links for 2008-04-27

• McCain the destroyer - Paul Krugman Blog
• Comparing responses to the credit crunch - Worthwhile Canadian Initiative
• Did Robert Rubin Jeopardize Financial Stability? - Dean Baker
• Coase again - The G Spot
• Where Was the Wise Man? - New York Times
• The IMF's dwindling fortunes - Los Angeles Times
• Bowling 1, Health Care 0 - Elizabeth Edwards - New York Times
• The New Economics of Hunger - washingtonpost.com

Comments

[Steve Salmony]

Thanks for the links above to several important posts as well as for this opportunity to communicate openly about what to me looks like the proverbial "mother" of all global challenges: the human overpopulation of Earth in our time.

It looks like humankind inhabits a tiny celestial orb that is miraculously set among of sea of stars. As far as we know, life as we know it exists nowhere else in the Universe. In the light of these one-of-a-kind circumstances, perhaps we of the human family have the responsibility of assuring the security for the future of life in our planetary home.

I am trying to focus attention on the pressing need for human beings to protect and preserve the finite resources of Earth and its frangible ecosystems. It's the ECOLOGY, stupid!If we fail to achieve the goal of preserving the integrity of our planetary home, then an unimaginably bleak future could await our children. In all the seriousness of what could be somehow true, I mean the children of my generation.

If 6+ billion human beings live on Earth now and 9+ billion are expected to populate our small planet by 2050, then the human species simply cannot keep engaging in certain unbridled activities that we can see overspreading the Earth because the Earth has limited resources upon which all forms of life and human constructions like national economies utterly depend for existence. Without adequate resources and ecosystem system services of Earth, life as we know it and human institutions could collapse, I suppose.

Now, some portion of the world’s human population conspicuously over-consumes the resources of our planetary home. Other people, working in huge multinational conglomerations, are operating businesses in a way that recklessly scours the oceans' floor, decapitates mountains, turns biomass into human mass and, in these and many other ways, end up dissipating natural resources at such an alarming rate that the Earth has insufficient time to restore the resources for human benefit. Still other people in the family of humanity are overpopulating the planet. The leviathan-like scale and rapid growth of global human consumption, production and propagation activities are putting the Earth, life as we know it, and the human community in grave, clear and present danger.

Elder human beings of the overdeveloped world, of whom I am one, are among the people in our planetary home who are ravenously over-consuming Earth's resources. We could choose to consume less. People in the developing could choose to limit overproduction of unnecessary things, to stop ravaging the planet, and to contain industrial pollution. People in the underdeveloped world could limit their number of offspring. Perhaps these are some ways the family of humanity begins to respond ably to the human-induced global challenges that loom so ominously before humanity in our time.

While I certainly agree that action should have been taken by my generation of old folks when we were young in the 60s and 70s, when we became aware of the "population bomb," still we have responsibilities to assume and duties to perform, here and now, for the sake of our children, grandchildren and coming generations.

The idea of making a conscious choice to do nothing in the face of the recognizably daunting global challenges that are visible before humanity on the far horizon is anathema to me.

At a minimum, do we not have a "duty to warn" others of the potential for some kind of ecological catastrophe if the human community adamantly chooses to continue relentlessly down the current "primrose path" marked by soon to become unsustainable consumption, production and propagation activities now threatening to overwhelm the surface of Earth?

Always with thanks,

Steve

Steven Earl Salmony
AWAREness Campaign on The Human Population,
established 2001

[Food]

"If you didn't have ethanol, you would not have the prices we have today," said Bruce Babcock, a professor of economics and the director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University."

So write your Congressman, and respectfully request that he/she votes to repeal the ethanol mandate. Its doing more harm than good. Switch to researching sensible technology instead.

"The global food trade never became the kind of well-honed machine that has made the price of manufactured goods such as personal computers and flat-screen TVs increasingly similar worldwide. With food, significant subsidies and other barriers meant to protect farmers -- particularly in Europe, the United States and Japan -- have distorted the real price of food globally, economists say, preventing the market from normal price adjustments as global demand has climbed."

Again, write your Congressman. Perfect competition will feed the world at a reasonable price.

[hari]

"Where was the Wise Man" (NYT) -

This all about Robert Rubin. Clintons's Treasurer/Economic Adviser. Then Special Adviser to Weil/Citicorp.... hi fi credit crunch and Citi's lose in highly leveraged financial derivatives market.

Rubin claims he tried to *regulate* derivatives market @ CBOT; but was rebuffed when advised CBOT would disengage all their operations with Goldman Sachs. And he didn't go thru it...

Dean Baker asks,"Did Robert Rubin Jeapordize Financial Stability?" Developes the argument further....

Me, I've claimed before in this forum that deregulation was masterminded by Rubin/Clinton...add Greenspan/Summers now.

PS. It shld read Goldman Sachs and not Citicorp!

[hari]

"Where was the Wise Man" (NYT) -

This all about Robert Rubin. Clintons's Treasurer/Economic Adviser. Then Special Adviser to Weil/Citicorp.... hi fi credit crunch and Citi's lose in highly leveraged financial derivatives market.

Rubin claims he tried to *regulate* derivatives market @ CBOT; but was rebuffed when advised CBOT would disengage all their operations with Goldman Sachs. And he didn't go thru it...

Dean Baker asks,"Did Robert Rubin Jeapordize Financial Stability?" Developes the argument further....

Me, I've claimed before in this forum that deregulation was masterminded by Rubin/Clinton...add Greenspan/Summers now.

PS. It shld read Goldman Sachs and not Citicorp!

NB.I suspect this story is not yet finished...and may run for a while longer till the TRUTH is finally out.

[Real Person from the Real World]

THE CONTRACTING MENTALITY
VENDORS SCAM those contracting for business in Gov't, just as they do in the IT Biz:

NYT Editorial
Tracking the Spoils of the Private Sector
Published: April 27, 2008

There are so many barn doors to be closed on the Bush administration’s wasteful, murky world of government contractors that Congress barely knows where to begin.
....There have been dozens of offenses, including kickbacks and bribes in Iraq and Afghanistan, where more than $102 billion has been spent on contracts.....The House voted as well to address another long-running boondoggle: the brazen failure of contractors to pay federal taxes, even as they are enriched by taxpayers in winning government business. More than 60,000 federal contractors owe $7.7 billion in back taxes, according to the Government Accountability Office. Almost half of the deadbeats are defense contractors who owe the Treasury $3 billion. Anyone shocked?

All it takes is a few smooth tongued salesmen claiming your company or the gov't will save money by outsourcing the dirty work to someone else. BS. As with IT, the vendors make a fortune, meanwhile those doing the work are as low paid as possible. With defense contractors the people they hire are inadequate for the job. In both situations just lies, kickbacks, and more lies. If your company, or the gov't, cannot save money by doing the work directly, or training the people to do the job, why believe contractors can do it better?

[Real Person from the Real World]

The first half is a quote from the article, the last paragraph is my comment.

[rawdawgbuffalo]

truth is all of them foul with regards to economic proposals, however i cant even fathom McCainanomics