The latest on the effects of the Russian crop disaster

Went driving in the Minnesota countryside southwest of Minneapolis yesterday.  The corn and soybeans are just unbelievable.  The soybeans after a couple of pitiful seasons are so full and lush they look like hedgerows.  The corn is about 9 ft. tall and so dense, good luck seeing the ground.

Remember now, these are plants that have been bred to minimize the supporting plant so the maximum plant energy is channeled into the seeds.  I won't predict a giant harvest just yet but barring some weather-related disaster like hail, it looks like some farmers will be buying new equipment this fall.

Wheat is the new gold in time of plenty for America’s breadbasket

As fires wreck Russia's harvests and poor countries brace for shortages, it's boom time for Kansas farmers.  Strong wheat yields in Kansas and Colorado this year have been boosted by the crop trading for $7 a bushel on futures markets.

By David Usborne

Saturday, 14 August 2010

Wildfires, floods, crippling droughts, and even a threatened plague of locusts have wrecked crops and ruined harvests around the world, raising fears of global food inflation shortage and food riots.

But as they hose off the dust and chaff caked on their exhausted combine harvesters,farmers in America's plain states are adjusting to something possibly wonderful: a combination of unusually good wheat yields and suddenly soaring prices – thanks to disastrous circumstances elsewhere – has put them at the centre of a gold rush.

"It feels like Christmas in August," admitted Darrell Hanavan, of the Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee, noting that the harvest just completed in his state seems to have been the most bountiful for 25 years. More importantly, the dollar value for the crop is almost sure to set a record.

The thin soil of the plains is not always so kind. Scorching drought and relentless rains are frequent visitors to the breadbasket of America. So it is startling for some to find themselves singled out for good fortune, while the rest of the US combats an unemployment rate that refuses to come down. more 

Russian ban on grain exports comes into force   

Russia has begun a ban on the export of grain until the end of this year in a bid to keep the domestic market supplied and put a lid on prices after a record drought caused a massive loss of wheat crops. 

By News Wires (text) 

AFP - A ban on Russian grain exports ordered by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin came into force on Sunday, with the government battling to keep down prices of basic foodstuffs amid a record drought. 

According to a government decree signed by Putin on August 5, the ban will extend from August 15 up until December 31, although the powerful premier has indicated it may even extend beyond that date if the harvest is bad. 

Russia, the world's number three wheat exporter last year, has already warned that its grain harvest this year will be just 60-65 million tonnes, compared to 97 million tonnes in 2009. 

The drought amid the worst ever heatwave in Russia's history has ruined one quarter of the country's crops, according to President Dmitry Medvedev. 

The export ban is aimed at keeping the Russian domestic market well supplied with grain to prevent sharp rises in prices. Russia's leaders, acutely nervous of social unrest, will be keen to avoid any discontent over food prices. 

"We must not allow an increase in domestic prices and must preserve the headcount of our cattle," Putin said bluntly as he announced the ban. more 

Russia ban on grain export begins

15 August 2010 Last updated at 03:01 ET 

Russia's crops have been devastated by the heatwave

Russia has imposed a ban on grain exports until the end of the year, after a severe drought and a spate of wildfires devastated crops.

Russia is one of the world's biggest producers of wheat, barley and rye, and the ban is likely to see bread prices rise in places like the Middle East.

The measures are designed to keep domestic food prices under control.But agriculture ministry data has revealed that this year's crop is unlikely to meet even domestic demand.

Nuclear facility

However, dozens of wildfires are still burning around Moscow, and according to the Emergency Situations Ministry more than 500 wildfires are continuing to burn across the country.

These include a new blaze to the east of the major nuclear research facility in Sarov, about 400km (250 miles) east of Moscow.

Earlier this month, as fires raged near the site, all nuclear and explosive materials were removed as a precaution.When those fires were brought under control, the materials were returned to Sarov. more

And a look at the crazy jet stream that caused both the fires in Russian and the floods in Pakistan.

And with all the haste we showed in opening the second front in World War II, here comes a trickle of American aid now that some of these fires have simply burned themselves out.

First planeloads of US aid to combat wildfires arrive in Moscow

The first planeloads of US logistical support for beating back widespread Russian wildfires arrived at Moscow airport early on Saturday as officials said the fires had shrunk to roughly a quarter of the size they were a week ago.

By News Wires (text)

AFP - The first planeloads of US aid for the Russian wildfire tragedy arrived in Moscow on Saturday as officials said a fire raging close to a top nuclear facility did not risk causing an atomic catastrophe.

Officials said that nationwide the area alight with fires was almost a quarter that of a week ago, although there appeared to be little progress in reducing the size of the blaze close to Russia's main nuclear research centre in Sarov.  

Two US Air Force C-130 planes carrying aid for Russia touched down early Saturday at a Moscow airport, followed by a charter flight from California ordered by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, state television and the foreign ministry said.

Two additional C-130 flights were expected in the "next days", the Russian foreign ministry said. Another charter was also due in the coming week. more 

And the Germans are NOT too crazy about how the Russians handled this disaster.

The Kremlin's Smokescreen

By Christian Neef

As the Russian wildfires continue to burn, the Kremlin's spin machine is in high gear, as the government attempts to cover up the true scale of the disaster. The country's leadership duo, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin, have been using the same PR stunts and propaganda gimmicks they have relied on in the past.

A burnt field outside Shatura: 

Russia's ban on grain exports came into effect Sunday. 

The drought and wildfires devastated this year's crop.

It sounded like a huge finale when a heavy thunderstorm came crashing down on Moscow in the early hours of last Friday. But it was too early to celebrate the end of Russia's wildfire disaster. After scorching the region for exactly two months, with daytime temperatures of over 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), on Friday morning the heatwave continued. The suffering will go on, at least for this week.

A total of 505 existing wildfire hotspots were still blazing on Friday. While the Emergency Situations Ministry was already announcing that the fires were being brought under control, the heat had sparked new fires at 245 new locations. To make matters worse, it is primarily in areas contaminated with radioactivity that firefighters still have to battle the flames.

It was only last week that the government admitted that fires have been burning since mid-June in the very districts that were contaminated with radionuclides following the nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986. Although there is no danger that the fires will again cause a plume of radioactive fallout to extend as far as Western Europe, there is a significant risk for local residents. But so far the authorities have refused to answer the question of whether additional areas were contaminated with the dangerous radioactive isotope, caesium-137. One environmentalist said that he suspects they are keeping quiet because they fear that even more claimants would otherwise be entitled to compensation payments from the state. more

Wirtshaftwunder came from exporting the New Deal

One of history's great ironies is that the economic regimes we imposed on the defeated Japanese and Germans following WW II were designed by the furthest left, most progressive, of the New Dealers who were losing their influence at home.

Pacifist constitutions forced the Germans and Japanese to concentrate on non-military production.  Not surprisingly, since both countries boasted advanced industrialization before the War, the institutional arrangements made rebuilding their economies to master the production of civilian goods almost certain once that strategy had become a mandate from the occupation forces.

But it was more than that.  German industry had to accept works councils.  Old right-winger Douglas MacArthur forced land reform (the great promise of the Communists) on Japan.  Many folks from USA at the time thought a bunch of lefty ideas would make them too weak to fight wars.  They were correct.  What they probably didn't foresee is that economic "soft" power would be MUCH more powerful than an ability to fight wars.

The German economy was called Wirtschaftwunder (economic miracle.)  And while this wonder has taken a beating in the world where neoliberals still rule the debate, it still remains and has created the most powerful economy in Europe and it can be argued, the world.

By contrast, when the neoliberals went to Russia in the 1990s to "help" with their conversion to a "market" (Predator) economy, they created such a disaster that life-expectancy actually nose-dived.  Let's see--mixed economy New Dealers, Wirtschaftwunder.  Neoliberal free marketeers--chaos and disaster.  Pretty much sums up everything important one needs to know about economics.

German economy surges ahead at record pace

• Germany's 2.2% growth helps eurozone to outpace US

• Every eurozone country except Greece now out of recession

• Euro strengthens, with potential threat to Europe's competitiveness 

Julia Kollewe

guardian.co.uk, Friday 13 August 2010 11.16 BST

The German economy grew at its fastest pace since the country was reunified in the second quarter, helping the eurozone to outstrip growth in the US.

Europe's largest economy powered ahead between April and June, growing by 2.2%, thanks to a recovery in construction and strong foreign demand for German goods, the federal statistical office, reported today. This was well above market expectations of 1.4% growth. Growth in the first quarter was revised higher to 0.5% from 0.2%.

Germany's performance helped the 16-member eurozone grow by 1% in the second quarter, the strongest growth rate since the first quarter of 2008 and a strong improvement on the 0.2% recorded for the first three months of this year. It was also stronger than the US economy's growth of 0.6% in the second quarter, but not as good as Britain's 1.1%. more

And the TINY possibility is raised the we in USA could learn something useful from the "student" who became the master at Industrial Capitalism.  Good idea.  Fat chance of succeeding.

FDL Book Salon Welcomes Thomas Geoghegan

Saturday, August 14, 2010 1:55 pm Pacific time

Welcome lawyer / author, Thomas Geoghegan, and Host Masaccio.

Were You Born On the Wrong Continent?: How the European Model Can Help You Get A Life

Thomas Geoghegan has written a book that captures the focus of the progressive movement: how does the Middle Class survive the predatory capitalism practiced in the United States and the United Kingdom? His answer is the German version of capitalism, where the interests of the workers are just as important as the voice of the capitalists.

He begins by pointing out all the ways people live better in the European Union. They don’t have to worry about the Big Five: retirement, health care, education, transportation and childcare. The government sees to all of these. Since it buys in bulk, it gets great prices, and people don’t have to spend their time worrying about any of those things. Just think how great your life would be if you didn’t have to think about where you send your kids to school, or health insurance, or how long your commute is. And think how much better off you would be in this miserable economy if you didn’t have to worry about the losses in your 401(k) plan (if you had one), and how you would pay for health care if you have to pay COBRA on the paltry unemployment benefits you get if you got fired.

But there is more. In Europe, cities are livable. There are parks, beautiful buildings, wonderful museums, ancient churches, free or cheap concerts, festivals, open-air markets, functional subways, buses and trains, and street-cleaners. Geoghegan references the lovely public spaces with his comment on the banks of violets he saw in Zurich. There is café life, which is a gracious way to live, indeed. In Paris, the cafés are filled with people of all ages, sitting out at all times of the year drinking coffee and talking to each other, not immersed in private thoughts in front of a laptop or staring blankly at the third football game of a Sunday.

They can live this way because they aren’t working themselves to death. They get real vacations, tons of days off which create lots of three and four day weekends, and their daily work hours typically aren’t as long as ours. more

One way to fight the Great Recession

Is to have a real economy that makes real things that people and countries want to buy.  To read the commercial press, one would suppose the Germans have just as many neoliberal idiots as the English-speaking world.  But to look at the way the country actually performs, it is obvious they ALSO have economists who understand the concepts of Industrial Capitalism.

GDP Surges 2.2 Percent

Greatest Economic Boom Since German Reunification

Germany just posted its strongest quarter of economic growth since reunification in 1990. During the second quarter, an exports boom, increased consumption and government stimulus helped the country chalk up growth of 2.2 percent.

Buoyed by a surge in exports and continuing government stimulus programs, Germany's economy is recovering at a faster pace than most economists expected. During the second quarter, gross domestic product increased by 2.2 percent on the previous quarter, the Federal Statistical Office in Wiesbaden announced on Friday, marking the largest quarterly economic growth since the country's reunification in 1990. more

but...

Was Germany's Monster GDP Number The Worst Possible News For The Eurozone?

Joe Weisenthal | Aug. 13, 2010, 6:14 AM  

Germany has reported blistering GDP, and for awhile that seemed to give a lift to Europe, but is it good news?

In a sense, it clearly re-emphasizes the fears from a few months ago: that the eurozone doesn't make sense.

This news comes a day after Greece reported GDP that was worse than expected. It's obvious that when it comes to currency and monetary policy, the interests of Germany and the periphery could not be further apart.

Analysts are talking about this question today.

CNBC (via @alea_)

"Clearly these figures highlight the story of the year, Greece and Ireland are struggling, Germany and France are doing well," Guillaume Salomon, a fixed income strategist at TD Securities, said.

"The nightmare scenario is a massive slowdown in both core and peripheral but we do not expect that to be the case," Salomon said. "Before the euro was launched, the smaller nations could have devalued their way to greater productivity, they can do this no longer." more

Greece's economy deeper in recession than forecast

• Second-quarter GDP in Greece estimated to have fallen by 3.5% year-on-year 

• Record jump in Greek unemployment prompts that crisis could intensify social unrest

Katie Allen

guardian.co.uk, Thursday 12 August 2010 15.03 BST

The economic crisis in Greece has led to widespread protests, including clashes between demonstrators and riot police. Photograph: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP/Getty Images

Greece's recession deepened more than expected in the second quarter of 2010 after the country was rocked by its financial crisis and a series of government measures to slash public debt.

Investment dropped and public spending slumped in the three months to June as Greek politicians battled to regain the confidence of financial markets and meet the conditions of a multibillion-euro bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund.

There was also a fresh warning sign that the economic crisis could further intensify social unrest, after a record jump in unemployment. The crisis has already led to widespread industrial action and public protests.

With the fiscal squeeze only just starting, Greece is expected to remain mired in recession for the rest of this year. more

How do the Germans do it?  See the Prime Minister pitch some classic strategies of Industrial Capitalism.

Creating Order in the Euro Zone

Merkel's Rules for Bankruptcy

By Christian Reiermann

Fearing a lasting burden on taxpayers, the German government is preparing a set of insolvency rules for countries in the euro zone. It would require private investors to bear some of the financial burden and force the affected countries to give up some sovereignty. The plan is guaranteed to meet with resistance.

As a physicist and an avowed admirer of the Swabian housewife, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, leader of the center-right Christian Democrats (CDU), is seeking to establish binding rules in the midst of the chaos of financial and monetary crises. Her desire for order was reinforced recently when the prospect of Greece collapsing under a mountain of debt triggered turmoil in the European Monetary Union.

The first national bankruptcy on European soil in decades was only prevented because the remaining countries in the euro zone came to the aid of their faltering fellow member with billions in loans and loan guarantees. The chancellor, determined not to allow the Greek debacle to be repeated elsewhere, proposed the establishment of a procedure to ensure "orderly national bankruptcies." The German chancellor hoped that the plan would create "an important incentive for the euro-zone members to keep their budgets under control."

Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble, in complete agreement with Merkel, said: "We have to think about how, in an extreme situation, member states could become insolvent in an orderly fashion without threatening the euro zone as a whole." more

And then there is the idea that bank managers who had to be bailed out by the taxpayers would be barred from being paid bonuses forever.  Translation of Frankfurt Allgemeine Zeitung below by Google.

Lesson from the financial crisis

Bank managers bonuses are deleted permanently

Bank managers will lose entitlement to bonus payments finally, if you bank by the government or the industry must be supported. The Union and the FDP have agreed to inform the FAZ.

By Joachim Jahn  05 August 2010

The scheme is to be subsequently incorporated in a just law that entered into force, with the compensation structures in banks and insurance companies were regulated. "Salary excesses no longer at public expense" is the motto for this work order, which the FDP-rapporteurs for the amendment, Björn singers, has sent in the order of both factions to Federal Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) and Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP). more

Thinking about work

Work is an interesting topic.  There are some really unpleasant jobs out there that need doing.  I worked as a surgical orderly for two years in college and I am convinced that the world would stop in interesting ways if there were no more surgical orderlies.  It is critical, necessary work.

Then there are the jobs that make you want to exclaim in sheer disbelief, "they are paying people to do THAT?"

Ironically, we let thousands of necessary jobs go undone while the jobs that clearly do NOT need doing or are actually harmful seem to multiply.

So the question is, What percentage of the population must work to accomplish the necessary tasks?  Now mind you, the number of people who must do the hard work has diminished ever since folks discovered that energy running motors was a great substitute for human toil.

I am convinced that folks who still have jobs are working WAY too hard so that a quarter of the population can sit around doing nothing while an army of educated people do work that is less useful than running out into traffic with washer fluid.

If I were a young man looking to write an interesting paper, I would study the question of, "If we were to divide up all the useful work roughly evenly, how long would the workday actually be?  How many weeks a year would people work?  And when would they retire?

My guess is that they would retire young.  We SHOULD be looking to lower the retirement age.

Galbraith: Expand Social Security and Medicare

Jamie Galbraith says the talk about cutting entitlements is all wrong. These programs should be expanded, not trimmed back:

James K. Galbraith Champions The Beast Manifesto, by James K. Galbraith: 

In the Great Crisis, the United States lost about eight million private jobs. ... Very few lost jobs have been replaced... Two million of the lost jobs are in construction, which faces a long slump. Three million were lost in manufacturing, which is down 40 percent since 2000, and those jobs likely won't ever return. Unemployment rates for Black, Asian, and Latino workers have all doubled. The average duration of unemployment has risen to an astonishing 35 weeks, with nearly half of all unemployed out of work for almost a year.

So: Jobs are Priority One. But very little is being done. And what little is done is hotly contested. Even extending unemployment insurance proved difficult—and UI, while necessary, is not a jobs program. ...

[E]conomists ... rightly argue... for stronger action—action that would increase public budget deficits now. ...[M]any argue that we must make cuts today, effective at a later time, to offset the "stimulus." Since the major programs which are authorized today for later effect are Social Security and Medicare, this translates to "cutting entitlements" in order to bring "long-term budget deficits under control." This is a pernicious idea...

So what are the real effects of cutting Social Security and Medicare?

Medicare pays doctors' bills for the old. It pays out at lower rates than does private insurance for working people. Cutting Medicare would mean two things: less health care for the elderly, and therefore more financial stress on their families. And more health care costs overall, as people substitute with private insurance for the public cuts. Both of these are very bad ideas. more

And a warning in case someone has forgotten that the pirates love to raid pension funds.

Banksters are Coming for Your Retirement Next

Eric Blair

First, the banksters hoodwinked an angry public into bailing out their collateralized-debt obligations and derivative Ponzi scheme to the tune of what may turn out to be over $600 Trillion dollars. Derivatives are nothing more than bets on other bets, on other bets, that are all completely worthless. So, we can assume that the taxpayer will be victimized for at least that amount for derivatives alone. That’s about $2 million dollars for every man, woman, and child in America, or $100,000 for every person in the world.

They bet big with your investment money, got fat, then lost thousands of times more than everything real on Earth combined. Then, representatives of the people bailed them out (including bonuses) while they laughed all the way to their respective banks. Since government officials are doing their best to reject transparency, we can also only assume this number is much, much larger.

Sadly, their derivative Ponzi scheme is the least of the public’s current problems regarding the banks. The international banks’ economic hit men have successfully enslaved-by-debt everything from nations, entire industries, state and local governments (who will need their bailout soon), and nearly every person on the planet. Even if an individual doesn't have any bank financing or credit cards, they still pay the private Federal Reserve through inflation. As author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, John Perkins, would say: the time has come for the banks to collect their “pound of flesh” from average citizens by way of your pensions. For an enlightening explanation of how economic hit men enslave entire countries please watch the video below: more

Who Are You Going to Believe -- Tim Geithner or Your Own Lying Eyes?

Robert Kuttner

Co-founder and co-editor of The American Prospect

Posted: August 9, 2010 08:35 AM

The jobs situation stinks, even as corporate profits keep rising. Another 131,000 jobs were lost to the economy in July, according to the Labor Department's latest report released Friday. The measured unemployment ratestayed stuck at 9.5 percent.

The only reason it wasn't worse was because more workers gave up looking for nonexistent jobs, leaving a smaller labor force to measure against the meager supply of work. Small comfort.

Meanwhile, another important government report, by the Social Security Trustees, showed only a trivial improvement in the gap between what Social Security owes the next generation of retirees and the tax receipts that it can expect.

There is, of course, a direct connection between rising unemployment, declining wages, and the condition of Social Security. That's because Social Security is funded by payroll taxes.

If wages had continued to rise with the growth of the economy's productivity, instead of profits and bonuses taking an ever larger share, Social Security would be enjoying an endless surplus. more

Someone else agrees we'll be damn lucky to be economically like Japan

This time from the Guardian.  I have been following the story of Japan's post-war re-industrialization for over 30 years now and I too, grow weary of the amount of pure bullshit that is flung around this country about the Japanese economy.  This happens in spite of Lexus-sized arguments to the contrary.

The economic fallacy of 'zombie' Japan

Steven Hill

guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 11 August 2010 18.00 BST

Paul Krugman and others have got Japan wrong: Americans should be so lucky as to get a Japanese-style lost decade

Princeton economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has frequently warned US policymakers against emulating the Japanese economy in the 1990s. 

Japan has been getting a raw deal from the so-called economic experts. Consider this: in the midst of the great recession, the United States is suffering through nearly 10% unemployment, rising inequality and poverty, 47 million people without health insurance, declining retirement prospects for the middle class and a general increase in economic insecurity. Various European nations also are having their difficulties, and no one knows if China is the next bubble due to explode.

How, then, should we regard a country that has 5% unemployment, the lowest income inequality, healthcare for all its people and is one of the world's leading exporters? This country also scores high on life expectancy, low on infant mortality, is at the top in numeracy and literacy, and is low on crime, incarceration, homicides, mental illness and drug abuse. It also has a low rate of carbon emissions, doing its part to reduce global warming. In all these categories, this particular country beats both the US and China by a country mile.

Doesn't that sound like a country from which Americans and others might learn a thing or two about how to get out of the hole in which we're stuck?

Not if that place is Japan. During and before the current economic crisis, few countries have been vilified as an economic basket case so much as Japan: it's been hard to find any reference to the country without some mention of its allegedly sclerotic economy, its zombie banks, its deflation and slow economic growth. This malaise has even been called "Japan syndrome", sounding like a disease to warn policymakers, as in "you don't want to end up like Japan." more

And what happens when you lose your ability to manufacture complex, high-quality things?  Eventually folks stop taking you seriously.

Post-Anti-Americanism

Europe can’t even be bothered to hate America any more.

You can still buy an American newspaper at the kiosk in Rome’s Piazza Colonna, but you have to ask the lady behind the counter. She turns from the window, paws through a stack on the floor, and produces an International Herald Tribune, holding it at arm’s length like a day-old fish. It’s the same availability and tone in Venice, the Greek islands, and Istanbul. The implicit question in the transaction is always the same: why would you want to read that thing about that place at this time?

And when you read about America in European newspapers, what you are likely to find is a tone bordering on pity. The U.S. is depicted as a fraying empire of obesity, ignorance, debt, gridlock, stagnation, and mindless war. Sure, the iPad is cool, but it is evidence of what America was, not what it will be again. The stories are not angry, accusatory, or even ideological. It’s worse: they are condescendingly elegiac.

European disdain for the United States is centuries old, of course. But over the course of decades of traveling in the U.K. and on the continent, I have never gotten the sense that I got on a recently completed three-week trip to Italy, Greece, Turkey, and the Black Sea. America is no longer admired, imitated, or feared. We remain—for now—a safe haven for dollars (of which there are too many in the world). But we increasingly are seen less as a model or as an empire than as a cautionary tale of national neglect and decline. more

After months of hysterical Toyota bashing, the facts start coming in

And it looks like we skeptics of the bashing have been proven correct.  Most, and probably all, cases of so-called unintended acceleration are caused by driver error.  The war on Toyota had a lot of reasons for breaking out.  Almost none of them had anything to do with quality issues.

U.S. Study Points to Driver Error in Many Toyota Crashes

By MIKE RAMSEY And JOSH MITCHELL

Five months into an investigation of safety issues involving Toyota Motor Corp. vehicles, U.S. safety officials have yet to identify any new defects beyond those reported by the car maker itself.

And in more than half of the crashes blamed on sudden acceleration analyzed by the government, data from the vehicles' "black boxes" show the driver was not stepping on the brake at the time of the accident—indicating that driver error may have been at fault.

Those were the findings that U.S. Transportation Department officials disclosed Tuesday to members of Congress, offering the first significant details of the government's ongoing investigation into Toyota's recall of more than 8.5 million vehicles globally since last fall.

Officials stressed that their investigation continues and may take months to complete. But the data, at least for now, support Toyota's assertion that electronic defects in its cars aren't behind the incidents.

Experts at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration examined 58 vehicles involved in sudden-acceleration reports and found data in 35 of them showed the brakes weren't applied at the time of the crash. Data from nine other vehicles showed the brakes were used only in the last moment before impact.

The report doesn't specify driver error as a cause of unintended acceleration, although people familiar with the investigation have said the findings point to pedal misapplication—mistakenly hitting the gas instead of the brakes—as a likely cause. more

Toyota Acceleration Probe: Initial Investigation Finds No Electronics Problems

First Posted: 08-11-10 10:59 AM  

WASHINGTON (AP, KEN THOMAS) -- A government investigation into runaway Toyotas has found no new safety defects beyond problems with accelerator pedals that explain reports of sudden acceleration in the vehicles, according to preliminary findings released Tuesday.

Safety experts have said vehicle electronic systems could be to blame for the problems that have led to Toyota's massive recalls but the review by the government, while still at an early stage, has not found any evidence of those issues.

Toyota, the world's largest automaker, has recalled about 9.5 million cars and trucks since October in a quality crisis that has threatened to undermine the Japanese automaker's reputation for building safe vehicles. more

Chernobyl waste to be atomized by fire

It bad enough that large areas of Ukraine and western Russia are covered with radioactive debris. Now we are going to see this mess borne aloft by the currents of a wildfire.  Oh goody!

Fear of Radioactivity in Russia Fires

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

Published: August 10, 2010

MOSCOW — As if things in Russia were not looking sufficiently apocalyptic already, with 100-degree temperatures and noxious fumes rolling in from burning peat bogs and forests, there is growing alarm here that fires in regions coated with fallout from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster 24 years ago could now be emitting plumes of radioactive smoke.

Several fires have been documented in the contaminated areas of western Russia, including three heavily irradiated sites in the Bryansk region, the environmental group Greenpeace Russia said in a statement released Tuesday. Bryansk borders Belarus and Ukraine.

“Fires on these territories will without a doubt lead to an increase in radiation,” said Vladimir Chuprov, head of the energy program at Greenpeace Russia. “The smoke will spread and the radioactive traces will spread. The amount depends upon the force of the wind.”

Officials from Russia’s federal forest protection service confirmed that fires were burning at contaminated sites on Tuesday, and expressed fears that lax oversight as a result ofrecent changes in the forestry service could increase the chances that radioactive smoke would waft into populated areas. more

Deadly Russian heatwave could be preview of future 

by DarkSyde

Tue Aug 10, 2010 at 09:10:03 AM CDT

The Great Russian Heatwave of 2010 is rapidly becoming one of the deadliest weather crises of our time. It might also be a preview of a future, warmer, planet. But you'd barely know it from watching US media coverage.

Noted climatologist Michael Mann says "The record heat waves we're seeing this summer aren't simply random events in isolation. They are embedded in the warmest 6 month period the globe has seen in the instrumental record spanning the past 150 years. And a wealth of paleoclimate evidence suggests that the past few decades are the warmest period in at least a thousand years." Mann also said, "Some argue the cause could be natural. But when we put the natural factors only into the climate models, they show that the climate should have cooled in recent decades. We can only explain the dramatic warming that we've seen from the increased accumulation of greenhouse gases due to human activity."

Dr. Jeff Masters from the WeatherUnderground agrees and adds, "Global warming 'loads the dice' in favor of extreme heat events. But with the planet experiencing its warmest 6-month period in recorded history, it's now possible to roll a thirteen, when it used to be possible to roll no higher than a twelve."

August is a crazy month for Masters. Tropical storm forecasts and tracking keep him up regularly past midnight. But he's been burning the candle at both ends this year, publishing superb analysis on the disaster in Russia and framing it in terms that anyone can understand. "The great heat wave and drought of 1988 in the Midwest U.S. was far less intense than the 2010 Russian heat wave, yet was the second costliest natural disaster in U.S. history at $70 billion. The 1988 heat wave killed 5,000 - 10,000 Americans. If the 2010 Russian heat wave hit the U.S. next year, the damage would probably surpass the $125 billion price tag of Hurricane Katrina as the most costly natural disaster in U.S. history. The likely death toll of 10,000 - 20,000 would also make it the deadliest." Masters added, "The damage to Russian agriculture will be in the tens of billions of dollars and could cost tens of thousands of lives." more

A sustainable society will be created with a zillion tiny improvements

NOT for some single magic bullet. The following is a perfect example of one of those incremental improvements that can reap great dividends.

A Sticker Makes Solar Panels Work Better

A startup's polymer sticker increases power output by 10 percent, and can be applied to panels that are already installed.

By Kevin Bullis 

TUESDAY, AUGUST 10, 2010

The power output of solar panels can be boosted by 10 percent just by applying a big transparent sticker to the front. Developed by a small startup called Genie Lens Technologies, the sticker is a polymer film embossed with microstructures that bend incoming sunlight. The result: the active materials in the panels absorb more light, and convert more of it into electricity.

The technology is cheap and could lower the cost per watt of solar power. Also, unlike other technologies developed to improve solar panel performance, this one can be added to panels that have already been installed.

The polymer film does three main things, says Seth Weiss, CEO and cofounder of Genie Lens, based in Englewood, CO. It prevents light from reflecting off the surface of solar panels. It traps light inside the semiconductor materials that absorb light and convert it to electricity. And it redirects incoming light so that rather than passing through the thin semiconductor material, it travels along its surface, increasing the chances it will be absorbed.

Researchers designed the microstructures that accomplish this by using algorithms that model how rays of light behave as they enter the film and encounter various surfaces within the solar panel--the protective glass cover, the semiconductor material, and the back surface of the panel--throughout the day. The key was bending the light the optimal amount, enough that it enters the solar panel at an angle, but not so much of an angle that the light reflects off and is lost. If light does reflect off either the glass or semiconductor surfaces, the film redirects much of it back into the solar panel.

Tests at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory showed that the film increases power output on average between 4 percent and 12.5 percent, with the best improvement under cloudy conditions, when incoming light is diffuse. more

Yes indeed, the banksters are still in charge

Apparently, the human race--or at least the economists--haven't learned much from the Great Recession.  It is incredible when you think about it.  How could anyone be more disgraced than the economists and the banksters who pay them?  So why won't these prime candidates for change mend their ways?

Wall Street's Big Win

Finance reform won't stop the high-risk gambling that wrecked the economy - and Republicans aren't the only ones to blame

By Matt Taibbi  Aug 04, 2010 1:00 PM EDT

(snip) 

But is the nightmare really over, or is this just another Inception-style trick ending? It's hard to figure, given all the absurd rhetoric emanating from the leadership of both parties. Obama and the Democrats boasted that the bill is the "toughest financial reform since the ones we created in the aftermath of the Great Depression" – a claim that would maybe be more impressive if Congress had passed any financial reforms since the Great Depression, or at least any that didn't specifically involve radically undoing the Depression-era laws.

The Republicans, meanwhile, were predictably hysterical. They described the new law – officially known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act – as something not far from a full-blown Marxist seizure of the means of production. House Minority Leader John Boehner shrieked that it was like "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," apparently forgetting that the ant crisis in question wiped out about 40 percent of the world's wealth in a little over a year, making its smallness highly debatable. 

But Dodd-Frank was neither an FDR-style, paradigm-shifting reform, nor a historic assault on free enterprise. What it was, ultimately, was a cop-out, a Band-Aid on a severed artery. If it marks the end of anything at all, it represents the end of the best opportunity we had to do something real about the criminal hijacking of America's financial-services industry. During the yearlong legislative battle that forged this bill, Congress took a long, hard look at the shape of the modern American economy – and then decided that it didn't have the stones to wipe out our country's one dependably thriving profit center: theft. more

Credit crunch consequences: three years after the crisis, what's changed?

The economic meltdown of 2007 shook the world – but financial reforms have failed to address fundamental problems

Larry Elliott, David Teather and Jill Treanor

The Observer, Sunday 8 August 2010

Bankers were burned in effigy during the G20 protests in the City of London in 2009, and heads rolled metaphorically everywhere from Northern Rock to Bear Stearns, but capitalism is still flourishing. 

It was supposed to have been the day the world changed. The credit crunch "officially" began on 9 August 2007, and there were plenty ready to dance on the grave of capitalism and the free markets. But three years on, for all the hand-wringing, the economic upheaval and the promises of politicians, there is a whiff of business as usual in the air. The banks have returned to substantial profit, City bonuses are moving back to dizzying heights, international efforts for further co-operation have largely come unstuck, cranes are once more rising over the Square Mile and house prices are moving north.

Many are beginning to question whether anything has really changed at all; others maintain that things have simply got worse, that the old hegemony has been reinforced rather than loosened, widening the disparity between the wealthy and the rest.

Getting a mortgage has been put out of the reach of many people, savings are dwindling, high streets have become bleaker places and the expansion of public sector debt, partly to keep the world from plunging into a depression, means there will only be more painful austerity measures to come, affecting everything from arts funding to welfare. Politically, the shift has been to the right, particularly in Britain.

"Of course the credit crunch is leading to lots of changes and we haven't seen all of them yet," says Sir John Gieve, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England. "But in two big respects, I don't think it did change the world. First, the speed of globalisation, the integration of the global economy, including finance, is continuing, and second, it is continuing around broadly a free-market model. more

And the findings of just how corrupt the economic meltdown was continue to roll in.

The AIG Bailout Scandal

William Greider

August 6, 2010 

The government’s $182 billion bailout of insurance giant AIG should be seen as the Rosetta Stone for understanding the financial crisis and its costly aftermath. The story of American International Group explains the larger catastrophe not because this was the biggest corporate bailout in history but because AIG’s collapse and subsequent rescue involved nearly all the critical elements, including delusion and deception. These financial dealings are monstrously complicated, but this account focuses on something mere mortals can understand—moral confusion in high places, and the failure of governing institutions to fulfill their obligations to the public.

Three governmental investigative bodies have now pored through the AIG wreckage and turned up disturbing facts—the House Committee on Oversight and Reform; the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, which will make its report at year’s end; and the Congressional Oversight Panel (COP), which issued its report on AIG in June.

The five-member COP, chaired by Harvard professor Elizabeth Warren, has produced the most devastating and comprehensive account so far. Unanimously adopted by its bipartisan members, it provides alarming insights that should be fodder for the larger debate many citizens long to hear—why Washington rushed to forgive the very interests that produced this mess, while innocent others were made to suffer the consequences. The Congressional panel’s critique helps explain why bankers and their Washington allies do not want Elizabeth Warren to chair the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

The most troubling revelation in this story is the astonishing weakness of the Federal Reserve and its incompetence as a faithful defender of the public interest.

The report concludes that the Federal Reserve Board’s intimate relations with the leading powers of Wall Street—the same banks that benefited most from the government’s massive bailout—influenced its strategic decisions on AIG. The panel accuses the Fed and the Treasury Department of brushing aside alternative approaches that would have saved tens of billions in public funds by making these same banks “share the pain.”

Bailing out AIG effectively meant rescuing Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Merrill Lynch (as well as a dozens of European banks) from huge losses. Those financial institutions played the derivatives game with AIG, the esoteric practice of placing financial bets on future events. AIG lost its bets, which led to its collapse. But other gamblers—the counterparties in AIG’s derivative deals—were made whole on their bets, paid off 100 cents on the dollar. Taxpayers got stuck with the bill. more

We need real banking--not casinos

The guys in here in the American midwest made monetary policy the dominant political topic from 1873 until at least my childhood.  I actually heard my first description of how fractional banking works in the basement of a rural Minnesota Lutheran church in 1963.  It led to a life-long interest in the subject of money and how we let it rule our lives.

The most advanced monetary ideas have typically grown up in those areas where economic development was critically important--Ben Franklin's Philadelphia, the North Dakota State Bank of the Non-Partisan League, the prairie Saskatchewan Socreds, etc.  Their plans differed in minor details but essentially they agreed that money creation was to be a democratic act and that their money was made good by the hard work and cleverness of the people.

Oh, and one other thing--some of these monetary schemes have worked VERY well.  Here is an example drawn from the experience in Australia.

The Remarkable Model of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia

Escaping the Sovereign Debt Trap

By ELLEN BROWN

President John Adams is quoted as saying, “There are two ways to conquer and enslave a nation. One is by the sword. The other is by debt.” The major conquests today are on the battlefield of debt, a war that is raging globally. Debt forces individuals into financial slavery to the banks, and it forces governments to relinquish their sovereignty to their creditors, which in the end are also private banks, the originators of all non-cash money today. In Great Britain, where the Bank of England is owned by the government, 97% of the money supply is issued privately by banks as loans. In the U.S., where the central bank is owned by a private consortium of banks, the percentage is even higher. The Federal Reserve issues Federal Reserve Notes (or dollar bills) and lends them to other banks, which then lend them at interest to individuals, businesses, and local and federal governments. 

That is true today, but in the past there have been successful models in which the government itself issued the national currency, whether as paper notes or as the credit of the nation. A stellar example of this enlightened approach to money and credit was the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which operated successfully as a government-owned bank for most of the 20th century. Rather than issuing “sovereign debt” – federal bonds indebting the nation to pay at interest in perpetuity – the government through the Commonwealth Bank issued “sovereign credit,” the credit of the nation advanced to the government and its constituents. 

The Bank’s achievements were particularly remarkable considering that for its first eight years, from 1912 to 1920, it did not have the power to issue the national currency, and it operated without startup capital. Sir Denison Miller, Governor of the Bank from its creation in 1912 to 1923, was quoted in the Australian Press on July 7, 1921 as saying, “The whole of the resources of Australia are at the back of this bank, and so strong as this continent is, so strong is the Commonwealth Bank. Whatever the Australian people can intelligently conceive in their minds and will loyally support, that can be done.”

This was not just hype. In a 2001 article titled “How Money Is Created in Australia,” David Kidd wrote of the Bank’s early accomplishments:

“Australia’s own government-established Commonwealth Bank achieved some impressive successes while it was ‘the peoples’ bank’, before being crippled by later government decisions and eventually sold. At a time when private banks were demanding 6% interest for loans, the Commonwealth Bank financed Australia’s first world war effort from 1914 to 1919 with a loan of $700,000,000 at an interest rate of a fraction of 1%, thus saving Australians some $12 million in bank charges. In 1916 it made funds available in London to purchase 15 cargo steamers to support Australia’s growing export trade. Until 1924 the benefits conferred upon the people of Australia by their Bank flowed steadily on. It financed jam and fruit pools to the extent of $3 million, it found $8 million for Australian homes, while to local government bodies, for construction of roads, tramways, harbours, gasworks, electric power plants, etc., it lent $18.72 million. It paid $6.194 million to the Commonwealth Government between December, 1920 and June, 1923 - the profits of its Note Issue Department - while by 1924 it had made on its other business a profit of $9 million, available for redemption of debt. The bank’s independently-minded Governor, Sir Denison Miller, used the bank’s credit power after the First World War to save Australians from the depression conditions being imposed in other countries. . . . By 1931 amalgamations with other banks made the Commonwealth Bank the largest savings institution in Australia, capturing 60% of the nation’s savings.” more

Recession Causing a Banking Awakening in Tough-Hit Midwest

Will establishing citizen-owned state banks be the first step to ending the private Federal Reserve?

Eric Blair

A mass banking awakening seems to be happening throughout America, and the first pragmatic solution appears to be citizen-owned state banks. Since this model has been proven highly successful in North Dakota, many recession-ravaged states are now considering the idea of establishing state-run banks.

Congressman Ron Paul, author of End The Fed, has been trying to educate the public about the private Federal Reserve Bank system for his whole career. And indeed, many terrific books like The Creature from Jekyll Island, and movies like The Money Masters, also have exposed the flaws in allowing private globalist bankers to print the nation's currency. 

This hidden knowledge represents the "red pill," and once we awaken to the true criminal nature of our monetary system, there is no disputing the origin of our economic woes.

Consequently, the increased awareness is the reason for the growing movement calling to end the Federal Reserve Bank. However, our Congress, with their paltry 11% approval rating, showed their true colors when they gutted the Audit the Fed provision in the recently-passed financial reform bill which actually gives the Federal Reserve even more power. more

And here's what happens when you stand up to the banksters.  Sometimes you win and demonstrate that for all its huffing and puffing, institutions like IMF are really paper tigers.

To Viktor go the spoils: how Hungary blazes a trail in Europe

Orban's centre-right party is pioneering an alternative to austerity

Mark Weisbrot

guardian.co.uk, Monday 9 August 2010 16.00 BST

The government of Hungary has taken on a lot of powerful interests in the last couple of months, and so far appears to be winning – despite provoking outrage from everybody who's anybody.

"The IMF should hold the line," shouted the Financial Times in an editorialthe day after Hungary sent the IMF packing in July. "With so many countries in vulnerable positions, it cannot be seen to be a soft touch. Showing a few yellow and red cards is a good way to send a signal to other governments that might be tempted to flirt with indiscipline."

This is the great fear among the defenders of European "pro-cyclical" policies – that is, policies that weaken the economy during a recession or when it is barely growing. Hungary's defiance could conceivably spread to other governments currently being squeezed by the IMF and European authorities.

First, the Hungarian government decided in early July to levy a new tax on banks and other financial companies, which would raise some $855m this year and next. Foreign banks, which made a fortune during Hungary's bubbly growth years prior to the crash in 2007, screamed and lobbied, but – despite having the IMF in their corner– did not prevail. more

Russia is still on fire

Flight restrictions introduced as deadly wildfires blight Moscow

Flights have been delayed in and out of the capital Sunday as Muscovites choke under the acrid smoke of Russia's disastrous wildfires. The fires cover 190,400 hectares of land, the government has said, just 3,000 hectares less than the day earlier.

AFP - Dozens of flights were delayed and concerns grew over public health Sunday as Moscow choked in the worst smog in living memory, blown over the Russian capital from spreading wildfires.

The city's iconic landmarks like the Kremlin towers and the wedding-cake Stalin-era skyscrapers were completely obscured from a distance as the acrid smoke that has suffocated the capital for days showed no signs of shifting.

The wildfires have sparked a major crisis in central Russia, with the authorities rushing to protect strategic sites including the country's main nuclear research facility from the flames.

Moscow drivers put on their car headlights in broad daylight to see through the smog while the sun shone as a hazy disc directly visible by the naked eye with little discomfort. more

'The Kremlin's Central Control Is the Real Disaster'

Moscow is engulfed in smog, 500 fires are still blazing across Russia and the deadly wildfires could pose a nuclear threat if they spread to an area contaminated by the Chernobyl disaster. The German press on Friday says the overcentralization of power is partly to blame for the disaster.

On Friday morning, Muscovites woke up to another day of acrid smog as fires continued to burn near the Russian capital. The wildfires that have torn through forests, peat bogs and villages across the country over the past two weeks have killed 50 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

Officials at the Russian Emergencies Ministry in Moscow have stated that 500 separate blazes, mainly across western Russia, are still burning. With the forecast for the week ahead showing that temperatures could approach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit), officials are struggling to ensure that the blazes do not reach explosives in military facilities or an area contaminated with radioactivity from the 1986 Chernobyl disaster.

Emergencies Minister Sergei Shoigu warned on Thursday that the deadly wildfires could pose a nuclear threat if they spread in the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine and Belarus and is around 300 kilometers (186 miles) from the former Soviet nuclear reactor at Chernobyl in what is now Ukraine. more

And this one comes with some great maps and other illustrations.

Russia is BURNING! Climate change deniers silent, US Media totally useless

by MinistryOfTruth    

Sun Aug 08, 2010 at 03:05:29 PM CDT

Russia is BURNING. more

Did anyone mention deflation?

This is the latest from William Greider who quite literally wrote the book on the operation of the Federal Reserve.

Deflation, Not Deficit, Is the Real Threat

William Greider

July 30, 2010 

The economic specter stalking Barack Obama is not the nonsense debate that captivates deficit hawks and witless political reporters. It is the threat of a full-blown monetary deflation that would truly put the US economy in ruin. In a general deflation, everything falls—prices, output, wages, profits. Unchecked, this can lead to another Big D—the Depression Obama claims he has avoided.

Depression was the fate that befell Herbert Hoover after 1929 and the outlines of this larger catastrophe are present again. It is easy to dismiss deflation warnings from curbstone critics, including from me. But it is more significant—and truly scary—when senior policy makers of the Federal Reserve begin to express the same fear, as the New York Times reported today. The Fed has done quite a lot in the last two years to prevent this disaster from unfolding, but some officials are now worried the Fed hasn't done enough.

The central bank understands this danger far better than the over-confident technicians of the Obama administration because deflation led to the Federal Reserve's historic disgrace after 1929. Fed officials then did not understand their wrong-headed policy moves were directly driving the economy into the Great Depression of the 1930s. Today's central bankers do not wish to experience the same shame again.

The Times story reveals a rump group of decision makers within the Fed who are focused on the threat and urging their colleagues to consider more dramatic measures to reverse the deflationary pressures.

Most notably, James Bullard, president of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank, warns that Fed policy is putting the US economy at risk of "a Japanese-style deflation within the next several years." This is striking because the St. Louis Fed is traditionally the home of "hard money" monetarists. Their intellectual mentor, Milton Friedman, famously assailed the central bank for its historic failure to reverse the deflation eighty years ago. Liberals and conservatives who compare notes on this subject can come out at roughly the same place. more

This is a mega-project worth watching

The idea is to harness the solar power of the Sahara and ship it north to Europe.  The Desertec Foundation website seems to be one of the operations pushing this idea.  It claims to be partnered with ABB--which is a company that would stand to make a large pile if such a project were funded.  Or not.  Desertec asks for donations which seems a bit odd for a partner of ABB.  Still, it is the kind of thing we need to  do.  And serious companies besides ABB are climbing aboard. The consortium includes Siemens, Munich Re, Deutsche Bank, RWE and E.on, among other companies.  I also covered this idea back on May 28.  The folllowing is a mission statement from the Desertec site.

For Global Energy, Water, and Climate Security

Desertec: Clean Power from Deserts

By far the largest, technically accessible source of energy on the planet is to be found in the deserts around the equatorial regions of the earth. The DESERTEC Concept is designed to bring deserts and existing technology into service to improve global security of energy, water and the climate. DESERTEC stands for a globally applicable solution for limiting CO2 emissions by a rapid expansion of renewable energies.

And then there is this fine piece that reminds us that when it comes to infrastructure, rebuilding is going to be WAY more expensive than building in the first place.  Keep that in mind whenever you hear some well-meaning environmentalist tell you that he has 50 easy ways to save the planet.  No. No. No.  Building a sustainable society will be VERY difficult and VERY VERY expensive.

Infrastructure, Deficits, and Global Recovery

Fred Block - August 3, 2010

A TALE of two episodes in the life of a bridge tells us a lot about the dilemmas facing governments around the world. The Bay Bridge linking San Francisco and Oakland was originally built between 1933 and 1936 at a cost of $77 million. After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, the eastern span had to be rebuilt. The project began in 2002 and is supposed to be completed in 2013, with cost estimates now running at $6.3 billion. Despite our technological progress, replacing just half of the old bridge will take four times longer and cost five times more, after adjusting for inflation, than the initial construction. Rush hour tolls were recently increased to $6 roundtrip to help cover these mounting costs.

Even if we allow for some waste and inefficiency in the rebuilding project, the historical cost differences are still enormous. Some of this is because safety practices were casual in the 1930s, and because they didn’t have to work around hundreds of thousands of commuters already using the bridge. But the key problem is that bridges and other infrastructure projects don’t benefit from the astonishing productivity gains that we have made with mass-produced goods. Bridge-building is much more capital intensive than it was seventy-five years ago, but you can’t simply pop out another bridge segment the way that cars, computers, or toasters now jump off heavily automated assembly lines. Almost all infrastructure projects resist standardization; they have to be adapted to particular physical sites, and this drives up costs. Nor do we let employers pay workers the prevailing wage in China; earnings for the skilled workers and managers on such projects have risen much faster than inflation.

When we generalize from the story of this bridge to all infrastructure projects, it becomes clear that the cost of maintaining and rebuilding our infrastructure will inevitably rise as a percentage of GDP, even if our infrastructure needs remain constant. And they won’t: we need more infrastructure now than ever before. more

Update Mon August 9 2010

I got a lovely email yesterday from someone at Desertec by the name of Marian Bichler.

Dear Jonathan,

I want to comment on your post about Desertec.My internet adress is www.postfossil.tv (only in German, I am Berlin based). Here some insights into the Desertec project:

Concerning Desertec: Desertec organisation and Desertec Industrial Initiative are completely separate. The organisation is a NGO, which has been pushing for the project for many years. The initiative is a companies' consortium as result of this pushing, and it gained its huge momentum by a strange way of chance: News paper articles in Germany about the Desertec Industrial Initiative plans in June 09 created an enourmous positiv public outcry. The involved companies were far from having expected such a hype! Now they felt themselves urged to actually follow the plan on the grand scale that was announced by the papers. And this is very interesting: how public expectations drive company actions. Without this huge public interest in Germany, of course there still would have been the project - but most probably not so quickly, not so determined and not with this kind of worldwide outreach. First movers in June 09 were Munich Re, Siemens, RWE, EON, Deutsche Bank with Munich Re having been the convener.

In the German newspapers ABB was not in the very very frontlight of the first moments.

And: concerning the public outcry: Germany has a big tradition in renewable energies, which result from the successfull fight against nuclear power in the eigthies and from this famous feed-in-tariff-law, which intially started around 1990, got momentum 2000 and which made it profitabel to invest into renewables. Of course there have also been huge discussions in Germany considering the "imperialist" touch of Desertec, but again, this public interest turned out to be a perfect issue management, because it showed the Desertec Initiative which pitfalls have to be avoided. They are very eagier to make sure, that Desertec will be a win-win situation for the MENA-region and northern Europe.

Best Marian

To which I responded.

Thank you for your delightful email.

In 1989, I was in Finland giving a series of lectures on the main topic of my writing which is Elegant Technology.  I was in a room with some VERY serious engineers including several experts on district heating--something the Scandinavians do VERY well. We got around to talking about one of my favorite topics--the need for HUGE industrial development themes and that those themes must result in actual mega-projects.

Being educated men, they wanted me to define my terms. Was installing district heating in Seoul South Korea an example of a mega-project? these guys wanted to know. "Probably not," says I, "although hooking up a major Asian city with district heating is obviously a good thing to do. My idea of a mega-project is paving over a minor fraction of the Sahara with solar collectors and using this energy to power Europe."

I went on to list some of the benefits of such a scheme--there are hardly any people to displace or in a position to object, the people with the highest possibility for making this work will be paying for industrial development that will eventually benefit all peoples in tropical climates, it will be a giant motor for job creation, it would solve the two biggest problems facing civilized life--the end of the Age of Petroleum and climate change, etc.

Trust me on this--I was only suggesting solar collecting in Sahara as a theoretical example of an idealized mega-project. I had NO idea that there were real people promoting the construction of real hardware and drawing real plans and evaluating real technical solutions. That kind of information was pretty impossible to get in St. Paul Minnesota in 1989 where I lived and studied.

So you can imagine how excited I am to learn that folks may actually be moving on this. I wish you and your organization great good fortune. I especially congratulate whatever amount of influence you have had on convincing guys in the corporate leadership of outfits like Siemens that ideas like yours are the FUTURE!

I should tell you my engineer hosts raised two important points. 1) transmission of energy is still pretty primitive. Your mega project doesn't make economic sense until it makes thermodynamic sense. District heating makes economic sense because it first makes thermodynamic sense. Transmission maybe has improved since 1989--hope so. And 2) Have some serious intellectual talent address the problem of what happens when you transmit major amounts of energy from one area of the planet to another. Other than that, the consensus was that this was mostly an engineering problem that good engineers could solve.

Can't be a Producer without raw materials

China seems to be particularly aggressive in lining up supplies to feed it rapidly growing manufacturing sector.  And to show China's "imperialism" has a distinct Producer flavor, their new power seems to have very little to do with militarism

Chinalco inks African JV with Rio

By Zhang Qi (China Daily)

BEIJING - Aluminum Corp of China (Chinalco) on Thursday signed a $1.35 billion agreement with global miner Rio Tinto to develop the Simandou iron ore project in the West African country of Guinea.

The move also marks the end of the stalemate between China and the global miner on cooperation after ties soured in June this year.

The agreement was signed by Chinalco Chairman Xiong Weiping and Rio Tinto Chairman Jan du Plessis in the presence of several senior government officials including Zhang Xiaoqiang, the vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission and Huang Danhua, vice-chairwoman of State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission

Du Plessis said he expects the agreement to bolster Rio's relations with China. "This project will take our relations with China, and Chinalco, our largest shareholder, to a new level," he said.

Rio Tinto will look to expand its relationship with China and also seek more cooperation opportunities, he said.

"The Simandou project is in a mature exploration period, and will have an annual production capacity of 70 million tons in the first stage," Xiong said.

Rio's relations with China hit a rough patch after it walked away from $19.5 billion investment deal with Chinalco in June last year. Ties soured further after four Rio Tinto employees from Shanghai, including an Australian Stern Hu, were detained for bribery and commercial espionage during the annual iron ore price talks. more

The Dragon's Embrace

China's Soft Power Is a Threat to the West

By Erich Follath

China may have no intentions of using its growing military might, but that is of little comfort for Western countries. From the World Trade Organization to the United Nations, Beijing is happy to use its soft power to get what it wants -- and it is wrong-footing the West at every turn.

Former Chinese Foreign Minister Qian Qichen once told me, half with amusement and half with resignation, that military people around the world are all more or less the same. "They can only be happy when they have the most up-to-date toys," he said.

If this is true, Beijing's generals must be very happy at the moment. China has increased its military budget by 7.5 percent in 2010, making funds available for new fighter jets and more cruise missiles. Beijing's military buildup is a source of concern for Western experts, even though the US's military budget is about eight times larger. Some feel that China poses a threat to East Asia, while others are even convinced that Beijing is preparing to conquer the world militarily.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Unlike, say, the United States, the People's Republic has not attacked any other country in more than three decades, not since it launched an offensive against Vietnam in 1979. And even though Beijing's leaders periodically rattle their sabers against Taiwan, which they refer to as a "renegade province," they have no intention of entering into any armed conflicts.

Unlike many in the West, they have long since recognized that bombs are little more than deterrents these days. In today's asymmetric conflicts, it is difficult to hold on to territory captured in bloody battles. War is an instrument of the past, and Mao's argument that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun" no longer holds true today. more