The League of Immortal Billionaires

PopSci

Earlier this year, a Russian media mogul named Dmitry Itskov formally announced his intention to disembody our conscious minds and upload them to a hologram--an avatar--by 2045. In other words he outlined a plan to achieve immortality, removing the human mind from the physical constraints presented by the biological human body. He was serious. And now, in a letter to the members of the Forbes World’s Billionaire’s List, he’s offering up that immortality to the world’s 1,266 richest people.

“Many of you who have accumulated great wealth by making success of your businesses are supporting science, the arts and charities. I urge you to take note of the vital importance of funding scientific development in the field of cybernetic immortality and the artificial body,” Itskov wrote in the letter. “Such research has the potential to free you, as well as the majority of all people on our planet, from disease, old age and even death.” _PopSci

If this idea pans out, it will provide the Earth's billionaires with more time to accumulate wealth and influence than they could have previously dreamed. Such billionaire avatars would have the time to play high stakes games of poker stretching over centuries, rather than mere hours or days.

Over such time periods, the Earth's economies are likely to experience any number of boom and bust cycles -- each cycle presenting huge opportunities for capital acquisition. The power to manipulate markets, economies, and governments would grow accordingly.

We are learning that China's economy is not up to the task of saving the world from another recession.

Peter Misek: We came back from China really depressed, I have to say. It appears that mainland China is correcting significantly. The statistics the government publishes, frankly we think are largely fabricated. So you have to rely on other statistics such as retail sales, electricity usage, mall traffic, etc. And what we saw, and what we heard was pretty grim. We think consumer electronic sales could be falling double-digits year-over-year in June and thus far in July. And we think the catalyst frankly is job losses. The premier of China was on this morning basically saying the labor situation is severe, meaning job losses are accelerating and unemployment is skyrocketing. _Mish

Europe is experiencing rapid capital displacement:

Source
You can see capital moving rapidly away from the marginal European economies toward those which are considered to have a sounder financial basis. What you cannot see in this chart is the capital which is moving out of the EU entirely, to Switzerland and elsewhere.

An immortal billionaire avatar could easily pull the strings to move large blocks of capital from one arena to another, as the situation warrants. Just as long as financial institutions could be sure that the avatar was sending the orders, and not some hacker who had tapped into the avatar's communications network or data base.

Personally, I do not see a great deal of capital flight going into Russia. Likewise, it isn't very probable that many billionaires will be eager to move their "souls" into a Russian controlled data bank complex, if they are not eager to move their capital there.

Russia's core population is slowly collapsing. Will this Russian media tycoon open his data banks to receive the souls of ordinary Russians, to keep the country's "population" from dwindling to virtually nothing? That might be one way to save the country, and would certainly be a nobler gesture than the attempt to trap and control the wispy remnants of Earth's billionaires, inside an electronic purgatory.

Lessons from Spain; A Caution for China

This article is taken from an earlier published posting on abu al-fin blog

Beijing-based economist Michael Pettis has family roots in Spain. Michael's personal experiences with friends and family involved in the Spanish real estate bubble provide object lessons on a much wider scale:

I remember in 2003 my mother had a New Year’s Eve party at our family home in Málaga, in southern Spain, at which over 80 people sat for dinner, including most of my old friends still around from high school days. That night I had one of those epiphanies (as you often do on New Year’s Eve, I guess) about the real estate market when I suddenly realized that nearly every one at the party was involved in one way or the other in real estate. Most of the people there (including my Persian sister-in-law) were real estate developers, real estate agents, real estate lawyers, architects, or owners of building and construction companies. All of them lived off (and had prospered mightily from) the real estate boom in southern Spain.

But this cannot be, I thought in my naiveté. If the only industry around is real estate, then we must be living through a real estate bubble of enormous proportions.

Later that night I spoke to one of my old high-school friends, Andy, who was at the time a prosperous real estate agent with houses in Marbella (purchased on borrowed money, naturally), a Mercedes, and all the trappings that accrue to an immensely charming and self-confident real estate agent during a real estate boom. In our conversations, and ones that took place subsequently over the next few years, I warned him that the property market in the south of Spain looked out of control, and it would be a good idea from him to diversify his savings out of real estate.

Same old same old

Of course Andy didn’t. He explained to me that what we were seeing in southern Spain was not a bubble because there were very strong reasons to believe that real estate prices were undervalued and were going to rise a lot more. Europe, he told me, is aging rapidly, and old people, as everyone knows, like nothing better than to retire in some warm and sunny place, preferably on the beach. With an infinite supply of European old people and limited European beachfront property, mostly in Spain, Italy, and Greece, where in addition you had great food, warm-hearted people, and plenty of immigrants to keep the prices of services (and servants) down, it was certain, Andy explained, that real estate prices would not decline. The demand was insatiable at almost any price.

This seemed like a perfectly reasonable argument on the face of it, and it was widely proposed to justify ever-soaring Spanish real estate prices for many years, not just on the Spanish coast but also, perhaps a little bizarrely, in every nook and cranny of the country, including some pretty gray and inaccessible building projects outside cold, northern industrial cities.

The weakness in the argument, of course, was that although there might have been near-infinite demand, this could not justify near-infinite increases in prices, especially since the demand itself was likely to be highly pro-cyclical because the Spanish economy had itself become dependent on real estate development. As long as the economies of the cold northern European countries were booming, in other words, the demand from retirees for beach houses would stay high, but any slowdown in the economy would reduce demand in Spain at the worst possible time.

And as Spanish real estate slowed, the impact would be exacerbated by a much sharper slowdown in the Spanish economy caused by the slowdown in real estate, which had become a major driver of the economy. If a substantial portion of the Spanish workforce depends on a booming real estate market – and not just those directly dependent, but also those indirectly dependent, like bankers, restaurateurs, retailers, travel agents, and so on – then any slowdown in the real estate sector is itself seriously self-reinforcing.

We have now seen how this works in Spain, but in China we are still using a similar argument to explain why real estate prices cannot drop significantly. Our Chinese version of the old-people-love-to-live-on-the-beach argument is the urbanization argument. As long as Chinese workers continue to move from the country to the cities – and urbanization has been one of the most dramatic consequences of Chinese growth in the past three decades – then there is likely to be a near infinite demand for city property, and so prices can only go up. And because prices can only go up, speculative demand for real estate is not speculative, it is precautionary.

This claim seems at least as plausible as the Spanish argument justifying infinite price increases, and was probably true a decade ago, but it runs into the same problem that the Spanish story ran into (and indeed that nearly every previous case in history of a real estate bubble, which has always started with a plausible story). First, no matter how much demand we can project into the future, rising prices can nonetheless outpace rising demand because rising prices can themselves stimulate further demand, in which case rising prices are unsustainable. This should be obvious, but the point is often lost in the giddiness that accompanies rapidly rising prices.

Second, and this is key, the rising demand is itself pro-cyclical. This is the most dangerous part of the process and perhaps the least well understood. Rising demand driven by the urbanization process is itself subject to underlying growth in the economy, since it is growth in turn that drives the urbanization process.

What’s more, when we reach the point as we did in Spain several years ago, and have reached in China too, in which a substantial part of the growth that drives the urbanization process is itself created by real estate development, then any slowdown in underlying growth is likely to be seriously exacerbated by a corresponding slowdown in real estate development. This is because the economy is caught in the reverse side of the feedback loop that helped drive prices on the way up – slowing growth leads to slower demand for urban real estate, which leads to slower real estate development, which itself leads to slower growth. _Michael Pettis

Patrick Chovanec explains why his cautionary language about the Chinese economy is not just empty words

Walter Russell Mead remarks on the falling Chinese growth numbers, and wonders what they portend for the future of the global economy.

Most of the developed world is caught up in the twin destructors of exponentially rising debt, and demographic decline. Up until recently, it was thought that China, India, Brasil, and Russia were exceptions to this widespread decline. But that rosy viewpoint may be wrong.

In fact, it seems that the Anglosphere may be in the best position to weather this lengthening global recession, if the US can rid itself of the parasitic regime that is currently sucking the life's blood out of the US private sector.

Good luck this November.

Who Is Worse Off than Spain?

Vibrant Europe, Dying Europe: The curse of a pseudo-elite. No nation is immune.

JP Morgan via AlsoSprachAnalyst
The table above compares different European nations by a number of unfavourable characteristics, leading one to think that Spain may be the worst of the lot, overall. But if one looks at the US after only a few years under Obama, one begins to get a sense of a truly epic downfall.

Mr. Obama's agenda might best be seen as a grand plan to increase poverty. Here is a look at a small aspect of Mr. Obama's tax policy:

[President Obama's] ...statements about the benefits of such a [tax increase are] complete nonsense. How do you help the economy recover when you take away incentives for job creators? The reason capital gains rates are low is because Congress at some point realized that the economy would benefit from job and wealth creation by incentivizing entrepreneurs and investors, and the government would receive more revenue.

If I were president* and wanted to stimulate the economy, I would want to loosen the reins on job creators and let them run. I would be pleased if they got immensely rich and would gladly confiscate tax a greater profit at a lower rate because of the wealth and jobs they created (see AAPL, MSFT, etc.).

The President has a point about wealth disparity though. But what he fails to see is that government is largely responsible for this because of the financialization of the economy. That is, government policies have made it more rewarding to speculate than invest in productive enterprises. The solution isn’t to redistribute wealth, but to cure the underlying problem. Taxing the “rich” is the wrong way to do that. I can guarantee you that the taxes so raised will not raise the standard of living of the 99 percenters, rather it will be wasted on government programs that haven’t been effective.

The effect of his proposed tax will have the opposite effect he intends (“unintended consequences”). Instead of spurring the economy and creating jobs, thus creating more wealth, it will deter investment, cause capital and entrepreneurs to take less risks relative to the rewards, and increase the financialization of the economy. By failing to reward investors and entrepreneurs, production will shrink, wealth will be more concentrated, and the 99 percenters will become the 99,9 percenters. _DailyCapitalist

Mr. Obama has never been the brightest penny in the roll or the sharpest knife in the rack. But he may well be the most corrupt and most ideological president in US history at the same time. Combine his crony capitalism with his war against the private sector and his agenda of energy starvation, and the result is economic and intellectual stagnation.

As long as that country continues under Obama, if the US is not already worse off than Spain in many ways, it will be.

Under Obama, the debt debacle has just begun.

Atlantropa: Connecting Africa to the Modern World

Atlantropa Video Part I of VI (German)
In order to bring more of the benefits of modern civilisation to Islam and Africa, Europe will need to provide greater access to the primitive lands and dark continent. A dam across the Gibraltar Straits and a bridge from Italy to Tunisia, would be good starting points. A tunnel from Spain to Morocco would provide further high speed rail access.

...Sicily [would be] connected to both Tunisia and the Italian mainland (allowing, among other things for a regular train service between Berlin and Cape Town). In the western half, the water would be lowered by 100 meters, in the eastern half by as much as 200 meters, combining to create 576,000 km2 new dry land, a fifth of the Mediterranean’s surface, or more than the surface of Belgium and France together. _BigThink

Strategic damming of the Congo and tributaries would provide two large inland seas, allowing for extensive development of the African interior. Continuous train service would link Capetown, South Africa, with all European destinations.

More information on Atlantropa
Wikipedia Atlantropa
Big Think Atlantropa
Greening the Sahara

The Atlantropa project was the grand scheme of Herman Sorgel, a German architect who lived through the Nazi era. He wanted to provide an alternative to Hitler's war-for-lebensraum, by creating new land and new frontiers without the need for another war in Europe. But his plans and schemes were all for naught, as Hitler ignored Sorgel's ideas, and laid waste to Europa. Instead of hope and new frontiers, Hitler brought despair and devastation.

As for how China might view a modern resurrection of the Atlantropa idea, use your imaginations. Somehow I doubt the rulers of African nations would mind too very much, as long as the payoff was considered sufficient.

The German "Bell Curve" Becomes European Best-Seller

Thilo Sarrazin, a minor German politician on the technocratic wing of the country’s Social Democratic party, has just written what is probably the bestselling political book in postwar Europe (1m copies in hardback and counting). Everyone in Germany knows at least a simplified version of what Germany Abolishes Itself says, and the reaction to the book is helping to drive government policy on minority integration. _Prospect

Thilo SarrazinA German politician -- a Social Democrat -- has gained fame in Europe by authoring the German equivalent of Charles Murray's controversial book, The Bell Curve. If The Bell Curve was too much for the 1990s US politically correct pseudo-intellectual community, imagine how a German equivalent must be faring amid the suicidally PC intellectual communities of Europe!

The message of the book, in headline form, is that Germany is becoming smaller (thanks to the familiar story of a falling birthrate among native Germans) and stupider (thanks to the fact that educated Germans are having fewer children and the fastest growing part of the population are poorly-integrated Muslim immigrants). That “stupider” is, of course, contested and has led to accusations of a flirtation with eugenics—of which more later.

But Sarrazin is no right-wing populist in the image of Jörg Haider, the late Austrian politician, or even Geert Wilders, the anti-Islamic leader of the Party for Freedom in the Netherlands. Much of the book is a dry compendium of economic and social data. [editor: like The Bell Curve]

...The political and media class’s initial instinct was to denounce the book, and Sarrazin was forced out of his job at the Bundesbank. But as sales started to take off and as the new social media—the bloggers and emailers—lined up overwhelmingly behind Sarrazin, the reaction of political Germany shifted, albeit grudgingly. Chancellor Angela Merkel opportunistically declared the happy-clappy multikulti of the German left to have “failed utterly.” There was even a respectful and self-critical essay in Der Spiegel magazine by a leading liberal, Peter Schneider.

...Sarrazin’s policy solutions are relatively mainstream, echoing some of the new Labour reforms in Britain: tighter control of immigration and language tests for newcomers; steps towards compulsory citizenship for long-term residents; a sharp focus on teaching German at immigrant-dominated schools. Sarrazin is also concerned at how the welfare system creates alienation, saps initiative and prevents the workplace integration that countries like America are famous for, and so he recommends probationary periods before immigrants are entitled to benefit. The government is already acting on some of these points.

Ultimately, Sarrazin’s hard-headedness is a welcome counterpoint to the wishful thinking of the 1968 generation. The former finance minister of Berlin, who looks like a soldier in the Kaiser’s army, is a member of the awkward squad. You can imagine him causing minor riots at liberal Berlin dinner parties. Most of his argument is clear-eyed and well-informed, but he could not resist the provocations both on intelligence and on the nature of the underclass... _Prospect

The author of the profile piece above, David Goodhart, is oblivious to much of the scientific evidence supporting statistical group differences in IQ and behavioural tendencies such as crime and poverty. But he performs a useful service by pointing the reader toward a sea change in German public discourse -- which is slowly becoming a new European discourse. While Goodhart's piece is full of misinformation based upon outdated societal prejudices, the information that slips through is quite important.

The politically correct policies of the left have led to a developing demographic catastrophe in Europe, which can no longer be denied. More of the same political correctness will not stop the slow motion train wreck from reaching its bloody conclusion. But a rude awakening -- even a belated one such as seems to be occurring -- can help to mitigate some of the inevitable destruction.

Sarrazin has started the boulder rolling down the mountainside. Now, neither he nor anyone else has control of where it will go. Once a popular discontent grows into a popular movement, all bets are off. Will it turn into a nightmare of terror like the French or Russian revolutions? Or will it turn into a multi-century success story, like the better planned aftermath of the American revolution? Only time will tell. The future of Europe hangs in the balance, and the recent PC history of European thought leaders in general, offers no reassurance.

Review of Sarrazin's book from an Aussie perspective

Who Will Save the Drowning Man?

InkityAnd just who is the drowning man? Is it the US, sinking rapidly into a deepening debt quagmire? Or is it Europe, with its naughty little PIIGS flirting on the edge of permanent insolvency, threatening to pull the rest of the EU down with them?

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard calls Europe's economic situation a "horrible truth."

This NYTimes article suggests that a European debt crisis might spread like a contagion, with dire consequences.

Here is a comparison of the US government's financial situation with that of some European countries:

The French government's revenue stood at an unbelievable 48% of GDP and Greece consumed a little less, but still a high percentage at 37%. By comparison, the U.S. Revenue/GDP ratio was a miniscule 15%, although we still feel that government taxes are too high and wasteful practices don't seem to end. What does that mean? Despite the negative economic impact, the U.S. government can raise taxes and increase revenue, while the European Union has virtually no room to maneuver.

Add austerity plans and public sector jobs cuts like we've seen in the U.K. (a reduction of 500,000 government jobs), and one will wonder how the bills will be paid on the Eastern side of the Atlantic. As 2011 approaches, the spending cuts will start to affect — and infect — the European economic engine. The bloated public sector that was created over the last 50 years cannot be undone in 2 or 3 years without major restructuring and disruption — and that task will take a generation to "correct." _SeekingAlpha

The NYTimes recently provided a nifty interactive puzzle, which allows each reader to attempt to balance the US Federal budget for both 2015 and 2030, using a combination of spending cuts and tax increases. The puzzle lacked the most important ingredient for achieving fiscal health -- the ability to eliminate harmful regulations which are preventing the private sector from growing and thriving. The NYTimes editors likewise neglected to offer the reader the ability to eliminate public sector unions. In addition, the NYTimes feature did not provide the power to institute strong tort reforms -- except in a very modest way for medical malpractise.

I balanced the budget with a combination of 88% spending cuts and 12% tax increases. But what I really wanted to do was to cut the size of government by 50%, as an appetizer. After that preliminary cut, I would begin looking at the tough choices for downsizing government.

A sane existence will involve a certain amount of pain and risk. It is the heedless avoidance of all pain and risk that leads to total extinction.

So, who is the drowning man?

Netherlands Prosecutors Tell Judges Wilders is Innocent

The Dutch government attorneys prosecuting Geert Wilders in the Netherlands have asked the court for a complete acquittal of Mr. Wilders on all charges.

In a two-day long precise analysis of the remarks of Wilders, who had to stand trial for discrimination against Muslims and incitement to hatred, the prosecuting officers explained to the court that Wilders may have been insulting and provocative, but his words were within the limitations of Dutch law.

This doesn’t mean that the trial has stopped — next week the defense will continue. The Dutch law system demands a full cycle of prosecution and defense, and will end with an extensive verdict.

Though — in theory — the court could still convict Wilders, it now seems almost impossible.

Wilders had been charged with the following:

Group defamation (article 137c of the Dutch Criminal Code).
Inciting hatred against people, i.e. Muslims, on account of their religion (article 137 of the Dutch Criminal Code).
Inciting discrimination against people, i.e. Muslims, on account of their religion (article 137d of the Dutch Criminal Code).
Inciting hatred against people, i.e. non-western ethnic minorities and/or Moroccans, on account of their race (article 137d of the Dutch Criminal Code).
Inciting discrimination against people, i.e. non-western ethnic minorities and/or Moroccans, on account of their race (article 137d of the Dutch Criminal Code).

_PJMedia

If the court convicts Wilders at this point, it will confirm the neutering of European governments in the face of an encroaching Eurabian onslaught. If the court does the right thing, there may be hope for isolated enclaves across Europe.

Can Israel Save the European Union?

Guest Article from OilPrice.com

As the Middle East Peace Talks Hit Deadlock, Talk of Israel Joining the European Union Increases

The Middle East peace talks are at a deadlock. Negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians to move ahead with the plan established by the so-called Quartet – the US., U.N., EU and Russia -- have faltered and come to a complete standstill. Continuing with this inertia will have a long-term negative effect on the future of the region both from a political point of view as well as from a business perspective. With the exception of a few risk-takers, what company or business executive would be willing to invest in the Middle East once the region plunges onto the abyss amid renewed violence?

And whenever trouble brews in the Middle East it tends to spill over into other parts of the world. The risk that Mideast violence could spread to nearby Europe might have been one of the reasons that pushed Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to say that Israel should be admitted into the European Union earlier this week. Berlusconi made the statement during an official state visit to Israel. Berlusconi, of course, is one of Israel’s strongest supporters.

Regardless of that the question remains does Israel belong in Europe?

Does Israel joining the European Union make any sense? And is this proposal likely to carry any weight? The idea has been floating around for a number of years. And if Turkey feels it belongs in the EU, then why not Israel, where a large portion of the population has direct ties to Europe.

The knee-jerk reaction from much of the Arab world will most likely be to throw a temper-tantrum. There will likely be anti-Italian demonstrations, threats to boycott Italian goods (which will be short-lived given the Middle East’s attraction to pasta) and in the extreme case, some maniacs will attempt to carry out terrorist acts against Italy. But anyone with an ounce of logic should jump on the Italian bandwagon. Support the initiative.

To what end? Why?

Think about it for a minute or two. What would it mean to have Israel join the EU? To begin with, the European Union has very strict rules regulating multiple aspects of how a member country should function. First of all, no prospective partner of the Brussels club can be allowed to join the European Union while it occupies territory that is not legally recognized as part of its own. Israel’s adhesion into the European Union would have to be preceded by a complete withdrawal of Israeli military and civilian forces from all Palestinian territory. That would mean that before such a withdrawal can happen a peace deal will have to be reached beetween the Palestinians and the Jewish State.

Israel’s admission into the European Union would mean that the highways and security roads that Palestinians are not allowed to travel on would have to disappear. It would be inadmissible to have segregated roads in the European Union. Imagine if Italy, France or Germany, for example, banned certain ethnic groups from traveling on its national highways.

The Separation Barrier (official United Nations designation) which Israel calls a “fence,” and Palestinians refer to as an “Apartheid Wall;” in reality a series of segments of a wall resembling the Berlin Wall, ditches and moats, erected between Israel proper and the West Bank to keep potential terrorists out, would have to come down. It would be unimaginable for a member of the EU to maintain such a symbol of segregation. Similarly the situation regarding Gaza would have to be resolved. Again, it is unimaginable for a European country to lay siege to a neighboring territory.

But that is not all. The whole concept of the European Union, the world’s largest economic and political zone, which saw the day shortly after the end of World War II, was to tie the economies of Europe’s countries in such a way that war would simply become unimaginable. Nations that spent centuries fighting each other – England and France, France and Germany, Germany and its neighbors to the east, and so on and so forth – began building the foundation to make those wars a thing of the past and inconceivable in the future. And it worked. Today war between once former foes in Europe is just not possible. To be sure, there may well be disagreements between members of the EU, but the disputes are settled in the European Parliament or at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Not on the battlefield any longer. This is an example from which the Middle East could greatly benefit.

Israel in the EU would also mean that peace with Syria would have to be attained and the occupied Golan Heights returned to its rightful owners. Going a step further, Israel would have to finalize its withdrawal from the Shebaa Farms and the village of Ghajjar in south Lebanon and find a way to make peace with Lebanon and by default, with Hezbollah.

Is any of this possible? Yes, would say the optimist in me, but with a caveat. Unilateral withdrawal from Arab lands is unrealistic and dangerous for the security of Israel. And Israel’s domestic and foreign policy is driven by its security needs. So the bottom line is this: If Israel wants to become a member of the European Union, even with all the backing of the Italian prime minister, and others, it would first have to negotiate peace with its Arab neighbors. And that is a good thing.

So, Israel in the European Union? Yes, by all means, bring it on. And if Israel joins the EU, why can’t Lebanon be next? With Cyprus now a member of the EU, Europe is but a 20-minute airplane ride from the Middle East.

Originally published at: http://www.oilprice.com/article-as-the-middle-east-peace-talks-hit-deadlock-talk-of-israel-joining-the-european-union-increases.html



Written by Claude Salhani for Oilprice.com who focus on Fossil Fuels, Alternative Energy, Metals, Crude Oil Price and Geopolitics To find out more visit their website at: http://www.oilprice.com

Europe Down-Sizing Its Automobiles

This new automobile runs on a lawnmower engine, and is felt to be the appropriate size for helping lower the EU's carbon footprint. With this breakthrough, EU countries can build much smaller highways, with the consequent savings in building materials and needed right of ways. How did they do it?

The chassis started out as a children’s toy car, and after Watkins bolted on working headlights and tail lights, windshield wipers, turn signals and a horn, he was allowed to tack on a license plate and make it fully street legal. Now, you might see him scooting around the streets of Staffordshire in this little crazy car at speeds of up to 40mph.

Never mind what would happen to you if this puny vehicle got into an accident - it gets 70 miles per gallon! Want to see how he built it? Take a look at this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9YuEjjrs8
_Impactlab

Car makers around the world will have to hurry to catch up, or they will lose out to European manufacturers of the new size-appropriate automobile class. Next, the EU plans to have its genetic scientists devise a way to genengineer size-appropriate people.

Obama's Malaise, Europe's Economy, Oil Bust

Many people have pointed out the similarities between former president Jimmy Carter, and current president Barak Obama. In fact, the economic devastation the US is in for now may in many ways be just a belated Carter second presidential term.

Obama goes far beyond Carter in the corruption department, however. There is no financial pie that Obama will not thrust his fingers into, as long as there is loot to hand out to friends and supporters.

And you know US government debt is becoming disastrous when Obama himself warns about its size and long-term consequences. The only problem is that Obama's words mean absolutely nothing. It is only Obama's actions that signify.

Europe's economy in the first 2009 quarter was nothing to write home about. Down, down, down.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, contracted by 3.8% in the first quarter, equivalent to an annualized rate of -14.4%, in the country's worst quarterly performance since official records started in 1970. Sharply falling exports and business investment were behind the slump, the government said, whereas consumer spending grew slightly, thanks in no small part to Germany's cash-for-clunkers incentives, which led to higher new-car sales.

....Italian GDP fell 2.4% in the first quarter, or by 9.4% at an annualized rate, as the downturn in European and global trade hit the country's industries.

France's economy, which depends less on exports than Germany's or Italy's, shrank by 1.2% in the first quarter, or an annualized 4.7%. The French government also revised down GDP for the third quarter of last year to -0.2% from a previously positive +0.1%, meaning that French GDP has now contracted in the last four quarters, like the euro-zone economy overall.

Spain already published figures on Thursday showing that its economy shrank by 1.8% last quarter, or by 7% at an annualized rate. Spain is suffering both from falling exports and from the implosion of the country's decade-long construction boom. _WSJ

Some recent numbers suggest Europe's economies may start to recover by the end of 2009, but those rosy predictions ignore the other shoes yet to drop on Europe's banks and financial sectors.

And while the Baltic Dry Index (BDI)has risen, oil demand appears to be falling at the sharpest rate since 1981.

In its closely watched monthly survey, the Paris-based agency said it now expects global oil demand to fall 3 percent to 83.2 million barrels a day this year, or 2.6 million barrels a day less than in 2008.

That is the ninth consecutive monthly cut the IEA has made to its oil demand forecast since last August, when the IEA had forecast oil demand would reach 87.8 million barrels a day in 2009.

Since then, the IEA has steadily lowered its forecasts as the financial crisis plunged the world into the deepest global recession since the Great Depression. _Chronicle

It also appears that China has been inflating the BDI via orders from steel and construction materials plants that have failed to adjust targets downward in recognition of the global recession. The Chinese government has ordered banks to begin refusing loans to these "big spenders in denial."

H/T News Alert and Instapundit

More: Obama's world sliding into danger

Does America Still Exist?

America is more than a place, it is an idea--sometimes even an ideal. The idea/ideal is different for different people, but for centuries America has drawn millions of immigrants because it was place in the mind that represented the opportunity to make a life for oneself without having to explain one's choices or make excuses for choosing a certain life's path. The idea of a place where one has the freedom to succeed or fail on one's own terms. It is possible for such ideas to fade away, and for America to cease to exist in the minds of large numbers of people. Something like that happens to many American ex-patriots, such as Bruce Bawer.

The fact remains that I’ve never lived in post-9/11 America. When I left, Bill Clinton was president and the media were preoccupied with the Starr Report. Paradoxically, then, though I’m infinitely more plugged into America than I was when I lived there — with instant access to a zillion newspapers and websites that allow me to follow developments, big and small, in every part of the U.S. — I’m intensely aware that I’m not a part of it all, that I’m watching it from afar, as if watching a movie.

The passage of time has made a difference, of course. When I’d been away for just a year or two, I still felt as if the America I’d left behind still existed. But over the years — week by week, day by day — the changes mount up, the Zeitgeist shifts. Every few days, reading a fresh obituary in the New York Times, I find myself feeling that another part of the American landscape I knew has evaporated.

....Yes, yes, I’m still an American, and proud of it. But the longer I’m away, the less firmly that label clings to me — for I’m increasingly aware that the America I lived in is an America that’s no longer there. It’s an America where the Twin Towers are still standing, an America where my father is still alive. For millions of Americans, including my eight-year-old niece in New York, that America, my America, is not even memory, but history.

When I first lived in Europe, I saw it through American eyes. All these years later, I realize that I increasingly see America through Norwegian eyes. This doesn’t mean I’ve drunk the Scandinavian socialist Kool-Aid....Living in Norway has even affected me on what is, for me anyway, the most elemental of levels — that of language. When I first lived here, I noticed that American friends who’d lived here for decades spoke English that sometimes sounded a bit “off.” Why? Because they were (unconsciously) translating Norwegian phrases literally into English rather than using the proper English equivalent. Or (sometimes) translating the right Norwegian words into the wrong English counterparts (”using a coat,” for example, instead of “wearing a coat”). In the last couple of years — horrors! — I’ve increasingly noticed myself doing exactly the same thing when speaking English. Worse, when I’m writing English, the mot juste that pops into my head at a given juncture is increasingly likely to be Norwegian. For a writer — someone whose very stock in trade is his native language — this is, to say the least, a bit disconcerting.

To be sure, I have my share of grievances against the country I live in. I labored long and hard to find my place in it — spent three to five hours every weekday for months in a language course, and applied for hundreds of jobs without success. Professionally I’m a non-person here — which is OK by me, given that (with a couple of exceptions) the only times the mainstream Norwegian media have mentioned me it’s been to flail me for criticizing Norway in the American press. Not to mention that I hate the high prices and high taxes and can’t bear the climate. And yet I choke up when I hear the Norwegian national anthem, and every time I fly back here from abroad and catch my first glimpse of the Norwegian coastline, tears come to my eyes and I find myself thinking: “I’m home.”

...If I hadn’t come here, and stayed here, I wouldn’t have written [1] While Europe Slept — my own modest contribution to the effort by many people on both sides of the Atlantic to save the West from itself. When I left America, I never imagined myself writing such a book: in fact my immediate plans were to write a book about how wonderful Amsterdam was. Alas, the Amsterdam I was so eager to celebrate ten years ago is also gone with the wind. But that’s another story. _PJM

It is a poignant reminder of the uniqueness of experience, of infatuation with persons or places. When in the heat of love or merely the habit of love for a person or place, one believes that the love will always be there, the same as now. But everything changes.

Contemplating the changes America has undergone in the past few decades--moving from a largely opportunity society to more and more a society of entitlements, special interests, and tribalistic schism--it is easy to understand how one might be drawn to a smaller and more cohesive society that more faithfully mirrors ones' predispositions or inclinations. America is large, loud, often confusing, and constantly misinterpreted to outsiders and insiders alike.

The recent frenzy of attempted nation-making of independent enclaves from larger nations reflects that desire for being part of a whole that is more like oneself. The dissolution of Yugoslavia, breakaway enclaves in Russia, Georgia, many nations of Africa, Sri Lanka, Mexico, Bolivia, Canada etc.--all reflect this genetic urge to a more tribe or clan-based, smaller and more comprehensible society. America has been a grand experiment in the opposite idea, the melting pot of languages, ethnicities, and cultures.

Each of us feels himself pulled one way or the other, sometimes both ways at the same time. Each of us must find his own equilibrium between the confusion of the diverse, ever-changing, and in many ways more dangerous--and the more familiar and more comforting smallness of more uniformity and tradition.

If America chooses the empty promises of an Obama, leading to sweeping changes bringing more of the same gross incompetence and stifling corruption of bigger and bigger government, will America still exist for me? Perhaps, but the idea of America as an opportunity society will die an even more rapid death, in my mind. And the idea of a smaller more cohesive society retaining more aspects of an opportunity society than America will have chosen to retain, will present a stronger appeal.

One of Many Reasons for the Emasculated Nature of the European Union and People

Under the defense umbrella of the US military, NATO and Europe long ago gave up any credible pretense of providing for their own defense. Instead, Europe spent its defense budgets on social programs, and began to pretend that the US--its defender--was the primary enemy that it must fight. Europe's primary weapons against the evil US empire were the concocted words and images of its incredibly biased news media. Generations have been raised under this propaganda campaign--this feint, if you will, distracting the people of Europe from the abject failure of their leaders to provide a credible defense from enemies foreign and domestic.

Understanding the "Catch-22" that their leaders have placed them under, European military forces are increasingly refusing to fight. Even when given direct orders to engage the enemy, European commanders and their troops are refusing to raise their weapons against deadly threats.

Over a decade of shrinking budgets has meant less money for realistic training. There are also equipment shortages. The net result is several layers of leadership that are really not well prepared for a shooting war....several Czech helicopter pilots, when told they were going to Afghanistan, basically said no. Not unless they got more training, and helicopters that could handle that kind of tricky flying. The crew of an Italian helicopter gunship was recently sent home because they refused to fire in combat. No one will say exactly what happened there, but that sort of thing is usually the result of poor preparation, and leadership. And then there's the recent ambush of a French patrol, which resulted in ten French paratroopers killed. Most of the casualties occurred because the troops had not practiced dealing with ambushes, and the way the Taliban operate. Worse, the French troops were trapped under fire for many hours, long past the time when air cover or ground reinforcements should have arrived. Again, this has all the marks of bad leadership and poor training.

... _StrategyPage

It is not just the post-cold war euphoria that led to cutting of defense budgets in Europe. As stated earlier, European governments had already decided to let the US taxpayer carry the load of defending Europe. Europe decided that it had grown beyond the conflict stage of human evolution. Given such a high level of evolution, homo Euro would simply allow a despised ally to take care of the dirty work of dealing with the more unsavoury aspects of existing on this planet.

If a group of people exists for along enough time in this protected limbo state, their sense of reality regarding foreign relations does tend to suffer a bit. The EU, after all, has no divisions. NATO has divisions. But without the US, NATO is a laughing stock. Since the member nations of NATO (other than new members from Eastern Europe) scorn the US as a Neanderthal, and the greatest threat to planet Earth, you can imagine the solidity of the alliance--and part of the reason why Russia has begun a new phase of expansionist neo-imperialism.

Self-emasculated homo Euro. The new androgynous reality of an old, shrinking subcontinent. Let's all hold a group shriek over Abu Ghraib, shall we? Or how about a round of condemnations over Guantanamo. Show those war-monger colonials who the civilised people are, shall we?

Gun-Shy European Troops Help Lose Afghanistan

The emasculated nature of Europe has never been so clear as in present-day Afghanistan. The fear of European commanders to involve their troops in combat is leaving their troops far more vulnerable than if they would only function like proper soldiers.

The Taliban are taking advantage of the unwillingness of many NATO contingents to fight. Groups of Taliban gunmen are being sent to the vicinity of Kabul, where many of these less warlike NATO operate, and have launched attacks. They got lucky and killed ten French troops in one of these operations, in an action that highlighted the degree to which these troops, and their leaders, were unprepared for combat. By attacking, and inflicting losses, on these troops, the Taliban stir up political controversy back in Europe, leading, the Taliban hope, to withdrawal of the NATO troops from Afghanistan. _StrategyPage

As we saw in Spain after the Madrid train terror attacks, Europeans are afraid of conflict, and are unwilling to stand up for themselves or their allies if it involves any risk. Paradoxically, this quasi-cowardly stance creates far more risk to Europeans in the long run than if they had merely utilised the basic "tit for tat" strategy suggested by game theory.

The people of Afghanistan don’t realize that NATO has no overarching counterinsurgency strategy, or that many of the 70,000 troops cannot fire their weapons except in self defense. All they see is a degrading security situation, and since America is capable of anything if it can land a man on the moon, then there must be an ulterior motive, or so the Afghan people think. _CT

Combining the Euro tendency to retreat at the sign of any danger with the Afghan impressions that the US is responsible for all the troops in Afghanistan--whether or not they perform up to US standards--the PR battle is being lost in the primitive tribal country.

Pakistan's intelligence services continue to assist the Taliban and al-qaida in the border areas, which keeps the Taliban supplied with weapons and a safe haven. Of Iraq and Afghanistan, Afghanistan is the one that most strongly resembles the 60's war in Vietnam.

Underpopulation Sucking Europe to Nothing

Europe's largest, most pressing problem for the next century is underpopulation. Europe is an emasculated continent unable to stand up to Serbia, much less Russia. But unless European women start having babies soon, Europe is likely to be conquered by a ragtag, high-breeding group of third world illiterates and untrainables. European welfare systems are quite generous, but if they are not funded by productive workers' wages and corporate profits, Europe may become the next Darfur or Gaza.

The magic figure for demographers is 2.1 births per couple. That, allowing for the fact that some girls die before they reach child-bearing age, is the figure at which a population replaces itself. In Europe the last time that fertility was above replacement level was in the mid-1960s. But now, for the first time on record, birthrates in southern and eastern Europe have dropped below 1.3 – well below the 1.5 which the United Nations has marked as the crisis point. If things continue the population there will be cut in half in just 45 years. In Italy, one recent survey put it at 1.2. Cities such as Milan and Bologna recorded less than 1, the lowest birthrates anywhere.

Things are as bleak in Japan. There the total fertility rate declined by nearly a third between 1975 and 2001, from 1.91 to 1.33. The average family size has remained the same, but there are fewer families. Half of Japanese women have not married by the age of 30, and 20 per cent of them are not marrying ever.

But it is not just the developed world. The birthrate is plummeting in east Asia, too, in countries which were, until three decades ago, considered poor. Overall in Asia the fertility rate fell from 2.4 in 1970 to 1.5 today. China's rate is down from 6.06 to 1.8 and declining. Thailand is now 1.5. Singapore, Taiwan and Burma are similar. The lowest is South Korea with only 1.1 children per couple.

"South East Asia has plummeted to levels it took Europe 150 years to reach in just 30 years," says Dr Jane Falkingham, Professor of Demography and International Social Policy at the University of Southampton. Alarmed by this extremely low fertility, South Korea has slashed government spending on birth control. Singapore is now offering tax rebates to couples with more than two children. Japan is piling money into nurseries and childcare.

...Populations may be expected to shrink in Italy, Spain, Greece and Germany (which is losing 100,000 people a year) and decline even more rapidly further east in Russia, Romania and Bulgaria, which is set to plunge by almost half....Childlessness is now a fashionable lifestyle choice, as it is in Germany where 27.8 per cent of women born in 1960 are childless, far more than any other European country.... _Independent

Russia is losing half its population every 40 years or so. Spain, Italy, and Greece are almost as bad. Who will defend Russia's vast empire when there are not enough young men to field an army? Who will work to pay for Europe's generous welfare benefits to the voluntarily unemployed, and to polygamous emigrants with many wives and children?

It has always been the way of the proliferating tribe to push the non-proliferating tribes out of the best land. History has not been canceled in that regard. Europe's tribes from Russia to Spain to Sweden to the UK are due to be displaced and forgotten. Uneducated, quasi-untrainables from the third world who have not forgotten how to procreate will take their places.

The singularity is not the answer, unless you enjoy living in an empty fantasy. Migrating to Switzerland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, or the US will only speed the overrunning of those you leave behind. Besides, the same basic underlying dynamic is at work in all of the developed countries, just running at different rates.

The first step would be waking up.

Further reading:

The Global Baby Bust
Europe's Baby Bust
America Alone (Google Books excerpt)
America Alone (Amazon page)
A Return to Pastoral Europe?
Birth of an Empire
Fiscal Policy and Fertility in the US
Transition of Europe and Japan to labour shortage economies
Fascinating Philip Longman PDF presentation on depopulation
Russian plans to reverse population decline
No Easy Answers

Fertility Rates Vary By Region and SES

The chart above is from the Economist. It illustrates the general rule that wealthier women tend to have lower fertility. It does not display the fertility for the middle 20% of women, which might be of interest when looking for a threshold effect.

In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), the gap between rich and poor fertility rates were the smallest. This suggests to me that fertility rates for women from that part of the world who move to Europe will be less subject to radical decrease in the new, wealthier environment. In other words, something in the Muslim culture encourages higher fertility--even at higher levels of income.

For immigrants from many parts of the world, fertility rates can fall rapidly after the first generation, toward the fertility rate of the women already in the receiving country. It will be interesting to observe these drops in fertility rates for immigrants originating in various parts of the world. Judging strictly by the graph, one would expect the greatest drop in TFR after immigration in immigrants from East and Central Asia and Eastern Europe. The least drop in TFR would be expected in immigrants from Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and from MENA.

The South Asia component would quite possibly show differences between Muslim and non-Muslim populations, if broken down into sub-groups.

H/T Fat Knowledge blog