Bonds have been the traditional instrument for government to spread the cost of installing a fossil fuel intensive infrastructure. The fight over road building and reconstruction on many of the nation's inventoried but undeveloped areas is an example.
In San Jose the RDA (with projects in light rail, 87, etc.) offices are across the hall from Merrill Lynch. Its ironic that the AB32 governor pushed bonds; and then gas prices raised family expenses 25%, stretched by debt to benefit Vehicle Miles Traveled, on the outer suburbs of the job intensive cities, and threatens his legacy. Bonds were necessary because the governor got his job by bankrupting government so commuters could own a planet toasting car with reduced vehicle license fees.
Banks Albach in the Palo Alto Daily News notes that, only from Lehman, Belmont Redwood Shores school district will lose about $3M in construction monies. The San Mateo Community College district lost $25M.
In another write up on the melting planet of bond financing Mark Olbert, a trustee on the San Carlos School Board of Trustees, observes:
I found it interesting that Lehman was almost the only investment discussed. The fund invests in many other names that have been in the news lately. As of Sept. 24, more than 80 percent of the investments are in what I think of as the financial services sector, a fascinating concentration given what’s been unfolding over the last year or so. I hope the Treasurer’s Office knows what it’s doing... and I personally hope it diversifies the portfolio as soon as it can.
In other words business as usual at least as long as gas stays under $4/- a gallon.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
bail our of the fossil fools economy
People would consider it ludicrous if we suggest that we privatize the air. But there is a company today in Japan that is selling oxygen in China where the air pollution is very bad. People also surprisingly would consider it ludicrous if we suggested that they must buy water. But in the US we essentially do that today paying Coca Cola and Pepsi 10,000 times more to buy bottled tap water which doesn't have to meet any of the quality tests for municipal water (and a third of a bottle of water equivalent in gas to ship it around.)
Surprisingly people today won't look back and say we have a right to growing our food the way we have a right to air and water. And yet that's what's happened two hundred years ago when the right to land was privatized and a bank system to finance purchase was setup. The creation of the federal reserve and the privatization of the creation money put in place the ability to enforce property rights on privatized land.
What sprawl did was extend the area of where banks could function. The result was exponentially larger consumption of resources like water and wetlands and deterioration of both the commons and the resource basins (like air) and their ecological services. For example Rice harvest in CA was delayed because smoke from the fires stunted growth. Even in sparsely populated areas fire departments were restricted by sprawl to "save lives" instead of keeping large tracts from burning.
The larger question to address concerns this corporate warfare state; that cannot sustain itself; and is taking the country to a similar post soviet union Russian debacle; which we can see in the story of GM, Ford, etc.; primarily because the end game around declining oil resources for the range of banks will place unequal down-spirals on the value of money.
Instead Congress in the pocket of the fossil fuel special interest is betting that the fossil fuel era can be extended with a global decline in fuel prices from decreased consumption due to the ongoing credit crisis and praying that the effects of peak oil can be postponed.
Surprisingly people today won't look back and say we have a right to growing our food the way we have a right to air and water. And yet that's what's happened two hundred years ago when the right to land was privatized and a bank system to finance purchase was setup. The creation of the federal reserve and the privatization of the creation money put in place the ability to enforce property rights on privatized land.
What sprawl did was extend the area of where banks could function. The result was exponentially larger consumption of resources like water and wetlands and deterioration of both the commons and the resource basins (like air) and their ecological services. For example Rice harvest in CA was delayed because smoke from the fires stunted growth. Even in sparsely populated areas fire departments were restricted by sprawl to "save lives" instead of keeping large tracts from burning.
The larger question to address concerns this corporate warfare state; that cannot sustain itself; and is taking the country to a similar post soviet union Russian debacle; which we can see in the story of GM, Ford, etc.; primarily because the end game around declining oil resources for the range of banks will place unequal down-spirals on the value of money.
Instead Congress in the pocket of the fossil fuel special interest is betting that the fossil fuel era can be extended with a global decline in fuel prices from decreased consumption due to the ongoing credit crisis and praying that the effects of peak oil can be postponed.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Not this bailout
When you add the interest, because this make and sold $700B money is borrowed from the banks, and then add in the fees they'll charge to figure out what home values are relative to their toxic mortgage, the cost will be $3T.
Gas prices by raising costs 25% pushed stupid negatively amortized keeping-up-with-the-jones families over the edge on the outer rings of sprawl nation. And as these home compete in the foreclosure market, and future gas prices and related food and energy prices rise, the effect of increased poor quality inventory, will continue to be felt in declining home values.
So if a bailout is to occur it should change the way we do business, particularly the fossil fuel economy of the warfare state, that brings us to this stage, with incentives for walkable cities and penalties for a jobs housing imbalance. Interesting to see that houses on the outskirts of the driving economy, like Modesto, Merced and even the suburbs of Sacramento, if you google foreclosure and put in a destination like North Fairoaks, will show houses in the 50ks which is no where near where housing prices are in San Jose or SF, are, an equivalent price decline putting values at 220k; while Cheney is still having wet dreams over sending our kids to Iran. The papers are full these days about hedge funds. If I draw up a list of the first hundred people I'd care to talk to tomorrow not one is in a hedge fund. So who are we bailing out and why not do something useful to help people get local jobs and walking access to services and food.
We actually have affordable housing these days. And 5 to 7% unemployment is not horrific. And there are many good solutions out there. For example the government could take a house before foreclosure and negatively capitalize it. i.e. take the loss in value plus 10% (for a down payment if necessary)and park it, until the house is sold (the same way a senior can borrow from a house until they die and then the sale pays back the loan). Simultaneously reduce the mortgage by the parked value and fix the rate to the new mortgage less 10%. Very little out of the government's pocket, it keeps people in their homes, and when the market stabilizes (not recovers, because just as pets.com is not coming back, so this housing bubble is not going to realize the same high prices as before in our life time; and on another topic its all relative) the government can share the loss with the lending authority. Amortize and defer in other words.
There are other more complicated schemes out there like this one by Stiglitz who projects in addition that the $3T cost of the Iraq war will hamper future generations for decades.
The majority of the "market drop" is not related to the fundamentals but to hope that this administration's scorch and burn policy can once more allow their funders on Wall Street, of what Norman Solomon in Made Love Got War calls the Warfare State, to once more bank on their irresponsible actions.
This looks like the Japanese Economy (which looks like it foretells us by about 5 years), the bubble in the late 80s and 90s was similar to the 1920s. Many sane heads have been saying for twenty years that we should reduce debt and address the consequent ecological problems like dead seas and fish stocks and poisonous air, and depleted resources like oil and water, which lead to conflicts like Iraq, and Darfur.
Gas prices by raising costs 25% pushed stupid negatively amortized keeping-up-with-the-jones families over the edge on the outer rings of sprawl nation. And as these home compete in the foreclosure market, and future gas prices and related food and energy prices rise, the effect of increased poor quality inventory, will continue to be felt in declining home values.
So if a bailout is to occur it should change the way we do business, particularly the fossil fuel economy of the warfare state, that brings us to this stage, with incentives for walkable cities and penalties for a jobs housing imbalance. Interesting to see that houses on the outskirts of the driving economy, like Modesto, Merced and even the suburbs of Sacramento, if you google foreclosure and put in a destination like North Fairoaks, will show houses in the 50ks which is no where near where housing prices are in San Jose or SF, are, an equivalent price decline putting values at 220k; while Cheney is still having wet dreams over sending our kids to Iran. The papers are full these days about hedge funds. If I draw up a list of the first hundred people I'd care to talk to tomorrow not one is in a hedge fund. So who are we bailing out and why not do something useful to help people get local jobs and walking access to services and food.
We actually have affordable housing these days. And 5 to 7% unemployment is not horrific. And there are many good solutions out there. For example the government could take a house before foreclosure and negatively capitalize it. i.e. take the loss in value plus 10% (for a down payment if necessary)and park it, until the house is sold (the same way a senior can borrow from a house until they die and then the sale pays back the loan). Simultaneously reduce the mortgage by the parked value and fix the rate to the new mortgage less 10%. Very little out of the government's pocket, it keeps people in their homes, and when the market stabilizes (not recovers, because just as pets.com is not coming back, so this housing bubble is not going to realize the same high prices as before in our life time; and on another topic its all relative) the government can share the loss with the lending authority. Amortize and defer in other words.
There are other more complicated schemes out there like this one by Stiglitz who projects in addition that the $3T cost of the Iraq war will hamper future generations for decades.
The majority of the "market drop" is not related to the fundamentals but to hope that this administration's scorch and burn policy can once more allow their funders on Wall Street, of what Norman Solomon in Made Love Got War calls the Warfare State, to once more bank on their irresponsible actions.
This looks like the Japanese Economy (which looks like it foretells us by about 5 years), the bubble in the late 80s and 90s was similar to the 1920s. Many sane heads have been saying for twenty years that we should reduce debt and address the consequent ecological problems like dead seas and fish stocks and poisonous air, and depleted resources like oil and water, which lead to conflicts like Iraq, and Darfur.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
population consumption and equity
Paul Ehrlich and other population experts debate the consequences of a crowded world, and how a McCain administration could set back decades of progress.
Its good that in the beginning they all agreed that the problem is consumption not population and in particular the type of consumption. Connell solution of living in larger households was mentioned by the Archbishop of Cantebury. And they all agree on the need for women's education.
The most interesting aspect of the discussion, is this kernel of equity, that floats through the discussion and is not really fleshed out. That challenge is before the world community today- that a workable climate treaty must bridge the gap between the affluent and the aspiring. Erlich hits on equity on page 2 of the salon article, but from a charitable standpoint- the generous american "We need to see that all the people have enough to eat and have decent shelter, water and medical care."
The third world is far more aware that the imperial consumption of the west brings resource supplying dictators and storms and droughts into their part of world and creates poverty by displacing sustainable systems for resource annexation. Charity is not what they need with the coddled Musharraf's of the world; they need an equal share of the resource basins, like air, which sustain life. If the cost of polluting (i.e. development) the biosphere (i.e the sum total of resource basins) were equitable, then we have a solution to Erlich's followup posit: A much tougher problem is what to do about everybody wanting to consume like Americans, and have an SUV.
The rest of what they say on education etc is just more details, but without bridging the gap, its not going to work, because some will make money of poisoning someone else's food or water or air basin and in the process offer the wrong model of development for the survival of the species.
Erlich comes across as a rabid right wing social engineer and Connell as a leftist pro human rights social engineer. Without equity you have an imbalance that requires engineers! And its also where these guys go overboard- instead of preserving the natural wealth (benefits of wild lands) in the resource basins of subsistence societies with an ownership model, like ILO 169, they see poverty and want their development model imposed on it. Though to their credit they don't quite say that- I'm reading it in between the words wealthiest and subsistence- when they agree to "take the wealthiest lawyers and bankers and send them to subsistence societies."
Erlich's defense of the Population Bomb was very forceful- applied to the US. Don't preach, practice. A home grown solution to a domestic problem. It put Connell on the defensive- and arm chair quaterback who though that the study was his end all. At which point the discussion actually turned into a debate.
Its good that in the beginning they all agreed that the problem is consumption not population and in particular the type of consumption. Connell solution of living in larger households was mentioned by the Archbishop of Cantebury. And they all agree on the need for women's education.
The most interesting aspect of the discussion, is this kernel of equity, that floats through the discussion and is not really fleshed out. That challenge is before the world community today- that a workable climate treaty must bridge the gap between the affluent and the aspiring. Erlich hits on equity on page 2 of the salon article, but from a charitable standpoint- the generous american "We need to see that all the people have enough to eat and have decent shelter, water and medical care."
The third world is far more aware that the imperial consumption of the west brings resource supplying dictators and storms and droughts into their part of world and creates poverty by displacing sustainable systems for resource annexation. Charity is not what they need with the coddled Musharraf's of the world; they need an equal share of the resource basins, like air, which sustain life. If the cost of polluting (i.e. development) the biosphere (i.e the sum total of resource basins) were equitable, then we have a solution to Erlich's followup posit: A much tougher problem is what to do about everybody wanting to consume like Americans, and have an SUV.
The rest of what they say on education etc is just more details, but without bridging the gap, its not going to work, because some will make money of poisoning someone else's food or water or air basin and in the process offer the wrong model of development for the survival of the species.
Erlich comes across as a rabid right wing social engineer and Connell as a leftist pro human rights social engineer. Without equity you have an imbalance that requires engineers! And its also where these guys go overboard- instead of preserving the natural wealth (benefits of wild lands) in the resource basins of subsistence societies with an ownership model, like ILO 169, they see poverty and want their development model imposed on it. Though to their credit they don't quite say that- I'm reading it in between the words wealthiest and subsistence- when they agree to "take the wealthiest lawyers and bankers and send them to subsistence societies."
Erlich's defense of the Population Bomb was very forceful- applied to the US. Don't preach, practice. A home grown solution to a domestic problem. It put Connell on the defensive- and arm chair quaterback who though that the study was his end all. At which point the discussion actually turned into a debate.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
People suffering environmental harm are also consumers
The environment and consumer benefits from Pay-As-You-Drive insurance. A 30% participation rate reduces carbon dioxide by 55 million tons, equivalent to taking 10M cars off the road. Transit revenue increases because drivers exercise choice. All the benefits of reduced driving recur. But the Examiner article goes on to say that participation and reporting are voluntary, making PAYD ripe for gaming, because of opposition from consumer groups.
Why is Richard Holober, Consumer Federation of America's Executive Director, on the wrong side of the environment? Consumer groups have championed narrow rights against corporations, as both of them are locked in a buyer-seller pact, to toast the planet. The last thirty years has been a wash for injury prevention. Dangerous jobs have shifted to illegal "unrepresented" immigrants. The injuries has come at the expense of a resource expended planet and a deterioration in privacy rights across the board; and deprivation of life, liberty, and happiness without recourse for groups, like pedestrians and cyclist, on the wrong side of the consumption paradigm. Senator Leland Yee too bought into this resource depleting pollution centric position. Worse driver behavior that has a clear social harm like reckless driving, which uses more gasoline and kills more people, will not be tracked.
Not tracking irresponsible driving behavior sells more cars and allows for more dangerous roads since cities have to accommodate wider streets because of the speed creep law. This in turns sells bigger more polluting engines which can't go slow enough to be safe. The general ignorance of traffic and priority by tree hugging environmentalists is a problem which allows them to continue their polluting behavior that's strangling the biosphere.
We can’t buy ourselves out of global warming and protect consumers in the process and be successful on AB32. The planet suffers and exporting pollution to hapless consumers elsewhere doesn't cut it. We need to strengthen our environmental laws with a carbon fee on imports, not allow loopholes as big as the Global Accord on Tariffs and Trade. Poisner's plan tries to mitigate the harm of auto externalizes by offering consumers an alternative that they can measure in pocket book savings while seeking to preserve our common resources like the biosphere.
Why is Richard Holober, Consumer Federation of America's Executive Director, on the wrong side of the environment? Consumer groups have championed narrow rights against corporations, as both of them are locked in a buyer-seller pact, to toast the planet. The last thirty years has been a wash for injury prevention. Dangerous jobs have shifted to illegal "unrepresented" immigrants. The injuries has come at the expense of a resource expended planet and a deterioration in privacy rights across the board; and deprivation of life, liberty, and happiness without recourse for groups, like pedestrians and cyclist, on the wrong side of the consumption paradigm. Senator Leland Yee too bought into this resource depleting pollution centric position. Worse driver behavior that has a clear social harm like reckless driving, which uses more gasoline and kills more people, will not be tracked.
Not tracking irresponsible driving behavior sells more cars and allows for more dangerous roads since cities have to accommodate wider streets because of the speed creep law. This in turns sells bigger more polluting engines which can't go slow enough to be safe. The general ignorance of traffic and priority by tree hugging environmentalists is a problem which allows them to continue their polluting behavior that's strangling the biosphere.
We can’t buy ourselves out of global warming and protect consumers in the process and be successful on AB32. The planet suffers and exporting pollution to hapless consumers elsewhere doesn't cut it. We need to strengthen our environmental laws with a carbon fee on imports, not allow loopholes as big as the Global Accord on Tariffs and Trade. Poisner's plan tries to mitigate the harm of auto externalizes by offering consumers an alternative that they can measure in pocket book savings while seeking to preserve our common resources like the biosphere.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Why has personal virtue got us in such a bind?
It hasn't worked since Rachel Carson's Silent Spring because
1- the government takes all our money and through the lobbyists that underwrite them turns the subsidies into pollution.
2- The majority of people are looking for the cheapest buy. That means the most heavily subsidized pollution will sell. Unless there are regulation like the Clean Air Act to regulate pollution we will not get Priuses that the few personal virtuers can use to make a difference.
3- The underwriters of government will always benefit from our consumption. Just driving increases the need of oil companies to grab land in Santa Barbara and drive the Gwitchen in Alaska to extinction and lobby against the polar bears.
4- The underwriters of government want to sell us crap we don't need and the government in turns calls it progress and "the economy" and our kids go to school and get brainwashed in becoming consumers.
5- The government will promote consumption rather than ask for sacrifices that can will save our kids blood and treasure instead of war for more pollution.
1- the government takes all our money and through the lobbyists that underwrite them turns the subsidies into pollution.
2- The majority of people are looking for the cheapest buy. That means the most heavily subsidized pollution will sell. Unless there are regulation like the Clean Air Act to regulate pollution we will not get Priuses that the few personal virtuers can use to make a difference.
3- The underwriters of government will always benefit from our consumption. Just driving increases the need of oil companies to grab land in Santa Barbara and drive the Gwitchen in Alaska to extinction and lobby against the polar bears.
4- The underwriters of government want to sell us crap we don't need and the government in turns calls it progress and "the economy" and our kids go to school and get brainwashed in becoming consumers.
5- The government will promote consumption rather than ask for sacrifices that can will save our kids blood and treasure instead of war for more pollution.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Change needs get-real-change
Lots of talk about change these days. Here is a five point program for letting people keep more of their money, breathe clean air, get good local jobs, and have time for their families and community.
1- Congress can pass HR 676 - One plan; one nation. Its the least we can get for our taxes- not wars in Iraq and protective policy give aways for overseas jobs. Welfare for the public is in the constitution. War for oil and corporations is not. Without the security of health care people are wage slaves tied to jobs they don't like taking time away from their families and community. We can join Healthcare-NOW
2- Carbon tax on poisons replaces all or part of the income tax- Gore proposed replacing FICA as a means of reliving companies and the tax on work. But FICA pays for our social security, our retirement, and should be the consequence of our labor. The income tax on the other hand seems to go to many things like wars and poisons that are and is and should be unpopular. We can walk and ride a bike until that happens.
3- Cap and dividend- Congress and the governor want to cap carbon as well we should and at 350 ppm of CO2. But they want to leave the pollution out there for us to filter through our lungs without compensation and make fatter cats of Goldman Sachs. Instead return the money to Americans in a flat payment. Hansen and conservatives have also embraced this idea. More than a revenue neutral tax on poisons, cap and dividend allows us to right the wrong to the planet from vaporizing fossil fuels into the breath-o-sphere and what should be the life giving waters. We should know 350, the most important number on the planet, and pursue a low carbon lifestyle- grow a garden, reuse, stay away from toxins and plastic, take the bus, beware of the consequences of packaging.
4- Carbon fee on imports- take away the incentives to move jobs to polluting distant lands and disenfranchised peoples. Change will come if we dump Economics 101 on its head. We shouldn't have dead cats for Chinese pet food or medicines and ecolie on Mexican peppers to know we have a problem and they are suffering more than we are. There is a reason why McCain praises the nasty excess of the Ahmed Chalabi, Pervez Musharaf and Mikheil Saakashvili-s. We know the dangers that can cause and the world it leads us into and need to heed the call to stop now. We can buy and eat local. Use sustainable lumber and water.
5- Enable existing technologies now with carbon credits for cities. Instead of pursuing the siren call of new highly polluting technologies and poisons like hydrogen cars and lithium batteries lets make our cities smaller, slower, and walkable. For moving goods and services lets use golf carts and electric trucks and freight to rail. Most important lets give local government the incentive to make it happen. We can go to city hall and ask for 15 and 20 mph streets.
1- Congress can pass HR 676 - One plan; one nation. Its the least we can get for our taxes- not wars in Iraq and protective policy give aways for overseas jobs. Welfare for the public is in the constitution. War for oil and corporations is not. Without the security of health care people are wage slaves tied to jobs they don't like taking time away from their families and community. We can join Healthcare-NOW
2- Carbon tax on poisons replaces all or part of the income tax- Gore proposed replacing FICA as a means of reliving companies and the tax on work. But FICA pays for our social security, our retirement, and should be the consequence of our labor. The income tax on the other hand seems to go to many things like wars and poisons that are and is and should be unpopular. We can walk and ride a bike until that happens.
3- Cap and dividend- Congress and the governor want to cap carbon as well we should and at 350 ppm of CO2. But they want to leave the pollution out there for us to filter through our lungs without compensation and make fatter cats of Goldman Sachs. Instead return the money to Americans in a flat payment. Hansen and conservatives have also embraced this idea. More than a revenue neutral tax on poisons, cap and dividend allows us to right the wrong to the planet from vaporizing fossil fuels into the breath-o-sphere and what should be the life giving waters. We should know 350, the most important number on the planet, and pursue a low carbon lifestyle- grow a garden, reuse, stay away from toxins and plastic, take the bus, beware of the consequences of packaging.
4- Carbon fee on imports- take away the incentives to move jobs to polluting distant lands and disenfranchised peoples. Change will come if we dump Economics 101 on its head. We shouldn't have dead cats for Chinese pet food or medicines and ecolie on Mexican peppers to know we have a problem and they are suffering more than we are. There is a reason why McCain praises the nasty excess of the Ahmed Chalabi, Pervez Musharaf and Mikheil Saakashvili-s. We know the dangers that can cause and the world it leads us into and need to heed the call to stop now. We can buy and eat local. Use sustainable lumber and water.
5- Enable existing technologies now with carbon credits for cities. Instead of pursuing the siren call of new highly polluting technologies and poisons like hydrogen cars and lithium batteries lets make our cities smaller, slower, and walkable. For moving goods and services lets use golf carts and electric trucks and freight to rail. Most important lets give local government the incentive to make it happen. We can go to city hall and ask for 15 and 20 mph streets.
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