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The MoA Week In Review – OT 2024-269
Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:
> Amid a breakdown of trust between society, the army and the political leadership, Ukraine is struggling to replace battlefield losses with conscription, barely hitting two-thirds of its target. Russia, meanwhile, is replacing its losses by recruitment with lucrative contracts, without needing to revert to mass mobilisation. A senior Ukrainian military commander admits that there has been a collapse in morale in some of the worst sections of the front. A source in the general staff suggests that nearly a fifth of soldiers have gone AWOL from their positions. <
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Other issues:
Valdai:
Multipolarity:
Aukus:
Boeing's moves towards a bailout:
Use as open (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) thread …
— Long post alert. Skip by if econ policy isn’t of interest —
My Proposed Economic Policy
I’ll use Roger Boyd’s excellent situation assessment (posted up-thread) as a spring-board to set out my proposed economic policy.
Context
a. Oligarchs have set up bullet-proof “taps” on all our major production and consumption processes, including food, energy, materials, housing, education, health care, and so forth. These “taps” draw wealth out of the major economic flows and route some of that wealth into the hands of the oligarchs.
These “parasitic taps” are standard practice in almost all economies; they just happen to be relatively more predatory and debilitating to the underlying economy here in the U.S.
Some economies – notably China and Russia – have taken vigorous steps to root out these parasitic “taps” in key sectors of their economies, resulting in better economic performance for the “host” economy.
b. The centralized, large-scale economic processes tend to enjoy major cost advantages relative to the “little guy” because of their scale. However, the ever-increasing multitude of “taps” tends to drive up large-scale production process costs over time, and that begins to level the playing field for the “little guys”. We’re seeing this happen in the trend toward “buy local”. Examples include small scale renewable energy, local food production, and small-scale manufacturing. There are many others.
Proposed Economic Policy
I divide my policy into two major sections. I offer one policy for the people that lack the awareness and vigor to maneuver – let’s call them the “Static Group”. The second policy is for the people that, for a number of different reasons, are ready, willing and able to adapt. Let’s call them the “Dynamic Group”.
Static Group Policy
The Static Group’s policy is a one-liner: read Roger’s assessment, and learn to live with it. That’s your fate.
Dynamic Group Policy
Another name for the Dynamic Group is “creative people that can build things”. There aren’t any clear-cut demographic traits that identify this group; they are defined by their behavior: they read, talk to others, can imagine what isn’t yet, and can build what they imagine. It’s their behaviors that matter, not their identity.
You can probably already guess what my economic policy for Dynamics is. In case you haven’t guessed, I’ll spell it out:
a. Build a set of tools that creative people can use to create new, (generally) local production processes which produce products that are direct substitutes for the products we currently buy from the oligarchs.
b. Teach creative people how to use the tools
c. Educate the public about the products these creative people develop, and encourage the public to buy from these local producers. That is already happening via the “buy local” movement, I’d just amp it up a lot. I’d make it really easy to find out about and buy these new “local-producer” products.
d. I would build an open-source/crowd-sourced catalog of these local production processes that normally-talented enterprising people can learn about, build and operate at the household or village level. This would enable everyone across the nation to see what’s working elsewhere, and adapt these currently-in-use production processes for use in their own locale
As many of you know, there are bits and pieces – some of the components – of the policy I advocate that are in operation right now. Those parts need to be integrated better, resourced better, and promoted better – e.g. made known to more of the ready-willing-and-able types.
No Top-Down Help Needed
While this Dynamic Group policy has issues (many of them), one big plus is that it doesn’t require the support or buy-in from the Oligarchs and their proxies.
If you think about it, this is just garden-variety grass-roots entrepreneurialism on steroids. Find vulnerable oligarch processes, make a local, more competitive alternative, and start making money for yourself. The oligarchs are going to have do back-flips and magic tricks to discredit this plan.
Benefits
The benefits are simple and valuable:
a. Routes economic activity (new income streams) away from oligarchs and into the hands of the little guy. This expands the middle class, and that’s good for any economy.
b. Massive increase in skill and knowledge. These grass-roots entrepreneurs are going to need to learn a lot of new things, build new skills, and build new relationships. They will have considerable economic incentive to do so. There would be a lot of tightly-focused “just in time” learning. Credentials would be much less important: it’s all about what you know, and what you’re willing to do.
c. Massive increase in the number of people creating new products. This policy would bring in an army of new product developers, and result in a lot of viable, new products. What’s an economy? Products being sold (that’s GDP). Let’s add: useful, wealth-creating products being produced and sold by the plebes (middle class). Now you’re talking healthy economy. That’s a real GDP, isn’t it?
The U.S. needs a whole new slate of products. Energy, food, materials, transport, education, health-care … are all industries whose fundamental production processes and technique are nearing the end of their technical life cycle; they’re starting to create more problems than they solve.
To address Roger’s points, this plan – for its participants – side-steps oligarchs, and equips the plebes to compete directly with the oligarchs. That puts a natural limit on how extractive the oligarchs can be. This plan also addresses the educational issue. To play in this game, you need knowledge, and discipline, and effort. Not credentials. That side-steps the educational system dysfunction. Get a book or find a friend that knows more than you, and you’re in business.
The biggest benefit of this plan is that it rewards creativity and effort. It’s not passive, it’s active. And it gets a lot of new people involved in the creativity game. This policy engenders the behaviors that are the foundation of all healthy economies.
That’s a good place to stop for now. What do you think?
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 10 2024 17:49 utc | 27
I’m glad to lift your spirits a bit, Patroklos, even if you’ve just forced me to admit that I don’t really read old greek. All I can do is make sense of special cases upon examination. Usually I consult my buddy philosopher who is a trained linguist for these things. To solve, the copypasted greek was lacking the diacritica, one of which alters the (epsilon) E to HE, giving different meaning … still fun to learn about your anecdote, that was unexpected!
The play is on το ἕν – read to hän – by missing the word entirely, yielding to hä? [το ἕ?] which sounds almost like the Germans often do when they don’t get something and choose to reply with a mere sound, rather than words or an actual sentence: Hä!?. I don’t think it’s in the Duden official dictionary, but may be found in comic strips. The band had distinct roots in thrash metal aesthetics, so we thought it fun to spell that in the old greek, making a little fun of the technical death metal band logos and other clichés of the genre.
The real fun is in the meaning, of course. το ἕν means, roughly translated, ‘the one’ so wondering where the 1 might be is mocking ourselves as well, as we were setting out to fuse metal-style percussive guitar playing with hard trance, which is a form of ‘techno’ in my view (entirely disregarding the journalists’ systematization), and craft a new style we named trance metal. Techno, especially minimal techno, makes heavy use of claves, which are rhythmical patterns that introduce notional extra signatures within a given time signature; i.e., they offer alternate counting of the ONE-two-three-etc beat of the track. So we are the band that’s searching the lost 1 … but the joke goes even further, because we liked to sing about – you guessed it – theological questions, where το ἕν is a deep concept.
Please skip reading on if you are against theological questions, but here’s Donnacha Costello again with Orange for you.
From το ἕν comes the roman “translation” unum which plays a role in roman catholic theology where it denotes the all-encompassing creation of the creator, who is said to have made it for some reason. Because this creator is omniscient, omnipotent and full of love, all apparent shortcomings of creation serve some purpose intended by Him when he made it. As before, I like to challenge that notion; so here’s another argument: How do we know He is omniscient? Strictly speaking, it’s conjecture. Even disregarding the logical issues which arise from the concept of unum, all we can actually say with confidence is that I and Thou are here, as in here and now, and that while we are making perceptions of ‘things’ using our noetic faculty (which gives us το ἕν – oneness now – or: that something is), none of us have ever seen the unum (the so-called world/universe/cosmos etc) in full. So the question if such a notion of unum is viable has no proper affirmating answer; hence I decline to agree with the idea. I posit instead that being many is the original situation, since we can’t conceive of not being among others in the first place (think about it). In some sense, the christian unum is like a limes number in calculus, which may or may not exist, but can’t just be assumed as given without a demonstrating prove.
As a corollary, it was always like that. Other notions, such as solipsism, are illogical. That’s why I like to give my account of creation starting with God making a party at his house, the generic situation of I and Thou, among others. Naturally, the party escalated, until someone crashed into the ἀόριστος δίας which started the big bang, entrapping us in filthy slag. As some say, the party is still going somewhere outside of our universe, and we are still invited and set to join after the cleaning up procedure is finished. Which leads me back to Donnacha Costello, whose music is a good example for the unique experience we may bring back to His rave, to throw at the dancing angels in the form of massive grooves and melodies rich with human soul. Seriously, they’re only expecting us there; or rather, they’re eagerly expecting Mr. Costello for his set. Listening to Orange B makes me think he’ll even be allowed to skip a number of rebirths after crafting this monster bassline.
If you’re not yet convinced of techno music and now wish to check your opinion basis, here’s him again with a very subtle and elegant record, Blue.
Posted by: persiflo | Nov 10 2024 22:23 utc | 78
Why I think Putin is presenting a world of fantasy? Because way too much harm has been done to the European masses…and this happens to have occurred in the internet era, for good or bad…thus, an arrangement between superpowers as in the previous conflicts will not be possible since the degree of awareness amongst the critical mass is way bigger then at other eras…
Andrei Fursov explains it better…bold mine…
In the first half of the 21st century, multiple crises of varying durations are converging. We are facing a “megacrisis” unprecedented in history. However, this does not mean that we should live in fear or give up, as such an attitude would be both useless and shameful.
The 2020s represent a closing door to the future, the last time corridor to reach it. Thus, the “ticket” to that future consists of providing good education and health to the next generations.
The current situation is decisive, and this decade will mark the next 70 or 80 years. In this period, nothing will be trivial or insignificant. Therefore, it is crucial to pay attention to current events.
The “Post-West”, and with it the world, is entering its fourth Dark Age, especially in terms of European history. What do we mean by the Dark Age? It is a period in which the old has almost disappeared, but not entirely, and the new is just beginning to emerge, giving rise to archaic and deformed forms of what the future will be.
In this situation, reconstruction is not the priority. You cannot restore a house that is in ruins: if you tried, the roof would end up collapsing on you. The priority, instead, must be to create structures capable of preserving the centers of civilization and reducing the duration of this Dark Age.
Historically, examples of such structures include the monasteries of the Second Middle Ages (6th-9th centuries) and the Jesuit circles of the Third Middle Ages (16th-17th centuries). In literature, an example is Isaac Asimov’s “Academies.” It is not possible to rebuild the world while it is collapsing, it is only feasible to create small “islands” of connection where the network of a new society can develop. This new society will originate as a network of enclaves, in a process of generations of struggle and transformation.
To begin this process, it is necessary to follow certain steps. First, analyze the historical situation and trends in global development. Second, examine the main social groups in the modern world, their capabilities and interests: who are allies and who are enemies. Third, analyze the main power structures that shape current development and their projects, since they represent the synthesis of their interests and objectives. Only on this basis can a strategic design be initiated, understanding that this will impact the interests of others, inevitably generating conflict.
Posted by: Ghost of Mozgovoy | Nov 10 2024 23:08 utc | 85
Tempted to agree, -1180, 476, 2132 is a proposition hard to fight (and things went south a century before but only became dire later and only finished some decades later, so 2050s-2190s should see the worst of it)
On the other hand as I mentioned when karlof posted the first part, putin is the man to fight to his last breath to do it or die trying. Usually those end periods are very bad for europe, but for the rest of the world, not as much, RF only has a foot in europe.
Posted by: Newbie | Nov 10 2024 23:38 utc | 89
@c1ue | Nov 10 2024 19:19 utc
c1ue: replies interleaved with your post below.
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c1ue: Completed expected variant of “learn to code” nonsense.
No reason to respond to that.
c1ue: What the US needs is very simple: start making things that we use.
Everyday people don’t need software or “creativity”, they need food and cars and glassware and toys and tools and household appliances and … and … and … ad infinitum.
Tom: yes we need all those products. No, the conditions under which we will shortly produce those products are _not_ the same as they were when we used to produce those same products. What’s different?
a. Labor input per unit produced is way lower. When those factories left the U.S. for China, they were re-configured to use the latest (at the time) advances in productivity-enhancing tech. When those factories come back to the U.S., some 30-40 years later, they will also enjoy a major increment in labor-saving tech. How many new jobs were you expecting that re-shoring to produce for the U.S., c1ue?
b. The cost of all inputs, not just labor, is _much_ higher here in the U.S. than it was in (for ex) China. So there’s going to be a significant increment in inflation (higher price, same goods).
c. Those products we’re going to re-start manufacturing here in the U.S. – like glassware, shoes, textiles, TVs, circuit boards, and so forth – are going to have the same deficits the current products do: they’re once-and-done, use for a short while and throw away products. They can’t be recycled, they use expensive and progressively less-available, more expensive to acquire materials. The _design_ of those products has passed their sell-by date. Why re-start manufacturing of obsolete products?
=== for other readers:
The significance of “less labor needed per unit output” is a crucial concept. Modern economies produce way more stuff than most of those economies can actually consume. That’s why every country is looking for (and fights over) export markets. And in order to consume what we produce, the bulk of the populace has to make enough money to buy all that stuff. And we don’t. That’s why the U.S. is in debt to everyone. Our workers don’t make enough to buy what we produce (and what we import). So if we “re-shore” manufacturing, are wages going to rise enough to buy the (higher priced) goods we produce? Or are we just making a bad situation worse? (e.g. rich people hoover up the wealth, and the plebes get further in debt).
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c1ue: The US is the largest importer of glass in the entire world.
Why? We have sand, we have energy.
Tom: I agree. Let’s manufacture glass. And let’s find a way to effectively re-cycle that glass. Let’s design products, and product life-cycles that don’t throw that glass away after one use. That’ll require … here it is, “new product development” and to make those new products, new production processes as well. Lots of them. And it will require … creativity and re-skilling. And because so many of our current products’ design is obsolete, we need a _lot_ of new product development. Now.
c1ue: The same can be said for an infinite number of final, intermediate and raw manufacturing inputs.
Do we need to make everything? No, of course not.
But the US as a nation has strayed far too far into the import realm.
Tom: correct. Let’s manufacture here. Let’s manufacture things that are meant to last, whose materials are (mostly) recoverable and recyclable. Let’s pay people to repair what we have, instead of throwing it away, and having to spend all that additional money on mining, transport, manufacture, distribute … all over again, instead of making a product that’s actually economically viable to _fix_.
Let’s move labor from materials sourcing and into product repair and re-use. Let’s build production processes the eliminate transport and packaging so we don’t have waste money, energy or CO2 output on it. (Local production can do that, btw).
Guess what? To make products that are fixable and materials-recoverable takes …. do I need to say it? “new product development”.
c1ue: Target improvement in production in areas that matter for the American economy.
Is it glass? Maybe.
Is it steel? maybe.
Is it pharma drug chemicals? maybe.
But it for god damned sure is not software or chips or “creativity”.
Tom: It may be all those things. But if one – not you, I understand that you eschew the notion of recycling, and environmental protection, and all things “green” – but if one accepts the notion that many of our production processes are obsolete because they waste energy and materials, then the “creativity” that you so disdain is going to be absolutely crucial.
Creative people are the ones that think up new ideas, new materials, new products. I see this as self-evident, and it astonishes me that you’d spend any ink disparaging “creativity”. Musk, Jobs, Bezos, Edison, Wright Bros, McCormick, etc. all made their impact via creativity. Fundamentally changed ours and the world’s economy and standard of living with … creativity.
c1ue: Fuck the semiconductor chips. The semiconductors are the least part of the problem.
Tom: Not sure where that came from, or its relevance to the conversation.
Posted by: Tom Pfotzer | Nov 11 2024 0:14 utc | 94
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