The North Korea Saga

September 24, 2017

Dracaena cinnabari

As with Dracaena cinnabari’s labyrinthine, spiny canopy, the ramifications of North Korea’s nuclear program reach everyone on this planet. In fact, it threatens to bring to a boil the simmering rivalry between China and Russia on the one hand, and the United States, NATO (notably, Germany does not support war)  and Japan on the other, a system of alliances and ententes reminiscent of pre-World War I Europe. Both sides have staked their positions. Paradoxically, the Chinese government under Xi Jinping has adopted a less tolerant attitude toward North Korea’s nuclear program, in some ways resonant with President Trump’s U.N. speech. As neither party can afford to be perceived as weak or less than courageous at home or abroad, it is wise to take them at their word. But North Korea’s loss with China is fully compensated by its mutual defense treaty with Russia, signed by President Putin into law and ratified by Russia’s upper house in November 2024. Thus, North Korea duly sent war materiel and troops to fight alongside Russia against Ukraine in the latest Battle of Kursk. In response North Korea reportedly over a million barrels of Russian oil, or over double the amount allowed by the United Nations.

Meanwhile President Putin weighed in saying that North Korea views its nuclear and missile program as its only means of self-defense. His logic makes sense, but there’s much more to it than that.

Proliferation of Weapons

A simple fact: thorough research reveals that historically the proliferation of weapons has been the rule, not the exception. For that reason it borders on the naïve to believe that the proliferation of nuclear weapons can be permanently prevented. It might be possible for a finite period of time –years or decades- but not permanently.

The first countries to arm themselves with nuclear weapons were the victorious powers of World War II and veto wielders in the Security Council of the United Nations: the U.S., the Soviet Union (and its successor, Russia), China, France and Great Britain. Since then countries that either did not exist or were not then independent –India, Israel, North Korea and Pakistan, in alphabetical order, have acquired them. No wartime leader is known to have foreseen that these specific countries would one day be armed with these weapons. By the same token, it is impossible to predict who else is going to have them or something worse in the future, including non-state militias.

A Changing World Order

The ongoing festering of the Korean crisis has coincided with three events that herald a new world order. The first is the recent introduction of the gold-backed petroyuan. Russia, Iran, and now Venezuela have begun selling crude to China, the biggest importer of oil in the world, in yuan rather than dollars.

One immediate consequence is the decline in the value of the dollar; another, not yet fully manifested, is the effect all those unused dollars will have on the U.S. money supply when they are repatriated. They will fan the flames of inflation and spike interest rates, the worst possible outcome for the housing market. The federal government, saddled with a mountain of debt and perennial current account and trade deficits, will likely find it impossible to do much about it. That will trigger a cascade of events, none pleasant.

The second is that China, France, Britain and India have decided to stop sales of gasoline and diesel automobiles. China did not announce a target date, but it is pressuring automakers to speed things up. France and Britain will do so by 2040, India by 2030.

The third event, boycotted by all nuclear powered states and their vassals, is the adoption by 122 nations of a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. According to Costa Rica’s U.N. ambassador in Geneva, fully 129 nations signed up to help draft the treaty, two-thirds of the 193 member states. While nuclear armed states do not recognize it, the message from the majority of the world is unmistakable. It is a rebellion against the established world order whereby a handful of nations hold the entire world hostage at their pleasure. North Korea, recognizing that nuclear states are not about to renounce them, reserves the right to arm itself with them to deter, in their eyes, an attack by the United States. The obvious danger here is that the nations that adopted the new treaty will at some point in the future get discouraged by the refusal of nuclear states to adopt it and walk away from the Non-Proliferation Treaty a la North Korea. That alone explains why the U.S. and China agree that they will not accept North Korea’s premise. They must make an example of it so that no other country will dare do the same thing.

Convergence of U.S. and Chinese Interests

China’s currency is on the verge of displacing the petrodollar. Given the inevitable decline in the demand for oil that will occur as the world switches to electric cars it is in China’s interest to wait patiently for that event on the assumption that it will collapse the American Financial System. If and when that happens the U.S. will find itself unable to spend on the military as much as it has been since the end of World War II. In other words, China can accomplish this long term goal without firing a shot. Conversely, the U.S. operates on short term objectives, the most pressing being to convince its Persian Gulf allies that it alone can protect the dynasties from extinction by selling them expensive weapons and deploying the navy in exchange for pricing oil in dollars. Neither China nor the U.S. want war, however their strategic objectives are not congruent.

A Face-Saving Possibility

Here is a series of steps that could be taken to defuse the crisis.

  • China would guarantee North Korea’s existence, not with words but with deeds. It would deploy fighter jets, AWACS, tankers, anti-submarine and anti-aircraft ships, and submarines to guard the approaches to North Korea.
  • North Korea would immediately cease firing missiles of any type and detonating nuclear bombs.
  • Subject to verification, North Korea would move all its nuclear missiles and bombs to China. The U.S. would reciprocate by not deploying nuclear bombs and missiles in South Korea, also subject to verification.
  • The U.S. and South Korea, and China and North Korea, would sit down –without preconditions- to negotiate a permanent peace treaty.

2016 Third Consecutive Year of Record Global Warmth

August 10, 2017

The National Centers for Environmental Information of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released an international report detailing the following dismaying facts:

  1. Greenhouse gases highest on record.
  2. Global surface temperature highest on record.
  3. Global lower tropospheric (the troposphere is the area just above the Earth’s surface) temperature highest on record.
  4. Sea surface temperatures highest on record.
  5. Global upper ocean heat content near-record high.
  6. Global sea level highest on record.
  7. Extremes in the water cycle and precipitation.
  8. The arctic continued to warm, sea ice extent remained low.
  9. Antarctic sees record low sea ice extent.
  10. Global ice and snow cover decline.
  11. Tropical cyclones were well above average overall.

Avatar Income

Background

According to the 2016 World Economic Forum, “the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields requiring college degrees such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labor markets over the next five years.”

Clearly these technologies are designed to increase short term profits by eliminating jobs. Therefore, absent a specific mechanism to counter their cumulative effect, workers worldwide are facing a painful transition of unprecedented magnitude as arduous, repetitive and even dangerous occupations are absorbed by the ongoing rise of the machines. Our government’s fixation on boosting military expenditures, which already exceed the next seven nations combined, its aversion to redistribute wealth, its undisguised eagerness to dismantle the last vestiges of FDR’s New Deal, and its staunch refusal to concede that climate change will force humanity, one way or another, to stop using fossil fuels, will toss future generations into a spiral of despair and hopelessness, a breeding ground for revolt.

The economy is the glue that binds modern societies into cohesive states. Accordingly, a majority of the people must have a reasonable share of income and wealth. Unfortunately a decline in disposable income, which is where we’re headed with the new technologies, will reduce the buying power of consumers, and they account for seventy percent of the U.S. economy. Therefore it behooves the government to organize, but not necessarily fund, a more egalitarian system designed to give most people the means to consume. That would be good for the government, which would collect more tax revenue and reduce safety net expenses, good for the working class, which would have the means to make ends meet, and good for the elite since the masses would have more disposable income to purchase their goods and services.

Enter Distributed Electricity

In 1880, at the height of the Victorian Era, Thomas Edison figured out how to create a pure vacuum in his bulbs, and in so doing, created the first marketable design. However, his revolutionary concoction required a permanent round-the-clock supply of electricity. In response, state-regulated, shareholder-owned power plants and distribution grid monopolies were created. Eventually the demand for electricity became so large that fossil fuels, particularly coal, had to be used. As with other for-profit enterprises, the new utilities had to compete in the capital markets. They did (and still do) that by offering competitive rates of return to shareholders based on the price of electricity. The system worked well because it had no real competition, until now.

It would be ludicrous and preposterous to suggest clinging to obsolete technologies such as steam locomotives, the telegraph, horse-drawn carriages and yes, centrally-generated electricity systems. And it’s not just a question of obsolescence. For the first time in history homo sapiens will have to adapt to the irresistible consequences of anthropogenic climate change, drought, sea level rise, depletion of aquifers, insufficient surface freshwater, potential famines, and the growing threat of terminal thermonuclear war.

Universal Basic (Avatar) Income

Click to enlarge

Universal Income is a necessity, however the government ought to organize and regulate, but not pay for it. In a nutshell, solar energy, hydrogen and gravity combined can potentially end using nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity. Public utilities could be relieved of their mandate to generate electricity. Instead, for a fee, they would operate, maintain and expand as needed the distribution grid. All new and existing residential, commercial and industrial buildings would be required to generate a surplus of electricity from solar power during daylight hours and be equipped with batteries for nighttime operation. Profits from the sale of electricity, hydrogen and freshwater would be distributed to property owners rather than utility shareholders. The profits would be used to help prospective and existing homeowners amortize their mortgages, end the housing crisis, create non-temporary well-paying jobs that cannot be outsourced or exported, and improve the economy at large. The system is explained in detail here.

Millions of Jobs To Disappear by 2020

The World Economic Forum (2016) warned that “the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which includes developments in previously disjointed fields such as artificial intelligence and machine-learning, robotics, nanotechnology, 3-D printing, and genetics and biotechnology, will cause widespread disruption not only to business models but also to labor markets over the next five years, with enormous change predicted in the skill sets needed to thrive in the new landscape”.

 

Maps of the World’s Water Crisis

[google-translator]

July 15, 2017

World DesertsAquifer Changes in Storage vs StressTrends in Global Groundwater Storage 2003-2013Depletion of US AquifersMany aquifers are being rapidly depleted throughout the world, and this does not factor in climate change. Case in point, the southern portion of the Ogallala Aquifer, a prime agricultural region in the U.S., is estimated to have no more that 20 years left. Simultaneously, according to the United Nations, the world’s population is expected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100. All of these additional mouths will need to be fed, yet food production will necessarily decline for lack of water with which to irrigate the fields.

It is the responsibility of those in power everywhere to address this impending catastrophe; not doing so, by extension, borders on willful negligence to protect their people from preventable genocide. This begs the question, how many governments, large or small, have it in their agenda to address this issue, solely or collectively? How many are considering, even if only as a pipe dream, the possibility of diverting funds from the merchants of death to the peasants and farmers that feed us all?

Deeds, Not Ineffective Rhetoric

July 14, 2017

The comings and goings of the Trumps and Clintons are but skillful distractions from the grave issues afflicting our country and the world: climate change, the global water crisis, the flat-out refusal of the world’s nuclear powers to eliminate humanity’s sword of Damocles, the lack of commitment to a concrete timetable to stop using nuclear fission and fossil fuels to generate electricity, the demise of Aristotelian democracy –and above all- the abysmal inequality of wealth and income.

None of them are ever on the agenda of any administration –regardless of party affiliation. Instead, they purport to tackle consequences, not causes. Take for instance, health care. One reason why it’s necessary to tax the rich to subsidize the poor is because the latter can’t afford the stratospheric premiums and deductibles, a function of inequality. The same applies, of course, to all other services for the poor, a phenomenon formerly the exclusive domain of minorities.

Another example is the housing crisis. The government’s exposure –through Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, FHA and VA, among others- to the $10 trillion real estate market is roughly $9 trillion. That means the government’s interest in it is congruent to the banks, investors and homeowners. They all want and need ever-higher prices.

That’s absurd. In California for instance, there are no cities of comparable size between Greater Los Angeles and the Bay Area. Furthermore, surprisingly, Eureka (estimated 2017 population: 26,727) is the largest town between San Francisco and Portland, Oregon. Prices are high not because there’s no vacant land to build on but because the supply of housing is kept artificially low to keep prices high. In other words, the economic system itself is cannibalizing our children and grandchildren. Despite nonexistent job security and low wages, they’re expected to simultaneously take out enormous non-dischargeable student loans and pay outrageous housing prices or rents. No wonder household formation is as low as it is and muffled, compressed dissatisfaction permeates the country. For the first time in our history over 50% of women live alone, and with only 5% of the world’s population, the United States consumes 80% of the world’s opioids.

Then there’s the South China Sea. An enormous percentage of the world’s trade passes through it, no argument there. What kind of trade? Surely it’s not that we’re protecting our exports –we hardly make anything anymore. It’s our dual-use, strategic imports that matter. We are now dependent on factories that American industrialists moved from the U.S. to Asia, a self-inflicted wound. Now we are in the position of having to contain and subdue China, a country 10,000 miles away with four times our population, incomparably lower college costs, and a GPA growing at 6% per year. To say the least, a daunting task.

There’s a silver lining. The G-19 countries that purportedly support the Paris Agreement have a golden opportunity to persuade the U.S. to hop back on board; not with ineffective rhetoric but with deeds. All they have to do is commit to a specific timetable to use hydrogen from the ocean instead of fission and fossil fuels to make water and electricity. As described in Plan A, that should do the trick.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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