Category: interesting

Mike Masnick:

Scientists urge Congress to require federally-funded research to be freely available online.

Really, they’re pushing in favor of a new law, the The Federal Research Public Access Act of 2009, which seems to make a lot of sense.

If the government is funding the research, the more widely available it is, the better.

Dean Baker:

Defense spending means that the government is pulling away resources from the uses determined by the market and instead using them to buy weapons and supplies and to pay for soldiers and other military personnel. In standard economic models, defense spending is a direct drain on the economy, reducing efficiency, slowing growth and costing jobs.

[post-9/11]

The projected job loss from increase in defense spending would be close to 2 million.

Marshall Auerback:

If the activities of the banks are not facilitating the production and movement of real goods and services what public purpose do they serve?

It is clear they have made a small number of people fabulously wealthy. It is also clear that they have damaged the economy in many parts of the world.

Peak Oil fun for sociologists: As oil depletes, so does good music!

Sarah’s rousing issue:

She was referring specifically to the new one-dollar coin on which, she said, the familiar phrase “In God We Trust” would no longer be prominently displayed on the face of the coin but instead moved to the outer edge. “It’s a disturbing trend,” she said.

(The journalist bought a $30 ticket to hear her speech. The new coins were introduced by the Republican-led Congress in 2005 and commissioned by President Bush.)

Comedy gold on healthcare:

What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn’t have a whole lot of productive years left?….In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed… [so] than this elderly person that perhaps could be seen as costing taxpayers to pay for a non-productive life? Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care? And what about the child who perhaps isn’t deemed normal or perfect per someone’s subjective measure of their use or questionable purpose in the eyes of a panel of bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us.

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communism, the world is facing another stark choice between two fundamentally different forms of organization: international capitalism and state capitalism.

The former, represented by the United States, has broken down, and the latter, represented by China, is on the rise.

George Soros:

The system cannot survive in its present form, and the US has more to lose by not being in the forefront of reforming it. The US is still in a position to lead the world, but, without far-sighted leadership, its relative position is likely to continue to erode. It can no longer impose its will on others, as George W Bush’s administration sought to do, but it could lead a co-operative effort to involve both the developed and the developing world, thereby reestablishing American leadership in an acceptable form.

The alternative is frightening…

The alternative is frightening, because a declining superpower losing both political and economic dominance but still preserving military supremacy is a dangerous mix. We used to be reassured by the generalization that democratic countries seek peace. After the Bush presidency, that rule no longer holds, if it ever did.

In fact, democracy is in deep trouble in America.

926 Days At Sea:

Anyone with an open mind who looks at what I am doing and reads even part of what I am writing will see I am in the process of transforming sailing. Mans’ sojourn on the sea will soon be seen and understood by a larger public in a way people have never imagined before.

Remember this site is a Captain’s Log and is read from the beginning of the voyage.

A movement that could change the lives of millions of Africans.

The continent is home to some 3000 species of wild fruit tree, many of which are ripe for domestication. Chocolate berries, gingerbread plums, monkey oranges, gumvines, tree grapes and a host of others could soon play a role in ensuring dependable food supplies in areas now plagued by malnutrition.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, A BILL, to address the concept of ‘‘Too Big To Fail’’ with respect to certain financial entities.

SECTION 1.
SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act’’.

SECTION 2.
REPORT TO CONGRESS ON INSTITUTIONS THAT ARE TOO BIG TO FAIL.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, not later than 90 days after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall submit to Congress a list of all commercial banks, investment banks, hedge funds, and insurance companies that the Secretary believes are too big to fail (in this Act referred to as the ‘‘Too Big to Fail List’’).

SECTION 3.
BREAKING-UP TOO BIG TO FAIL INSTITUTIONS.
Notwithstanding any other provision of law, beginning 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Treasury shall break up entities included on the Too Big To Fail List, so that their failure would no longer cause a catastrophic effect on the United States or global economy without a taxpayer bailout.

SECTION 4.
DEFINITION.
For purposes of this Act, the term ‘‘Too Big to Fail’’ means any entity that has grown so large that its failure would have a catastrophic effect on the stability of either the financial system or the United States economy without substantial Government assistance.

Introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. That’s the entire bill. Sign the Petition here.

LA Times:

“The upside of juice consumption is so infinitesimal compared to the downside that we shouldn’t even be having this discussion.”

The key vulnerabilities of the U.S. food system:

• Nearly all of the food delivery system uses just-in-time inventory methods, so there is only one to three days’ supply at any point in the distribution chain.
• Just three crops comprise 71% of U.S. crop acres: corn, soybean, and wheat.
• Commercial agriculture consumes 10.3 quads (quadrillion BTUs) of primary energy in order to produce 1.4 quads of food energy. The inputs are mainly fossil fuels used in running tractors, producing artificial fertilizers, producing seeds, trucking, refrigeration, processing, freezing and cooking.
• Commercial agriculture not only depletes non-renewable resources and degrades soil, air, and water, but it also releases 5 billion pounds of harmful chemicals and massive amounts of greenhouse gas emissions into the environment per year.
• Animal waste provides critically important fertilizer to small distributed farms, but in the modern massive feedlots of concentrated animal populations it becomes an environmental hazard. All the feed transported to the feedlots uses petroleum fuels, and the hay is grown using ancient “fossil water” pumped from deep, essentially non-renewable aquifers.
• Over the last four decades or so, runoff from commercial agriculture has resulted in massive “dead zones” near our shorelines caused by algae blooms that suck the oxygen out of the water and create anoxic environments where nothing can live. (The dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico has grown to an estimated 8,500 square miles.)
• Monsanto, Pioneer, and Syngenta — all basically chemical companies — dominate the seed industry with patented GMO seeds. Those seeds are finely tuned to the temperature, rainfall, and so on of the recent past, making climate change a major threat to the whole food regime (more on that here).
• Likewise, a handful of giant companies now control the vast majority of the food supply system — a stark contrast to the millions of small family farmers who dominated it prior to the 1960s.

Jim Hansen’s October report to the Club of Rome:

What is clear is that we cannot burn all the fossil fuels. There is a limit on how much carbon we can put into the atmosphere. [pdf]

Hansen’s web site.

Yves Smith:

One of my many pet peeves is drug marketing. Even though Big Phama likes to tout how much it spends on R&D as a justification for high drug prices, it spends more on marketing as a percentage of revenues than it does on R&D.

Think about it: in what other industry are the margins high enough to support in person selling to small business?

Drug companies are masters of this art: …over 88% of the so-called ‘new drug applications’ in the last 10 years have not been for new drugs, but new uses for existing drugs, and to extend the patent on existing drugs.

Reagan, Reagan, Reagan:

Growth in per capita GDP from 1950 to 1980: 2.2 percent per year
Growth in per capita GDP from 1980 to 2007: 2.0 percent per year

Growth in family income from 1950 to 1980: 2.3 percent per year
Growth in family income from 1980 to 2007: 0.7 percent per year

John S. Reed, behind repealing the Glass-Steagall banking regulation, apologized in a Bloomberg interview. He also said the big banks, which he helped create, should be broken up.

White House:

For too long, lobbyists and those who can afford their services have held disproportionate influence over national policy making. The purpose of the President’s agenda to change the way business is done in Washington is to level the playing field to make sure that all Americans and not just those with access to money or power are able to have their voices heard and their concerns addressed by Washington.

We explained that in deciding to limit the ability of lobbyists to serve in government positions, including as members of agency advisory boards and commissions, we considered various arguments and counterarguments. We weighed the options, and considered the alternatives. In the end, we decided that while lobbyists have a right to petition the government, it would best serve the interests of a fairer and more representative democracy if we limited their ability to do so from special positions of privileged access within the government.

The result will be a Washington that is more reflective of all of America.

Slavoj Zizek:

In a crazy double reversal, capitalism won over Communism, but the price paid for this victory is that Communists are now beating capitalism in its own terrain.

What if democracy is no longer the necessary and natural accompaniment of economic development, but its impediment?

A $40 draw-and-release Power Generator recharges any mini-USB mobile gadget – cell phones, MP3 players, cameras, headsets or GPS. No batteries or power outlets required.

It could be that the notion the stock market is an accurate gauge of the domestic economy’s temperature is outdated.

Daniel Gross:

The rising U.S. stock market and a weak, slow-growing U.S. consumer sector aren’t really in contradiction. Given the large-scale trends transforming the global economy—and the role of large U.S. companies in it—it may be possible to have a sustainable rally in American stocks without a sustainable rally by American consumers.

Managing H1N1 during Hajj will be a very difficult matter.

Saudi Authorities are beefing up health care facilities that will be in place once the pilgrims arrive. The Saudi Health Ministry along with our CDC is setting up emergency operations at Mecca.

Pilgrims will be given face masks, sanitizing hand gel, and will be checked for fevers and other symptoms of the disease.

The Saudi Health Ministry has seven hospitals and 75 field health care centers, staffed with around 10,000 health service employees, in the areas where the pilgrimage rituals will conducted. But due to the concerns over N1H1 and other contagious diseases these facilities are to be increased.

11/08/2009

DALLAS – T. Boone Pickens, who has spent more than a year telling Americans the answer to their energy woes is natural gas, says the U.S. natural gas supply will probably dry up in about 30 years.

At that point, Americans will have to find some other technology to fuel vehicles, Pickens said during a speech last week at the University of Texas at Dallas.

“Natural gas is just a bridge,” Pickens said.

“Twenty-five, 30 years is what we’re going to get out of it,” he said. “Then you’ll have to get over to either fuel cells or battery. You’ll have to be on to some other transportation fuel by then.”

Pickens is predicting oil prices will rise to $300 a barrel in the next 10 years.

The Automatic Earth:

Capitalism might or might not work only if and when you could keep corporations out of the government. If you can’t, disaster is assured for everyone but the corporations.

Sure, not bailing out the broke banks would have been a start. It would, however, not have solved the problem, not even close.

The libertarian class claims that the issue is not capitalism or the free market. (After all, these are their deities.) For them the trouble all starts -and ends- with government and its rules and regulations.

But that’s precisely where the issue gets all mixed up. For one, the bail-outs are not the beginning of the sorrowful saga.

Allowing investment banks and securities firms access to taxpayer deposits, ref: the 1999 Glass-Steagall repeal (Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act), and liberating the derivatives trade, ref: the 2000 Commodity Futures Modernization Act, are the two pieces of law that directly led to a situation in which banks were allowed both to 1) become as big as they are now (too big to fail) and 2) to leverage their bets as much as they have (which wiped out their capital).

And you don’t really have to be all that smart to realize that both acts are de-regulatory, and made the markets more, not less, free.

Now look around you and tell me what you see 10 years later.

In other words, the free market system has failed America miserably. Well, at least in this instance, and that by itself should raise very grave doubts about that system.

The term ‘denialism’ used by Michael Specter as an all-purpose, pop-sci buzzword, is defined by him as what happens “when an entire segment of society, often struggling with the trauma of change, turns away from reality in favor of a more comfortable lie”.

John Cleese:
“…in order to know how good you are at something, it requires almost exactly the same skills and aptitude as it does to be good at that thing in the first place.

“In other words, if you’re a really good tennis player or mathematician then you know how to tell how good you are. But it also means if you’re absolutely no good at something then you lack exactly the skills to realize your idiocy.

“It explains why so many idiots out there have no idea that they’re idiots.

“Yes. Take Sarah Palin — so many Republicans love her. I suddenly realized that in order to actually understand that someone is not very bright — or to be brutal, that they’re rather stupid — you really have to be more intelligent than them. Most Republicans aren’t smarter than Sarah Palin. It’s true.”