Image: Salvador Dali, Geopoliticus child watching the birth of the new man
PAUL KRUGMAN: I think, in the end, we’re going to have to go back to something that is kind of like the system that emerged from the New Deal, which was tightly regulated banks and financial institutions, limits on risk taking, fairly high taxes for high earners, which—it turns out that, you know, low tax rates create incentives, but the incentives are actually to play dangerous games with other people’s money. Democracy Now!, 3-23-09
In a visit on March 12 to the Evening Standard newsroom in London, [Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev] stood on a box and addressed a farewell to unfettered capitalism. "We need to find a new model of capitalism, taking the best of the old model and the best of socialism," he said. Der Spiegel, 3-23-09
Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, a leading climate scientist has said. James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said. Guardian, 3-18-09
JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society. ... The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably. Times Online, 3-22-09
Beyond the Swells of Geithner's Credibility & the AIG Bonus Babies, There is a Global Storm Moving in Fast, Do Not Be Distracted
By Richard Power
The issue of whether Tim Geithner is too much a part of the problem to oversee the solution is a distraction. The issue of the AIG bonus babies and the warped corporate kulchur they personify is also a distraction. These are tempests in a tea pot. Meanwhile, the tea pot, the table it rests on, and the house the table sits in, have been swept up in a storm that most people in the US mainstream news media and political establishment are not coming to grips with. Either they refuse to come clean with you about it, or they refuse to allow themselves to face it even in their own psyches. Yes, they know that a storm is upon us, but hardly any of them are acting as if they have looked at the satellite images to see just how big this storm really is.
In the second, prime-time news conference of his Presidency, Barack Hussein Obama reminded the US populace that it had elected a calm, strong, clear-minded and articulate man. The President came across as engaged in the right ways, and detached in the right ways. He communicated confidence, inclusiveness and maturity.
Yes, I know there are some aspects of our current circumstances that many people (perhaps most) are not ready to hear. But tell me, if something that someone is not ready to hear is already upon them does it do any good to try to break it to them gently or in small increments?
Of course, I want President Obama to succeed; and, of course, I want him to be correct in the ways I cannot help but think that he is incorrect. The alternatives are unthinkable. And in spite of my frustrations (e.g., with the lack of insistence on accountability for the Bush-Cheney regime) and my discomfort (e.g., with appointment of men like Larry Summers, who should have been disqualified by his treatment of Cornel West if nothing else), I still feel Obama is the right man in the right place at the right time. I extend the benefit of my doubts to him, for as long as he does not break the trust, and so far he has not.
But some of us, as Kierkegaard wrote long ago, have discovered ourselves to be "stormy petrels" (i.e., those birds of the Danish coast that foretold of imminent rain and wind); and we have a different mission.
President Obama's mission is to lead, and our mission is to tell him what lies ahead.
Here are four important pieces, each contains some vital insights into the extraordinary, global challenges ahead from some other stormy petrels:
AMY GOODMAN: Paul Krugman, what would a new system look like? What would you advocate?
PAUL KRUGMAN: I think, in the end, we’re going to have to go back to something that is kind of like the system that emerged from the New Deal, which was tightly regulated banks and financial institutions, limits on risk taking, fairly high taxes for high earners, which—it turns out that, you know, low tax rates create incentives, but the incentives are actually to play dangerous games with other people’s money. A lot of things need to be updated for the twenty-first century and information technology and so on, but basically, our grandfathers got this thing right. Our grandfathers understood that finance is useful but dangerous and needs to be very tightly hedged about with regulations.
AMY GOODMAN: You write, “The Obama administration has apparently made the judgment that there would be a public outcry if it announced a straightforward plan along these lines,” which is, you know, government buying up the troubled assets, “so it has produced what Yves Smith calls ‘a lot of bells and whistles to finesse the fact that the government will wind up paying well above market [value] for”—and you can’t say the rest.
PAUL KRUGMAN: Yeah, I still can’t say the rest, which was not Times style. But yeah, ultimately, when you get the—when you get through the complexities and the salesmanship, this is just a complicated way of having the government pay, having you and me pay, for buying these assets at more than any private investor is willing to pay for them.
AMY GOODMAN: You talk about why you’re so vehement about this right now, why you see this is the critical moment.
PAUL KRUGMAN: I think—this is a political judgment. We can argue this back and forth. But I think that Obama doesn’t get many shots at this, maybe just one. There’s already a huge public outcry, which doesn’t distinguish between the things we need to do and the things that were just mistakes. And for Obama to go and do this plan and put a lot of taxpayer money on the line and for it not to work, which I’m almost certain is what would happen, I don’t think he can come back to Congress for a plan that might actually work. I think that there’s a real—the stimulus is something of the same thing. You have to do this right, right away, because the political mood is getting ugly, for good reason, and there’s not a lot of patience with failed approaches, especially failed approaches that seem like your administration is just too close to Wall Street. Democracy Now!, 3-23-09
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev says the U.S. is getting a double dose of comeuppance with the swirling financial crisis and escalating violence in Afghanistan. ... In a visit on March 12 to the Evening Standard newsroom in London, Gorbachev stood on a box and addressed a farewell to unfettered capitalism. "We need to find a new model of capitalism, taking the best of the old model and the best of socialism," he said. He followed with an op-ed on March 17 in the International Herald Tribune, writing: "The so-called Washington Consensus…was force-fed to the world."
In the March 20 interview with BusinessWeek, Gorbachev continued to explore the theme of an evolving hybrid global economic system. When asked if the financial crisis was a comeuppance to the U.S., he said simply: "I believe so." Questioned further, he said, "There is no doubt that we need a new type of economic governance in the world. They have been working on the basis of principles developed almost a century ago. I think there will no longer be one country like the United States or a group of countries, as it has been, taking all the decisions. There can be no Politburo in the world now."
Gorbachev said, "You have to account for the differences between countries based not only on their economies, but on their cultures, on their different levels of development." Der Spiegel, 3-23-09
Protest and direct action could be the only way to tackle soaring carbon emissions, a leading climate scientist has said.
James Hansen, a climate modeller with Nasa, told the Guardian today that corporate lobbying has undermined democratic attempts to curb carbon pollution. "The democratic process doesn't quite seem to be working," he said.
Speaking on the eve of joining a protest against the headquarters of power firm E.ON in Coventry, Hansen said: "The first action that people should take is to use the democratic process. What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.
"The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I'm not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we're running out of time."
Hansen said he was taking part in the Coventry demonstration tomorrow because he wants a worldwide moratorium on new coal power stations. E.ON wants to build such a station at Kingsnorth in Kent, an application that energy and the climate change minister Ed Miliband recently delayed. "I think that peaceful actions that attempt to draw society's attention to the issue are not inappropriate," Hansen said. Guardian, 3-18-09
JONATHON PORRITT, one of Gordon Brown’s leading green advisers, is to warn that Britain must drastically reduce its population if it is to build a sustainable society.
Porritt’s call will come at this week’s annual conference of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), of which he is patron.
The trust will release research suggesting UK population must be cut to 30m if the country wants to feed itself sustainably.
Porritt said: “Population growth, plus economic growth, is putting the world under terrible pressure.
“Each person in Britain has far more impact on the environment than those in developing countries so cutting our population is one way to reduce that impact.”
Population growth is one of the most politically sensitive environmental problems. The issues it raises, including religion, culture and immigration policy, have proved too toxic for most green groups.
However, Porritt is winning scientific backing. Professor Chris Rapley, director of the Science Museum, will use the OPT conference, to be held at the Royal Statistical Society, to warn that population growth could help derail attempts to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Times Online, 3-22-09
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