Sean Paul Kelley's blog

Yankees Win 27th World Series!

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:59:33 -0800

The Yankees win it in six! 27 time world champs! All is right in the world tonight!

Thirty Years Later: POW, population, oil and water

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 08:18:16 -0800

I was going to start today, but Numerian beat me to the punch:

The Rights of Women

Women will have made advancements across the globe – chiefly in those countries where their rights today are heavily restricted, such as in the Middle East. In most countries, women will enjoy the same rights available to a woman in France or Japan or the US today, but in these countries, women will improve their situation only marginally. This will still be a patriarchal world, and wars and insurrections will remain the work of men.

The fundamental right available to most women will be control over reproduction, since access to contraception will be nearly universal. Because of this fundamental development, the main issue facing our species in 2040 will be Peak Population. It will be evident even by 2025 that in most countries humans will not be reproducing enough to prevent a decline in population. Global population will peak around 9 billion and by 2040 will already be in decline, which will be dramatic in countries that cannot or will not induce enough immigration to compensate.

Peak Population will be the result partly of the inability of our species to feed, water, shelter and even clothe itself properly. But the principal motivation will be a paradox: the cost of raising a human to adulthood will be too high for all but the wealthiest families, and consequently women will be averaging less than the 2.1 children necessary to even stabilize population. The largest cost associated with child rearing will be education, since an adult will need at least a college education to survive on its own.

Enormous efforts will be made by governments to stimulate population growth, the major effort being universal education through college paid for by government. This will forestall Peak Population but not avert it, since environmental and other pressures – especially the right of women to have a career – will still work against having more than 2.1 children. Abortion will not be outlawed but it will be viewed socially as irresponsible, and in some areas as morally repugnant.

Environment

Extrapolating from today’s global warming trends, it is possible to forecast a very bleak future for our species and others on the planet. If as looks feasible global warming is accelerating beyond even the pessimistic models, many currently habitable areas will be unlivable around coasts and in deserts. Thousands of other species will disappear, mostly in the insect kingdom, with the more noticeable losses among large mammals. The lost of habitat will be ascribed in part to the human infestation of the planet which will continue to encroach on the remaining open spaces, but desertification of the globe, including the oceans which in vast areas will become too saline to support life, will wipe out thousands of species on its own.

It is possible that global warming will be forestalled if solar energy reaching the earth is throttled back should the sun enter a prolonged “solar minimum”, which may be underway. Even so, human pollution and habitat loss will not prevent continued species extinction and environmental degradation. These developments will feed negatively into the Peak Population phenomenon; the average person will be well aware by 2040 of the shrinking safe areas on the global for humans to live, and will have yet another constraint to consider when bringing children into the world.

Development and Economics

Globalization will have run its course by 2040. Most countries, except for pockets of very poor places, will be economically on the same plane. By 2040, China will be as developed as the US, but what this means is that the standard of living of Americans, as with Australians, British, Swedes, etc., will have been lowered to meet the raised living standards of the Chinese, Indians, Brazilians, etc. Income disparity will be universal, with the richest 1% consuming and controlling 90% of the global wealth. In places like the US there will be occasional protests and uprisings, but the wealthy will remain in firm control over political and business institutions, and most importantly media and entertainment, since these will be even more critical levers of control over what is left of the middle class, and the vast underclass that will have enough income to “make do.” Making do on less will be an established if not revered social moré.

Capitalism will be in crisis. The driving force of capitalism is growth – growth in revenue, net income, investment, feeding in turn into growth in earnings per share and the stock price. This wealth machine at its core depends on population growth as a rising number of consumers helps create the growth that defines capitalism, but Peak Population will deprive capitalism of its raison d́ etre. Economic theories will be devised to explain this new world, and they will focus on a theory of Neo-Feudalism, in which economic actors like corporations will define success as maintaining market share. A high premium will therefore be put on innovation and the development of new products with slightly higher margins than existing products. In this way corporations will be able to grab market share from a shrinking population.

Agriculture and Food

A cute little acronym will have become common by 2040 – POW! – referring to the three scourges of the planet: peak Population, Oil, and Water. Acute shortages of the latter two will contribute to Peak Population, as the human species will find itself trapped, unable to feed itself, unable to run its industrialized societies without cheap oil, and therefore unable to sustain population at 9 billion. Environmental degradation will put even more pressure on the human species and contribute in its own way to the POW effect.

It will be a toss-up as to whether water or oil shortages will be more severe, but a lot will depend on where you live. More and more humans will be fighting desertification and will be flocking to any place with stable, fresh water. Such places will be under political stress to keep out newcomers. There will be considerable progress in techniques like desalinization of sea water, so that costs will go down for extraction, but water will be too costly still to waste on open-air irrigation or with extravagant showers and toilets. Access to fresh water lakes and streams will be deemed highly valuable and therefore will be subject to political if not military conflict.

As sweet, cheap crude oil will be disappearing slowly over the next few decades, with the disappearance accelerating over time under Peak Oil, societies everywhere will be forced to shift to expensive alternatives. The French Model will be much admired and discussed, with its reliance on an extensive nuclear power system. The fundamental rights of man will be viewed, at least informally, to include the right to nuclear energy.

Military/War

The global political order will itself evolve into Neo-Feudalism, with power shared unevenly among large population countries such as the US, China, and India, courting small population countries like Saudi Arabia that have access to oil or water. Countries such as Russia, which has a large but already shrinking population but also has access to oil and water, will be in a privileged position. In this world, global cooperation through organizations such as the UN will not be easy, and the UN itself may cease to exist. About the only major advance in global cooperation will be in the tracking of every ounce of spent nuclear fuel, in order to prevent the development of nuclear weapons since so many countries will have nuclear power.

Large scale war will be viewed as a thing of the past. For this reason, the United States will early in the century lose its hegemonic power. Its military will be seen to be bloated and out-dated for the regional conflicts over resources that will define 21st century war. Insurrectionists will have learned the valuable lessons from the Iraq wars on how to stymie a great military power with cheap, home-made incendiary devices exploited through guerilla warfare. No military answer will be available on how to fight those forces willing to use suicide bombers, though over time it will be seen that this technique is counterproductive in extended insurrections that stretch over many years.

The question for China will be whether it learns from the experience of the US and USSR and avoids bankrupting itself with a massive military/industrial complex. The odds of succeeding in this are not high, unfortunately, as long as China remains a controlled economy where the temptation for corruption between the state and the manufacturing sector remains high. Consequently, global power for a time will be bi-polar, shared by China and a descendant US, but eventually India and Russia will take their place in a new version of the 19th century Great Game.

How these nations govern themselves will be of paramount importance, because Neo-Feudalism will be reflected in a tendency toward political disintegration within nation-states, and collapse altogether of the nation-state concept in favor of small regional duchies that align themselves along resource strengths. As an example, the population surrounding the Great Lakes may find common cause in protecting their fresh water resources, and they might establish a collective government that can stand up readily to either Washington or Ottawa. This will be possible because these duchies will have access to armies through their domestic police forces, which are already beginning the process of conversion to paramilitary forces and which eventually will only lack airpower in standing up to national militaries. But again, the lessons on how to defeat massive national armies are already available from the Iraq wars, and Neo-Feudalism will expand because the nation-state will have lost its monopoly on military power.

More soon. Excellent food for thought.

A Poem For Tuesday

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:25:17 -0800

How about a little light verse today? It gets too serious around here at times and remember: humor is good!

Common Sense ~Ogden Nash

Why did the Lord give us agility,
If not to evade responsibility?

Do you have any light verse favorites? Limericks? Doggerel?

Thirty Years From Now

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 11:24:17 -0800

While I was in Denmark my best friend, Stuart, asked me what I thought the world would look like in thirty years. Yes, yes, I know it's prediction and a lot of people don't like to speculate. But I think exercises like this are good, even if all they do is project the attitudes and prejudices of the present onto the future. In that vein I'd like to offer a challenge to all the readers/diarists here and the writers/editors including Don, Numerian, Brian, Tina, Nat, QB. In a nutshell: a short essay, say a thousand words or less addressing how you see the future developing in five broad categories. Those categories are: agriculture/food, economy/development, environment, military/war and the rights of women. You can write about just the US, or the world at large, or, if you are an ex-pat the country in which you live.

I'll start tomorrow.

"Cost Free War"

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 10:47:38 -0800

From The Guardian:

In Wired for War, author Pete Singer speculates the machines are harbingers of a new era of "cost-free war".

"It's an historic change," said Singer. "Going to war has meant the same thing for 5,000 years. Now going to war means sitting in front of a computer screen for 12 hours. Then you go home and talk to your kids about their homework."

Am I the only one who finds this method of war tantamount to terrorism? And despicable, to boot?

Oh yeah, they hate us for our freedoms. Sorry, I forgot.

A Little More On That India Meme, Or The Not-So-Miraculous Indian Economic Miracle

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:34:58 -0800

It's obvious by what I've written in the past (here and here as well.) that I don't think highly of India's economic prowess, writ large and I don't believe any of the hype when it comes to India's economic miracle. But Quax makes a point about Kerala that deserves further comment.

Quax brings up the point about the matrifocal ethnicity in Southern India, namely the state of Kerala. And he's right: Kerala is different from the rest of India. I'm not sure what makes Kerala different: the prevalence of Christianity, the relative freedom of women in the state, years of Communist rule, and the forward looking and commercial character of Muslims there? Perhaps it's a combination of all four. Needless to say, Kerala was the cleanest, least intimidating and most upwardly mobile of Indian states, even more so than the miracle city of Bangalore. And I found the Muslims in Calicut to be the most forward looking of any Muslims I've ever encountered, outside of pockets in Turkey and those in North Tehran.

Their daughters were educated, free to pursue a love match--not an arranged marriage and not relegated to a very real purdah extant in many places in India. It's the sort of place where a young Indian woman can have lunch with a strange foreign man and no one raises an eyebrow. I'm not sure how much of this is due to the fact that the area around Calicut has been integral to the global economy for two thousand years--ships have plied the monsoons from East Africa to the Malabar Coast since very early Roman times, bringing pepper an other spices to the West in exchange for gold, or how much of it is due to the tolerance between Hindus, Christians and Muslims. There is much more history to this area than meets the eye.

More after the jump.

The Communist party has also run the state off and on since the fifties. Literacy rates are the highest in India. And basic health services deliverables are the highest in India, as well. When the state assumes the risk of healthcare and provides a very good basic education people are free to pursue other productive endeavors instead of grinding away in subsistence poverty and farming. The Dalits in the state, as well, have it better than anywhere in India. This makes a huge difference in upward mobility.

But even Kerala is beset by all the huge problems that India has. The infrastructure is crumbling. The rail system is overwhelmed, although the trains in Kerala were the best in India outside of the Delhi-Agra tourist trains. And the pollution wasn't nearly as pervasive as the rest of India. Overpopulation is a serious issue and so is gendercide. And as impressive as the quality of life is for women in the state is, it's still a man's state, run by men, for men. All that being said, were I ever to return to India--which is doubtful--the only place I would visit is Kerala.

Yes, I was a tourist in India. I've never claimed to be anything other than that. But the eyes don't lie. What I saw was a very poor, under-devoloped and socially backwards country--moreso than even Cambodia and in many places as backwards as Africa. What makes it worse is this: it's a horribly underdeveloped country with a very well-educated elite. An elite that sits atop a millenia old social structure. An elite that literally lives off the backs of those below it. And it's the elite that buys the very minimal goods and services that India imports. One of the reasons India weathered the most recent economic crisis is that it's imports are negligible. It relies on an internal market that deals in goods and services at a level of quality from the 50s, if not earlier in some cases.

If that's a choice the Indians want to make, I'm all for it. I'm all about tEh noninterference. There is a queer element of genius to India's social structure--institutionalizing as deviance any form of societal innovation. But let's not build up a fantasy around the country. India has some emergent technology. But it's at the elite level. There are few things that resemble a mall in India, something we Westerners take for granted. And the malls have security guards that prevent lower classes from entering. Seriously, I've seen it with my own eyes. That's not economic freedom for the masses.

India has a problem-set of gargantuan proportions and is one of the most militarized countries I've ever seen--all the Gandhiesque posturing notwithstanding. That's just reality.

If the rest of India could learn from Kerala it would be a vastly more impressive country than it now is. But I don't see that happening any time soon.

India As Rising Power Meme, Needs To Be Squashed

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 12:46:52 -0800

People love to talk about how India is a rising power in Asia:

Upshot: America is done. Our once-great empire is cooked. Not only is China (and India, fast behind) about to stomp all over everyone in economic power and resource abuse, they already own a huge chunk of our debt, manufacture most of our holidays and build almost everything we like to buy. And that includes the device you are reading this on right now. Oh well. We'll always have football.

I'd submit to any writer who just looks at the raw statistics on Indian growth rates to actually visit the place. Take a look at the crumbling infrastructure. Reality looks a lot different on the ground.

Yes, I realize it is only a throwaway sentence by the writer, but still, it's propagating a meme that doesn't represent reality.

Now, there is a case to be made about China. I've seen a great deal of the country and there is a very real energy to succeed and get ahead there. And while many Chinese are mired in poverty, it isn't the kind of nasty, pervasive, grinding poverty to be found in India. In India if you are born poor there is virtually no chance you can rise in society. Not so in China. (Not to idealize the life of the poor in China, mind you. It's still extremely difficult to find real upward mobility in China. In India on the other? For all intents and purposes, such a concept doesn't even exist.)

Furthermore, culturally speaking the Chinese are much better when it comes to cultural or societal innovations than India is. For example: arranged marriages are still the norm in India. And the place of woman is rotten. In China? Not likely. Especially as the idea of romantic love spreads among young female factory workers with a disposable income. (Again, not to idealize often gruesome working conditions for these young women, and yet.)

India when it comes to culture, is probably the most extremely conservative place I have ever visited. Indians like to think they can compete with the Chinese, but they cannot. And we shouldn't buy the tripe that India is an emerging economic power. The only reason we do business with India is wage-arbitrage. It's cheaper to pay an Indian twenty five cents an hour for something a well-educated American would ask fifteen dollars or more for.

And yes, I realize I am a white, post-Colonial man of European descent making cultural judgments. Having visited both countries multiple times I am quite comfortable doing so.

Here's A Novel Idea

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 11:29:25 -0800

Here's a novel idea for the New York Times Editorial Board to consider: if it is too big to fail, it is too big to fucking exist. We don't need a systemic risk regulator. What we need is anti-trust enforcement:

Authored by the Treasury Department and Representative Barney Frank, the chairman of the committee, the proposal broaches a number of essential reforms. Chief among them is the creation of a systemic risk regulator to look for problems that could lead to cascading failures. The regulator would also have resolution authority — the power, if necessary, to seize and restructure critically ill bank holding companies and nonbank financial firms whose failure would pose a systemwide threat.

Why is it that little old me, a dirty fucking hippie in his pajamas sitting on a porch, sipping coffee can see the such an elegant and simple solution and the well-educated, credentialed and connected village folks can't?

What am I missing?

Wish Your Troubles Away

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 10:53:25 -0800

There is a great deal of truth in Barbara Ehrenreich's new book. Of course village media-folk don't see it that way. After all, it's much easier to compare her to Michael Moore than take her criticism seriously. But no one, in my opinion, is better at shattering dearly held American myths better than she is.

The gist of her criticism is pretty indisputable if you ask me. She writes that we live in a society where we are taught that unemployment is your fault--actually, pretty much every economic ill that befalls you--is your fault. It's not the fault of rogue bankers and criminal executives. It's not the fault of spineless politicians and failing institutions. It's your fault--you, the individual because you didn't pray, wish, or 'visualize' well enough to find a better job, or grow thinner or find a new and improved spouse, soulmate or whatever.

Look, the world is a rough place. And America is certainly a much easier place to live in than say Cambodia or sub-Saharan Africa. But that doesn't mean that economic life here is not cutthroat and brutal. That doesn't mean there isn't an elite in this country that's pillaging the place. Both are very real. And American's passion for the power of positive thinking, as she notes, "has become a potentially deadly weight – obscuring judgment and shielding us from vital information."

It also shields us from making rational decisions, decisions based on our economic self-interest as opposed to some phantom based self-esteem issues. Did you lose your house? Well, it's your fault. Work on your self-esteem and you'll be content with less.

Did your husband leave you because you are too fat? Never mind that an individual may have a genetic predisposition to obesity, or the simple reality that most people in the world don't grow old so gracefully? Well, it's your fault that you don't look like Brad Pitt or Uma Thurman. There's something wrong with you! Think positive and buy this new weight loss pill advertised on TV!

Are you unhappy? Has the stress of having $50,000 in unpayable medical bills got you down? Just lard yourself up with anti-depressants until you're too numb to give a shit.

It's the perfect prescription for elite control of a post-Modern society and the best way to curtail the growth of angry populism.

The Romans called it bread and circuses.

Campaign For Real Beauty

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:21:34 -0700

I cannot but help but to applaud the new (at least new to me) Dove Campaign for Real Beauty. It is a much needed counter-narrative and antidote to the anorexic, stick figures with implants culture we live in. Real beauty is a flawed beauty. Real women have flaws that are to be celebrated, no retouched by photo shop.

If you haven't watched the videos, I encourage you to do so. They are refreshing.

A Review For The Randheads

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:56:59 -0700

Now this is one funny book review:

The fact that this comparison (between central philosophy and doghouse blather) is so easily made is just one of the reasons why objectivism is a morally bankrupt, dilettantish, and fucking stupid way of thinking. People like it because it is the philosophical equivalent of college: a potentially meaningful but incredibly misused scaffolding that enables people to think, “Bitch, I do what I want.”

Read the rest here.

The Point Of A Stimulus Is?

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 11:14:33 -0700

The point of an economic stimulus package is to grow the economy. There is no question in my mind that the stimulus enacted by Obama and the Congress succeeded in doing that. I've been pretty clear in giving credit where credit is due on that front. But the problem is this: it was the wrong kind of stimulus--too many tax cuts and not enough money to the states. Cash-for-clunkers? A beefed up subsidy for first time home buyers? Lots of military Keynesianism? Wasn't it this kind of free-for-all in credit what got us here in the first place?

Meanwhile, the states are still in the red, bloody oozing red that it is. And business spending, that engine of economic growth and employment? Where's that? One could go on and on.

As Krugman says, "we’ve gotten the big boost, and it’s clearly far short of what we really need."

Do you feel stimulated? Or are you still personally retrenching?

To repeat: the stimulus was good, but it wasn't enough and was targeted correctly. And we'll see the results of a committee designed stimulus plan soon enough.

Second Class Education For All

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 09:43:27 -0700

Americans love to pay lip service to the idea of education. But let's face it, when the rubber hits the pedal to the metal (purposely mixed metaphor) Americans don't give a fuck. Exhibit one is here. And it ain't pretty. The story out of the New York Times magazine documents a public higher educational system that is rapidly being privatized in all but name. It also documents a system that has shifted it's focus to educating the children from lower income families to one that seeks out prosperous out of state students. It further describes a system that is raising prices almost as fast as healthcare and failing in its primary mission of providing an inexpensive education for all Americans. Lastly, it's clearly a system that the separate states have simply abandoned financially.

I'm an absolutist when it comes to education. Higher education should be subsidized, if not completely free to all those who qualify. I have a hard time getting exercised by just about anything these days, but when it comes to education I tend towards the apoplectic. Long the bedrock of our success as a nation education has now become just another overpriced commodity. One thing I don't understand is why students aren't in open rebellion at paying thousands of dollars in fees? Fees! What the hell is a fee at a university? Isn't that what the tuition is for?

As Ian might say, it's just another regressive tax on the middle class that they can no longer afford. Instead students are leveraged to the hilt by the time they graduate. The American dream is rapidly slipping out of reach for all except the wealthy in this country.

But I think the most odious aspect of this article is the description of how the University of Florida is now pushing students away from the flagship state school and steering them to a second class institution: the University of Central Florida. (Before an UCF grads get their panties in a wad please note I graduated from a second class university myself.) It's unreal.

Take Florida. The University of Central Florida, now the state’s largest university, serves roughly the same demographic the University of Florida did 15 years ago. That’s partly because the University of Florida accepts far fewer good students, sticking mostly to great ones. It is attracting students who also apply to Duke and Emory and other expensive private institutions.

The bottom line is that while Americans say education is a high priority it's not. It's not even in the top ten.

Trader Talk

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:29:21 -0700

I've dealt with a few traders in my time. And one aspect I always enjoyed, being that I like language and words and whatnot, is the argot in which they speak. It's rude, impatient and very euphemistic. Here are some good examples:

Better Lucky than Smart – The only thing we have going for us.

Buyer Outside – Something sales traders say to force your hand when they get tired of watching you play stock market.

Clean up - If you believe that I have a bridge to show you.

CSA – Clusterf**k Service Alternative: When it’s easier for you client to just write a check rather than trade with your team of farm animals.

Discount Bid – Chinese trading fire drill. There’s a 1 in 10,000 chance you actually get a trade on at the price but it’s a good exercise for going through the motions and a great way to kill a few minutes and piss some people off.

Down a Touch – This thing just came off like a f**king prom dress.

Fair and Reasonable – Something the buy-side has no concept of.

Fast Money – Just means they’ve got money moving out the door quicker.

Fill or Kill – Respond this second or deal with the consequences of this extremely illiquid stock not trading and me miraculously catching a second buyer who wants to bid you for the exact same amount in about a half hour or so.

Find out who’s moving the stock - Pick a name out of a hat.

Floor Looks: The only way to be 100% wrong 100% of the time.

Good Guy – Doesn’t ask me any difficult questions.

Great Guy – Doesn’t ask me any difficult questions and gives me business.

Happy – “Happy to get involved”, “Happy to get you started” – Although coming across like Mr. Sunshine, It’s Wall Street’s way of reminding you that your sales trader is just a whore at heart and willing to take one in the keester if it gets him an order.

I have a call into my analyst – If it’s important, go get the info somewhere else.

Enjoy the rest at the link, here.

Friday Cat Blogging

Fri, 30 Oct 2009 07:22:13 -0700

see more Lolcats and funny pictures