To be sure, frustration surrounding failures of the COP15 Climate Change Conference to produce substantive change is pervasive. 192 world governments did not send their representatives nor the President of the world’s most powerful nation to Copenhagen for this.
The failures of COP15 were certainly predictable. Predictable in that we vastly overestimate our own ingenuity to overcome those very instincts intrinsic to all of us. We think we’re smart enough to outmanoeuvre our baser selves. In a recent commentary relating the problems of population expansion, for example, author Steven Kotler revisited population control as one of the largest difficulties facing the planet, “Ask any expert around: the largest problem facing the planet today is population.” And Mr. Kotler is quite right. It is a mathematical impossibility for humans to continue growing population exponentially forever while consuming finite resources. So fundamentally, then, one of our biggest problems is our own instinct to reproduce; and sadly we haven’t begun to address lesser instincts like the drive to competitively dominate those resources before anything else alive gets to them.
In a way, perhaps, COP15 was a first global wakeup trumpet. 192 leaders did not coalesce for nothing; and yet they came away with…virtually nothing. The leaders have begun to recognise the problems; but they’re still allowing the noisome populations back home to drive the conversation. They must stand up, take reigns hard, and produce a vivid vision that the world can swallow. If we are to succeed, this battle is going to take far more than communication and compromise, it is going to take unparalleled personal sacrifice by all inhabitants of the planet. Once upon a time, a leader succeeded in communicating a vision like that, “Ask not what the world can do for you. Ask what you can do for the world.” We need that kind of vision again. More than ever, we need that kind of vision again.
You go first...No, You go first...No YOU go first...No YOU go first...
If Climate Change 101 was about understanding greenhouse gas emissions (the sheer volume and the proven physics underlying heat retention)…Climate Change 102 is all about adaptation: preparing for the fact that tomorrow’s world will be different no matter what we do.
Even the City of New York is sinking hard currency into preparation and protection of mission critical systems. An excellent podcast a month ago by American Public Media explored New York’s measures as part of a larger piece on adaptation. This week, Ecociety reviews some of the considerable discussion of adaptation at COP15, Hopenhagen.
How come Japanese citizens consume 1/2 of the energy per person that US citizens consume?
So the Japanese produce around $34,000 per person in GDP with a population that lives longer than we do here in the United States. The U.S. meanwhile, produces about $47,000 per person. So how come the Japanese consume 1/2 of what we do per person in energy (fossil fuels, etc)?
COULD IT BE THAT WE’RE NOT TRYING BECAUSE WE’RE A NATION OF LAZY AND COMPLACENT COUCH POTATOES?
Go find a friend today and wake them the hell up! It’s your duty to your kids…Or if you don’t have kids, your neighbor’s and your sister’s kids. Either way we’re screwing around with the futures of our kids.
Here at SevenCell we are tickled to death to announce the first ever winner of the “SevenCell Left Brain Scholarship,” an award offering remedial pattern recognition training to left brain challenged individuals. Anyone may access the pattern recognition training. Just go here. It’s FREE.
Mrs. Palin positively radiates upon acceptance of the SevenCell Left Brain Scholarship
OK, this guy Hoboduke cracks me up. He responds to a previous post with this comment:
Carbon Dioxide is a natural process of the earth recycling process. If the earth can absorb the annual Kalifornia wildfires that pump out more pollution than China, then Al Gorge can’t compute. He is living in polar bear fantasy land. The lack of forest management is the annual, ritual of watching the annual Kalifornia forest fire festival and is burning trees, again, and again.
- Hoboduke, 2009
We’ll wait to work on the proper names of states for another lesson. Today we’re just going to focus on basic pattern recognition skills. We are, however, going to get a smidgen tricky today because we’re going to move beyond basic circles, triangles, and squares! Today we’ll be working on SAME and DIFFERENT. SAME things or patterns are things that look the SAME. DIFFERENT things or patterns are things that look DIFFERENT! Ready? Here we go!!!
Oh! That was fun. I feel…refreshed. Think I’ll go have a Coke! Nothing like a little sugar and CO2 in an aluminum can or plastic bottle to brighten up your day! CO2’s all-natural, you know. Hoboduke says so!
If you can’t beat ‘em, steal some e-mails and leak ‘em right before a major climate conference. (Climategate)
The Copenhagen Climate Change Conference is just beginning to get underway. 192 countries get down to deliberating the future of the planet. The timing of the so-called ‘climategate’ emails is all too ridiculously obvious. Leak the stolen emails right at the beginning of the conference: No time for anyone to either: (1) Meaningfully scrutinize the emails or, more importantly, (2) Validate or contradict definitively.
There’s only JUST enough time for press reaction to significantly damage an important international dialogue. The emails are a predictable ploy. Spoiled fossil fuel dependents doing whatever they can to tear away at international consensus. It is selfish and destructive…and it is not going to stop the discussion. To call upon Malcomb Gladwell’s catch phrase: The ‘tipping point’ of international sentiment has been reached. Climate change legislation is going to move forward. It is now merely a question of whether it moves quickly enough.
Gore was right in his Slate Interview:
What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!—physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn’t trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?
I’m glad the US media has finally moved beyond Tiger Wood’s zipper control deficiency this week and put a little more emphasis where it belongs back on the climate dialogue.
Maybe we should send Tiger to Copenhagen next year in place of Stern....At least he'd know know how to pucker up!!!
Wish there was a little more substance and a little less tap-dancing from our chief negotiator, though. Todd Stern’s verbal swats, at least the sound bites, are not terribly awe inspiring. Has he been taking lessons from Tiger? On the one hand, I’ve complained about pointing the finger at China in the past; and Mr. Stern is right, we don’t need to foot their bill. On the other hand, he’s also right that climate change is no CO2 debt….we really only realized a danger in recent decades.
But could you please stop blustering for more than 13 milliseconds for crying out loud? Or is the blustering just for the stupid constituent neanderthals back home who don’t get the need for diplomacy? (Or worse, who think that CO2 is a fun fizzy thing that makes cola yummy) China’s muscles are bulging by the day and it knows it. China needs to be stroked; and if you do it right, you can encourage them to invest in their own future. The poorer countries…may need help, frankly; and we may be the ones who need to help them even if there is no CO2 debt; and that wouldn’t hurt to be said, not one bit. Oops, I forgot…stupid constituents who like carbonated beverages, sorry.
Technology experts estimate that it will take 30 years to get sequestration technologies workable; and I don’t see us building hundreds of nuclear plants tomorrow. And lobbyists like Don Blankenship are gonna be throwing tantrums so loud for the next decade that it’s gonna be hard for legislatures to hear themselves think. So what are we afraid of? Over-promising? That’s a laugh.
If I could ask for four things from this conference they would be:
(1) Meaningful commitment from China in strategy (not just caps)
(2) Meaningful commitment from the U.S. in strategy (not just caps)
(3) Increased frequency of the global dialogue. Talks every 4 months minimum.
(4) Deafening global outrage that is so impossible to quell that US citizens (and Chinese citizens) would wake the hell up. God knows there’s no outrage here in the U.S.
Dollars to donuts no meaningful treaty is signed this fall; but that is not even the critical issue. The issue is a genuine commitment from the US and China. Everything else is just tinsel.
Return safe from Hopenhagen, young BU beacons of HOPE! (Oh...and while you're out there, could you find somebody with weight to pull some strings and get that stupid Citco sign knocked down off of the book store? That's gotta be driving Dr. Najam nuts! Ruined this otherwise gorgeous photo. Do grad students DO senior pranks?)....'Farewell,' but not 'goodbye.' Parting is such sweet sorrow...
Even as I tread dangerously close to the precipice and risk losing both of my regular readers (What? You thought you were the only one?), I will, nonetheless, fearlessly divulge one of my deepest, most closely guarded secrets! NAY! I will not shrink from the perils that await my innocent vulnerability…for the survival of the planet is at stake!
That sacred, most treasured of all secrets is…ECOCIETY!!!
Seriously, there’s a bunch of really smart grad students at Boston U. and they’ve got this really cool blog in forum format called Ecociety. They listen to a bunch of the same media sources that I like and then some.
The thing I like about the forum blog format: It’s really the best “lens” for parsing difficult topics like climate change. Find a source you like, and it becomes like a media review on steroids, usually complete with its own high-value editor (a wizard behind the curtain, if you will). Not that I advocate steroids. Just to be clear: I do advocate clean environment initiatives. I do not advocate steroids. Anywho, all of the students in the BU class share the same professor, Dr. Adil Najam. One of the students at that site was nice enough to give me a quick low-down. They’ve headed off to Hopenhagen for the summit, to see things first-hand. It will be very interesting to read their reactions as things unfold. BRAVO, Ecociety, BRAVO Dr. Najam, and BRAVO, Boston University!
So, how much do coal digging states depend on coal to drive their economies?
Wyoming annually fights for the dead last position for real GDP; but it produces 40% of the nation’s coal. As a consequence, nearly 1 out of every 5 dollars in economic production in Wyoming are in lumps of coal riding off in railroad cars. The curious thing is: West Virginia barely produces a third of the coal Wyoming produces and yet it manages to produce an even higher percentage of its GDP from coal. Why? Because Appalachian coal costs a lot more based on properties and location.
Some of the poorest states in this country lean on coal as a crutch for economic production. If we really hope to move away from coal, we’re going to have to find ways to get other productive jobs rapidly to these regions to fill the vacuum. Just imagine how the Senators and Congressmen from these states are going to vote on climate change legislation…especially when coal CEOs in those states like Don Blankenship are kicking and screaming the whole way.
The chart above used November 2009 spot prices as a “proxy” for all of 2008. Why? Because November 2009 prices were well below all spot prices for 2008. What this means: The percentages of real GDP shown are very conservative estimates. Granular “real revenue” for each state would have reflected much higher percentages of state GDP for 2008! The chart above is a quick and dirty way of showing just how much those states are leaning on coal…a quick and dirty source of energy.
It never fails to amaze me the: The climate change naysayers that spew mountains of data mingled with highly extrapolated hypotheses. Some of it may even be true. Undoubtedly much is false. The presumption is that you will collapse under the sheer weight of the scientific wizardry.
Mr. Linder: Your job is to listen to voters. We have Google and we don't need politically biased spin on scientific developments. If you're trying to justify taking unwarranted risks...save it.
I encountered this phenomenon again at the site of my local US Congressman, Republican John Linder, who posted a litany of anti-climate change arguments on December 3rd. Apparently, they’re trying to stack the deck in advance of the Copenhagen Summit.
My first reaction: Give Congressman Linder the benefit of the doubt. So I scanned the letter. I immediately noticed a phenomenon that Congressman Linder points to that I’d never heard of, “sun activity.” So I promptly Googled that and retrieved the top response, Stanford University’s assessment immediately contradicting Congressman Linder’s use of the phenomenon. I’ll take Stanford’s version, but thanks anyway.
My second reaction: I don’t have time for this. It’s like trying to dialogue with an ultra-right demanding that our schools teach “intelligent design” or, worse yet, insisting vehemently that evolution is a fairytale.
My third reaction: Congressman Linder takes me on a tour de force of the history of the planet, including and beyond the Cambrian period. Glad to know you were around with the dinosaurs, Congressman Linder, so you can accurately inform as to precisely what did cause their extinction.
My fourth reaction (should have been my first reaction): We are cranking CO2 way past any of the cycles in the past million years. Truth is, we don’t know what the hell is going to happen; but we do know that we are causing tremendous change in the atmospheric volume of a chemically active substance. To continue down this path is no different than slapping on dark sunglasses and throwing your car into 5th gear down an unlit city street at 2 am. Maybe we’ll get lucky and nothing will happen.
Mr. Linder, your stunning scientific credentials withstanding, I weary of you taking massively unwarranted and completely incalculable risks with my daughters’ futures. It is simply enough to say that we are exposing huge unknown risks with CO2. That link is definitive and indisputable; and the discussion should end there. The best way to deal with climate change deniers? Unfortunately there is no good way. It’s a form of Freudian denial; and it’s a herd mentality (call it “Team Fossil Fuel”). Arguing back and forth really is becoming a waste of time.
And to all you scientists out there: YOU HAD ME AT CO2.
You'd-a thunk Moore's Law was something they were doing on purpose! Nope, just human creativity bumping up against the limits of nature....The tension tends to express itself mathematically.
When Gordon Moore first predicted the doubling of transistors every year all the way back in 1965, he wasn’t quite so bold as to promise beyond about 10 years. He later stretched the doubling time to 2 years in 1975 and dern-it if that doesn’t pretty well express the last 40 years to a perfect T.
Peak Oil is kinda like that. Only people don’t like to snuggle up all cozy-’n-comfy with Peak Oil the way they do with Moore’s Law. Moore’s Law, you understand, paints a “happy picture” for humanity. So we can slap big yellow happy-face stickers on our briefcases and satchels, hop into our [non-hybrid] cars, and whistle our way to the office safe in the knowledge that Moore’s Law will reliably increase the productivity of the human race and our jobs forever. Except that it won’t. Moore’s Law is about to slam hard into a brick wall in the next 10 to 20 years. There’s only so small a silicon transistor can go. Eventually you get down to one atom of thickness per circuit (or at least you’d like to) and then…awe shucks…just can’t go any further.
Big Oil Mountain: Peak Oil predicted U.S. wells drying up in the 70s. We didn't plan. We just started buying elsewhere. We're still not planning.
So, like I said before, Peak Oil is kinda like that. At least in that it mathematically describes the world to a T. Oh yeah…that and we’re about to slam hard into a brick wall with oil discoveries. Once we start heading down the other side of Big Oil Mountain, there’s no turning back. It’s a pretty steep mountain, Big Oil Mountain. And the decline will be just as fast if not faster than the climb up. Mathematical models put us at the top now. This is not a “Wall Street” forecast. Inasmuch, at least, in that it is accurate and reliable. It’s real. It’s here. It’s now. Peak Oil has played itself out over and over again. They used it back in the 50’s and 60’s, for example, to accurately predict the peaking of oil in the U.S. in the 70’s. They’ve done it in other markets; and now by all accounts we’re beginning to top globally.
So if you happen to be in the oil production business, and you happen to be tucking your daughter or granddaughter in to sleep tonight, just slap a big yellow happy-face sticker on the front of her bedtime story book while you’re at it. Say your prayers together; and then whisper gently in her ear, “Here, my sweet darling. This is for you. I’m doing all this for you. This is the world I’m leaving for you.” And then be sure to wave “Goodbye” as quick as you can because she’s about to take off on one helluva long and fast slide down the other side of Big Oil Mountain. Oughta be a fun ride. Dontcha think? I guess that’s really what we’re all doing, giving our kids a good hard shove down a fun slide.
Good Morning and
Good Night,
When I was a kid growing up in Northeast Atlanta, my mama used to read to me. She didn’t read nursery rhymes or classics, though. She used to read Lewis Grizzard’s humor/life column in the local paper, The Atlanta Constitution. Grizzard’s column was at one point syndicated to
Lewis Grizzard in August, 1992...Did he invent the Internet?
450 papers. If you don’t know Lewis Grizzard, you oughta look ‘im up sometime. If you want a taste of the Old South, no need to run out scavenging for grits or fried chicken. Just Google up some Grizzard. You can even do a crossword or two while you’re poking around. There was no Japanese sudoku to speak of back then. Only crosswords.
As almost everyone has probably noticed by now, the really big newspapers are dying. Most are in far worse shape than Lewis Grizzard was after his forth heart-valve surgery. Not that that is funny. In a strange sort of way it is apropos. Less than two years before his death in early 1994, Lewis Grizzard opined presciently upon the death of big newspapers. Funny thing is, nobody really knew much of anything about the Internet back in 1992.
In that article, he pointed to the passing of a small, local community paper, The Gwinnett Daily News, that was freshly priced out of business by the big bad Atlanta Constitution. The Atlanta Constitution promptly raised its Gwinnett prices back to profitable levels once the inconvenient little thorn in its side had been efficiently dispatched. Grizzard wrote about the Gwinnett Daily with wistful nostalgia…from the safe comfort of his desk at the Atlanta Constitution.
“Will we one day get all our news from a computerized version of a newspaper, or radio or television?”
-Lewis Grizzard, 1992
The funnier thing is you can read that very same article, digitally imaged in all its inky, newspaperish glory, from the comfort of your own home office via news.google.com.
As much as he was a great journalist, Lewis Grizzard was really a poet. The cadence of his voice on paper made the Sunday edition a more cozy companion than the thorniest of thrillers. I’m nostalgic for nostalgia; and I miss Lewis Grizzard deeply. I really do. But the good thing is: Even if newspapers do die, poets won’t die. We’ll always have great poets. You can try; but you can’t kill the spirit. And when I’m in a mood like this there’s only one thing (or two) to do: Stand up, stretch, and hail my Alma Mater, “Go Dawgs!” At least Georgia beat Tech this year. Lewis Grizzard would at least be happy with that. They spread his ashes at the 50-yard line of Sandford Stadium, you know. But as for the big newspapers dying, over that he’d be turning over in his grave…if only he had one.
In fondest memory of
Atlanta’s own
Lewis Grizzard (1946 – 1994)
-SevenCell
http://sevencell.wordpress.com
The reason I am enamored of Gavin Kennedy’s views on Adam Smith (admittedly I need to understand them better) is very simple: Mr. Kennedy is an iconoclast; and I really like iconoclasts. Oh, I imagine Mr. Kennedy might minimize his approach in the face of such a descriptor; but I’m sorry, Mr. Kennedy, you are an iconoclast. You hit the nail right on the head with Adam Smith. My own reasons will be much more intuitive and far less supported than yours; but at least they won’t all be identical.
There is not a country that has had a deeper love affair with the Myth (as you phrase it) of Adam Smith’s ‘Invisible Hand’ than the United States. I will wager not 1 in 10,000 people here who wag that phrase around like a dogless tail have even ventured to read more than two or three hundred words of the seven hundred-plus page tome. I know I haven’t, so you’ll have to kindly forgive me for having an opinion. I have, like a few, perused the contents for the thoughts that interested me most. The antiquity of the language poses a daunting barrier for an American Southerner bred on grits like moi.
I am drawn, nonetheless, to your idea that Mr. Smith meant far less by the phrase than people aspire to believe….In my assessment, your assessment shines like a beacon: “Avoid the reefs. You’re headed the wrong way. Look carefully for a better path.”
So why have capitalist cultures, The United States more than any, been so deeply enamored of the Myth of the Invisible Hand? The hand, as we frame it, absolves us of unscrupulous deeds; but it does even more than that: it justifies our existence, no less. In The Seven Cultures of Capitalism, Charles Turner and Alfons Trompenaars interview hundreds of business managers from around the globe and seek to do something quite unique: quantify (as much as possible) cultural values. I will try not to totally ruin the end of the story (I did read the Turner/Trompenaars work in entirety).
Suffice it to say: Turner and Trompenaars lay out a reasonable case that we heavily use religion in the United States to validate our business success as individuals. Turner and Trompenaars make a bid at tying that tendency to roots older and deeper than Adam Smith. To paraphrase: In the United States (and perhaps a few other cultures), if I am financially successful, it is the will of God…I am chosen. So when Adam Smith loosely uses a phrase like “invisible hand” we’re naturally attracted to the comfortable rhetoric like moths to a flame….We have the audacity to believe that it vindicates us.
Sounds crazy, no? In this generation, at least, we were weaned on westerns and the Bible thumping of our forebears. The one who wins the gunfight is always good. Bad people never win gunfights; and God intervened at Plymouth Rock to save a handful of pilgrims and seed a mighty nation. That’s what we believe…whether we believe it or not. We believe that individuals succeed at God’s bidding, not organizations. And a healthy dose of Darwinism thrown in doesn’t hurt. It can be quite a handy cultural cocktail for plying the motivations of legions if you happen to head a Fortune 500 or 100 in the free-for-all wild-wild-west.
A good summary (appetite wetter) of Gavin Kennedy’s recent blogging on Adam Smith can be found here. Better yet, go here, and read Mr. Kennedy’s own words in an ongoing debate. Scroll down to “Invisible Hand – Metaphor of Moment?”
A recent article by USA Today revealed that methane is playing a much greater role in global warming than previously thought. People often incorrectly attribute cattle methane primarily to flatulence. In reality, more than 90% of the initial cattle methane comes from exhaling and belching which is surprising because cows do not drink much in the way of beer or carbonated beverages. The gaseous effluence, nonetheless, must be taken seriously since methane is 21 times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas. Livestock have been estimated to account for 20% of global methane emissions. While it may be possible to pursue methane sequestration as with CO2, methane is lighter than air. Enlisting cows to help blow up party balloons by hoof will likely prove impractical because separating the methane from the stinkier gases of the cows’ four stomachs is exceedingly difficult; and the inevitable occasionally popped balloons would presumably cause many partygoers to loose their stomachs for cake. (Cows can always afford to loose one. They’ve got four.) You thought the clowns who suck helium from balloons were bad….Wait ’till they get a load of cow breath.
Methane, meanwhile, quietly and persistently emanates from the average one hundred pounds of cowplop that an individual bovine effervesces each and every single day. Fortunately, Pacific Gas and Electric is on the job with “can-doo-doo attitude!” PG&E is working with dairy farmers on collecting the methane from cowdie-doodie. (Really, it is.) PG&E is then converting methane from cow poop into “cow power,” enough eventually for 100,000 homes. BRAVO, PG&E and BRAVO, Beautiful Bodacious Bovines of Southern California!
Come on! Sing it with me:
“I Wish They All Could Be California Cows”
Well East Coast cows are hip
I really dig those dung piles’ air
And the Southern cows with the way they fart
They knock me out when I’m down there
The Mid-West farmers’ cows they really make you feel alright
And the Northern cows with the way they poop
They keep their boyfriends warm at night
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California cowwwwws
The West coast has the sunshine
And the cowhides get so tanned
I dig a french bikini on Hawaii island
cows by a palm tree in the sand
I been all around this great big world
And I seen all kinds of cows
Yeah, but I couldn’t wait to get back in the states
Back to the cutest cows in the world
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California
I wish they all could be California cows…
Oughta quit that....It's a filthy habit.
Wyoming's State Motto - "Equal Rights"...UNLESS...you happen to be talking about coal power. That's ssssspecial! Just look at it! Couldn't you just wrap your arms around it and give it a great big hug and a kiss? Nothing says "I love you" like a juicy tax break.
Don’t be shy, Wyoming lawmakers. Tell us what you really think of wind energy. The week before last the Wyoming legislature began simultaneously deliberating two bills. One of the bills would increase taxes for wind power. The other bill would provide additional tax breaks to coal power (helping coal overcome the other bill).
What could the Wyoming legislature be thinking? Gee, ya don’t imagine it has anything to do with the fact that Wyoming is the biggest coal digger-upper of the 50 states, do ya? Could it beeee? Could it…beeeeeee?
In 2008, the good state of Wyoming pried, plowed, blasted and bulldozed 468 million short tons of coal…one year. Nearly a trillion pounds. Not million. Not billion. A trillion. One state. Oh yeah….That’s loooove.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways….
It loves me, it loves me not, it loves me, it loves me not, it loves me....
What's on your mind, Big Brother? The little people want to know.
To say that 2008 and 2009 have exposed a crisis in global leadership is beyond understatement. The lapses in judgment, both in government and in financial services, leading to this devastating economic crisis are arguably unforgivable. Countless lives have been wrecked in a seeming single fell stroke for the sake of corporate greed, especially in the financial sector. We find ourselves repeatedly asking, “Who the heck is in charge?” And if the global economy had any of the forward momentum that the Exxon Valdez had in 1989…We have to ask, “Have all the captains of this global ship been on a permanent infusion of vodka?” We simply don’t deserve this kind of leadership. We deserve far better.
From the constant erosion of, and final repeal of, central Glass–Steagall provisions to the acceptance of massive bonuses post-bailout. The finger-prints of ruinous avarice are upon every key, every doorknob. Everyday global citizens are left treading water without life preservers. They weren’t the ones living lavishly on the party barge. They were the one’s carrying the trays with martinis to the captains. The captains got out in silk-lined life boats.
So what were the big-shots thinking? That’s really the question. Isn’t it? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have known what they were thinking before we handed them the keys to the ship? Before we gave them license to drive our banks, our Senates, our corporations? What might a driving test for corporate leadership look like?
Technology may one day enable us to set much higher standards for our leadership.
If 2008-2009 goes down in history as one of the greatest economic calamities of the century, there may be a watershed scientific footnote attached to 2008 well. 2008 may well go down as the year of the advent of mind-reading. A flurry of functional MRI research over the past few years culminated in researchers in Kyoto, Japan reading the visual cortices of subjects. Computers at ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories successfully recreated rough duplicates of black and white letters that subjects saw with their eyes. A spate of speculation and ethical debate soon followed.
I was less inspired by the visual aspect (reading dreams and such) than by the potential to read emotional thought patterns. I suspect, for example, that an fMRI of Bernard Madoff’s frontal lobe would betray a sub-zero glacial landscape devoid of emotional activity (except possibly the pleasure of wealth mingled with a dash of uncontrollable rage at any personal loss). The technology is unquestionably evolving to assess patterns like empathy.
2008 may well go down as the year of the advent of mind-reading.
One day soon we’ll be able to flash up a few photographs of physical or financial ruin and find out whether or not a subject gives a flying flip for anyone but themselves. Want to know whether your potential new CEO cares about shareholders? Customers? Employees? Slap ‘em in an fMRI and see whether their neurons go neon when others are in need or exclusively when they see their own personal pay-day at the end of the yellow brick road.
I think it should ultimately become a kind of driving test for large corporations (or governments). The results should be made public, too. It would be kind of like a drug test on steroids, particularly well suited to corporate governance. Say you’ve got a big manufacturer swaggering into your sleepy little rural hamlet promising 3,000 new jobs in exchange for juicy tax breaks. Demand that their top five executives take a spin in the handy dandy fMRI for a quick little ‘non-invasive’ audit and find out how loyal they’ll be in the next major recession. If they don’t cut the mustard say, “Thanks, but we’re saving this dance for another.” Demand higher ability/capacity to balance competing objectives.
Think of it as spinning Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four up on it’s head. The internet is already rapidly democratizing information and injecting transparency in a way that will enable us to demand far more from leadership in the decades ahead. I call it “inverse accountability.” We’re just now learning to blog the good guys into leadership and the bad guys into oblivion. In the future, maybe we’ll be able to peer inside Big Brother’s head and see how well his/her noodle functions before we hire or elect him.
Here’s to 4891,
SevenCell
Free Speech vs. Petition to Redress: Why Corporate Lobbying is Wrong
Highly Paid Lobbyists: "EXCUSE ME! You may speak to the lawmakers WHEN (and IF) my money runs out. Now sit down, little people!"
For years most Americans have scratched their heads over excessive corporate lobbying. What gives? Everybody knows it’s wrong. Just common sense. How come our legislators and court systems keep on permitting lobbyists to monopolize legislature time ad nauseum? In this post, we begin to parse this pernicious little problem.
For starters, there is a monumental difference between the right to free speech and another First Amendment right “to petition to redress grievances.” The right to free speech is a right to speak whereas petition to redress connotes a right to be heard. You can stand any street corner (within the law) chanting all day and all night with a sandwich board on your chest. That’s free speech. You can talk; but nobody has to listen. It’s that right to be heard that lobbyists are twisting more than a bowl of overcooked spaghetti in a turbo-charged blender.
With the right to petition to redress, a special someone has to listen, the government. That right to be heard, therefore, holds an implicit requirement that you stand in line. In other words, your right directly competes with the exact same right for others. We have in the United States Congress 50 Senators and 435 Representatives. We’re just shy of 300 million citizens. That’s a little over 618,000 citizens per legislator. So when it comes your turn to exercise “right to be heard” you should have extremely limited time to speak because there are 299 million other citizens in line right behind you.
Corporate lobbying is analogous to paying hired guns to post themselves beside every single one of our legislators with 300 Watt bullhorns held 3 inches from representatives’ ears.
When it comes your turn to speak, you should be brief and precise, and after you’ve had your say you should shut up, get in your car, and drive back to the home state you came from. Leave D.C. Go home. Paying somebody else to represent you? Should just be illegal because the tool is egregiously abused to the point of massively impinging upon others’ right to be heard. With the Internet and tools like Skype, you’ve got no excuse when it comes to paying someone to represent you. If you don’t have the time to represent yourself, then it must not be important enough.
Corporate lobbying is analogous to paying hired guns to post themselves beside every single one of our legislators with 300 Watt bullhorns held 3 inches from the representatives’ ears…and then refusing to relinquish that post for the full duration of the legislative session. Corporate lobbying has thus not exercised right to redress but has, rather, completely destroyed, obliterated beyond recognition, that right of petition to redress for others. The right to be heard must not be for sale. The time is long overdue to cast out the money changers from the temple.
Practice these simple phrases until they roll off your tongue with reflexive ease, “Lobbying is an extreme perversion of, and full breach of, right to petition to redress grievances. Corporate lobbying makes the United States of America a less competitive country by giving all voice in government to a powerful and moneyed few.”
Thanks for tolerating my bullhorn for a few moments.
Regards,
SevenCell
Make it a point to know this man.
If you want to know the heart and soul of the coal industry, look no farther than Don Blankenship. Don Blankenship is chairman and CEO of Massey Energy, a $2.4 billion coal-yanker based in WV, the 4th largest producer in the country. Don paid himself around $11.2 million in total personal compensation in 2008 for lopping the tops off of Blue Ridge Mountains in and around West Virginia. (He is after all the Chairman, you know. But, gee wiz, at almost 20% of corporate net income that’s like a twice-tithe….Is Don Blankenship God? Perhaps he just thinks he is.)
If you want to know Don Blankenship’s soul, look no further than the June 2009 United States Supreme Court decision that the judge whom Blankenship had funded with $3 million in campaign contributions should have recused himself from Massey’s appeal of a $70 million case. The pathetic judge was asked not once but twice to recuse. C’mon, who gives $3 million to a judicial candidate? Look no further than USA Today’s March 2009 editorial discussion of that case.
Then again, perhaps it is wise to look a little further. In fact, look hard. Look very, very hard. Because Don Blankenship is what you’re up against as you prepare to protect the planet from CO2 Armageddon. And make no mistake: This battle will drag on for decades regardless of what lawmakers and the U.N. do. Don will not rest until the last speck of earth-bound coal dust extricated from the ground. He will not reevaluate his position under any circumstance. He has taken his position; and he will remain, like a 300-pound schoolyard bully, firmly planted until the last battle is over. He takes great pride in fighting. In fact, he enjoys it. Conflict drives him.
Listening to Don is a waste of time, his breath as tainted as the dust rising from his mountaintop mines.
He will sell coal. After you enact carbon caps, he will export more, much more (like Canada’s asbestos miners). He will dutifully follow the playbook of the tobacco industry. Once the first legislative volley is over (which he will mainly lose due to public outrage), he will replenish his lobby coffers and run straight to D.C. as fast as he can with millions of dollars. He will seek to monopolize Senators’ and Congressmen’s time via the same channels that they permit their limited time to be monopolized by insurance companies and Wall Street…while they should be enacting meaningful legislation.
If you want to know the soul of Don Blankenship, recall the 14,000 coal miners nationwide who died between 1991 and 2000 of black lung disease. As of 2009 the entire industry employs less than 45,000. There are some things you just can’t make safe.
You don’t need to listen to Don Blankenship. You don’t need to listen to a single brainless word he blathers. It’s a complete waste of time, his breath every bit as tainted and wasted as the dust clouds rising from his mountaintop mines. You do need to understand him, though. You need to understand him very well.
If you want to know the soul of the coal industry, study the soul of Don Blankenship. If you want to know the soul of Don Blankeship, study the souls of the tobacco, asbestos, and oil industries. Know who you are dealing with and act. Rest assured, your legislators will be acting; and in future posts on this blog, we’ll seek to study their souls as well.
Regards,
SevenCell
When I received this survey in the mail last week, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Although I did not check with Obama Girl, I’m going out on a limb to proclaim that the Republican National Committee secured neither her approval for this survey nor her permission to invoke Obama’s name. But I am glad the Republican Party is on the ball.
'I did NOT approve this survey!' (She didn't really say that, but we'll pretend she did). Photo courtesy of Ben Relles via Wikimedia Commons - Creative Commons License.
Republican Plea For My Money here (click)
My only complaint is that the survey is multiple choice and so I elaborate on two questions below.
Question Number 4: Should English be the Official language of the United states?
SevenCell’s Answer: Let me just start by saying, “Whew! I was worried that one had slipped through the cracks….” I had woken up in a cold sweat the very morning I received the survey panicked over our official language situation. Do we have an official language? Does the White House even have an “Official Language Situation Room?” It should. What happens if we do get an official language and people start speaking other languages? All hell will break loose. Anyway, I was especially comforted to know that the conservatives are keeping on top of things and floated that question right up to Number 4. We pay them six figures, you know. Gotta get our money’s worth.
Question Number 7: Do you believe that Barack Obama’s nominees for federal courts should be immediately and unquestionably approved for their lifetime appointments by the U.S. Senate?
SevenCell’s Answer: I believe we should amend the Constitution to permit Rush Limbaugh and Al Sharpton to collaborate on nomination choices for federal judges instead of the duly elected President of the United States (until both Rush and Al die). If we are unable to secure that Amendment, I say we go with the United States Constitution as it stands.
I invite you to explore the limitless possibilities and the depth of the conservative mind with the links above. Bon Appétit, SevenCell.
The French Gave Us the Statue of Liberty, But Deutsche Bank gave us the Carbon Counter
'Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free....'
If the French gave us the most world renowned symbol of freedom, the Germans have reminded us (quite politely and effectively) of our own destructive capacity and of the blank check we’re writing with everyone else’s air. Back in June, Deutsche Bank unveiled a 70-foot tall digital clock, the “Carbon Counter,” in Madison Square Garden in the heart of the world’s financial capital. BRAVO, Deutsche Bank! You couldn’t have chosen a more apropos message.
'Give us air....We're yearning to breathe free....'
Back in 2007, under a Republican administration, a U.S. government study succinctly identified the responsibility we owe the rest of the world. The CRS Report stated, “The United States contributes almost one-fifth of net global greenhouse gas emissions. China and the United States are now neck-and-neck as the largest emitters of CO2.” To put those numbers into perspective: China has about 1/5th of the world’s population > China emits about 1/5th of the world’s CO2. The U.S. has about 1/20th of the world’s population > The U.S. demands the privilege of driving across three states to grandma’s house every Thanksgiving.
Seriously, at least China is busy building the world’s consumer products. What are we doing? Playing Nintendo? We aren’t building anything. I know, I know, it’s more complicated than that…And then again…It isn’t. The U.S. needs to arrive in Copenhagen this fall hat in hand.
“China and the United States are now neck-and-neck as the largest emitters of CO2.”
CRS Report, 2007
For many decades, the rest of the world has looked to us for leadership on both democracy and capitalism. This time, the world is scratching its head. The world is beginning to ask, “Hey! What the heck are you doing with my air?” We’re so busy pointing fingers at China that we’re totally clueless.
Dear Lord, Please subdue and incarcerate all the people that would take away my chosen source of income...Oh, and could I please have a Nintendo Wii for Christmas...Amen
So suppose you’re a key leader in an industry that has the ultimate potential capacity to blot out much of life as we know it? Suppose everyone else on the planet is starting to talk about this major predicament in earnest? How do you stop all that chatter and get your people back to work? Well you can’t do that, but you can do everything in your power to mitigate the impetus, to slow the inevitable onslaught as it were. One of the handiest tricks in this no-win situation is to invoke the will of God.
In a recent American Public Media interview (‘Climate Change Series’), Bill Raney, the president of West Virginia’s Coal Association summoned such an incantation, “The good Lord put more coal in the ground in America than any other country in the world. And we need to treat it as an asset just as it is on any company’s balance sheet.”
Now, ‘ol Bill Raney is a pro. Did you see what he just did? He appealed your sense of duty to God, country, and capitalism all in the span of less than 50 words. He wrapped all three up with a nice little bow and turned coal into a moral imperative. That’s a cool trick! Now that we understand how to use it, let’s go make some money!
Let’s see…God gave Columbia an ideal climate for growing coca plants. He also gave us the coca seed and that’s even natural. How ’bout cocaine? No, that’s illegal. Not only that, you can’t secure mineral rights to cocaine. Oh, wait, I know!…What about oil? Alaa bestowed upon the sands of Arabia zillions of barrels of crude oil. Could we subdue the populations there with a corrupt royal regime, sop up that black goo and make some real gravy? Oh yeah….See what you mean….Somebody else already thought of that and even locked up the mineral rights.
The good Lord put more coal in the ground in America than any other country in the world. And we need to treat it as an asset just as it is on any company’s balance sheet.
- Bill Raney,
President, West Virginia Coal Association
(BRAVO, American Public Media! Great coverage!)
Oh well, guess we’ll have to return to this little conundrum later. Better get back to work. Where’s my pick and shovel? Bill, did you hide my pick and shovel again? You ‘ol prankster you! Can’t kid a kidder! C’mon Bill, ‘Ol Buddy! Let’s go crank out some more CO2 together, old friend!
Last night PBS rebroadcast a terrific Frontline episode from earlier in the year on health care. T.R. Reid travels to 5 countries in search of answers:
That’s the capitol [U.S. Capitol] of the richest, most powerful nation in history. But when it comes to providing health care for people, that great country, our country, is a fourth-rate power. The World Health Organization says the U.S. health care system rates 37th in the world in terms of quality and fairness. All the other rich countries do better than we do, and yet they spend a heck of a lot less. How do they do it? That’s what this film is about.
-T.R. Reid, Correspondent
Frontline makes the broadcast easily accessible, and you can watch “Sick Around the World” here. It’s well worth an hour. Reid compares Britton, Switzerland, Japan, Germany, and Taiwan. The U.S. has been fumbling the ball when it comes to health care for far too long.
It is impossible to exaggerate the impact of Scotsman Adam Smith upon American culture. Anytime someone implements a new economic regulation, conservative pundits and die-hard
Viral Soccer Vid: Elizabeth Lambert's hands weren't looking too invisible against BYU November 5th. Hey, it was a semi-final. What do you expect?...It's only competition! (click for Youtube)
purist capitalists cry foul, dust off The Wealth of Nations, and begin waxing philosophic over Smith’s “invisible hand.” Now, I pose the question: Is it the invisible hand of competition at play or is it the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s idyllic phraseology at work upon American culture? Somehow we manage to incessantly construe the idea of competition as ‘battle without rules.’ In America, the man we really admire is Joseph Schumpeter for the idea of “creative destruction” even though Schumpeter prophesied the demise of capitalism.
My point here is not to tapdance around economic philosophies or semantics. My point is to ask a very simple question, “How far are businesses in general, and Americans in particular, willing to go for the sake of competition?” The answer is, I believe, a matter of degrees. Some are certainly willing to go farther than others; but I will hypothesize that how far you are willing to go can depend quite a bit upon the type of business that you are in. In posts ahead we will be exploring products whose impacts economists euphemistically refer to as “negative externalities.” I call the products (at least some of them) “destructive goods.” Economists, I believe, need to begin explicitly differentiating between the motives of purveyors of “productive” goods and “destructive” goods. We may discover these motives to be dramatically disparate. Adam Smith….he’d let an “invisible hand” sort it all out. Problem is…Ol’ Adam didn’t have climate change to contend with.
On October 15th, I penned a post comparing the Earth to the infamous Titanic. I’ll continue with that comparison for a bit here. My wife and I were married in the spring of 1998 (a wonderful marriage that has yielded us two beautiful daughters and the best years of my life), and
The Dawn Princess, photo courtesy of Stan Shebs under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License.
for our honeymoon we were blessed with the only cruise that either of us has ever taken, an 8-day voyage traversing the eastern islands of the Caribbean on the Dawn Princess, a freshly minted luxury liner less than a year old at the time. The cruise was a wedding gift from both sets of parents; and…can you believe it…we actually took my wife’s parents along with us! The trip was the most enjoyable vacation you could imagine.
Ever the inquisitive child when confronted with any new technology, I lunged at the opportunity to take the “Bridge Tour,” a guided visit to the cockpit of this 14-story, 77 thousand ton floating city. I was rewarded handsomely for my curiosity; and learned many new and fascinating things about cruise ships.
Of all the ship trivia imparted during that little adventure, none fascinated me more than this: The ship cruises at a speed of roughly 30 miles per hour, about the same speed as our family compact car achieves in the secondary roads of north Atlanta. Ships, unfortunately, don’t have brakes and must effectively coast to a stop. The crew must, therefore, anticipate arrival to port well in advance; and would anyone volunteer to share how far out to sea they cut the engines when steering into port? (OK, you may put virtual hands down now, and thank you for playing along!) They turn off the ship’s props at about 5 miles out! I can’t get over that. The Dawn Princess has that much inertia.
And that is why, you understand, icebergs are so dangerous to ships (especially so in 1912). It’s the lethal combination of the unyielding momentum of the ship and hidden danger…with almost 90% of the instrument of destruction concealed from view under water. The situation at night is perhaps analogous to steering a car on pure ice…to avoid an invisible concrete wall…and correctly anticipating the best direction for the maneuver a day before you get into the car. We’ve never faced man-made climate change before, so the truth is we don’t know how deep a down-side we could be facing. We have no idea how bad it could really get. We can make very educated guesses. But there is one thing we can count on with absolute certainty: the economic inertia of fossil fuels; and it is that unyielding momentum that concerns me very deeply; and that is what I’d like to explore with you in posts ahead if I am fortunate enough to enjoy your company. Please stop back to visit; and until then, bon voyage, SevenCell.
Rare is the individual or business that does not follow the crowd. Rarer still, is the company that does not view employees as a cost (or perhaps not ONLY as a cost) but as a treasured asset. But the rarest gem of all, the “red diamond” business, is the enterprise that holds fast to this principle in the most difficult of times while revenue is sinking and profits are flagging. These red diamond companies steadfastly refuse to layoff employees even as they turn the ship to face off the perfect storm.
National Public Radio’s member station NHPR provides a story and podcast here. In NPR’s interview, Lincoln Electric’s CEO portrays the model as a cold business decision; but you have to ask yourself, “What are the underlying human values that drive executives and boards at companies like Lincoln Electric?” The fierce competitor that remains
fiercely loyal to its own employees is an astoundingly beautiful phenomenon. Sure, everybody can’t get away with it; but a lot more companies than try could probably do it. Deep down there must be a culture of fidelity, a willingness to protect your own….a more profound and deeply respectful alignment of the highest levels of the board with with lowest levels on the production line. BRAVO Lincoln Electric and Hypertherm; and BRAVO Jon Greenberg at NHPR! These are the stories that need to be told. These are the stories that make me proud of America. Journalist and author Frank Koller explores the Lincoln Electric story in depth in his new book, “Spark,” due out February 2010. Mr. Koller, you couldn’t have picked a better time to write this book!
2007: I don't have Ebert or Roper with me...so I just have to hold both my own thumbs up for Dr. Reich!
Coming up with a truly innovative political or economic idea is a lot like coming up with technological invention. If the new idea really has any merit, chances are better than 99% that somebody else has come up something very similar (e.g. Edison and Tesla commercializing electricity). With politics and economics, chances are somebody already expressed the idea or something very similar a half a century or more earlier.
Understanding that, I contemplated titling this post “Déjà Vous All Over Again.” Good ideas are always worth revisiting. When either author is especially articulate – all the better; and when a new spin is added, you come away particularly well sated after digesting several viewpoints. Such was my experience after recently reading Robert Reich’s 2007 book, Supercapitalism. Dr. Reich describes a fundamental tension between capitalism and democracy. The conflict portrayed is a stunningly simple idea and elegantly expressed. The notion that two of our most cherished ideals battle each other relentlessly over the decades surprised me and, it seemed to me, richly rang true.
As very good ideas always do, Reich’s book left me with more questions than answers. Intrigued to learn more, I did what everybody does: I Googled. Specifically, I Googled “dark side of capitalism” to see whatever might just happen to pop out of the “collective-consciousphere.”
1998: Mr. Luttwak's excellent ideas later reincarnated and explored from different angles....Déjà vous all over again.
I was intrigued to see Google return near the top of the list an Atlanta Business Chronicle book review (I live in Atlanta) – a 1999 book, Turbo-Capitalism: Winners and Losers in the Global Economy (book review link here) by Edward Luttwak. Hmmm, now isn’t that interesting? Compare the two titles, a mere eight years apart. Suffice it to say, I strongly recommend Reich’s book; and the Turbo-capitalism book is on my to-be-read list.
Even on the surface both ideas are terrific; but there also seems to me to be a fundamental missing piece with both ideas. When you are leading people with ideas, it is always crucial to consider the direction you lead. Whether one leads children, adults, or CEO’s and government officials who behave like children, it’s always far easier to lead people toward an idea than away from an idea.
The power of this concept can not be overemphasized. A simple example is the chocolate chip cookie, “Billy, don’t eat that cookie!” Well of course the child will now be obsessed with the cookie (the negative) and sneak it at the first chance because you both emphasized the wrong target and solidified its image with graphic clarity in the child’s mind. You attracted attention to that which was bad. You did worse than guide away from the good idea. You guided toward a bad idea without even meaning to! The truth of this phenomenon is not lost by the simplicity of the example. Any time you paint a negative picture in people’s minds you attract them to it. Other people are always far smarter than we give them credit; and many examine the negative idea and say to themselves, “Hmmm, that’s very interesting. Now, how can I use that to enrich myself?” (People are also seldom less selfish than we give them credit for.)
I can’t stress enough that I personally believe that both Reich’s and Luttwak’s ideas are very good. (BRAVO, Robert Reich!) Reich is amazingly articulate and never fails to rivet my attention; but we need to complete the loop. In a way, neither book is finished. Both should have either entertained an immediate sequel or found a better title with positive connotations, a clearer objective. When one is passionate about a topic, if the focus is negative one risks being destructive.
We need a clear, positive target now and symbols that guide toward something. That target is, I believe, a broader yet simple unifying theory for enabling capitalism and democracy to complement each other. In order to accomplish that, I believe we must reexamine our beliefs in each individually and acknowledge some very specific and disturbingly dark sides that exist for each. Reich has started us down that path; but now I believe we’re ready for him to take us a little further. We are ready to discover that capitalism and democracy can make each other better. We are ready to begin unifying the most successful political and economic models of the past century, democracy and capitalism, into a more stable and productive whole.
The pundits on “The McLaughlin Group” (link here) collectively weighed in on new financial industry salary caps this past weekend. The lone voice of reason seemed to be Eleanor Clift (of Newsweek). read more…
People are really just beginning to appreciate the social aspects of the internet. We get the search engines and email. We get the chat rooms. We get the web pages. But we’re really only just beginning to get, I believe, the phenomenon of rapid mass social reaction. Even more importantly, I believe we’re only beginning to get this phenomenon as it pertains to participatory government.
Sometimes for good. Sometimes for bad. En masse we tend to behave quite a bit like lemmings. We are truly pack animals whether we care to admit it or not. The good is, maybe, that the transparency of the web will rapidly turn up the heat more than read more…
It’s hard to editorialize much on the latest development of the Bank of America – Merrill Lynch Saga. Ken Lewis is forfeiting a full year’s salary and bonus leading up to his retirement at the end of the year. Depending on which headline you read, Ken either agreed to give it up or was forced to. Two words best summarize the news: Great Start. read more…
A Riddle for Holdout Global Warming Naysayers: What do yeast and the Titanic have to do with Global Warming?
I guess sometimes I’d just like to see less focus on the warming aspect and more focus on the CO2 parts-per-million, which has gone from around 318 in 1960 to over 380 today on an exponential curve. Compare over 600,000 years of CO2 read more…
September was a very big month for the solar panel industry. Two global thin film heavyweights, First Solar and Nanosolar, issued their biggest press releases of the year a mere two days apart. Clearly, a tango of soap oprian dimension. One has to ask: Who exactly won read more…
Every industrialized national government in the world, bar none, has responded to the 2008-2009 economic crisis with the broadest expansions of governments in history. In the U.S., the mainstream media largely ignores the rest of the world, filling the airwaves read more…
From Tree-Hugging to Tree-Plugging: BRAVO, University of Washington!
A recent Scientific American pocast highlights the success of University of Washington researchers in harvesting electricity directly from a maple tree by simply plugging in…to the tree read more…
Green Car Congress recently highlighted a study showing that Federal subsidies are, in effect, discouraging renewables. The study reveals a real problem with government read more…
Something just doesn’t seem to fit. It’s that gut feeling that hits you every time a financial services exec (poster child: Stan O’neal) walks away with massive bonuses in the wake of read more…
(gif by Nils-Gunnar Nordlund, Sverige / Sweden, Wikimedia Commons)
On September 7th, National Public Radio (listen here) presented a clever piece on human generated electricity. The highlight of the program was an interview with the inspiring David Butcher, who powers his home office entirely with stored energy from an exercise bike. BRAVO, David Butcher!
A front page article in the Wall Street Journal today discusses difficulties with mandating insurance. I have been repeatedly disappointed by media failure to discuss “Adverse Selection,” a property unique to insurance. So I emailed WSJ’s Vanessa Fuhrmans in read more…
A wonderfully clever twist is the notion that we should not take decisive action because health care comprises 17% of the economy. This little spin-gem keeps popping up read more…
ABC (Sept 1 here) and BBC (Sept 14 here) interview John McAfee (yes, THAT McAfee) after the computer tycoon recently lost much of his fortune. read more…
Nevada-based First Solar, Inc. and China join forces and put solar energy front and center this week with plans to build the largest solar farm on the planet. China and Portugal read more…
Citigroup Center, New York. Your tax dollars keep the name atop this building.
Nestled quietly within the crown of the Citigroup Center in New York is an 880,000 lb. block of concrete. Have you ever seen a single 880,000 lb. hunk of concrete? Me neither. But were I to stand on the 59th floor of that building and gaze up at the taciturn, unsympathetic ceiling, my awareness of the block on the other side would make me a little nervous. The slab is a marvel of 20th century engineering and it performs its job flawlessly. Hydraulic arms nudge the mass back and forth atop oil film bearings in opposition to the wind. While giant, transparent, gale-force fingers, 900 feet above the earth’s surface, endeavor to topple the building over, this mammoth block, the “tuned mass damper,” dances back and forth holding the building steady. The crazy way that I think, the tuned mass damper causes me to contemplate interest rate mechanisms that the world’s central banks use to hold the global economy steady. Just like those hydraulic arms, central banks use interest rates and money supplies to nudge the behemoth economy in different directions. They gently encourage or discourage risk-taking on a grandly massive scale. read more…
For the past several months, congress has been deliberating the issue of cell phone exclusivity. Consumers and Congress alike are beginning to ponder the usefulness of phone number portability when $500 smart phones silently and magically morph into a heap of toxic electronic waste the moment the owner switches carriers. In hearings in late June, AT&T read more…
Seems hardly a day passes that at least one US Senator or Congressman does not manage with loving eyes to find a network camera to seduce with torrid passion for our “finest health care system in the world.” For the last weekend of June, it was Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell on Fox News Sunday. Cracks me up every time. McConnell even read more…
World Population: 6.8 billion (2009)
US Population: 308 million (2009 – 4.5% of world)
China Population: 1.3 billion (2009 – 19.1% of world)
India Population: 1.2 billion (2009 – 17.6% of world)
World GDP: 60.7 trillion (2008)
US GDP: 14 trillion (2008 – 23% of world)
Japan GDP: 1.4 trillion (2008 – 2.3% of world)
China GDP: 1.2 trillion (2008 – 2.0% of world)
Climate Change – U.S. versus China
CRS Report for Congress – November, 2007: “The United States contributes almost one-fifth of net global greenhouse gas emissions. China and the United States are now neck-and-neck as the largest emitters of CO2.” (CRS-3)….I.E. China, at 1/5th the world’s population, contributes 1/5th the world’s GHG emissions (parity). Meanwhile, the U.S. at 1/20th the world’s population contributes the same amount, 1/5th of GHG worldwide.
Balance of Trade (Definition and Amount):
For U.S. as of 2006 – $817.3 billion
“The balance of trade (or net exports, sometimes symbolized as NX) is the difference between the monetary value of exports and imports of output in an economy over a certain period.”
