Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 9: Even Worse Than We Thought!

Latest climate change bombshell: Canada has been warming twice as fast as the rest of the world. If you don't believe me, Google it.

Yes indeed. Just one report out of many, from the BBC itself,

Canada warming twice as fast as the rest of the world, report says 

Canada is warming on average at a rate twice as fast as the rest of the world, a new scientific report indicates.

The federal government climate report also warns that changes are already evident in many parts of the country and are projected to intensify.

But wait. As we're reminded time after time by climate scientists, the situation is actually MUCH WORSE. Because China is also warming twice as fast:

Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 8: A Tale of Two Graphs

[The following  is based on a comment I attempted to post on the RealClimate blog around a week ago. So far it has not appeared, either in the comments section or the notorious "Bore Hole," to which unacceptable posts are consigned. To be sure there was no mistake I made another attempt, but once again with no result. I have a feeling I know why, but I'll leave it to those reading here to judge for themselves.]

If no one minds :-) I'd like to return to this contentious issue of correlation. According to the collective wisdom so evident on this blog I'm a hopeless dunce when it comes to this topic. Yet, according  to Wm. Blake, "If a fool were to persist in his folly he would become wise." So this fool has decided to persist.

Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 7: The Climate Science Mystique

When I was in high school some of my favorite classes were science classes: biology, general science, physics, chemistry, etc. And I did really well in all of them. As far as math is concerned, I aced every single class, with a perfect score in each final exam, including the NY State Regents exams. If I hadn't fallen in love head over heels with music, I might well have decided to become a scientist of some sort: a physicist, mathematician, biologist, chemist, astronomer, etc. It never would have occurred to me in a million years, however, to become a climate scientist -- that was simply off my radar. Nor can I imagine any young person of my generation with both a serious interest in science and a real aptitude for it hankering to pursue a career in climate science. Maybe it's just me, but the prospect of doing that sort of research just seems too utterly boring for words.

Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 6: Let Me Count the Ways

This post is going to be very simple, but also, I'm afraid, rather devastating. What follows is a list of some of the most serious problems with the mainstream "climate change" paradigm and some of the many attempts to shore it up. I won't attempt to argue any of these points in any detail, as they have already been argued at length either on this blog or elsewhere, but simply present them in as succinct a manner as possible.

Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 5:Still more "saving hypotheses"

Still more "saving hypotheses" on  the part of true believers.

But first a brief summary of claims I've already debunked:

1. The mid-twentieth century hiatus in global temperatures can be explained by the cooling efffect of industrial aerosols (see the second post in this series).

2. Sea level rise isn't correlated with CO2 emissions, because, according to blogger CCHolley, it's "highly variable about the mean level due to the hydrological cycle," and besides "sea level rise correlating to temperatures has nothing to do with the cause of the temperature rise," and besides "perfect correlation to temperature would not be expected because ice will not stop melting just because warming stopped, it takes time for the ice to reach thermal equilibrium. . ." -- none of which has the slightest bearing on  the fact that it's impossible to claim a cause-effect relation if no correlation exists, for whatever reason (see also the third post in this series.)

3. Evidence that sea level rise has actually declined over the last several years can be explained by the cooling effects of the Mt. Pinatubo eruption, which masked the expected accelaration (see the previous post in this series).

Now for some more examples:

Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 4:Yet another "saving hypothesis"

Despite a significant amount of evidence that would appear to contradict the prevailing theory of "anthropomorphic global warming" (AGW), many activists either dismiss it as "lies" or attempt to explain it away with "saving hypotheses" of the sort we've already encountered in previous posts. I'll be providing several examples of such attempts to explain away the evidence, but since I've been discussing the topic of sea level rise, let's begin with a further consideration of that issue.

Thoughts on Climate Change -- part 3: Sea Level

Violations of Occam's Razor, along the lines examined already in my previous post, are in fact rather common in the "scientific" literature supporting the so-called "consensus" view of climate change. The following excerpt from the previously quoted Wikipedia article on  Occam's Razor states the issue quite succinctly:

[F]or each accepted explanation of a phenomenon, there is always an infinite number of possible and more complex alternatives, because one can always burden failing explanations with ad hoc hypotheses to prevent them from being falsified . . . (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor#Ockham)

The widely accepted notion that sulfur dioxide aerosols from the burning of fossil fuels were responsible for the mid-20th century hiatus in global warming (see previous post) is only one of many similar examples I could provide. In this post, I will focus on a more fundamental issue, that of sea level rise.

Here's what I wrote on this topic in a recent post on the RealClimate blog:

Thoughts on Climate Change - part 2

As I stated in my response on the RealClimate blog, the apparently very reasonable argument presented by CCHolley (see my previous post) raises epistemological issues that call for additional discussion  and analysis. Epistemology, of course, is the philosophy of knowledge and the means by which we may attain  it. While it is sometimes contrasted with metaphysics, if we take the literal meaning of metaphysics, i.e., that which is "prior to physics," into account then  epistemology can be seen as a branch of metaphysics. It's not difficult to see that science must be grounded in certain basic principles that cannot themselves be subject to the usual sort of scientific testing, but must be accepted as "prior" to any type of scientific investigation. Among these, for example, is the employment of simple two-valued logic in the evaluation of any claim. Another example would be Occam's Razor, to which I'll be referring presently.

Thoughts on Climate Change

Haven't posted anything here in a long time, so please forgive the sudden intrusion. I'm here now because I've decided to use this blog as a venue for freely and fully sharing my thoughts on  the extremely controversial topic of climate change without having to worry over whether or not I'm taking up too much bandwidth on someone else's forum. For the last few years I've been posting comments from time to time on the RealClimate blog, a gathering, for the most part, of hard line "climate change" advocates, who usually find me extremely irritating, but can't resist responding to my posts nevertheless. Typically I will post some thought or quote some source that they object to; they will offer what I often consider rather lame responses, so I feel obligated to set them straight, which in turn prompts more responses from them and so it goes until everyone gets either bored or annoyed or frustrated and either I wind up backing off or my posts start getting exiled to their "Bore Hole" (don't ask).

I recently decided that there was no longer any point in continuing a prolonged debate that was going nowhere and promised to cease and desist from further responses on that topic. After making that decision, however, I noticed that one of my most persistent critics had actually posted what appeared to be a sensible response to an objection of mine, grounded in a basic principle of Occam's Razor -- specifically that certain "explanations" offered by certain climate scientists to account for evidence that, on  its face, appeared to falsify their theory, could be understood as what has been called "saving hypotheses," i.e., attempts to save a failing theory by pointing to additional factors that make everything "come out  right." As I see it, the interjection of such factors violates Occam's Razor by introducing unnecessary complications for the sole purpose of rescuing an hypothesis that would otherwise be inconsistent with the evidence.

Consume Mass Quantities!

Caught in the trap of life, man is moved by a field of attraction determined by a flash point where solid forms are destroyed, where the various objects that constitute the world are consumed as in a furnace of light.  -- Georges Bataille

I've been thinking about the good Reverend Earwhigger's emphasis on the consumer as key to solving the present crisis (see previous post) -- but I've come up with a solution very different from what he's proposed. (He shouldn't feel badly, however. He was my inspiration!)

It seems to me that what we need from the consumer is not a boycott (see previous post), but the exact opposite, i.e. exactly what the Gods of Capitalism created the consumer to achieve: consumption. Mass consumption. The consumption of mass quantities. In other words (the words of Bataille): Expenditure Without Reserve!

Did you watch 60 Minutes recently? I'm thinking of the segment hosted by the ever-lovely, ever wise Lesley Stahl, the one on truffles. Did you know that a single meal featuring truffles in a top French restaurant can cost $1,000 or more? So why not go for it? Grab that credit card, hop a flight to Paris, preferably First Class, make your dinner reservation, enjoy your meal, and be sure to spend the rest of your stay in a first class hotel.

Why, you say? Well, let's face it, the world economy is due for a total collapse, but the powers that be are doing everything in their power to delay the inevitable. Meanwhile, since the only arrow in their quivering quiver is spelled "austerity," it seems that their solution is to squeeze every last drop of blood from the 99% in order to protect the vast wealth of the 1%. If things continue along such lines for very much longer (and it looks like they will), then all us ordinary folk, workers, middle class, professionals, ne'er do wells, always do wells, under achievers, over achievers, college grads (with huge debt loads) and high school dropouts (with huge families) alike, will be forced into bankruptcy -- or worse (if you've racked up student debts they won't let you go bankrupt, you'll become their slave).

The longer they kick the can down the road to preserve the "economy" for the banks and the super-rich, the worse it's going to get for the rest of us. So what is needed, if we want to survive, is some strategy to force their hand, i.e., to bring the whole absurd mess down around their necks, Sampson style, as soon as humanly possible. Only then will the spell of the Plutogarchs be broken; only then will society be free to pick up the pieces, recognizing that what is important is not money, but resources, both natural and human, managed by true representatives of the people, not the super-wealthy and their minions, whose wealth will have evaporated into thin air once the money mirage concocted exclusively for their own benefit and at our expense has lifted.

So, who will be our Sampson? In some past posts, I've nominated the workers, and I still think a united international movement of organized workers, aided and abetted by sympathizers among the middle class, professionals, students, etc., could achieve a great deal. However, the Reverend H.C. Earwhigger ridiculed that idea as hopelessly outdated and perhaps he's right. For him, it is the consumer who is all powerful. And I have to admit that on reflection there is definitely some truth in that. But a consumer boycott won't work, because for one thing consumption is already down and for another, consumer boycotts are effective only when very precisely targeted, which means they can only have a very limited effect.

Nevertheless, there IS something we consumers can do to trash the "economy" and I'm not sure why I never thought of that before. What has brought our financial system to the brink of disaster has been reckless borrowing. And because we borrowed so much we are now very cautious about how much we spend and are reluctant to borrow much more. Nevertheless, because the powers that be are now in panic mode and not thinking straight, it is now actually almost as easy to borrow today as it ever was. Just check out those automobile commercials. No money down, easy terms, easy credit no problem. Same with mortgages, which are now selling for the lowest interest rates in history. Same with credit card debt, student debt, etc.

So, we now have it within our power to resume the same destructive process that blew the last bubble, only this time, if we really gird our loins and try, we can blow the damned thing up literally to kingdom come. It will, of course, take organization. Don't try this at home folks, until you're sure you won't be alone. It will require the mobilization of consumers on a vast scale, for sure, in every corner of the world where credit is easily available (in other words, just about everywhere).

Once we are organized, then hold onto your hats. We'll start buying everything in sight, en masse. Need a new car? Why settle for a Ford or Chevy when you can buy an Audi, BMW, or better yet, a Mercedes or Cadillac? Already own a house? Why not buy a summer place, preferably in the Hamptons? Think you can't get the loan? Well think again. The "market," especially the housing market, but also the automobile market, is as starved for attention as a teen age delinquent. Get out that credit card and if that isn't enough, head for your local bank. If they turn you down, try another, I can almost guarantee you'll find some bank eager to loan you just about whatever you want.

Students, don't be shy. Step right up to that admissions office and sign yourself up for the biggest student loan you can get, preferably for the full four years, and at the most expensive Ivy League school that will take you. They'll be down on their knees with gratitude, because a great many of these hallowed institutions are now in deep deep trouble.

If millions of us go on a spree all at once, all at the same time, borrowing to the hilt and buying whatever we damn please, spending like crazy and without reserve, we can send that bubble soaring into the stratosphere. All it will take will be a tiny pea from the tiniest pea shooter you can imagine to bring it down. And all the King's horses and all the King's men will NOT be able to put that damned phoney baloney "economy" together again.

Amen!

Getting Their Attention

My old friend, the Reverend Earwhigger, considers my proposal of an international worker's action to be some sort of romantic pipe dream. As an alternative he's proposed a consumer boycott, which in his view would be much more likely to succeed. He writes, in part, as follows:

An organized consumer boycott? Difficult, improbable, but not exactly pie-in-the-sky. More and more consumers are beginning to understand that they are being exploited. The significance of the fact that 1% control the 99% is beginning to sink in. Unlike global warming, the 1:99 ratio is a "fact" that is accepted by both political camps. People are angry. They might be convinced that withholding their purchasing power could be a way to express it.

Perhaps, just as the labor unions organized one industry after another, consumer boycotts could – at least at first – be targeted. For example, a boycott on buying music. Relatively painless, but effective. A boycott on clicking on internet ads. Again, painless – but imagine what it would do to the Nasdaq numbers. Or a boycott on brand-name cereals in favor of super-market brands. Pretty painless, if somehow the narcissistic brats to whom the stuff is marketed could be induced to come aboard, but effective. . .

Though I'm in agreement with my friend on many points, I have problems with his consumer boycott proposal, because I seriously doubt that many consumers would be willing to participate, at least for very long. What he is recommending would be, at best, a very gradual process through which the 1% would hopefully get progressively worn down over time, as their profits on certain items, such as music, gradually eroded. But their profits are already eroding. And their solution would be the same as before: squeeze the workers, downsize, cut benefits, hire temps or "independent contractors," etc. In their minds there is no other alternative.

On the other hand, as I see it, a call for a general work stoppage could go out very quickly, and if effectively organized could shut large sectors of the economy down for enough time as to make a clear statement that workers are not being fooled and are unwilling to cooperate in their own exploitation. My friend isn't buying it, however:

Sorry, Doc G. Reviving the labor movement? Just a nostalgic pipe dream. Neo-romantic economics. The plutogarchs need workers. Well, yes, but there's no danger of running out of workers. There are billions of potential workers, and they are constantly spawning. Besides, technology actually has diminished the need for labor. What they also need, and what there is a danger of them running out of, is consumers: workers who not only are able to, but are willing to, pass back to them the fruit of their labor.

Yes, this may sound romantic, but it has in fact been done in the past and has in fact worked, very effectively. Worker organization was at its height during the last depression, when there were a great many unemployed workers and when automation in the form of the assembly line was also enabling many companies to cut down on their work forces. It was not a pleasant process, because many employers would hire "scab" replacements, which was why the picket line was invented.

I'm not proposing anything so drastic as unionization, however, at least not at first. A work stoppage of a day or even a week wouldn't give employers a chance to hire -- and train -- replacements, but it would put them on notice that their workers are no longer willing to suffer passively in the face of all these wonderful "austerity" plans that are supposed to solve all problems. I agree that the participation of many US workers would be questionable, given the resentment that's been fomented by movements such as the Tea Party, to which many working class people subscribe.

But there is a whole new generation of younger, more educated workers in this country, the type of people we see every day slaving away in businesses such as Barnes and Noble, Whole Foods, Apple stores, etc., not to mention literally all of our Universities and Colleges, earning maybe if they are lucky, $10 an hour, or $2,000 per class, who might very well understand the situation and be willing to get involved in a movement of this sort. And I think a great many consumers, including students, would be more than willing to support them by boycotting such institutions during such an action. In such a context a consumer boycott would, I think, be effective, but only as a supplement to a worker-based action.

As far as Europe is concerned, I would think the degree of social and economic awareness of most workers on that continent is much higher than in the States, and there have already in fact been several work stoppages and other such actions in Europe -- only they've been limited to individual businesses and/or countries, with no attempt at international coordination.

Just think how utopian the Occupy Wall St. movement sounded prior to its first stunning successes. The key, of course, is organization. But if OWS could get organized, I don't see why a similarly "utopian" labor movement couldn't also get organized. Why not? The difference would be that instead of demonstrations having no immediate effect on the ruling class, we would have labor actions having a very real and immediate effect on their bottom line, something they cannot so easily ignore.

Expenditure Without Reserve

From Federico Garcia Lorca, Theory and Method of the Duende: 

Those dark sounds are the mystery, the roots that cling to the mire that we all know, that we all ignore, but from which comes the very substance of art. ‘Dark sounds’ said the man of the Spanish people, agreeing with Goethe, who in speaking of Paganini hit on a definition of the duende: ‘A mysterious force that everyone feels and no philosopher has explained.’
          So, then, the duende is a force not a labour, a struggle not a thought. I heard an old maestro of the guitar say: ‘The duende is not in the throat: the duende surges up, inside, from the soles of the feet.’ Meaning, it’s not a question of skill, but of a style that’s truly alive: meaning, it’s in the veins: meaning, it’s of the most ancient culture of immediate creation.

From Georges Bataille,  "The Cruel Practice of Art":

Only a few of us, amid the great fabrications of society, hang on to our really childish reactions, still wonder naively what we are doing on the earth and what sort of joke is being played on us. We want to decipher skies and paintings, go behind these starry backgrounds or these painted canvases and, like kids trying to find a gap in a fence, try to look through the cracks in the world. One of these cracks is the cruel custom of sacrifice..

Caught in the trap of life, man is moved by a field of attraction determined by a flash point where solid forms are destroyed, where the various objects that constitute the world are consumed as in a furnace of light. 

From Georges Bataille, The Accursed Share: 

I will simply state, without further ado, that the extension of economic growth itself requires the overturning of economic principles—the overturning of the ethics that grounds them. Changing from the perspectives of restrictive economy to those of general economy actually accomplishes a Copernican transformation: a reversal of thinking—and of ethics. If a part of wealth (subject to a rough estimate) is doomed to destruction or at least to unproductive use without any possible profit, it is logical, even inescapable, to surrender commodities without return. Henceforth, leaving aside pure and simple dissipation, analogous to the construction of the Pyramids, the possibility of pursuing growth is itself subordinated to giving: The industrial development of the entire world demands of Americans that they lucidly grasp the necessity, for an economy such as theirs, of having a margin of profitless operations. An immense industrial network cannot be managed in the same way that one changes a tire... It expresses a circuit of cosmic energy on which it depends, which it cannot limit, and whose laws it cannot ignore without consequences. Woe to those who, to the very end, insist on regulating the movement that exceeds them with the narrow mind of the mechanic who changes a tire.

From Putting Global Capitalism in Its Place: Economic Hybridity, Bataille, and Ritual Expenditure, by Mayfair Mei‐hui Yang: 

What [Bataille] proposed in his enigmatic and mesmerizing book The Accursed Share was that, in our modern capitalist productivism, we have lost sight of this fundamental law of physics and material existence: that the surplus energy and wealth left over after the basic conditions for subsistence, reproduction, and growth have been satisfied must be expended. If this energy is not destroyed, it will erupt of its own in an uncontrolled explosion such as war. Given the tremendous productive power of modern industrial society and the fact that its productivist ethos has cut off virtually all traditional avenues of ritual and festive expenditures, energy surpluses have been redirected to military expenditures for modern warfare on a scale unknown in traditional societies. Bataille thought that the incessant growth machine that is the post-World War II U.S. economy could be deflected from a catastrophic expenditure on violent warfare only by potlatching the entire national economy. In giving away its excess wealth to poorer nations, as in the Marshall Plan to rebuild war-torn Europe, the United States could engage in a nonmilitary rivalry for prestige and influence with the Soviet Union, that other center of industrial modernity’s radical reduction of nonproductive expenditure.14 Thus, Bataille wished to resuscitate an important dimension of the economy, nonproductive expenditure, that has all but disappeared in both capitalist and state socialist modernity.

For Spain

From The Nation:

Seville

The early June performance by the Sevillian flamenco anti-bank protest group FLO6x8 was a direct hit. Days after the announcement of a $23 billion public bailout of Spain’s third-biggest bank, Bankia, three cantaora singers strode into the city center office of the bank and began to bellow out the purest, full-lunged cante jondo, songs of grief, pain and protest of the Andalusian gypsies. Customers looked on, surprised, then impressed. Security guards fidgeted nervously. One singer, nicknamed Prima del Riesgo (Risk Premium, a term on every Spaniard’s lips, as the spread on Spanish bonds rises to unsustainable heights), pushed open the door to the bank manager’s office. “Goirigolzarri! Tell us!” she sang, gesturing with her hands as if money were flowing through her fingers. “Why did you retire? With all the money you’ve spent, we could feed the world.” This was a reference to the new Bankia CEO José Ignacio Goirigolzarri, brought out of early retirement at 55 (on a pension of 3 million euros per year) to manage the biggest government bailout of a bank in Spanish history.

 From  Federico Garcia Lorca, "Theory and Method of the Duende":

Pastora Pavon finished singing in the midst of total silence. There was only a little man, one of those dancing mannikins who leap suddenly out of brandy bottles, who observed sarcastically in a very low voice: "Viva Paris!" As if to say: We are not interested in aptitude or techniques or virtuosity here. We are interested in something else.

Then La niña de los peines got up like a woman possessed, her face blasted like a medieval weeper, tossed off a great glass of Cazalla at a single draught, like a potion of fire, and settled down to singing - without a voice, without breath, without nuance, throat aflame - but with duende! She had contrived to annihilate all that was nonessential in song and make way for an angry and incandescent Duende, friend of sand- laden winds, so that everyone listening tore at his clothing almost in the same rhythm with which the West Indian negroes in their rites rend away their clothes, huddled in heaps before the image of Saint Barbara.

The "Girl with the Combs" had to mangle her voice because she knew there were discriminating folk about who asked not for form, but for the marrow of form - pure music spare enough to keep itself in the air. She had to deny her faculties and her security; that is to say, to turn out her Muse and keep vulnerable, so that her Duende might come and vouchsafe the hand-to-hand struggle. And then how she sang! Her voice feinted no longer; it jetted up like blood, ennobled by sorrow and sincerity, it opened up like ten fingers of a hand around the nailed feet of a Christ by Juan de Juni - tempestuous!

The arrival of the Duende always presupposes a radical change in all the forms as they existed on the old plane. It gives a sense of refreshment unknown until then, together with that quality of the just-opening rose, of the miraculous, which comes and instils an almost religious transport.

In all Arabian music, in the dances, songs, elegies of Arabia, the coming of the Duende is greeted by fervent outcries of Allah! Allah! God! God!, so close to the Olé" Olé! of our bull rings that who is to say they are not actually the same . . .

In every country, death comes as a finality. It comes, and the curtain comes down. But not in Spain! In Spain the curtain goes up. Many people live out their lives between walls until the day they die and are brought out into the sun.

From George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia:

The Anarchists were still in virtual control of Catalonia and the revolution was still in full swing. To anyone who had been there since the beginning it probably seemed even in December or January that the revolutionary period was ending; but when one came straight from England the aspect of Barcelona was something startling and overwhelming. It was the first time that I had ever been in a town where the working class was in the saddle. Practically every building of any size had been seized by the workers and was draped with red flags or with the red and black flag of the Anarchists; every wall was scrawled with the hammer and sickle and with the initials of the revolutionary parties; almost every church had been gutted and its images burnt. . . .
Except for a small number of women and foreigners there were no 'well-dressed' people at all. Practically everyone wore rough working-class clothes, or blue overalls, or some variant of the militia uniform. All this was queer and moving. There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, but I recognized it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. . . .

Oh Don't Ask Why -- more questions

Isn't the main problem unemployment? How would international work stoppages and strikes create more jobs?

The exploitation of workers and unemployment go hand in hand. While the powers that be are continually lamenting the unemployment situation, it is actually in their interest to keep unemployment high. Which is why "austerity" is a euphemism for both low wages and massive layoffs. The more unemployment, the more competition among workers, thus the less influence the workers themselves will have over their jobs and their pay. Employed workers thus have an incentive to strike not only for living wages and decent conditions, but also to send a message that additional firings and layoffs are not acceptable. Moreover, since many among the employed are now being forced to work ever harder, at longer hours (in the interests of "productivity"), improved working conditions at fewer hours (thus lowering "productivity") will incentivize corporations to hire more workers.

More generally, the notion that jobs are what is needed, rather than a decent, rewarding way of life for all, is in itself a perversion, more smoke and mirrors intended to confuse working people regarding their own needs and desires. No one needs a "job." What is needed is a meaningful and rewarding lifestyle. Most people are willing to work, and even work hard, in order to achieve such a lifestyle, but work (aka a "job") has never been an end in itself for anyone. The responsibility of government, i.e., society as a whole, is to work to ensure a meaningful and rewarding life for all those willing to make the effort to cooperate in the realization of such a goal. The key, therefore, is not work per se, but cooperation. If there are not enough "jobs," then there are certainly more than enough ways for people to contribute meaningfully to the society in which they live. Not everything need be measured in terms of work hours and money.

If we are to improve the lot of all people, by fighting for living wages and better working conditions, resisting the push for austerity, growth, productivity, and placing less emphasis on "jobs" per se in favor of a meaningful lifestyle, where is the money going to come from to pay for all this?

We are living in an era of vast wealth, probably more than at any time in history. A recent issue of Forbes magazine lists all billionaires now living, 10 per page, with 123 pages total -- 1,230 in all. Highest on the list is Carlos Slim, who alone possesses 69 billion, more than the entire Lithuanian GDP. According to the Wall St. Journal, the USA alone had 3,100,000 millionaires in 2010. There is more than enough money to cover the costs of an improved way of life for every man, woman and child in the world, but that money will not be made available for that purpose, unless those who control this vast wealth can be persuaded it is in their own interest to do so. In my opinion it is. But it will take some drastic measures to convince them, that's for sure.

Oh Don't Ask Why

No doubt the last few posts have raised a lot of questions. I'll try to answer some of them here:

Given the current fragility of the Euro zone, isn't there a risk that a European work stoppage could cause the Euro to collapse?

Yes. Of course. That would be the point -- to bring it down, to force it to collapse. Why not? It's going to collapse anyhow, of its own weight. But the longer that takes, the harder it's going to be for workers throughout the zone. And every indication is that the leaders, who are after all part of the 1%, are going to draw out the painful process indefinitely. A Europe-wide united labor action would force the issue, thus freeing workers from the grip of an increasingly intolerable "austerity." 

How can workers organize on a worldwide basis when the cost of labor varies so greatly from one part of the world to the other?

Yes, third world labor costs far less than first world labor, and as a result European and American workers are finding it more and more difficult to compete with Asiatic, Middle Eastern and African workers -- which makes both groups increasingly vulnerable to exploitation by globally based corporations. If we look more closely, however, we will see that the differences are not as great as they may seem. While American workers earn far more in US dollars than Asiatic workers, Asiatic workers can buy a whole lot more with each dollar (or its equivalent) than Americans.

Thus, Chinese workers, for example, have a far greater savings rate, a high level of home ownership, and far less mortgage debt. In fact they have very little debt at all. I'm not saying they have as much spending power as US workers, because most Chinese still earn less than we do, and have far fewer choices as consumers. Nevertheless, the income discrepancy is not as high as it might seem. What makes them so competitive with US or European workers is the largely the discrepancy in the value of the Chinese currency compared with the dollar, euro or pound.

So in principle the competition isn't really that great. It's largely the result of distortions introduced by a monetary system that favors "cheap" Asiatic labor and gives a huge advantage to large corporations capable of moving their operations anywhere in the world. The monetary system and the corporations work in tandem as part of a process through which all workers are exploited. So the goal of a united world workforce is to promote the collapse of that system, not cooperate in (futile) efforts to delay its (in any case inevitable) collapse. Once it collapses, a more logical and equible economic system, based on the production and distribution of resources, will be possible.

(more later)

Ritual of Purification

I visited Mexico City in 1997, and was immediately robbed, at the very impressive new bus terminal, almost as soon as I arrived. (The first-class bus I traveled in was excellent, state of the art, with air conditioning -- unusual at the time even on US buses -- and even a movie, just like on a plane.) While visiting with a friend, I noticed that all the streets in his neighborhood had gates, manned by security guards. This wasn't simply a "gated community," but an ordinary middle class neighborhood. Every single street was gated, as were many such streets in many other neighborhoods throughout the city. I'd never seen anything like it before, but for my friend it was, of course, nothing special.

Overall, Mexico City impressed me. Much of it is very beautiful. I visited the University, the art museum and also a special museum devoted to the work of one of my favorite artists, David Siqueiros. And at my request, my friend and his father took me on an outing to Teotihuacan, one of the most spectacular ancient cities in the world.

Though I enjoyed my stay in Mexico City, I couldn't help but notice the many signs of truly dire poverty visible all around me. What struck me especially were the large number of what appeared to be homeless boys roaming around the streets. I became fascinated by a group of boys working as windshield washers, a mode of "employment" one step removed from outright begging. I'd seen this sort of thing before in New York City, but never on this scale. What impressed me especially was the diligence of these boys, and the relation between them and the drivers. Unlike New York, they never forced themselves on anyone, never began to wash a windshield without a signal from the driver.

This phenomenon deeply moved me. There was something very touching about the care these boys took to clean each windshield as carefully as possible, and something touching as well about the indulgence of the drivers and their patience with the boys. In New York, drivers are typically irritated when someone with a rag comes up to their car, but in Mexico the situation was very different, possibly because poverty was already so much of a fixture of everyday life that no one was any more bothered by it.

I was moved but also deeply disturbed. On the surface, there was something truly beautiful about it, almost like a ritual, but when I tried to project myself into the mind of one of these boys, continually repeating the same delicate task over and over again for hours on end, it was almost impossible to imagine. On the one hand, there was something Zenlike about it, a form of meditation. On the other hand, it was imprisonment or even torture, a kind of self-flagellation.

Obsessed by images I couldn't get out of my head, I decided to write about it, or more accurately, write my way through it, by producing a kind of poetic incantation. As I began to write what struck me was that, on the one hand, I was creating something almost like an avant-garde prose poem, a kind of minimalist poetry I suppose, but on the other hand, I was reporting as accurately as I could exactly what I had observed. I began with the intention of making this go on for many pages, to convey as real a sense as possible of what these boys experienced day in day out, just to survive. But I didn't get very far. Just writing it was too difficult, so imagine what living it was like. Here's as much as I had the courage to do:

The boy waited patiently for a sign. When the sign came, he lifted the bottle and sprayed. A soapy liquid appeared on the glass. The boy lifted his squeegee and patiently skimmed the soapy liquid off the glass. Patiently he held out his hand for the coin. When the coin appeared he tucked it into his pocket and said “gracias” and waited patiently for another sign. The sign came, but this time from the other side of the street. Traffic was heavy so he had to move quickly. Upon reaching the auto, he lifted his bottle and sprayed the soapy liquid onto the glass. Patiently he lifted the squeegee and skimmed the soapy liquid from the surface of the glass. When he was done, he held out his hand for the coin. But it slipped from his hand and he had to dive down between two cars to retrieve it. The light changed. Traffic began to move. He found the coin and quickly thrust it into his pocket. Patiently he waited for the light to change. A woman signaled him from a red convertible. She smiled. He smiled back at her, then lifted the bottle patiently and sprayed a soapy liquid onto her windshield. Then, lifting his squeegee, he skimmed the liquid from the glass, smiled again and held out his hand. She smiled and handed him two coins. She was pleased. He said “gracias” and smiled again, tucking the coins into his pocket. Then he patiently waited for another sign. But the light had changed and the cars were moving. Quickly he slipped out of their way, looking down the line of traffic for another sign.

Imagine repeating this same thing over and over again, with all the many variations the boy would encounter during a long day's work. Imagine writing it, but more important, imagine living it. Day after day after day for an entire childhood.

I forgot all about the boys, and my truncated "poem," until recently when reading for the umpteenth time about the so-called Mexican drug wars, and it suddenly occurred to me: where are all these boys now and what are they doing? I wonder how many survived, and if so, how. When poverty of this depth and on this scale is accepted simply as a fact of life and nothing is done to alleviate it, then it seems to me this is going to have consequences for society as a whole. We see it now in Mexico and I see it coming in the USA.

David Alfaro Siqueiros -- Echo of the Scream

Acting from a Position of Strength

I just now posted the following on the Occupy Wall St. forum. Since it's based on what I've been writing on this blog, I decided to post it here as well:

Occupy Wall St. has done a great job of mobilizing support worldwide, especially among the young, and making the world aware of the debilitating effects of inequality on the social fabric. Unfortunately, the powers that be (i.e., the oligarchs, plutocrats and the politicians controlled by them) are not about to relinquish any fraction of their power simply because a bunch of latter day "hippies" is upset.

I learned myself, from bitter experience during the 60's and 70's, that you can shame, blame and embarrass the ruling class as much as you like, but that in itself will not have much of an effect on their actions.

If the impetus behind OWS seems now to be a bit stalled, it may well be due to the sad reality that the 1% see no reason to either share any of their wealth or give up any of their power, even in the face of massive protests and embarrassing media exposure. Nor is it likely that more aggressive, or even violent actions will make any real difference. Despite the fact that they are hugely outnumbered by the 99%, their power, economic, political, and military, is far greater than that of all of us combined -- many times over, in fact.

Was it Sun Tzu who wrote, in The Art of War, "never attack from a position of weakness"? From years of bitter experience I know that to be true. Which does not mean I lost my battles. Only that I chose them carefully, and learned to act only from a position of strength.

So. The question now is: how would it be possible for the 99% to act from a position of strength rather than weakness? My answer: there is only one force in the world, as far as I can tell, powerful enough to stand up against the forces of greed, manipulation and exploitation, and that is, very simply, the workers. The workers of the world, to coin a phrase. Workers are the ultimate source of the wealth accumulated by the oligarchy and also its secret vulnerability. It's only vulnerability, as far as I can see.

The workers of the world are a sleeping giant, though this is something they seem blissfully unaware of, so we rarely hear from them these days. They have been all too ready to accept the line handed out to them, as today in Europe, that the so-called "economic crisis" is largely their fault. They borrowed too much, demanded too many benefits, high wages, pensions, their unions made too many demands.

So now they are being called on to save "the world as we know it" by accepting "austerity," a euphemism for crushing exploitation. And this is true also not only for Europe but the entire world, the Americas, Asia, Africa, the Middle East, everywhere. The world over, workers are being duped into competing with one another for crumbs.

If these workers could manage to organize, just as the great labor unions organized early in the 20th Century, they would be capable of acting from a position of strength that could rock the world -- and in fact save the powers that be from themselves, since as should be clear, despite all their frantic efforts, their precious "economy" is on a downward spiral into the pit.

A Day of Rest

To summarize: The ultimate cause of the present crisis is not out-of-control borrowing, manipulative and dishonest lending, the US Federal Reserve, the bankers, the hedge funds, the housing bubble, the Euro, etc., though all were and still are contributing factors. The ultimate cause is the overdoing-it of the capitalist "free" market system in its efforts to maximize profits at the expense of workers by opening up a global labor market and thus instituting ruthless competition among workers from different regions of the world with very different modes of compensation. If that sounds confusing, I suggest reading it again, slowly.

Of course the problem is very different depending on which side of the economic divide one is viewing it from. From the viewpoint of the workers, the situation is not all that new, because they have always been squeezed by their bosses -- what is new is the degree to which they are being squeezed, which is rapidly becoming intolerable. When it reaches the breaking point, which it will very soon, then there will no longer be any incentive to work at all. Better to just chuck that hairnet and go back to the farm.

From the viewpoint of the capitalists, however, which is, of course, the only one we ever hear about, what's really important is that, thanks to their excesses in squeezing the last drop of blood from their employees in every corner of the world, they have themselves sown the seeds of their own destruction. Because workers are also consumers, and when consumers are squeezed dry, markets are squeezed dry, and when that happens, then out-of-control borrowing becomes the last resort. And when out-of-control borrowing is no longer possible, the whole system grinds to a halt.

Is it really that simple? I think so. But the capitalists, aided and abetted by the politicians and the media, are unwilling to admit, either to the world at large or even themselves, that the exploitation of workers is the cause of their own downfall, which is why we are hearing so much about borrowing, lending, banking, bubbles and Euros and literally nothing about the role of the working class and its plight. Unable to grasp the root cause of the crisis, the capitalists and their cronies are attempting to solve the problem by doing more of what they have always done: squeeze squeeze squeeze the working class, which presumably has no alternative but to blindly obey. This is true, by the way, not only for those demanding "austerity," but also those pleading for "growth." In either case, the burden will be on the backs of labor.

There is an alternative, however. Which takes us to where I left off in the previous post: "And what can they do to liberate themselves -- and us? Why, what they have always done . . ."

Were you able to fill in the blank? The answer is: organize. And really the best name for the specter currently haunting Europe is not simply "the workers of the world," as I so thoughtlessly stated, but more to the point: organized labor.

The only group that's remained passive throughout this whole fiasco is labor. Not surprising, since ever since the Reagan-Thatcher era, labor and unions have become dirty words, to the point we've arrived at today, where no one, even so-called progressives, wants to talk any more about the "working class." We have all now officially become "middle class." Well, congratulations, folks, you have moved up in the world. How does that make you feel?

Occupy Wall St. seems to have fizzled. The upcoming elections in the US don't hold much promise. I'll be voting for Obama and the rest of the Democratic ticket for sure, but only because the alternative is too scary to contemplate. I've heard talk about forming a new political party, an international party, which might, over time, develop some influence on the various national agendas, but that would take far too much time to develop, assuming it could work at all.

On the other hand, an effort to organize workers on an international scale might be far less difficult and far less time consuming than it might seem. In fact the time seems ripe for it. We are living in the age of the Internet, after all. I would venture to say that there is hardly any industrial worker anywhere in the world without an Internet connection, either of his/her own or that of a friend,. Similarly, I have a feeling that the English language is now sufficiently widespread that communications in this language could be almost universally understood. Anyone who doesn't understand English is almost sure to have a friend, or child, who does.

Where to begin? I think a general one-day work stoppage could be very effective, especially if it were international. Certainly a general "day of rest" honored by a significant portion of the European workforce might make a very effective start, a shot across the bow. I'd like to say we could include American workers, but the full brunt of the crisis is not yet being felt as acutely in the USA as it is elsewhere, so there might not be much of a response. And Chinese workers might be too easily intimidated to respond, I'm not sure.The one-day stoppage could then be followed by longer stoppages, with the ultimate threat of a complete shutdown by all workers everywhere.

In the past, it might take months or years to organize actions of this sort, but the Internet makes it possible to organize very quickly, within a week or so I would think, given an efficient organizational base. Who would do the organizing? Well, OWS may have fizzled, but the people behind it are still around. And judging from their success in organizing all those rather spectacular actions last year, I would think these folks would be ideal. Assuming they are motivated to take this sort of action. I wonder . . .

A Specter is Haunting Europe (Oh, you know why)

No, not THAT specter. And not only in Europe. Read on and you'll see what I mean.

Meanwhile, before I continue, I want to make it perfectly clear (to quote an old adage) that I am NOT interested in hatching a new conspiracy theory. I am not saying the 1% or .1% or .01% got together and conspired to concoct some clever scheme to force impoverished workers into ruthlessly competing with one another by blowing a financial bubble so huge as to ensure the complete and total collapse of  the world economy unless we all agreed to impoverish ourselves through the institution of appropriately harsh austerity measures. For one thing, they aren't smart enough. For another, they don't think like that, because they don't have to think like that. They have better things to think about, such as finding the next whiskey bar -- or the next little dollar -- or the next luxury hotel:



They don't need to plan a conspiracy because the "system" does the planning for them. And by "system" I mean, you know, that wonderful system of "free" market capitalism we all love so dearly.

Also, before I continue, I would like to take back what I wrote earlier about economists who love to explain more than they like to think, because I just discovered a thinking economist, just today, by coincidence, God bless me. More on that presently as well.

Oh and one more thing before I really get started, let's take a look at a fascinating graph, courtesy of the Business Insider (June 22):

Corporate Profit Margins as a Percentage of GDP:

Here's another, from the same source:

Wages, as a Percentage of GDP:

The headline, appropriately enough, reads:

Corporate Profits Just Hit An All-Time High, Wages Just Hit An All-Time Low

This from a business publication.

OK, now finally I'm ready to continue from where I left off in my last post. But first, I need to correct what I just wrote, because, according to the thinking economist I referred to above, there was a conspiracy after all. Who is this thinking economist? Greg Palast. And who is the villain who concocted the conspiracy? A guy named Robert Mundell. In an article in yesterday's Guardian, Palast accuses Mundell of being the evil genius of the euro:

The idea that the euro has "failed" is dangerously naive. The euro is doing exactly what its progenitor – and the wealthy 1%-ers who adopted it – predicted and planned for it to do. . .

That progenitor is former University of Chicago economist Robert Mundell . . . [t]he architect of "supply-side economics" . . . 

[Mundell] cited labor laws, environmental regulations and, of course, taxes. All would be flushed away by the euro. Democracy would not be allowed to interfere with the marketplace . . .

And when crises arise, [according to Mundell] economically disarmed nations have little to do but wipe away government regulations wholesale, privatize state industries en masse, slash taxes and send the European welfare state down the drain.

[Thus,] Mario Draghi, the (unelected) head of the European Central Bank, is calling for "structural reforms" – a euphemism for worker-crushing schemes. They cite the nebulous theory that this "internal devaluation" of each nation will make them all more competitive.

Monti and Draghi cannot credibly explain how, if every country in the Continent cheapens its workforce, any can gain a competitive advantage. But they don't have to explain their policies; they just have to let the markets go to work on each nation's bonds. Hence, currency union is class war by other means. 

So. It's nice to learn I'm not the only one. A bona fide economist with real credentials is saying more or less the same thing. But what I'm not yet hearing, from him or anyone else, is any idea of what to do about this disturbing and disheartening situation.

Occupy Wall St. did its bit, and I supported them. But now they've run out of steam and little wonder. If their sort of passive resistance isn't the answer, then what about outright armed rebellion? Sorry, that won't work either. With respect to any conflict, it is always better to avoid attacking from a position of weakness, best to attack only from a position of strength. That's how the Vietnamese beat us back in the 70's and it holds true today. We aren't armed, and even if we were, the powers that be are far too powerful for armed rebellion to achieve any real and lasting success. Look at what's happening now in Syria, or even what happened in Egypt, when what looked like victory was turned into defeat, because the real powers in that country, the oligarchs and plutocrats, have the army on their side. Why not, they pay it well.

Besides, armed rebellion is always a bad idea, imo, not only when it's futile, because even when it succeeds, too many innocent people get hurt or killed and there are too many things that could go wrong, too many chances for the cause to be betrayed or co-opted.

So, what is to be done? Well, before I answer (I always have an answer), I have to fulfill my promise and explain what I mean by the title of this post. What is the "Specter That is Haunting Europe" (and not only Europe)? The unknown, unsung, routinely ignored, denigrated, chronically underestimated workers of the world. And what can they do to liberate themselves -- and us? Why, what they have always done . . . 

(to be continued)

Workers of the World . . . (oh, you know)

Economists the wide world over are turning themselves inside out trying to explain what's going on. It would be nice if they tried to understand it first. Sure, everyone, poor folk, rich folk, banks, investors, cities, states, whole nations, borrowed much too much, often on outrageously manipulative terms -- and now the debts have multiplied to the point that they can never be repaid. Sounds simple enough. Only no one ever seems interested in figuring out why it was necessary for all these people and all these institutions to borrow so much in the first place.

I've already tried to explain it by using a single word: "immigration." But of course this too is misleading, because the immigration I've been writing about, both literal and figurative, isn't the root cause either. And "immigration" is now a politically charged term, with all sorts of ideological resonances that have little or nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make.

So let's dig a little deeper. What we see time after time in literally all the reports and all the analyses coming from literally all points (though at the moment Europe has become the focus) is over and over again the same idea, expressed in a variety of ways, but always with the same (unstated) meaning: words like "austerity," "growth," "productivity," "competitiveness," phrases such as "budgetary discipline,"  "moral hazard," "growth-enhancing reforms," "market reform," pretty much any call for "reform," reform this, reform that.

When we look more closely and more critically at all these terms, pushing aside the fog of obfuscation, what all the rigmarole amounts to can be encapsulated in the following question: how can we squeeze the absolute maximum amount of blood from our workers at the least possible cost without them figuring out what's really going on?

The root cause of the so-called "economic crisis" was neither banking nor the Euro nor monetary policy, nor fiscal policy, nor the Fed, nor Goldman Sachs, nor J. P. Morgan Chase, etc. (though all the above contributed mightily to the depressing outcome), but the relentless ratcheting up of that age-old resource of the wealthy and privileged: the ruthless and relentless exploitation of labor. Only this time, vast new resources became available via the economic miracle known as "globalization." Capitalism has always had a hard time with competition, which is why so many companies collude with one another to fix prices and control markets -- but competition among workers, why that's another thing, no problem there. The more competition along those lines the merrier. So when all sorts of fresh "human resources," from the remotest corners of the globe became available for exploitation, what better way to exploit them then to force them to compete.

The only problem was that workers are also consumers, so by cutting worker pay to the max, the oligarchs were depriving them of the ability to purchase goods and services. How could manufacturers, home builders, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, universities, investment houses, entrepreneurs, banks, etc., survive without a steady stream of purchases and investments from the very workers whose paychecks were being steadily eroded? Then suddenly out of the blue, a brilliant "innovation" emerged in the form of: easy credit. Let them borrow what we need for them to have so they can pay us through the nose even when they can't afford it (because we've shaved their incomes down to practically nothing).

Thus was born the magical housing market, where ordinary people at all income levels were persuaded that they could afford a mortgage because the value of their house could only go up up up. And for a while, it all worked marvelously. Until the bubble burst and those values started going down down down.

The oligarchs have overdone it. And now they are in trouble because the world financial system on which they depend is about to collapse thanks to all those bad loans, based on their absurd attempt to milk their victims at both ends. And the only solution they can think of is: austerity, aka "productivity," aka labor reform, market reform, employer "flexibility," etc. And what it amounts to is the squeezing of the labor force far beyond anything ever attempted before. And lo and behold: they are buying it! The workers of the world are buying it. They've been convinced that this is the only way to go and that they have no other recourse, because the only alternative would be the collapse of this mythical beast they've been taught to revere: the economy.

(to be continued . . . )