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.
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