TOWARDS A BETTER WAY OF EVALUATING ECONOMIC ACTIVITY.
Paul Krugman observes in his blog that:
"For most of the past decade, China’s industrial value-added growth (IVA) –industry output less input costs – has moved broadly in step with movements in electricity consumption. But the relationship’s broken down recently: electricity use is still seeing negative growth, while IVA is growing at a decent positive rate again.
Some China analysts are crying foul: If IVA growth figures are being cooked, surely that means China’s recent GDP data have been overstated too."
Gross Domestic PRODUCT, GDP, has long been debated. Louis XV's surgeon was the first to consider GDP, and he defined it agriculturally. The next generation of "physiocrats" generalized "product" to industry, and Adam Smith went to France to study under them. "Product" was the addition of all the expenditures of all FINAL good and services. If one is ten times more inefficient getting to the same product, one has contributed ten times more to the GDP. GDP: a polluter's dream.
The very concept of GDP is well cooked, in any country, and the recipes vary, from country to country.
At the very least, a notion of EFFICIENT GDP should be introduced: when American cars by the millions hold steady in traffic jams, spewing fumes, they boost U.S. GDP. When comparing health care systems, the one in the USA, with a worse outcome, costs twice, per capita, what the French health care system costs. Still, the contribution to "product" should be the same, or more exactly, the contribution to "product" of the system in the USA, per capita, should be redefined so that it is lower than the French one. The end product of the task should be the production of the task, not the inefficiency polluting the achievement of the task.
I agree that this is not how economists have learned to think, but more as physicists have learn to think, more than two centuries ago (Lagrange, d'Alembert). Grounding all of physics in the concept of energy (and work) allowed to make physics more rigorous, and universal. The idea would be to do the same in economics. Thus economics would switch from the subjectivity of money to the objectivity of work, as defined in physics . That would ground economics with energy, just as physics is (and the lagrangians used in generalized economics would be more general than in physics!).
Only then could we compare exactly the productivity of different economic systems...
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Friday, May 29, 2009
Saturday, May 23, 2009
HIGH SPEED REMINDER
NEARLY CARBON FREE, AND ALREADY AS FAST AS PLANES...
Articles on High Speed Rail here and there, all over the USA, saying nothing which could not have been said 30 years ago. Many European governments have been aware of this sort of things for so long that thousands of miles of very high speed rail are already built in Europe.
Mr. Florida from "The Atlantic" wrote an article explaining that High Speed Rail would helpt the megacities of the USA (as a good American, he used the occasion to underestimate the French and British GDPs...)
Mr. Florida expects speeds much lower than the ones already deployed in France (320 kmh = 200mph on the TGV Sud Est and TGV Est). Latest High Speed Rail lines in France are built for 250 mph = 400 kilometers an hour(8 kilometers radius curves).In normal operations Siemens Valero has reached 400 kmh (250 mph) in Spain.
Maglev has strictly no advantage on steel wheels. Tests on TGV at 575 kmh (~ 360 mph) have shown that air resistance is the main problem. Steel wheels trains can go anywhere a train can, and that a Maglev cannot do. In France, on many lines TGV go faster than normal trains. Normal trains on the mainlines go at 125 mph (200 kmh). Also Pendolino type TGVs, bank to take turns at higher speed than normal trains on normal lines, are made for intermediate speeds. Russia ordered plenty of those).
A Maglev, being very lightly built, burns and gets destroyed very easily (the experimental Japanese Maglev burned, and a German Maglev crashed, killing 23, and severely injuring 10).
High Speed Rail should not be restricted to the mega regions. The latest AGV is supposed to cruise more economically than the TGV at 225 miles an hour. Cruising speeds of 250mph should be no problem, giving EFFICIENT and CARBON FREE travel for the masses between Los Angeles and New York City in ten hours, faster than a plane when all is included, city center to city center (once going to the airport, security, and crawling on the runways is taken into account).
The carbon efficiency, safety and reliability of High Speed Rail are its biggest advantages. Another advantage is that HSR is high technology, and the USA could learn to make advanced stuff (the Tesla electric roadster is has a carbon fiber body built in France, the AGV uses carbon fiber; TGV brings regenerative braking to the world's highest heights, the speeds are too high for thermal braking.)
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Articles on High Speed Rail here and there, all over the USA, saying nothing which could not have been said 30 years ago. Many European governments have been aware of this sort of things for so long that thousands of miles of very high speed rail are already built in Europe.
Mr. Florida from "The Atlantic" wrote an article explaining that High Speed Rail would helpt the megacities of the USA (as a good American, he used the occasion to underestimate the French and British GDPs...)
Mr. Florida expects speeds much lower than the ones already deployed in France (320 kmh = 200mph on the TGV Sud Est and TGV Est). Latest High Speed Rail lines in France are built for 250 mph = 400 kilometers an hour(8 kilometers radius curves).In normal operations Siemens Valero has reached 400 kmh (250 mph) in Spain.
Maglev has strictly no advantage on steel wheels. Tests on TGV at 575 kmh (~ 360 mph) have shown that air resistance is the main problem. Steel wheels trains can go anywhere a train can, and that a Maglev cannot do. In France, on many lines TGV go faster than normal trains. Normal trains on the mainlines go at 125 mph (200 kmh). Also Pendolino type TGVs, bank to take turns at higher speed than normal trains on normal lines, are made for intermediate speeds. Russia ordered plenty of those).
A Maglev, being very lightly built, burns and gets destroyed very easily (the experimental Japanese Maglev burned, and a German Maglev crashed, killing 23, and severely injuring 10).
High Speed Rail should not be restricted to the mega regions. The latest AGV is supposed to cruise more economically than the TGV at 225 miles an hour. Cruising speeds of 250mph should be no problem, giving EFFICIENT and CARBON FREE travel for the masses between Los Angeles and New York City in ten hours, faster than a plane when all is included, city center to city center (once going to the airport, security, and crawling on the runways is taken into account).
The carbon efficiency, safety and reliability of High Speed Rail are its biggest advantages. Another advantage is that HSR is high technology, and the USA could learn to make advanced stuff (the Tesla electric roadster is has a carbon fiber body built in France, the AGV uses carbon fiber; TGV brings regenerative braking to the world's highest heights, the speeds are too high for thermal braking.)
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Thursday, May 21, 2009
NO EMOTION, NO REALIZATION.
NOT ENOUGH CARE, NO HEALTH CARE.
Krugman makes the following diagnostic: "Despite insurers’ appearance of cooperation with President Obama on health care reform, the double-crossing is well under way... The insurers and the drug companies are, in effect, betting that Mr. Obama will be afraid to call them out on their duplicity."
***
Well health care reform in the USA will go nowhere without the motivation of strong emotions.
Nationalizations of health care systems occurred in Europe after W.W.II (except for the German system). That healthy reaction was part of a general revolt against wealth and profiteers. Indeed, a lot of wealthy individuals and corporations had collaborated with Nazism, and Europe was ravaged by an enormous economic crisis, and had lost control of her destiny to the USSR and the USA.
Only desperate measures had allowed the survival of democracy, and it was clear to the Europeans that wealth had not been on the side of democracy. The wealthy were cowering, and were not going to argue. Several countries reintroduced the death penalty, after more than a century without, and executed collaborators, who, generally, had done it for money and power. So pharmaceutical companies and health care profiteers were not going to sound too unpatriotic. (France executed up to 40,000 fascists, and confiscated companies such as Renault that had shown too much enthusiasm working with the Nazis. Nobody was going to argue too loudly that profiteering was great.)
National health care systems, that is health as a basic human right was the result of a revolt.
Afterwards, health, like freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, was part of the constitution. The question then is this: are Americans revolted enough to get their right? Is Barack Obama revolted enough? Do they even know enough to be revolted enough? Or do they want to keep on sending money to the richest people in the world instead?
Health care as a right will not be born from a post modernist, post partisan, haughty balance of nihilism and profiteering. It will not be born from taking seriously much of the present economic organization of the USA. It will be born out of deliberate, wise, and knowledgeable anger.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Krugman makes the following diagnostic: "Despite insurers’ appearance of cooperation with President Obama on health care reform, the double-crossing is well under way... The insurers and the drug companies are, in effect, betting that Mr. Obama will be afraid to call them out on their duplicity."
***
Well health care reform in the USA will go nowhere without the motivation of strong emotions.
Nationalizations of health care systems occurred in Europe after W.W.II (except for the German system). That healthy reaction was part of a general revolt against wealth and profiteers. Indeed, a lot of wealthy individuals and corporations had collaborated with Nazism, and Europe was ravaged by an enormous economic crisis, and had lost control of her destiny to the USSR and the USA.
Only desperate measures had allowed the survival of democracy, and it was clear to the Europeans that wealth had not been on the side of democracy. The wealthy were cowering, and were not going to argue. Several countries reintroduced the death penalty, after more than a century without, and executed collaborators, who, generally, had done it for money and power. So pharmaceutical companies and health care profiteers were not going to sound too unpatriotic. (France executed up to 40,000 fascists, and confiscated companies such as Renault that had shown too much enthusiasm working with the Nazis. Nobody was going to argue too loudly that profiteering was great.)
National health care systems, that is health as a basic human right was the result of a revolt.
Afterwards, health, like freedom, and the pursuit of happiness, was part of the constitution. The question then is this: are Americans revolted enough to get their right? Is Barack Obama revolted enough? Do they even know enough to be revolted enough? Or do they want to keep on sending money to the richest people in the world instead?
Health care as a right will not be born from a post modernist, post partisan, haughty balance of nihilism and profiteering. It will not be born from taking seriously much of the present economic organization of the USA. It will be born out of deliberate, wise, and knowledgeable anger.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Saturday, May 16, 2009
QUESTIONING OBAMA'S TWISTS ON CIVILIZATION.
WAS CHENEY THE TORTURER IN CHIEF?
***
The bottom line on torture is that no State in the Western tradition has advocated torture that we know of. No official of the West ever came forward, and had the impudence and folly to claim that torture was indispensable (Cheney), and had to be covered up (Obama). Until today.
This is not just an embarrassment for civilization, this is a much graver threat against it than bin Laden, and the few pathetic savages that followed him like decerebrated sheep, ever presented. This time the fish of civilization is truly rotting by the head, an ominous fate.
"Torture" comes from "tortura" the Latin for twisting. That was embarrassing, twisting people like wet laundry, so the Middle Ages preferred to call it "the question". Cheney calls it "enhanced interrogation". Question, or interrogate, in an uncomfortable situation. According to the rogue lawyer, Bybee, it's not torture, as long as people are not dying.
Even in the Middle Ages, statements obtained under torture could not be used during judicial inquiry.
In the Middle Ages, statements made under torture had to be confirmed without torture being a threat; it was also widely viewed by judicial and government officials that torture contaminated the plausibility of whatever suspects said, and turned them into victims. For that precise reason, Jehanne d'Arc was not tortured (all the more since the prosecution's case against her was so weak).
By 1600 CE, torture was not taken seriously anymore because police work had become so good, torture was irrelevant. By 1700 CE, torture was unlawful in Britain, and some famous official was relentlessly prosecuted for having suspended once a woman in a painful position during a police inquiry.
Although many Nazi counter terrorist units practiced torture, the Nazi State never came out and claimed torture was good. True the Nazis were doing atrocious things in secret, but when do we know that a State is doing atrocious things in secret? When it changes the conversation, and does not want to show the pictures anymore? Do not forget the Red Cross used to visit Auschwitz, and saw nothing untoward in that concentration camp. What the Red Cross did not know, and what the Nazis had hidden in plain sight behind the concentration camp, was an extermination camp. In the later, millions were exterminated. What do we know about the worldwide CIA Gulag? Well, we know it exists. How many did it kill, how many did it torture?
The moral sink the USA is disappearing into has no bottom. Doctors -American doctors- violating their Hippocratic oath, were in attendance during torture. It was not out of goodness; they were ready to practice tracheotomy during water boarding. It is already known that more than 100 died under torture. But how many is it really? Thousands? Why not? True, a few Nazi doctors practiced torture (Mengele), but the state did not organize it. In the Middle Ages, neither lawyers nor doctors were in attendance during torture: that was below the dignity of their office.
As pointed out in the New York Times today, official Pentagon numbers show that American attacks on civilian with flying robots kill about 2 terrorists for 100 innocent civilians killed. We are in Nazi counter terrorist moral territory here. What is the difference with what the Nazis were doing in Ukraine in 1942? If it turns out, the Nazi terrorist/innocent kill ratios were better.
Robotic bombing from the air is not just a recipe to lose a war, it's a recipe to lose civilization. That the Taliban gets inside houses is no defense. Just leave houses alone. Get a grip on your callousness.
What the brain challenged Cheney showed in his interview with Bob Schieffer on TV is that he may have ordered torture personally, and somehow misled Bush. It is time to apply the law. Both national and international law say that torture is unlawful. The law of the land also say that the president has to implement the law, and defend the Constitution of the USA. If Obama is unwilling to do it, he is breaching the law too.
This thing is bigger than Obama. Or the office of the president of the USA. Roman law forbid the torture of citizens. This is about civilization. If the USA wants to be known as the United Sadists of America, Obama can proceed on his present course. I wish him bad luck.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
***
The bottom line on torture is that no State in the Western tradition has advocated torture that we know of. No official of the West ever came forward, and had the impudence and folly to claim that torture was indispensable (Cheney), and had to be covered up (Obama). Until today.
This is not just an embarrassment for civilization, this is a much graver threat against it than bin Laden, and the few pathetic savages that followed him like decerebrated sheep, ever presented. This time the fish of civilization is truly rotting by the head, an ominous fate.
"Torture" comes from "tortura" the Latin for twisting. That was embarrassing, twisting people like wet laundry, so the Middle Ages preferred to call it "the question". Cheney calls it "enhanced interrogation". Question, or interrogate, in an uncomfortable situation. According to the rogue lawyer, Bybee, it's not torture, as long as people are not dying.
Even in the Middle Ages, statements obtained under torture could not be used during judicial inquiry.
In the Middle Ages, statements made under torture had to be confirmed without torture being a threat; it was also widely viewed by judicial and government officials that torture contaminated the plausibility of whatever suspects said, and turned them into victims. For that precise reason, Jehanne d'Arc was not tortured (all the more since the prosecution's case against her was so weak).
By 1600 CE, torture was not taken seriously anymore because police work had become so good, torture was irrelevant. By 1700 CE, torture was unlawful in Britain, and some famous official was relentlessly prosecuted for having suspended once a woman in a painful position during a police inquiry.
Although many Nazi counter terrorist units practiced torture, the Nazi State never came out and claimed torture was good. True the Nazis were doing atrocious things in secret, but when do we know that a State is doing atrocious things in secret? When it changes the conversation, and does not want to show the pictures anymore? Do not forget the Red Cross used to visit Auschwitz, and saw nothing untoward in that concentration camp. What the Red Cross did not know, and what the Nazis had hidden in plain sight behind the concentration camp, was an extermination camp. In the later, millions were exterminated. What do we know about the worldwide CIA Gulag? Well, we know it exists. How many did it kill, how many did it torture?
The moral sink the USA is disappearing into has no bottom. Doctors -American doctors- violating their Hippocratic oath, were in attendance during torture. It was not out of goodness; they were ready to practice tracheotomy during water boarding. It is already known that more than 100 died under torture. But how many is it really? Thousands? Why not? True, a few Nazi doctors practiced torture (Mengele), but the state did not organize it. In the Middle Ages, neither lawyers nor doctors were in attendance during torture: that was below the dignity of their office.
As pointed out in the New York Times today, official Pentagon numbers show that American attacks on civilian with flying robots kill about 2 terrorists for 100 innocent civilians killed. We are in Nazi counter terrorist moral territory here. What is the difference with what the Nazis were doing in Ukraine in 1942? If it turns out, the Nazi terrorist/innocent kill ratios were better.
Robotic bombing from the air is not just a recipe to lose a war, it's a recipe to lose civilization. That the Taliban gets inside houses is no defense. Just leave houses alone. Get a grip on your callousness.
What the brain challenged Cheney showed in his interview with Bob Schieffer on TV is that he may have ordered torture personally, and somehow misled Bush. It is time to apply the law. Both national and international law say that torture is unlawful. The law of the land also say that the president has to implement the law, and defend the Constitution of the USA. If Obama is unwilling to do it, he is breaching the law too.
This thing is bigger than Obama. Or the office of the president of the USA. Roman law forbid the torture of citizens. This is about civilization. If the USA wants to be known as the United Sadists of America, Obama can proceed on his present course. I wish him bad luck.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Thursday, May 14, 2009
TERMINAL PROBLEM, FINAL SOLUTION
SAVING THE EARTH THROUGH PREEMPTIVE WAR AND NUCLEAR POWER.
***
Paul Krugman, having visited China, concludes that "China cannot continue producing greenhouse emissions at an escalating rate because the planet can’t handle the strain." OK, but China goes on, and so does the USA. The USA gets 71% of its electricity from fossil fuels. China, with supposedly one new coal plant a week, now emits more CO2 than the USA. What to do? Wait for the planet to explode? Is it Munich all over again?
***
The Principle of Precaution requires to consider the very worst case possible, stop, and think carefully about whether it could happen. In the case of climate, the worst case is a runaway eruption of methane. There are enormous quantities of frozen methane, of the order of all other fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), it seems. If the temperature rises, it will bubble out catastrophically. Its greenhouse power over ten years is well above twenty times that of CO2. So if the eruption starts full on, the worldwide temperatures would jump by at least ten times what they have risen so far.
This has happened before, at least once in the last 50 million years.
Most of the methane is up north, so the disaster may get in full swing one of these summers. It will be impossible to stop. It may happen this summer, or 50 years from now. On our present course, it will happen. It will make the financial crisis look like absolutely nothing whatsoever. An enormous rise in sea level could be around the corner, if the ice shelves disintegrate. Even if methane does not erupt, other long linear thresholds are close by, like when both forests and oceans will become huge carbon sources, instead of huge carbon sinks. The Antarctic ocean has turned into a CO2 emitter already (because it's shaken too much by high winds and storms, like a carbonated beverage!)
To prevent the methane catastrophe, the only solution is to bring the CO2 creation to zero, ASAP. How to do this? Conservation and advanced civil nuclear power. Advanced reactors are extremely efficient, extremely safe, and create little waste, and can be made to burn nuclear waste. But, whereas the Obama administration spends billions to put broadband Internet in rural areas, the research on advanced nuclear reactors is minuscule.
Civil nuclear power would be a factor of peace, because it would give a pretext to inspect, and check that military nuclear power is not being developed (a paradox).
We face the greatest crisis of the biosphere since the extinction of the dinosaurs. As drastic as this. Some will say that I exaggerate. I wish. Therefore it goes without saying that it is the ultimate casus belli. If countries to not limit their CO2 emissions, they will face war. Economic war should be viewed as a better alternative, a mitigating factor to be implemented immediately.
Indeed, the European Union has decided to take separate action in order to achieve reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions (of the order of 20% very soon). This separate action, the so-called “go-it-alone” scenario, consists of, inter alia, the imposition of “border adjustment measures” such as a “Carbon Import Tax” on products imported into Europe.
It would be excellent if the USA joined the EU. Better late than never.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
***
Paul Krugman, having visited China, concludes that "China cannot continue producing greenhouse emissions at an escalating rate because the planet can’t handle the strain." OK, but China goes on, and so does the USA. The USA gets 71% of its electricity from fossil fuels. China, with supposedly one new coal plant a week, now emits more CO2 than the USA. What to do? Wait for the planet to explode? Is it Munich all over again?
***
The Principle of Precaution requires to consider the very worst case possible, stop, and think carefully about whether it could happen. In the case of climate, the worst case is a runaway eruption of methane. There are enormous quantities of frozen methane, of the order of all other fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas), it seems. If the temperature rises, it will bubble out catastrophically. Its greenhouse power over ten years is well above twenty times that of CO2. So if the eruption starts full on, the worldwide temperatures would jump by at least ten times what they have risen so far.
This has happened before, at least once in the last 50 million years.
Most of the methane is up north, so the disaster may get in full swing one of these summers. It will be impossible to stop. It may happen this summer, or 50 years from now. On our present course, it will happen. It will make the financial crisis look like absolutely nothing whatsoever. An enormous rise in sea level could be around the corner, if the ice shelves disintegrate. Even if methane does not erupt, other long linear thresholds are close by, like when both forests and oceans will become huge carbon sources, instead of huge carbon sinks. The Antarctic ocean has turned into a CO2 emitter already (because it's shaken too much by high winds and storms, like a carbonated beverage!)
To prevent the methane catastrophe, the only solution is to bring the CO2 creation to zero, ASAP. How to do this? Conservation and advanced civil nuclear power. Advanced reactors are extremely efficient, extremely safe, and create little waste, and can be made to burn nuclear waste. But, whereas the Obama administration spends billions to put broadband Internet in rural areas, the research on advanced nuclear reactors is minuscule.
Civil nuclear power would be a factor of peace, because it would give a pretext to inspect, and check that military nuclear power is not being developed (a paradox).
We face the greatest crisis of the biosphere since the extinction of the dinosaurs. As drastic as this. Some will say that I exaggerate. I wish. Therefore it goes without saying that it is the ultimate casus belli. If countries to not limit their CO2 emissions, they will face war. Economic war should be viewed as a better alternative, a mitigating factor to be implemented immediately.
Indeed, the European Union has decided to take separate action in order to achieve reduction of the greenhouse gas emissions (of the order of 20% very soon). This separate action, the so-called “go-it-alone” scenario, consists of, inter alia, the imposition of “border adjustment measures” such as a “Carbon Import Tax” on products imported into Europe.
It would be excellent if the USA joined the EU. Better late than never.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
HOW THE BANKS BECAME THE GOVERNMENT
In the fractional banking system we have, banks create money and decide who is to be lent this money to, or, in other words, who is going to be rich.
Thus in the fractional banking system, what was long been viewed as the second most important function of government, after war, the control of the currency, has been given to a few private individuals. This is an amazing revolution.
So, either the banks govern (the system we have presently), or we decide that we control the banks. We The People. In other words, in the second case, we impose on banks a fiduciary duty, and tight regulations so they will not be corrupt.
***
Patrice Ayme
(Much more details to be posted soon on: http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/)
P/S: The only remaining control has been that the government controls the reserve requirements, which determine the multiplier, which, in turn, determines how much money banks can make, and lend. Even that role was abdicated by the Bush administration, since multipliers of 50 were allowed.
Thus in the fractional banking system, what was long been viewed as the second most important function of government, after war, the control of the currency, has been given to a few private individuals. This is an amazing revolution.
So, either the banks govern (the system we have presently), or we decide that we control the banks. We The People. In other words, in the second case, we impose on banks a fiduciary duty, and tight regulations so they will not be corrupt.
***
Patrice Ayme
(Much more details to be posted soon on: http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/)
P/S: The only remaining control has been that the government controls the reserve requirements, which determine the multiplier, which, in turn, determines how much money banks can make, and lend. Even that role was abdicated by the Bush administration, since multipliers of 50 were allowed.
Monday, May 11, 2009
DESTRUCTION CONFUSION.
WE BOMB TO WIN, THEREFORE WE LOSE.
Secretary of Defense Gates has got rid of the U.S. Commander in Afghanistan. The replacement of Gen. David McKiernan less than a year after he took over is supposed to mark a major change in military leadership in a worsening war environment.
So bombing civilians to death by the hundreds to free them from this hostile life does not work? Intriguingly, I heard that this general had been critical of the massive use of Flying robots ("Drones")... In which case his firing will not be a good sign. As everybody who has seen the Terminator movies know, flying robots can be defeated by true human freedom fighters...
And another thing I know is that the war will not be won from the air. Actually why should there be a war? For eight years, the USA has attacked Afghans in Afghanistan to achieve what? A much bigger war?
I say: bombing within miles of any house should be forbidden.
Also, flying robots should not be part of any offensive operations, outside of a well defined battlefield. Robots will be of course very effective, as long as they leave civilians safe and sound.
Telling the Afghans what to do, and what to grow should not be an option either. (When Obama goes on a rampage against poppy fields, he is exceeding his powers, and infuriating the Afghans; better to go to the Taliban and persuade them to go legal, and use the money to purchase civilian goods instead of weapons; many countries grow poppies for legal painkilling, and there is a big market out there).
Long term, the only way out is to convene all the Afghan resistance and the government, and hash out a gigantic compromise on a secular basis. Then use NATO just to insure the compromise, including lots of civilian help.
The fact that the present Afghan constitution is Islamist makes it impossible to fight Muslim fundamentalists with a straight face. This was exemplified with Obama's complete confusion about article 137 of the Afghan Constitution, that allows husbands to rape their wives and orders the later to enjoy it. This is straight out of the Islamist code (and partly from the Qur'an). If Obama finds it "abhorrent" (as he said), he finds the Qur'an abhorrent, and he may reconsider having NATO fighting for it against guys who precisely want to implement it.
The war cannot be about little girls going to school, while the Islamist code say otherwise. Better go to the Taliban, and cut a deal with them about this sort of things.
If you want to win a war, you better figure out what you want first. Just killing people, and forcing the survivors to do what you want, as NATO is presently doing in Afghanistan-Pakistan, is not enough. Besides it is highly immoral, and immorality loses wars.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Secretary of Defense Gates has got rid of the U.S. Commander in Afghanistan. The replacement of Gen. David McKiernan less than a year after he took over is supposed to mark a major change in military leadership in a worsening war environment.
So bombing civilians to death by the hundreds to free them from this hostile life does not work? Intriguingly, I heard that this general had been critical of the massive use of Flying robots ("Drones")... In which case his firing will not be a good sign. As everybody who has seen the Terminator movies know, flying robots can be defeated by true human freedom fighters...
And another thing I know is that the war will not be won from the air. Actually why should there be a war? For eight years, the USA has attacked Afghans in Afghanistan to achieve what? A much bigger war?
I say: bombing within miles of any house should be forbidden.
Also, flying robots should not be part of any offensive operations, outside of a well defined battlefield. Robots will be of course very effective, as long as they leave civilians safe and sound.
Telling the Afghans what to do, and what to grow should not be an option either. (When Obama goes on a rampage against poppy fields, he is exceeding his powers, and infuriating the Afghans; better to go to the Taliban and persuade them to go legal, and use the money to purchase civilian goods instead of weapons; many countries grow poppies for legal painkilling, and there is a big market out there).
Long term, the only way out is to convene all the Afghan resistance and the government, and hash out a gigantic compromise on a secular basis. Then use NATO just to insure the compromise, including lots of civilian help.
The fact that the present Afghan constitution is Islamist makes it impossible to fight Muslim fundamentalists with a straight face. This was exemplified with Obama's complete confusion about article 137 of the Afghan Constitution, that allows husbands to rape their wives and orders the later to enjoy it. This is straight out of the Islamist code (and partly from the Qur'an). If Obama finds it "abhorrent" (as he said), he finds the Qur'an abhorrent, and he may reconsider having NATO fighting for it against guys who precisely want to implement it.
The war cannot be about little girls going to school, while the Islamist code say otherwise. Better go to the Taliban, and cut a deal with them about this sort of things.
If you want to win a war, you better figure out what you want first. Just killing people, and forcing the survivors to do what you want, as NATO is presently doing in Afghanistan-Pakistan, is not enough. Besides it is highly immoral, and immorality loses wars.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Saturday, May 9, 2009
THINKING IS EXPENSIVE.
REPORTING IS EXPENSIVE, BUT CORRECT OPINION EVEN MORE SO.
In his article "Suicide Watch" Frank Rich of the NYT thinks that "The real question is for the public, not journalists: Does it want to pony up for news, whatever the media that prevail?" True, I agree that real journalists are needed, and true, they will have to feed off the Internet, and that means the Internet will have to charge for news. Maybe, to avoid what is called in law and economics, the "tragedy of the commons" a tax will have to be paid by everybody to pay for independent journalism.
But then on the way he can't resist to feel that reporting is expensive (true) "But opinions, however insightful or provocative and whether expressed online or in print or in prime time, are cheap." In other words, according to Rich, thinking is cheap. Well, not so. The distinction between "opinion" and "reporting" is viewed, in some countries with the most advanced critical and philosophical traditions, as illusory. American journalism has also fallen on its own sword. By insisting on this illusion, it lost all critical sense. For years, American journalism has embraced the militaristic and plutocratic propaganda of the oligarchy with unfathomable enthusiasm.
And this still goes on: this week "reporting" on the American bombing of civilians in Western Afghanistan illustrated what is very wrong with American journalism. Namely, the media of the USA followed exactly the story as it came out of the Pentagon, every twist and turn. I am graced with the capability of perfect understanding of some foreign TV reports, and the "reporting" there was very different.
In the end, some times years later, the American public finds they have been lied to again and again, and again and again, it's getting worse and worse. The crimes of Nixon are childish, compared to those of the Bush administration, and the price will be incomparably greater.
This is directly related to the fact American media reported the tiny stuff while having no opinion about the really big conceptions. The mixture of politically correct and plutocratically compatible is proving highly poisonous. As Stalin put it: "Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?" Facts are nothing if not brought forth by the power of opinion. To claim both are independent is to claim that the only opinion that counts is that of the oligarchy. No wonder people are bored by journalists.
No wonder there is a malaise. No wonder it's a suicide watch. If you know only facts, and you can't think, you will know an ominous fate.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
In his article "Suicide Watch" Frank Rich of the NYT thinks that "The real question is for the public, not journalists: Does it want to pony up for news, whatever the media that prevail?" True, I agree that real journalists are needed, and true, they will have to feed off the Internet, and that means the Internet will have to charge for news. Maybe, to avoid what is called in law and economics, the "tragedy of the commons" a tax will have to be paid by everybody to pay for independent journalism.
But then on the way he can't resist to feel that reporting is expensive (true) "But opinions, however insightful or provocative and whether expressed online or in print or in prime time, are cheap." In other words, according to Rich, thinking is cheap. Well, not so. The distinction between "opinion" and "reporting" is viewed, in some countries with the most advanced critical and philosophical traditions, as illusory. American journalism has also fallen on its own sword. By insisting on this illusion, it lost all critical sense. For years, American journalism has embraced the militaristic and plutocratic propaganda of the oligarchy with unfathomable enthusiasm.
And this still goes on: this week "reporting" on the American bombing of civilians in Western Afghanistan illustrated what is very wrong with American journalism. Namely, the media of the USA followed exactly the story as it came out of the Pentagon, every twist and turn. I am graced with the capability of perfect understanding of some foreign TV reports, and the "reporting" there was very different.
In the end, some times years later, the American public finds they have been lied to again and again, and again and again, it's getting worse and worse. The crimes of Nixon are childish, compared to those of the Bush administration, and the price will be incomparably greater.
This is directly related to the fact American media reported the tiny stuff while having no opinion about the really big conceptions. The mixture of politically correct and plutocratically compatible is proving highly poisonous. As Stalin put it: "Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?" Facts are nothing if not brought forth by the power of opinion. To claim both are independent is to claim that the only opinion that counts is that of the oligarchy. No wonder people are bored by journalists.
No wonder there is a malaise. No wonder it's a suicide watch. If you know only facts, and you can't think, you will know an ominous fate.
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
WHAT BANKS OUGHT TO BE FOR.
BANKING CLARITY A MUST TO REPAIR THE ECONOMY.
Stiglitz and Krugman had dinner with Obama. Krugman said he could not talk about it, because it was "off the record".
What should be on the record is this: the banks have a primary function, a secondary function, and a tertiary function. Absent these three functions, it's as if there are no lungs, and no heart: the corpse of capitalism can't walk.
It is not clear that these two functions that define banking philosophically have been insured as much as they should have during the first four months of the Obama administration, while it was busy pursuing further the financial policies of the Bush administration.
Instead a great deal of attention was given to having the bank holding companies make good the very contracts that put in danger the very ability of the banks to conduct these two basic functions.
The three basic functions that should have been attended to are the following.
The first two are primary, and were probably present in inchoating form in prehistory. They are the sanctity of deposit of capital (which is primary), and the clearing of payments (which I view as secondary, considering that payments clear from account to account, and that cannot happen if the accounts are busted). The financial system does not exist without these two functions.
The ability to extend credit is tertiary. Although the economy can work for a few hours without it, many small companies depend upon credit for going from paycheck to paycheck.
Obama had to insure the three functions above. I am not sure about the third function, credit, because I have not seen authoritative studies (banks have been saying they lend plenty whereas professionals in other industries have been claiming the opposite). But for the first two it was easy: just do like the French republic. And do not let banks go bankrupt (Lehman Brothers, a huge, old and famous bank, was allowed to go chapter 11, destroying confidence in the banking system worldwide, a system that rests on trust).
In France Sarkozy decided that all deposits would be insured, in any amount, in any bank. (This can be done in two ways: either by boosting the insurance fund, the FDIC in the USA, or by preventing any banking failure by having the government step in as soon as a bank threatens to become insolvent, the later route being followed in France, so far.)
Insuring any deposit would provide the country with a lot of confidence. Since the currency system is a myriad of contracts in trust, this is crucial, as fundamental a measure to take for the economy as possible. Relative to this, the waste of toxic "assets" is completely irrelevant, just as irrelevant as it should always have been to banking.
Unfortunately Geithner proposed with his PPIP a plan that compromised some more the FDIC (in truth it looks as if the PPIP would bankrupt the FDIC). Geithner's aim was to save the bank holding companies' upper management, and various elements of the plutocracy connected to them, which he seems to view as the essence of the economy.
Instead, the Obama adminstration should have stuck with the TRUST IN DEPOSITS, the basic function of banking, the one prehistoric man understood, but Geithner apparently does not.
Just an example of the sort of difficulty the refusal of insuring all deposits led to: millions of small businesses may only find challenging to maintain balances below $250,000. This is all the more silly, since the Obama administration made clear it viewed the 19 top banks as too big too fail (thus there was no risk insuring all and any deposits; in a huge contradiction, though, depositors did lose their money in smaller banks going in receivership!)
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Addendum: REPAIRING BANKS: Stiglitz called Geithner's PPIP a "robbery of the American people". I agree (and already said this about TARP, calling it Transferring Assets to Rich Plutocrats, as soon as it appeared). But a week later, Obama repelled the mark to market rule, and that pretty much made the PPIP unworkable. The ways of Obama are not as mysterious as those of God: one week he makes a blatant gift to the hedge funds, delivered by his human poodle, and the hedge funds are all happy that the plutocrats are solidly in control, and the week after, Obama takes away their food, but they are too stupid to notice.
Stiglitz and Krugman opposed the conversion of preferred to common stock. Indeed the preferred route for cleaning the banking system would have been receivership (the bank fails, and is reorganized by the government, and then sold for a profit). The point being that the USA then takes ownership of the bank for the cost of recapitalization. The drawback is that severe disruptions to the financial system can happen as shareholders lose everything and bond holders can lose a lot.
The Obama administration had first followed the Bush administration policy (reimbursing losses with taxpayer money, which I have long argued was unworkable: I valued the losses at 8 trillion, minimum; now the IMF is at three trillions in the USA alone). Thus I was satisfied by the conversion into common stock (which has the right of vote, that preferred do not have). It is as good as nationalization can get, once receivership has been excluded (for the reasons of the disruption that bothered Obama).
The Obama administration had first followed the Bush administration policy (reimbursing losses with taxpayer money, which I have long argued was unworkable: I valued the losses at 8 trillion, minimum; now the IMF is at three trillions in the USA alone). Thus I was satisfied by the conversion into common stock (which has the right of vote, that preferred do not have). It is as good as nationalization can get, once receivership has been excluded (for the reasons of the disruption that bothered Obama).
Stiglitz and Krugman had dinner with Obama. Krugman said he could not talk about it, because it was "off the record".
What should be on the record is this: the banks have a primary function, a secondary function, and a tertiary function. Absent these three functions, it's as if there are no lungs, and no heart: the corpse of capitalism can't walk.
It is not clear that these two functions that define banking philosophically have been insured as much as they should have during the first four months of the Obama administration, while it was busy pursuing further the financial policies of the Bush administration.
Instead a great deal of attention was given to having the bank holding companies make good the very contracts that put in danger the very ability of the banks to conduct these two basic functions.
The three basic functions that should have been attended to are the following.
The first two are primary, and were probably present in inchoating form in prehistory. They are the sanctity of deposit of capital (which is primary), and the clearing of payments (which I view as secondary, considering that payments clear from account to account, and that cannot happen if the accounts are busted). The financial system does not exist without these two functions.
The ability to extend credit is tertiary. Although the economy can work for a few hours without it, many small companies depend upon credit for going from paycheck to paycheck.
Obama had to insure the three functions above. I am not sure about the third function, credit, because I have not seen authoritative studies (banks have been saying they lend plenty whereas professionals in other industries have been claiming the opposite). But for the first two it was easy: just do like the French republic. And do not let banks go bankrupt (Lehman Brothers, a huge, old and famous bank, was allowed to go chapter 11, destroying confidence in the banking system worldwide, a system that rests on trust).
In France Sarkozy decided that all deposits would be insured, in any amount, in any bank. (This can be done in two ways: either by boosting the insurance fund, the FDIC in the USA, or by preventing any banking failure by having the government step in as soon as a bank threatens to become insolvent, the later route being followed in France, so far.)
Insuring any deposit would provide the country with a lot of confidence. Since the currency system is a myriad of contracts in trust, this is crucial, as fundamental a measure to take for the economy as possible. Relative to this, the waste of toxic "assets" is completely irrelevant, just as irrelevant as it should always have been to banking.
Unfortunately Geithner proposed with his PPIP a plan that compromised some more the FDIC (in truth it looks as if the PPIP would bankrupt the FDIC). Geithner's aim was to save the bank holding companies' upper management, and various elements of the plutocracy connected to them, which he seems to view as the essence of the economy.
Instead, the Obama adminstration should have stuck with the TRUST IN DEPOSITS, the basic function of banking, the one prehistoric man understood, but Geithner apparently does not.
Just an example of the sort of difficulty the refusal of insuring all deposits led to: millions of small businesses may only find challenging to maintain balances below $250,000. This is all the more silly, since the Obama administration made clear it viewed the 19 top banks as too big too fail (thus there was no risk insuring all and any deposits; in a huge contradiction, though, depositors did lose their money in smaller banks going in receivership!)
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Addendum: REPAIRING BANKS: Stiglitz called Geithner's PPIP a "robbery of the American people". I agree (and already said this about TARP, calling it Transferring Assets to Rich Plutocrats, as soon as it appeared). But a week later, Obama repelled the mark to market rule, and that pretty much made the PPIP unworkable. The ways of Obama are not as mysterious as those of God: one week he makes a blatant gift to the hedge funds, delivered by his human poodle, and the hedge funds are all happy that the plutocrats are solidly in control, and the week after, Obama takes away their food, but they are too stupid to notice.
Stiglitz and Krugman opposed the conversion of preferred to common stock. Indeed the preferred route for cleaning the banking system would have been receivership (the bank fails, and is reorganized by the government, and then sold for a profit). The point being that the USA then takes ownership of the bank for the cost of recapitalization. The drawback is that severe disruptions to the financial system can happen as shareholders lose everything and bond holders can lose a lot.
The Obama administration had first followed the Bush administration policy (reimbursing losses with taxpayer money, which I have long argued was unworkable: I valued the losses at 8 trillion, minimum; now the IMF is at three trillions in the USA alone). Thus I was satisfied by the conversion into common stock (which has the right of vote, that preferred do not have). It is as good as nationalization can get, once receivership has been excluded (for the reasons of the disruption that bothered Obama).
The Obama administration had first followed the Bush administration policy (reimbursing losses with taxpayer money, which I have long argued was unworkable: I valued the losses at 8 trillion, minimum; now the IMF is at three trillions in the USA alone). Thus I was satisfied by the conversion into common stock (which has the right of vote, that preferred do not have). It is as good as nationalization can get, once receivership has been excluded (for the reasons of the disruption that bothered Obama).
Friday, May 1, 2009
ENERGY EFFICIENCY HELPS ECONOMY
INEFFICIENCY IS THE PROBLEM.
I have long claimed that to force the economy to become more efficient would be helpful to the economy. Energy reform, to be implemented, needs the augmentation of economic activity. It is no coincidence that the French economy, with its long term drastic investments in an efficient economy, is doing best among the advanced economies.
Paul Krugman addresses the subject in the New York Times (April 30, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01krugman.html).
Here is my comment:
Why not use a different model for the economy of the USA? Suppose it's an obese person. The arteries became so inefficient, that the patient suffered a heart attack. The doctor comes and prescribes to cap calories, and trade the usual foods for others, healthier ones.
What should the patient do? Go along with the prescribed changes, or claim that only hamburgers are satisfying, and a better health means the capacity to consume ever more hamburgers, and to become ever bigger?
France has been under drastic energy taxes for decades, and cap and trade for many years. Nevertheless the French economy seems to be going much better in all ways at this point, perhaps precisely because it is protesting people in the street who push for reforms, and not just a few ideologues paid by the ultra rich (Gingrich style republicans, Limbaugh, neoconservatives, etc.) In other words, it is the demos (people) and not the ultra rich who propose reforms and then dispose of them. The people is always for energy reform, because they are the one breathing the air, and they can't go to Bali to relax for 6 months.
In the Turin area (the hometown of Fiat's Chrysler savior), cranes are everywhere. Two hours away, the French village of Monetier over the border has twice more cranes than the entire city of San Francisco. Real estate is down in France, but just barely (it collapsed in nearby Spain, with its more American economic model, caused by the long reign of fascists, and then neoconservatives, and axed on construction and speculation)
But the European Union, and the French government, are introducing ever more stringent energy conservation measures. The French government just proposed a new high speed automated 24/7 metro for the greater Paris, to extend the existing system (cost: 50 billion dollars). This is all related: there is more money for investments in efficiency, because more money is saved in the direct consummation of energy, and that, in turn, comes from the fact that energy is more expensive, making its use more efficient, and to make energy expensive, the broadest imaginable taxes force everyone to save, and their revenue can be recycled for ever more efficiency.
One would think, at first sight, that the ultra rich would be for energy reform: after all it would bring more riches. But it is not, at least in the USA. In the USA the ultra rich have become vultures feasting on the decaying corpse of an ever more inefficient economy. Hedge funds, in particular, belong to the economy like leeches on a movie star. Enough leeches to hollow the patient out. Financial piracy is part of the inefficiency problem, it has even become its soul, and that's how it feeds, in the USA (and imitation poodles such as London).
In France, and increasingly the rest of Europe, and beyond, the culture of the rich and powerful has turned different, as it responded to the ecology of efficiency. In a country where energy is expensive, it is energy efficiency that bring riches, and thus the energy efficient companies that bring the clout, and their interest is to have an ever more efficient economy. So they push for energy reform.
Is it better to have a more efficient economy, that can do what is worthy, or an obese economy with a chronic heart attack, that cannot stand up for worthy causes? Is virtue and health better than sin and decrepitude? Is the people free to chose?
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
I have long claimed that to force the economy to become more efficient would be helpful to the economy. Energy reform, to be implemented, needs the augmentation of economic activity. It is no coincidence that the French economy, with its long term drastic investments in an efficient economy, is doing best among the advanced economies.
Paul Krugman addresses the subject in the New York Times (April 30, 2009 http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/01/opinion/01krugman.html).
Here is my comment:
Why not use a different model for the economy of the USA? Suppose it's an obese person. The arteries became so inefficient, that the patient suffered a heart attack. The doctor comes and prescribes to cap calories, and trade the usual foods for others, healthier ones.
What should the patient do? Go along with the prescribed changes, or claim that only hamburgers are satisfying, and a better health means the capacity to consume ever more hamburgers, and to become ever bigger?
France has been under drastic energy taxes for decades, and cap and trade for many years. Nevertheless the French economy seems to be going much better in all ways at this point, perhaps precisely because it is protesting people in the street who push for reforms, and not just a few ideologues paid by the ultra rich (Gingrich style republicans, Limbaugh, neoconservatives, etc.) In other words, it is the demos (people) and not the ultra rich who propose reforms and then dispose of them. The people is always for energy reform, because they are the one breathing the air, and they can't go to Bali to relax for 6 months.
In the Turin area (the hometown of Fiat's Chrysler savior), cranes are everywhere. Two hours away, the French village of Monetier over the border has twice more cranes than the entire city of San Francisco. Real estate is down in France, but just barely (it collapsed in nearby Spain, with its more American economic model, caused by the long reign of fascists, and then neoconservatives, and axed on construction and speculation)
But the European Union, and the French government, are introducing ever more stringent energy conservation measures. The French government just proposed a new high speed automated 24/7 metro for the greater Paris, to extend the existing system (cost: 50 billion dollars). This is all related: there is more money for investments in efficiency, because more money is saved in the direct consummation of energy, and that, in turn, comes from the fact that energy is more expensive, making its use more efficient, and to make energy expensive, the broadest imaginable taxes force everyone to save, and their revenue can be recycled for ever more efficiency.
One would think, at first sight, that the ultra rich would be for energy reform: after all it would bring more riches. But it is not, at least in the USA. In the USA the ultra rich have become vultures feasting on the decaying corpse of an ever more inefficient economy. Hedge funds, in particular, belong to the economy like leeches on a movie star. Enough leeches to hollow the patient out. Financial piracy is part of the inefficiency problem, it has even become its soul, and that's how it feeds, in the USA (and imitation poodles such as London).
In France, and increasingly the rest of Europe, and beyond, the culture of the rich and powerful has turned different, as it responded to the ecology of efficiency. In a country where energy is expensive, it is energy efficiency that bring riches, and thus the energy efficient companies that bring the clout, and their interest is to have an ever more efficient economy. So they push for energy reform.
Is it better to have a more efficient economy, that can do what is worthy, or an obese economy with a chronic heart attack, that cannot stand up for worthy causes? Is virtue and health better than sin and decrepitude? Is the people free to chose?
Patrice Ayme
http://patriceayme.wordpress.com/
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)