Jonathan Kasper's Kickstarter Campaign

My good friend and veteran rock singer and composer Jonathan Kasper has produced a new rock album – In the Know, but he needs our help to finish it.

Before it can become a reality he needs additional funding for mastering, art design, duplication and marketing. If you would like to contribute to the project go to Kickstarter. The campaign ends 1/28/13. Check it out now, and get "In the Know."

Remembering Bob Newbrough

A dear friend, Bob Newbrough, Peabody College/Vanderbilt University Professor Emeritus, died late Wednesday in Boulder, Colorado.  He was 78 years old.

When Roy Hutton called me to tell me that Bob had died the feeling of loss and sadness was deep and profound as I am sure it was for hundreds of folks around this world who knew him as a friend and mentor. He was truly a remarkable human being.

Roy had received a phone call from Bob’s wife Lynn soon after Bob had died. According to Roy, Bob’s three daughters and Lynn were all standing around his hospital bed with their hands on him when the doctors removed life-support.  Bob will be cremated and his ashes spread among the Flatirons above Boulder.

Bob was born on Memorial Day, May 30, 1934 in Twin Falls, Idaho. He spent his youth on the family farm, helping to raise and harvest sugar beets.

In 1951 he graduated valedictorian of his high school class. Four years later he graduated magna cum laude from the College of Idaho with a BA in psychology. He earned his MA and PhD in psychology from the University of Utah in 1959.

After that he began a Fellowship in Community Mental Health at the Departments of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. After completing the Fellowship in 1960 he joined the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service, continuing his work in community psychology at the historic National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

He came to Peabody College and later Vanderbilt University in 1966. He was recruited by Dr. Nicholas Hobbs to become the Director of the Center for Community Studies at the Kennedy Center, as well as, the Director of the Psychology Program in the Department of Psychology at Peabody.

Bob was a significant figure in the founding of Community Psychology in the United States and a key figure internationally in the field for over half a century. He edited the Journal of Community Psychology for many years, earning the SCRA Award for Distinguished Contributions to Research and Theory.

Despite being diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 1993, he continued to be an active and influential leader in community mental health for nearly two decades. When I began to organize the Nicholas Group and put together an advisory board to create a national PBS documentary about the mental health delivery system for children and their families, Bob was one of the first people I contacted. The project would have never been accomplished without his willingness to share his knowledge, experience and his skill as an accomplished writer and editor.

In the end, what distinguished John Robert Newbrough from the rest of us, beyond his intellect, was not just his courage and integrity, his kindness and generosity, his quiet and gentle character, it was simply his concern and willingness to listen and offer help and compassion to others.

More Photos from Florida

A Bennett Cartoon from The Chattanooga Times Free Press

From The New York Times

When Prophecy Fails

By PAUL KRUGMAN

Back in the 1950s three social psychologists joined a cult that was predicting the imminent end of the world. Their purpose was to observe the cultists’ response when the world did not, in fact, end on schedule. What they discovered, and described in their classic book, “When Prophecy Fails,” is that the irrefutable failure of a prophecy does not cause true believers — people who have committed themselves to a belief both emotionally and by their life choices — to reconsider. On the contrary, they become even more fervent, and proselytize even harder.

 

This insight seems highly relevant as 2012 draws to a close. After all, a lot of people came to believe that we were on the brink of catastrophe — and these views were given extraordinary reach by the mass media. As it turned out, of course, the predicted catastrophe failed to materialize. But we can be sure that the cultists won’t admit to having been wrong. No, the people who told us that a fiscal crisis was imminent will just keep at it, more convinced than ever. 

 

Oh, wait a second — did you think I was talking about the Mayan calendar thing? 

Seriously, at every stage of our ongoing economic crisis — and in particular, every time anyone has suggested actually trying to do something about mass unemployment — a chorus of voices has warned that unless we bring down budget deficits now now now, financial markets will turn on America, driving interest rates sky-high. And these prophecies of doom have had a powerful effect on our economic discourse. 

Thus, back in May 2009 the Wall Street Journal editorial page seized on an uptick in long-term interest rates to declare that the “bond vigilantes,” the “disciplinarians of U.S. policy makers,” had arrived, and would push rates inexorably higher if big budget deficits continued. As it happened, rates soon went back down. But that didn’t stop The Journal’s news section from rolling out the same story the next time rates rose: “Debt fears send rates up,” blared a headline in March 2010; the debt continued to grow, but the rates went down again. 

At this point the yield on the benchmark 10-year bond is less than half what it was when that 2009 editorial was published. But don’t expect any rethinking on The Journal’s part. 

Now, you could say that The Journal’s editors didn’t give a specific date for the fiscal apocalypse, although I doubt that any of their readers imagined that they were talking about an event at least three years and seven months in the future. 

In any case, some of the most prominent deficit scolds have indeed been willing to talk about dates, or at least time horizons. In early 2011 Erskine Bowles confidently declared that we would face a fiscal crisis within around two years unless something like the Bowles-Simpson deficit plan was enacted, and Alan Simpson chimed in to say that it would be less than two years. I guess he has about 10 weeks left. But again, don’t expect either Mr. Simpson or Mr. Bowles to admit that there might have been something fundamentally wrong with their analysis. 

No, very few of the prophets of fiscal doom have acknowledged the failure of their prophecies to come true so far. And those who have admitted surprise seem more annoyed than chastened. For example, back in 2010 Alan Greenspan — who is, for some reason, still treated as an authority figure — conceded that despite large budget deficits, “inflation and long-term interest rates, the typical symptoms of fiscal excess, have remained remarkably subdued.” But he went on to declare, “This is regrettable, because it is fostering a sense of complacency.” How dare reality not validate my fears! 

Regular readers know that I and other economists argued from the beginning that these dire warnings of fiscal catastrophe were all wrong, that budget deficits won’t cause soaring interest rates as long as the economy is depressed — and that the biggest risk to the economy is that we might try to slash the deficit too soon. And surely that point of view has been strongly validated by events. 

The key thing we need to understand, however, is that the prophets of fiscal disaster, no matter how respectable they may seem, are at this point effectively members of a doomsday cult. They are emotionally and professionally committed to the belief that fiscal crisis lurks just around the corner, and they will hold to their belief no matter how many corners we turn without encountering that crisis. 

So we cannot and will not persuade these people to reconsider their views in the light of the evidence. All we can do is stop paying attention. It’s going to be difficult, because many members of the deficit cult seem highly respectable. But they’ve been hugely, absurdly wrong for years on end, and it’s time to stop taking them seriously. 

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Funeral Service for Senator Daniel Inouye

A Few Photos from Florida