Monday, April 27, 2020

Wipe That Smile

The head of the IEA is reporting that global emissions "may fall by 5%". But we are not supposed to celebrate:

“This decline is happening because of the economic meltdown in which thousands of people are losing their livelihoods, not as a result of the right government decisions in terms of climate policies,” he said.

Ah yes. "Right government decisions". People cling desperately to this irrational belief in liberal Capitalist Democracy, despite the many decades of evidence that "governments" are captive to an imperative of economic growth. Why else would it have been necessary to lose 18,000 lives to the pandemic before emissions could be brought down?

It is an uncomfortable truth that real change only happens through catastrophe. So called "politics" is an illusion, like "green capitalism". Are we really supposed to be upset that oil towns like Houston or Bakersfield are in deep shit? Fuck Houston. Big Oil and their loyal minions- all the way down to local politicians and loyal workers- were perfectly ready to let us all suffer so they could maintain their "way of life". I hope they all go bankrupt and end up begging for food on the streets. They all voted for these pathological grifters we call "politicians" who rape and murder to keep the oil flowing. So I hope they are ruined. Like they were willing to ruin us.

Because you can talk and explain and discuss and argue till you are blue in the face- nothing sinks in with these rubes- not till their entire world crumbles and they are reduced to digging through dumpsters. And even then they are more likely to join a fascist cult. Whatever.

Thursday, April 23, 2020

Economic Freedom

Freedom isn't free, right? This is how Kay James, President of the Heritage Foundation sees it:

"The debate in the United States over whether to move away from free markets and toward socialism may change dramatically as the latest coronavirus spreads throughout the world. That’s because in the fight against the global pandemic, we’ll likely witness one of the most compelling arguments in our lifetimes emerge in favor of free-market systems—and lives will be saved in the process."

If she had her head any further up her ass, you couldn't see her arms. If she lived in the real universe she would "witness" all of her free market dogma repudiated and crushed. In real time.

The shock of oil prices dropping into negative territory had some normally staunch true believer free market ideologues reeling a bit. These are people who worship Ronald Reagan but have found their God suddenly turned on them:

"We are worried the current disorderly market has adversely damaged the industry..." head of trading at Trafigura Oil"...some form of government assistance is likely needed."

The CEO of Montalban Oil saw it like this: "There is something wrong with that market. It's ridiculous."

The sacred Invisible Hand has somehow been distorted, corrupted, interfered with in some way that these people find unexplainable and frightening. But I'm not suggesting that simply because their faith has been shaken they will abandon their failed ideology. That would be falling into the same "rational actor" trap economists fall into. Instead they will have their memories wiped clean in a few months and they will carry on much as before, placing unlimited faith in The Market, in Animal Spirits and The Invisible Hand.

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

It's a Show You Know- Earth Day 2020

"Not always entertaining but a show even so". The only thing more tragic than Earth Day 2020 is May Day 2020. So many people trying to put a positive spin on these Events, but the left should face the fact they have been thoroughly captured, neutered and co-opted. Like a Trump "briefing", the best thing you can do is ignore them, recognize them for the Spectacle they are. When you participate you only lend these obscene displays legitimacy.

I am being asked to participate in a River Clean-up, not a terrible idea in and of itself ( every day should be river clean up day.) But the idea that we have been locked into this repetitive, "groundhog day" re-enactment, year after year after year, with no systemic change on the horizon- or even suggested- is pathos revealed. Plant a tree. Attend a virtual rally with uplifting speeches.

In or around 1930 Antonio Gramsci wrote: "The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." Two points: we should be aware of how long analysts have been saying "the old is dying". The fact is the old is always dying and in the case of capitalism (the cultural, economic, political, ideological system) is is dying and being re-born every minute. Certainly the Heritage Foundation will be freaking out right now as "all that was solid turns to air, all that was holy profaned" but Capital itself is mutating before our eyes.

And secondly, yes indeed, the "morbid symptoms" are piling up, like corpses in refrigerator trucks. Too numerous to list, really. Negative price for oil, frozen circulation, billions unemployed. Destroying food while people go hungry.

I'll end by suggesting folks hang on to their masks, even with the Covid threat diminished. This summer will be hot and there will be smoke. Lots of smoke.

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Live Free And Die

Give them liberty and death, if that's what these Koch Bros. funded protestors want. I have no problem with deplorables infecting themselves, you only get to be so dumb and then it can be fatal. Where I have a problem is this: My daughter is a nurse. If she gets ill because she has to care for one of these "patriot" morons, then I don't care how bad-ass Rambo militia they want to believe they are. I will not be happy.

I totally understand that they may really be suffering. So demand relief.

Another Dem I had to vote for, Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee for many years, Max Baucus had this to say about the economic fallout of the pandemic:

“In a certain sense, it’s like the current crisis,” Baucus said. “In 2008, when our financial system collapsed, basically it was caused by the mortgage lending system. The big banks got a little lazy looking at the mortgages. And it was all new to us. Suddenly somebody figured out that, ‘hey, it’s a house of cards, these securities that banks are selling aren’t collateralized because the mortgages are falling apart.'”

Not just stupid, which he obviously is, but criminally inept and corrupt. He helped privitize Obama care. Totally surprised and baffled that US finance was a "house of cards". Banks got "a little lazy". "All new to us". Stupid as the patriots out infecting people only he got rich and famous.

Monday, April 13, 2020

Corbyn, Bernie and Movements

Now that Bernie had to sort of vaguely endorse Biden ( "He's a decent man") The Jacobin/ DSA Left is left holding a bag of soggy, poorly theorized and imagined tuna fish sandwiches. The consolation prize is that "we won the war of ideas" and that the movement will continue. Naomi Klein and others keep talking about "the movements" as though they had some objective form and content, but I just see an amorphous cellophane wrapper under which you might see "the climate movement", or "the fight for fifteen" or "immigrant justice" or "medicare for all". An amalgam of non-profits and advocacy groups and aging hippies and whatnot. The "movement of movements" that is supposed to somehow distinguish between bullshit reform and radical reform. Whatever the fuck that means.

One narrative has it that Bernie was done in by older voters but we shouldn't forget that it was really southern black voters who turned the tide. When Biden was endorsed by Cliburn and lots of baptist preachers fell in line, everything changed. We'll see how that works out for them.Jacobin still wants us to believe it was the "Democratic Establishment" pulling back room strings. I think the crazier shit gets, the more people just want "normal" as they imagine it (always better than the real status quo).

Thinking again about predicting in a crisis,it really is what links investors, modelers and journalists. Investors are trying to read tea leaves so they can make money through speculation, buy low sell high. Modelers are now being blamed by the Right for over-stating the risk of the virus and hurting the economy ( unnecessarily keeping surplus from Capital). Watch for this to intensify. Journalists can only create copy by speculating on possible outcomes, likely scenarios, etc.. and ALL of it is based on assumptions. Guess right and come out a winner, guess wrong and you're a goat for a brief moment. Then it all disappears down the memory hole.

Tuesday, April 7, 2020

Don't Stand So Close To Me

What if humans in the western world were to go through this period of detox and learn they didn't have to go shopping every day? What if they learned there was more to life than work? What if they found they could exist without flying or going on cruises? Spending time with the kids. Listening to music that is not in the background. Taking the time to cook something really nice.

In one sense these are signs of privilege, of not having too much stress about finding the necessities to get from one day to the next. But they are also reminders there is more to life than the grind. The leap happens when people begin questioning the grind; why it exists, who is benefiting, how did it come to be?

In another sense, there has always been a general suspicion of modernity writ large, of "everything solid turned to air, of everything sacred profaned". It is important to remember that often there is a romantic, nostalgic disavowal often associated with this sentiment, a vague (usually provincial) remembrance of a time when life was slower, better, more meaningful, less modern.All too often this is combined with a love of private property, traditional social hierarchies and a yearning for a White past.

What if? Might happen, could happen, a possibility of, we don't know...This is the language of speculation. Taking limited data and extrapolating, modeling. My approach to assessing the radicalizing potential of this crisis is like my approach to a trout stream. Even though I have been fishing for sixty years (guiding others for 35) I still stand by the stream and watch and wait for five minutes before I attach a fly to the line. Many see fish feeding, rush out with any old fly and waste precious time flailing. But there is a phenomenon in flyfishing called a complex hatch, where multiple aquatic insects are hatching at once. We often see the largest or most prolific of these and assume that must be what the trout are feeding on. But it isn't necessarily so.

This isn't to say intuition or past experience play no role. Nor are my observations always 100% correct. I flail with the best.But fewer assumptions and a little bit of patient watching have served me well...when fishing.

Sunday, April 5, 2020

Empire's Rage

From Forbes Magazine:

"Socialism introduced by Hugo Chavez and Nicholas Maduro had the effect of a neutron bomb on their country. It is not unlikely that the once-prosperous Venezuela will turn into the epicenter of the virus in South America. This situation will force hard choices on Maduro, who is no doubt under immense pressure from the U.S to flee..."

Capitalist ideologues must punish the bad example, even as their own system crumbles. Such is the rage. The article in the Economist was worse, all "dictators" and "thugs". Now Maduro is claiming that military forces were discovered just across the border with Colombia, gathering weapons and planning a coup. Why would we doubt such a claim?

The US has also charged Maduro with drug charges and is seeking some kind of extradition. The Cold War mentality still holds in US conservatism and was given a boost by Bernie Sanders and the rise of democratic socialism. At least they are consistent. When I visited Venezuela in the early 2000s to learn about the Bolivarian revolution, the State Department treated us like Hanoi Jane because they knew all their ridiculous lies were being exposed as such. There was recently a huge kerfluffel when Bernie said some positive things happened in Cuba. It is boring and dangerous simultaneously.

Friday, April 3, 2020

WTF

The Salvage Collective:

"The anti-social refuseniks of disaster nationalism ( Boris Johnson, Trump, Bolsinaro et al...) reflect, rather, the accumulated political culture of a specific ruling class praxis and statecraft. For COVID-19 is a disease that is particularly lethal to the elderly and the immuno-compromised. And that the weak must die, and that anything else is a form of moral hazard, has been the implicit credo of the ‘free market’ social Darwinism on which reaction has feasted for decades."

But not all old people are a burden, some have plenty of consumption power left. It is those who cost more than they contribute who must go; those living on social security, those with medical costs they can't cover, those dependent on state insurance and other provision. They have to die for the economy to successfully reset.

Of course it is politically tricky, even for clowns, to openly advocate for Capital over human life. Trump had to walk back his "Business By Easter" claim to keep his approval rating soaring. Like all American Blunders (Vietnam, Iraq, Katrina, no ventilators etc.) this mishandling will be forgotten the second the web page gets changed. People are damaged, capitalist subjects, "interpellated as self-maximizers for so long they cannot be counted on to "do the right thing' ". Nor can the capitalist State be trusted to do the right thing. But as with the climate crisis, we are backed into choices between least worst options.

Reading the economic press is always an exercise in frustration, but it is amazing to hear the qualifying adjectives of extreme uncertainty. Depending on the analyst we are told trillions of debt hangover from the last crisis, now compounded, is either "grim" or "catastrophic" or "nothing to worry about". Thousands of over-leveraged "zombie" sectors- US fracking is the best example- might have a cascading effect...or might be absorbed???

Who is making caskets or body bags? Will we see the National Guard picking vegetables in California when the undocumented are too sick or deported? More questions than answers right now.