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Tuesday, October 9
The new "Mirror of Tomorrow" on Ning
by
ronjon
on October 9, 2007 01:42PM (PDT)
This is a discussion about the new "Mirror of Tomorrow" website that RYD and Ronjon have been setting up on the social networking platform called Ning. It's a private discussion reserved for the Administrators of SCIY, located within a new locked subcategory named "Ning Technical": ADMIN > NING FEATURED > .. Ning Technical
It started with the following replies to the article "How Many Lives," a lovely poem by RYD from his book Passing Moments. I've copied below the initial comments regarding the MoT site on Ning:
Re: How Many Lives? - a poem by RY Deshpande
That’s a way out and I’ll pursue it. But that
leaves the fundamental problem with Ning unsolved. It is necessary to
have freedom to introduce tabs depending upon the user’s needs.
Presently we’ve in essence only two—Forum and Photos. But there can be
many other creative activities, particularly when we begin to visualize
tapping the socnet potentials and possibilities. Video, educational
sessions, science demonstrations, music, dance, drama, choreography,
fiction, yoga classes, presentation of history, live debates, etc.,
etc.—the whole world of arts and sciences can open out and there has to
be scope on the platform for working these out. Will it be possible to
approach Ning with some of these suggestions and explore to what extent
they can entertain these ideas? But I think it will be good if it
happens.
RYD
I'll continue the discussion here with replies to this article. ~ ronjon
Monday, December 5
Topics within "Intro to SCIY" Category
by
ronjon
on December 5, 2005 04:18PM (PST)
Click on the names of these subcategory ('Topic') folders to see articles relevant to each Topic:
Thursday, June 12
Soros attacks 'craze-following' institutions for inflating oil prices
by
ronjon
on June 12, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
George Soros, the billionaire financier, has rounded on institutional investors who have been ploughing money into oil, saying they are following a "craze" that is inflating a commodities bubble and harming the global economy.
And he predicted that the rise of index funds that allow retail investors to bet on the oil price could lead to a crash that destabilises more than just the commodities markets.
Mr Soros was called to give evidence on Capitol Hill as US lawmakers investigated whether "speculators" were manipulating or otherwise influencing the price of oil, which has doubled and doubled again in the past five years. A 25 per cent spike since the start of the year has sent petrol above $4 a gallon in many US states and sent the issue to the top of the political agenda. ... more »
Tuesday, June 10
Triggering Global Revolution
by
ronjon
on June 10, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
 ... The state capitalism embraced by Vladimir Lenin and carried forward today under Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, has immunized itself against the machinations of financiers and the collapse of the dollar. Russia is preparing for an economic storm. Capitalism contains, within itself, the germs of its own destruction. The dollar has become a paper currency and the collapse of the dollar is therefore inevitable. This collapse may not happen today or tomorrow; but one day, it will happen. The fever of financial crisis has already raised our collective temperature. Real estate values are falling. The stock market cannot remain high. There is a banking crisis, a credit crunch, an energy crunch and more. An economic unraveling has begun. Once this process becomes full blown the unity of the Western world will be undermined. The free world will become unstable. Demagogues will rise to power. Violent political passions will be engendered. Russia will be powerful again. The president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Charles Plosser, has warned that attempts to stabilize the banking system are distorting markets and preventing asset price corrections. Worse yet, financial stabilization policies “subsidize risk-taking” by leading financial institutions.” Such policies, says Plosser, risk systemic instability through the promotion of moral hazard. The whole financial system has become an exercise in moral hazard: massive indebtedness, consumption on credit, out-of-control social entitlement programs, protections for investors, corporate bailouts and the greatest moral hazard of all – our fiat currency... According to economist and Nobel laureate Robert Mundell, the U.S. dollar is headed for a major crisis. “I see the problem coming maybe in the next recession,” he explained. Credited as one of the “intellectual fathers” of the single European currency, Mundell is presently advising the Communist Chinese. “The swings in the dollar–euro exchange rate are big problems,” he noted, “and the problem is exacerbated by the fact that the Americans get the benefit of these swings and Europe gets the wrong end of the stick.” ... Perhaps the day is coming when oil-producing countries won’t accept dollars in exchange for oil. Perhaps they’ll want real money instead of paper. Behind the “new financial instruments” intended to save the banks we find paper. Behind the paper we find the dollar. That is to say, more paper. The U.S. Constitution is also made of paper. What previously backed all this paper was character; a willingness to work hard and accept pain – as well as painful truths. ...
more »
Sunday, June 8
Faltering Economy squeezes the American Dream
by
ronjon
on June 8, 2008 11:49PM (PDT)
Work hard, play by the rules and tomorrow will be better than today. That implicit promise has been at the core of the American Experience through good times and bad.
-- But now, whipsawed by plummeting home values, $4-a-gallon gas, rising food prices and gyrating financial markets, Americans increasingly fear that the national bargain has unraveled, that their once-steady march toward affluence has derailed. In a new USA TODAY poll, 54% of those surveyed say their standard of living is no better today than five years ago.
"Fewer Americans now than at any time in the last half century believe they're moving forward in life," concluded a recent report by the Washington, D.C.-based Pew Research Center. -- The USA TODAY respondents were more upbeat about the prospects for improvement in the next five years, but only 45% expect their children to live better than they do...
So is the American Dream dead? Well, it's at least wounded. ... more »
Wednesday, June 4
Investor: Clean Tech Is Only Hope for the Collapsing Economy
by
ronjon
on June 4, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
As the mortgage and financial crisis continues to notch more victims, the question on many economists' minds is not whether a recession will happen, but how deep it will get and how long it will last. But one prominent voice thinks the high-flying finance industry isn't going to bounce back -- and that we'll need to look elsewhere to set the U.S. economy back on firm footing.
Eric Janszen is an angel investor and founder of the contrarian market website iTulip.com, which The New York Times credited with "accurately predicting that the [internet] bubble would pop." Now Janszen believes the American economy needs a fundamental restructuring away from its foundations in finance, insurance and real estate. His prescription: a new bubble based on green technologies.
In a widely discussed Harper's article in February, "The Next Bubble: Priming the Markets for Tomorrow's Crash," Janszen argued that clean tech is the only sector that could create enough "fictitious value" to replace the losses from the housing bubble, if only temporarily. ... more »
Tuesday, June 3
Only Greentech Can Save U.S. Economy, Says Über-Investor
by
ronjon
on June 3, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
...We need another wealth-generating economic bubble. And that, said Novogratz, must come -- can only come -- from new energy sources and green technology.
"As the price of oil goes up, there's got to be a green revolution. I think of what will be the next driver of the American economy, and it's green energy. That's a huge growth opportunity. It's not about the pollution. It's about the energy. Gas will go to $10 a gallon," he said. ... more »
Monday, June 2
The end of the world as we knew it is upon us
by
ronjon
on June 2, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
The oil age began in 1860. By 2006 the world¹s oil rigs pumped oil at a rate of 85 million barrels a day. They haven¹t come close since, even as prices have risen to more than $100 per barrel. -- Breaking our fossil fuel dependency will require plugging into the grid instead of pulling up to the pump. And there are some interesting energy options and others are doing a lot more about developing them than Americans.
Germany leads the world in its installed capacity of renewable energy sources (25 percent), and is the third largest producer of solar panels after China and Japan. -- The share of electricity generated from renewable sources exceeded 14 percent in 2007, an increase from 11 percent in 2006. This means that Germany has already met the European Union¹s target that 12.5 percent of electricity should come from renewable sources by 2010. -- Enercon, a major wind equipment maker, claims that the renewable-energy business will become a major part of the country¹s manufacturing business, alongside cars and machine tools. Employment in the renewables industry is now 250,000 ands expected to double by 2020. Throughout Germany, around 160 technical institutions are doing research on alternative energy. ... more »
Sunday, June 1
Transition Network: tackling Peak Oil & Climate Change, together
by
ronjon
on June 1, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
...The transition model emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to this big question: for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to:
* significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil)
* drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change)?
Typically, self-determined solutions will involve some flavour of relocalisation. -- We're building a range of materials, training courses, events, tools & techniques, resources and a general support capability to help these communities. ... We're hoping that through this work, communities across the UK will unleash their own collective genius and embark on an imaginative and practical range of connected initiatives, leading to a way of life that is more resilient, more fulfilling and more equitable, and that has dramatically lower levels of carbon emissions. ... more »
Wednesday, May 21
"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 5: THE PHANTOM AGRICULTURE
by
ronjon
on May 21, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
This is Chapter 5 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first four chapters, go to: • Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis • Chapter 2: The End of Civilization • Chapter 3: Soil-The Basis of Life • Chapter 4: The Forest I hope you find this as interesting and important as I have, ~ ronjon more »
Monday, May 19
The Old Titans All Collapsed. Is the U.S. Next? - Washington Post
by
ronjon
on May 19, 2008 01:56PM (PDT)
... Here, then, is the unnerving possibility: that another, imminent global crisis could make the half-century between the 1970s and the 2020s the equivalent for the United States of what the half-century before 1950 was for Britain. This may well be the Big One: the multi-decade endgame of U.S. ascendancy. The chronology makes historical sense -- four decades of premature jitters segueing into unhappy reality.
The most chilling parallel with the failures of the old powers is the United States' unhealthy reliance on the financial sector as the engine of its growth. In the 18th century, the Dutch thought they could replace their declining industry and physical commerce with grand money-lending schemes to foreign nations and princes. But a series of crashes and bankruptcies in the 1760s and 1770s crippled Holland's economy. In the early 1900s, one apprehensive minister argued that Britain could not thrive as a "hoarder of invested securities" because "banking is not the creator of our prosperity but the creation of it." By the late 1940s, the debt loads of two world wars proved the point, and British global economic leadership became history. ...
With the help of the overgrown U.S. financial sector, the United States of 2008 is the world's leading debtor, has by far the largest current-account deficit and is the leading importer, at great expense, of both manufactured goods and oil. The potential damage if the world soon undergoes the greatest financial crisis since the 1930s is incalculable. The loss of global economic leadership that overtook Britain and Holland seems to be looming on our own horizon. ... more »
Thursday, May 15
The Reason Behind High Oil Prices
by
ronjon
on May 15, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
...Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic?
Consider this: You may not buy gasoline or even eat today, but by next Monday you'll probably have to do both, no matter what it costs. Basically, besides enabling the Fed to bail out Wall Street and our banks again, every time you gas up or eat you may be paying investors to cover other financial losses. We know that investors can't control their losses on mortgages, securities, or bad loans. But, demonstrably, if not restrained they can drive up the price of goods that we can't get out of buying. Odds are, that's what's really been going on. ... more »
Wednesday, May 14
"The Final Empire," by Wm. H. Kötke. Chap. 4: THE FOREST
by
ronjon
on May 14, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
This is Chapter 4 of SCIY Editor Wm. H. Kötke's recently reprinted Final Empire: The Collapse of Civilization and the Seed of the Future. It's so relevant to SCIY's core concerns that, with William's full support and permission, we're going to be serializing all 20 chapters here on SCIY (at an average rate of a chapter per week). -- To see the first three chapters, go to: • Chapter 1: Pattern of the Crisis • Chapter 2: The End of Civilization• Chapter 3: Soil-The Basis of Life I hope you find this as interesting and important as I have,
~ ronjon more »
Monday, May 12
Happy Days Are Here Again - Not!
by
ronjon
on May 12, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
...The risk analyst Sayajit Das has had the most insight into the financial markets dimension of this meltdown. Well before the credit crunch hit, he was warning that it was coming and what would bring it on. So what's his take now? That what's happened so far is only phase one in a massive deleveraging of a world addicted to debt. ...
It's a classic asset price cycle. Look at just about every boom and bust cycle in history, and you'll find it was built on cheap credit, easy lending and lax underwriting standards. And this boom was the biggest. The legacy is a burden of household debt without precedent. As real estate prices boomed, households felt wealthier and borrowed against their (inflated) assets. As the price of property soared way beyond the growth in wages, people borrowed more and more to break into the market, running up debts on credit cards to make ends meet. In countries such as the US, where wages were stagnant or falling in real terms, people borrowed against property to maintain their lifestyles.
Now the easy finance is drying up. If there's a serious global downturn that pushes up unemployment rates, it could get ugly, as people unable to service their debts are forced to sell assets causing a further downward spiral. Default rates will rise and financial institutions will suffer further losses. Beyond the household sector, there's the vast army of self-employed workers who set up small businesses after the corporate downsizing cycle of the 1990s. Many borrowed against their homes to do so, and have survived on thin margins during good economic times. In any downturn, they'll be the first to go. ... more »
Sunday, May 11
Effects of the US recession on Asian growth, by Nouriel Roubini
by
ronjon
on May 11, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
In early 2006, economist Nouriel Roubini broke rank from the prevailing consensus opinion and blew the whistle on the US housing bubble and held out grim warnings of a US ‘recession’. That contrarian bearish outlook has been proved spectacularly right two years later, and Roubini, a former White House aide and chairman of the Roubini Global Economics Monitor, is justifiably credited with having first ‘called’ the sub-prime crisis. Here are his latest forecasts:
"In the last few day I have been at the Asian Development Bank meetings in Madrid and then visited Hong Kong and China. I have presented my view on the severity of the US recession and its potential effects on economic growth in China and Asia. Will this region decouple from the US economic contraction?
The answer depends on the severity of this recession. If the US recession is short and shallow (a V-shaped recession lasting six months) then there is enough of a domestic growth dynamics in the rest of the world and in Asia that the global economic slowdown would be very modest. But if the recession is more severe (a U-shaped recession lasting 12 to 18 months) then that US contraction, together with the sharp slowdown in the other G3 economies (a good fraction of the EU could be soon in a recession - specifically UK, Spain, Ireland, Italy and Portugal - and the rest of the EU is sharply slowing down; while Japan is also headed towards a recession) will negatively affect growth in China and Asia, much more than currently expected by macro analysts and markets. Direct and indirect trade channels, financial channels, credit crunch channels, dollar weakness channels and confidence channels would lead to a signifcant slowdown of growth in Asia. ..." more »
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RYD