http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/04/14/solar_electric_thermal/print.html
One of oldest forms of energy used by humans -- sunlight concentrated by mirrors -- is poised to make an astonishing comeback. I believe it will be the most important form of carbon-free power in the 21st century. That's because it's the only form of clean electricity that can meet all the demanding requirements of this century.
------
Well worth a read in my opinion. We have to move beyond coal and oil, it's simply imperative for the economic health of the country. Into the bargain we get a cleaner source of energy the footprint of which is minimal.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Electric Vehicles are Exciting
John Waylon and his car "White Zombie":
Okay, that's cool. But what if to generate all of that "fun" electricity it takes about the same dirty energy as a traditional combustion engine? The most meaningful benefit of electric vehicles is the chance to make a real green difference. That green difference doesn't just happen because you are using an electric car, although that's a huge step in the right direction.
You have to use solar, wind, and hydroelectric as your primary energy sources. Failing that, you might as well burn gasoline.
But, the world doesn't have to be the way that it is...
Okay, that's cool. But what if to generate all of that "fun" electricity it takes about the same dirty energy as a traditional combustion engine? The most meaningful benefit of electric vehicles is the chance to make a real green difference. That green difference doesn't just happen because you are using an electric car, although that's a huge step in the right direction.
You have to use solar, wind, and hydroelectric as your primary energy sources. Failing that, you might as well burn gasoline.
But, the world doesn't have to be the way that it is...
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Thomas Geoghegan on “Infinite Debt: How Unlimited
Interest Rates Destroyed the Economy”
http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/24/thomas_geoghegan_on_infinite_debt_how
Well, we took that stuff off, the thing that was kind of an instinct in human and legal civilization, from the time of the Code of Hammurabi up to the present, and we created all these incentives for money to go into speculation, derivatives, because we addicted the economy to very, very high rates of return by squeezing money out of people. And the way in which we disinvested from the economy was, in my view, not so much globalization or trade as the fact that we had preteens in shopping malls who were running up, you know, debts where they were paying 25, 30 percent interest, when investors could only get five, four, three percent from our globally competitive industry.
...
Well, history—historians like Niall Ferguson, conservative historians and progressive historians, many economic historians, see history as nothing but a turf war between three groups: the manufacturers, workers and the bondholders, or the financial sector. So where does labor fit in in all of this? People lost the ability to get wage increases and got the ability, an incredible ability, really unknown in previous times, to get credit cards with which they had high rates of interest. So, unable to get wage increases, people—or unable to get union cards, really, people got credit cards and began running up these great debts, which addicted the country to high rates of return in the financial sector, so that people were kind of spending their way out of the real economy, pushing more and more money, by the fact that they were going into debt, into this virtual financial sector economy. So, really, the inability of people to raise their own wages and the incredible ease with which they could get credit instead helped create this flow of capital out of manufacturing and into finance. You know, we, the little people in this country, helped finance the bloating up of this financial sector and really the downsizing of our own jobs in the real economy. We sent the signals, you know, to investors to put money into the financial sector and not into the manufacturing sector.
...
If private employers were not paying healthcare costs to the private sector, the private insurance industry, a lot of that money could go for wage increases. It also could make the country much more globally competitive. You know, in this congressional campaign that I just finished, I argued for an increase in Social Security, single payer, basically for the government taking over non-wage labor costs so that the globally competitive parts of the economy could lower their labor costs, hire more employees, people could actually get pay raises, and the government would be assuming these non-wage labor costs, which are so, so important to making the country globally competitive. It’s what many of our high-wage rivals are able to do. And they run trade surpluses; we run trade deficits.
...
AMY GOODMAN: So, what is your recommendation? You make four major points, what you think has to happen now.
THOMAS GEOGHEGAN: Well, my major points change from month to month, and that was some time ago, but I still stick with those that are in the article.
First of all, we ought to have an interest rate cap in this country. Senator Durbin proposed 35 percent, but it should be much lower than that, especially for the banks that we’re bailing out. I’d slash it at least by half.
Second, I think that there should be something in the country like what Europeans, the Germans, in particular, have, the Sparkasse—and I’m probably mispronouncing the German word. Somebody taught me the correct pronunciation of it, but I’ve bungled it. These are state-run banks that make low-interest rate loans to consumers and are a wonderful alternative to the payday lending system that is being put up in most states, soon will be in New York, too, I assure you, but are certainly in California and Illinois.
And third, I think that as long as we’re in the process of bailing out the banks, we’ve got to restructure them. That’s one of several grievances I have against the administration plan. And in particular, at the very least, let’s put aside the issue of nationalization. I think that there should at least be these public guardians on the board of directors who will, from inside the bank—from inside the bank, there has to be a restructuring of these banks to ensure that these banks are much more in the nature of fiduciaries and guardians and do what banks ought to be doing in this country: pushing money into the globally competitive parts of the economy, accepting lower rates of return, not squeezing money from consumers. It’s not enough to have external outside regulation. You have to change the internal corporate structure of the banks. And I think some kind of codetermination with the public at the board level is the way to go.
And finally, I think that we have to inject equity not only into the banks, but to the people who the banks are lending to. We’ve got to make people—we not just have to force the banks to extend credit, we have to make people more creditworthy. And one of the ways of doing that and encouraging future-oriented thinking is, I believe, for the President and the administration right now to make a big point about promising people that if they work for a living in this country, they will get a decent public pension to live on when they retire. So, instead of cutting back on entitlements—and all the veiled sounds coming out of Washington are to that extent—I would increase the replacement rate of Social Security from our very low level now, which is something like 40 percent on average, to the amount that other developed countries pay on average, according to the OECD, which is closer to two-thirds of working income.
------
Everything on this blog is a fall back position from a time when the problems were simpler. There is much to admire in the above excerpts and the whole is worth reading and/or viewing. Here are some ideas we have fallen so far away from that I am not even sure we can return to them. Most people barely understand the purpose of these ideas.
Money should be worth something intrinsically, like gold.
Usury should be illegal or tightly controlled.
Production should push the economy forward not financials.
We are so disconnected from what is real and what is created as legal artifice that we have absolutely lost our connection to labor as the primary mover of any sound economy. We all want to be the rich person benefiting from the labor of others. We imagine ourselves in a position of luxury, if not today then someday soon before we retire.
But labor is the only real economic value. Everything else is a con. The more you believe the fictions that are woven into the fabric of our society, the more you fall back from what is real.
Well, we took that stuff off, the thing that was kind of an instinct in human and legal civilization, from the time of the Code of Hammurabi up to the present, and we created all these incentives for money to go into speculation, derivatives, because we addicted the economy to very, very high rates of return by squeezing money out of people. And the way in which we disinvested from the economy was, in my view, not so much globalization or trade as the fact that we had preteens in shopping malls who were running up, you know, debts where they were paying 25, 30 percent interest, when investors could only get five, four, three percent from our globally competitive industry.
...
Well, history—historians like Niall Ferguson, conservative historians and progressive historians, many economic historians, see history as nothing but a turf war between three groups: the manufacturers, workers and the bondholders, or the financial sector. So where does labor fit in in all of this? People lost the ability to get wage increases and got the ability, an incredible ability, really unknown in previous times, to get credit cards with which they had high rates of interest. So, unable to get wage increases, people—or unable to get union cards, really, people got credit cards and began running up these great debts, which addicted the country to high rates of return in the financial sector, so that people were kind of spending their way out of the real economy, pushing more and more money, by the fact that they were going into debt, into this virtual financial sector economy. So, really, the inability of people to raise their own wages and the incredible ease with which they could get credit instead helped create this flow of capital out of manufacturing and into finance. You know, we, the little people in this country, helped finance the bloating up of this financial sector and really the downsizing of our own jobs in the real economy. We sent the signals, you know, to investors to put money into the financial sector and not into the manufacturing sector.
...
If private employers were not paying healthcare costs to the private sector, the private insurance industry, a lot of that money could go for wage increases. It also could make the country much more globally competitive. You know, in this congressional campaign that I just finished, I argued for an increase in Social Security, single payer, basically for the government taking over non-wage labor costs so that the globally competitive parts of the economy could lower their labor costs, hire more employees, people could actually get pay raises, and the government would be assuming these non-wage labor costs, which are so, so important to making the country globally competitive. It’s what many of our high-wage rivals are able to do. And they run trade surpluses; we run trade deficits.
...
AMY GOODMAN: So, what is your recommendation? You make four major points, what you think has to happen now.
THOMAS GEOGHEGAN: Well, my major points change from month to month, and that was some time ago, but I still stick with those that are in the article.
First of all, we ought to have an interest rate cap in this country. Senator Durbin proposed 35 percent, but it should be much lower than that, especially for the banks that we’re bailing out. I’d slash it at least by half.
Second, I think that there should be something in the country like what Europeans, the Germans, in particular, have, the Sparkasse—and I’m probably mispronouncing the German word. Somebody taught me the correct pronunciation of it, but I’ve bungled it. These are state-run banks that make low-interest rate loans to consumers and are a wonderful alternative to the payday lending system that is being put up in most states, soon will be in New York, too, I assure you, but are certainly in California and Illinois.
And third, I think that as long as we’re in the process of bailing out the banks, we’ve got to restructure them. That’s one of several grievances I have against the administration plan. And in particular, at the very least, let’s put aside the issue of nationalization. I think that there should at least be these public guardians on the board of directors who will, from inside the bank—from inside the bank, there has to be a restructuring of these banks to ensure that these banks are much more in the nature of fiduciaries and guardians and do what banks ought to be doing in this country: pushing money into the globally competitive parts of the economy, accepting lower rates of return, not squeezing money from consumers. It’s not enough to have external outside regulation. You have to change the internal corporate structure of the banks. And I think some kind of codetermination with the public at the board level is the way to go.
And finally, I think that we have to inject equity not only into the banks, but to the people who the banks are lending to. We’ve got to make people—we not just have to force the banks to extend credit, we have to make people more creditworthy. And one of the ways of doing that and encouraging future-oriented thinking is, I believe, for the President and the administration right now to make a big point about promising people that if they work for a living in this country, they will get a decent public pension to live on when they retire. So, instead of cutting back on entitlements—and all the veiled sounds coming out of Washington are to that extent—I would increase the replacement rate of Social Security from our very low level now, which is something like 40 percent on average, to the amount that other developed countries pay on average, according to the OECD, which is closer to two-thirds of working income.
------
Everything on this blog is a fall back position from a time when the problems were simpler. There is much to admire in the above excerpts and the whole is worth reading and/or viewing. Here are some ideas we have fallen so far away from that I am not even sure we can return to them. Most people barely understand the purpose of these ideas.
Money should be worth something intrinsically, like gold.
Usury should be illegal or tightly controlled.
Production should push the economy forward not financials.
We are so disconnected from what is real and what is created as legal artifice that we have absolutely lost our connection to labor as the primary mover of any sound economy. We all want to be the rich person benefiting from the labor of others. We imagine ourselves in a position of luxury, if not today then someday soon before we retire.
But labor is the only real economic value. Everything else is a con. The more you believe the fictions that are woven into the fabric of our society, the more you fall back from what is real.
The Big Takeover
Video Primer:
The article itself:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
...
Grayson pressed on, demanding to know on what terms the Fed was lending the money. Presumably it was buying assets and making loans, but no one knew how it was pricing those assets — in other words, no one knew what kind of deal it was striking on behalf of taxpayers. So when Grayson asked if the purchased assets were "marked to market" — a methodology that assigns a concrete value to assets, based on the market rate on the day they are traded — Kohn answered, mysteriously, "The ones that have market values are marked to market." The implication was that the Fed was purchasing derivatives like credit swaps or other instruments that were basically impossible to value objectively — paying real money for God knows what.
"Well, how much of them don't have market values?" asked Grayson. "How much of them are worthless?"
"None are worthless," Kohn snapped.
"Then why don't you mark them to market?" Grayson demanded.
"Well," Kohn sighed, "we are marking the ones to market that have market values."
In essence, the Fed was telling Congress to lay off and let the experts handle things. "It's like buying a car in a used-car lot without opening the hood, and saying, 'I think it's fine,'" says Dan Fuss, an analyst with the investment firm Loomis Sayles. "The salesman says, 'Don't worry about it. Trust me.' It'll probably get us out of the lot, but how much farther? None of us knows."
------
I find Matt Taibbi a bit shrill and uneven at times but that article is a good solid read. I haven't fact checked it exhaustively, but it's correct in the main in its retelling of the economic disaster that now burdens us.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
The article itself:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/26793903/the_big_takeover/print
The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's about power. How Wall Street insiders are using the bailout to stage a revolution
...
Grayson pressed on, demanding to know on what terms the Fed was lending the money. Presumably it was buying assets and making loans, but no one knew how it was pricing those assets — in other words, no one knew what kind of deal it was striking on behalf of taxpayers. So when Grayson asked if the purchased assets were "marked to market" — a methodology that assigns a concrete value to assets, based on the market rate on the day they are traded — Kohn answered, mysteriously, "The ones that have market values are marked to market." The implication was that the Fed was purchasing derivatives like credit swaps or other instruments that were basically impossible to value objectively — paying real money for God knows what.
"Well, how much of them don't have market values?" asked Grayson. "How much of them are worthless?"
"None are worthless," Kohn snapped.
"Then why don't you mark them to market?" Grayson demanded.
"Well," Kohn sighed, "we are marking the ones to market that have market values."
In essence, the Fed was telling Congress to lay off and let the experts handle things. "It's like buying a car in a used-car lot without opening the hood, and saying, 'I think it's fine,'" says Dan Fuss, an analyst with the investment firm Loomis Sayles. "The salesman says, 'Don't worry about it. Trust me.' It'll probably get us out of the lot, but how much farther? None of us knows."
------
I find Matt Taibbi a bit shrill and uneven at times but that article is a good solid read. I haven't fact checked it exhaustively, but it's correct in the main in its retelling of the economic disaster that now burdens us.
Economic Ping Pong
The Geithner Plan FAQ
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/03/the-geithner-plan-faq.html
Brad Delong explains the highlights of the Geithner plan.
------
Financial Policy Despair
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/opinion/23krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing.
...
As economic historians can tell you, this is an old story, not that different from dozens of similar crises over the centuries. And there’s a time-honored procedure for dealing with the aftermath of widespread financial failure. It goes like this: the government secures confidence in the system by guaranteeing many (though not necessarily all) bank debts. At the same time, it takes temporary control of truly insolvent banks, in order to clean up their books.
...
The likely cost to taxpayers aside, there’s something strange going on here. By my count, this is the third time Obama administration officials have floated a scheme that is essentially a rehash of the Paulson plan, each time adding a new set of bells and whistles and claiming that they’re doing something completely different. This is starting to look obsessive.
...
You might say, why not try the plan and see what happens? One answer is that time is wasting: every month that we fail to come to grips with the economic crisis another 600,000 jobs are lost.
------
So that's Paul Krugman explaining why this is the same old story from Obama and Co. - give the wealthy folks that have driven our economy to the brink billions and billions of dollars without oversight because *THEY* know how to fix it. If they win, they profit hugely. If they fuck it up all over again, the taxpayers will cover it. Brilliant!
------
I Think Paul Krugman Is Wrong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/03/i-think-paul-krugman-is-wrong.html
I find that a scary sentence to write. If the past decade has taught me anything, it has taught me that mistakes are avoided if you follow two rules:
1. Remember that Paul Krugman is right.
2. If your analysis leads you to conclude that Paul Krugman is wrong, refer to rule #1.
------
And then DeLong goes on to tell you why he's right and Krugman is wrong. The sentence I find a little scary to write reads:
I think Brad Delong is wrong.
Obama had the mandate to nationalize the banks they day he walked into office. Wasting a bunch of time getting there while the economy tanks even further is just idiotic.
What Obama obviously wanted was the same blank check Paulson demanded. And he's getting it even if he is cloaking it better. At the end of the day it's just the same socialized solution for those at the top while everyone else in the U.S. goes begging for the kind of economic justice more readily available elsewhere among the western nations.
Universal healthecare, the green agenda and better educational opportunities are starting to look like distant dreams indeed. After all of this money is squandered on solutions that will not and could not have worked, they will still need even more money to finally nationalize the banks and cover for the toxic assets that are very significantly lower in true market value than anyone imagines right now.
One things that is remarkable about this huge fiasco is how even well informed economists disgree on what to do and why to do it. That goes such a long way to covering the asses of our clueless politicians that I find it actually worrying.
So yeah, this is another follow-up on the countdown to nationalization.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/03/the-geithner-plan-faq.html
Brad Delong explains the highlights of the Geithner plan.
------
Financial Policy Despair
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/23/opinion/23krugman.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
And now Mr. Obama has apparently settled on a financial plan that, in essence, assumes that banks are fundamentally sound and that bankers know what they’re doing.
...
As economic historians can tell you, this is an old story, not that different from dozens of similar crises over the centuries. And there’s a time-honored procedure for dealing with the aftermath of widespread financial failure. It goes like this: the government secures confidence in the system by guaranteeing many (though not necessarily all) bank debts. At the same time, it takes temporary control of truly insolvent banks, in order to clean up their books.
...
The likely cost to taxpayers aside, there’s something strange going on here. By my count, this is the third time Obama administration officials have floated a scheme that is essentially a rehash of the Paulson plan, each time adding a new set of bells and whistles and claiming that they’re doing something completely different. This is starting to look obsessive.
...
You might say, why not try the plan and see what happens? One answer is that time is wasting: every month that we fail to come to grips with the economic crisis another 600,000 jobs are lost.
------
So that's Paul Krugman explaining why this is the same old story from Obama and Co. - give the wealthy folks that have driven our economy to the brink billions and billions of dollars without oversight because *THEY* know how to fix it. If they win, they profit hugely. If they fuck it up all over again, the taxpayers will cover it. Brilliant!
------
I Think Paul Krugman Is Wrong
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/03/i-think-paul-krugman-is-wrong.html
I find that a scary sentence to write. If the past decade has taught me anything, it has taught me that mistakes are avoided if you follow two rules:
1. Remember that Paul Krugman is right.
2. If your analysis leads you to conclude that Paul Krugman is wrong, refer to rule #1.
------
And then DeLong goes on to tell you why he's right and Krugman is wrong. The sentence I find a little scary to write reads:
I think Brad Delong is wrong.
Obama had the mandate to nationalize the banks they day he walked into office. Wasting a bunch of time getting there while the economy tanks even further is just idiotic.
What Obama obviously wanted was the same blank check Paulson demanded. And he's getting it even if he is cloaking it better. At the end of the day it's just the same socialized solution for those at the top while everyone else in the U.S. goes begging for the kind of economic justice more readily available elsewhere among the western nations.
Universal healthecare, the green agenda and better educational opportunities are starting to look like distant dreams indeed. After all of this money is squandered on solutions that will not and could not have worked, they will still need even more money to finally nationalize the banks and cover for the toxic assets that are very significantly lower in true market value than anyone imagines right now.
One things that is remarkable about this huge fiasco is how even well informed economists disgree on what to do and why to do it. That goes such a long way to covering the asses of our clueless politicians that I find it actually worrying.
So yeah, this is another follow-up on the countdown to nationalization.
Brain-Dead Economic Reporting: If Wall Street
Approves of Obama's Plan, It Must Be a Winner!
http://www.alternet.org/workplace/133246/brain-dead_economic_reporting%3A_if_wall_street_approves_of_obama's_plan%2C_it_must_be_a_winner!/?page=entire
Our press corps has discovered an important scoop: Rich people approve of using taxpayer money to help rich people.
------
Please also see:
Who Cares About Wall Street Numbers Anyway?
http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/03/who-cares-about-wall-street-numbers.html
So yeah, this is really just following up on the kind of flagrant collaboration we can expect from U.S. "journalists."
Most people really don't give a shit about Wall Street. Yes, retirement plans pegged to Wall Street are a factor - and a mistake. But really, people don't care.
But they *REALLY* want you to care. A lot!
The rich need your money.
Our press corps has discovered an important scoop: Rich people approve of using taxpayer money to help rich people.
------
Please also see:
Who Cares About Wall Street Numbers Anyway?
http://thebloodofpatriotsandtyrants.blogspot.com/2009/03/who-cares-about-wall-street-numbers.html
So yeah, this is really just following up on the kind of flagrant collaboration we can expect from U.S. "journalists."
Most people really don't give a shit about Wall Street. Yes, retirement plans pegged to Wall Street are a factor - and a mistake. But really, people don't care.
But they *REALLY* want you to care. A lot!
The rich need your money.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Crackers Gettin' Paid!
Chrome only browser left standing after day one of Pwn2Own
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/03/chrome-is-the-only-browser-left-standing-in-pwn2own-contest.ars
A recent contest at CanSecWest, an event that brings together some of the most skilled experts in the security community, has demonstrated that the three most popular browser are susceptible to security bugs despite the vigilance and engineering prowess of their creators. Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer were all exploited during the Pwn2Own competition that took place at the conference. Google's Chrome browser, however, was the only one left standing—a victory that security researchers attribute to its innovative sandbox feature.
...
These contests contribute to the growing culture of commercialism that surrounds the art of exploitation. In an interview with ZDNet, Miller said that the vulnerability he used in the contest was one that he had originally found while preparing for the contest last year. Instead of disclosing it at that time, he decided to save it for the contest this year, because the contest only pays for one bug per year. This is part of his new philosophy, he says, which is that bugs shouldn't be disclosed to vendors for free.
"I never give up free bugs. I have a new campaign. It's called NO MORE FREE BUGS. Vulnerabilities have a market value so it makes no sense to work hard to find a bug, write an exploit and then give it away," Miller told ZDNet. "Apple pays people to do the same job so we know there's value to this work."
------
Make 'em squeal!
I'd feel differently about a project that was entirely open-source and not affiliated with any huge corporation.
Opera - the best and most innovative browser made - was left out of the competition for some reason.
http://arstechnica.com/security/news/2009/03/chrome-is-the-only-browser-left-standing-in-pwn2own-contest.ars
A recent contest at CanSecWest, an event that brings together some of the most skilled experts in the security community, has demonstrated that the three most popular browser are susceptible to security bugs despite the vigilance and engineering prowess of their creators. Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer were all exploited during the Pwn2Own competition that took place at the conference. Google's Chrome browser, however, was the only one left standing—a victory that security researchers attribute to its innovative sandbox feature.
...
These contests contribute to the growing culture of commercialism that surrounds the art of exploitation. In an interview with ZDNet, Miller said that the vulnerability he used in the contest was one that he had originally found while preparing for the contest last year. Instead of disclosing it at that time, he decided to save it for the contest this year, because the contest only pays for one bug per year. This is part of his new philosophy, he says, which is that bugs shouldn't be disclosed to vendors for free.
"I never give up free bugs. I have a new campaign. It's called NO MORE FREE BUGS. Vulnerabilities have a market value so it makes no sense to work hard to find a bug, write an exploit and then give it away," Miller told ZDNet. "Apple pays people to do the same job so we know there's value to this work."
------
Make 'em squeal!
I'd feel differently about a project that was entirely open-source and not affiliated with any huge corporation.
Opera - the best and most innovative browser made - was left out of the competition for some reason.
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