Economy

Will Greece be the next sovereign default?

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Midtowng over at The Economic Populist has a short and useful post on why Athens may default on its debts: "Five Minutes to Midnight" in Athens.  Greece is in recession, and if it balances its budget, it will likely cause it to drop into a depression.  Since it is part of the Euro, it cannot devalue its currency as a way of dealing with its crisis.

Greece has been dealing with civil unrest that started over a year ago and led to the electoral defeat of the previous conservative government.  Costas Panayotakis has one take on it and sums up the motivations of the many youthful protesters thus:

"Underlying
the rage of the protestors is also a feeling that today's Greek youth
will be the first generation not to live better than their parents.
Fueling this feeling are high unemployment rates, low salaries that do
not keep up with the rising cost of living, high levels of poverty (one
out of five Greeks is poor), growing household indebtedness, and
"flexible" labor relations that consign many young people to insecure,
temporary positions. This situation is partly the result of the
commitment of conservatives and Socialists alike to the European Union
and its insistence that inflation and deficits be kept low, even at the
cost of chronically high unemployment rates."

Chris Spannos posted some pictures and background on some of the more recent demonstrations, such as those by students, pensioners and public workers.

Ecology, Economy, Government

Rich countries working on secret climate treaty that favors them

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The US, UK and other rich countries are discussing a secret draft climate treaty for the UN Copenhagen climate talks.  Excluded from the discussion are developing countries, who were rightly upset.  The Guardian reported that the draft treaty would:

  • hand effective control of
    climate change finance to the World Bank;
  • would abandon the Kyoto protocol –
    the only legally binding treaty that the world has on emissions reductions;
  • would make any money to help poor countries adapt to climate change dependent
    on them taking a range of actions [forcing more privatizations so as to enrich they buyers?];
  • not allow poor countries to emit more than 1.44 tonnes of carbon per
    person by 2050, while allowing rich countries to emit 2.67 tonnes.

The last point is quite key since rich countries have produced the vast majority of CO2 emissions since 1900, as this graph at the World Resources Institute demonstrates:

A climate treaty that does not recognize that rich counties got us into this mess and need pay more to get us to climate stability, will not be accepted by developing countries.

Also, Naked Capitalism has a piece on the effectiveness of Cap and Trade solutions in reducing CO2 emissions.  It isn’t favorable.

Innovation, Web/Tech

Bad Joo Joo, No Biscuit!

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The Crunch Pad is no more since, apparently, the company handling much of the technical work, Fusion Garage, broke its agreement with TechCrunch, the company handling the business side, and skipped with it.  Instead, Fusion Garage will be putting out the tablet computer and calling it the Joo Joo.  A rather unfortunate name for a product since it is far too easy to associate it with the phrase Bad JuJu, especially with the recent legal tanglings.

UPDATE: Fusion Garage's take on the split and Wired's review of the Joo Joo.

Economy, Government, Politics

Bernanke Reloaded

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I have wished to talk about Fed. Chairman Ben Bernanke's renomination and the quality of the job that the former Princeton Econ prof and expert on the economics of he Great Depression did, but since Doug Henwood, of Left Business Observer, sums up Chairman Ben's performance so well, I'll leave it to him:

Why is this guy getting reappointed? He let the bubble inflate,
dismissed worries about the dangers of subprime mortgages and
derivatives, said in mid-2008 that the recession was unlikely to get
too serious (just as it was about to get very serious)—and then, when
everything fell apart, set about writing big big big giant big checks
to Wall Street. Yes, in a financial crisis, it’s essential that a
central bank flood the system with money to keep things from imploding
utterly. But he’s done so without any clear strategy or accountability,
and absolutely no commitment to insuring that it doesn’t happen again.
Truly the American ruling class is a rotting social formation.

and later:

Fed chair Ben Bernanke was before the Senate just the other day urging
Congress to cut Medicare and Social Security. I suspect that the upper
reaches of American society are deeply interested in imposing an
austerity program on most of us in order to pay the bills for the
bailout and stimulus programs. It’s never too early to gear up for that
fight.

The rest of Doug's article is his assessment of the latest economic news and worth the read as it always is, even when I disagree, which is seldom.

Current Affairs, Social Justice, War on Terror

Eight years later, using nonviolence in Afghanistan still looks like a good choice

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In March of 2002, while running for Treasurer of the Commonwealth, I did a one day tour of the Fall River/New Bedford area including speaking engagements, radio appearances and an interview with the Herald News in Fall River.  I was aided by David Dionne, a great and tireless activist for social justice, peace, and the environment.  David had setup the whole day and first on the itinerary was the interview with the Herald News.

Now March, 2002 was about five months after the US invasion of Afghanistan and one of the reporter's first questions was what would be the Green Party's alternative to invading Afghanistan.  I stated that invading the country was the wrong approach and the US would have been better off in the long-term by building a nonviolent resistance movement to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda that sought the development and liberation of all of its citizens.

With President Obama's announcement that he will send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to join the 68,000 US soldiers, 43,000 NATO-ISAF soldiers, and 68,000 Pentagon contractors, the long-term has arrived.  When all is said and done, we are easily on track to have been there for a decade or more propping up a corrupt government run by warlords who share the Taliban's desire to keep women down. 

According to CostOfWar.com, a National Priorities Project, the US has spent $232 Billion funding military related operations in Afghanistan since our invasion in 2001.  This figure represents over $8,000 per Afghan citizen, or about $1000 a year for each person.  With Afghanistan's per capita yearly GDP at about $450, this amount would represent a tripling of the income of the average Afghan.  This figure is even more striking when you consider that we haven't delivered on the $5 Billion in aid we pledged to help Afghanistan rebuild.

We could have devoted a fraction of what our military has spent occupying Afghanistan on promoting economic development, education and health as well as building a native Afghan nonviolent resistance movement.  Would we have overthrown the Taliban by now?  Possibly.  People who have enough to eat, a job with a decent income and the ability to read have much more ability to organize and use nonviolent tactics to undermine the support of their leaders.  We forget when we judge the success of a nonviolent resistance that, after eight years of violent resistance to the Taliban, there is very real prospect that they may yet reestablish themselves as the rulers of Afghanistan.

By taking a long-term nonviolent approach, one that focused on economic development, education and improving the health of all Afghans, we would have left Afghanistan a far better place than we have so far.  Even if a nonviolent resistance movement had not succeed by now, it would have a good chance of succeeding in the future.  Obama's choice to double down on the Bush strategy doesn't look like its chance of success will be any better, but the cost in lives and debt will be immensely higher.

By Will Alone, Strategy & Tactics

Eight years later, using nonviolence in Afghanistan still looks like a good choice

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[Reprinted from my main blog since it is germane to this one.]

In March of 2002, while running for Treasurer of the Commonwealth, I did a one day tour of the Fall River/New Bedford area including speaking engagements, radio appearances and an interview with the Herald News in Fall River.  I was aided by David Dionne, a great and tireless activist for social justice, peace, and the environment.  David had setup the whole day and first on the itinerary was the interview with the Herald News.

Now March, 2002 was about five months after the US invasion of Afghanistan and one of the reporter's first questions was what would be the Green Party's alternative to invading Afghanistan.  I stated that invading the country was the wrong approach and the US would have been better off in the long-term by building a nonviolent resistance movement to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda that sought the development and liberation of all of its citizens.

With President Obama's announcement that he will send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan to join the 68,000 US soldiers, 43,000 NATO-ISAF soldiers, and 68,000 Pentagon contractors, the long-term has arrived.  When all is said and done, we are easily on track to have been there for a decade or more propping up a corrupt government run by warlords who share the Taliban's desire to keep women down. 

According to CostOfWar.com, a National Priorities Project, the US has spent $232 Billion funding military related operations in Afghanistan since our invasion in 2001.  This figure represents over $8,000 per Afghan citizen, or about $1000 a year for each person.  With Afghanistan's per capita yearly GDP at about $450, this amount would represent a tripling of the income of the average Afghan.  This figure is even more striking when you consider that we haven't delivered on the $5 Billion in aid we pledged to help Afghanistan rebuild.

We could have devoted a fraction of what our military has spent occupying Afghanistan on promoting economic development, education and health as well as building a native Afghan nonviolent resistance movement.  Would we have overthrown the Taliban by now?  Possibly.  People who have enough to eat, a job with a decent income and the ability to read have much more ability to organize and use nonviolent tactics to undermine the support of their leaders.  We forget when we judge the success of a nonviolent resistance that, after eight years of violent resistance to the Taliban, there is very real prospect that they may yet reestablish themselves as the rulers of Afghanistan.

By taking a long-term nonviolent approach, one that focused on economic development, education and improving the health of all Afghans, we would have left Afghanistan a far better place than we have so far.  Even if a nonviolent resistance movement had not succeed by now, it would have a good chance of succeeding in the future.  Obama's choice to double down on the Bush strategy doesn't look like its chance of success will be any better, but the cost in lives and debt will be immensely higher.

Social Justice, Television

Corporate Cable TV rewrites The Prisoner

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Stop reading if you haven't watched AMC's remake of The Prisoner.  I know, hard to believe since it came out over a week ago, but just wanted to warn you.

I finished it, and while I thought it was interesting to watch, I didn't care for am not quite sure about the ending.  I could deal with the shared consciousness aspect of it, though I kept waiting for the jack in the head, ala The Matrix.  But, protecting people by keeping them under surveillance?  A slightly benign 1984 for people with mental illness, drug problems, anger management issues or who just don't fit in.  Of course the corporate, capitalist world would want it.  People are productive while also compliant.  Notice that besides Number 2 (and his family), the elite who weren't quite elite
because there is no Number 1 after all, there were no well healed in
evidence in The Village.

Io9 has a useful review as does RevolutionSF and Wired.

Still, the little bits of the original series such as the penny-farthing bicycle, the symbol of the Village from the original series, hanging in the Go Inside Bar were nice touches.  Now, I'll just have to go back and watch the original series.

Be seeing …

Web/Tech

Looking for a new life streaming service

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I have been using storytlr as my life streaming service.  I am very satisfied with it, but it will be closing down at the end of the year and I want, I probably don't need, a new one.  I signed up for FriendFeed, but don't really use it and haven't been impressed by it.  Everything seems just too big, whereas storytlr is simple and elegant.

So if you have any suggestions for cool life streaming services to check out, please post a comment where ever you see this post.  Thanks!

Ecology

An anthropogenic cause for the Little Ice Age?

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A bit out of date, but not many have posted on it, so I will mention Steven Stoll's article The Cold We Caused in the November 2009 Harpers Magazine.  Stoll's article makes the case that the Little Ice Age was caused by the world-wide death of millions of people due to the Black Death.  It is worth reading, but isn't available on-line except behind Harper's pay wall.  However, The Disaffected Lib has excerpts of it.

The key point of the article is to demonstrate that humans have long affected our world's climate and continue to do so with all of CO2 we are pumping into the atmosphere and oceans.  Those who continue to deny that basic fact do so at our collective peril as was pointed out by Peter Watts in his blog post, Because We All Know, The Green Party Runs The World, on the CRU Email break in:

"I went running through Toronto the other day on a 17°C November
afternoon. Canada’s west coast is currently underwater. Sea level
continues its 3mm/yr creep up the coasts of the world, the western
Siberian permafrost turns to slush. Swathes of California and Australia
are pretty much permanent firestorm zones these days. The glaciers
retreat, the Arctic ice cap shrinks, a myriad migratory species still
show up at their northern destinations weeks before they’re supposed
to. The pine beetle furthers its westward invasion, leaving dead
forests in its wake— the winters, you see, are no longer cold enough to
hit that lethal reset button that once kept their numbers in check."

The musings of Jamie O'Keefe: pirate party activist, geek, father and gamer.