Home Improvement

If you are planning or working on some home improvement project or even a new home, have a look at these two recent presentations from TED. Both these videos give inspirational ideas on sustainable construction and building. Dan Phillips builds unique and personal houses from reclaimed materials. One can pick up many creative thoughts from him.

John Hardy has created a green school and this video presents his green school dream in Bali. It was interesting to see the first proposal for his school as made by an apparently traditional architect: all building as square boxes and the largest box in the center was labeled "the Administration Complex". It seemed so wrong that the administration should be the largest structure on the school campus. A nagging inner voice hinted that any school should be about teaching and eduction and accordingly the largest building should be dedicated to that objective. It was also speaking of itself to call it a "Complex" implying - even if only at a Freudian level - that it was a complex thing or complex solutions. We should strive for simplicity not complexity. Anyway, this "typical" architectural proposal was rejected and a set of building was realized following ideas from permaculture. The central building was designed as an intertwined double spiral which looked like a permaculture pattern to me. The building was named "Heart of School" (instead of Administration Complex), and yes part of it houses the administration facilities. As material they used bamboo and local natural materials. I found it creative and an idea worth copying to use thrown away glass panel from old cars with white paper placed behind it as white board for kids. Now that is cheap and functional design.

Refuse - reduce - reuse - recycle. These builders give us some examples of how it can be done and how beautiful the result can be. Maybe it will influence our next personal home improvement project.

Gold

Just like silver, gold is also up and climbing. And there are lots of news around gold.

First, there is World Bank chief Bob Zoellick who said "Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today." He made further comments that hinted at a gold standard. Amazing, the chief of the World Bank hinting about a gold standard. That is massive news. It was reported instantly. The next day came all the expected retractions and he said he was misinterpreted and that in fact he did not call for a gold standard.

One may think about this as a slip of the tongue or true misinterpretation. Independent of that, he was certainly right when he said "Although textbooks may view gold as the old money, markets are using gold as an alternative monetary asset today." Why? Gold has been made an official currency for collaterals of large financial transactions. A press announcement from ICE states: "IntercontinentalExchange (ICE), a leading operator of global regulated futures exchanges, clearing houses and over-the-counter (OTC) markets, today announced that ICE Clear Europe will accept gold bullion as collateral for all energy and credit default swaps (CDS) transactions beginning 22 November 2010." With ICE putting this policy in place other operators and clearing houses will have a competitive incentive to follow.

Gold is gaining in importance in the financial world it seems.

Silver

Silver is acting unusually in the markets. In 2010, silver has doubled. The 2010 low-price was $14.82. The 2010 high mark so far was $28.638. What could justify such insane increase in the silver price. Speculation is the only possible answer. When can we get to a real economy based on real productivity, producing real and useful goods? We must move away from a speculative, financial economy where gains and losses are all in numbers if we want to avoid bursting bubbles and a unfair and unjust society.

A friend sent me these links: JP Morgan and HSBC are manipulating the silver market since 2008. This is not the first time in history that banks or rich individuals are manipulating the silver market. The interesting part about this current manipulation is that it was picked up by the independent news and activist groups. People like Max Keiser and Alex Jones rallied and promoted people to buy silver in order to financially hurt JP Morgan and cohorts. It is a risky business to put yourself as a single small investor against the bullies like JP Morgan. Nonetheless, it is fascinating strategy - although uncertain in success - to band together many small investors to bring down a giant bank by betting against it on a market gamble, in this case the silver market. According to Max Keiser as long as the silver price remains higher than $25/oz. JP Morgan is punished. As a last note: let's not forget that this war cry to buy silver to crash JP Morgan is also a form of silver market manipulation. But at least this is a public one talked about on the internet, while JP Morgan's shorting is a stealth maneuver hidden from the public.

PS: About 2 weeks later this was posted: Is J.P. Morgan Getting Squeezed in Silver Market? According to this JP Morgan is now manipulating the copper market to offset losses in the silver market.

European State of Affairs

European state of affair is very gloomy. First Iceland. Then Greece. Now Ireland. Next is Portugal. And the prediction is that Spain will follow. Thereafter maybe Italy. Many people have predicted it. It did happen just as predicted. Only the governments said it would never happen. Take Ireland, up to the very last day, the government of Ireland was denying any problems and talks to the IMF and the EU about a rescue plan. The next day it was all official. How can anyone lie so blatantly?

About Spain? Some say the the European Financial Stability Facility will be out of funds to rescue Spain. Will they increment the fund? Where would the money come from? EU printing presses? US printing presses? Currently the Euro/US$ exchange rate is approaching 1.50. The Euro is very strong and the EU economy is suffering under it. This seems a good opportunity to print Euros, rather taking a $-based credit from the US (IMF or similar). Printing Euros would weaken the Euro currency and remove pressure from EU companies, but it would be against US wishes as the only interest of the US is to flood the whole world with printed US dollars. The gain for the US of sending $-based credits to the EU would be 3-fold: more dependency of the whole world on the US currency, weakening the US dollar even more thereby strengthening US companies, and profiting from future interest payments. So, will the political strength of the US be powerful enough to force the EU to take a US credit rather than print its own Euro money?

Will Spain be rescued? I am sure about it, the question is only how, i.e. by whom.

A Lesson in History

This TED video presentation shows a small part of history, as "seen from the other side". It outlines the history of the Native American Lakotah tribe since 1824. History is always written by the victor. 15 griping and sad minutes of video by Aaron Huey. Minority groups and natives around the world have and are still suffering the same treatment.

Germany upholds Restrictions on GMO

This week a German court voted in favor on keeping current restrictions on planting and growing GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) plants. Overall there is good news and there is worrisome news. The good news:

• Existing restrictions on distance and liability of genetically polluting neighboring fields are kept in place. [Proving pollution and the source of pollution however seems dauntingly difficult.] 
• In April 2009, Germany's government banned commercial production of GMO maize type MON 810 GMO from U.S. biotech giant Monsanto on health concerns despite European Union safety approval.
  

The worrisome news:

• In 2010 Germany accepted an EU decision to approve commercial cultivation of the GMO potato Amflora developed by German group BASF for industrial starches, not human food.
• The EU is responsible for GMO approvals in the bloc, but is considering new rules to permit individual member states to decide whether biotech crops are cultivated in their countries.

Slowly the rules and laws safeguarding us from GM pollution in the EU are eroding. It seems that the industry (Monsanto, BASF, Bayer, etc.) is partially successfully working on a divide and conquer strategy.

The Story of Electronics

It started with The Story of Stuff. Annie Leonard presents her thoughts on the sad story of the production process in a concise, yet cheerful manner. Her upbeat attitude to solve these critical issues make her educational videos nearly fun to watch. Annie Leonard made the Story of Stuff a great story. Over the last four years she has added to it, and made a number of sequels: The Story of Cosmetics, The Story of Bottled Water, etc. And now: The Story of Electronics, 7 minutes worth watching. Here is her site: The Story of Stuff, and here is her YouTube channel. Perfect for us as adults, perfect also to teach teenagers the role of corporations and the outsourcing of cost to other nations. Well done Annie.

Economy

This phrase taken from Tim Jackson's talk "An Economic Reality Check" at TED (time 7:00) sums it up pretty well. No additional comment needs to be added: The world we live in is an economy in which we the people are "being persuaded to spend money we don't have on things we don't need, to create impressions that don't last, on people we don't care about."

Cash

I like Cash. No, not the green bills, I am talking about Johnny Cash. I admire his songs and lyrics. However, listening to his songs we too often get reminded that things aren't changing. The 1960s and 2010. It is all the same. One of the biggest problems - especially for the poor people and the poor nations - remains debt.

You load sixteen tons, what do you get?
Another day older and deeper in debt.
Saint Peter, don't you call me, 'cause I can't go;
I owe my soul to the company store.

This song under the title "Sixteen Tons" was first recorded in 1946 and later in 1987 by Johnny Cash. How far have we come? It is deja vu all over again. Debt is dictating our lives and enchaining us as individuals as well as at the national level. Today we owe our souls to the bank (or the World Bank and IMF in the case of nations).

And environmental pollution is also not something new. He sung about it in "Don't go near the water" in 1974. Here is a video version that will correlate words from 1974 with photos from 2010. Another one of my favorites is "The Man in Black". Listen to it if you have time.

Hemp

Hemp is a truly versatile material. It is well known that it was used for making quality ropes. It can be used for clothing. It is an excellent insulating material. Recently I found this video on hemp as a construction material: Hemp bricks are stronger and lighter than concrete. Hempcrete is sound absorbent , moisture absorbent, and has thermal mass. The list of uses goes on and on: paper, car bio-fuel, plastic-like panels, shampoos, soaps and food. No surprise that hemp is sometimes called the plant of 30,000 uses because it combines the utility of the soybean, the cotton plant and the Douglas Fir tree into one single plant. Now that is an impressive plant.