The Return

So Slate.com is giving the disgraced former Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, a platform. I don’t have a problem with that. Just because someone has solicited a call girl does not mean that he or she has nothing still to offer. I say this in earnest; I am not being facetious.

And besides, I happen to agree with Spitzer’s opinion that bailouts of the “Big Three” automakers comprise bad policy. “(W)e are creating the significant systemic risk not just of rewarding imprudent behavior by private actors but of preventing, through bailouts and subsidies, the process of creative destruction that capitalism depends on.”
His prescription is a bit naive, however.
Spitzer says that the result of concentration of wealth is large companies involved in manufacturing and finance that, when they fail, take everyone else down.
But we knew that. The money that we are using on bailouts should instead be invested in creating a small-is-beautiful situation that would include big-time investments in research and education, “to restructure our bloated health care sector… to build the type of physical infrastructure we need to be competitive,” Spitzer says.
He wants to see us “return to an era of vibrant competition among multiple, smaller entities—none so essential to the entire structure that it is indispensable.”
Although I’m all for this, I see trouble down the road. The creation of this vibrancy is going to require regulation against companies becoming too big, and the Republicans are not going to go along with that. Waiting in the wings, eventually if not now, will be the next charismatic arch-conservative who will stage his or her own Reagan-style “revolution,” and vibrancy will be swept away. Greed is too profound a component of human nature to be mitigated for long.
Eras, after all, are temporary.
Of course there is the education that Spitzer would have us invest in. Education might stave off significantly the ignorance that embraces the powerful and blustering know-nothing and self-serving political ideologies. A significantly educated electorate just might stave off the return of the slinging of political crap.
That is, if the electorate is being taught history as well as in technology. The question: But history from which books? remains, and I don’t want to be the one who dictates what the masses shall learn.
Nevertheless things do change. We did elect an interracial man president.

Stimulate the American Economy -- Recycle

``Nightly News'' on NBC produced an interesting report that Asian economies including China have been buying greater and greater amounts of recycling from the United States -- the figure rose to $6.1 billion in 2006 from $1.2 billion in 2002.
This is a by-product of huge economic growth of the national clients of firms that sell recycled goods. An eco-system, however, is quite vulnerable to being a victim of economic expansion.
So the situation represents good and bad.
The recycled materials are scarce in these booming markets' geographical areas.
For the U.S. to supply recyclables is good for their economies and the U.S. economy and, in one respect, their eco-systems.
It takes 90 percent less energy to produce a can from recycled cans than from ore, the ``Nightly News'' report said. Use of recyclables involves less water, less energy, and it produces less waste and greenhouse gases, according to a spokesman for the Natural Resource Defense Council whom the network interviewed.
But the key word here is less. What is the total consumption of water and energy, what is the total production of waste and greenhouse gases, even after the recyclables are included? After the large-scale use of recyclables is instituted, does a nation's industrial system become sustainable -- does it not jeopardize the environment -- or does it only delay the day of reckoning?
As I said, the key word is less, also as in consuming less.

The Weakening of the Dollar is Spooky

Last night, ``NBC Nightly News'' ran this succinct report on the consequences of the weakening of the US dollar. The network hooked its story on the proposed takeover last week of Anheuser-Busch, which makes Budweiser, by InBev, a Belgian beer company. The report also refers to the possible transfer of the Chrysler Building to foreign ownership.
The point is that the extent to which fewer American-based manufacturers and pieces of real property in America owned by Americans, the standard of living here will go down. The big money behind our business and our real estate migrates. As the report quotes one of its sources:

``We've been buying more than we've earning, and as a consequence the world wants to be paid. And the only thing we have left to pay them with is our property.''

The only trouble with the story is that it does not say one way or the other whether it is too late to do anything about the problem. And if it is not too late, what can government do about it? How should individuals change their habits?
We can't kill this recession through a program of conspicuous consumption. After all, the weakening of the dollar was caused by ``buying more than we've been earning'' (read=consumer and government debt). As a whole, we certainly aren't earning a lot now. I don't see how more conspicuous consumption on credit would suddenly bring about a positive result.
Furthermore, when we talk about consumption, we talk inevitably about using up petroleum and food. Energy is involved in the production and transportation of everything, and corn is used in production of food, goods, and fuel itself. The supply of gas is finite, the supply of corn short. The laws of supply and demand dictate the price of these can only rise.
We also have to do away with government debt in the form of massive military budgets. For what it's worth, I elaborate on that a little here.
All of this is scaring the hell out of me.

``Somebody get me a Bud. I want to get a little wiser.'' -- Mississippi bluesman R.L. Burnside, from the stage of the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, Massachusetts, around November 1995.