Are you a US-based citizen? Are you worried about your country's future?
Understand this: whether you voted for him or not, Obama is not the problem.
The problem is that your country is an empire, and this empire is dying.
No, the reason isn't the recent implosion of the Bubble. The reason is the long-term structural decline of the power-plant of Empire – or what sociologists call US-style monopoly capitalism.
This is a systemic issue, which has been festering for the bulk of the 41 years I've been on this planet. Simply, the US economy is choking on its own accumulated legacy costs. Here are the seven biggest legacy costs of Empire:
1. Wall Street's oligopoly on finance has made its investment bankers rich. However, this oligopolistic structure channels capital into unproductive bubbles which eventually implode, requiring hideously expensive public bailouts.
2. Neoliberal ideologues have long promoted the holy trinity of private car ownership, private education and private home ownership. For a time, this made GM, Yale and Citicorps rich, but it also generated hideous pollution and traffic jams, an increasingly decrepit system of public education, ecologically unsustainable suburban sprawl, and a destructive housing bubble.
3. The US has long denied its citizens the most basic organizing and union rights found in all other First World countries. This has padded the profit margins of US corporations. But these same policies have also created a low-skill, badly educated workforce, unable to produce world-class goods.
4. The US military-industrial complex created millions of secure middle-class jobs, and enabled the Empire's ruling elites to run huge swathes of the planet for more than five decades (1945-2000). But over time, this same military-industrial complex rotted the Empire from within, very much as excessive military spending destroyed the USSR. American firms win military contracts based on their Washington lobbying skills, not their technical excellence or productivity, to the point where most of today's $1 trillion annual military budget is sheer economic deadweight.
5. The US has a mass media system utterly owned and dominated by a few giant oligopolies (public broadcasting makes up less than 1% of the US media market, as compared with 20-25% in most European countries and Japan). When the US was the center of the world film, TV and media industries, this didn't seem to matter. But the long-term result is that Americans are some of the most poorly informed and badly educated people on earth, easily manipulated by devious corporate propaganda and completely unaware of the fact that the rest of the planet creates and watches its own TV shows, films and media.
6. The US has a broken health system, which makes a few insurance oligopolies extremely wealthy at the expense of patient care and access – 40 million Americans have no insurance at all. Millions more have insurance, but are bankrupted each year by illnesses. The US has fallen to 38th in the world in infant mortality and 40th in life expectancy, and it will continue to plummet in the rankings, thanks to the creation of large-scale health and social security initiatives in many nations of the semi-periphery. (The Obama healthcare bill won't change this. It will force millions of Americans to buy health insurance coverage they can't afford, but does not address the root cause of the problem – the fact that the US system is dominated by health insurance companies. They make money by charging as much for care as possible, and providing as little of that care to patients as possible.)
7. Finally, the US has a broken political system, which runs on billion of dollars of campaign donations and legions of permanent lobbyists, busily cutting deals for their Wall Street masters at the expense of ordinary taxpayers
Any one of these legacy costs would seriously impair any modern economy. But the US is being dragged down by all seven of them, simultaneously.
That's the bad news. The good news is that the multipolar world is here, and there's no going back to the past. Sooner or later, the US will have to throw its Empire on the scrap heap of history – and the sooner, the better.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
The Story of the Decade
How to sum up 2000-2009? Simple:
You say goodbye:
Name: US Empire 1898-1985
GDP: 12 trillion EUR
Investment: 17% GDP
Debt to GDP ratio: 376% (3rd quarter 2009)
Net worth: owes rest of planet 4 trillion EUR
Demographics: 5% of humanity
...but we say hello!
Name: BRIC nations
GDP: 6 trillion EUR
Investment: 38% GDP
Debt to GDP ratio: 25%
Net worth: owns +2.5 trillion EUR rocksolid liquidity
Demographics: 42% of humanity
You say goodbye:
Name: US Empire 1898-1985
GDP: 12 trillion EUR
Investment: 17% GDP
Debt to GDP ratio: 376% (3rd quarter 2009)
Net worth: owes rest of planet 4 trillion EUR
Demographics: 5% of humanity
...but we say hello!
Name: BRIC nations
GDP: 6 trillion EUR
Investment: 38% GDP
Debt to GDP ratio: 25%
Net worth: owns +2.5 trillion EUR rocksolid liquidity
Demographics: 42% of humanity
A Christmas Carol
(With apologies to the Charles Dickens classic).
* * * * * *
The Spirit of the Semi-periphery stood among the sovereign wealth funds, and pointed down to one LCD screen. Government Sachs advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw a new Tobin tax in its solemn shape.
"Before I draw nearer to that transaction to which you point," said Sachs, "answer me one question. Are these the interest payments on the T-bills that Will be sold, or are they interest payments of auctions that May be, only?"
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the screen by which it stood.
"People's investment funds will foreshadow certain management fees, which, if persevered in, must increase," said Sachs. "But if the funds be divested, the returns will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Sachs crept towards it, trembling as it went; and following the finger, read upon the LCD screen the deleted file, its own name, US EMPIRE 1898-1985.
* * * * * *
The Spirit of the Semi-periphery stood among the sovereign wealth funds, and pointed down to one LCD screen. Government Sachs advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw a new Tobin tax in its solemn shape.
"Before I draw nearer to that transaction to which you point," said Sachs, "answer me one question. Are these the interest payments on the T-bills that Will be sold, or are they interest payments of auctions that May be, only?"
Still the Ghost pointed downward to the screen by which it stood.
"People's investment funds will foreshadow certain management fees, which, if persevered in, must increase," said Sachs. "But if the funds be divested, the returns will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."
The Spirit was immovable as ever.
Sachs crept towards it, trembling as it went; and following the finger, read upon the LCD screen the deleted file, its own name, US EMPIRE 1898-1985.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Techno-Orientalists Just Want to Have (Postcolonial) Fun
James Cameron has redeemed himself.
It is one of the ironies of the Empire's decline that the neoconservatives, once the linchpin of Wall Street's rule, are increasingly turning against their Empire. Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker is one of the most prominent examples of this logic: Volcker was the architect of the labor-bashing, capital-enriching austerity of the early 1980s, but has unequivocally denounced Wall Street's $14 trillion Federal bailout as the oligarchic looting of America it indeed is.
This tendency now has its aesthetic moment, in James Cameron's latest sci-fi blockbuster, "Avatar". Cameron's "Terminator" (1984) and "Aliens" (1986), the best of their respective franchises, were the leading embodiments of 1980s neoconservativism, and had all the contradictions of such -- i.e. pulse-pounding visuals, topnotch scripts and genuine suspense, all deployed in the service of a deeply regressive micropolitics, or what amounted to a speculative form outrunning its content.
This wasn't Cameron's fault. It's no accident that the greatest visual innovators of the late 1980s and early 1990s were located outside Hollywood altogether -- e.g. Polish director Krysztof Kieslowski and Hong Kong director John Woo. Simply, Cameron went as far as the Hollywood studio system of the day would let anyone go. (Not everyone can be as lucky as Peter Jackson, who had the advantage of DVD sales, an independent New Zealand animation team, and a highly mobilized fan community to create a genuinely progressive version of the Lord of the Rings).
The very word "avatar", as the etymologists remind us, comes from Sanskrit, and entered the English language through the British Orientalists of the late 18th century. Cameron's sci-fi fable updates this ancient Orientalism with a veneer of biotech survivalism. During any other historical moment, the result would have been an aesthetic disaster.
But Cameron channeled his disgust with the Empire's Iraqicide/Afghanicide into something constructive. For all its limitations (i.e. heroic white guy saves noble indigenous beings), "Avatar" is the first Hollywood film since "Apocalypse Now" which denounces American colonialism as the barbarism it indeed is.
What is most striking about the film aren't the fourteen-foot blue aliens sporting dreadlocks, elf-ears, anime-style eyes, and USB-compatible braids (a.k.a. the Kingston-Osaka-Lothlorien look) or FIOS-neon jungles, but the remarkable number of videogame references. The hunting, climbing, dragon-riding and action sequences pastiche huge chunks of the platformer and action genres, while half the creatures and one quarter of the scenery are spin-offs from "Final Fantasy". And that is all to the good -- Cameron had the sense to quote from the very best.
No, "Avatar" isn't the world-changing work of art which Hideo Kojima's "Metal Gear Solid 4" is. But Cameron finally gets something right: colonial Empires are death, the pursuit of profit via organized mass murder. We must end it, before it ends us all.
It is one of the ironies of the Empire's decline that the neoconservatives, once the linchpin of Wall Street's rule, are increasingly turning against their Empire. Former Fed Chair Paul Volcker is one of the most prominent examples of this logic: Volcker was the architect of the labor-bashing, capital-enriching austerity of the early 1980s, but has unequivocally denounced Wall Street's $14 trillion Federal bailout as the oligarchic looting of America it indeed is.
This tendency now has its aesthetic moment, in James Cameron's latest sci-fi blockbuster, "Avatar". Cameron's "Terminator" (1984) and "Aliens" (1986), the best of their respective franchises, were the leading embodiments of 1980s neoconservativism, and had all the contradictions of such -- i.e. pulse-pounding visuals, topnotch scripts and genuine suspense, all deployed in the service of a deeply regressive micropolitics, or what amounted to a speculative form outrunning its content.
This wasn't Cameron's fault. It's no accident that the greatest visual innovators of the late 1980s and early 1990s were located outside Hollywood altogether -- e.g. Polish director Krysztof Kieslowski and Hong Kong director John Woo. Simply, Cameron went as far as the Hollywood studio system of the day would let anyone go. (Not everyone can be as lucky as Peter Jackson, who had the advantage of DVD sales, an independent New Zealand animation team, and a highly mobilized fan community to create a genuinely progressive version of the Lord of the Rings).
The very word "avatar", as the etymologists remind us, comes from Sanskrit, and entered the English language through the British Orientalists of the late 18th century. Cameron's sci-fi fable updates this ancient Orientalism with a veneer of biotech survivalism. During any other historical moment, the result would have been an aesthetic disaster.
But Cameron channeled his disgust with the Empire's Iraqicide/Afghanicide into something constructive. For all its limitations (i.e. heroic white guy saves noble indigenous beings), "Avatar" is the first Hollywood film since "Apocalypse Now" which denounces American colonialism as the barbarism it indeed is.
What is most striking about the film aren't the fourteen-foot blue aliens sporting dreadlocks, elf-ears, anime-style eyes, and USB-compatible braids (a.k.a. the Kingston-Osaka-Lothlorien look) or FIOS-neon jungles, but the remarkable number of videogame references. The hunting, climbing, dragon-riding and action sequences pastiche huge chunks of the platformer and action genres, while half the creatures and one quarter of the scenery are spin-offs from "Final Fantasy". And that is all to the good -- Cameron had the sense to quote from the very best.
No, "Avatar" isn't the world-changing work of art which Hideo Kojima's "Metal Gear Solid 4" is. But Cameron finally gets something right: colonial Empires are death, the pursuit of profit via organized mass murder. We must end it, before it ends us all.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
And the Winner Is...
Nothing was the same for me after April 2003.
Growing up, I had always suspected my country was, if not hopelessly deranged, then surely in the grips of a malevolent elite. But the sight of my country's mass media and political elites raucously cheerleading a flagrantly illegal, unjust war of colonial annexation straight out of the late 19th century was more than just a passing shock.
No, it wasn't just the lies and mayhem of the invasion, or the carnage it triggered (carnage predicted by literally everyone who had ever studied Iraqi society). It was the deeply suicidal nature of the whole affair. On some deep level of its political unconscious, this Empire had decided to go to Central Asia to die.
But what goes around, most surely, surely comes around. The post-imperial circle is now complete:
---------------
Iraq's oil auction hits the jackpot
By Pepe Escobar
---------------
No, the oil revenues won't bring back the dead. But the Shiite crescent now has a chance to join Eurasia's developmental states.
Growing up, I had always suspected my country was, if not hopelessly deranged, then surely in the grips of a malevolent elite. But the sight of my country's mass media and political elites raucously cheerleading a flagrantly illegal, unjust war of colonial annexation straight out of the late 19th century was more than just a passing shock.
No, it wasn't just the lies and mayhem of the invasion, or the carnage it triggered (carnage predicted by literally everyone who had ever studied Iraqi society). It was the deeply suicidal nature of the whole affair. On some deep level of its political unconscious, this Empire had decided to go to Central Asia to die.
But what goes around, most surely, surely comes around. The post-imperial circle is now complete:
---------------
Iraq's oil auction hits the jackpot
By Pepe Escobar
---------------
No, the oil revenues won't bring back the dead. But the Shiite crescent now has a chance to join Eurasia's developmental states.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Comedy Platinum
There's comedy gold, and then there's that once-in-a-lifetime event, comedy platinum:
---------
USA Today: Obama: 'Fat-cat' bankers owe help to U.S. taxpayers
"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," Obama said.
---------
No, you just appointed those fat cats to run the economy, ensuring our economy continues to rot.
You also forked over trillions of taxpayer dollars to those fat cats, the most egregious transfer of wealth from a middle-class to oligarchs since the looting of Russia.
But fear not, my fellow Americans, because your Empire has only begun to bleed money. Obama's health insurance scheme will fork over trillions of taxpayer dollars to the vampires of the health insurance industry. It'll look good on the Christmas mantel -- a trillion-dollar medico-insurance complex, right next to those other criminal and insane boondoogles, that trillion-dollar military-industrial complex and those trillion-dollar failed colonial wars.
Last November, the people of this country voted for FDR II, not Bubblenomics 2.0. Once they start realizing they've been tricked, all hell is going to break loose around here. I just hope we Leftists can help channel that anger into something constructive.
---------
USA Today: Obama: 'Fat-cat' bankers owe help to U.S. taxpayers
"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of, you know, fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," Obama said.
---------
No, you just appointed those fat cats to run the economy, ensuring our economy continues to rot.
You also forked over trillions of taxpayer dollars to those fat cats, the most egregious transfer of wealth from a middle-class to oligarchs since the looting of Russia.
But fear not, my fellow Americans, because your Empire has only begun to bleed money. Obama's health insurance scheme will fork over trillions of taxpayer dollars to the vampires of the health insurance industry. It'll look good on the Christmas mantel -- a trillion-dollar medico-insurance complex, right next to those other criminal and insane boondoogles, that trillion-dollar military-industrial complex and those trillion-dollar failed colonial wars.
Last November, the people of this country voted for FDR II, not Bubblenomics 2.0. Once they start realizing they've been tricked, all hell is going to break loose around here. I just hope we Leftists can help channel that anger into something constructive.
Friday, December 11, 2009
Give Piece a Chance
Lots of news coverage of Premier Obamachev, leader of the United States of Securitized Assets, receiving the Ignoble Piece Prize. You haven't heard? Why, there's a transcript right here.
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Old Machines and New
Ah, the capital markets -- where sharks grow their teeth.
Case in point: the Chicago Daley machine (still going strong, after all these years) sold off Chicago's parking meters for the next 75 years to EU-based Allianz and a UAE-based sovereign wealth funds (hat tip to the SWF Institute for pointing this out):
"Abu Dhabi Shares Profits From Parking Meters"
Chicago got $600 million on the deal, and parking fees are sure to skyrocket. You could argue this isn't such a bad thing, give that higher fees are a disguised carbon tax, and will discourage auto use in a city which has a reasonably widespread system of mass transit.
Still, it says something about the profound decline of US civil society, that a major US metropolis does not have the administrative capacity to run a bunch of parking meters.
Case in point: the Chicago Daley machine (still going strong, after all these years) sold off Chicago's parking meters for the next 75 years to EU-based Allianz and a UAE-based sovereign wealth funds (hat tip to the SWF Institute for pointing this out):
"Abu Dhabi Shares Profits From Parking Meters"
Chicago got $600 million on the deal, and parking fees are sure to skyrocket. You could argue this isn't such a bad thing, give that higher fees are a disguised carbon tax, and will discourage auto use in a city which has a reasonably widespread system of mass transit.
Still, it says something about the profound decline of US civil society, that a major US metropolis does not have the administrative capacity to run a bunch of parking meters.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Stimulus II: Unions and Developmental States Go to Work
Given that two-thirds of the stimulus package funds are due to be spent over the next twelve months, this is a glimmer of good news:
-------------
From Bloomberg: "Obama Focuses on Small Businesses to Spur Job Growth"
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said lawmakers may seek to finance $75 billion to $150 billion in highway construction and other job creating measures with unused TARP funds.
-------------
The only reason this is happening is (1) public sector unions have kicked up a ruckus about impending cuts (since the public sector is one of the few areas where US workers can legally organize unions these days, union membership for all state and Federal employees is around 36.8%, according to the BLS), and (2) the digital commons has gone after Wall Street's panzer divisions with Katyushas and RPG-29s.
It should be noted that the US is behind the curve here -- the rest of the world has been rolling out second-round stimulus packages. Japan is spending an additional $81 billion, Russia bailed out its car industry and is boosting pensions by 40% by 2010, the equivalent of $35 billion, India and China are continuing their stimulus packages, while Brazil is gearing up for major infrastructure spending as preparation for the 2016 Olympics.
-------------
From Bloomberg: "Obama Focuses on Small Businesses to Spur Job Growth"
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Maryland Democrat, said lawmakers may seek to finance $75 billion to $150 billion in highway construction and other job creating measures with unused TARP funds.
-------------
The only reason this is happening is (1) public sector unions have kicked up a ruckus about impending cuts (since the public sector is one of the few areas where US workers can legally organize unions these days, union membership for all state and Federal employees is around 36.8%, according to the BLS), and (2) the digital commons has gone after Wall Street's panzer divisions with Katyushas and RPG-29s.
It should be noted that the US is behind the curve here -- the rest of the world has been rolling out second-round stimulus packages. Japan is spending an additional $81 billion, Russia bailed out its car industry and is boosting pensions by 40% by 2010, the equivalent of $35 billion, India and China are continuing their stimulus packages, while Brazil is gearing up for major infrastructure spending as preparation for the 2016 Olympics.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Special Message from the Airship Uplink
The crew of the airship Uplink, domicile of lizard-monkeys, viera-bears, and several technologies which haven't been invented on this planet just yet, have asked me to forward the following:
Dear Americans --
Do you worry that your country is being looted by irresponsible and greedhead banksters?
Are you queasy at the fact that your ruling elites spend their time preaching the virtues of failed neocolonial wars your country can't win and can't afford to pay for anymore?
Are you angry that Wall Street cretins have bought off your politicians?
Fear not, Uplink's crew has the ideological ammunition you've been looking for.
The first thing you must do is read Paul Klebnikov's thoroughly researched, unimpeachably honest and utterly devastating Godfather of the Kremlin (hint: the subtitle of the book is "The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism"). You will discover that none of your problems are new. In fact, they have been the problems of your semi-peripheral neighbors for about thirty years now.
Next, map out the shocking parallels of the Soviet collapse with your own collapsing Empire.
Draw a deep breath.
Last but not least, draw your own (post-Imperial) conclusions. To paraphrase an icon of the gaming culture, neoliberalism is powerful, but the developmental state is solid!
Dear Americans --
Do you worry that your country is being looted by irresponsible and greedhead banksters?
Are you queasy at the fact that your ruling elites spend their time preaching the virtues of failed neocolonial wars your country can't win and can't afford to pay for anymore?
Are you angry that Wall Street cretins have bought off your politicians?
Fear not, Uplink's crew has the ideological ammunition you've been looking for.
The first thing you must do is read Paul Klebnikov's thoroughly researched, unimpeachably honest and utterly devastating Godfather of the Kremlin (hint: the subtitle of the book is "The Decline of Russia in the Age of Gangster Capitalism"). You will discover that none of your problems are new. In fact, they have been the problems of your semi-peripheral neighbors for about thirty years now.
Next, map out the shocking parallels of the Soviet collapse with your own collapsing Empire.
Draw a deep breath.
Last but not least, draw your own (post-Imperial) conclusions. To paraphrase an icon of the gaming culture, neoliberalism is powerful, but the developmental state is solid!
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Beginning of the End
Nomi Prins has been poring over the books of the big banksters, who are floating on an ocean of $14 trillion of taxpayer-provided bailout funds (that's not a typo, the number really is fourteen trillion dollars), and it isn't a pretty sight.
In other news, Afghanistan is about to become the graveyard of a third Empire. Some future historian will have to uncover the relentless dialectic which drove the very last imperialist world hegemon (there will be no others) to commit economic and geopolitical suicide, by sacrificing its industrial base for a bunch of irresponsible banksters, and sacrificing its democracy for an insane war of colonial conquest on one of the poorest countries on the planet.
In other news, Afghanistan is about to become the graveyard of a third Empire. Some future historian will have to uncover the relentless dialectic which drove the very last imperialist world hegemon (there will be no others) to commit economic and geopolitical suicide, by sacrificing its industrial base for a bunch of irresponsible banksters, and sacrificing its democracy for an insane war of colonial conquest on one of the poorest countries on the planet.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Apocalypse Now, Pay Later
Ahhh, vacation. More Americans should enjoy them.
Finally got around to watching the extended version of Coppola's "Apocalypse Now". The result is a mixed bag -- the added layers of symbolism are welcome (e.g. Lance's increasing use of face-paint, corresponding to the dehumanization of the crew), but the larger canvas also highlights the flaws in the original. The film can't grasp gender, and the Vietnamese remain inscrutable Others.
What Coppola does get right, though, is the delusionary madness of Empire, how its utopia of endless malls turned into napalm and mass murder. Yesterday's heli-war is today's drone bombardment, but the result is the same: slaughter, mayhem, and utter futility. In my most nightmarish dreams, never did I imagine that the US would be insane enough to commit suicide the same way the USSR did, bankrupting itself on military-industrial folly and foreign debt, and going so far as to recycle the same Central Asian burial ground.
Meanwhile, a fresh crop of Colonel Kurtzes is showing up in Central Asia. The greatest irony of all is that America's creditors are beyond caring. If the Americans want to bleed themselves further, that's America's problem, not theirs. The BRICs have time and T-bills on their side.
Finally got around to watching the extended version of Coppola's "Apocalypse Now". The result is a mixed bag -- the added layers of symbolism are welcome (e.g. Lance's increasing use of face-paint, corresponding to the dehumanization of the crew), but the larger canvas also highlights the flaws in the original. The film can't grasp gender, and the Vietnamese remain inscrutable Others.
What Coppola does get right, though, is the delusionary madness of Empire, how its utopia of endless malls turned into napalm and mass murder. Yesterday's heli-war is today's drone bombardment, but the result is the same: slaughter, mayhem, and utter futility. In my most nightmarish dreams, never did I imagine that the US would be insane enough to commit suicide the same way the USSR did, bankrupting itself on military-industrial folly and foreign debt, and going so far as to recycle the same Central Asian burial ground.
Meanwhile, a fresh crop of Colonel Kurtzes is showing up in Central Asia. The greatest irony of all is that America's creditors are beyond caring. If the Americans want to bleed themselves further, that's America's problem, not theirs. The BRICs have time and T-bills on their side.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Victory!
This is what democracy looks like...
...a whole bunch of people from different continents and cultures, and with wildly different backgrounds, interests and talents, all banding together to improve working conditions for all. It took just two days, but massive turnout and campus solidarity caused the UI administration to see the writing on the wall and agree to a reasonable compromise.
The weather deities must have a union contract of their own, because the rainstorm ceased and the sun began to peek out at the exact moment we won our fight at the bargaining table. Here's the celebration:
...a whole bunch of people from different continents and cultures, and with wildly different backgrounds, interests and talents, all banding together to improve working conditions for all. It took just two days, but massive turnout and campus solidarity caused the UI administration to see the writing on the wall and agree to a reasonable compromise.
The weather deities must have a union contract of their own, because the rainstorm ceased and the sun began to peek out at the exact moment we won our fight at the bargaining table. Here's the celebration:
Monday, November 16, 2009
After 30 Years of Neoliberalism, the Payback Begins
Spent today on the picket lines and oh hell yes did it ever feel good. Our friendly neighborhood university-industrial complex is trying to fix its financial woes by taking away our tuition waivers, which is utter madness. 90% of graduate students could not afford to attend the university without those waivers. We grads teach most of the classes for ludicrously low pay, and contribute countless unpaid hours on cutting-edge research projects (my own workweek is never less than 80 hours, and sometimes more).
Slashing tuition waivers to save money makes as much sense as a weight loss program which involves chopping off both your legs.
It's incredible how every single institution in this entire country has become clinically suicidal, from the biggest Wall Street vampire squid to the most out-of-the-way school district. Meanwhile, this failed Empire's twin failed wars devour an inconceivable $1 trillion a year, while Wall Street pays itself record bonuses thanks to a $14.1 trillion bailout.
Highlight of the day: an irate passerby upset with our picket line told us we were going to Hell. Ever courteous, we refrained from informing this person that, on our salaries, we already live there.
Slashing tuition waivers to save money makes as much sense as a weight loss program which involves chopping off both your legs.
It's incredible how every single institution in this entire country has become clinically suicidal, from the biggest Wall Street vampire squid to the most out-of-the-way school district. Meanwhile, this failed Empire's twin failed wars devour an inconceivable $1 trillion a year, while Wall Street pays itself record bonuses thanks to a $14.1 trillion bailout.
Highlight of the day: an irate passerby upset with our picket line told us we were going to Hell. Ever courteous, we refrained from informing this person that, on our salaries, we already live there.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Financial Education
Long ago, in another life, I watched a documentary about neoliberalism in Jamaica. A dairy farmer complained about how imported powdered milk destroyed the local agricultural base. Right now I'm waiting on line to buy $6 of powdered milk because it's all I can afford.
The person ahead of me swipes his card. Nothing. The clerk suggests retyping the password. Swipe. Nothing. Swipe. Nothing.
The clerk tries to help, punches in some numbers. "Looks like you have only $4 left." The customer looks down at his two items, triages the most valuable, pays for that.
* * * * * *
Another $50 drained from my vanishingly small bank account. This wasn't bad planning on my part, but an accident due to the debit card float -- the time it takes, sometimes a week or more, for debit purchases to register in your checking account. It looked like my account had enough money, so I sent in my rent check, but the debit charges hit at the last second. Overdraft fee: $25 per transaction.
What I didn't realize is that this means each and every transaction. Access your account again, and you pay another $25 fee. So now I'm out an extra $50 that I can't afford. That's on top of my $88 traffic ticket and charges for a check lost in the mail.
Yeah, just pile it on, transnational capitalism, just pile it on. Kick me when I'm down.
You'll regret not killing me when you had the chance.
The person ahead of me swipes his card. Nothing. The clerk suggests retyping the password. Swipe. Nothing. Swipe. Nothing.
The clerk tries to help, punches in some numbers. "Looks like you have only $4 left." The customer looks down at his two items, triages the most valuable, pays for that.
* * * * * *
Another $50 drained from my vanishingly small bank account. This wasn't bad planning on my part, but an accident due to the debit card float -- the time it takes, sometimes a week or more, for debit purchases to register in your checking account. It looked like my account had enough money, so I sent in my rent check, but the debit charges hit at the last second. Overdraft fee: $25 per transaction.
What I didn't realize is that this means each and every transaction. Access your account again, and you pay another $25 fee. So now I'm out an extra $50 that I can't afford. That's on top of my $88 traffic ticket and charges for a check lost in the mail.
Yeah, just pile it on, transnational capitalism, just pile it on. Kick me when I'm down.
You'll regret not killing me when you had the chance.
Monday, November 9, 2009
How Wall Street Is Ripping You Off
Nomi Prins' "It Takes a Pillage" should be required reading for all US citizens.
It explains in clear, terse prose what Wall Street did to blow up the US economy -- run up wild debts, polarize incomes, gamble like there was no tomorrow, and pay regulators to look the other way, until the house of credit cards collapsed -- and how they've bought off the politicians of both parties in Washington DC.
Prins also has this indispensable running tally of the total cost of the bailout. Hint: it's bigger than you think.
It explains in clear, terse prose what Wall Street did to blow up the US economy -- run up wild debts, polarize incomes, gamble like there was no tomorrow, and pay regulators to look the other way, until the house of credit cards collapsed -- and how they've bought off the politicians of both parties in Washington DC.
Prins also has this indispensable running tally of the total cost of the bailout. Hint: it's bigger than you think.
Thursday, November 5, 2009
The Multipolar World...
...what dreams will it dream?
In my profession, people often ask me if there is hope for the future.
Yes, there is hope -- but not from the US political overclass or US ruling elites.
This week, the forex reserves of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) increased to a total of $3.22 trillion. This isn't some speculative stock position -- this is cold, hard cash.
Historically, the 42% of humanity comprising the BRIC nations have been ravaged by centuries of colonialism and neocolonialism, as well as titanic world wars and the ruinous burden of Cold War military expenditures.
But today, thanks to their own sweat, labor, and sheer determination, they have colossal sums of money at their disposal, the power to "control and mold the world to do your wishing" as Ice-T rapped nearly two decades ago on the title track of Power.
All the signs are that the BRICs have no intention of paying Wall Street rentiers a dime for managing these funds (sorry, Squidsters, you'll have to make do heatmapping gullible US consumers).
Instead, the BRICs have decided to invest in humanity's egalitarian future, not its imperial past.
I didn't think it would happen for another 12-15 years, but it's happening anyway.
And that is a powerful reason to hope.
In my profession, people often ask me if there is hope for the future.
Yes, there is hope -- but not from the US political overclass or US ruling elites.
This week, the forex reserves of the BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China) increased to a total of $3.22 trillion. This isn't some speculative stock position -- this is cold, hard cash.
Historically, the 42% of humanity comprising the BRIC nations have been ravaged by centuries of colonialism and neocolonialism, as well as titanic world wars and the ruinous burden of Cold War military expenditures.
But today, thanks to their own sweat, labor, and sheer determination, they have colossal sums of money at their disposal, the power to "control and mold the world to do your wishing" as Ice-T rapped nearly two decades ago on the title track of Power.
All the signs are that the BRICs have no intention of paying Wall Street rentiers a dime for managing these funds (sorry, Squidsters, you'll have to make do heatmapping gullible US consumers).
Instead, the BRICs have decided to invest in humanity's egalitarian future, not its imperial past.
I didn't think it would happen for another 12-15 years, but it's happening anyway.
And that is a powerful reason to hope.
Wednesday, November 4, 2009
This is What Imperial Collapse Looks Like
Price tag of a US mayor: $90 million. Meanwhile, the Party of Government Sachs gets clobbered.
To anyone with a functioning neural cortex, all this is utterly unsurprising. Conservativism and regression are the hallmarks of every dying market-based Empire, from 16th century Spain to 17th century Netherlands, all the way to post-Victorian Britain. In each case, all the social, economic, political and cultural factors which unwittingly conspired to forge a given Empire, turn at a certain point against that Empire.
Odd as it sounds, the closest geopolitical parallel to the US decline isn't Victorian Britain, but Russia's post-Soviet collapse. So far, Obama has followed the Gorbachev script of catastrophic dithering to the letter. The US has -- and the USSR had -- Federal superstructures pinned down by severe military-industrial overstretch; declining local state capacity (the fiscal collapse of California and New York, versus the collapse of state authority throughout the former USSR), and a disastrous occupation of Afghanistan. The only difference is that Obama's team is rebranding the assets of a dead banking system, where Gorbachev's team rebranded dead party-state dogmas (or maybe the equivalent is the Chubais privatizations, when the oligarchs plundered Russia's energy and mineral resources).
I've written elsewhere that there would be a three-month window at the beginning of Obama's term for mildly progressive legislation. This window has now closed. No card check, no health reform worthy of the name, no real banking re-regulation.
In place of those things, I fully expect the Dems to institute a major austerity drive beginning next year, and to be thoroughly thrashed at the 2010 polls -- we're talking possibly losing the Senate -- which will lead to more austerity, etc.
It's not the end of the world. The BRICs will pick up where the US left off, and the EU has finally figured out that it is indeed a genuine superpower. The semi-peripheries and the new metropoles will get the world economy humming again, and the US will bump along in tow, like the derelict supertanker it indeed is.
To anyone with a functioning neural cortex, all this is utterly unsurprising. Conservativism and regression are the hallmarks of every dying market-based Empire, from 16th century Spain to 17th century Netherlands, all the way to post-Victorian Britain. In each case, all the social, economic, political and cultural factors which unwittingly conspired to forge a given Empire, turn at a certain point against that Empire.
Odd as it sounds, the closest geopolitical parallel to the US decline isn't Victorian Britain, but Russia's post-Soviet collapse. So far, Obama has followed the Gorbachev script of catastrophic dithering to the letter. The US has -- and the USSR had -- Federal superstructures pinned down by severe military-industrial overstretch; declining local state capacity (the fiscal collapse of California and New York, versus the collapse of state authority throughout the former USSR), and a disastrous occupation of Afghanistan. The only difference is that Obama's team is rebranding the assets of a dead banking system, where Gorbachev's team rebranded dead party-state dogmas (or maybe the equivalent is the Chubais privatizations, when the oligarchs plundered Russia's energy and mineral resources).
I've written elsewhere that there would be a three-month window at the beginning of Obama's term for mildly progressive legislation. This window has now closed. No card check, no health reform worthy of the name, no real banking re-regulation.
In place of those things, I fully expect the Dems to institute a major austerity drive beginning next year, and to be thoroughly thrashed at the 2010 polls -- we're talking possibly losing the Senate -- which will lead to more austerity, etc.
It's not the end of the world. The BRICs will pick up where the US left off, and the EU has finally figured out that it is indeed a genuine superpower. The semi-peripheries and the new metropoles will get the world economy humming again, and the US will bump along in tow, like the derelict supertanker it indeed is.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Fustercluck Nation
Long ago, in what seems like another life, I visited Russia during the mid-1990s, the heyday of neoliberalism and the economic nadir of Russia's post-Soviet era. The immiseration and suffering of millions of ordinary people was starkly visible, but I also saw pride, spirit, and astounding tenacity. Russia had survived civil war, political repression, the unthinkable bloodletting of WW II (22 to 26 million Soviet citizens perished in that war, or roughly 20 million ethnic Russians), and the costly burden of a bloated military-industrial complex. It would survive neoliberalism, too.
One of the small details which struck me back then was the disruption of public services: the mail had almost stopped being delivered. You had to send things by private courier.
How things have changed. Today, in one of the great ironies of history, Russia has finally recovered, at precisely the moment America is entering its post-Cold War collapse.
Case 1: the local mail at the university town where I live is becoming increasingly unreliable. Mail wasn't being delivered properly, and then finally my rent check was lost in the mail. (From now on, I drop off rent payments in person).
Of course, when public services decline, they don't just fall apart overnight. What happens is that fiscal crises drive local authorities to try to capture revenue, by raising fees, imposing surcharges, or privatizing and monetizing previously free services.
Case 2: I took a wrong traffic turn while driving in a certain midwestern city. It was dark and raining like hell, but whatever, I'll pay the fine. Total bill: $88.80. What the hell? I didn't endanger any lives, didn't cause any accidents, didn't run any lights, didn't cut anyone off, wasn't in the wrong lane per se, just turned left at a major intersection. Thank goodness I wasn't speeding, otherwise I would've been on the hook for $300 or more.
Case 3: sending the check for the traffic ticket. I have to mail it to the courthouse, of course. So that means spending an extra $3.24 on certified mail, just to make sure the damn thing gets there.
$88.80 + $3.24 for certified mail + $20 late fee on rent = $112.04. As for my salary, let's just say I have to make do on about $10,000 a year.
These fees hurt. A lot.
And that's just one of my monthly bills for living in a fustercluck nation.
One of the small details which struck me back then was the disruption of public services: the mail had almost stopped being delivered. You had to send things by private courier.
How things have changed. Today, in one of the great ironies of history, Russia has finally recovered, at precisely the moment America is entering its post-Cold War collapse.
Case 1: the local mail at the university town where I live is becoming increasingly unreliable. Mail wasn't being delivered properly, and then finally my rent check was lost in the mail. (From now on, I drop off rent payments in person).
Of course, when public services decline, they don't just fall apart overnight. What happens is that fiscal crises drive local authorities to try to capture revenue, by raising fees, imposing surcharges, or privatizing and monetizing previously free services.
Case 2: I took a wrong traffic turn while driving in a certain midwestern city. It was dark and raining like hell, but whatever, I'll pay the fine. Total bill: $88.80. What the hell? I didn't endanger any lives, didn't cause any accidents, didn't run any lights, didn't cut anyone off, wasn't in the wrong lane per se, just turned left at a major intersection. Thank goodness I wasn't speeding, otherwise I would've been on the hook for $300 or more.
Case 3: sending the check for the traffic ticket. I have to mail it to the courthouse, of course. So that means spending an extra $3.24 on certified mail, just to make sure the damn thing gets there.
$88.80 + $3.24 for certified mail + $20 late fee on rent = $112.04. As for my salary, let's just say I have to make do on about $10,000 a year.
These fees hurt. A lot.
And that's just one of my monthly bills for living in a fustercluck nation.
Friday, October 30, 2009
Testing Times
I've reached the stage in my academic life where exams are like really, really, really, *really* long blog posts: the rant instinct kicks in, and the keyboard strokes pile up faster than the interest on my student loans.
On the bright side, it's all denominated in soon-to-be-devalued dollars. If I were on the chopping block for renminbi or rubles, then it would be time to worry.
On the bright side, it's all denominated in soon-to-be-devalued dollars. If I were on the chopping block for renminbi or rubles, then it would be time to worry.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
One Order of Claypot Calamari, To Go
The irrepressible Brit comedy duo Bird and Fortune nail the Vampire Squidsters to the wall with a gluon gun. I haven't laughed so hard in weeks.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Reasons to be cheerful...
Bears.
Monkeys.
Waffles.
Another Metal Gear Solid game due in 2010.
* * * * * *
Fragments of my past are catching up to me. They are the fragments of Empire. They glitter and glisten, singing unknown codes, their fractal shards congeal into tunes. These days, I diligently transcribe the melodies. Only then can I perceive the murmurous tumult of the multipolar world: Marcelo D2, MC Solaar, Serebro, and Baaba Maal, with voices like the light of stars.
Monkeys.
Waffles.
Another Metal Gear Solid game due in 2010.
* * * * * *
Fragments of my past are catching up to me. They are the fragments of Empire. They glitter and glisten, singing unknown codes, their fractal shards congeal into tunes. These days, I diligently transcribe the melodies. Only then can I perceive the murmurous tumult of the multipolar world: Marcelo D2, MC Solaar, Serebro, and Baaba Maal, with voices like the light of stars.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Heart of the Empire's Darkness
"The Nellie, a cruising yawl, swung to her anchor without a flutter of the sails, and was at rest. The flood had made, the wind was nearly calm, and being bound down the river, the only thing for it was to come to and wait for the turn of the tide..." -- Joseph Conrad
Looking back, it's striking how so much of early to mid-20th century US science-fiction, as well as a great deal of 19th century British fiction, obsessed over the catastrophic end of Empire. By contrast, the hallmark of the US-UK mass media during the neoliberal era was an arrogant, preening superiority, a refusal to think historically combined with ever more spectacular (and speculative) consumerisms. Conrad was talking about Belgium's rogue colonialism in the Congo, of course, but you get at least a hint of the mass famines of British colonial India in Kurtz' gaunt frame. Nothing of the sort is permitted a moment of air-time in the latest Star Trek, Batman or Ironman movies. The totality of the neoliberal lie has become totally delusional.
I suspect this lack of historical consciousness has unwittingly accelerated the rot of the US Empire. The British ruling elites, with their Oxford educations, knew what happened to Rome; the gang of war-mongering thugs, health insurance vampires, and credit-derivatives gangsters running America into the ground simply want to steal anything they can get their tentacles on.
Looking back, it's striking how so much of early to mid-20th century US science-fiction, as well as a great deal of 19th century British fiction, obsessed over the catastrophic end of Empire. By contrast, the hallmark of the US-UK mass media during the neoliberal era was an arrogant, preening superiority, a refusal to think historically combined with ever more spectacular (and speculative) consumerisms. Conrad was talking about Belgium's rogue colonialism in the Congo, of course, but you get at least a hint of the mass famines of British colonial India in Kurtz' gaunt frame. Nothing of the sort is permitted a moment of air-time in the latest Star Trek, Batman or Ironman movies. The totality of the neoliberal lie has become totally delusional.
I suspect this lack of historical consciousness has unwittingly accelerated the rot of the US Empire. The British ruling elites, with their Oxford educations, knew what happened to Rome; the gang of war-mongering thugs, health insurance vampires, and credit-derivatives gangsters running America into the ground simply want to steal anything they can get their tentacles on.
Friday, October 23, 2009
Getting kicked when you're down...
America is supposed to be a rich country.
But in America, it's awfully expensive to be poor.
Get behind on your payments just once, and the house of cards formerly known as US middle class life topples over, each credit chain knocking over another...
Overdue rent fees...
Overdue phone charges...
Overdue electric bills...
Bank overdraft fees...
The constant sight of commodities you can no longer afford...
The entirely rational feeling of being hunted, all the time...
Desperation leading to panicky decisions leading to more fees...
Life in America is expensive for the poor.
Get behind just once, and you're stuck at the bottom of a deep, deep well.
Wall Street neoliberals who live on seven/eight/nine/ten-figure salaries call this well freedom. Because they live at the top, in the sunlight.
The rest of us call it being drowned by millimeter.
But in America, it's awfully expensive to be poor.
Get behind on your payments just once, and the house of cards formerly known as US middle class life topples over, each credit chain knocking over another...
Overdue rent fees...
Overdue phone charges...
Overdue electric bills...
Bank overdraft fees...
The constant sight of commodities you can no longer afford...
The entirely rational feeling of being hunted, all the time...
Desperation leading to panicky decisions leading to more fees...
Life in America is expensive for the poor.
Get behind just once, and you're stuck at the bottom of a deep, deep well.
Wall Street neoliberals who live on seven/eight/nine/ten-figure salaries call this well freedom. Because they live at the top, in the sunlight.
The rest of us call it being drowned by millimeter.
Monday, October 19, 2009
Just another day in the global favela...
Wake up.
Sift a substance with a vague biochemical resemblance to coffee-grounds, pour water, turn on coffee-machine.
Try not to think about the telco bills I can't pay.
Try not to think about the car maintenance I can't afford.
Try not to think about the gum disease treatment I can't pay for.
Try not to think about the dental fillings which I don't have the money to replace.
Try not to think about the films/media/DVDs/videogames I can't afford to rent.
Try not to think about my $145,000+ in student loans at 7% interest taken out out of sheer necessity when Vampire Squid can borrow from Uncle Sam at 0%.
Try not to think about how neoliberalism terminated my first profession.
Try not to think about how I've lived for 23 years on less than $10,000/year in the midst of the most consumer-mad and overpriced capitalism on the planet.
Deep breath.
Pour coffee. Salt with powdered milk (1/4 price of fresh milk).
Ahhhhhh. To paraphrase Brecht, Kaffee ist für mich Produktionsmittel [coffee is my means of production]. Contemplate the toil which went into harvesting, drying, shipping and retailing those coffee beans. Note to self: less self-pity, more solidarity.
Begin writing.
"Data-proles of the world, unite... we have nothing to lose but our $40 trillion of debt..."
Sift a substance with a vague biochemical resemblance to coffee-grounds, pour water, turn on coffee-machine.
Try not to think about the telco bills I can't pay.
Try not to think about the car maintenance I can't afford.
Try not to think about the gum disease treatment I can't pay for.
Try not to think about the dental fillings which I don't have the money to replace.
Try not to think about the films/media/DVDs/videogames I can't afford to rent.
Try not to think about my $145,000+ in student loans at 7% interest taken out out of sheer necessity when Vampire Squid can borrow from Uncle Sam at 0%.
Try not to think about how neoliberalism terminated my first profession.
Try not to think about how I've lived for 23 years on less than $10,000/year in the midst of the most consumer-mad and overpriced capitalism on the planet.
Deep breath.
Pour coffee. Salt with powdered milk (1/4 price of fresh milk).
Ahhhhhh. To paraphrase Brecht, Kaffee ist für mich Produktionsmittel [coffee is my means of production]. Contemplate the toil which went into harvesting, drying, shipping and retailing those coffee beans. Note to self: less self-pity, more solidarity.
Begin writing.
"Data-proles of the world, unite... we have nothing to lose but our $40 trillion of debt..."
Sunday, October 18, 2009
The Empire Says Goodbye, Slorgzilla Says Hello
You know what they say about Wall Street: it's all arbitrage fun and off-balance-sheet games until someone loses $12.8 trillion of a former superpower's money.
But this blog isn't just about Wall Street rentiers, transnational aesthetics, or the digital commons, though I'll certainly be talking about those things.
I work in the educational/university/media-industry, and publish academic works as well as less formal but still fairly in-depth research texts. However, I've increasingly felt the need for a more timely, weekly-based form of communication.
This will be a text-only blog for now, but in the future I'm hoping to expand into limited versions of audio and webcasting. I'm keeping it simple, focused, timely, and on-the-fly.
Stay tuned. The good stuff lies ahead.
But this blog isn't just about Wall Street rentiers, transnational aesthetics, or the digital commons, though I'll certainly be talking about those things.
I work in the educational/university/media-industry, and publish academic works as well as less formal but still fairly in-depth research texts. However, I've increasingly felt the need for a more timely, weekly-based form of communication.
This will be a text-only blog for now, but in the future I'm hoping to expand into limited versions of audio and webcasting. I'm keeping it simple, focused, timely, and on-the-fly.
Stay tuned. The good stuff lies ahead.
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