Blogging communities.

Via the always interesting Burningbird, who's from Missouri, was a link to a page of St. Louis bloggers. Which in turn had a list of different blogging communities. Mostly in the US, but one to Calgary in Albera, Canada, and one in London.


Nothing from Oregon yet, where I live. But if you want links to Oregon stuff, bloggers and otherwise, try The Oregon Blog. They're in Portland. I'm in Eugene. Must be more bloggers here, but I haven't found them yet.



Globalization links.

The Guardian has a special page of links to various groups and organizations dealing with some of the problems caused by globalization. I'm not necessarily opposed to "globalization", and I don't agree with a lot of these groups, but I thought I'd reproduce some of the major links here. Just for the heck of it.



There are a lot of problems with globalization and internationalization, but there are a lot of good things. I like the world wide web a lot. :) I like being able to call anywhere and travel anywhere in the world fairly inexpensively. I like having access to various products from around the world. But that doesn't mean I think America should dominate it, or that I'm blind to the corruption, slavery, overthrow of democratic governments and other problems which corporate America and corporate Europe are creating. Which are serious, and which cause a lot of suffering and needless loss of life.



80,000 at World Social Forum.

The Guardian reports on the gathering of "anti-globalization" forces in Mumbai, India. Over 80,000 people from all over the world are attending the event, held for the first time in Asia.


There are many different points of view, and even a separate gathering being held by the extreme leftist forces. About the only thing nearly everyone seems to agree on is that they hate George W. Bush.

The Guardian has a special section on globalization, which gathers together many different articles. And a page of links on the subject.



Girls for sale, and slavery in general.

In an column in the NY Times, Girls for Sale Nicholas Kristof talks about the sex slavery of young girls in Thailand.


It's nice that Mr. Kristof is concerned with slavery in Asia, but this "One thinks of slavery as an evil confined to musty sepia photographs," is nonsense. Who is this "one"? This problem has been known for years, and many groups around the world have been working to address it. The Anti Slavery Organization for one. The only people who think it's in the past are corporate creeps like Kristof. There are plenty of young girls working as sex slaves in the US. "One" need only walk the streets of NY, where Mr. Kristoff lives, to see them. In fact, I'll bet that there are even slave markets there.

Perhaps he might also want to focus on the resurgence of slavery in the US as well. A Google search American gulag reveals the revival of slavery in America, mostly in prisons, but not entirely. The use of drug laws to imprison African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans, and to use them as free or low cost corporate labor is one of the great hidden scandals in America. This has been a growing problem for years, but it really skyrocketed under the administration of white southerners Clinton and Gore. See this post of mine on America's growing prison population.

And the same issue of the NY Times that has Kristoff's article, also has one on entitled Workers Assail Night Lock-Ins by Wal-Mart, which comes perilously close to the same thing.


But I guess it's easier to focus on the problem halfway across the world, since it serves to distract from the problems closer at hand, which is all this article is really about. And Great Britain under the increasingly racist Tony Blair has become the center for sex slavery in Europe. See this article on the growing problem.

And why is this a "women's" issue as he states? It's men who do the pimping, men who are the customers, men who rake in the profits, both in Thailand, the UK and the US. To accuse women's groups of "shamefully ignoring" the issue is a joke. Just a way to avoid responsibility as far as I can see. We hear complaints about sweatshops in China and elsewhere, but those are also growing in the US. And, again, it's mostly female victims, and males who profit. And, in fact, women's groups _are_ working on the issue. But they get no support from most men.

I wrote a post about slavery in Africa a while ago, and another one about an article by Anita Roddick discussing the growing problem of virtual slavery of women, mostly in China, here.

January 16, 2004

George Catlin's creed on the Indians.

George Catlin, you may have heard of him, was this extraordinary artist who went all over the Americas during the mid-19th century, painting pictures of the Indians. An amazing man, whose work is especially valuable and unique because he was able to visit the Indians in the American west mostly before their lifestyle was destroyed by the whites.

Anyway, he visited dozens if not hundreds of tribes, and apparently was warmly welcome by all of them, and claimed never to have been troubled or harassed at all. I was looking through this book that my roommate has about him, and came cross this "creed" he wrote, which I thought was worthy of posting. It says a lot about the Indians, and probably even more about him.

I love the people who have always made me welcome to the best they had.

I love a people who are honest without laws, who have no jails and no poorhouses.

I love a people who keep the commandments without ever having read them or heard them preached from the pulpit.

I love a people who never swear, who never take the name of God in vain.

I love a people "who love their neighbors as they love themselves."

I love a people who worship God without a Bible, for I believe that God loves them also.

I love the people whose religion is all the same, and who are free from religious animosities.

I love the people who have never raised a hand against me, or stolen my property, where there was no law to punish for either.

I love the people who have never fought a battle with white men, except on their own ground.

I love and don't fear mankind where God has made and left them, for there they are children.

I love a people who live and keep what is their own without locks and keys.

I love all people who do the best they can. And oh, how I love a people who don't live for the love of money!

An incredible man and artist. One thing you might not know about him was that during his later life, after he painted those in the west, he took his pictures and a group of Indians as well, and went to England and France, where he had what was actually the first "wild west show", long before Buffalo Bill did. He was a big smash there too. Then he went to South America, up the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers and more, and painted those as well. And then went up to the American northwest and Alaska, and continued his work there.



Writing Salon via The American Street.

One thing leads to another, and via this new mostly politically-oriented community blog, The American Street, which is pretty interesting, I found this new writing-oriented community blog, Writing Salon, which is where different kinds of writers get together and inspire each other and post their stuff and tell each other how good they are, and how hard life is, except they all really know that it's not hard at all, it's beautiful, or why would they be writers, since who wants to hear how hard it is anyway? Anyway, it's nice, and I wish there was one for painters too, and maybe there is, but they're even more solitary than writers, so if there was one they probably wouldn't tell anybody about it anyway. But you never know what you'll find on the web, and if you really want it it's probably out there somewhere.



Many California hospitals shutting down.

The LA Times reports that an increasing number of hospitals in California are shutting down due to increasingly paltry Medicare and Medi-Cal payments, as well as the inability to meet new California laws requiring additional nurses and seismic changes.


With Governor Schwarzenegger's budget plans calling for even more cuts in Medi-Cal, and continuing job losses in the state, the situation is bound to worsen.

A growing problem is the federal and state governments passing laws requiring local communities and institutions to do various things without providing the money necessary to do so. The situation also affects schools, many of which are struggling to come up with the money to meet the requirements of Bush's "No Child Left Behind" act, and having to cut already existing programs to meet them.



The Beatles are as popular as ever.

Over thirty years after they split up the Beatles are still going strong, and thoroughly dominate the "classic rock" release market. The Guardian reports on the latest releases, and their apparent popularity among a new generation.


"They've been going in and out of style, but they're guaranteed to raise a smile."

I'm probably just an old fogey, but their music still sounds fresh to me. And it illustrates the continued value of art products, which can sell forever. The same as old films, old books and so on. Not only will their music continue to sell, but I'll bet it inspires all sorts of new art works of various kinds. Theater for example. Sooner or later someone will make a Broadway musical out of the Yellow Submarine story and music. It's just perfect for it.

Old software of course has no value whatsoever. You can't even run it anymore.

January 15, 2004

List of Iraqi blogs.

Came across this new Iraqi blog, Healing Iraq, written by a dentist there. Noticed he had a nice list of Iraqi blogs there, which I took and added to a bit. They'll all break your heart, but people should read them anyway. Some virulently anti-American, some pro-American, some in the middle.

But even the ones favorable to the US aren't at all happy with what the US military is doing these days. But they aren't happy about what the Islamic clergy is doing either, the latest development being the replacement of civil marriage laws by sharia, Islamic law. What a mess.


Curiously, all but one come courtesy of Blogspot, so at least some Americans must be doing something right.



Bush pushes funding for religous charities.

The LA Times reports that President Bush has called for increased funding for religious-based charities, so that the government can help folks "save one soul at a time." [Registration req'd.]


Somehow I doubt that Dr. King would have supported this, but who knows. In any case, it certainly violates the constitutional and long-standing American tradition of separation and church and state.

I also don't understand the need for it. We already allow donations to church-based charities, in fact charities of all kinds, to be tax deductible. Which forces millions of Americans who don't happen to share those religious beliefs to, in effect, subsidize them. In any case, the advantage of doing it this way allows individuals to decide where they want their donations to go. But what Bush proposes is for the government to decide.

Frankly I feel that we need more restrictions on donations to "charities," and so-called "non-profits" in general. Many of them abuse these by paying six-figure sums to their executives and managers, and in other ways.

We also helped the Catholic church hide responsibility for its serious child-abuse problems by helping it afford multi-million dollar payments to the victims, providing they don't publicize them. Tax-deductible donations to the church helped fund these payments. If they hadn't bee able to afford them, then maybe they wouldn't have been able to pay everybody off and so continue to hide the problem. And I doubt very much if those payments appeared as such on their tax forms.



Tax withholding proposed for independent contractors.

The NY Times reports that the IRS' "taxpayers advocate", Nina E. Olson, has proposed tax withholding for American's independent, self-employed workers. Which makes a major change. She also proposes changing or even eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is supposed to make sure high earners pay at least some tax.


I have to challenge the assumption that by 2010, 33 million Americans will be making more than a million a year. That's quite a bit. How do they know that? Let's focus on what people are earning today, and worry about 2010 in 2010. In any case, the AMT was set up to deal with the many loopholes in the tax code, most of which benefit the rich. If they do repeal it they should first eliminate the loopholes which made it necessary in the first place.

I find it strange that she suggests that the AMT hurts "middle-class" taxpayers, when it only applies to those who make one million dollars or more. It's the rich who will really benefit from this, not the middle-class, who will end up paying more taxes to make up for what the rich don't pay. But ever since the boom there's been a lot of pressure to repeal this, and I guess they're going to get their way. Same as the inheritance tax. All of which increases the growing gap between the rich and the poor.

Anyway, I feel it's "good policy", not "bad policy." If it needs to be adjusted for the growing incomes since 1969, that makes sense. Raise the threshold to two or five or ten million. But let's not pretend repealing it is aimed at "helping" the "middle-class." That's nonsense.

I've long felt that tax withholding ought to be voluntary. The argument is that taxpayers need help in managing their finances. At the very least, the government ought to pay interest on this money, which amounts to an interest-free loan to the government. In any case, it's another extension over the growing federal control of people's lives.



Concerns over slowing US consumer spending.

Casting more doubts over the so-called economic "recovery" is this other article from the FT which expresses "concern" over consumer spending.


Wow, people "may" be spending less because they're not working. I guess you'd need a degree in economics to figure that out. And why do they strip out "volatile food and energy prices" from the inflation figures? Those are the two biggest expenses of your average family. How convenient. That's a blatant lie, the worst kind of spin. They should at least report what the inflation figures are when you include those. And notice that they strip out auto sales, also "volatile", whatever that means, from the retail sales figures.

Of course, including auto sales figures may itself make the figures even more inaccurate. GM, for instance, recently gave away 1,000 cars as part of a sales promotion. But they include those in their sales figures. See this NY Times article on the American auto industry, Big Three Hope Rising Economy Will Lift All Vehicle Sales. It certainly doesn't indicate that the US economy is improving.


"Expecting a slight profit for 2003..." More spin. They said the same thing last year, and the year before. And if they do show a "profit" it will be by manipulating the accounting, especially by conveniently writing the $6.4 billion losses off their taxes (and onto yours.) Read between the lines of the NY Times article to see what bad shape American business is really in. And note that they continue to refer to Chrysler as one of the American "Big Three" automakers, when in fact it is now owned by the Germans. Don't be surprised if you wake up soon and read that GM and Ford have also been taken over by the Japanese and the Europeans.

[I also note that the NY Times includes Financial Times headlines on its business page. Which leads me to think that their (FT's) figures and reporting can't be trusted that much either. Are they part of the same media conglomerate now?]

For another viewpoint, the LA Times reports that Assorted Signs Paint Rosy Economic Picture. I notice that they _do_ include auto sales in their retail sales figures, which is interesting.


That's the great thing about the web. It allows you to compare the various reports. It's amazing what that shows up too.



Dollar edges higher.

The dollar edged slightly higher today, reports the Financial Times.


I think the focus on the decline in unemployment claims is a bit misguided. People only claim unemployment if they've been working during the past year or so. Since there are many people who have now been out of work for a year, or two or three, then they can't claim unemployment. And the Congress last December refused to further extend benefits, as they have been doing the past two years. This doesn't mean more people are working, it means they've given up looking for work, and have exhausted their benefits. Classic spin going on here.

And it's the weaker dollar that is primarily responsible for the slightly slower American trade deficit, as well as the increase in the stock markets. Along with the war profiteering, of course. See this other Financial Times article which notes that IBM reports higher sales due primarily to the weaker dollar.


I didn't realize that financial services is now IBM's biggest business, not computers. That follows the trend in American business. Ford, for instance, is losing money selling cars, but staying alive by profits from its financial services. And notice that what growth IBM has is in Europe and Asia, not the US.

Note that they are reporting that revenues grew from $23.7bn last year to $25.9bn this year. But that's not taking into account the lower value of the dollar. After calculating that, they've actually declined. I think. They manipulate the figures so much, taking "charges" and such so that you really don't know what's going on.

I wonder if PriceWaterhouseCoopers's accounting practices are any more honest than the now-defunct Arthur Anderson's were. Given the collapse of the major Italian conglomerate Parmalat, due primarily to accounting regularities, I have to seriously doubt it. I don't know who did their accounting. But given that Parmalat operated in something like 140 countries, that American firms such as MorganStanley were heavily involved, and that PWC is one of the world's big four accounting firms, it would seem that it's unlikely that IBM/PWC could have been entirely unaware of what was going on. They're all in it together.

January 14, 2004

War is a racket.

General Smedley Butler won two Congressional Medals of Honor. Somewhere along the line though, he developed serious doubts about what he had done. After retiring in 1933 he summarized his experiences and thoughts in this extraordinary article, War is a racket, which everyone should read and then send on to their friends.


It goes on, it's a a very long article, ending with the words "TO HELL WITH WAR!". It's an amazing and specific account by somebody who'd been through it all, and saw lots of people killed and lots of blood shed. Like I say, a must-read for all in these times. Remember, this was written in 1933. But it could have been written yesterday. In the section entitled, How To Smash This Racket, he offers some specific suggestions for fighting it, very radical suggestions that still make a lot of sense. A lot of sense.


Amazing. Especially note his reference at the beginning to the international banking house of Brown Brothers. This was the financial firm that later because Brown Brothers Harriman., and is the corporate ancestor of firms such as Elihu, Brown and Root, the Carlyle Group, and many other major war contractors, all of which are currently active in Iraq and elsewhere. The Bush family has had long and extensive relationships with these firms, especially George W. Bush's great-grandfather George Herbert Walker, and his grandfather, Prescott Bush. He refers to their involvement in establishing dictatorships in Latin America at the beginnng of the century. They helped finance the Remington Arms Company, responsible for the lion's share of arm sales to all sides during World War I, helped finance both Hitler and Stalin, helped sell steel to the Japanese until after Pearl Harbor (one of George W's other great-grandfathers, Sam Bush, owned a steel company based in Ohio, and provided a lot of the materials used in arms construction during the early 20th century), profited enormously from financing both the Korean and Vietnam Wars, and on and on and on and on. They also, as he mentioned, had connections with the oil industries, as well as the various media which helped promote their wars. (The original incorporation and IPO of CBS, Inc. in 1933 was handled by them, in fact by Prescott Bush personally.) Please don't do business with these people. :)

For more on the early history of the Bush family and the war rackets see this excellent summary by Alfred Mendes. A sample.


Or just search the web. It's a horrible story.



Cheney target of French criminal investigation.

Via Alternet.org is this report by David J. Sirota of The Progress Report that Vice President Cheney is the target of a French criminal investigation relating to bribes paid by Haliburton while he was its CEO.


That the VP of the US is the target of a criminal investigation is major news, and it's beyond scandalous that the American media is not covering it. Especially during an election year. The same as its refusal to cover the similar charges against Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berloscuoni. Rest assured though that we'll hear all about Michael Jackson's trial, including every detail, down to what he wears.



Margaret Cho's excellent blog.

Thought I'd point to Margaret Cho's Blog which I find extremely interesting and well written. She has things to say, and no bones about saying them either. Frank and to the point.

It seems to me, and I could be mistaken, that most of the blogs are from white Americans, especially the so-called A-listers, and most seem fixated on this obsolete and irrelevant lefty-right nonsense. She, on the other hand, does a good job of expressing the viewpoint of the Asian-American, African-American, Hispanic-American and gay communities. Especially where they all come together, which they do quite a bit. Better than anyone else I can find

Her coverage of the recent MoveOn gathering, Magical Night with MoveOn.org, cheered me up a bit. You won't read about it in the white-corporate controlled media, but there's a lot of action going on in the rest of America.


Best of all she's funny as hell. As you'd expect from a comedian. Check out her post, Jobs and Economy Solution: Legalize Gay Marriage. That's hysterical. She's probably right though. All the gay marriages _would_ revitalize the florist industry. :)



Nobel Prize winners who hated school.

Via Metafilter is a link to this page of comments by various Nobel Prize winners who hated school. Courtesy of the Learn in Freedom organization.

There are some great quotes on the page, by the likes of Einstein, Tagore, etc. Including, to be fair, one by someone who actually enjoyed school. But most of the world's most creative thinkers would, I think, agree with George Bernard Shaw:


I couldn't agree more. I myself hated school, and think that it severely retarded my education and my ability to think creatively. My ability to learn in general actually. Goodness, when I think of the hours I had to sit there doing busywork, and listen to teachers explain things for the umpteenth time that I got the first time, I could cry. Yechhh! I have thought for many years that I should have been taught to read, pointed at the library and left alone. Just my opinion of course.

To add to that I have to express my opposition to public education in general. Which I see as mostly an attempt at government brainwashing. I'm a big supporter of efforts not only to privatize schools, but to get government out of the education business entirely. I think it does a great deal of harm to children, and is the major source of the ever-increasing conformity in our society. What public education does is reduce everyone to the lowest common denominator. It frustrates the most intelligent kids, and leaves the less intelligent ones way behind.

The first thing people like Hitler and Stalin do is to take over the schools. Once you have the kids you have the society. It follows as naturally as night does day. And it's no surprise to me that one of Bush's first priorities on becoming president was to push his education bill, and to establish more standards and controls.

Most people seem to automatically assume that it's only so-called conservatives who want to privatize schools. But I'm what you would call a "progressive liberal". (Although I hate that label and now that I think about would have to say that teaching people to label and categorize everything is one of the biggest faults of education.) And I think we ought to privatize them all as soon as possible. Colleges too. It's curious that those on the "left" who are supposedly most opposed to what the government does, are the ones who most vociferously back government control of childrens' minds.

I agree that every child is entitled to an education, but that doesn't necessarily mean doing it through the public sector. For one thing that doesn't appear to work very well. For another, it inevitably leads to government control. There are other methods to accomplish the same goals, ways that would be much more efficient and would better satisfy each individual's special needs.

And, by the way, the desire the help kids who want to teach themselves, is the major reason I set up the Galileo Library. In order to make the texts and such available to home schoolers, private schools and others trying to work without government support and control. When I was in college I wanted to do it as a doctoral project. But it was new, different and hadn't been done before, so they couldn't handle it. I was supposed to just study what other people had done, not actually do anything myself. So stupid, so sad.

I didn't know about the Learn in Freedom organization, but I'm glad to hear there are some folks out there who have the guts to take on this most sacrosanct of all institutions. Freedom of Education is the most important freedom of all. Without that, all of the other freedoms, religion, speech, press, are absolutely meaningless. Freedom of religion, for example, doesn't just mean the right to believe what you want. It means the right to pass those beliefs on to your children, and entirely in the way you want to pass them on. Without the government looking over your shoulder going, "Well, this part is OK, but not that part."



UN web page on terrorism.

Turns out that the United Nations has a special web page devoted to the war against terrorism, which is at www.un.org/terrorism/. And there you'll find a special report on it, Report of the Policy Working Group on the United Nations and Terrorism, also available in PDF and Word formats.

Here's the introduction of that report, stating its goals in broad terms.


I didn't realize that the UN officially links its anti-terrorism efforts with its anti-drug efforts. That's very interesting. Not to mention that "drug control" itself is still primarily seen as "crime prevention." That's very, very interesting.



Most countries not enforcing terrorist sanctions.

The Scotsman reports that most UN countries have not yet begun enforcing UN sanctions against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.


I wonder if the list includes Switzerland, which remains the money-laundering capital of the world. I don't know why this country has been able to continue to avoid attention and to evade sanctions. Well, I guess I do know. It's European, it's white, and its secret, anonymous numbered accounts remain the most useful way for rich folks around the world to avoid taxes and responsibility for their involvement in various nefarious activities. But as long as they continue to make it so easy to hide the trail of money all of the other efforts in that area aren't going to amount to much.

Switzerland, by the way, just finally joined the UN last year. And they're still not part of the European Union. If anyone can come up with any reason that an honest person would need a secret Swiss account, I'd like to hear it. I think it's an archaic, obsolete practice whose time has long since gone. The idea that they're exempt from commonly accepted international practices is absurd.



Strange development in beauty contests.

The Scotsman reports on the latest development in international beauty contests.


You don't really need to link there. That's the entire article. I guess there's not much one can say about it. Maybe they'll have to start checking beauty contest contestants for plastic surgery the same way they check athletes for drug use.



Moon and Mars costs don't include ongoing maintenance.

There's been a lot of discussion about Bush's proposal to establish colonies on the moon and Mars. One thing that hasn't been pointed out is that the initial estimates of the costs involved don't include the costs of keeping the bases going once they're established. The initial estimates of the total costs are something like $500 billion, but given the history of overruns in the space program, it will almost certainly end up being in the trillions.

Which itself is an almost inconceivable amount, and even more when you consider that since America is broke, it will have to borrow the money. I shudder to think what the interest charges on a one trillion dollar loan will be.

But this is just the costs of establishing the programs and planting the initial colonies. Once they're there they will have to be maintained, and presumably gradually expanded. That means at least tens or hundreds of billions of dollars a year, if not more. And those costs will never end since the suggestion is for permanent bases. I repeat that: the proposal is for permanent bases that will have to be supported for decades at least. And given Murphy's law ("whatever can go wrong will go wrong") there will almost certainly be enormous unforeseen expenses. If something does go wrong, and it will, we'll have to rescue those folks, no matter what the costs.

These are enormous projects, maybe even the biggest in human history. I'm a big fan of space exploration, and an even bigger fan of colonizing it, but I can see what it will cost. I think eventually it will not only pay for itself, but make a profit. From tourism if nothing else, along with unexpected scientific advances. (I can see the skeptics shaking their heads about that as I write. :)) But in the meantime we're talking potentially many trillions over the next few decades.

If we're going to do this we need to plan very, very carefully, and go very, very slowly. And if at all possible do it on an international basis so that Americans alone don't bear the entire burden. The Chinese are already planning on a permanent base on the moon. I'm sure they don't want to pay all of the costs.



History of the camera and photography.

Noting that Kodak has announced that it will stop producing the common 35 mm cameras, and observing that digital cameras are pretty much replacing traditional film photography, the Guardian runs a special article on the history of cameras and photography, going back to its very beginnings. Lots of links there.


Curiously they don't mention the Polaroid Land camera, which was invented by Edwin Land, one of the most creative scientists and inventors of the 20th century. But the photography industry has always hated the Polaroid, since it eliminated the need for people to pay Kodak and other companies to develop their pictures. Originally refused to produce it at all, and forced Land to start up his own company to do so. But in the they managed to kill it, or at least stop any serious further development of it.

For those interested in both the history of photography and that of corporate efforts to stymie the development of products that threaten their bottom line it's a fascinating story. Here's a Google search on him with many links. Here's a Wikipedia article. Land also developed filters for polarizing light, and while at MIT pioneered the use of the long-range cameras used in satellite photography. An absolutely brilliant man no one hears about much.


That quote is from this article, a review of "Insisting on the Impossible: The Life of Edwin Land," an attempt at a biography of him by Victor K. McElheny. Apparently there's not much available on him because he never kept a journal and his personal papers were destroyed on his death. Too bad.



Dollar retreats a bit.

The dollar retreated from its recent lows a bit reports the Financial Times. The main reason seems to be comments by the head of the ECB that it wanted to slow down the rise of the Euro a bit, and the monthly decline in the US trade deficit.


I personally wouldn't consider not falling for two days to exactly constitute a "rebound." But the bankers, especially British and American ones, desperately want to convince themselves, and everyone else, that the dollar's decline is just temporary. And a decline in the dollar is certainly going to favor American trade, so it's not surprising that the deficit should be reduced a bit. But it was $38 billion. That's still a whopping amount of money, close to half a trillion at an annual rate.

Certainly if the European and Asian banks continue to pour money into propping up they can slow down the decline. But that takes a lot of money. The dollar holdings of Chinese and Japanese banks now total more than $2.4 trillion, which is a lot. They can prop it up, but it will take trillions. They can't do that forever.

And certainly its decline will not be a one way street. Like all markets it will go up and down. But the trend is down. And it appears that currency traders are hedging their bets while waiting to see what happens at the G7 meeting in February.

Also, Paul O'Neill's recent revelations about how the folks in the White House view everything in political terms, and in terms of how it benefits them, wouldn't seem to convince anyone that their policies will be aimed at stabilizing the global economy. But rather at how they can profit from them, even at the expense of everyone else.

One issue that I don't understand at all, and which no one seems to ever discuss, is how works in regard to American companies that are owned by the Europeans. Chrysler for instance, which is now owned by the Germans. They keep talking about the "European", "American", "Japanese" and other economies. But the fact is that they're all mixed up now, and it simply isn't cut and dried like that.

January 13, 2004

Four generations of Bushes and mideast oil.

Kevin Phillips has written a new book on the Bushes, "American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush." In a commentary for the LA Times, The Barreling Bushes [reg req'd], he offers a good overview of four generations of ever increasing involvement in the mideast, the oil business, the arms trade there and other places, and, of course, in American politics. The worst of them, by far, is George H.W. Bush, an almost inconceivably corrupt person.


That's really something. The degree to which all of this contributed to 9/11 is still unknown, particularly due to George W. Bush's steady refusal to block efforts to investigate and to release sections of reports related to it all. But given that the majority of those responsible for the attack were Saudis, and given the very close and long ties of the Bush family to the Saudi royal family, one can only wonder. Where's there's smoke there's fire. The fact that the Bush family has a long history of business ties to the Bin Laden family is well established.


One aspect of this that is not mentioned, and which is never mentioned, is the degree to which business with the Arabs helped, and continues to help, finance their wars against Israel. The Saudis have certainly been supporting and financing the Palestinians, and the fact that the Bushes have never been bothered by this, and have continued to help arm them says something. But no one talks about that.

Everyone's desperate to show how evil Saddam was. But while there is no evidence of WMDs, there is indisputable proof of that he made payments to Palestinian suicide bombers. Proof positive of this was found at Arafat's headquarters when the Israelis bulldozed it in 2002. But even those who hate him don't want to mention this. There's no mention of Jews or Israel in the article.

On the other hand, one of the few things, maybe the only thing, that I admire about George W. Bush is the fact that he stood by Israel when the bombs were flying during the past few years. So it's not all that easy. The Democrats' record certainly isn't any less anti-Semitic.



OPEC gets closer to pricing in Euros.

Writing in the Globe and Mail, and based on Reuters reports, Patrick Brethour reports that OPEC is moving closer to making the transition to pricing oil in euros, rather than dollars. This has been predicted, and it increasingly looks like it's going to happen.


One thing in the article that may not be quite accurate is that the impetus is coming primarily from Persian Gulf states. Russia, which may now have the world's largest oil reserves, and which does much more trade with Europe than it does with the US, has also suggested it would like to see the change. And Venezuela, where the US is steadfastly trying to overthrow its democratically-elected government in order to regain control over its oil, also doesn't have much interest in sticking with the dollar. Mexico is another country which could well benefit from it. The peso is one of the few world currencies that hasn't risen against the dollar, and the switch to euros could change things a lot there. (I really don't know much about the peso or the Mexican oil industry, but that makes some sense to me.) It would make political sense though for the Venezuelan oil minister to focus on the Persian Gulf states, at least publicly.

I also note that the article is datelined Calgary, center of Canadian's oil industry. The Canadian dollar is rising against the US dollar, but I'm not sure how it's doing against the Euro. Currencies are so complicated, you can go crazy trying to figure out all of the implications of these changes. But George Bush's Texas, and the Bush families extensive oil interests, on the other hand, would probably not benefit.

This is an extremely complex economic development. And would affect countries all over the world in many different ways, ways that would be very difficult to foresee and plan for. (Norway, for instance, makes lots of money on North Sea oil, and the fact that it's priced in dollars is probably the major reason they haven't adopted the euro. Great Britain also counts a great deal on North Sea oil.)

So the folks at OPEC would likely proceed slowly and cautiously. But if it happens it would certainly constitute a somewhat significant event in the global economic history. Especially for America. Oil has now replaced gold as the world's economic standard, and the US has benefited enormously from having it priced in dollars. And everyone in the world is terrified of American dominance, and there are few things that would alter that more than this. It would be a big step in global efforts to draw a noose around the US, the so-called "redlining of America."

Americans really need to wake up to the degree and extent by which American economic policies (both Clinton's and Bush's, this isn't a partisan thing at all) are damaging their long-term economic interests. Believe me, the American stock markets wouldn't like this at all. The ones in other countries I think would though.



Why do they call them "Black Hawk" helicopters.

Read that another US "Black Hawk" helicopter was shot down in Iraq yesterday. Making the third one in the last two weeks.

I've never understood why they chose that name for the helicopters. Black Hawk was an Indian chief who led a war against the US during the early 19th century. Up in Illinois or somewhere around there. He lost his war. Seems a strange sort of symbolism to me. Personally if I was going to name a military aircraft after someone I'd name it after someone who was won their battles, not lost them. Just thought I'd mention that. If you have as strange a sense of humor as I do, you might find that amusing. :)

More Americans have died in Iraq in the four weeks since Saddam was captured than during the four weeks previously.



US economy is not "humming."

I keep reading these articles that state that the US economy is "humming" now, apparently based entirely on the recent rise in the stock markets. I agree that it's doing a bit better than it has been during the past three years, which is not surprising since it couldn't possible be doing worse. And since the federal government and federal reserve have been pumping hundreds of billions of dollars of cheap money into it, which is bound to have some effect.

But the stock market alone is NOT the "economy." The economy consists of many more things that just the markets, which mostly represent the interests of the wealthiest ten percent of the population. It's also measured by jobs, by the rate of personal bankruptcies, by the strength of the dollar, by whether there is money to keep schools and police stations open, by the trade and budget deficits, by whether people can afford to go to the doctor when they are sick, and many other measures. And all of those are not doing well at all. It's convenient and easy and simplistic to just judge it by the Dow Jones average, but it's not realistic.

My personal economy is certainly not "humming" by any measure. I'm 51, and I have never in my life had such a hard time coming up with steady sources of income. And I have a very good college education, plenty of high-tech skills and such. I shudder to think how the folks with just high school educations are doing.

In my state of Oregon schools, police and other public institutions are on the rocks like they haven't been since the Depression, and far from getting better, they are by all indications things are getting worse. Significantly so.

And it's much worse among the African-American and Hispanic populations. Even during the height (depth?) of the Depression, 90% of black folks could find at least some work. Now the unemployment rate among them is around 30%, and rising. (At least as far as I can tell, they do a great job of hiding these statistics, so you never really know.)

And the single mothers I know are almost all rather desperate. This is almost an entirely "white male" recovery. And as a white male myself, I can assure you it's not even most of them.

And I don't see any of the Democratic candidates offering any thing other than platitudes, and what amounts to a kinder, gentler "business as usual." Dr. Dean sends me email asking me to read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense." I've read it, Doctor. What I want to know if you have any?



Krugman discusses O'Neill's revelations.

I've already made several entries on the many revelations contained in former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's recently published insider account of machinations inside the Bush administration. NY Times columnist Paul Krugman further reviews it today, The Awful Truth, an interesting discussion, which stresses the point that this criticism doesn't come from any "crazed leftie", or even a Democrat, but from a long-time corporate insider, a former CEO of Alcoa Corp., and a long-time Republican who has served in three Republican adminstrations.

I won't quote it since it's worth reading in full, but I have to note the part where O'Neill reveals that FED Chairman Alan Greenspan himself admitted back in 2001 that Bush's tax cuts constituted ""irresponsible fiscal policy." At a time when critics of them were being reviled and ridiculed. Since Greenspan is Wall Street's "Golden Boy" perhaps this will cause at least a few folks to think twice about continuing to support this administration.

My other posts on the subject are here, here and here.



Italian prime minister to be tried on corruption charges.

The Financial Times reports that Italy's highest court has said that Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is not exempt from being tried simply because he is Prime Minister, and that the trial against him on corruption charges may proceed.


What's amazing about this is not just that the Prime Minister of a major European country, and one who just finished a six month term as President of the EU, one of the world's highest offices, is facing charges, but that there's very little coverage of it in the world press, especially in the American media.

I think we all know that if President Putin of Russia or Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, for example, had been indicted and was going to trial it would be front page news in the US. To say the least. And British Prime Minister Tony Blair is facing very serious and ongoing inquiries into his repeated lies about Iraq's WMDs, a story which also has received virtually no attention in the American press. Michael Jackson's trial, of course, is all over the press.

But the incredible corruption of this man is simply being ignored, at least in the American media. (The Economist has for several years running a devastating series articles on this abomination.)

The NY Times for example, not only doesn't yet report this story, at least not yet, but when I went to its international section to check I actually found an article, Financial Scandal Isn't Berlusconi's, but That Hasn't Stopped His Critics, which _defends_ him from suggestions that he was involved in the collapse of Parmalat, and suggesting that his critics are just out to get him. The suicide of Britain's Dr. Death receives a major headline though. Talk about twisted priorities.

Perhaps it's not surprising that a major paper should defend someone who has so much control over the media in his own country. Mr. Berlusconi personally owns virtually all of the Italian media. To put his position in American terms, it would be the same as if President Bush personally owned the NY Times, the LA Times, the Washington Post, all three major TV networks, CNN, and the lion's share of smaller newspapers, radio and tv stations. He's a multi-billionarie and a major figure in world economic circles. A close associate of media monopolist Robert Murdoch, for instance. His former personal lawyer is now serving five years in prison on corruption charges. And on and on. That he should be serving as Prime Minister of such a large country is beyond scandalous.

The Parmalat scandal also hasn't received much coverage here. At least not yet. But it's growing. Parmalat, you may have heard is the huge Italian-based international conglomerate (they operate in something like 140 countries) which recently experienced an Enron-level collapse. And investigations are beginning to reveal that American firms such as Morgan Stanley appear to have been heavily involved in the financial machinations which allowed it to continue for a decade or more. But the NY Times appears anxious to clear Berlusconi of any responsibility. I wonder why.

Here's the Economist's article on this story, which they do cover. The article also contains numerous links to the many other articles they've run on him. They ran an extraordinary open letter to him last July, directly accusing him of some very serious crimes, backed by an astounding 8,000 pages of documents, but unfortunately it's premium content and available to subscribers only. (I did run have a post on that at the time, which contains part of it.)

January 12, 2004

Americans fighting demands for democracy in Iraq.

American officials talk a lot about how their wars are aimed at establishing democracy around the world. But whenever they're confronted with the real thing, they backpedal as fast as they can. Nothing new there. Americans have overthrown at least a hundred democratically elected governments around the world in the last one hundred years, either blatantly or behind the scenes.

The latest example is the Bush adminstration's fear of direct elections in Iraq. Their plan was to have elections by caucuses by June, but the Iraqis are demanding direct elections. And now they're demanding that the newly elected government have the right to approve whether or not American troops remain in Iraq, something that the Bushes are finding hard to stomach.

Anyway, the NY Times reports on the latest negotiations. Apparently things are heating up. The Iraqis are taking this democracy stuff seriously, with the Muslim clerics leading the way. Who'd have thought?


Make the caucuses more transparent. But make sure they pick American-approved puppets. Anything but simply let the Iraqis do what they want, even if they make mistakes. Which is what democracy is all about.

And why would they even want to keep the troops there after an elected government takes power? I would think they'd want to bring the troops home as soon as possible, especially before the election.

I guess they've been listening to their British friends, who have a long history of this type of thing, and who in fact recently announced that their troops would remain in Iraq for years, regardless of what any Iraqi government wanted. The British were in Hong Kong for a hundred years, resolutely opposed and blocked any and all efforts to hold elections or establish a democracy, and then, a year or so before they were due to turn things over to the Chinese, finally held them. Just to make things difficult for the Chinese, and to make them look bad. They could have turned over a city with a hundred year tradition of democracy, something that would have made a major difference in that part of Asia, and especially in China. But I guess you couldn't expect that of a people who still technically are subjects of a monarchy, rather than free citizens of a republic. Democracy is always easier to talk about than it is to do.



A hybrid car with a new twist.

Was reading an article on the new hybrid electric/gas automobiles, and noticed that Dodge has come up with something quite interesting. It's new hybrid Ram truck doubles as a mobile generator, and is able to supply enough power for a house, campsite, or whatever. That's a nice twist. Somebody did some really creative thinking there. As someone who spends a lot of time out in the woods and on the road, I can think of a lot of uses for that. I'm sure you can as well. But mostly I just admire the genuine 21st century technology. Like I keep saying, things are getting better in a lot of ways.

Hey, here's an idea. Imagine that while you drive your car it generates and stores electricity. Then you come home, and plug it into your house. Better not tell the electric companies though, they'll come up with some way to ban that.

And it could work the other way too. Put solar panels on your roof and use that power to charge your automobile. Well, that's already here. The folks at solarwarrior.com have been doing that for a while. But their power goes into the electric grid during the day, and then charges their electric cars at night. But the next step could eliminate the need for the grid entirely.

Anyway, it looks like hybrid vehicles are going to be the next big thing in automobiles. Pretty much all of the manufacturers are coming out with them now. The Dodge truck I mentioned is coming out this year. All electric would be better, but that will come too.



Shine Perishing Republic.

Via Wood s Lot is this excellent poem by famed poet Robinson Jeffers. In which he ponders the decline of America and its transformation from the light of the world into an empire concerned with only its own ends. For those who think this has been a recent development, this was written in 1962. Long before 9/11, or Iraq. He speaks of "protest" before Vietnam even. And born in 1887, he can hardly be considered a "baby boomer."

This all just didn't happen overnight. And anyone who's been observing America for some years, and who is aware of the old adage that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction", could have predicted that sooner or later something like 9/11 was bound to happen. You just can't go around bombing and killing people forever without someone sooner or later striking back. It's not the "terrorists" who threaten America, it's those who continue to wave the flag and who have ignored the warnings of so very, very many for so very, very many years.