Zone of Influence

2011 is approaching. It is natural to think about the upcoming year. The way I see our mid and long term future is as follows. Next on the horizon in time is another big financial crisis that will hit the US, and again it will be mortgage-based. As the US is so big and the dollar so influential this crisis will indirectly and slowly affect other nations, i.e. the EU and the rest of the world. Both the US and the EU will go through a period of recession of 1 to 3 decades. It will not happen instantaneously or especially in the EU, all changes will be slow and gradual. Example changes will be: salary 5% down, unemployment 5% up, food quality 5% down, etc. There won't be this cataclysmic big event, this big crisis is not about suddenly there will be no food or no petrol, instead the typical living standard will be gradually but consistently going qualitatively downhill in most nations. Civil rights will be reduced step by step. Governmental and corporate scams will become wilder and weirder. Our personal sanity and well being must come from the immediate environment around us: our family, friends and neighbors. Despite Tea Parties, Transition Movements and many more activist groups I see hardly any change around me as I walk through the city. Above all I see no change in how-we-do-business and in politics, no corporate ethical change, no politics for the masses. Since it is hard to find positive political change, there is a high level of doubt that in 10 years we have advanced politically into a more ethical, just and sustainable society. I sound pessimistic. Unfortunately. But it just means as a way of safety and a way of moving forward we must focus on our small and immediate surrounding where we do can make change: our homes, our gardens, our neighbors, a small community group in our village or city, etc.

At the national level, we are very reactive: only when the oil prices really hurt and the cars stand idle in the parking lots will be seriously think about other modes and technologies of transportation. We could be so pro-active as a society, but instead we are forced to behave in certain ways through laws and regulations which includes building codes, tax laws, governmental incentive schemes, and so on. Pro-active behavior currently only has room at a personal level, where an individual takes the burden upon himself. We must take this challenge and shoulder this burden for the sake of our morality, our kids and our long-term hope.

Religion and Sustainability

Just by chance I stumbled across this book today on Christmas Eve. After reading a few pages it dawned on me that this book is very appropriate for this religious day. The title is "Religion and agriculture: sustainability in Christianity and Buddhism" by Lindsay Falvey. It is available freely. In the introduction it states that it uses "sustainability as the meeting point of science and religion". It raises questions like "Why chose agriculture as the entry point to sustainability?" "Why even relate religion to the search for sustainability?" "What is sustainability anyway?" For 300 pages it then goes into details on western and eastern religions and how they lead and relate to sustainability. I haven't read all the way through it but if you are interested in any two of the three topics of agriculture, sustainability and religion/spirituality, then this book might be of interest to you. It certainly is spiritually motivating, a good book to start reading on December 24th.

Collaborative Consumption

The term "Collaborative Consumption" was coind in 2007 and in 2010 pushed by Rachel Botsman and Roo Rogers. It is about shared owning, owning access but not the product, and community ownership. This leads to community consumption. Rachel and Roo have written a book "What's Mine Is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption" and created the matching website www.collaborativeconsumption.com. It gives some good ideas on how collaborative technology (internet and its services) enabled new concepts of sharing (car sharing, ride sharing, real-estate sharing, etc.) and reuse (swapping and donating products). If you are more into audio and moving pictures, have a look here at collaborative consumption videos.

Freecycle

Recycle. Free + recycle = Freecycle. Hence, www.freecycle.org. The idea of Freecycle is so simple. We all have things we throw out, and our trash can be somebody else's treasure. Whenever we throw away an old door, a used book, a child's toy, we fill up the landfills and these items might be reused by somebody else. Freecycle is an online network bringing people together to form a local community. You announce an item that you want to give away for free, and somebody from the community can come by and pick it up. Freecycle.org's mission is: "to build a worldwide gifting movement that reduces waste, saves precious resources and eases the burden on our landfills while enabling our members to benefit from the strength of a larger community." Go ahead, join or start your local Freecycle community.

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.

ParEcon

ParEcon is short for Participatory Economy. ParEcon is a social economic model trying to achieve: equity, solidarity, diversity, and self-management. Equity is defined here as "a condition in which each person gets what they deserve for what they have done, and no one gets more (or less) than that". A key site publishing information on ParEcon is at Z Communications, a company adhering to the parecon principles.

A good starting point might be reading the Capitalism vs. ParEcon comparison sections. The full book "ParEcon - Life after Capitalism" published in 2003 gives additional details.

For those who prefer videos of textual info, have a look at this short intro video clip.

The ParEcon model is certainly strong on equalities, justice and democracy. The resulting economy will be stronger in terms of sustainability and social interaction. It has the ingredients for more happiness and promises to reduced materialism. Its criticism is primarily in the area of efficiency. Capitalism as we have it today has certainly failed as it has failed to serve 80% of the population. We need a new model and studying ParEcon is worth the effort of a few hours of reading.

Competition

Competition is such a crucial concept in our daily lives. Free market economists see competition as a key element to their economic model. Socially, the results of capitalistic competition have been disastrous. There is positive and negative competition or at least one can agree while competition could be seen as something neutral as a concept, there are positive and negative effects of competition.

While competition is a crucial factor in economy and society, the amount of books written on this topic is relatively small. A simple search revealed that most articles deal with the concept of competition in sports and tend to give instructions to coaches on how to introduce, manage and train competition in their sports team. A typical article is this, published by Damon Burton and Thomas Raedeke in Sport Psychology for Coaches. Here is a simple and limited article on competition at the workplace.

In Webster competition is defined as

• 1.a: the effort of two or more parties acting independently to secure the business of a third party by offering the most favorable terms
• 1.b: active demand by two or more organisms or kinds of organisms for some environmental resource in short supply
• 2: a contest between rivals

This definition is all "negative", it is about one-against-the-other, a zero-sum-game attitude, a fight for scarce resources, and rivalry. Why can't we define competition as something positive? How about a definition like this?

• the effort of two or more independent parties to achieve a desired common result by comparing and contrasting independent ideas

I was criticized once for criticizing competition and labeling it as cut-throat, stab-in-the-back and winner-takes-it-all. Competition could be a positive force, but for most part in our economy it has a negative social impact. Discussing the topic I started wondering why we don't have two words, one for positive competition and one for negative competition. In the English language at least its definition seems to be describing a rather fierce force in a zero-sum game. Maybe other languages distinguish between competition leading to negative effects and competition leading to positive effects.

I am not against competition, we need competing ideas and we need freedom of choice between these ideas. The same for products, let the best product win. What we need is an open and fair competition that reflects human values and is based on respect for the others (the competing teams). A competition based on sharing which has the benefit of all in mind. Forced monopolies are usually not a good thing. One of the most urgent areas were we need to abolish a monopoly and need to introduce competition is at the heart of the monetary system. Let's legalize creation of money and give the FED some competition. 

That reminds me of code competitions and challenges to solve particular problems that are based on an open and positive competition. For example a mathematical problem is publicly posted to all competing teams together with a means of scoring a result. Different teams now start coding different solutions. Whenever a solution is available it is published online and rated on a public scoreboard. All teams can see all current algorithms and their score. All teams can and are encouraged to take existing solutions (source code) and improve on them, combine them with their own algorithms, and re-post these improved solutions. [Our economy would call that stealing ideas.] This iterative game stops when a defined time has passed or a defined goal regarding score has been reached. Astonishing creativity and results have come forward through such competitions. Some universities and companies nurture such challenges. Some events are called code-a-thon or similar where people from different companies come together usually for a day or two to cooperate and compete in a positive fashion to derive a common solution.

In a TED talk an education specialist explained that in a test the best results have been achieved by dividing a class in multiple groups, having them all in the same room, requiring that all share their current results at all time, encourage adopting ("stealing") others' ideas, and allowing team members to switch teams voluntarily whenever they wanted.

On Wikipedia the definition of competition is also in terms of a zero-sum game, as rivalry and it states that competition arises whenever two or more parties strive for a goal which cannot be shared. The page acknowledges the positive and negative competition. It labels the one as cooperative competition and the other as destructive competition. Co-operative competition is based upon promoting mutual survival and strives for a "everyone wins" solution through peaceful exchange and without violating other people. This is clearly the type of competition we must foster.

On a side note: The Wikipedia page makes also a reference to the term coopetition. At first glance it sounded like an attractive term for positive competition. At a second look though, it is not the right term as defined by some people. Webster does not recognize the term. Wikipedia defines coopetition as a dual-faced attitude of cooperating with the competitor (enemy) where victory seems impossible while at the same time continuing with destructive competition against the same competitor in other areas. So, the cooperation only stems from the realization that competition is futile and at the same time destructive competition continues. There is no voluntary cooperation in this at all. It is more or less forced cooperation as a last resort to survival. And still the mind set has not been changed as destructive cooperation is still followed as the principle way of doing business wherever possible. Furthermore, at a linguistic level US First claims a trade mark on the term. According to this definition and the legal claim on the term, coopetition is not what we need, and for lack of having found a better term, I will still need to refer to terms such as "positive competition" and "cooperative competition".

Happiness

Nic Marks talks about happiness at the planet level, the national level and the personal level in his talk "The Happy Planet Index". The HPI (Happy Planet Index) rates all countries on their happiness, or better said on their sustainable happiness, i.e. simply put happiness in relation to the resource consumption. Which is the happiest country? Costa Rica. Why? They did away with the military all together, 99% of the electricity comes from reusable resources, they invested in social and health programs, they enjoy a 78-year life expectancy (higher than US), they have one of the highest literacy rate in the world, they were the first country committed to be carbon neutral by 2020. And they did all this while using only 25% of the resources used by Western countries. Time to get rid of the GDP as measure and replace it with the HPI. Here is the official site of the Happy Planet Index.

On a more personal level, have a look at 5 Ways to Well Being.

An inspiring talk!

Oil and Corexit

Susan Shaw has dedicated a great part of her life to the damages caused by oil disasters such as the Exxon Valdez and the BP crime in the Mexican Gulf. She is an expert on marine toxins and her brief talk "The oil spill's toxic trade-off" is an excellent summary of the dangers of Corexit and the political and big-business attitude in which it is used.

Dark Side of Housing Bubble

This is one of the most touching videos about the negative after-effects of the housing bubble: Foreclosure, a short 8-min news report by KCET bringing it all to a (sad) personal level.

Individualism vs. Collectivism

Why is it that "me", "I" and "individualism" are so ingrained in US culture? How does that compare to Asian cultures that are deeply rooted in "us", "together", "community" and "collectivism"? The TED talk entitled "The Art of Choosing" by Sheena Iyengar shows some intriguing scientific results related to this topic. Is this an explanation why cooperation is difficult in the US and most things in the US are based on hyper-competition?