I've been writing DOTE for three years now, which is long enough for me to have noticed a disturbing trend which I will describe today. I happened upon Jim Kunstler's latest column, called The Master Meme. Here's part of what he said—
I'm not even sure what to call the current disposition of unreality in
the USA, though it is clearly tinged with different colors of
grandiosity ranging from the plain dopey idea of "American
exceptionalism" to the wishful claim that we're about to become "energy
independent," to the lame assertion so popular in presidential addresses
that "together we can do anything"...
What's obvious to me is what I have been fearing about this country for
some time now: that all the disorders of our time would prompt a
campaign to defend the status quo at all costs and to sustain the
unsustainable. That is really the master wish behind all the political
hijinks of the day, especially the pervasive accounting fraud in all
high-order money matters...
Jim reiterates a common theme for him and me, but in the three years I've been writing this blog, the "campaign to defend the status quo at all costs" has become both broader and deeper. As you surely might guess, I have to look at a lot of source material to create these posts. Doing this every day for three years has allowed me to follow this disturbing trend, which is manifest to me in two ways—
In 2010, when I started DOTE, and only about 15 months after the meltdown, there were a lot more dissenting, critical voices than there are now. I've seen many people I used to read quit publishing. They gave up. How many people are willing to tell you in 2013 that "the recovery" is a joke? That incomes for the many are contracting? A precious few, now. There used to be many others (relatively speaking) who were willing to point out such obvious truths.
The media propaganda onslaught is far more pervasive and unified than it was three years ago, a situation which is getting worse with each passing day. In 2010, the financial crisis and the big crude oil price spike of 2008 were still fresh in people's minds. Even in mainstream sources, there were considerable doubts about America going forward.
But look at us now—phony, generally inflated GDP contracts for the first time in over three years, and immediately we are bombarded with a slew of articles like Bloomberg'sR-Word For U.S. Economy in 2013 is Rebound Not Recession, which quotes one "expert" after another (economists, of course) telling us there is nothing to worry about. If quarterly GDP had contracted during some quarter in 2010, or even 2011, there would have been a flurry of articles questioning policies and practices in the United States.
Not any more.
Thus we can conclude in 2013 that inward reflection, critical thinking and self-doubt have been all but banished in America. This manifests itself in a relentless campaign to defend the status quo.
A strong defense of the status quo has existed in all human societies in all times and all places. However, in the United States, this tendency, which I've noticed because I write this blog, has become far more pronounced over the last three years—the consolidation of power by the powerful is accelerating, so-called "thought" in the media is more and more constricted, and dissenting, critical voices have become so marginalized that many (if not most) have given up.
With each passing month, there are fewer and fewer "good" sources of information for me to tap into. For example, I used to milk Yahoo Finance's Daily Ticker blog for stories. That source has become all but useless to me in the last six months. I could name many others.
Erin Hatton, a sociologist at SUNY Buffalo, wrote an "opinion" piece for the New York Times called The Rise Of The Permanent Temp Economy. It's worth reading, although I must note that this article does not contain a single link to any source (including the Times) which the reader might follow to learn more about the subjects discussed.
Remind me again—why does the internet exist?
That irritation aside, the article is likely a condensed version of Hatton's book, called The Temp Economy — From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America. I'll reprint an excerpt, and you can read the rest in the New York Times (if you jump through enough hoops).
Politicians across the political spectrum herald “job creation,” but
frightfully few of them talk about what kinds of jobs are being created.
Yet this clearly matters: According to the Census Bureau, one-third of
adults who live in poverty are working but do not earn enough to support
themselves and their families.
A quarter of jobs in America pay
below the federal poverty line for a family of four ($23,050). Not only
are many jobs low-wage, they are also temporary and insecure. Over the
last three years, the temp industry added more jobs in the United States
than any other, according to the American Staffing Association, the
trade group representing temp recruitment agencies, outsourcing
specialists and the like.
Low-wage, temporary jobs have become so
widespread that they threaten to become the norm. But for some reason
this isn’t causing a scandal. At least in the business press, we are
more likely to hear plaudits for “lean and mean” companies than angst
about the changing nature of work for ordinary Americans.
How
did we arrive at this state of affairs?
Good question! And why isn't this causing a scandal?
Many argue that it was the
inevitable result of macroeconomic forces — globalization,
deindustrialization and technological change — beyond our political
control. Yet employers had (and have) choices. Rather than squeezing
workers, they could have invested in workers and boosted product
quality, taking what economists call the high road toward more advanced
manufacturing and skilled service work. But this hasn’t happened.
Instead, American employers have generally taken the low road: lowering
wages and cutting benefits, converting permanent employees into
part-time and contingent workers, busting unions and subcontracting and
outsourcing jobs. They have done so, in part, because of the
extraordinary evangelizing of the temp industry, which rose from humble
origins to become a global behemoth.
The story begins in the years
after World War II, when a handful of temp agencies were started,
largely in the Midwest. In 1947, William Russell Kelly founded Russell
Kelly Office Service (later known as Kelly Girl Services) in Detroit,
with three employees, 12 customers and $848 in sales. A year later, two
lawyers, Aaron Scheinfeld and Elmer Winter, founded a similarly small
outfit, Manpower Inc., in Milwaukee. At the time, the future of these
fledgling agencies was no foregone conclusion. Unions were at the peak
of their power, and the protections that they had fought so hard to
achieve — workers’ compensation, pensions, health benefits and more —
had been adopted by union and nonunion employers alike.
But temp leaders were creating a new category of work (and workers) that would be exempt from such protections.
To avoid union opposition, they developed a clever strategy, casting
temp work as “women’s work,” and advertising thousands of images of
young, white, middle-class women doing a variety of short-term office
jobs. The Kelly Girls, Manpower’s White Glove Girls, Western Girl’s
Cowgirls, the American Girls of American Girl Services and numerous
other such “girls” appeared in the pages of Newsweek, Business Week,
U.S. News & World Report, Good Housekeeping, Fortune, The New York
Times and The Chicago Daily Tribune. In 1961 alone, Manpower spent $1
million to put its White Glove Girls in the Sunday issue of big city
newspapers across the country.
The strategy was an extraordinary success...
Yes, American employers have generally taken "the low road" regarding their workers.
Perhaps it is passé to say our economic world changed permanently in 2007-2008, but if that is so, why do so many Americans, especially near the beginning of what promises to be another dreary year, continue to believe otherwise?
Home prices in 20 U.S. cities rose in the 12 months to November by the
most in more than six years, showing the housing market will play a more
central role in the U.S. economic expansion this year.
The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values increased 5.5 percent from November 2011, the
biggest year-over-year gain since August 2006, according to data
released in New York today. Confidence sank more than forecast in
January as consumers were stung by a drop in take-home pay, another
report showed.
Mortgage rates near a record low will probably
spur a third consecutive advance in home sales this year, which will
keep property values rising.
There is no dearth of stories like this one from Bloomberg. Cheerleading is America's leading industry.
These cheerleaders seek to assure us that there's no reason to panic, in so far as the Commerce Department announced today that GDP fell 0.1% in 2012 Q4 (at an annualized rate).
Dr. Vincent Malanga, president of LaSalle Economics,
talks with Jim Chesko about data showing that U.S. economic momentum
screeched to a halt in the final months of 2012 as businesses pared back
inventories and government spending fell sharply. The Commerce Department
said this morning that the nation’s gross domestic product shrank for
the first time in three-and-a-half years during the fourth quarter,
declining at a 0.1% annual rate...
Malanga — "And I don't think the economy actually declined in the 4th quarter. It wasn't as weak in the 4th quarter as these numbers suggest, nor was it as strong in the 3rd quarter as the prior numbers suggested. I'd say the truth lies in-between at about 1 and a half percent..."
If you don't like the numbers the government gives you, make up some new ones you're more comfortable with. In line with Vincent's reassuring thoughts on the steady mediocrity of the current situation, the housing market is not yet playing "a central role in the U.S. economic expansion" as Bloomberg promised it would.
The Case-Shiller Index as of November, 2012. Both the 20-city and 10-city composites are now at their 2003 levels. Chart from Tim Iacono, who wonders aloud what all the fuss is about.
Interestingly, Yale economist Robert Shiller, the co-creator of the home price index, doesn't believe there is any identifiable trend in the housing market. Among economists, we can respect Shiller because he is not afraid to use the word "bubble" in the pages of the New York Times.
WE’RE beginning to hear noises that we’ve reached a major turning point
in the housing market — and that, with interest rates so low, this is a
rare opportunity to buy. But are such observations on target?
It would be comforting if they were. Yet the unfortunate truth is that
the tea leaves don’t clearly suggest any particular path for prices,
either up or down...
History doesn’t suggest that another big bubble will come so fast. In
fact, before the most recent one, the United States had had only one major national home price boom in the last century, when real prices rose a total of 68 percent from 1942 to 1953.
After the traumatic collapse of the last price bubble, Americans seem
less sanguine about owning versus renting. According to the Census
Bureau, the homeownership rate has been falling, from 69.0 percent in the third quarter of 2006 to 65.5 percent in the third quarter last year.
Some analysts disagree with Shiller, believing another housing bubble may be in the works, but Shiller is right to say that history (and many other factors) suggest that no bubble is possible now.
I wrote about the low interest rates which are meant to blow another bubble in the housing market—whoops! I meant "fuel a housing recovery"—in The Fed Engineers A Phony Recovery, which you might check out if you are so inclined.
Thus there is no reason to panic, nor is there any reason to believe that housing will fuel a genuine economic recovery in 2013. On the contrary, we will likely see more of the same "new normal" this year that we have seen every year since the world changed. We are stuck in the doldrums, in some weird kind of Limbo, where stagnation in the short term continues against a backdrop of longer-term decline.
If you yearn for some exciting events which would cause the economy to break out of this overbearing pattern of ongoing stagnation and historical decline, I suggest you be careful what you wish for.
Twelve years ago, Paul Crutzen, a Nobel laureate and atmospheric
chemist, coined the term "Anthropocene" as shorthand, an argument
wrapped in a word. Geology had long relegated humanity to the sidelines,
but in recent history, the human fingerprint on the Earth had grown too
deep to be ignored, he said. We had created our own geological time.
The world had left the Holocene behind and entered an epoch of humanity.
In other words, humanity has now so fucked up the world that it is human actions which largely determine basic environmental factors like the climate and the oceans. This point becomes clearer when we consider this chart, which has led to the type of confused discussion which humans are prone to. (And read here to untangle some of the latest confusion.)
Figure 1 from Global Temperature Update Through 2012 by J. Hansen, M. Sato, R. Ruedy (NASA GISS). "Global surface temperature anomalies relative to 1951-1980. The El Nino index is based on the detrended temperature in the Nino 3.4 area in the eastern tropical Pacific. Green triangles mark the times of volcanic eruptions that produced an extensive stratospheric aerosol layer. Blue vertical bars are estimates of the 95% confidence interval for comparisons of nearby years."
And here is the bone of contention, from that NASA document.
Global Warming Standstill — The 5-year running mean of global temperature [red line in Figure 1] has been flat for the past decade. It should be noted that the "standstill" temperature is at a much higher level than existed at any year in the prior decade except for the single year 1998, which had the strongest El Niño of the century.
However, the standstill has led to a widespread assertion that "global warming has stopped". Examination of this matter requires consideration of the principal climate forcing mechanisms that can drive climate change and the effects of stochastic (unforced) climate variability.
I can not possibly explain what's going on in a single blog post, so consider this the first in a series on the "Global Warming Standstill" we see in the 5-year running mean for global temperature. There are three main factors which have caused this "standstill" (see Kaufmann, et. al., 2011).
Decreased solar insolation due to natural cycles of the Sun
Global cooling during the "La Nina" phases of ENSO (El Niño/Southern Oscillation), which is a large natural variability in the southern Pacific Ocean affecting global temperatures
The cooling caused by sulfate aerosols in the atmosphere, which are produced when coal is burned or, more importantly, when big volcanoes erupt—look at the green triangles in Figure 1 above.
It is not as though the heat-trapping properties of greenhouse gases (CO2, CH4, etc.) have magically disappeared, and although there is room for reasonable argument about what has been happening over the last 12 years, reasonable argument is a rare commodity on Planet Stupid (see the links above). It is not as though the alarming warming trend in the Arctic has not continued apace.
It is factor #3 which suggests that humanity has now entered the Anthropocene, which is probably the least significant of the three climate factors listed. Nonetheless, the cooling effect of sulfate aerosols can not be ignored, as NOAA's Susan Solomon argued in 2011.
The latest research, carried out by Susan Solomon of the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Earth System Research
Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado, and colleagues, focuses on this
"background" level of aerosols and takes advantage of the fact that
there have been no major eruptions, which obscure the background, since
that of Mount Pinatubo in 1991.
Solomon and co-workers took data from a number of sources, including
ground- and laser-based measurements recorded at the Mauna Loa volcano
in Hawaii, as well as satellite observations. The satellite data reveal
that stratospheric aerosols increased by about 7% a year between 2000
and 2010. This implies a change in the Earth's radiative forcing – a
measure of the imbalance between the Earth's incoming and outgoing
energy – of about –0.10 Wm–2. As the researchers point out,
this compares to an annual change in atmospheric carbon dioxide of about
0.5% a year and an overall increase in radiative forcing over the last
decade of +0.28 Wm–2, making the contribution of the aerosols small but "significant".
To calculate the effect of this negative forcing on temperatures,
Solomon's group used the Bern 2.5cc climate model. This is not as
complex as the "general circulation" models used to compute the overall
climate but is, they say, better for investigating small temperature
changes that might otherwise be hidden by the larger climate trends.
They found that the stratospheric aerosols reduced warming over about
the last decade by 0.07 °C, or 20%. This is when compared to a scenario
with no aerosols, which is the assumption made by many models. They also
calculated, based on more limited balloon data, that the presence of
background aerosols reduced warming by about –0.05 °C between 1960 and
2000.
Flattening temperature rise
One of Solomon's colleagues, John Daniel of the Earth System Research
Laboratory, says that the group was motivated to model this cooling
effect by a recent flattening out of the global temperature rise,
although he cautions that this rise appears to be quite short term. As
previously highlighted by NASA's James Hansen, who was not involved in
the current research, the flattening is present when temperatures are
averaged out over periods of five years, but not when the average is
taken across the whole of the 2000 to 2010 decade.
Daniel, however, emphasizes that whether or not there has been a real
flattening of late is essentially irrelevant to the conclusion of the
latest paper – that background levels of stratospheric aerosols must be
taken into consideration in future climate projections. The researchers
say that any climate models that neglect changes to these levels
relative to the year 2000 are likely to overestimate warming if aerosol
concentrations remain constant or continue to increase. On the other
hand, they say, if concentrations were instead to drop back down to the
levels last seen in 1960 then global average temperatures will be around
0.06 °C higher by 2020 than they would otherwise have been.
As you know, the Chinese (among others) have been burning coal over the last decade like there's no tomorrow (and if you wait long enough, there won't be one) . Aerosol levels in the atmosphere only account for 20% of the observed "cooling" over the last decade—actually a flattening of the 5-year running mean—but, paradoxically, burning coal produces sulfate aerosol pollution (a weak "negative" climate forcing) which cancels out a small part of the warming caused by the CO2 pollution which is the main byproduct of burning it (a strong "positive" climate forcing).
It is this kind of human-created confusion which caused Paul Crutzen to coin the term "Anthropocene" twelve years ago. I will have more to say about this in the future.
Having abandoned his lifelong quest to win friends and influence people, 86-year-old David Attenborough told the The Independent (UK) that humans are a plague on the Earth.
TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough has warned that human beings have become a “plague on the Earth”.
The 86-year-old broadcaster said the negative effects of climate change and population growth would be seen in the next 50 years.
He told the Radio Times: "It's coming home to roost over the next 50 years or so.
"It's not just climate change. It's sheer space, places to grow food for this enormous horde.
"Either we limit our population growth or the natural world will do it for us, and the natural world is doing it for us right now.
"We keep putting on programmes about famine in Ethiopia — that's what's happening. Too many people there. They can't support themselves — and it's not an inhuman thing to say. It's the case.
"Until humanity manages to sort itself out and get a co-ordinated view about the planet, it's going to get worse and worse."
Naturally, Attenborough's judgment will generally be seen as "subjective" and very harsh, not to mention unpopular and anger-provoking.
But are we humans a plague on the Earth?
Well, sure we are! You betcha! And if you are familiar with the history of the Earth, with both the geological and paleontological records, you will know that no plague like this one has ever occurred before in those 4.56 billion years.
And when we say plague—think of locusts—we mean that humans have overrun and ravaged the Earth, not only in sheer numbers, but also in the rampant consumption of those among us who are relatively well off. That deplorable trend continues, as Attenborough notes.
But is this overrunning and ravaging a natural phenomenon? Of course it is. (Locusts, again.) Humans are extraordinary animals, but animals nonetheless. In fact, they are the only animals we know of in Earth's history or elsewhere in the Universe who are self-aware enough to reach the remarkable conclusion that their collective actions constitute a plague on their home planet.
And as if to reinforce the inconvenient truth that we humans are an entirely natural (and random) product of evolution, only a very few humans are sufficiently self-aware to conclude that Homo sapiens is a plague on the Earth! And now, David Attenborough, at the ripe old age of 86, is among those extraordinary members of our species.
The humans who are not self-aware enough to come to this conclusion, which is obvious to those who have the wherewithal (consciousness) to reach it, are merely self-absorbed and unreflective. In short, they are doing what they are doing, as animals typically do. And what they are doing, when their actions are taken altogether, when these actions are looked upon collectively, is overrunning and ravaging the Earth.
The question of whether the actions of Homo sapiens constitute "natural" (instinctual) behaviors is an important one, for humans have forgotten that they are part of the natural world which spawned them, and upon which they still depend, despite their much-celebrated technological cleverness in changing the natural environment to suit their own needs. Some self-aware humans have dubbed this new epoch the Anthropocene (like the Holocene, the Pleistocene, and so on).
And here is what we know about the Anthropocene, as Attenborough implies—when viewed in the context of geological time, it will be very, very brief.
I am not the author of today's catchy headline. No, that was Gretchen Morgenson writing in the New York Times on January 5, 2013.
If you were hoping that things might be different in 2013 — you know,
that bankers would be held responsible for bad behavior or that the
government might actually assist troubled homeowners — you can forget
it. A settlement reportedly in the works with big banks will soon end a
review into foreclosure abuses, and it means more of the same: no accountability for financial institutions and little help for borrowers.
Last week, The New York Times reported that regulators were close to
settling with 14 banks whose foreclosure practices had ridden roughshod
over borrowers and the rule of law. Although the deal has not been made
official and its terms are as yet unknown, the initial report said
borrowers who had lost their homes because of improprieties would
receive a total of $3.75 billion in cash. An additional $6.25 billion
would be put toward principal reduction for homeowners in distress.
Gretchen was reporting a few days before the official announcement. The deal was done, and the settlement turned out to be $8.5 billion, with $3.3 billion of that set aside for cash relief for homeowners.
The settlement Bank of America, Citigroup Inc, JPMorgan Chase &
Co, Wells Fargo & Co and five other banks entered with regulators
pays out up to $125,000 in cash to homeowners whose homes were being
foreclosed when the paperwork problems emerged.
Remember that $125,000 number. That's pure propaganda, given the size of the group of aggrieved mortgage holders.
About $3.3 billion of the $8.5 billion settlement with
the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency will be in cash, with the
rest in changes to the terms of loans or mortgage forgiveness.
In April 2011, the government required banks that
collect payments on mortgages, known as servicers, to review whether
errors in the foreclosure process had harmed borrowers.
Gretchen did some "back of the envelope" math for us. I am too lazy to correct it for the lower cash settlement.
Some back-of-the-envelope arithmetic on this deal is your first clue
that it is another gift to the banks. It’s not clear which borrowers
will receive what money, but divvying up $3.75 billion among millions of
people doesn’t amount to much per person. If, say, half of the 4.4
million borrowers were subject to foreclosure abuses, they would each
receive less than $2,000, on average. If 10 percent of the 4.4 million
were harmed, each would get roughly $8,500.
Gretchen then did a follow-up on January 12, 2013 called Paying the Price, but Often Deducting It, which I will not quote. She notes that these unimpressive settlements are usually tax-deductible for the banks.
And then FRONTLINE (PBS) ran yet another hour-long documentary about why no bankers have gone to jail. It's called The Untouchables, and contains this quote from Lanny Breuer, who has been the head of the Department of Justice's criminal division in the 1st Obama administraton, and who was still in that position when the documentary was made.
MARTIN SMITH — You gave a speech before the New York Bar
Association. And in that speech, you made a reference to losing sleep at
night, worrying about what a lawsuit might result in at a large
financial institution.
LANNY BREUER — Right.
MARTIN SMITH — Is that really the job of a prosecutor, to worry about anything other than simply pursuing justice?
LANNY BREUER — Well, I think I am pursuing justice. And I think
the entire responsibility of the department is to pursue justice. But in
any given case, I think I and prosecutors around the country, being
responsible, should speak to regulators, should speak to experts,
because if I bring a case against institution A, and as a result of
bringing that case, there’s some huge economic effect — if it creates a
ripple effect so that suddenly, counterparties and other financial
institutions or other companies that had nothing to do with this are
affected badly — it’s a factor we need to know and understand.
This is as candid a statement as you're ever going to read that the banks in question are considered too big to fail, and, as such, they are above the law. And now we learn that Lanny is resigning, having done his job to protect those banks, and having been exposed as a fraud.
Lanny Breuer is leaving his position as head of the Justice Department’s criminal division, The Washington Post reported Wednesday.
As assistant attorney general, Breuer led the effort to pursue
allegations of fraud and corruption at major banks in the wake of the
financial meltdown. The Post said it was unclear when Breuer will
leave, and didn’t offer a reason. A DOJ spokeswoman told FRONTLINE that
the department wouldn’t comment on the report.
Breuer was featured in FRONTLINE’s documentary The Untouchables,
which aired on Tuesday and explored the reasons why no Wall Street
executives have been prosecuted for fraud in connection with the
financial crisis. Breuer told FRONTLINE that the DOJ had pursued charges
when officials found evidence of fraud. “But in those cases where we
can’t bring a criminal case — and federal criminal cases are hard to
bring — I have to prove that you had the specific intent to defraud. …If
we cannot establish that, then we can’t bring a criminal case,” he
said.
And now I will make a few remarks.
I find it telling that humans, in this case Americans, continue to pretend that they live in a legitimate, fair society, despite massive and compelling evidence to the contrary. Or a society which—once again?—things might be set right. As usual, that observation tells us a lot more about humans (and Americans) than it does about the specific injustices and corruption in these pro-forma "prosecutions" of the banks, which are merely typical examples of how elites control complex human societies. As such, this kind of behavior is exactly what we would expect to see, independent of the messy details about how elite control is implemented.
As usual, if you research this particular manifestation of typical human corruption, of elite control, you will find much wailing and gnashing of teeth, for example, at places like Naked Capitalism.
I mean, why does FRONTLINE (video below) even bother to make these documentaries? So I'm here to ask disconcerted "progressives" and do-gooders some simple questions—
What the fuck did you expect to happen with the banks?
What is it, exactly, that you are complaining about?
Do you actually expect that this typical human corruption might be eradicated?
There is distinctive American style of music which has no name, but you know it when you hear it. I could call it Americana, but that name is also used in other ways. The music of Aaron Copland could be used to define the genre, but the style is more expansive than that. This music combines classical (or jazz and popular) elements with "roots music" (gospel, folk, blues) to create music which we immediately recognize as distinctively American.
Beyond that, I can not tell you more. You have to listen to it. The first selection, which is the short (0:57) but beautiful original theme of the PBS program The American Experience, will give you an immediate sense of what I'm talking about. I have always loved this music, which romanticizes a country which doesn't exist and never did.
The American Experience, original theme — composed by Charles Kuskin
music from the The Natural — composed by Randy Newman for the 1984 movie
Appalachian Spring — composed by Aaron Copland (original shorter version for chamber orchestra)
Letter From Home — Pat Metheny, from The Road To You (live album, 1993)
Symphony No. 1 (Afro-American) — composed by William Grant Still, 1930
This is the third and final post in a series about the internet I've written this week. You might also read Part I or Part II if you haven't already done so — Dave
What is it about blow jobs and golf? — Kilgore Trout, Kurt Vonnegut's alter-ego
After you thought about it, I'm sure it came as no surprise to you that the way the internet is structured is largely determined by the profit motive which drives what you see there. Necessarily, the internet had to turn out this way because it is a human product, and it's money that makes the human world go round.
But before I trash the internet, allow me to damn it with faint praise. For every person who uses the internet to read or publish, the internet offers seemingly endless possibilities. The internet is only as "good" or "bad" as what that person brings to it. Although humans are very confused about this point, technologies are always morally neutral. It is true—guns don't kill people; people kill people. Guns simply make it easier to do so. And if restraint is impossible, then the next best solution is to restrict access to guns. The best solution would be for people simply to have no desire to kill other people with guns. But that solution is out of reach.
And what an amazing technology the internet is! Unfortunately, it's also a lot like hand guns. If we have a scumbag, and the sole motive of this asshole is to use the internet to scam people and rip them off, well, the internet offers the perfect opportunity to do so. On the other hand, if we have an angel, and his sole motive is to save endangered species, then the internet also offers this enlightened person the best opportunity to do so. Each of these people will be "successful" on the internet in their chosen work to the extent to which such activities, good or bad, are "successful" in the human world.
So the internet is a simply comprehensive reflection of the humans who use it. Thus ends the "faint praise" portion of this post.
I ran across a perfect example of what the internet usually is—what it had to be. I had millions of candidates to choose from, but none so fitting as this one. It is no accident that I found this perfect example at The Huffington Post, which is perhaps the website which most exemplifies the crass, rapacious, money-grubbing nature of the world wide web. The perfect example is an editorial which was co-authored—prepare yourself—by Arianna Huffington, the owner of that exemplary website, and Lloyd Blankfein, the CEO of the premier Evil Banking Establishment on Earth. It is called Our Common Goal: Empowering Entrepreneurs and Creating Jobs.
This week, politicians, writers, activists, and non-profit leaders
are gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the 43rd annual meeting of the
World Economic Forum. While the issues to be addressed range from health
care to regulation to the environment, the two of us share a common
interest in one particular topic — economic growth and job creation.
While many European countries are struggling with double-digit
unemployment, and America's recovery continues to limp along at best,
many of us gathered in Davos will draw important lessons, not just from
one another -- amidst the well-intentioned talk and catchy phrases —
but from the individuals around the world who are building growth and
creating opportunity every day, often overcoming extraordinary
obstacles.
[My note: Davos, Switzerland is hosting the annual World Economic Forum this week. Every year the Earth's wealthy elites flock to Davos to hobnob, have their pictures taken, and plan out our Happy Future.]
To this end, we want to put the spotlight on those who are starting
up small businesses, creating jobs, and improving their lives and the
lives of their communities.
People like Kabeh Sumbo,
the owner of Passama Agriculture Trading Company in Monrovia, Liberia.
Kabeh survived her country's civil war as a refugee in Guinea. Upon
returning to Monrovia, she started a palm oil business with a single
gallon of oil, bought off of the back of a truck. Today, she provides
employment for 65 Liberians and exports 1,200 gallons of palm oil to the
United States.
Kabeh is a graduate of the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Women
program. She is just one example of the millions of untold stories of
entrepreneurs around the globe who, every day, are driving economic
growth. This kind of grassroots growth must be recognized, encouraged,
replicated, and multiplied manyfold if we are to build a resilient and
dynamic global economy.
And real economic growth is essential if we are to create
opportunities for all and healthier, safer, better educated communities.
But prosperity and the broader benefits of growth are not always
distributed equitably by the markets. The public and private sectors
must therefore offer support to help build growth that is both
sustainable and widely shared.
And around the world, one of the best investments we can make to spur growth is in women entrepreneurs.
As U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it
earlier this year, "to achieve the economic expansion we all seek, we
need to unlock a vital source of growth that can power our economies in
the decades to come... women."
Research
by Goldman Sachs, the World Bank, and others has shown how investing in
women can have a real impact on GDP growth — specifically, how
narrowing the gender gap in employment could push
income per capita as much as 14 percent higher than baseline
projections by 2020, and as much as 20 percent higher by 2030. This same
research also suggests that educating and empowering women positively
affects the health, education, and productivity of future generations.
The Huffington Post and Goldman Sachs come at this issue with different perspectives, but a common goal.
In 2008, Goldman Sachs made a $100 million investment through its 10,000 Women
program. This initiative provides women-owned small-to-medium
businesses in more than 20 countries with a business and management
education, access to mentors, and links to capital. This year, the
program will reach its initial goal by serving its 10,000th woman.
This past summer, The Huffington Post broke new ground in the way the
media commonly report economic news. Frustrated by the relentless
coverage of disaster, tragedy and scandal in traditional media sources,
The Huffington Post launched "What is Working,"
dedicated to covering stories of progress and success, particularly
when it comes to creating jobs in the United States, and brought 100
startup entrepreneurs together at both political conventions to showcase
all the different ways they're creating jobs.
Today, our two organizations are joining forces. Together we will
examine what entrepreneurs are doing to drive growth around the world
and apply the lessons we have learned.
Now, I could stop writing this post right now, for surely this marriage made in Hell, this astonishing editorial, which in their own words describes all the Good Things these enthusiastic servants of the Prince Of Darkness are doing to help the Little People, proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the internet is a Ginormous Blow Job.
But I have more to say, so I will continue.
In so far as Part II of this series was about corrupt linking practices, I thought I would give you the tally for this editorial—
there are 4 links to goldmansachs.com
there is 1 link to huffingtonpost.com
there is 1 link to state.gov (Hilary Clinton)
there is 1 link to aacu.org (universities and colleges)
In Feburary of 2011, The Huffington Post was acquired by AOL for 315 million dollars. This acquisition made Arianna Huffington even wealthier than she already was.
AOL, the online media company that has recently snatched several
smaller content firms, has agreed to purchase news blog service The
Huffington Post for $315 million, the two companies announced Monday.
The
companies said Arianna Huffington, The Huffington Post's co-founder and
editor-in-chief, will be named president and editor-in-chief of The
Huffington Post Media Group, which will include all Huffington Post and
AOL content.
And of course in Part I of this series, I described how Sensational Content Mills (SCMs) like The Huffington Post do their very best to get your attention and turn those pageviews—"eyeballs" as they are known in the business—into dollars in the substantial hope that you will click on the eye-catching advertisements which appear on SCM web pages. They will publish any trash imaginable to accomplish this noble goal.
And toward that end, here is Arianna herself describing just how superblyThe Huffington Post did in the first year after being acquired by AOL.
Nearly a year ago, after the news broke that AOL was buying The
Huffington Post -- to be precise, it broke at midnight on February 5th,
just after the Packers won the Super Bowl — I wrote in my announcement post that, for HuffPost, the merger would be like "stepping off a fast-moving train and onto a supersonic jet" -- or 1 + 1 = 11.
Coming up on our one-year anniversary, a look at the numbers shows
that our math was way off. It turns out that 1 + 1 actually equaled 44.
And 54,000,000. And 1,200,000,000 (those figures are, respectively, the
number of new verticals launched since the merger, the number of
comments posted last year, and the number of page views we got in
December 2011).
Here are some other notable figures from the past year:
Unique visitors a month: 36.2 million (an increase of 47 percent)
Comments in the last month: 6 million
Comments on a single day: 253,331 (Jan 25, 2012)
New commenters signing up per day: 5,500
Social referrals in a month: 21.6 million (December 2011)
Facebook referrals in a day: 1.4 million (January 4, 2012)
Additional international editions scheduled in the next three months: 3 (Quebec, Spain, Italy)
Editors and reporters added: 170
New bloggers: 9,884
Blog posts in last year: 61,688
Stories published per day: over 1,000
HuffPost e-books published: 4
HuffPost sections ranked #1 in unique visitors in their category, according to comScore: 3 (HuffPost Politics, HuffPost Green, HuffPost Gay Voices)
Naps taken in the HuffPost nap rooms (NapQuest 1 and 2): 1,874 (estimated)
But as impressive as these numbers are, more important to us are the
core values that are part of our DNA. Starting with engagement —
putting the HuffPost community front and center, and creating a civil
environment in which thousands of conversations can take place at any
moment. Indeed, we've committed a lot of resources (both in terms of
state-of-the-art technology and a dedicated team of moderators) to
pre-moderating comments in order to foster a non-toxic atmosphere where
people can let their voices be heard and often disagree — passionately
but civilly. As a result, we've been rewarded with one of the most
active communities on the web, and over 130 million comments since we
launched.
Core values? As reflected in this joint venture with Lloyd?
My advice to you, and I hope you will take it seriously, is to watch the Bonus Video attached to this post because then you will fully understand what I mean when I say Blow Job.
The internet is a faithful reflection of the society that spawned it, which itself is a faithful reflection—perhaps the best we have in modern times—of Human Nature. Garbage In, Garbage Out.
Jan. 18, 2013 — The benefits and side effects
of dissolving particles in our ocean's surfaces to increase the marine
uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2), and therefore reduce the excess amount of it in the atmosphere, have been analysed in a new study.
The study, published Jan. 22 in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters,
assesses the impact of dissolving the naturally occurring mineral
olivine and calculates how effective this approach would be in reducing
atmospheric CO2.
The researchers, from the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and
Marine Research in Bremerhaven, Germany, calculate that if three
gigatonnes of olivine were deposited into the oceans each year, it could
compensate for only around nine per cent of present day anthropogenic
CO2 emissions...
If olivine is distributed onto the ocean's surface, it begins to
dissolve and subsequently increases the alkalinity of the water. This
raises the uptake capacity of the ocean for CO2, which is taken up via gas exchange from the atmosphere.
According to the study, 92 per cent of the CO2 taken up by
the oceans would be caused by changes in the chemical make-up of the
water, whilst the remaining uptake would be down to changes in marine
life through a process known as ocean fertilisation.
Ocean fertilisation involves providing phytoplankton with essential
nutrients to encourage its growth. The increased numbers of
phytoplankton use CO2 to grow, and then when it dies it sinks to the ocean floor taking the CO2 with it.
Three gigatons is three billion tons of olivine. That's a lot of rock!
But wait, it gets better.
This long discussed 'quick fix' method of geoengineering is not
without environmental drawbacks; the particles would have to be ground
down to very small sizes (around one micrometre) in order to be
effective. The grinding process would consume energy and therefore emit
varying amounts of CO2, depending on the sort of power plants used to provide the energy.
Lead author of the study Peter Köhler said: "Our literature-based
estimates on the energy costs of grinding olivine to such a small size
suggest that with present day technology, around 30 per cent of the CO2 taken out of the atmosphere and absorbed by the oceans would be re-emitted by the grinding process."
And that's just the grinding. What about energy requirements of mining the olivine, transporting it to the grinding mills, and moving all that fine-grained olivine dust to various ocean sites for dumping?
The researchers also investigated whether the deposition of olivine
could counteract the problem of ocean acidification, which continues to
have a profound effect on marine life. They calculate that about 40
gigatonnes of olivine would need to be dissolved annually to fully
counteract today's anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
"If this method of geoengineering was deployed, we would need an
industry the size of the present day coal industry to obtain the
necessary amounts of olivine. To distribute this, we estimate that 100
dedicated large ships with a commitment to distribute one gigatonne of
olivine per year would be needed.
"Taking all our conclusions together — mainly the energy costs of
the processing line and the projected potential impact on marine biology
— we assess this approach as rather inefficient. It certainly is not a
simple solution against the global warming problem." said Köhler.
Another climate change solution bites the dust!
Bonus Video — How to Stimulate The Economy (Lewis Black)
This is is part II of a three-part series about the internet. On Monday I published part I called Understanding Blog "Content" On The Internet. Part III will come on Friday — Dave
I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member — Groucho Marx
It goes without saying that links between websites are what make the internet a network. However, the internet is not highly interconnected in ways we might expect because such a "web" of interconnections does not suit human purposes, as I will explain below.
Before I can explain linking behavior, I need a typology of "content-based" websites to guide the discussion. (This typology does not include social media, private business sites, shopping sites, etc.) Here it is—
mainstream media (MSM) websites
sensational content mills (SCMs, as described in part I of this series)
blogs, including but not limited to the following types—
MSM blogs
organizational blogs
financial/economics blogs
political/environmental blogs
topic-specific blogs (e.g. science, local issues, cooking, pets, etc.)
"alternative" blogs (see the discussion below)
eclectic blogs (covering a variety of subjects)
I'll use this typology for my purposes today, even if it appears incomplete or the categorization is arguable.
Now we are in a position to state some general linking rules which apply to this typology. As always, bear in mind that these are general rules, so there will always be some exceptions in the apparently diverse internet zoo.
MSM websites link only to themselves or sister organizations (same ownership). Organizational websites follow the same practice. This is called intra-site linking, as opposed to using outbound links to other sources with a different domain name and different ownership.
Sensational content mills also contain mostly intra-site links to any juicy story which might attract many pageviews and generate revenues. Such stories either come from their underpaid internal staff, or from "approved" outside sources. If the latter, these stories are always made to look as though they originated from the SCM in question (for example, look at The Business Insider). Those stories may or may not contain links to the original "stolen" content. The Huffington Post gives you lots of content from outside sources—for example, here, people beg to be reprinted there—or generates their own material internally. In either case, that content usually links sparsely to sources which are not called The Huffington Post. Some content mills listed in Part I, such as the "classy" magazines The Atlantic and The New Yorker, do put links to outside sources in their daily blog posts, and generate most of their material internally.
The general rule for SCMs states that intra-site links in stories are strongly preferred to outbound links which might take the visitor away from the website.
Otherwise, linking to outside sources is restricted to blogs of all types as defined above. Only blogs have "blogrolls" (recommended outside sources).
Over time, this is how the network structure of "content-based" websites came down to us. Moreover, I would say the internet is now mature, so I don't think we can expect this structure to change much in the future.
These rules may appear to be arbitrary, but they are not. As always, revenue is the main driver of these linking rules, and the reason is obvious if you think about it. Outside of blogs, organizations do not want you wandering all over the place on the web; they want your attention at all times because your pageviews ultimately make money for them, or so the theory goes. Bloomberg does not want you to leave their website, and neither does CNN Money. Sensational content mills do the same thing of course, even though they have "stolen" most of the stories they publish, aka. content aggregation. If you look at the New York Times, you will only very rarely find links to outside sources in their news stories (their bread & butter). By contrast, you will find links to outside sources in Times blogs like the Green Blog or Dealbook.
Now I will discuss the "alternative" websites/blogs which I mentioned in the typology above. These are sites with which many of my readers are familiar. Examples include Of Two Minds (Charles Hugh Smith) and The Archdruid Report (John Michael Greer). The biggest player in this space is Chris Martenson (now Peak Prosperity). You will find a list of his "3E" recommended sites on the homepage (energy, economy, environment). A marketing genius, Martenson is gobbling up contributors for Peak Prosperity from many of those "3E" sites, and many other "alternative" voices as well. In this way, he "owns" their contributions (the pageviews those contributors attract).
Note well that DOTE is not among those "3E" links that Chris Martenson cites. DOTE is perhaps the only alternative "alternative" blog which covers a wide range of subjects (including those "3Es"). However, DOTE is by default a member of the "alternative" blog space, and will never break out of this ghetto. For the vast majority of people who constitute the mainstream, I am guilty by association because of the types of things I discuss (e.g. mass extinctions, destruction of marine ecosystems). Clearly, I don't like the status quo, nor do I have a vested interest in maintaining it. Importantly, you should note that I thoroughly document everything I write on DOTE with outbound links to other content sources. I often quote those sources.
Unfortunately, many of the "alternative" websites exhibit the same revenue-driven linking behavior I described above with respect to MSM or SCM websites, to wit—
There are few (if any) links to outside sources, even when the topics under discussion demand some kind of documentation. For example, Jim Kunstler's website is a veritable "black hole" in the sense that, once you enter there, you can hardly follow an outbound link to another content source. You can follow links to materials (video, audio) which promote Jim's writings. And you will find mostly the same thing on Smith's blog, Greer's blog or Martenson's website. There will be occasional exceptions, as I noted above, but these only serve to prove the rule.
When outside sources are cited, they tend to support the point of view being presented, which creates what I call a closed world. Sources with different views are rarely linked to. The point of view presented is thus confirmed and reinforced by restricting access to conflicting information. On DOTE, I do my best to present an open world. I always link to (and quote) the sources whose wrongheaded views conflict with my own
Many "alternative" websites are "self-centered" because they want grab and hold your attention in order to generate revenue in one of two ways—
subscriptions — Martenson uses this revenue model, so he puts content in front of and behind a pay wall. Stuff in front is meant to get you to subscribe so you can read the stuff behind the wall.
book/DVD sales, speaker fees — Greer, Smith and Kunstler are "selling their book" as the phrase goes. The Automatic Earth is selling DVDs. It's a good bet that all these people accept speaking fees.
So once again, we see that linking behavior on the internet is directly related to the quest for the Almighty Dollar, even on the "alternative" web sites.
Now, before you get all huffy about these observations because you like the people I've mentioned, let me say that I think these people have every right to make a living. Moreover, these "alternative" people are sometimes more right than wrong about the stuff they talk about, so it is not objectionable in that way, except for the disturbing fact that humans generally need to stick to a consistent story to keep a game going, even if that story flies in the face of the facts and their reasonable interpretation. In this way, the quest for dollars inevitably gives rise to spin, which necessarily distorts Reality. The amount of distortion (bias, slant) is always a matter of degree.
I am talking about the nature of objectivity here, and why it is so difficult to attain.
That said, Charles Hugh Smith is obviously not the only one "talking his book", nor is Chris Martenson the only one who uses a subscriber revenue model. This behavior is pervasive on the internet, and is directly reflected in the way links are used on the websites in question, which is what I have explained today. Website and blog owners seek to corral you in. They want a captive audience for the reasons cited.
It behooves you to understand the world you live in, and the internet is obviously a big part of that world. I suspect that I have presented a little more truth than some people will be able to bear today. I will finish up this series of posts about the internet on Friday.
