The Sociopaths on Wall Street

The ideal corporation through most of the 20th century was one that pursued profits while being reasonably responsible toward workers, the community, and consumers. Since about the 1960s, corporations have also, at least in theory, been more responsible when coming to the environment.

However, since the 1980s—some would argue sooner—there has been a deterioration in corporate ethics in many sectors. Certainly the S & L crisis, the ethical failures of the Exxon Valdez episode and the deaths and lack of financial responsibility associated with the Union Carbide Bhopal disaster—all three occurred in the 1980s—makes it clear that the interpretation of deregulation in that era was far too often synonymous with ethical lapses in the executive suite. From the end of the Reagan era until the end of George W. Bush's time in office, the interpretation has only gotten worse. Actually, in very little time, deregulation went from a need to adjust regulations to make them fairer and more sensible to becoming an outright license to break the law and defraud people in various sectors of society.

There have always been lapses among corporation and there has been debate about how much or how little a corporation should do. There have also been corporations, all along, that cut corners in order to gain an advantage over other corporations. A general rule of thumb in business is that competent people can always make money as long as everybody plays by the same rules. Unfortunately, people who are not very honest or competent or both are generally the first to look for short cuts, including favors from politicians.

The reality is that both parties are susceptible to influence peddling. Unfortunately, Republicans have pretty much made deregulation, as well as other ethically challenged ideas, pillars of their political philosophy. In addition, if an ethically-challenged business executive makes enormous profits, many Republican politicians, are notoriously slow to recognize that there is a problem (e.g., Kenneth Lay and George W. Bush). The most telling sign is that when a rational and honest Republican prosecutor tries to uphold the law, that prosecutor may find himself without a political future in the Republican party.

One of the problems with today's business world is the number of ethically challenged people who are allowed to rise to the executive suite in the first place. In Bloomberg, William D. Cohan has an article that discusses a theory by Clive R. Boddy about Wall Street psychopaths:

Clive R. Boddy, most recently a professor at the Nottingham Business School at Nottingham Trent University, says psychopaths are the 1 percent of [people who] ... "lack a “conscience, have few emotions and display an inability to have any feelings, sympathy or empathy for other people.”

(snip)

He says [psychopaths] seem "to be unaffected" by the corporate collapses they cause. These psychopaths "present themselves as glibly unbothered by the chaos around them, unconcerned about those who have lost their jobs, savings and investments, and as lacking any regrets about what they have done. They cheerfully lie about their involvement in events, are very convincing in blaming others for what has happened..."

It worth recalling that John Dean has written a book called "Conservatives without Conscience." Dean was not talking specifically about psychopaths, and certainly not corporate psychopaths, who are basically a class of very smart criminals who are much more sophisticated than ordinary criminals without conscious (who in any case frequently end up in prison). But Dean was very much talking about people who are authoritarian by temperament. I would also add that people like Newt Gingrich and George W. Bush strike me as extraordinarily narcissistic and are clearly among the type of people Dean talks about. For both Bush and Gingrich, life is all about them.

But today's Republican party has other other problems as well. What is it about the Republican political class that they look the other way when a Republican politician obviously lies? And why is it that they refuse to set the record straight when others obviously lie about Barack Obama (birthers) or lie about John Kerry (swift boaters)? And why is it that the Republican political class failed to notice the obvious economic disaster we were heading for as Wall Street and the banks were allowed to engage in reckless behavior?




Here's the scholarly link to Boddy's paper.

And here's a link that provide a more accessible version to Boddy's paper.

Earthquakes and Nuclear Reactors: The Industry Pushback

The modern world has a problem. Nuclear reactors are only a small part of that problem. The fundamental problem is that we do not have in operation a truly safe and truly sustainable energy system for the type of modern civilization enjoyed by much of the world in the year 2011. Keep in mind that the technology that defines the modern world has only been around since roughly 1920, and that innovations have occurred in nearly every decade since then, so that what we define as the modern world has become increasingly complex and increasingly energy hungry.

I have no longstanding beef with the nuclear industry. In the beginning, it seemed promising, but it seems significant problems keep coming to the attention of the public and cannot be ignored at a time when the world is looking for other sources of energy to replace fossil fuels. Currently, there are over 400 reactors in the world. Before the nuclear disaster in Japan some months ago, it was common to hear discussions about vastly increasing the number of nuclear reactors worldwide. No specific numbers were consistently discussed but one can imagine we were talking about maybe 4,000 nuclear reactors being in operation fifty years from now. The chances of so many reactors being built are far less now than before the Japanese incident.

Advocates of nuclear power tend to be financially tied to their optimism about nuclear energy. If nuclear energy has any chance of succeeding in the long run, it would be helpful if there were informed advocates who did not have a financial stake. In some ways, the most disturbing aspect of nuclear energy is that safer reactors can be built but there is little commitment to do so. Why? Because our civilization is based on the bottom line. And the bottom line can be manipulated by powerful interests. The real cost of fossil fuels is far greater than what we pay at the pump. The cost of nuclear energy is far greater than the monthly bills we pay to a power company. Whenever possible, corporations, partly out of bad habit, partly out of greed, simply put off real costs to future generations.

At Forbes.com is an AP article that is appearing in a number of places. The article discusses nuclear safety in light of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan last March and the recent earthquake that hit Virginia and was felt by much of the east coast. The article in Forbes notes:

The risk that an earthquake would cause a severe accident at a U.S. nuclear plant is greater than previously thought, 24 times as high in one case, according to an AP analysis of preliminary government data. The nation's nuclear regulator believes a quarter of America's reactors may need modifications to make them safer.

That's 24 times higher than previously thought. Isn't this the way of America's business-as-usual crowd? The business-as-usual crowd always underestimates risks when there's a profit to be made.

Keep in mind that the accident in Japan is just one of the biggest of the past 60 years. Nuclear accidents have many other causes. An earthquake is only one possible cause. Back in March, The Guardian provided a list of 33 nuclear accidents since the early 1950s. These are most of the known incidents, though there have been others. The incident in Japan has since been raised to a Level 7 incident. Now notice the number, 33 accidents. And that is almost certainly an under count. Nevertheless, that's one accident every two years since 1950.

Let's go back to the AP article:

The average risk to U.S. reactors of core damage from a quake remains low, at one accident every 500 years, according to the AP analysis of NRC data.

Nuclear power generators have only been around since 1950. Japan immediately lost 3 reactors to the earthquake and the tsunami that followed. Then 3 more went permanently offline due to the extreme radiation. Yes, the accident was in Japan, but the design came from the U.S. and despite all the second-guessing, Japan is just as safety conscious and technologically adept as we are (meaning, of course, not safety conscious enough).

The NRC and the industry are playing games with the 500 years statistics (the 500 year figure, by the way, is after the NRC seems to have recognized the greater earthquake danger, 24 times more likely. Wow, so a year ago the odds were one in 12,000 years? These clearly are never-neverland statistics). There are times when statistics actually mean something. But this is not one of them. Also keep in mind that a single incident like the one in Japan is a very serious accident, far greater than if a coal power plant toppled to the ground or a few windmills got blown over.

Incidentally, I give Forbes credit for cutting one part of the AP article. In my paper, there was an odd and muddled reference by AP that according to one perspective the risk of an accident from an earthquake to a single reactor was only one in 30,000 years. No doubt, even Forbes likes to maintain its credibility (the editors of my paper simply reprint things without much proofreading or thought, like far too many papers in America). Apologies for the discussing the numbers, but when an accident like the one in Japan occurs, we see why it's important to be skeptical of such rosy industry assessments of nuclear safety. To keep things in perspective, it's important to remember that Virginia experienced only a 5.9 earthquake. Despite the small size, at least one nuclear reactor had things move several inches that shouldn't have moved at all. In the last 250 years, the east coast and the middle of the United States have experienced much bigger earthquakes.

Is nuclear energy dead? For now, probably. Today's reactors will continue producing energy but new projects are pretty much dead. In the long term, it may depend on whether Europe, Japan and the U.S. can commit to major new research in nuclear energy designs that are much safer and are cost effective. Keep in mind, that safer reactors can be built right now but the nuclear industry has shown no inclination to do so. Keep in mind that the fossil fuel industry has a similar problem. There are ways right now for recapturing CO2 and sticking it safely somewhere in the ground. But there is no commitment on any kind of serious scale to do so.

It is entirely possible that the best way forward in the next 50 years is to put fossil fuels and nuclear energy out of business. And the best way to do that is to commit to job-creating green energy and massive amounts of job-creating research for better, cleaner and more sustainable source of energy.

The Rise and Fall of the Age of Oil: Opportunity or Endgame?

A couple of years ago I read a book on the rise and fall of several periods of Chinese history. Some emperor would fight a few wars, unite a few more provinces than the last emperor, and his heirs would thrive for a few generations.

But the collapse of a dynasty often followed a similar pattern. As the population grew during the good times, the amount of tilled acreage per family dropped while taxes kept rising since the wealthy demanded more and more to keep up appearances. Sooner or later, corruption grew, more demands were placed on peasants and the emperor found himself unable to control events as easily as before.

Of course discontent would grow, generals or talented peasants would take advantage of the discontent and rebellions would flourish, forcing the emperor to impose harsh crackdowns. Meanwhile, people on the borders would notice the lack of troops in the usual places and would encroach on Chinese territory. And the encroachments would give an emperor an opportunity to use foreigners as a distraction while perhaps gaining some more territory and more taxes with it.

But eventually the emperor's army would find itself overextended with rebellions and external enemies. Throw in a famine or an epidemic along with a war that doesn't go well and collapse would soon follow. China of course never fully collapsed during these troubled periods but they sometimes could lose as much as 10-50% of their population. Suddenly, after all the troubles, there would be more acreage per family available and the period of rise would begin anew.

Such rises and falls of course are not unique to the Chinese. But about four to five hundred years ago the pattern began to change, particularly in Europe and later in the United States. First the British and Europeans found coal and better ways to burn it and use it. And Americans discovered an entire continent of virgin forests that provided firewood for over two hundred years. In the middle of the 19th century, American industry exploded with the growing use of coal and the discovery of oil.

Oil meant energy. Oil meant every acre of a 160 acre farm could be used for food and profit. Acreage for horses was no longer necessary. Oil also meant kerosene and light for longer days. It eventually meant fuel for farm tractors, industries, electrical power plants and so on.

In his book, Feeding the Fire, Mark E. Eberhart covers some of the history of coal and oil and reminds us that the British, Europeans and the United States might have had a very different history if coal and oil had not been available in such abundance for the last three hundred years. The subtitle of Eberhart's book is: The Lost History & Uncertain Future of Mankind's Energy Addiction. Offhand, it sounds like the kind of book others have written on Peak Oil, climate change, environmental concerns, the need for abundant alternative energy and so on in the early 21st century. There is some of that in Eberhart's book but he sounds more like someone in the corporate world who's reluctantly and gently sounding the alarm and providing deep background. Actually, despite some reservations I have about the book, I found Eberhart's approach refreshing since he provides a host of material I have not seen before. I don't agree with some things he says but I have learned a lot. On page 183, he writes:

Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbon molecules. You might think of these as strands of hairy pearls, where the pearls are carbon atoms and their hair is made of hydrogen atoms. Each pearl in the strand has two hairs, except the ones on the end, which have three. This molecular jewelry comes in different lengths, from a strand with one carbon pearl, which is methane, to strands with thirty or more carbon atoms. The number of carbon atoms controls the properties of the molecule. For example, if the strand has fewer than five carbon atoms, the molecule is a gas at room temperature; five to eighteen, a liquid; and nineteen or more a solid. The most volatile components of crude are called naphthas, which are used as solvents and dry-cleaning fluids and are characterized by strands of five to seven carbon atoms. Gasoline is the component of crude with strings of 7 to 11 [carbon] atoms in length. Kerosene is the portion containing strands of 12 to 15; diesel, 15 to 17; and lubricating oils are made of hydrocarbon chains of more than 17 carbon atoms. The 20-atom-plus range is where paraffin, tar and asphalt are found.

Eberhart explains that one of the things that so quickly made oil so efficient to use is that the heavier oils can be 'cracked' by baking heavy crude at high temperature under high pressure (not unlike how the shorter carbon chains are created in hot pressures found deep underground. Of course light sweet crude doesn't require as much treatment (or 'cracking') as sour heavy crude. So part of today's energy picture requires that people understand that throughout the world, the volume of heavy crude going through the refinery process (requiring additional processes, time and equipment not necessary for light sweet crude) is growing.

What I want to emphasize is that these processes are energy intensive and expensive. Expensive in terms of cost and expensive in terms of lower net energy. Sour heavy crude, however, is still preferable in many ways to coal. And the production of coal is rising dramatically, particularly if we take China into account. Regardless of what one thinks about climate change, pollution, peak oil or the environment, we have already entered a different age and it's already a harsher reality, largely because the United States for the last thirty years has failed to act. There is still time but we can no longer afford illusions.

McCain: The Maverick Becomes a Mackerel

In British slang, a mackerel is a fool. If we only look at McCain's actions over the last week, he qualifies. If we include his selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate, he's close to the cliff. If we try to visualize the man in charge of the economy if he wins the election, we see him and the nation in free fall.

I've been watching the news closely for weeks while working on a large editing project. Part of my current assignment in the project is to update an assessment of the world's condition. My gut reaction is that things have been happening so fast it's a bit difficult to keep up. But I can summarize the current situation in this manner: in a time of crisis, as we face a series of crises both at home and abroad, the people at the top who are currently in charge of our foreign policy have no credibility and the people in charge of our economic policy, largely the same crowd, also have no credibility. Folks, this is not how the United States normally operates.

The idea that a fading, out-of-touch McCain is somehow going to restore credibility is too painful to consider. If our nation were a bit more rational than it is at the moment, there would be a push to honor McCain for his services 35-40 years ago while urging him to retire to his ranch in Sedona where he can enjoy his millions, his houses and a steady stream of visitors. But these are not sane times.

There is far too much to summarize in a post but here's some items that catch my interest:

Everything is fine. Or not. Here's an item from Businomics:

It's OK: We've got a guarantee. The owner of an office building in London has a lease with Lehman. But don't worry. They have an insurance policy to protect them if their tenant cannot pay the rent. The insurer: AIG.

Here's a reminder of the bail-outter-in-chief's track record so far: Bush's Legacy of Squandering Taxpayer Money.

Talking Points Memo has a number of stories on the bailout proposal. Here's some gallows humor from a TPM reader:

Considering as how the proposed Wall Street bailout will be one of the most intensely lobbied efforts in American history, will there be anyone left to manage John McCain's campaign?

So far, not many economic blogs think much of the zero oversight that apparently is part of Bush's bailout. I mean, isn't the lack of oversight what got us into trouble in the first place? Here's more from the Economic Populist.

Brad DeLong, the economist from Berkeley, sometimes puts things succinctly. Here's the issue for the next five days if not the next six weeks:

John McCain chose Sarah Palin to be his vice president.

There is a 40% chance John McCain will be president on January 21, 2009.

There is no way in hell that anybody should give any extra power to any Treasury Secretary chosen by John McCain.

I beg the Democrats in congress: write a bill that makes sense.

Nightmare scenario: McCain, just looking for a trophy for his Hall of Fame, steps down if he wins the election. Sarah Palin is a poor choice for president but she takes instruction well and follows the party line. Cheney remains in town and stays at his secret location while he runs the show.

Okay, I'm joking but eight years ago our nation had a surplus, we were at peace, and Wall Street wasn't completely overrun by crooks. (sigh)

Tibet, Mao and the Chinese Communists

The Chinese are a rising economic power. Up until two hundred years ago the Chinese were an advanced civilization that saw little value in the ideas, arts and goods of other civilizations. But in the early 19th century, the Chinese had been somewhat in decline for about a hundred years despite a growing population. Then, throughout the 19th century, a series of misjudgments, rebellions and imperialist inroads from the west and even the rise of Japan hastened the decline until the complete collapse of China's own imperial system. For a brief moment, democracy seemed to flower in the early 20th century but that too collapsed in a long civil war and an era of war lords that lasted almost fifty years until the communist party gained control of China.

These days it's hard to know what to make of China's communist party as it continues its march on the capitalist road with stock markets and billion dollar deals with large multinational corporations (Bloomberg notes some contradictions). The communists have come a long ways from the famous Long March of the early 1930s when Chiang Kai Shek sent an army of 500,000 troops against what were called "hill bandits" in the American press. For the Chinese communist party, the Long March has the status of legend and mythology. We know many of the facts are real but much of the rest is difficult to ascertain. We know the leaders of the communist party and many of their supporters were based in Shanghai until Chiang Kai Shek ended his partnership with them and either exterminated or chased them from the area. Most of them went to Mao's sanctuary several hundred miles to the west. Chiang's Kuomintang Army eventually pursued them and somewhere between 80,000 to 100,000 red army troops escaped from Chiang Kai Shek's encirclement. At first Mao was not even the leader, though eventually he took control. Around ten percent of those on the Long March survived the journey of some six thousand miles. There were many battles and there were times when the red army had to flee with nothing but their rifles and ammunition. They often had to live off the land. Although the red army eventually managed to escape the Kuomintang army, they suffered many additional losses in the far west, particularly in the highlands.

I've always found the animosity of the communists toward the Dalai Lama and Tibetans in general a little odd. Some of it can be explained by Chinese nationalism, the same nationalism we see around the world that pits one group against another, particularly, if the dominant group believes they 'possess' the territory of the minority . Too often, the minority is supposed to be grateful that they are 'left alone,' except that of course they often are not left alone.

I'm not an expert on Tibet or China though I have read a number of books on both. I have seen maps of the Long March and have noticed that the route partly went through the mountains east of what is called the Tibet Autonomous Region. Many Chinese communists died along that part of the route and though many died from the cold, exhaustion and accidents in the mountains or bogs, the survivors claim the local people were often responsible for killing stragglers. I have assumed for a number of years that the animosity towards the local minority groups of the region was somehow translated into animosty toward Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. I suspect now that it's more personal than that.

What we now call Tibet is part of China. But Tibetans were independent during China's decline and have a long history of their own. Their territory extended—somewhat vaguely—throughout the Tibetan Plateau which is an area much larger than the current autonomous region. The May 29, 2008 issue of The New York Review of Books has a map on page 47 that shows where Tibetans recently protested the Chinese rule of Tibet. The majority of protests by Tibetans were Tibetans living outside of the Tibet Autonomous Region on the Tibetan Plateau. If one looks at the map of the protests and a map of the Long March, there is a sad overlap. It is likely that the Chinese communists have been holding a blood grudge for three generations.

The Chinese still have work to do if they are to get beyond their own insular nationalism and assume a useful leadership role in the world of the 21st century.



***Note: For a curious take on Chinese nationalism, see this Washington Post article.

Americans Know Something Is Wrong But Have Not Connected All the Dots

Bush's poll ratings are the worst for any president since modern polling began. CNN Political Ticker has the story:

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Thursday indicates that 71 percent of the American public disapprove of how Bush his handling his job as president.

"No president has ever had a higher disapproval rating in any CNN or Gallup poll; in fact, this is the first time that any president's disapproval rating has cracked the 70 percent mark," said CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

The astonishing thing is that 28 percent still believe Bush is doing a good job (if nothing else, at least every American has an opinion these days).

That 71% of the American people know something is wrong and that President Bush is part of the problem is a good sign. However, when I look at the polls and realize Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each hold only a somewhat insignificant 2 to 10 percent lead over John McCain, it tells me that too many Americans are unable to acknowledge the failures of the Republican Party over the last 27 years. You would never guess from the talk of Republican politicians and pundits that Democrats have been in charge for only 2 of those 27 years and in those two years the Democrats held only a small margin under Bill Clinton. That Congress got some useful things done but it could not undo more than a small part of the damage already done or forestall the damage that would come in the following fourteen years. The three biggest failures—just to name a few—of those 27 years was the failure to develop a serious energy policy, a serious policy to combat global warming and the failure to keep more jobs in the United States.

The Republican philosophy of the last 27 years is not hard to figure out: never take on a responsibility if a profit can be made for wealthy Republicans by doing nothing. We're now paying the price.

The nonsense, however, continues. This time the pandering and nonsense of John McCain is joined by Hillary Clinton who is pushing for a gas tax holiday that will do nothing for the American people except put more money in the pockets of the oil companies and hasten the inevitable. The Gristmill summarizes the ridiculousness of the gas tax holiday:

The gas tax holiday proposed by McCain and Clinton is indefensible. That, of course, is why just about every independent observer has criticized it. The Washington Post and, separately, Huffington Post have catalogued an impressive list of serious critiques, starting with the rather obvious point that in a demand-driven price shock, a gas tax holiday probably won't even save consumers a penny -- it will just enrich the poor, suffering oil companies...

(snip)

NYT's Paul Krugman calls the idea "pointless" and "disappointing." Tom Friedman labeled the plan "so ridiculous ... it takes your breath away." ...

If Barack Obama falters, John McCain or Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. If Hillary wins the nomination and the election, one can only hope that she and Bill will set aside the nonsense and pandering of the election season and get real. Given McCain's increasing conservatism and rigidity, there is no hope of anything useful getting done in the next four years if he is elected. Time is becoming an issue as the worst president in American history sits on his hand during a series of world crises, one or two of which have been aggravated by his actions or failures to do anything useful.

There are so many big and small crises going on that I got flummoxed the other day when someone asked me about the rice shortage crisis. I knew rice futures were going through the roof but I didn't know exactly why. So I did my homework. Here's one article from Businessweek:

As farmers in the U.S. and Europe plant more corn in place of wheat to produce ethanol, the price of wheat has risen as supplies have tightened. Faced with higher wheat prices, people are substituting rice in their diets, particularly so in Africa. And, of course, the demand for ethanol as an alternative fuel is linked directly to the soaring price of oil. Moreover, the cost of rice production has increased significantly because fertilizer, transportation, and processing costs have shot up along with skyrocketing oil prices...

(snip)

The majority of rice farmers consume most of what they grow already and plant rice on every available acre of land. What's more, rapid urbanization and, in China, desertification has led to a decrease in the available supply of farmland. The increase in biofuels has encouraged palm oil plantations instead of rice paddies. Also, as incomes rise in the region, people substitute more meat for rice in their diet, which requires more land to raise livestock and produce the same amount of calories.

The story also mentions hoarding and speculation as additional factors. We're discovering everything is interlinked. If we're not careful as we solve a problem with a supposed solution, the repercussions can come around from behind and bite us in the ass. Most people don't understand concepts like ecology which is what a lot of this is about. The young are catching on and ecology will be a big subject for decades to come. We need to be very smart these days and we need people in Washington who are even smarter and are loyal to the American people more than they are to their campaign donors (who insist that they're worth 300 times the annual average income of Americans instead of 250 or even 299).

Tim F. of Balloon Juice puts things into a larger perspective on the food shortages and price hikes around the world. He discusses the connections to the major problems: oil, climate, greater demand for food, the growing taste for meat in new economies and one of the major canaries in the mine: the collapsing fish stocks worldwide. Here's what he says about the oil connection to rising food prices:

We have hit the point where oil stops being an elastic commodity (e.g., production can be upped to meet demand) and switches to a catch-as-catch can resource. Atrios had a post a few days back about how that shift will necessarily make the price of gas go crazy. We won’t see cheap gas again unless the entire planet stops driving or we find a magic spell that turns CO2, water and soot back into light sweet crude. Since modern agriculture has been described as the process by which petroleum is converted into food (fertilizers, harvesting, packaging, transport and most of the other steps depend on hydrocarbons) that can be a real problem.

Read the whole article; he says much more. If articles like these seem depressing, here's something useful the reader can do for a little peace of mind: buy some seeds for a vegetable garden or, if not that, buy some seeds for three or four potted plants on a balconey. There are things that can be done, even if it's on a small scale.

But we're not done here. Truthout had an article by Marie-Beatrice Baudet a few days ago about six crises that we're facing at the moment and several of them are not likely to improve in the near future. Her take is mildly academic and is tied more to economics than the resource problems that are clearly getting worse but one could read her article as a series of warning signs:

Where will history situate the global crisis - the symptoms of which are simultaneously financial, monetary, economic, environmental, and food- and energy-related - which the planet has been undergoing since mid-2007 and which has accelerated this first half of 2008? What will its amplitude on the Richter scale of economic and social earthquakes be? Stronger than that of the Great Depression of 1929? Similar to that of the 1970s, when, just before the first oil shock of 1973 and the second-half-1974 recession, the scientists, industrialists and economists who founded the Club of Rome in 1968 called for an end to growth in the 1972 Meadows Report in order to avoid the exhaustion of the planet's resources between now and the end of the twenty-first century?

I'm fond of the quick picture that graphs can provide and there are six excellent graphs in the story. One point in the article that is obviously on the mark is that many of the problems we now face are driven by noncooperation among the major governments of the world. Just a few years ago there was much more cooperation in world affairs and the leadership for that cooperation came from the United States. But the last seven years have been a debacle. The arrogant attitude of the current White House is harming Americans and harming the world.

As I said, there are things that can be done. Fighting wars we do not need is not one of those things. Electing officials who look like deer in the headlights while they sit on their hands is also not a solution. Even if we foolishly elect another Republican to the White House, there are things individual Americans can do. And the young are beginning to understand it better than most. We need reform. And we need it soon.

Greenspan Endorses Man Who Knows Nothing About the Economy

Andrea Mitchell's husband, Alan Greenspan, whose lack of integrity on tax policy has given us mounting debt as far as the eye can see, is endorsing John McCain. The Huffington Post has the story from Reuters and includes Greenspan's growing obliviousness to cause and effect:

There is more than a 50 percent chance the United States could go into recession, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan told El Pais newspaper in an interview published on Sunday.

Greenspan, the U.S. Fed chairman from 1987 to 2006, endorsed the Republican presidential candidate....

Republican economics is a failure. The presidency of George W. Bush is a failure. And yet, John McCain, who wishes to continue many of Bush's policies, including more war in Iraq and elsewhere, and who admits he knows nothing about economics, is getting a growing number of endorsements. Our nation is on *TILT* and there is a chance the idiocy will continue.

I mention Andrea Mitchell, a reporter I once respected maybe ten to fifteen years ago, because of a post today by Digby. I'm not a great fan these days of Hillary Clinton but she may have gotten a bum rap this time around on the hospital story. The real story on Hillary is not that she hung on to Mark Penn too long but that she could have easily won the nomination with a more realistic and updated campaign (see this post in Talking Points Memo).

But there were major signs over the last two years that Hillary Clinton was falling behind in her awareness of a number of issues, including in particular Iraq and energy. No doubt political triangulation played a role, but I'm still surprised at how hard she fought for ethanol despite the many obvious problems (there may still be a small role for ethanol in our need for new energy but a small role is all it can be) and despite the need for a more comprehensive energy plan.

The people over at The Oil Drum are working hard on a variety of energy issues. I spent some time going over this article and this article today. They're abstract to some degree but essential reading for those who need to catch up on energy issues. One of the points made was that we have known we had an energy problem for more than thirty years and have blindly insisted on doing little. We cannot afford that any longer.

We're heading for hard times. How it's all going to unfold is hard to say. In fact, if we're very lucky and get some competent leadership in Washington, the current recession might be mitigated sooner than later and the hard times I'm talking about will come later. If we're lucky. If we can wait a year for competent leadership to show up. Assuming it does show up. Which it won't if McSame is elected.

I'm optimistic by temperament but I'm capable of looking at brutally hard facts. Here's something to think about. Anyone willing to pay attention has known for centuries that wars cause shortages, particularly shortages of food. At the end of World War I, there were major food shortages in Europe. Without computers we, meaning the United States, figured out how much food was needed, where to get it and where to send it. We understood the problems very well. And that was almost a hundred years ago.

One of the dirtiest secrets of World War II was that German army knew that if Hitler insisted on a war with Russia, there was a reasonable chance, if the war lasted two or three years, that 20 million people would die in Eastern Europe from famine. The logistics people in the German army had calculated the numbers. The army knew.

I'm not talking about the Nazis or the SS. I'm talking about Germany's military professionals. They pointed to the Nazis and the SS for the crimes that followed but they knew what was likely to come before they ever crossed the Russian frontier. The point? I have no doubt any number of people know what problems we're facing worldwide and too many of them are sitting on the numbers. If Americans and people everywhere want a halfway decent future, they better start doing a better job of digging out the facts. They can't keep relying on the know nothings like George W. Bush and John McCain.

State of the Union: Reality Disconnect

The fantasies of Washington Republicans continue. They cheered Bush at the State of the Union despite the fact that privately they know Bush is a failed president. I listened to Bush's speech and kept looking at my wife asking, "Am I missing something?" Bush gave us an exercise in some sort of alternate reality. It's the president's job to tell us where we are and where we may need to go. All we got was a smirk and rope-a-dope.

Fred Kaplan of Slate puts the spotlight on part of the problem with Bush's last State of the Union speech:

The sad thing about President George W. Bush's final State of the Union address is that he seems to have learned so little about the crises in which he's immersed his nation so deeply.

(snip)

Maybe the president believes that saying something makes it close to true. (Some of his former aides have told me they suspect this is the case.) For instance, toward the end of the address, he said that protecting the nation's security "requires changing the conditions that breed resentment and allow extremists to prey on despair. So America is using its influence to build a freer, more hopeful, and more compassionate world." The first sentence is true, the second encouraging. What's his follow-up—what are some examples of America using its influence to this end? "America is opposing genocide in Sudan," he said. (That's nice. What are we doing?) ....

I listened to Andy Card last night on MSNBC make a pretentious and self-righteous defense of Bush as some kind of idealist. Yeah. Sure. Bush gave us a costly war we didn't need. Wealthy people count on Bush to make them richer without having to work for it. Privatization contracts go to his cronies. Conservative compassion is offered but turns out to be a con to entice the religious right. And our economy is in trouble because deregulation has gone stark raving mad to the point that bankers and investment houses are so uncontrolled that midlevel people are stealing companies blind, sometimes their own and sometimes others, with phony derivatives and shabby unsecured loans while essentially defrauding thousands of homeowners (let's not pretend too hard that high level executives didn't know what was going on as they dig for the $100 million bonuses so freely handed out; it's Enron all over again). There's an effort out there, by the way, to blame homeowners for their bad business judgment but did anyone really expect real estate prices to drop 25% or more in some areas? The real estate bubble was insane and yet an idiot (we know he's an idiot now and not a guru) like Alan Greenspan was unconcerned. Bernake was asleep at the wheel. And Bush? When has he made himself useful in the last seven years?

America is weaker today than we were seven years ago. I don't like saying that but it's the truth. We need new sources of energy. We cannot hand the problems of global warming to future generations when the best solutions, the cheapest solutions, exist now. We cannot act like the bully of the world and expect people to take us seriously when we talk about democracy and human rights. We need to create jobs and we need incentives for American companies that create jobs at home. We do not need to make corporations more powerful and more arrogant than they already are. The problems go on because our country has spent more than a generation believing Republican happy talk that our only problem is high taxes, communists, and now in this era, 'Islamofascists.' Outright gibberish does not lead to greatness.

In the coming decade, confronting the world as it really is, without the fantasies, but with a much healthier respect for what individual Americans can do together, is the only way we're going to move forward. That may sound like a campaign slogan but it was the philosophy that guided our country most of the time in its first two hundred years. It wasn't a perfect philosophy and it wasn't perfectly executed, but it gave us a great deal more year after year than anything Bush and his cronies have done.


***********************************

Campaign Note: I still plan on voting for John Edwards. Maybe he'll be the broker at the convention that makes sure we'll see real change if a Democrat is elected. I still plan on supporting any Democratic nominee. Here's the order of my preferences:

1. John Edwards
2. Barack Obama
3. Christopher Dowd
4. Hillary Clinton

Yeah, I know, Dodd's out of the race. But he's still my third choice. If Hillary wins, I'll support her, but she and Bill will need to mend some fences and prove to us that they're not still the candidates of the 1990s. We are very much in a different era now. If by chance a Republican gets elected president, hunker down. It's going to be a very rough ride.

President Bush and His Oil Theory Fraud

We have a dishonest president. I don't know how much that has really sunk in with the American people. I could point to a wide range of issues where Bush's dishonesty is blatant and embarrassing. Today, I'll just focus on oil.

Dick and George, our two oil executives, have been lying to the American people for years about oil and energy. But the problem goes deeper than that. It goes back to President Reagan and the failure of his administration to deal with the energy problem. For years, Republican leaders in Congress and the White House have refused to deal with the simple fact that oil is finite. Where once we believed oil might last five hundred years, we know now the oil age will be relatively brief. If we are to sustain our civilization, we need other sources of energy. We knew this long before Global Warming became established as a threat to our world. We know now that fossil fuels emissions are a major cause of Global Warming. We have a problem. What we do not need are games.

Bush is urging Saudi Arabia to increase its oil production. It's a bit like asking your uncle to empty out his bank account for your expensive lifestyle (okay, never mind that the Saudis have been emptying out their own bank accounts for decades to maintain their own lavish lifestyle). I suppose Bush can't help himself. When Bush makes a blunder, his first response is to blame someone else. He has blundered on oil. And he has blundered on the economy. Here's the story from James Gerstenzang of the Los Angeles Times:

Producers should "realize that high energy prices affect the economies of consuming nations," he said. If those economies weaken, he said, they "will eventually be buying fewer barrels of oil."

Energy demand has "outstripped new supply," Bush told reporters. "That's why there's high price."

Saudi Oil Minister Ali Ibrahim Naimi said his country was sympathetic to such economic worries, but he refused to commit to increasing production.

"The concern for the U.S. economy is valid," he said. "But what affects the U.S. economy is more than the price of oil."

The Saudi Oil Minister has it largely right: what affects the U.S. economy is more than the price of oil. But the Saudis are reluctant to admit a more salient fact: their ability to increase production is limited. In fact, the ability of the world's oil producers to increase productivity is limited. This is a problem that cannot be wished away by presidential temper tantrums.

Oil prices have been slowing down our economy for more than two years. But the five year war in Iraq is also slowing down our economy despite the stimulus of war spending. We are engaged in a war we did not need and we see almost no benefit for the American people. Bush's lax attitude towards business ethics has also slowed down our economy. The failure of the Bush Administration to go after crooks in the loan and derivatives sectors is the back breaker that has set the stock markets roiling since summer. But Bush's many failures to protect the American economy can be found elsewhere. When the price of gold jumps 40% in one year, it's an indicator of serious systemic flaws, and those flaws can be traced to the White House. We're in new territory and we have a president and vice president who haven't a clue.


Democratic Primaries Note: I will support whoever wins the Democratic nomination but I still stand by John Edwards. The theme of change was Edwards' theme months before Obama and Clinton jumped aboard (isn't the fact that Romney jumped aboard a bit odd?). In fact, Edwards has driven the vision and policies that the other two major Democratic candidates have been borrowing. Of all the Democrats and all the Republicans, Edwards is the one who sat down and did his homework. He knows what we're facing. So I'm voting for him.

John Edwards for President

The Dow Jones went down 220 points today. Oil momentarily hit $100 a barrel. The price of real estate around the country continues to fall. We are now in a period of a weird stagflation where some prices rise like gas and food and some prices fall like real estate, sometimes forcing, in many cases, higher mortgage payments. For 27 years, conservatives have been in charge in Washington. The Republican leadership in particular has no ideas and has no clue where our nation and the world are going. The most incompetent president in the history of our nation remains in the White House. Despite numerous issues that would have gotten any other president impeached, Bush will probably finish out his presidency in 2009.

There are good presidential candidates on the Democratic side. The Republican side, unfortunately, is like a nightmare from some dark era like the 1930s. The media continues to think of politics as some sort of entertainment as our country slides backwards for the first time in more than half a century. We're told that technology is going to save us but we're doing little to develop the kind of technology that is essential. We're developing technological toys we do not need and new medical technology hardly anyone can afford. We're offered pie in the sky technology schemes that were pie in the sky thirty years ago. The energy crisis is real. Global warming is a profound threat to our future. Other resource problems are increasingly coming into focus and the picture is sobering. Political tensions are growing around the world as our foreign policy erodes. The only country in the world that can provide a reasonable level of leadership in the world has been awol for seven years. Things will only get worse if some sort of clone of Bush is elected. Things may not move quickly enough if a Democrat who isn't committed to change fails to see in time the problems our nation is facing. Still, Democrats are the most realistic hope at the moment. Americans need to take their future into their hands and deal with it the only way that has ever made sense: at the ballot box.

If Americans want change, if they want reform, the candidate most likely to move in a meaningful direction towards the kinds of changes we need is John Edwards.

Some Thoughts on the American Crisis, Part Two

I saw a graph this morning of this year's third quarter showing the daily close of the Dow Jones. The stock market took a major dip in August but is now almost back to the highest point reached in July. I can't help feeling that the recovery of the stock market is either an illusion or is seriously disconnected from the economy that most Americans are experiencing. Everyone, myself included, wants the economy to do well. Recessions, economic malaise, higher monthly mortgage payments, lower real wages, higher health insurance premiums and other economic twists and turns are not fun. Of course, some of these things have been happening for some time.

In general, I am unable to ignore the growing sense that we are in a period of illusion. One illusion is that everything is going well. The other illusion is that we have to attack others out of fear of another 9/11. It is a schizoid time.

Let me mention briefly one illusion. I keep hearing that American industry is getting a handle on pollution of various kinds. But this is not really the case. I grew up in Southern California at a time when heavy industry still existed in the greater LA area. Smog was bad because of the area's geography, weather and prevailing winds. Slowly, the industries that were the heaviest polluters began to move out of the area. Although cars were one of the primary culprits behind smog and were dealt with to some extent over time, there's no question that when the heavier industries left the area, cleaner air was left behind. But those heavy industries were still polluting. They were just doing it elsewhere, though I have to admit I'm not certain where they were doing it. We weren't paying close attention in those days.

Of course, today, there's no question that much of America's pollution has been exported overseas, sometimes by our own corporations, sometimes by foreign corporations who, by proxy, handle much of the pollution once generated by our own companies. Now there's a point here that gets overlooked as other countries are getting a reputation for pollution. A significant portion of that pollution is being driven by the needs of 300 million Americans, not just by the new economies that are emerging. So what's going to happen if another 1 or 2 or 3 billion people around the world start living like Americans and generate the same amount of pollution? It's been a practice of conservatives for the last thirty to forty to fifty years to ignore issues like this. But in the last fifty years the world has been changing. Sometimes we forget just how much the world has been changing.

I was born in 1950; the world population at that time was roughly 2.5 billion people (there are different estimates and here's a table of some of those estimates). The world population today is about 6.6 billion. That's more than double the number in 1950. I realize those numbers are almost incomprehensible but it's important to get our arms around them. Since 1950, the world has added roughly 4.1 billion people; that's almost 14 times the current population of the United States. Does the world have the resources for 14 new economies the size of the United States? Can the world safely absorb the pollution from 14 such new economies?

I'm an American and I like living where I am. To a large extent, I like the modern world. I like computers and eating out. I like borrowing books from the library and turning on the heater in the winter. I know perfectly well that I would not have survived childhood in the 19th century. I very much appreciate penicillin. I have no desire, in general, to go backwards, but I'm not so sure anymore how much we're going forward when we add up all the factors. Now it's in my temperament to be optimistic about the future, but reality is coming up fast on us. As things now stand, it's probably a fact that we cannot sustain the population growth of the last century. There's growing concern that a world population of 6.6 billion people is simply not sustainable.

Let's back up a moment and look at the world population for 1900. By 1900, the Industrial Age was more or less a century old. But there was enormous disparity of wealth in the world. Most of the wealth was in Europe and the United States. The Industrial Age was still decades away from reaching much of the rest of the world. Despite the abuses of the 19th century, there were still enormous resources in the world. Resources like petroleum had barely been touched by then. In 1900, there were 1.6 billion people spread around the globe.

Again, we have a number: 1.6 billion. It's abstract. It's even from a long time ago. But in reality, a hundred years isn't all that much time in human history. I have a great aunt who was born in 1901; at 106, she's still alive. My aunt's older sister, my grandmother, used to tell stories about their father; their father was born in the middle of the 19th century but I retain numerous stories about his life and the wilderness he came to when he arrived in California in the 1860s. In California, then, there seemed to be a lot of room, and plenty of resources. In 1860, there were almost 380,000 people in California. In that era, there was a lot of room per person. Today, there are over 37,000,000 people. California has achieved one of the fastest growth rates in the world. In 147 years, California grew nearly 10,000 per cent!

To be honest, California had a lot of room to absorb people. But for those willing to observe, California has changed enormously, and not always for the better. One change alone should give pause for thought for rest of the world. For 147 years, the water table in California has been getting lower and lower. And more polluted. In some areas, ground water is not usable without expensive treatment. California is constantly on the search for new sources of water but new water is not cheap. Sometimes there are unpleasant surprises. A few miles north of San Francisco is a body of water called Tomales Bay; until fifteen to twenty years ago, it was considered one of the most pristine bodies of water in the world. Then the algae and bacteria count started going up because of fertilizer and other chemicals used by ranchers in the surrounding hills that were being flushed by rain into the bay. A nastier surprise was the appearance of mercury in the water from an old mercury mine up in the hills that everyone thought had been properly contained and sealed after being mined out. These may seem minor incidents but they are canaries in a mine in a state that pays close attention to limiting environmental damage.

If California can handle its water and smog problems, it will probably continue to grow. It is not among the most densely populated places in the world (though it's getting closer). And of course if one flies over the US, it's hard not to notice all the empty land as well as sparsely populated agricultural areas. But if one looks at a map of China showing population densities, there are large areas of China that have low populations per square mile, particularly in Tibet and the Gobi Desert. Looks, however, can be deceptive. Some years ago, a single building in Hong Kong was famous for having some 10,000 residents who entered through the basement by using the produce elevators situated in the sidewalk. We need to remember that agricultural lands have to be matched to the large populations they support elsewhere.

Let's go back to that figure in 1900 of 1.6 billion people in the world. How much land was available in that era per person? The estimates for the land surface of the earth vary somewhat but don't differ by significant amounts. Let's settle on the figure of 57,393,000 square miles. We're talking about the amount of land available to humans. Immediately, since nobody is going to live there in large numbers anytime soon, we better subtract the 5,100,000 square miles of Antarctica. That leaves 52,293,000 squares miles. Let's convert that into acres; an acre is something that can be seen easily with the naked eye (when I was a kid, we lived on a quarter acre lot; four of those lots made an acre). Rounded off, there are roughly (we're being generous here) 33.5 billion acres of usable land in the world for humans. That means in 1900 there were about 21 acres per person available in the world. A family of four, on average, had 84 acres available to them (of course it rarely worked out that way). It was far short, though, of the acreage available per person just two centuries ealier but by 1900 the industrial age was in full bloom. Still, 84 acres for a family of four was not bad.

Let's jump to the year I was born, 1950, when the earth's population had grown to 2.6 billion people. There were billboards in that era that showed a happy family of four driving a brand new American car. The modern world was in full swing. It was the age of oil and the automobile. A few years earlier, major oil reserves were found in Saudi Arabia, and the United States itself seemed awash in oil. Oil was expected to last a long time. In 1950, there were almost 12.9 acres of usable land per person available in the world (remember, the definition of usable land is generous at this point). For a family of four, there were more than 50 acres available in resources. Actually, there was real concern at the time whether agriculture could keep up with the world's growing population. Fortunately, the green revolution would soon arrive and there were still food sources in the ocean to be exploited. The green revolution, however, was to a large extent driven by tools and chemicals that oil and natural gas made possible.

Now we come to the year 2007. The picture is not quite as rosy. There are 6.6 billion people in the world. The world is still growing and there is no immediate prospect that the growth will end anytime soon. But still, there are troubling signs. There are now a little more than 5 acres available per person in the world. And a little more than 20 acres for a family of four. From a little more than 80 acres for a family of four in 1900, we have dropped to 20 acres for a family of four. And that's if we continue with the generous definition of usable land.

Some areas of the world are harsh and yet they are able to sustain low numbers of people. How many more people can the following areas sustain?

Sahara: 3,500,000 square miles (or 2,240,000,000 acres)
Australian Deserts: 1,300,000 square miles
Gobi Desert: 1,295,000 square miles
Greenland: 831,109 square miles
Tibetan Plateau: 604,000 square miles
Canadian Tundra: 300,000 square miles
Saudi Arabia's Empty Quarter: 225,000 square miles

This is far from an exhaustive list though it covers some of the largest areas. Notice that I omitted Siberia only because I couldn't find a consistent number, but any population density map shows, for the most part, the vast emptiness of the northern part of Siberia. Also, I omitted considering the hodgepodge of deserts in the western United States. Subtract all these areas from the Sahara to the Gobi Desert to Greenland that are unlikely anytime soon to have large populations and the land available per person drops significantly. One should also point out that large areas are being turned into deserts by poor agricultural and grazing methods.

What about the ocean? Can the ocean be a source of future growth? Perhaps. But the sad truth we've been discovering for the last few decades is that the ocean's natural supply of food is not inexhaustible. Just as we have overgrazed large areas of the earth, we have also overgrazed the oceans and there are now restrictions in many areas of the world on what can be harvested by the fishing industry.

Population alone is a problem. The earth's ability to absorb the pollution of the last hundred years, and particularly the last fifty or so, is limited. The damaged ozone layer was proof that there are sufficient numbers of humans to affect the environment on a global scale. When it comes to carbon dioxide alone, the earth is simply unable to handle the excessive load put out by human behavior. And now a problem is clearly on the horizon that has been ignored, for the most part, by the United States for the last thirty years: there may not be enough oil or alternative energy to sustain our current way of living.

I'm optimistic that some kind of modern living can still exist but not if we continue to ignore the abyss that lays before us. Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska is famous for wanting massive federal funding to build a 'bridge to nowhere.' That is a perfect metaphor for the way business in our country is being conducted these days. But we in the United States are not the only ones facing the abyss. Fortunately, the Europeans and the Chinese are far more aware of some of these problems than we are, though the Europeans are the ones who seem to be the most forward thinking.

US leadership is needed on a growing list of issues facing the world. Rather than face these problems, we have an incompetent president and an ideologically rigid political party caught up in a war, and possibly a series of wars, that our country and the world do not need. Time is becoming critical. Our economy at this time is not capable of turning on a dime though that is nearly what happened during World War Two. We forget that change takes time. It took decades to build the railroads. It took years to get an interstate highway system built. It will take years to make changes simply to survive the next twenty years with our economy reasonably intact.

We are entering an era that will still have its billionaires and multimillionaires who don't see what the problem is and who will fund ridiculous campaigns for whatever nonsense they seem driven by, but average Americans are the ones who will lose the most if our country doesn't find a way to take more responsibility for its future. Responsibility cuts many ways and perhaps the most important area for responsibility is the individual and family and local level. I'm going to admit something terrible: I don't have the answers and I don't really know anyone who does. But there are hundreds of small answers that may help all of us get through the coming years. Many of us, including myself, are going to have to change habits. We're going to have to think about what we're doing and learn new tricks for survival and new tricks for simply being a human being.

The US economy has enormous momentum. Metaphorically speaking, if someone turned off the locomotive that drives the US economy, the economy would go on for miles before anyone would likely notice something was wrong. But something has been wrong for many years. Is there really hope for the future? Maybe. But the terrible truth is that no one really knows. But if there is hope, we're already on the wrong track. And that has to change. Maybe we're not so much on the bridge to nowhere as on the bridge to the exhausting turmoil of some past era like the 17th century. If so, there are already many Americans who want to get off and find a way, if possible, to build a bridge to the 22nd century.

This is not an abstract situation. It is real. Almost everyone knows a child or people who know a child who is in grammar school. The children of those children will live to the 22nd century. If there's a way, we need to give them a chance. But it's not a certain thing. That's how close we are to the abyss. That's how much things have changed in the last fifty years.

Humans have always thrived when they help one another. This doesn't mean the powerful scratching each other's backs while ignoring millions of people. It's clear that there are some Americans and people elsewhere who would choose a much harsher course for the future; such a course would mean losing the best of what we are; it would mean ignoring the valuable lessons since the founding of our country. In World War Two, the American people won the war. Roosevelt may have been the president but he is one who unlocked the genius of our people. That genius was found everywhere from assembly line workers to army engineers to decent business people who discovered their companies could do far more than they had ever dreamed. The kind of largely incompetent wheeler-dealers who whine about taxes or buttonhole politicians for favors or try to fatten their wallets at the expense of flawed products that kill our soldiers or our workers or our children did not win that war. And yet, today, more and more of these self-centered cavaliers are in charge of our country. There will be no future with such people in charge. We need reform. Our future requires reform. We are in crisis and it's time we admit it.

Some Thoughts on the American Crisis

First, let me say that the American Crisis has two parts. The first part is a leadership crisis that can be traced largely to the Republican Party and its habit of talking tough while obstructing any reasonable proposal to deal with a long list of problems; no one excels at this form of failed leadership more than George W. Bush. But the Republicans are not the only part of the leadership crisis. Democrats have not led as well as they might have over the last eight years though many Democrats can deal very effectively with various problems if given the chance; part of the problem with Democrats is that the party is slowed down by elements who pay more attention to polls than to leading. Many Democrats have also been somewhat paralyzed by the Republican Noise Machine that is heavily financed by right-wing elements. The other leadership problem in the United States is a media that lives for the next quarterly report and no longer acts as a balance against the political nonsense that will always come out of Washington or any other national capital.

Leadership is one side of the American crisis and it overwhelmingly affects the other part of the crisis we are facing. First of all, the American Crisis (yes, it's time for caps) is also, in many respects, the World Crisis. We are facing a rather daunting list of growing problems that are largely going unaddressed. And that itself is a major component of the crisis. Global warming, pollution, overpopulation, food resource issues, water shortages and a very serious and growing energy problem are just a few of the issues that are far from getting the attention necessary in Washington. And these problems are certainly not getting the attention from American businesses that they should despite the somewhat irrational belief that free enterprise can, all by itself, deal with these issues. If the media is more concerned with its quarterly reports, most American corporations are no better. I see signs of some business people beginning to think more seriously about a range of issues but we have to judge these things by action and not by words. Words have been used too often by politicians and business people to put off actually doing something.

The dog and pony show put on by President Bush to postpone once again any serious decisions regarding Iraq was embarrassing. It was words designed to change the subject, avoid realistic decision making and wave the flag as a way of avoiding responsible action. Americans are becoming less susceptible to this kind of nonsense and yet Bush's numbers went up a notch or two. Of course, a week after the nonsense, we see a headline like this that completely gives the lie to Bush's phony optimism:

US officials were barred on Wednesday from travelling by land outside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone amid fears of attacks after the alleged killing of civilians by private security firm Blackwater.

The suspension came as Washington grappled with ways to curb the damage from Sunday's clash in which Blackwater guards escorting US embassy officials opened fire in a Baghdad neighbourhood, killing 10 people and wounding 13.

Blackwater denies any wrongdoing but a top Iraqi judge has said the US firm, one of the largest private security operators in Iraq, could face trial.

The president and his Republican friends in Congress are still unable to answer two straightforward questions: what are we doing in Iraq and what realistic, doable goal are we trying to accomplish? A majority of the country still awaits an answer.

In spirit, at least much of the time, I favor some of the things that Moveon.org has been doing over the last seven years. But playing the Republican game of overly cute snark doesn't get our country focused on any particular element of the many problems we are facing, the fiasco in Iraq simply being just one of those problems. The ad on Petraeus ignored the fundamental problem of Iraq: the problem is Bush. This is Bush's war. If Moveon.org wanted to expand on that, the problem then is Bush and Cheney and their mutually reinforcing political philosophy that is at odds with what this nation stands for. Bush and Cheney have not only given us a war our nation did not need, but they have ignored a host of other problems largely by insisting the problems don't exist. A little further expansion on relevant criticism would include the obstructionist Republicans in the House and Senate who have chosen to ignore a majority of Americans demanding a change in course and some serious reform in Washington. General Petraeus is far down the list of issues that might be raised; he wasn't even a major figure until the last year. President Bush has the option of ignoring experienced generals and finding new generals who suit his purposes. Read that last sentence again because it's all one needs to know that the problem is Bush. Bush, of course, would like nothing more than to pin his problems on a general. I understand quite clearly the frustration felt by many progressives as the leadership of our nation continues to drift but it is important to stay focused.

The American Crisis is very much about an inability to come to grips with the issues of our times. If Moveon.org got carried away with its rhetoric, the Republican far right offers ten times the nonsense every day of the week. The actress, Sally Fields, is now the latest to suffer the slings and arrows of the Republican Smear Machine. Think Progress has the story:

Since actress Sally Field won an Emmy and spoke out against the Iraq war in her acceptance speech, the right wing has been on the attack. In addition to Fox censoring her speech, conservatives continue to criticize Field for speaking out.

Taking the slander to a very personal level, right-wing blogger Michelle Malkin attacked Field’s parenting skills with a column in the National Review entitled “Sally Field Does Not Speak For Me.”

Here's a case where right wingers are becoming caricatures of themselves. I started reading the post and burst out laughing. Republican right wingers are attacking "The Flying Nun!" They're smearing Gidget! They're trying to body tackle a slim five-foot woman! Suffice to say, much of our nation has gone stark raving mad.

Meanwhile the price of oil is $83 a barrel. Healthcare is a mess. Real wages are falling as fictitious numbers are posted on inflation. The president is deliberately kicking the can down the road on Iraq. Global warming is real and much of our nation refuses to acknowledge the reality of the problem. American innovation, while still leading the world, is actually slipping (see this month's Discover). Wheat prices are sky high. Corn prices too are going up as we gear up for an ethanol industry that is far from solving a host of problems. Mortgages, despite a significant rate drop, are going to continue to be a problem. Our infrastructure is crumbling. Various nations are increasingly making noise that suggests we're on the verge of a new arms race. And throughout the world, including inside our own country, American leadership is AWOL.

Until Republicans repair their party, I expect nothing from them. In the meantime, it's vital that the rest of the nation recognize that we have a crisis and a host of problems. We are in need of major changes and reform just like the changes and reforms that have moved our nation forward every twenty to fifty years since our founding. What I'm writing here are just quick notes and I hope to elaborate more on these thoughts over the next few months. My time is limited but there are two themes I offer to those with more time, particularly those who are bloggers. First, protect your credibility. Don't let Republicans drag you into exasperation and hyperbole. Second, focus on the essential problems that are mounting. There is profound pathology in our country right now and much of that pathology can be found in people avoiding the real problems facing us so that they can enjoy their illusions or make a few extra bucks. The Republican Party talks tough and then hides its head in the sand. One advantage to Republicans of the war in Iraq is that it's a convenient issue to talk about appeasement while appeasement on a host of much more serious problems defines much of the Republican Party's behavior these days. So stay focused on the bigger problems. They are coming. And they will bite. But there is much we can do, if we are willing.

The Greatest Danger to America

The greatest danger to America is not al Qaida or radical Islam or even terrorism. The greatest threat is an increasingly dysfunctional government. A dysfunctional government cannot deal effectively with terrorism or any of the other important issues facing our nation.

One of the Republican mythologies that has too often gone unchallenged in the last twenty years is the notion that Ronald Reagan 'defeated' the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union was a serious adversary at the height of its power but it was never the hysterical threat that fearful right wingers made it out to be. The hysteria of the right was even noted by President Eisenhower who observed the coincidence of the growing economic and political interests of America's defense industry which clearly benefited from that hysteria (there used to be jokes in Washington about how that hysteria was most obvious at budget time).

The CIA did several studies of the Soviet Union in the decades that followed World War Two. One of the things that became apparent were the many ethnic, political and economic contradictions of the Soviet Union. In the late 1970s, before Reagan in other words, the CIA predicted that the Soviet Union would eventually collapse because of its internal contradictions. Two of the things that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union were rampant corruption and incompetence. The incompetence was to some extent a direct result of the ideological rigidity of the leadership of the Soviet Union. The collapse of the Soviet Union had less to do with communism than the rigidity which made it nearly impossible to react to changing conditions. In contrast, look at China, which technically is still led by a communist party. After the disasters of the 1950s and 1960s, the pragmatists in China finally gained control and China has become an economic juggernaut, largely because it left its ideology behind in favor of far more realistic and workable policies. There is much that is wrong in China and it's possible that the contradictions that still exist in China, contradictions that the leadership continues to ignore, may eventually undo the gains of recent decades. For one thing, China is having its own problems with corruption. And that too is a lesson for the United States.

The media is still largely asleep about the real dangers that face the United States. In the case of Fox News, of course, we have a media outlet that directly contributes to our own internal contradictions. Fox News legitimizes neoconservative foreign policy fantasies about regime change, it legitimizes hate speech, and it legitimizes business interests who distort scientific research in areas such as global warming, pollution, health, tobacco and so on as a way of avoiding dealing with the changing conditions of the world. The Washington Post is a serious news outlet but it has been sluggish in recent years when it comes to holding President Bush and his advisers accountable despite their recklessness and incompetence and increasingly obvious corruption. Here's The Washington Post's editorial from Friday (via Truthout):

It doesn't much matter whether President Bush was the one who phoned Attorney General John D. Ashcroft's hospital room before the Wednesday Night Ambush in 2004. It matters enormously, however, whether the president was willing to have his White House aides try to strong-arm the gravely ill attorney general into overruling the Justice Department's legal views. It matters enormously whether the president, once that mission failed, was willing nonetheless to proceed with a program whose legality had been called into question by the Justice Department. That is why Mr. Bush's response to questions about the program yesterday was so inadequate.

(snip)

These are important topics for public discussion, and if anyone doubts that they can safely be discussed in public, they need look no further than Mr. Comey's testimony. Instead of doing so, Mr. Bush wants to short-circuit that discussion by invoking the continuing danger of al-Qaeda.

"And so we will put in place programs to protect the American people that honor the civil liberties of our people, and programs that we constantly brief to Congress," Mr. Bush assured the country yesterday, as he brushed off requests for a more detailed account. But this is exactly the point of contention. The administration, it appears from Mr. Comey's testimony, was willing to go forward, against legal advice, with a program that the Justice Department had concluded did not "honor the civil liberties of our people." Nor is it clear that Congress was adequately informed. The president would like to make this unpleasant controversy disappear behind the national security curtain. That cannot be allowed to happen.

Even by the standards of The Washington Post, the editorial is timid but it is at least a step in the right direction. The Washington Post editors have been sluggish about recognizing the scandals and corruption of the White House and Republican Congress. We have, in fact, reached a point where no charge made against the Bush Administration can automatically be dismissed as absurd. That is how bad things have gotten.

One of the most dangerous things Bush has done in the last six years is stuff his administration with people who are not merely loyal but all too often spectacularly incompetent. And too often corrupt. A nation that cannot adapt to the changes that are swiftly beginning to impact it is a nation that is heading for serious trouble.

It is still a fact that the United States is a great nation but there is a real danger of that greatness becoming Republican mythology if we do not protect our democratic institutions along with the pragmatism that came out of those institutions and thereby became an integral part of our economy, science and law. Al Qaida is a problem that must be dealt with—competently. But the reality is that the biggest threat to our country is a dysfunctional government that is crippled by ideological rigidity, fear-mongering, corruption and incompetence.

A Critique of King George By Mark Twain

Along with S.W. Anderson of Oh!Pinion, I've talked about how we seem to have returned to another Gilded Age of corruption and robber barons. Mark Twain lived in the Gilded Age and was a keen observer of the nonsense that took place in that era. Sometimes the best observations of other people's follies are rendered most clearly at a distance, say thirteen hundred years or so. Although set in a long ago imaginary time, Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is very much about the late 19th century and the convenient rules for the wealthy and the inconvenient rules for everyone else.

I could have picked from any number of great passages in the book but I offer here a section on 'freemen,' and in Twain's rendering, since the life and times of the sixth century were and are still not that well understood, he imposes something of the French social model of the 17th century to help us understand a flawed society. By this point in the book, the Connecticut Yankee has done well for himself. On the second day of a 'noble' quest he would prefer not to be on, our Connecticut Yankee is traveling the English countryside with a lady named Sandy when they encounter locals working on the road:

We were off before sunrise, Sandy riding and I limping along behind. In half an hour we came upon a group of ragged poor creatures who had assembled to mend the thing which was regarded as a road. They were as humble as animals to me; and when I proposed to breakfast with them, they were so flattered, so overwhelmed by this extraordinary condescension of mine that at first they were not able to believe that I was in earnest. My lady put up her scornful lip and withdrew to one side; she said in their hearing that she would as soon think of eating with the other cattle—a remark which embarrassed these poor devils merely because it referred to them, and not because it insulted or offended them, for it didn't. And yet they were not slaves, not chattels. By a sarcasm of law and phrase they were freemen. Seven-tenths of the free population of the country were of just their class and degree: small "independent" farmers, artisans, etc.; which is to say, they were the nation, the actual Nation; they were about all of it that was useful, or worth saving, or really respect-worthy; and to subtract them would have been to subtract the Nation and leave behind some dregs, some refuse, in the shape of a king, nobility and gentry, idle, unproductive, acquainted mainly with the arts of wasting and destroying, and of no sort of use or value in any rationally constructed world. And yet, by ingenious contrivance, this gilded minority, instead of being in the tail of the procession where it belonged, was marching head up and banners flying, at the other end of it; had elected itself to be the Nation, and these innumerable clams had permitted it so long that they had come at last to accept it as a truth; and not only that, but to believe it right and as it should be. The priests had told their fathers and themselves that this ironical state of things was ordained of God; and so, not reflecting upon how unlike God it would be to amuse himself with sarcasms, and especially such poor transparent ones as this, they had dropped the matter there and become respectfully quiet.

The talk of these meek people had a strange enough sound in a formerly American ear. They were freemen, but they could not leave the estates of their lord or their bishop without his permission; they could not prepare their own bread, but must have their corn ground and their bread baked at his mill and his bakery, and pay roundly for the same; they could not sell a piece of their own property without paying him a handsome percentage of the proceeds, nor buy a piece of somebody else's without remembering him in cash for the privilege; they had to harvest his grain for him gratis, and be reading to come at a moment's notice, leaving their own crop to destruction by the threatened storm; they had to let him plant fruit trees in their fields, and then keep their indignation to themselves when his heedless fruit gatherers trampled the grain around the trees; they had to smother their anger when his hunting parties galloped through their fields laying waste the result of their patient toil; they were not allowed to keep doves themselves, and when the swarms from my lord's dovecote settled on their crops they must not lose their temper and kill a bird, for awful would the penalty be; when the harvest was at last gathered, then came the procession of robbers to levy their blackmail upon it: first the Church carted off its fat tenth, then the king's commissioner took his twentieth, then my lord's people made a mighty inroad upon the remainder; after which, the skinned freeman had liberty to bestow the remnant in his barn, in case it was worth the trouble; there were taxes, and taxes, and taxes, and more taxes, and taxes again, and yet other taxes—upon this free and independent pauper, but none upon his lord the baron or the bishop, none upon the wasteful nobility or the all-devouring Church; if the baron would sleep unvexed, the freeman must sit up all night after his day's work and whip the ponds to keep the frogs quiet; if the freeman's daughter—but no, that last infamy of monarchical government is unprintable; and finally, if the freeman, grown desperate with his tortures, found his life unendurable under such conditions, and sacrificed it and fled to death for mercy and refuge, the gentle Church condemned him to eternal fire, the gentle law buried him at midnight at the cross-roads with a stake through his back, and his master the baron or the bishop confiscated all his property and turned his widow and his orphans out of doors.

And here were these freemen assembled in the early morning to work on their lord the bishop's road three days each—gratis; every head of a family and every son of a family; three days each, gratis, and a day or so added for their servants. Why, it was like reading about France and the French, before the ever-memorable and blessed Revolution, which swept a thousand years of such villany away in one swift tidal-wave of blood—one: a settlement of that hoary debt in the proportion of half a drop of blood for each hogshead of it that had been pressed by slow tortures out of that people in the weary stretch of ten centuries of wrong and shame and misery the like of which was not to be mated but in hell. ...

These poor ostensible freemen who were sharing their breakfast and their talk with me, were full of humble reverence for their king and Church and nobility as their worst enemy could desire. There was something pitifully ludicrous about it. I asked them if they supposed a nation of people ever existed, who, with a free vote in every man's hand, would elect that a single family and its descendants should reign over it forever, whether gifted or boobies, to the exclusion of all other families—including the voter's; and would also elect that a certain hundred families should be raised to dizzy summits of rank, and clothed-on with offensive transmissible glories and privileges to the exclusion of the rest of the nation's families—including his own.

They all looked unhit, and said they didn't know; that they had never thought about it before, and it hadn't ever occurred to them that a nation could be so situated that every man could have a say in the government. I said I had seen one—and that it would last until it had an Established Church. Again they were all unhit—at first. But presently one man looked up and asked me to state that proposition again; and state it slowly, so it could soak into his understanding. I did it; and after a little he had the idea, and he brought his fist down and said he didn't believe a nation where every man had a vote would voluntarily get down in the mud and dirt in any such way; and that to steal form a nation its will and preference must be a crime and the first of all crimes.

I said to myself: "This one's a man. If I were backed by enough of his sort, I would make a strike for the welfare of this country, and try to prove myself its loyalest citizen by making a wholesome change in its system of government."

You see my kind of loyalty was loyalty to one's country, not to its institutions or its office-holders. The country is the real thing, the substantial thing, the eternal thing; it is the thing to watch over, and care for, and be loyal to; institutions are extraneous, they are its mere clothing, and clothing can wear out, become ragged, cease to be comfortable, cease to protect the body from winter disease, and death. To be loyal to rags, to shout for rags, to worship rags, to die for rags—that is a loyalty of unreason, it is pure animal; it belongs to monarchy, was invented by monarchy; let monarchy keep it. I was from Connecticut, whose Constitution declares "that all political power is inherent in the peoople, and all free governments are founded on their authority and instituted for their benefit; and that they have at all times an undeniable and indefeasible right to alter their form of government in such a manner as they may think expedient."

Under that gospel, the citzen who thinks he sees that the commonwealth's political clothes are worn out, and yet holds his peace and does not agitate for a new suit, is disloyal; he is a traitor. That he may be the only one who thinks he sees this decay, does not excuse him; it is his duty to agitate any way, and it is the duty of the others to vote him down if they do not see the matter as he does.

And now here I was, in a country where a right to say how the country should be governed was restricted to six persons in each thousand of its population. For the nine hundred and ninety-four to express dissatisfaction with the regnant system and propose to change it, would have made the whole six shudder as one man, it would have been so disloyal, so dishonorable, such putrid black treason. So to speak, I was become a stockholder in a corporation where nine hundred and ninety-four of the members furnished all the money and did all the work, and the other six elected themselves a permanent board of direction and took all the dividends. It seemed to me that what the nine hundred and ninety-four dupes needed was a new deal.

New Deal! I grinned when I saw that. That's a good place to stop. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court was published in 1889, the height of the Gilded Age and a few years before a series of reforms began, largely under Teddy Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt. Mark Twain died in 1910, long before many of the reforms our country needed at the time were completed. Republicans these days are, of course, trying to undo many of those reforms.

At this late date, does anyone doubt that we need major reforms in Washington that move us forward again? Change is possible. That's a lesson Americans need to remember from the last 250 years. At least our Connecticut Yankee almost got King Arthur to come around. President George W. Bush, however, will leave office not comprehending how profoundly he has failed the American people. After all, in Bush's mind, his corporate friends and sponsors ought to pat him on his back when he returns to his sprawling ranch in Crawford, Texas. Obviously, we need another round of reforms to spare us from the wreckage of any more MBA presidents.

New Bunker Buster Could Stimulate Arms Race

In the absence of diplomacy, new weapons always run the risk of increasing the likelihood of a worldwide arms race. Arms races in themselves increase the likelihood of war. We know there are people in the defense industry who would gladly welcome such circumstances. We know political insiders have been making money off of Bush's war in Iraq.

I've been watching out of the corner of my eye the development of bunker busters for some time. Here's the story from a month ago on one of the more advanced, non-nuclear models:

Boeing issued a press release today, crowing about the detonation of company's new, ginormous bomb. DANGER ROOM's David Hambling had the lowdown on the test, ten days back...

The U.S. just detonated an absolutely enormous bomb, in an underground test: a king-sized bunker-buster, six times larger than what's currently in the American arsenal.

(snip)

But, unlike competing technologies MOP is very simple and won’t take much work - you just need a big enough plane to carry it (a B-2 should do).

Sometimes you don’t need to actually use a weapon. MOAB was only a prototype, but the video of the test was a potent propaganda weapon. MOP is being funded (to you, $30 million) by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA),which “safeguards America and its allies from weapons of mass destruction by providing capabilities to reduce, eliminate, and counter the threat, and mitigate its effects.” In other words, it’s aimed at WMD sites, especially those dug too deep for the BLU-113. Perhaps this test is a really signal to someone that their deep bunkers are not deep enough.

Given the recklessness and incompetence of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, I'm not sure I appreciate the editorializing in the article. Bunker busters are two-sided swords that risk creating more problems than they solve. There are also strategic considerations that are difficult to discuss on an open blog but those considerations point even more strongly towards the need for comprehensive diplomacy. To be honest, I suspect the chance of war with Iran is probably less than it was fifteen months ago but the chance fifteen months ago wasn't all that small. Bush and Cheney are slowly being boxed in by their own arrogance and increasingly apparent criminality. They know if they go much further in their behavior, such as starting their second illegal war, they run the very real risk of actual prison time. Yet, Iran is a serious international problem and its leaders should think long and hard about how close they are to joining the community of nations before they go much further on the road to nuclear posturing. Nuclear proliferation is no joke and if Iran develops nuclear weapons, all kinds of international rearrangements and diplomacy will likely be necessary.

One thing that should be kept in mind is that real diplomacy in regard to Iran has yet to be tried by the Bush Administration. The odds of war have become less but there are too many variables to rule out military action that leads to a wider war. It may be time for a completely new approach. It's time for the United States and other major industrial powers to sit down with the nations of the Middle East and talk about a simple subject that everyone is avoiding: the finite amount of oil that is left in the oil producing countries of the Middle East and where things should go from here. Everyone, including the industrialized nations, the Third World nations, and the Middle East oil producers have a right to a future: it's time to start talking. And every topic should be on the table in the diplomatic sense. Americans can no longer afford political leaders who play ostrich as the future begins to rush towards us. Our country needs to talk and the world needs to talk.