Logic Look: Straw Man

I am not a logician or linguist so I had gotten confuses by straw man as apposed to red herring fallacies. So I went back to my logic book from collage. We all need a big dose of the informal fallacies. Hopefully we all can understand what is really being said. Even if it is nothing.

Logic for good or bad should be required in high schools. Time to refresh what I knew. I didn't want to copy from my book so I will use this site for now. It has a better list.

Straw Man:

"The Straw Man fallacy is committed when a person simply ignores a person's actual position and substitutes a distorted, exaggerated or misrepresented version of that position. (Cont.)

This sort of "reasoning" is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position simply does not constitute an attack on the position itself. One might as well expect an attack on a poor drawing of a person to hurt the person. "

Do the "we can't do nothing" stimulus arguments sound familiar.

Killing The Banks with TARP

The second version of TARP or what ever you call it is unclear to me. Your going to encourage private money with borrowed leveraged money? Didn't they already get burned by assets that where backed by the government. If they get out of the way wouldn't someone find a way to make some money out of this mess? Instead everyone sits on the side lines waiting to see what the government is going to do. What are they doing? Confusing the issue more and borrowing more money collateralize by borrowed money. I don't trust them. I am not sure they really want fix the problem. At lest until they pass everything they want behind the veil of fear.

From A PLAN TO KILL BANKS TREASURY'S DEADLY 'KINDNESS'

"The new Treasury plan continues to put most of the emphasis on pushing banks to make more loans to over-indebted consumers, homeowners and firms. Unlike last year, however, Geithner now believes, "Our policies must be designed to mobilize and leverage private capital, not to supplant or discourage private capital. When government investment is necessary, it should be replaced with private capital as soon as possible."
That's a laudable goal - but contradictory. In reality, government capital replaces ("crowds out") private capital, leaving taxpayers holding a bigger and bigger bag. Call that nationalization by default. "

The leverage idea has been around from the start of this mess. It is not a bad idea but the way it is being done now really is not leveraging anything.

"TARP-afflicted firms will have to pay dividends to the Treasury for its preferred shares before any remaining crumbs fall to common shareholders. Treasury will be first to get any dividends or capital gains if the firm does well, and first to get repaid in the event of bankruptcy.
Once a bank or insurance company gets in bed with the government, the property rights of that company's stockholders become uniquely insecure. When the government jumps into the cockpit, smart stockholders bail out.
And depressed stock prices deflate the banks' capital cushion, regardless of Treasury investments - making them more likely to fail and therefore less likely to lend. In other words, government "help" achieves the opposite of Geithner's declared goal."

The government should NEVER be this in bed with any company. If you bail them out that should be it. Give them the money and treat it as a loan, take common stock or just walk away. There is no risk to the government if they are first to get payed in all cases. In this case it was public outrage that there was no guarantee the money would be payed back. The people needed a clear explanation of what this was going to lead to "incremental nationalization of banks and insurance companies". The "people" where wrong. Why? They are not taught these things (I really wasn't either), NO one explains it to them(sometimes if you look around enough) and they are often used. Think for yourself (that's usually what I have to do).
It may be a good sized hill to understand the bank mess. The basic are not that hard. You don't need an economics degree, library of books or really a class on economics. The last one might help but is not necessary. A little logic and some quite time and you should be fine. If it still doesn't make sense. Get a book on logic.

Hold your Fire and Teach

The trend to "hold your fire" on the incoming administration is starting to scare me. Fox reports some of the odd thing that are going on, but seems to lack the curiosity to ask questions. Obama sending emissaries to listen to the summit on the world economy? They say it is just to listen, but is it? What if that is not what is happening? How will what we know of him effect the out come? In general how bad can it get? There are some thing that need to be asked. Every one says Obama is a blank slate so shouldn't we be questioning even more.

From: Bookworm Room-That’s the problem with post-election punditry

(continued from a comment on another post)"That’s exactly right. I have inchoate fears right now, based on almost two years of watching Obama at work, and being quite worried about him, his agenda, his cohorts and his followers. But until something happens, that’s all those fears will be: inchoate.

Right now, I’m doing something I haven’t done too much in the last few years: I’m hunkering down in the real world, and trying to get a little emotional distance from the intellectual excitement of politics. "

Obama has done nothing yet. We are all tiered. Fine. However Obama, the people he is looking to put into the new administration and the leader in congress do have ideas and a philosophy. There is a danger in this. The Obama Administration and his acolytes are going to his the ground running with a mass of willing (some apparently ignorant of much) followers that will hear nothing else.

From Bookworm Room comments: Charles Martel

"What bothers me the most is the uncomprehending stares I get when I remind people that nothing is free, that A leads to B leads to C leads to D — that there really IS a slippery slope, and they just elected a guy super-equipped with rope cutters, hob-nailed boots for stomping knuckles and extra-viscuous oil for accelerating the slide."

There is a fundamental lack of curiosity, basic knowledge of history, opposing philosophies and logic and the ability to accept new ideas (even if just to take a good look and reject them latter).

This should be a time to teach. Start from scratch with your arguments. Spoon feed little bite size ideas. They will have to be small, but that is how things are built. Take advantage of the down time to restart the American curiosity. Teach that has been lost, the skills to think again for one's self. Do not lay the whole argument out. Just strengthen the knowledge and skills of the people, put the pieces on the table and let them put them together.

Those on the right have to stop reading the end of the book to the general public. Those that understand already know the end and those who don't find the end impossible at the very least. Stop preaching to the choir and start teaching the skill to join the choir if they want.