the playing field have been erected, hindering individuals who could otherwise succeed.

Those from less affluent families have fewer opportunities to even enter the game than they did 35 years ago. On the other hand, at certain elite private universities, a mediocre high school student who happens to have a wealthy family can secure admission purely on the basis of an alumnus parent who can pay tuition out of deep pockets. That student, in turn, can gain substantial professional or business advantages over brighter but less affluent peers through the social connections that can come from attending an elite university.

It’s an example of the market allocating rewards based on criteria other than fitness for survival. The heirs of those who truly earned rewards through enterprise and innovation can become complacent and decadent; yet their socioeconomic advantages can allow them to continue reaping benefits in the marketplace, at a cost to society of hindering competition from those who might otherwise be superior innovators. In turn, it’s a clear example of the fallacy of quasi-Darwinist arguments for a pure laissez-faire system.

It’s also an example of the need for some level of government involvement in maintaining a truly level playing field. In the higher education example, the appropriate role of government should of course be the subject of active, constructive debate. I have utmost respect for our elite private universities, which have, indeed, produced some of our greatest leaders in business, science, public service, and other domains. And I hold our top public institutions in similar regard for their aspirations -- often successful, in my view -- to offer education comparable to their elite private counterparts, even though many have in the process become prohibitively expensive.

I don’t necessarily believe in the concept of an unconditionally free, four-year college education. But there are many options that could produce an outcome more equitable and productive than the status quo, including various forms of public-private financing partnerships, or free junior colleges and postsecondary technical schools as an extension of the public school system, followed by various financing options for those with the ability and desire to move on to the junior and senior year -- work study programs, loan forgiveness in exchange for public or military service, and so on.

Natural ability is of course a crucial factor in success, but many people with substantial natural ability are hindered from maximizing their potential. Surely the cost to society is great, and it’s difficult to see a legitimate basis for denying that efforts to find the right model to correct these inequities would be worthwhile. Surely the wealthiest nation on earth has the resources to accomplish this, if only we would work together to find better, more creative ways to allocate them. Sphere: Related Content

Monday, July 13, 2009

The Undismal Weekly Wrapup -- July 5-11, 2009

Analytical Summaries of Key Stories of the Week on Economics and Public Policy

A Possible Bailout for Small Business (Forbes)
Brian Wingfield reports on the possibility, currently under consideration by the Obama administration, of making a portion of the original $700 billion TARP allocation available to aid small enterprises via the small business administration.

Do We Need Another Stimulus? (Washington Post)
Economists and politicians weigh in on the issue, including: Robert Reischauer, President, The Urban Institute; Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Maryland); Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), House Minority Leader; Mark Zandi, Chief Economist, Moody’s Economy.com; Martin Feldstein, Professor of Economics, Harvard University; Dino Kos, Former New York Fed Executive Vice President; Douglas Holtz-Eakin, Former Director, Congressional Budget Office; and Lanny Davis, Former Special Counsel to President Clinton.

Fed's Stern: First Stage Of Recovery 'Close At Hand' (Wall Street Journal)
Michael S. Derby reports on comments by Gary Stern, President of the Minneapolis Fed, who cites positive indicators in consumer spending, manufacturing, and housing sales, while also cautioning about the possible pitfall of asset price instability, which could hinder the recovery and is difficult to control through the Fed’s normal monetary policy arsenal.

How Did California Get Into This Mess? (Los Angeles Times)
Examining the complex, multifaceted causes of California’s budget crisis, John Vasconcellos contends that there’s plenty of blame to go around, not only in the realms of government but also among California voters, whose contradictory support of both tax reductions and increased services placed the state government in a quandary.

The Stimulus Trap (New York Times)
Commenting on the political predicament President Obama may soon find himself in amidst declining public confidence in his economic policies, economist Paul Krugman makes the case that the current best option is to pause and observe, giving the original package time to work, while simultaneously evaluating options for strengthening the current policies should they prove to have been insufficient.

Weekend Opinionator: Is GM Back from the Dead? (New York Times)
Tobin Harshaw explores opinions from various analysts on what’s in store for General Motors after a fast-track emergence from bankruptcy. Sphere: Related Content

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

The Undismal Weekly Wrapup -- June 28-July 4, 2009

Analytical Summaries of Key Stories of the Week on Economics and Public Policy

A Setback on Jobs (New York Times)
In an analysis of unexpectedly high job losses reported for June, David Leonhardt describes the state of the economy as “stepped back from the precipice of depression” but far from being in good shape.

As U.S. Celebrates July 4th, Rest Assured that Obama is No Socialist (Chicago Tribune)
Citing opinions from economists and other experts, columnist David Greising characterizes the widespread cries of “socialism” from President Obama’s critics as intellectually lazy, arguing that the administration’s policies have been working “at all times from a capitalist frame of reference.”

In a Crisis, Rethinking Fiscal Federalism (New York Times)
Harold Pollack of the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and Ed Kilgore, Managing Editor of The Democratic Strategist, contend that complex fiscal crises occurring across the U.S. at the state and local levels reflect “a frayed partnership between states and the federal government.”

New White House Office to Redefine What Urban Policy Encompasses (Washington Post)
President Obama’s newly created Office of Urban Affairs seeks to “redefine the word urban and set the tone for policies not only for inner cities but for nearby suburbs as well, according to this report from Robin Shulman of the Washington Post

Taking Stock: Economy and Government on July 2, 2009 (The Atlantic)
Continuing to characterize the present crisis as a “depression,” Richard Posner cautions that, in spite of signs of “incipient recovery,” prospects for the economy remain uncertain amidst continuing fundamental problems of unemployment, underemployment, declining home prices, and reduced personal consumption.

U.S. Stimulus a Small Patch for Big Economic Hole (Reuters)
In this news analysis piece, Emily Kaiser takes stock of the impact thus far of the federal stimulus package, especially in the context of the daunting difference in magnitude between the federal program’s $787 billion scale vs. the “$12 trillion in household wealth that has been wiped out since the recession began.”

Why This Recession is Hitting Men Harder (Wall Street Journal)
Featuring commentary by experts from the Economic Policy Institute and the Center for Economic Policy and Research, this report from Andrea Coombes examines the factors behind and social impact of the gap in unemployment levels between men (10.5 percent in May) and women (8 percent), especially given that male dominated industries account for half of job losses since the beginning of the recession. Sphere: Related Content

Monday, July 6, 2009

The Return of Cottage Industry

In the Great Recession, resources like Craigslist, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, flyers on telephone poles and under windshield wipers, blogging platforms, slapped-together DIY business cards, and concepts like guerrilla marketing are fulfilling the same purpose as did the storied fruit stands of The Great Depression.

An article originally published in the Hartford Courant reports figures from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics indicating that self-employment nationwide jumped nearly 2.5 percent in just one month this year (February to March 2009).

Annualized, that would be a 30 percent increase. And with about 3 percent of the entire U.S. population self-employed, we’re clearly looking at a small but significant portion of all working adults and an important factor in the entire economy.

Of course, many of these so-called microbusinesses don’t offer the excitement of a high-tech startup and may involve work that some might consider mundane, such as cleaning houses or mowing lawns. But the trend highlights a distinction that is especially important given the dismal unemployment figures just reported for June: while jobs may be scarce, there is always plenty of work.

Behind this distinction is the fact that the current recession was created by a crisis of big banking, big finance, big business and, arguably, by a failure on the part of big government to regulate them in the right ways. And while the resulting contractions of credit, home prices, consumer spending, and employment have affected businesses large and small, it’s important to take a look at the real, physical world around you. It hasn’t changed in much, has it?

The crisis made some jobs go away, but it didn’t really make work go away. There is still plenty of work to be done: plenty of houses that need to be cleaned, painted, or repaired; lawns that need to be mowed, watered, and fertilized this summer; leaves that will need to be raked and gutters that will need to be cleaned this fall; snow that will need to be shoveled this winter; restaurant menus that need to be designed; documents ranging from resumes to press releases that need to be skillfully written; hardwood floors that need to be skillfully installed; cracked windshields that need to be repaired; carpets that need to be cleaned; errands that need to be run; new entrepreneurs who need to be coached; passengers who need rides to the airport; senior citizens who need transportation to medical appointments or grocery runs made; students who need to be tutored; driveways that need to be resurfaced; music lessons that need to be taught; babies that need to be sat; content that needs to be search-engine optimized; dogs that need to be walked; poop that needs to be scooped; weddings that need to be sung at and photographed; digital videos that need to be edited; hair that needs to be braided; Web sites that need redesigns and fresh, well-written content; computers that need to be troubleshot; and so on.*

The list could go on and on, but you get the point, don’t you? There’s a difference between jobs and work, and there’s no real shortage of the latter. A suddenly unemployed or underemployed desk jockey might feel loathe to take on some of the categories of work listed above. But it’s worth considering that business savvy acquired in corporatedom, combined with the low-cost, technology-driven marketing resources available today, some persistently applied guerrilla marketing principles, and an abundance of willing workers on the labor market, could grow a one-person operation based on some forgotten skill into a lucrative small-to-midsize business, especially once the recovery begins.

Will this be a good thing for the economy in the long run? It’s hard to imagine why it wouldn’t, especially if it also facilitates a transition back to an increasingly localized business, economic, and financial base, with fewer “too big to fail” entities -- which, in turn, could leave the population as a whole less vulnerable to the booms and busts of global business and finance.

And, driven by necessity, it will probably happen independent of, in spite of, and under the radar of the noisy debate over the appropriate role of the federal government in setting the economy back on track.

*The services listed above are for example only and, of course, may involve varying startup costs and, in some cases, regulatory or licensing requirements. Check with your relevant local government agency, such as a state department of labor and industry, before taking the plunge. Sphere: Related Content

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Michael Jackson, Jesus, and the Dark Economics of Celebrity in America

Years ago, Joni Mitchell sang about "the star maker machinery behind the popular song." She was right that there is, in effect, a machine -- a very powerful one -- involved in the making of fame, in the extraction of monetary value from talented or otherwise desirable individuals.

But she left out one important point. There's also a star breaker machinery that kicks in behind the fame of many celebrities, especially in the case of someone with fame the caliber of Michael Jackson who, at his peak, was not just a star but a megastar of astonishing, unprecedented proportions.

And, if we are to believe Michael Bloom, who represents himself as a scholar in the field of mass behavior and has served as a public relations guru for such artists as Michael Jackson, Prince, Simon & Garfunkel, and AC/DC, the negative energy of the star breaker machinery sometimes goes to work even before the culture's adoration and idolization of a given figure has reached its peak. Even while stars are still on the rise, a negative undercurrent can be simultaneously set in motion that begins to tear them down.

Interviewed Saturday by by Ian Punnet on Coast to Coast AM, Bloom discussed his first meeting with Michael Jackson's brothers shortly before the Victory Tour. Michael Jackson had already experienced astonishing success with Off the Wall, and Thriller had not yet been released. Reluctant to take on the Jacksons as new clients, Bloom said that the brothers virtually begged him for help in managing Michael's public image.

He believed that the brothers were already beginning to sense an emerging cultural phenomenon surrounding Michael that frightened them intuitively, even though they didn't yet have a clear understanding of its magnitude or wide-reaching implications. Bloom characterized this meeting, which took place in a New York hotel room, as a veritable cry for him to help them "save Michael's soul."

As Punnet's interview continued, Bloom went on to give an example of what he saw as the beginning, shortly after he agreed to work with the Jacksons, of the star-breaker machinery's operation in Michael's case. First by happenstance, a music critic for the Boston Herald, which had always badly lagged the Boston Globe in circulation, published an article on Michael Jackson that led to the Herald selling a record number of copies. On the day the Michael Jackson article was published, the Herald outsold the Globe.

With the Herald's management fascinated with the power of extreme celebrity to drive sales, the scope of the critic's role at the paper was expanded, and he was issued a "quota" requiring a set number of Michael Jackson stories over defined intervals.

It's easy to see the burden this could place on a journalist. Even with major stars, the amount of "real" news that is sufficient to sustain reader interest is likely to be limited. So it would seem that imposing production quotas on compelling celebrity stories would create an unspoken pressure toward at least some level of embellishment in order to attract attention. And while in the 1980s there was nothing new about sensationalistic celebrity journalism, tabloid papers, or harassing paparazzi, Bloom seems to imply that the explosion of reporting on Michael Jackson raised it to an entirely new level. Inevitably, the tenor of this reporting grew increasingly negative because, as everyone knows, bad news outsells good.

Bloom implied further that the workings of this star-breaker machinery were instrumental in Jackson's increasingly isolated existence and separation from the real world and its norms. In the interview, Bloom seemed adamant in his belief that Jackson, in spite of his child-like worldview, had at his core a fundamental morality that would have precluded the acts against children of which he was accused. But he also contended that the unreal, "boy in the bubble" existence that fame imposed prevented Jackson from developing a sound understanding of the acceptable norms of adult behavior, making him vulnerable to actions that would attract suspicions of impropriety.

The child abuse allegations further intensified the machinations of negative publicity surrounding Jackson. In the Punnet interview, Bloom seemed to imply that this initiated a self-reinforcing cycle that drove Jackson further away from reality and into self-destructive, dysfunctional behaviors that, ultimately, may have played a direct role in his untimely death.

Although it operates on negative energy, the star breaker machinery nevertheless functions as another means of extracting value from commoditized celebrities. It does so through such channels as tabloid newspaper and celebrity magazine sales, and ratings of television programs that air celebrity gossip. In some cases, ironically, it even benefits the celebrity, since even negative publicity helps maintain a presence before the public, creating a sensationalistic form of energy that can sometimes generate revenue.

It is quite possible, for example, that the negative publicity surrounding Michael Jackson in recent years helped set the stage for what was positioned to be a cash cow of a comeback tour. And without the attention of tabloids and papparazi over the past 10 years or so, it's possible that Jackson's star may have faded more rapidly as he advanced further beyond his prime.

Ironically, the kind of negative energy generated by the star breaker machinery may be at its most effective in a case like Jackson's when the celebrity suddenly, unexpectedly, and tragically dies. As with Elvis, the death of Michael Jackson is generating a tremendous resurgence in sales of his music. Perhaps these sales will even surpass the revenue that the comeback tour would have generated, all due to the fact that his death, like many aspects of his life, was a tragic spectacle.

But the most important question, in my opinion, is why the star breaker machinery works so effectively. Why is there so much of a market for negative publicity? Why do we start breaking down many of our brightest stars, sometimes even before their buildup has reached its peak?

Normally I steer clear of matters of faith in this blog, but there is a very old story that sets what I believe is the singular example of how deeply this phenomenon is embedded in human nature. Two thousand years ago, a 33 year old man, whose level of public adoration during his lifetime was just reaching its peak, rode triumphantly on a donkey into one of the greatest cities of his region. The crowds worshiped and exalted him, waving palm fronds to salute him, initiating the tradition that Christians now observe as Palm Sunday.

Yet just a few days later, an angry mob demanded, in spite of an offer of mercy from the authorities, that the same man be executed by hanging from a cross. The masses turned on Jesus just a short time after his public acclaim had reached its peak.

Jesus came to be hated by many people of his time for a number of reasons. For some, the issue was that he preached about matters of the the Kingdom of God, of the fate of the eternal soul, which didn't fit their vision of a Messiah who would bring them political and material gain during their life on earth. But in other cases Jesus confronted people with unpleasant realities about themselves about which they were in denial, and with basic flaws, contradictions, and hypocrisies in their way of life. Others, such as the religious leaders of Jesus' day, were perhaps envious of his abilities as a spiritual leader and teacher.

In different ways, the celebrities we elevate can also make us uncomfortable with ourselves. Our psychological relationships with those we lift up into fame are complex and paradoxical. And, as in the case of Jesus, envy is a salient element. The qualities of talent, beauty, genius, wealth, and fame that we so admire also confront the rest of us with everything that we are not.

To those who have remarkable natural gifts can come possessions, privileges, and lifestyles that are inaccessible to the rest of us, and that can lead to envy. Envy may be the reason why the public is so ready to pounce at the first sign of a flaw in someone we have elevated as a supposedly perfect person. And the negative energy of that envy is something that can be monetized by the tabloids, the paparazzi, and their ilk.

This phenomenon is perhaps intensified and made more visible in our modern, media intensive world. But it really is nothing new, as is evident from its presence as a theme running through history and literature. King David's own sons envied his throne and conspired against him. Iago envied Othello and schemed to bring him down.

What is perhaps unique to our era, however, is the level to which the media machine that drives popular culture is geared to feed off of this phenomenon, to use it as a means of continuing to milk value out of famous people even while they are on their way down from the heights of stardom. The pattern bears a chilling resemblance to the process of a brand manager guiding a consumer product through the phases of its life cycle. The workings of the star maker and star breaker machinery treat celebrities almost like a corporation might treat a brand of soap, through its launch, growth curve, peak, and eventual decline.

It's difficult, of course, for "the rest of us" to know whether this seemingly heartless pattern of managing human beings as product life cycles might be something that those within the elite spheres of celebrity expect, understand, and accept as a known risk and worthwhile tradeoff for the benefits that they enjoy. Neil Young, after all, sang that "it's better to burn out than to fade away."

As I write this, I am listening to Gotham Chopra commenting on CNN that Michael Jackson was keenly aware of and spoke often about artists like James Dean, Elvis, and John Lennon, whose untimely deaths helped immortalize their legacies and elevate them from mere stardom into almost mythic proportions. So perhaps he sensed this coming and, as an artist, was not entirely adverse to the concept.

But the event of Michael Jackson's death, nevertheless, might give all of us pause, as consumers of popular culture, to examine the complex psychological and sociological dynamics that underlie our relationship with those we build up and break down. The star breaker machinery would not be relevant if not for our collective willingness to fuel it with attention and revenue. Sphere: Related Content
 
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