Cultural Coalition

By Calvin Johnson

The importance of American real estate values is now being witnessed as major banks around the world have joined the U.S Federal Reserve to pump cash into our banking system in hopes of preventing a worldwide economic catastrophe. Wall Street’s cave-in has resulted from declining real estate values precipitated by our foreclosure crisis.

John McCain, in televised comments on CNN September 19th placed the blame for the financial crisis squarely on the backs of the poor and minorities by claiming that Fanniemae and Freddymac, the quasi-governmental mortgage giants, are to blame for approving sub-prime mortgages to people that couldn’t afford them in areas that were formerly red-lined. This is a thinly veiled reference to the mandate given by Congress to Fanniemae and Freddymac to increase the opportunities for home ownership in minority communities. African-American and Hispanic borrowers are represented in the subprime market at nearly triple their rates in the conventional market. Never mind that 61% of subprime borrowers would have qualified for conventional loans or, according to Freddymac, minorities and the poor pay mortgage rates on the order of one to two-and-one-half percentage points higher in the subprime market.

The Wall Street Journal did a study confirming what experts like Martin Eakes at the Center for Responsible Lending has been saying for so long – a majority of subprime borrowers had credit scores worthy of a prime conventional mortgage. By the end of last year that percentage rose to over 61 percent. According to their study many subprime borrowers may have been tricked into unaffordable loans by unscrupulous brokers.

Real estate appraisal methodology has long failed to adjust for racial discrimination, selective bias, and since George W. bush has been in office his administrations version of Supply Side economics. Does, “The human condition” explain why current real estate appraisal methodology fails to recognize and adjust for the lower values caused by the effects of Selective Bias, Supply Side economics and racial discrimination on the appraisal process? Can lower appraisals, for properties in minority communities, primarily be attributed to these factors and, if so, can the loss be measured in real dollars? Is the failure of appraisers to adjust for these factors responsible for the slow or non-existent growth of real estate equity in these communities? Was this failure a contributing factor in the misrepresentation of value in Wall Street’s mortgage backed securities and therefore shares blame for the recent meltdown?

The phrase, “The Human Condition” is well worn and refers to the ages old conflict of accepted ideals like cooperation, loving and selfless behaviors contrasted with human nature which is invariably competitive, aggressive and selfish. We are capable of immense love and sensitivity, but we have also been capable of greed, hatred, brutality, rape, murder, slavery and war. The human race demonstrates a collective sense of guilt and agony from being unable to explain our duel personality. This has been seen by many scholars as the burden of human life or, “The human condition.”

A great deal of what we believe is true depends on our perceptions; the first part of my analysis begins with a brief examination of the economic theories which currently dominate our national political debate. I will later contrast the dominate theory espoused and implemented by our current President and his Party with those of his political rivals. In part two of the analysis the role of racial discrimination, selective bias and Supply Side Economic Theory as primary reasons for lower real estate appraisals in African American communities is discussed. In part three, I will attempt to measure the economic loss to the minority community specifically and to the larger society generally, which suffers a far greater loss in societal peace, wasted talent and loss of credibility around the globe. It is not surprising the inability of American leaders to create a fair and just society has dimmed the beacon of hope among the economically disenfranchised people of the world. Continue Reading

By Thomas Murrell

How can you increase sales, stand out from the crowd or be a better leader?

Political elections are all about personal branding, it’s the ultimate branding exercise.

Political candidates have to persuade, sell and get electors to act by voting for them.

There’s always a winner and always a loser, unlike marketing where you can be the main brand or the challenger brand and still have sales and still survive with any combination of market share.

With election marketing, election campaigning and election branding, there’s no second place, you either win or lose and its all over in a day.

So consumers make their decision in one day compared to a longer time frame. Continue Reading

By R. R. Stark

Are aliens actually in our midst? And if they are, where are they? Why don’t they come right out and shake our hands in greeting? Are they shy? Scared? Cautious? Or too smart to get too close?

I believe they are not too far away, but yet not so near either. Although I think they’re keeping a safe distance, they are still watching us. So, the question I want to ask is, why are aliens here? Why does Earth interest them so much?

There is much speculation, plus eyewitnesses, abductees, and remote viewers who may have clues for us. And let’s not forget the overzealous conspiracy theorists. We also have misinformation-infiltrators who plant false info into the mainstream to confuse us. So we have to be careful to whom we listen to with this fascinating information about life beyond our world.

Since they seem to be hiding in the shadows from us, why do these aliens appear so cautious, not getting too close to us?

First let’s step back and ask, “Why do civilized people visit primitive tribes?” Sometimes for scientific research, especially for Cultural Anthropology (I took a college course in this study years ago) which is an area that studies human culture in its many various forms across the world, but it often focuses on the more primitive cultures. Often a particular ethnic group will be observed for its type of music and art, religion and mythology, government and politics, as well as cuisine, etc.

Scientists aren’t the only investigators of primitive groups. Also journalists research certain tribal people for their articles or photography for magazines such as National Geographic. There are also missionaries from various churches who believe they can proselytize to the “savages” and convert them to their religion. In particular, Christians are fond of acting in this quite aggressive manner. Quite often they lost their heads or ended up as stew in the process. Yes, primal, backward cultures can be dangerous. Continue Reading

By Stephen W B Canning

The general elections held in Britain this month produced no results for the first time in around 30 years with none of the two major parties gaining majority. After days of negotiations which showed the uglier side of national politics, the center right part lead by the youngest prime minister in the history of Britain, came to a deal with the party that ranked third in the number of seats tally: The liberal democrats. This coalition holds another record, albeit a sordid one, it is the first coalition government since the Second World War. The question now everybody is asking is if this coalition will survive its term, if the honey moon will last or not?

Most of the political analysts are pessimistic about the coalition government and when looked at Britain’s notorious history towards hung parliament, where none of them survived for more than two years. Britain population is an adversarial system.They seem to look at parliament as a battlefield where ideas are put to battle. The British population loves to watch politicians face up to each other, to fight each other.

Nobody, within and outside the government, is sure that the tensions caused due to different thought pattern within the house of commons will subside for time being. Most analysts think that arguments do exist; even when such allegations are discarded by both the parties, the breaking up of coalition is bound to take place. It will happen; it’s just a matter of time, one year or may be two at maximum.

The British political culture has always been novel. There has not been a coalition government in Britain in last 65 years. There hasn’t been a fundamental shift in British political culture with time either. This coalition government does not seem to have the appetite required to last its full term of 5 years. An opinion poll conducted recently revealed that most of the British voters favored David Cameron ruling alone as the prime minister instead of going for a coalition. There are bound to be unhappiness in Cameron’s own courtyard, which will surely make the living of this delicate relation a nightmare for its runners.

There are severe differences between conservatives and the liberal democrats regarding various issues such as strengthening EU, revamping relations with Russia etc. The conservatives would want to move into relations with other emerging powers and give the relation with other European countries a back seat, where as the democrats would want a further unified, strong European Union, they would want Britain to move further into European Union and better its ties with its neighbors rather establishing new relations.

The conservatives would want to behave differently when it comes to Russia. Conservatives have been lobbying for better relations with Russia which will offer them a much cheaper means of natural resources such as gas. But how would Britain react if there was ever a face off between Russia and Britain and if Russia decided to blackmail Britain by cutting of supply of natural resources. Under such circumstances the conservatives would want to react with the entire European Union as a whole, but the liberals would want Britain stands up to the challenge itself. Continue Reading

By Pavel Podolyak

Many Americans are humorously reluctant to even approach the topic of race and cultural integration. When the French and Swedes (with far lower % of non-whites and immigrants) are actively discussing these issues, the citizenry within Home of the Brave runs for the hills. That’s not necessarily an issue of an elephant in the room or fear of seeming offensive. There is a sustained historical reason for every American citizen to suppress his own thoughts on ethnic/racial groups due to state ideology.

Lets briefly review the ideological process that has so far driven national integration in this country. Ideological “equality” until 2009 has referred to cultural assimilation that expanded beyond Germans and Irish and moved onto all whites as well as select ethnic groups like Jews and Asians. For most of the 20th century, as long as whites remained the vast majority of the total population, neutral terminology like “American” (that didn’t refer to any tribal/national origins) could be used to try to consolidate the vast geographic territory into one national fabric. Creation of a neutral national identify to serve as an umbrella nationality for many diverse peoples is standard practice for leaderships of very populous states (in this sense American is no different than the terms Chinese, Soviet, Indian, or these days European).

However, even in very diverse federal states like China or the Russian Federation, there is a ruling ethnic group or a coalition of a few groups that make smaller nationalities cluster around them by the use of force. In China it is the Mandarin speakers and in RF it is of course Russians with 75% of the population but in US the native Englishmen have long stopped being numerically dominant in the 19th century (although they remained qualitatively dominant in wealth and education). This pushed them into gradually expanding the ruling coalition by accepting Germans, Irish, Poles, Italians, and so on. Since “English” could not be used for numerical reasons for national identity building the way “German” or “French” is used today, the artificial concept of American had to be bolstered and gradually strengthened.

The power of the artificially constructed nationality rests on the ideology/reality that backs up its promises (how equal are all Europeans in EU, how equal are all Soviets, etc) as well as how much physical power those assimilated into the idea of the umbrella nationality really have. For most of the country’s history, there were certain minority populations with whom assimilation was never tried (integration of relatively recently freed slaves and conquered ethnically cleansed natives). This was because it would drain national energies and political capital of elites within ruling ethnic groups and deprive them of divide and conquer tools for new arrivals (gradually offering the umbrella “American” and its promise of equality to some new immigrants like the Germans, Irish and Polish first but not to Italians and Jews until much later). This was not any conspiracy but a natural path of least resistance and an organic way for concept of American to really put down its roots (as opposed to just covering everybody with a term American right away). The gradual and imperial manner of rewarding the title of “American” allowed US leadership a tighter leash than the one Soviets possessed since the term felt and was more real psychologically to those who “earned it” (see the number of Irish and Germans who died in US Civil War, WW1, etc).

In the past few decades a couple of things began to strain the process of national integration that has worked well so far in terms of political stability:

A) Emergence of new discriminatory culturalism for 20%-25% of the population which is based more on higher education and less on racial/ethnic affiliation. Continue Reading

By Michael Beitler

Much has been written about changing organizational culture. It’s an exciting topic because of the enormous potential benefits derived from changing an organization’s culture. While exciting because of its enormous potential, attempting to change organizational culture can lead to enormous frustration.

It is important to understand how deeply the roots of organizational culture go. Organizational culture is rooted in the shared tacit assumptions of the organization. These tacit beliefs drive behavior throughout the organization.

Edgar Schein believes organizational culture provides members of the organization “stability, consistency, and meaning.” The change agent who threatens those three things will surely meet strong resistance.

Schreyoegg, Oechsler, and Waechter (three German researchers) believe organizational culture provides members with a worldview: how to perceive, how to conceptualize, and how to make decisions.

In my book, “Strategic Organizational Change,” I offered six reasons for organizational culture’s stubborn resistance to change:

1. it is implicit rather than explicit Continue Reading