We have moved our home and studio and have begun a new life – a permanent place we can call home. We are in the final stages of wrapping things up and I hope to post a story of our big move and all the wonderful people that helped us out. I’ll also post some letters from some of our readers that inquired about us and their good wishes and stories of their own.

I hope to get the update about our move and a new article up on some subjects that have been nagging me for months. You will have to fogive me as I’m quite sure the writing has become rusty – 6 months is a long time to leave something you love so much.

Cheers to you all and thanks for coming by and putting up with Walt and my ramblings – yes Walt will be coming back as well.

Vivian Maier, Two men sitting

image source

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

William Ernest Henley

After a few years practicing being a social commenter I have come to one certain conclusion. I should probably have my fucking head examined! Grief, that’s what you mostly get. Yet we all plug away, each of us for our own reasons from that unique perspective each of us can only call our own.

Uniqueness? Individualism? Opinion? Free will? What are these things? How often do you hear unique? What is it that strikes you as something different?

How quickly does the intuitive, subconscious evaluation system begin the deconstruction you have been trained to do?

Here the unschooled and schooled differ little: only the orientation of perspective differs.  “Ah yes”, I hear you murmur, “the classic split -Left and  Right.” It is important to note that I’m not comparing being educated or not with being Left or Right – I’m saying our perspective is effected by the critical thinking skills we each have learned and employ effectively in our daily lives.

I was recently reading a book on moral philosophy and hardly made it to twenty pages when I encountered this paragraph:

“If you think that moral reasoning is something we do to figure out the truth, you’ll be constantly frustrated by how foolish, biased, and illogical people become when they disagree with you. But if you think about moral reasoning as a skill we humans evolved to further our social agendas – to justify our own actions and to defend the teams we belong to – then things will make a lot more sense.” Jonathan Haidt –  “The Righteous Mind”.

If you don’t mind please read that quote again as it sets the tone for this particular lament…

It is true that human nature is shaped by groups competing with groups and by individuals competing within those groups. I have a number of friends I love deeply, the gentlest humans I have ever known – or probably will ever know.  This idea of competition between groups and individuals within these groups is abhorrent to them.  They are quirky, funny, odd, and often geniuses in disguise. Historians with photographic memories and the ability to synthesize that history, group the actors and weave a story that will have a bar room crowded a round a tiny table listening with rapt attention at the end of an evening, every once in a while exclaiming,”It doesn’t get better than this – I’m not kidding you!” Musicians who stop playing and walk away when you ask them why they are not internationally known – you learn to cherish when they play for you – wise enough to know you are listening to beauty: the drawing of chord change, a note, the warm worn tone that can only be grown alone.

I wrote that last paragraph thinking of my dear friend Dave reminding me often, when we share a glass of beer or two, that “It doesn’t get better than this – I’m not kidding you.” I know Dave, I know…

I acknowledge this competition as being the forever battle of the Right and the Left.

One of Fukuyama’s main themes is how those with might took from those too timid to stand up for what was theirs – forever setting a social divide. A more than sobering thought is that the battle goes on – just a few steps removed from the blood and gore of times long thought gone by.

“The genes are the master programmers, and they are programming for their lives. They are judged according to the success of their programs in copying with all the hazards that life throws at their survival machines, and the judge is the ruthless judge of the court of survival.” Richard Dawkins – “The Selfish Gene”

This experience we have can be profoundly satisfying and wondrously deep or perilously unsatisfying and critically shallow  – heavily effected by the choices we make as part of this chugging and churning machine called life.

Groups, for many, are a way to take some of the tumbling out of life – they provide stability. As a nation must give up some sovereignty to join a trading bloc, so too do we when we join groups; we give up some of our sovereignty as individuals to belong to a group of like individuals. Others are outcasts, refusing to belong to a group – fierce individualists. They are considered at times to be mavericks, arrogant, introverted, etc. – rarely do you hear words of appreciation while they are alive; yet history, being arbiter of the past and defender of the future, often shows these individuals, fierce individuals, as being the makers of history.

So where do they, these fierce individuals, fit into the scheme of things? Moreover, where have they all gone? Retreating to a simple life of relative safety? Blending in with all of those often judged as ne’er-do-wells? I think this is often so.

“An ideal is defective if it is not founded on the rational essence of that to which it is applied. Where practical recommendations do have such a basis, there will be an essential tendency in the existence to actualize it. But an ideal to which no such tendency corresponds is an ideal alien to the Bestimmung–the nature, destiny, or vocation, of those to whom it is addressed. Because of this, it will forever remain an “ought” without actuality, and for their sake it is just as well that it remain so.”  – Hegel

Wow! Almost makes you want to spit doesn’t it?

“If only everybody would agree to be a dove, every single individual would benefit. By simple group selection, any group in which all individuals mutually agree to be doves would be far more successful than a rival group sitting at the ESS (Evolutionary Stable Strategy) ratio…. Group selection theory would therefore predict a tendency to evolve towards an all-dove conspiracy… But the trouble with conspiracies, even those that are to everybody’s advantage in the long run, is that they are open to abuse. It is true that everybody does better in an all-dove group than he would in an ESS group.  But unfortunately, in conspiracies of doves, a single hawk does so extremely well that nothing could stop the evolution of hawks. The conspiracy is therefore bound to be broken by treachery from within. An ESS is stable,  not because it is particularly good for the individuals participating in it, but simply because it is immune to treachery from within. ” – Richard Dawkins

If I was having a pint with Mr. Dawkins this evening I would surely ask him if we are, as a species, practicing an evolutionarily stable strategy. I think we all can take a fair guess at the answer.

If we are to present a stable and healthy democracy to the world then a redressing of capitalism as it stands today needs to be attended to – otherwise we are just poseurs. It may well be if we practiced something closer to what Adam Smith had envisioned in the Wealth of Nations we would have a healthier balance between doves and hawks – the  Left and the Right. Adam Smith may have been in error in some ideas and there are apparent contradictions: but he is studied to this day – why?

The hawks forget balance and so too do the doves. They have both forgotten that many times in history human beings have tried all kinds of polarized, ideologically driven, authoritarian, technocratic systems from supposed great thinkers of both the Left and the Right – and many times in history they have have failed.

What makes any of us sure we are not heading for a catastrophic failure as well? No one can predict the future with any certainty.

Or are you like many, and just along for the ride?

If those of the hard dogmatic Left were silenced by those, as yet, murmuring moderate thinkers of the Left then a just system would be within reach. The middle classes, as Marx would call the petty-bourgeois, would not vote so mindlessly against their own interests if they felt that cherished interests such as private ownership and the ideals that go with it such as liberal democracy, capitalism, etc., were being fairly and adequately represented – if not championed in an evolved ideology. The edifice of belief would and should remain intact.

If we came to our senses, we would realize the system we have now, allowed to find its roots, allowed to balance, would be much closer to what we envision as being a just society.

Capitalism is not the problem at all.

The rampant, unchecked, corporatization of our governments and nations is the problem. We have allowed those with self-interest to remove many levers of government that were judiciously put there by the founders of well-intentioned democratic nations.  We obviously understood thousands of years ago the ease with which unchecked money, power and ultimately greed can grow into various forms of authoritarian technocratic plutocracies – which is where Canada, the US and many other democratic countries seem to be headed.

“Those who don’t know their history are bound to repeat the past” – George Santayana

I don’t know how we will learn to move from such polarizing social and political stances and realize that all of us coming closer to center makes for a just, fair, and well-functioning society. This isn’t a witch hunt of the rich or the Right – it is a simple redressment, a murmuring of the memory that many aspects of capitalism are a good thing – the driver of innovation and productivity. But the wise understand and remember that the basic aspect of capitalism, why it works so well,  is that it accurately models the basic primitive survival mechanisms we each have within us – such as competitiveness and killing… Knowing the primal drive of those who covet such things as wealth and power – not disavowing or disparaging the nature of a ruling class: those who are well-educated, well read, well-traveled, experienced, etc., should in fact be running the bureaucracy. Someone competent has to do it! We are well advised to keep in mind that the hunger for wealth and power is a primal, hawkish trait and for society to be well-tempered, we must strive to keep the proper balance of things. A hawk will try to take more than you might be willing to give — or should be willing to give.

“It is an unnatural thing in nature not to have a balance among all things. It may very well be in the natural order of things that the petit bourgeois and proletariat are what keep the rich from waging war against their own.” –  R.

“He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of self-delusion, which covers from his view the deformities of his own conduct … This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half the disorders of human life. If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reformation would generally be unavoidable. We could not otherwise endure the sight.”

Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments 1759

One problem is the constant dumbing down of the mass population, fooling them into believing that this system is the only one that works.

Moderate course corrections are necessary in such things as the money in politics, monopolization, outsourcing, and the excessive consumption encouraged by the unsustainable growth demands of corporate boards (the ensuing predatory nature of multinational corporations making it next to impossible for healthy competition to exist). We live in an era of price-fixing that has yet to be fully exposed in its utter fallacy.

Many little things need to change – evolve – while the structure remains. Such things as restricting the amount of foreign and corporate ownership in a nation’s private housing market – easing some of the still (forever) ongoing, unsustainable speculation in property values. When large cities like Vancouver, B.C. have a renter-to-owner ratio of 8 to 2, and you suddenly realize that 80% of the population is likely never to own property – this could very likely be you reader – this is a sure symptom of a rent-seeking society.  When housing prices have exceeded the reach of the median income of a majority of citizens in any city (and there are many, many cities like this in the world), we have a rent-seeking situation. The trend is not increasing towards a greater distributed base of private ownership –  it is increasing towards a greater distributed base of renters. These speculative land values are punitive to those of median incomes and outlandishly out of reach to those of the working class.

The fair and equitable way out of all of this is indeed a difficult course to chart – but some moderate individuals need to lead us to a more balanced position.

The idea that we are making this slow transition to an unsustainable technocratic plutocracy and growing civil unrest are not the words of the Right or the Left alone – they are the words of many. Francis Fukuyama, George Packer, Zbigniew Brzezinski and others have written papers and books condemning this decaying slide towards even more affront crony-capitalism. This is where Adam Smith shone – while some of his economic theory is open to debate and in some instances outright incorrect, his damning of crony-capitalism is rarely, if ever, contested.

Part of my own personal journey and oft-lament in writing this blog is knowing that the subject material is not often of interest to a wide enough range of folks to have any impact at all.

How to articulate that the prevalence of Right-leaning ideologies in mainstream media and some educational institutions is not because of a conspiracy – or because they are correct –  but because this is how we have allowed things to become as a result of the middle classes’ self-interested fear of long-standing radically left-leaning ideologies such as socialism and communism. It is important to note that it should be self-evident that the same level of critical and often damning analysis should be applied to the same extremely polarized and self-interested notions of those of the hard Right. It is no conspiracy that main stream media is a fabrication of and controlled mainly by multi-national billion dollar corporations that indeed serve the wishes of the Right. Some fools will allude that this is not so — making a conspiracy where the is none — and then take us on a serpentine road of linguistic potholes, filled with constructions of straw men and other facile tools of rhetoric and demagoguery to rationalize biased moral values and positions.

The Left and Right are not adversaries; they are agents of balance. Which is why that it makes little sense if such evident basic truths have been discovered such as gravity and balance: why don’t average everyday people see that these ideologies shouldn’t be polarized notions at all? If each side is an agent of balance, then it is straightforward logic to conclude that for each to serve their function effectively, each must seek balance within their own group, at all costs. If the Left or the Right steer the tiller of the ship alone, we will go in circles, as we have over and over throughout history – only to discover, as we always do, that our biggest mistakes have always been allowing ideologically unbalanced ideas to lead us to the precipice of incipient self-destruction.

I don’t understand why so many of the global majority don’t understand that it is not all that outrageous an idea for each country to charge a tax/transaction fee of 1-2% on every financial transaction over a specified amount. I’ll leave it to you to find some astonishing numbers on your own. Now imagine if it was legislated that this financial tax went into the medical and education systems of every country.  Is it not a fact that as birth rates drop we will require more and more specialized labour? Shouldn’t we all be looking to leveling population growth anyway?  I can’t understand how in Canada and the U.S. we put such little emphasis on the importance of education and health care. Having a contented, healthy and educated population is a sign of a successful society is it not? I’m not sure that investment into overhauling the criminal code and massive capital investure into prison infrastructure over education and health is a sign of a well-functioning, balanced society.

Imagine if our governments took higher royalty rates from energy producers, as these natural resources belong to the citizens of a sovereign nation. If this money was put into public schools, alternate energy production, university grants for expanded research on such things as energy storage technologies (currently the Achilles heel of environmentally generated energy), we would see a rapid expansion of alternate energy technologies to the mass market, reducing costs and speeding innovation. Yet we continue to enrich oil corporations, as each nation’s energy resources dwindle, and we don’t exact enough profit/royalties to pay for environmental repair, infrastructure investment, and of course research and development of alternate energy sources. This was discussed in further depth in this piece that I wrote in March 2012, “Why ‘Moderation’ is a big deal…”

Another victim of a massive onslaught of powerful “hearts and minds” type media campaigns was the literal annihilation of trade unions that began in the 1980s. One of my all time favourite sayings about unions is:

“A good company doesn’t need a union and a bad company deserves one.” – unknown

Why don’t folks understand that responsible unions in a capital-driven system are a stick that the middle classes and the petit bourgeois hold over unbridled capitalistic growth and profit?  It would, if unions remain true to their purpose, ensure that the labour-intellect that generates such volumes of credit and capital for a corporation is paid a rate that is consonant to the capital/profit that it creates. How can we be possibly believe this idea to be wrong? See “Regular folk, good folk, and very confused folk.”

What if, for example, Apple had given up 10 billion dollars of profit by not being so predatory towards the earnings of the companies that create their components and these manufacturers in turn were able to pay their employees a few dollars an hour more? When a system is in place that pushes profit further down into the economy, then there is a more active supply of currency running through the system, real currency, not the currency being peddled by governments all over the world this very moment, euphemistically called “quantitative easing”   – the governments’ “money press” which debases our currency daily. Subterfuge really, fooling the masses as the costs of massive profits and interests are handed to future generations – some winners and others very much losers. This all thereby supplicating the self-serving interests of the modestly rich and many of the middle classes – who seem not to realize that a loan was just made in their names for the next 50, 100, or 150 years that they will indeed pay for.  Someone is getting very wealthy from all of this – money just doesn’t disappear from our economies – it is traded away for profit.

It is worth noting here how the straw man of “Welfare State” is bandied about like a shield by those of the ideological Right. They are correctly and rightly concerned, and so too was Adam Smith, about an excess of offerings of the industrious to those who are not concerned as citizens with their basic duty to provide, at the level they can,  for themselves and their families. Simply put, an excess of welfare naturally creates a group who are “capable”  but “unwilling” to work for reasons of their own: they are not ill or wounded.  This is just a natural aspect of being human – some need more prodding than others to get out of bed in the morning.

Unfortunately, the policy of farther Right-leaning political parties extends this to those who are “capable” and “unable” to work as well. If you as a citizen have no choice but to partake in a societal structure, pay taxes, etc. you then are a part of the industry and commerce of a nation. If a particular section of industry is hit hard for whatever reason – a recession, change of law, commodities, demand, etc. – then why do those of the hard Right not believe it is incumbent on a rationally-based society to provide assistance to those who were only part, a very small part indeed, of a large industrial or commercial machine in which they were one rower of many and only listened to a captain?

It is so important to note the difference between a loaded ideological statement and the application of basic moral truth and justice.  Our systems should always pay homage to whoever has fallen and help them get back up.  If any of these lines are crossed then these are signs that a society has crossed certain known bounds of humanity for the sake of money. How one can argue differently at its barest of definition? I can’t understand the perverted logic one would need to arrive at this place through any form of moral reasoning.

“As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers. They never did, and never can, carry us beyond our own person, and it is by the imagination only that we can form any conception of what are his sensations. Neither can that faculty help us to this any other way, than by representing to us what would be our own, if we were in his case. It is the impressions of our own senses only, not those of his, which our imaginations copy. By the imagination we place ourselves in his situation.” – Adam Smith  “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” 1759 

I was reading a comment today that one citizen made in reply to another, “Your statement was logically incorrect as it appealed to emotion.” Now I know you might think it is unfair that I don’t introduce the other speaker’s premise that was attacked as being an appeal to emotion, but if you allow yourself to be an honest, you will probably concur that we do in fact make moral decisions based on what group we belong to.  Therefore logically in the strictest sense when we state “appealing to emotion” we can include “appealing to morality” as well, as morality is itself a subjective phenomenon.  We can play foolish games with language as Hegel stated and try to answer such questions as whether we really exist at all – which just ends up being pedantic word play; there is no answer to the unknowable.

There is though an evident morality among all of us, regardless of nationality, politics, religion, etc.. To use word play to debase a natural human tendency towards humanity is in this author’s opinion a dangerous road to take. It shouldn’t go further past the study rooms of Philosophy, Sociology, Political Science, etc. It certainly should be off-limits in elected politics altogether. You can use language to change one’s perception of reality only so far – when it is used to attack the humility of our mortality then we know it is time to stop – it is of  a higher order to have empathy and this should be sacred regardless of one’s intrinsic moral beliefs.

When large multinational corporations, incredibly rich family lineages, and individual billionaires build up massive amounts of capital, in the billions and trillions of dollars, this capital does nothing to serve the public good. One could say that’s fine, it is their right – and one would be correct in theory.  What one forgets, almost instantly, is a simple direct connection – how did they amass all of that money? That’s right, they amassed it on the free market by persuading others to consume a product or a service. If the penetration of real dollars does not “trickle down” as supply-side economics would have us believe is the case, then it becomes next to impossible to avoid a proclivity towards a rent-seeking society. The basis of this statement cannot easily be contested – it refers directly to the basic premises and conclusions of a supply-sider’s very theories.

If you are not aware of the definition of “rent-seeking” I encourage you to read this short, accurate, Investopedia entry and the contested Wikipedia article, which is disputed for neutrality. There is not much to contest as far as neutrality is concerned when you apply Investopedia’s definition as well.

What isn’t focused on often enough by those who lean to the hard ideological Right and the hard ideological Left is that the long-term stability and health of a society should be the first guiding principle.

Here again is where Adam Smith was taken to be an apologist for unfettered capitalism as he felt that in matters of commerce what made the system work was self-interest. So I think we can safely say that it doesn’t make sense to try to enact and force the many burdensome subjective laws of morality on a corporation when self-interest is the core of this ever renewing and often brutal system of capitalism. Which of course brings to mind Joseph Schumpeter and the phrase, “Creative Destruction” – which was actually coined by Marxists much earlier as a moral objection to capitalism.

It is not the job of a corporation to operate with emphasis to the public good. In the future corporations that do so will likely be the survivors of a global ideological and sustainable shift – but at its core the corporation is, as we stated, primarily an organism that operates from a position of self-interest.

It is however the role of government to act in accordance to the greater public good. This is a crucially important balancing lever on the primal instincts that capitalism so aptly mimics and utilizes.

One of the fundamental areas where Adam Smith is considered to have gotten it very wrong is that he attributed the value of goods and services directly to the cost of the labour that produced it – it is here where Karl Marx borrowed from Smith as well.

What both great thinkers seemed to overlook in their time is that the value of an object is subjective. What gives a product or service value is how much the customer is willing to pay for it. To try to do anything else, regardless of whether it’s a socialist/communist or a free market, this setting of artificial value to goods or services creates a non-taxable and often dangerous black market – where of course speculation is also unregulated and this ultimately leads to unnecessary wars over unregulated human greed. The Right would have many of us believe that we are still trying to figure out the balance of these things – when they were in fact figured out thousands of years ago (Aristotle.) It should be easy to see (forgive me) even for the simplest of thinkers:  if a system is allowed to operate on the guiding principle of self-interest then that system will surely need to be regulated for the common good. Otherwise, and unavoidably, a technocratic plutocracy will flourish where nothing short of anarchy and/or civil war would right the many very real and sometimes perceived wrongs felt by the lower classes.

There simply should be no corporate influence in government – period. Why don’t the masses of population, regardless of religion, political ideology, race, education, etc., realize that demanding immediate reform in these matters would bring credibility back to the perception of many democracies in the world? I can say with complete conviction that if just this one change was made democracy would stop receding, as it has for many years, and grow explosively. Why do we supposed democratic nations not understand why other nations don’t immediately join this beast of globalization being spearheaded by democratic countries whose governments have become overrun by corporate influence and special interests? Whose leaders, in the end, are mere technocratic figureheads for massive international conglomerates of enormous power – breath taking power. Has it occurred to you why someone would not be interested in, for example, an American style democracy that is formidably polarized, and has allowed political entities such as “Super-Pacs”? These pacs are for Americans a sign that crony-capitalism is not private handshakes and backroom promises anymore – it’s saying it right out loud.

A political situation should be created which would result in elections – over and over – until a group came to power that immediately upon election legislated all corporate influence out of politics.

As it stands the middle classes will vote hard Right as they feel their interests are still under attack by those of the radicalized Left. How much this is still true today and how much is imagined is clearly up for debate by rational thinkers. I have often stated in articles here that in my opinion people are often having a polarized, intuitive reaction to specific language. If polarizing language were to be avoided an evolution, if you will, of language and the political ideas and notions it expresses would likely occur.

In this author’s opinion the hard dogmatic radicalized Left are in search of utopian ideals – often missing not just one or two of the complexities of the world, but several. In their idealized world, a worldwide conspiracy of doves magically appears, much like Santa’s presents, and levels the world’s playing field.  Even if we entertained the idea that this would ultimately work, a logical intellectual of the Left would realize that just getting our political parties, all of them, closer to center, would be a noble start.

No dove conspiracies can really ever work – communism/socialism for example. But at the very least, we should work together to tame the power that we have ceded to the hawks being a willing and integral part of this, potentially, blood free war called capitalism.

This is the reason why I write.

Why do people vote against their own interests so much of the time? Why do people become so polarized? Why do so few people understand that even using simple mathematics one can show how remaining closer to a center in any polarized debate brings you closer to a workable truth? Moreover, staying closer to center reduces in orders of magnitude the costs associated with blindly following one path, which is much like running towards a cliff ledge, blindfolded, and whoever goes the farthest out without falling off is the winner. This is a very stupid fucking game.

For the foreseeable future our economy is without a doubt dependent, as it is now, on consumption. So let’s imagine for a moment that instead of blindly allowing corporations to lobby our governments to remove regulation after regulation, break all unions, and outsource work while making billions of dollars, we were willing to go “Okay, I’ll play this game for a while, but I have some rules.”

Without reacting as we have all been taught to do – defending our camps, often using a moral stance – consider trying this: if you consider yourself Right, just for a moment bring yourself right of center; if you are on the radicalized Left, bring yourself for a moment to just left of center. Relax, you’re not being programmed here and you will surely make it out alive.

Why is it that so many of you think it is good that Apple is worth 500 billion dollars? Do you own a few shares?

Why is is that so many of you think it is bad that Apple has any money (or exists) at all? Why do you wish their outright failure?

How are either of these unbalanced scenarios any good at all?

For the general good of the U.S economy, haven’t you ever wondered why, if Apple can make such enormous profit, they don’t build plants in the U.S., Canada, Germany, other democratic countries, etc. rather than outsource to authoritarian, Communist countries such as China where worker abuse, child labour, etc. are the norm? If a company can make so much money that it is larger than the economies of some entire countries, why can’t it create jobs at home? Who profits from this? If you own 100, 1,000, or 10,000 shares of Apple you are still a very, very tiny fish.

I often wonder why more people don’t realize that when we say that ‘X’ company must grow at ‘Y’ percent, every year, year after year, it is mathematically simple to show that this quickly becomes impossible. Is this for real? Do the simple math on your own and you will be astonished by what you find.

That’s right – it’s mathematically unsustainable. Not only is it mathematically unsustainable but when one considers the factorial growth that is required to achieve these numbers – you can’t help wonder if the predatory nature required to achieve such growth is surely on ethically and morally shaky ground.

 If you didn’t watch the video – please take the time to watch the first minute and I bet you will watch the rest.

Why must a company worth 100 billion dollars get larger, more predatory, and more invasive, yet we accept this as being part of something normal? A part of what I ask?

I’m just not sure that this is the way things ought to be. There must be a better balance. I think many of you ask yourself these questions whether you are of the Right or the Left.

“If I agree to this consumption-based economy, why do I also have to agree to a model that exploits me through features, limitations, artificial failure rates, etc.?”

Why must we consume more and go faster and faster all the time? Is this to try to keep up with the unsustainable numbers we talked about above and which the video illustrates so well?  These constant growth demands are mathematically impossible, at least in the real world. This is the real world isn’t it?  This was discussed in greater depth in a piece I wrote last year called, “MTBF? WTF? SOB!”

These massive international, multinational, transnational, global companies are often not directly improving the standard of living in their own countries because they expatriate money to offshore accounts and tax havens using holding companies, etc., and outsource jobs to countries with cheap labour such as China and India, creating yet more economic stratification in both countries at different levels.  If this is such a great model my simple view of the world asks why Germany is doing so damn well – there sure is a lot of well paid technical manufacturing happening there.

Corporate influence in all democratic nations must stop – including severe restrictions on the amount of money that each particular lobby group may spend a year.  We must start reining in corporate influence in Canadian and American politics. Until then we can never be statesmen for a liberal democracy because we have allowed the balancing element of capitalism – government – to be unduly influenced: to the point of being wholly controlled by corporations and their interests.

This will inexorably lead to a technocratic plutocracy – if we are not already there.

We have allowed corporations to get so large that they are worth many times more than what numerous countries in the world are worth.  These billions of dollars never make it into your own economies because we have allowed plutocrats, the hawks, to manipulate us into a mindless, repetitive, speculative economy that only benefits the wealthy. It is time we make some moderate course adjustments.

This is why so many of us dare to blog day after day; if anything, to offer not a radical alternate view of the world, just an outline of a moderate taming of the system as it now stands. An evolution, as it were, towards the enlightened principles of Adam Smith’s theory of capitalism or at the very least his attack on crony capitalism.

We don’t want radical Right thinkers to trick people into ceding more power to them when we should in fact be taming them.

On the other hand, the quiet moderate intellectuals of the Left need to come out of the woodwork and start talking and running for office. These quiet people need to become louder and form political parties filled with well educated moderate thinkers.  I know there are many out there who understand that none of the isms – socialism, communism, capitalism – work if applied according to their pure ideological roots – they all end up being some form of authoritarian, totalitarian, plutocracies.

Fear is a powerful tool – as it has been since the beginning of recorded human history.

I believe if most of us searched for, and found, the egalitarian that rests within us –  it may be somewhat suppressed by the endless economy of want – we would see that a just system is within reach if we just find the right leaders to steer us in that direction, and if we ourselves became enlightened thinkers instead of simple pavlovian actors.

Gutta Cavat Lapidem Non Vi Sed Saepe Cadendo
– a water drop hollows a stone not by force, but by falling often

Until next time,

R.

Why moderation? Why would one want to stay closer to the political center? Is there empirical or even theoretical proof that such a stance would be the ideal?

It is safe to say there are as many theories and their advocates as the day is long.

Before we proceed I would like you to keep the following simple example in mind while we look at how the complexity of interactions among all the actors and events in the world at any given moment is simply extraordinary!

How many possible combinations could you have with 21 digits?

51090942171709440000 51 quintillion … or 51 billion billion …

What of this basic idea of complexity and moderation as it relates to all of these issues and the actors taking part?

We can also express this enormous growth as Combinatoric explosion.

Look at all of the problems and challenges that we as a species face each today: resource depletion, environmental issues, political systems (Left, Right, Moderate, Communist, Liberal, Conservative, Republican, Democrat, etc.), economics (Keynesian, Smith, Chicago School, Neo-Classical, Supply Side/Trickle down ), regulation and law, social problems (poverty, education, welfare, addiction, health, nutrition), religion, nationalism, war, world population growth (which is growing almost exponentially as well), etc…..

The number of possible interactions just on a local level is enormous.  We can see quickly how any system, however cleverly designed, falls prey to the random nature and extraordinary complexity involved in the interaction of all the actors and events involved.

On the scale of national events, acts of nature that might devastate countries include tsunamis, earthquakes, famine, illness, drought, and so on.

We have the complexities of world trade, currency evaluation/speculation, stock markets, international finance, housing costs, and again, the list goes on. All of this is of course directly affected, in a multitude of ways, by the acts of nature mentioned above.

On the geopolitical front, nationalism has become the de facto replacement in many formerly communist/socialist countries, China is rapidly rising, Russia is re-energized, India is growing, and there is global terror, religious extremism, and the Israel-Palestinian conflict, with the ensuing human rights violations and political fallout; and this is only to name but an obvious few – there are many other issues at hand.

One’s head can begin to spin when one thinks of the possible (factorial) interactions happening among all the actors and events in this madness we call life.

A crucially important element in this pool of interaction, which has a profound effect on many other parts of the world’s economy, is of course oil and its availability.

Oil is our principal source of energy (37%), followed by natural gas (26%), coal (25%), nuclear power (6%), biomass (4%), and hydroelectric (3%). We can see that fossil-based fuels, as of 2011, provide 89% of our energy.

The following is a chart of estimated oil reserves throughout the world, not including yet-undiscovered reserves (Africa, Mexico, Arctic/North Atlantic, etc..) These future discoveries could be significant, but they are, as it stands today, unproven. Likely, yes. No one knows for certain.

World Oil Reserves (2011): 1,348,528,420,000 barrels

	Country	Reserves (bbl)	Share of World %
1	Saudi Arabia (more information)	264,100,000,000	19.78%
2	Canada (more information)	178,100,000,000	13.21%
3	Iran (more information)	150,310,000,000	11.10%
4	Iraq (more information)	143,100,000,000	10.60%
5	Kuwait (more information)	101,500,000,000	8.71%
6	Venezuela (more information)	98,590,000,000	7.37%
7	United Arab Emirates (more information)	97,800,000,000	7.25%
8	Russia (more information)	79,000,000,000	4.45%
9	Libya (more information)	46,000,000,000	3.24%
10	Nigeria (more information)	36,220,000,000	2.69%
11	Kazakhstan	30,000,000,000	2.22%
12	Qatar	27,190,000,000	1.13%
13	United States (more information)	21,320,000,000	1.58%
14	China	15,700,000,000	1.19%
15	Algeria	15,150,000,000	0.90%
16	Angola	13,500,000,000	0.67%
17	Mexico	13,350,000,000	1.29%
18	Brazil	12,620,000,000	0.94%
19	Azerbaijan	7,000,000,000	0.52%
20	Sudan	6,800,000,000	0.37%
21	Norway	6,680,000,000	0.50%
22	India	5,625,000,000	0.42%
–	European Union	5,504,000,000	0.42%
23	Oman	4,978,000,000	0.41%
24	Vietnam	4,700,000,000	0.40%
25	Egypt	4,400,000,000	0.27%
26	Indonesia	3,850,000,000	0.30%
27	Ecuador	3,640,000,000	0.35%
28	United Kingdom	3,410,000,000	0.25%
29	Yemen	3,300,000,000	0.22%
30	Malaysia	3,000,000,000	0.30%
31	Argentina	2,286,000,000	0.19%
32	Syria	2,500,000,000	0.19%
33	Gabon	2,000,000,000	0.15%
–	Republic of the Congo	1,600,000,000	0.12%
34	Australia	1,500,000,000	0.11%
35	Chad	1,500,000,000	0.11%
36	Colombia	1,355,000,000 2,050,000,000	0.10%
37	Brunei	1,100,000,000	0.08%
38	Equatorial Guinea	1,100,000,000	0.08%
39	Denmark	1,060,000,000	0.08%
40	Trinidad and Tobago	728,300,000	0.05%
41	Romania	600,000,000	0.04%
42	Turkmenistan	600,000,000	0.04%
44	Uzbekistan	594,000,000	0.04%
45	Timor-Leste	553,800,000	0.04%
46	Bolivia	465,000,000	0.03%
47	Thailand	441,000,000	0.03%
48	Tunisia	425,000,000	0.03%
49	Peru	415,800,000	0.03%
50	Italy	406,500,000	0.03%
51	Ukraine	395,000,000	0.03%
52	Pakistan	339,200,000	0.03%
53	Turkey	300,000,000	0.02%
54	Germany	276,000,000	0.02%
55	Cameroon	200,000,000	0.01%
56	Albania	199,100,000	0.01%
57	Belarus	198,000,000	0.01%
58	Democratic Republic of the Congo	180,000,000	0.01%
59	Chile	150,000,000	0.01%
60	Spain	150,000,000	0.01%
61	Philippines	138,500,000	0.01%
62	Bahrain	124,600,000	0.01%
63	Cuba	124,000,000	0.01%
64	France	103,300,000	0.01%
65	Côte d’Ivoire	100,000,000	0.01%
66	Mauritania	100,000,000	0.01%
67	Netherlands	100,000,000	0.01%
68	Poland	96,380,000	0.01%
69	Papua New Guinea	88,000,000	0.01%
70	Guatemala	83,070,000	0.01%
71	Suriname	79,600,000	0.01%
72	Croatia	79,300,000	0.01%
73	Serbia	77,500,000	0.01%
74	New Zealand	60,000,000	0.00%
75	Austria	50,000,000	0.00%
76	Burma	50,000,000	0.00%
77	Japan	44,120,000	0.00%
78	Kyrgyzstan	40,000,000	0.00%
79	Georgia	35,000,000	0.00%
80	Bangladesh	28,000,000	0.00%
81	Hungary	20,180,000	0.00%
82	Bulgaria	15,000,000	0.00%
83	Czech Republic	15,000,000	0.00%
84	South Africa	15,000,000	0.00%
85	Ghana	15,000,000	0.00%
86	Lithuania	12,000,000	0.00%
87	Tajikistan	12,000,000	0.00%
88	Greece	10,000,000	0.00%
89	Slovakia	9,000,000	0.00%
90	Benin	8,000,000	0.00%
91	Belize	6,700,000	0.00%
92	Taiwan	2,380,000	0.00%
93	Barbados	2,170,000	0.00%
94	Israel	1,940,000	0.00%
95	Jordan	1,000,000	0.00%
96	Morocco	750,000	0.00%
97	Ethiopia	430,000	0.00%
–	Total	1,348,528,420,000	100.00%

That’s a total of 1 trillion, 348 billion, 528 million, 420 thousand proven barrels of oil reserves in the ground, worldwide, as of 2011.

We can see Canada has 178 billion barrels of proven reserves; 173 billion of those barrels are in the 77,000 square kilometre area known as the Alberta Tar Sands.

The important thing Canadians should remember and think about is: Canada is second place IN THE WORLD in proven oil reserves, and 97% of Canada’s proven remaining oil reserves are in the Alberta Tar Sands.

In the chart further below you can see the the world is consuming 85,980,00 (85 million, 980 thousand) barrels of oil a day.

Syncrude Mildred Lake Plant

The straight math says we have 42.97 years of proven reserves left at our current rate of consumption.

The simple math: the world’s total of 1,348,528,420,000 barrels of proven reserves divided by a consumption of 85,980,000 barrels a day = 15,684.21 days. 15,684 days divided by 365 gives us 42.97 or 43 years of proven reserves at our given consumption.

It is important to note that in this simple division we are assuming demand for oil stays at the same level. We are not factoring in the rise of China, an emerging reenergized Russia, the increasing prosperity of the developing world, and exponential population growth in many countries (India, China, etc.), which will continue for another generation before the effects of education and wealth lead to a drop in birth rate. All of these can or will result in increased consumption.

Conservatively, we can take 10-15% off many countries’ stated proven oil reserves amount, as many countries are prone to overestimate their reserves to gain a better slice of the open market under OPEC rules. Counting new, yet to be discovered reserves in the Arctic, Africa, North Atlantic, etc., and factoring in obvious growth in worldwide demand for oil, we may have 150 years of reserves left.  Some say 300 years, while others say that’s very optimistic . Let’s go with the pessimists, and plan for 150 years of a fairly stable supply of oil – and this would require conservation.

World energy demands grew by 5.6% in 2010, the largest 1-year increase since 1973. Consumption in OECD countries grew by 3.5%, the strongest growth since 1984. Non-OECD countries’ consumption grew by 7.5%, which means 63% more oil was being consumed in those countries than in 2000. China’s share of global energy consumption is 20.3% – the world’s largest. Global oil production increased by a mere 1.8 million barrels per day (2.2%) in 2010, not matching the world’s rapid growth in consumption.

If we end up with 300 years of oil, near the end, it will mostly be very rich men showing off their ancient combustion engine roadsters – the rest of the world will have gone electric long, long ago.

Most of the world’s largest single reserves, such as those in Saudi Arabia and Mexico, were discovered almost 70 years ago. In Mexico the largest reserve is now so low they pump in nitrogen to maintain an acceptable well pressure. Many old reserves are well past peak production and the barrels per day have been dropping since the 1980s.

It is a difficult as it stands today to even keep up with the current demand for oil; our barrels per day of production are dropping as reserves age and become depleted. Moreover, in the future, we will have to be able to keep up with an even greater, and continuously growing, demand.

In North America 30% of our oil is consumed by agricultural production.

If we start conserving, and perhaps allow the price of oil to rise by tightening its flow (of course Canada, with the second largest proven reserves in the world, could be a key player in how much oil is allowed onto the market), we could extend the amount of time that we will have direct access, as a nation, to a vital source of energy. Consider: in North America 30% of our oil is consumed by agricultural production, and this will surely rise with population growth. It is also worth noting that 98% of Canada’s energy production is currently sent to the U.S. – the world’s largest consumer of oil.

This ever-increasing demand on resources that a growing population will undoubtedly have is for obvious reasons unsustainable in the long-term. It doesn’t look like a winning proposition. Will we bet our future on unknown future prospects, and the very real possibility of a protracted resource war?

With moderate long-term planning and conservation, we would see a likely reduction of Co2 in the atmosphere, as we would have more time to re-establish natural habitat that was destroyed by oil, natural gas, and coal exploration. Increased energy costs would promote worldwide energy conservation, and the investigation into and finally adoption of alternate energy sources. Conservation of oil reserves would of course aid in the reduction of greenhouse gasses through a natural reduction in worldwide consumption.

I’m for the evolution of any law, including environmental protection laws, as technologies mature and new technologies are discovered, etc.. But the scrapping of environmental protection laws entirely could only be made by a fool (S. Harper – you listening?) who has allowed self-interest and “special interest groups,” and not the interests of the citizens and the nation’s long-term national security, to become the guiding principle.

A graduated adoption of alternate energy would have a minimal effect on the economy, surely less than, for example, a hurricane in the Gulf coast where 60 wellheads are wiped out. This loss in production and spike in oil futures is what holds every nation hostage – ready to wage war for continued access to this vital national resource.

Oil production is getting more expensive because companies have to explore and drill in increasingly inhospitable territory,  whether it is harsh environmental conditions or politically unstable countries. The increased costs of exploration and production are the same all over the world. It would seem obvious, prudent, and realistic to assume that a government body could, and would, regulate energy corporations in an internationally ratified and fair manner.

Exploration could, if the right balance was found, be always partially or wholly funded by the government at a great profit to the taxpayer.

These relationships already exist in various forms today, but they are overly lenient and we as shareholders (citizens are shareholders in that it is our government that invests into these massive projects), sharing the primary cost, exploration, do not get value for our money.  Consider this: if our tax dollars are used to fund exploration in the North Sea as with Hibernia, et al., and if we the taxpayers, through our government, have taken on a great deal of financial risk, doesn’t it stand to reason that we should get a higher value for our investment? This author finds the current top-tier royalty rate insulting to Canadians. Our ownership and control in these companies should be accurately reflected in the investment we’ve made (and risk we’ve taken) in these projects, and just as accurately reflected in the return we get. After all, it is the government and the citizens of a nation who supposedly own their nation’s mineral rights.

It seems to me whoever is negotiating these transactions with oil corporations should be fired and someone put in who can negotiate fair deals for their citizens. That would be a leader who doesn’t bow to “special interest groups” and respects forward-looking environmental protection laws. Our leaders say that these investments are to encourage oil companies to continue exploration. Energy corporations need to be exploring with or without our investment for their own survival.

It seems to me that oil companies’ futures are inexorably linked with those of the governments and citizens.

Top-tier royalties, after investment overhead has been paid, should be at least 50% and not the 30% pandered to us by our government officials. These rates do not accurately reflect our investment in these projects as a country nor the basic fact that these resources are owned by the citizens of a country. Our governments should be negotiating deals that reflect this. Hugo Chavez nationalized oil corporations in Venezuela not just because he is a socialist/communist dictator – Chavez was sending a message to the world’s energy corporations: they have forgotten that natural resources are owned by sovereign countries. If more equitable relationships could not be brokered he would, as he ended up doing, just take control of all production. This author doesn’t think this is at all a realistic proposition, or even a healthy one in OECD countries, but is merely using it as an example of how citizens should be asking their governments for a much more equitable relationship with these energy companies. In Canada for example, consider, as we mentioned before, that 98% of our energy is sent to the U.S., with U.S. companies drilling from our own natural reserves, feeding the U.S.’ massive demands on oil production. They win on every side of the equation – and we the Canadian taxpayers lose.

With more equitable profit-sharing between our governments and energy corporations, they can remain privatized. Our governments would exert a truly “fair” amount of control through exploration financing, taxes, and strictly controlled production cost increases that would be passed on to energy consumers. This of course would break the cardinal, and legal, rule that a corporation must always provide profit to its shareholders. In situations where national interest is at stake, such as energy production and consumption and its direct effect on the economy, there are times that shareholders would, and should, have to absorb loss of value in their positions. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I have an idea that even under this “draconian system,” about which lobbyists would holler their heads off, energy corporations and their shareholders would still make billions upon billions as we work towards extracting the last barrel of oil from the Earth.

A bit of trivia for my readers: the U.S military uses as much oil daily as the entire nation of Sweden does in a day, at 328,100 barrels.  The US is number one for oil consumption in the world with 18,690,000 barrels/day, the European Union is second with 13,680,000 barrels/day, and Canada is in 10th place with a consumption of 2,151,000 barrels/day.

However, the U.S., with 5% of the world’s population at 313,184,000 citizens, uses 21% of the world’s daily production, or four times as much as it should, theoretically, per capita.  Canada, with 0.48% of the world’s population at 33,476,688 citizens, uses 2.5% – five times as much as we should. Per capita, we are even more oil hungry than the U.S.!

World Oil Consumption (2011): 85,980,000 barrels/day

Rank	Country/Region	Oil – consumption (bbl/day)	Date of information
–	World	85,980,000	2008 est.
1	United States of America	18,690,000	2009 est.
–	European Union	13,680,000	2007 est.
2	China	9,690,000	2011 est.
3	Japan	4,363,000	2009 est.
4	India	2,980,000	2009 est.
5	Russia	2,740,000	2009 est.
6	Brazil	2,460,000	2009 est.
7	Germany	2,437,000	2009 est.
8	Saudi Arabia	2,430,000	2009 est.
9	Korea, South	2,185,000	2009 est.
10	Canada	2,151,000	2009 est.
11	Mexico	2,078,000	2009 est.
12	France	1,875,000	2009 est.
13	Iran	1,700,000	2009 est.
14	United Kingdom	1,669,000	2009 est.
15	Italy	1,537,000	2009 est.
16	Spain	1,482,000	2009 est.
17	Indonesia	1,115,000	2009 est.
18	Australia	946,300	2009 est.
19	Netherlands	922,800	2009 est.
20	Taiwan	910,000	2009 est.
21	Singapore	878,000	2009 est.
22	Venezuela	740,000	2009 est.
23	Iraq	687,000	2009 est.
24	Egypt	683,000	2009 est.
25	Argentina	622,000	2009 est.
26	Belgium	608,200	2009 est.
27	Turkey	579,500	2009 est.
28	South Africa	579,000	2009 est.
29	Poland	545,400	2009 est.
30	Malaysia	536,000	2009 est.
31	United Arab Emirates	435,000	2009 est.
32	Greece	414,400	2009 est.
33	Pakistan	373,000	2009 est.
34	Hong Kong	359,000	2009 est.
35	Thailand	356,000	2009 est.
36	Ukraine	348,000	2009 est.
37	Sweden	328,100	2009 est.
38	Algeria	325,000	2009 est.
39	Kuwait	320,000	2009 est.
40	Philippines	313,000	2009 est.
41	Vietnam	302,000	2009 est.
42	Colombia	288,000	2009 est.
43	Libya	280,000	2009 est.
44	Nigeria	280,000	2009 est.
45	Switzerland	280,000	2009 est.
46	Chile	277,000	2009 est.
47	Austria	273,700	2009 est.
48	Portugal	272,200	2009 est.
49	Syria	252,000	2009 est.
50	Kazakhstan	241,000	2009 est.
51	Israel	231,000	2009 est.
52	Romania	214,000	2009 est.
53	Czech Republic	207,600	2009 est.
54	Finland	206,200	2009 est.
55	Norway	204,100	2009 est.
56	Morocco	187,000	2009 est.
57	Ecuador	181,000	2009 est.
58	Belarus	173,000	2009 est.
59	Cuba	169,000	2009 est.
60	Denmark	166,500	2009 est.
61	Ireland	164,600	2009 est.
62	Puerto Rico	164,100	2009 est.
63	Hungary	158,200	2009 est.
64	Peru	157,000	2009 est.
65	Yemen	155,000	2009 est.
66	New Zealand	154,100	2009 est.
67	Uzbekistan	145,000	2009 est.
68	Qatar	142,000	2009 est.
69	Azerbaijan	136,000	2009 est.
70	Bulgaria	125,000	2009 est.
71	Turkmenistan	120,000	2009 est.
72	Dominican Republic	118,000	2009 est.
73	Jordan	108,000	2009 est.
74	Croatia	106,000	2009 est.
75	Bangladesh	96,000	2009 est.
76	Panama	93,000	2009 est.
77	Lebanon	90,000	2009 est.
78	Serbia	90,000	NA
79	Sri Lanka	90,000	2009 est.
80	Tunisia	89,000	2009 est.
81	U.S. Virgin Islands	88,820	2009 est.
82	Oman	84,000	2009 est.
83	Sudan	84,000	2009 est.
84	Slovakia	79,930	2009 est.
85	Guatemala	79,000	2009 est.
86	Jamaica	77,000	2009 est.
87	Kenya	76,000	2009 est.
88	Lithuania	74,000	2009 est.
89	Angola	70,000	2009 est.
90	Netherlands Antilles	69,000	2009 est.
91	Slovenia	60,000	2009 est.
92	Bolivia	59,000	2009 est.
93	Cyprus	59,000	2009 est.
94	Ghana	57,000	2009 est.
95	Honduras	56,000	2009 est.
96	Luxembourg	50,720	2009 est.
97	Armenia	49,000	2009 est.
98	El Salvador	46,000	2009 est.
99	Costa Rica	44,000	2009 est.
100	Trinidad and Tobago	43,000	2009 est.
101	Burma	42,000	2009 est.
102	Latvia	40,000	2009 est.
103	Uruguay	40,000	2009 est.
104	Bahrain	39,000	2009 est.
105	Senegal	39,000	2009 est.
106	Ethiopia	38,000	2009 est.
107	Tajikistan	38,000	2009 est.
108	Albania	36,000	2009 est.
109	Papua New Guinea	36,000	2009 est.
110	Bahamas, The	36,000	2009 est.
111	Tanzania	34,000	2009 est.
112	Bosnia and Herzegovina	30,000	2009 est.
113	Estonia	30,000	2009 est.
114	Nicaragua	29,000	2009 est.
115	Paraguay	27,000	2009 est.
116	Cameroon	26,000	2009 est.
117	Côte d’Ivoire	24,000	2009 est.
118	West Bank	24,000	2009 est.
119	Benin	23,000	2009 est.
120	Mauritius	23,000	2009 est.
121	Namibia	22,000	2009 est.
122	Gibraltar	21,000	2009 est.
123	Togo	21,000	2009 est.
124	Madagascar	21,000	2009 est.
125	Macedonia	20,000	2009 est.
126	Mauritania	20,000	2009 est.
127	Malta	19,000	2009 est.
128	Moldova	19,000	2009 est.
129	Iceland	18,900	2009 est.
130	Mozambique	18,000	2009 est.
131	Nepal	18,000	2009 est.
132	Brunei	16,000	2009 est.
133	Zambia	16,000	2009 est.
134	Mongolia	16,000	2009 est.
135	Korea, North	16,000	2009 est.
136	Macau	16,000	2009 est.
137	Botswana	15,000	2009 est.
138	Kyrgyzstan	15,000	2009 est.
139	Gabon	14,000	2009 est.
140	Suriname	14,000	2009 est.
141	Georgia	13,000	2009 est.
142	Uganda	13,000	2009 est.
143	New Caledonia	13,000	2009 est.
144	Djibouti	12,000	2009 est.
145	Haiti	12,000	2009 est.
146	Fiji	11,000	2009 est.
147	Zimbabwe	11,000	2009 est.
148	Congo, Democratic Republic of the	10,000	2009 est.
149	Guyana	10,000	2009 est.
150	Congo, Republic of the	10,000	2009 est.
151	Barbados	9,000	2009 est.
152	Burkina Faso	9,000	2009 est.
153	Sierra Leone	9,000	2009 est.
154	Guinea	9,000	2009 est.
155	Aruba	8,000	2009 est.
156	Malawi	8,000	2009 est.
157	Belize	7,000	2009 est.
158	Seychelles	7,000	2009 est.
159	French Polynesia	7,000	2009 est.
160	Maldives	6,000	2009 est.
161	Rwanda	6,000	2009 est.
162	Niger	6,000	2009 est.
163	Mali	6,000	2009 est.
164	Afghanistan	5,000	2009 est.
165	Antigua and Barbuda	5,000	2009 est.
166	Bermuda	5,000	2009 est.
167	Somalia	5,000	2009 est.
168	Montenegro	5,000	2009 est.
169	Faroe Islands	5,000	2009 est.
170	Eritrea	5,000	2009 est.
171	American Samoa	4,000	2009 est.
172	Swaziland	4,000	2009 est.
173	Greenland	4,000	2009 est.
174	Liberia	4,000	2009 est.
175	Cambodia	4,000	2009 est.
176	Burundi	3,000	2009 est.
177	Cayman Islands	3,000	2009 est.
178	Saint Lucia	3,000	2009 est.
179	Laos	3,000	2009 est.
180	Guinea-Bissau	3,000	2009 est.
181	Grenada	3,000	2009 est.
182	Timor-Leste	2,500	NA
183	Cape Verde	2,000	2009 est.
184	Western Sahara	2,000	2009 est.
185	Solomon Islands	2,000	2009 est.
186	Central African Republic	2,000	2009 est.
187	Lesotho	2,000	2009 est.
188	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	2,000	2009 est.
189	Gambia, The	2,000	2009 est.
190	Bhutan	1,000	2009 est.
191	Vanuatu	1,000	2009 est.
192	Tonga	1,000	2009 est.
193	Sao Tome and Principe	1,000	2009 est.
194	Samoa	1,000	2009 est.
195	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	1,000	2009 est.
196	Saint Kitts and Nevis	1,000	2009 est.
197	Nauru	1,000	2009 est.
198	Montserrat	1,000	2009 est.
199	Cook Islands	1,000	2009 est.
200	Equatorial Guinea	1,000	2009 est.
201	Dominica	1,000	2009 est.
202	Comoros	1,000	2009 est.
203	British Virgin Islands	1,000	2009 est.
204	Chad	1,000	2009 est.
205	Falkland Islands	0	2009 est.
206	Turks and Caicos Islands	0	2009 est.
207	Saint Helena	0	2009 est.

Wasn’t the point of this article to argue for the principle of moderation?

We have now briefly discussed basic complexity and its factorial growth, some of the actors and events that shape our world and of course our lives, and an important element that takes part in all of these things whether we like it or not – energy: oil, natural gas, and coal.

It is easy to see how this complexity rapidly gets out of hand.  In “Complexity and the History of Economics” David Colander states:

“All economists know the economy is complex – very complex. That is one of the reasons why society needs economists – to try to make that complexity somewhat simpler and more understandable.”

Yet in practice this isn’t often the case at all – economics today has become a black art of sorts, a religion, with financial wizards and actuaries sitting in dark rooms among piles of statistics trying to fit all of this madness into one perfectly beautiful complex equation.

Even if you and I were not meant to understand such complex differential calculus, it doesn’t mean that one should cede control to those in black hats and to our leaders just because they say something is so and what the results will be.

We can and should learn enough of how the world works that we can see that partisan politics and its ilk should be put in the dustbin of history. We should be looking for moderate leaders who are either slightly left or slightly right of the political spectrum. Why?

If I was asked to sum it up in one sentence it would go something like:

“One party should be moderately oriented to social policies and liberal principles, the other should be moderately oriented to business policies and conservative principles.”

It is of course a little more complex than this, but it is a pragmatic observation for a number of reasons. Firstly, this allows the electorate to choose what course best suits the country at any given time, without putting any group into power that leans so much one way, they can only go in a circle. This kind of basic critical analysis should be a part of everyone’s thinking. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe it works just a little too well for a ruling class, wherever they may be and whomever they may lord over, that people are encouraged not to talk about politics? Remember the old saying, “Never talk about religion, politics, or yourself”?  I can agree with the first and the last ones because that blend of conversation tends to lean in one way so much that it too tends to make repetitive circles.

To encourage people to not talk about politics seems almost conspiratorial to me. If you are a living, eating, breathing human being you are part of politics – put three people in a room and you have politics. Some say, “I don’t do politics – but will talk about the lives of others and the nitty-gritty, sexy, sordid details of what it’s like to be a carnal human being.” You don’t think that’s politics? At least on an intimate level?

Moderation helps us temper the difficult nature of the complexities that lie ahead.

This is our world and it’s messy. We need to talk about these ideas so we are better informed and able to instruct our government on a practical course forward. Moderation helps us temper the difficult nature of the complexities that lie ahead – simply by admitting that no one can really know what tomorrow will bring for us individually or as a nation. We are all at the mercy of what the world throws at us.

In Canada for example S. Harper’s agenda to strip the Alberta Tar Sands at the fastest rate possible is a fool’s errand – and some environmental groups who want to stop all production of the Alberta Tar Sands, forever, are at the equally unbalanced opposite of the political spectrum. They are both operating from off-kilter and ill-thought-out observations of the real world as it functions today.

It should be easy for any thinking person to see that if in fact Canada is second place worldwide in proven oil reserves, and 97% of those reserves are tied up in the Alberta Tar Sands, then two conclusions can be drawn. First, the reserve should obviously be protected and not sold off to the world market as rapidly as we can get it out of the ground – I stated the argument for this earlier in this essay. Secondly, not protecting the Tar Sands would force Canada to invest incredible amounts of capital to tap whatever oil lies in the  North Atlantic/Arctic areas. This remaining unexplored territory is in some of the harshest and most difficult environmental conditions on Earth.

It should be noted that a recent Shell Oil deep-sea project cost more than three times the cost of the last Nasa Mars mission. The drilling platforms leased by oil companies are so large, complex, and specialized, that they  choose not to maintain these on their own and contract these platforms from other companies. The rental fees on these run to about a one million dollars a day U.S.. A recent drilling project was over 350 days late because of unforeseen drilling difficulties – 350 million dollars of unexpected costs.

These reserves often require driving through thousands of metres of frigid arctic water, and then drilling into the earth’s crust, releasing enormous pressures at first. These deep water operations are costly and technologically advanced missions.

So, moderation – what about it?

By now it should be easy to see a simple answer to a complex problem.

Energy use, population growth, social activism, politics, economics, capitalism: all things should be taken up in moderation.

We could be looking for moderate leaders who honestly acknowledge the complexities of the world we live in and in turn lead by being cognizant that moderation tempers this complexity. No one who is sure he/she knows the answer to all our problems, or is extremist about any of his/her positions, should be trusted, or given power.

Environmental groups could also practice moderation by focusing on helping energy projects get done with as much environmental and social responsibility as possible. Instead of being adversaries, environmentalists and corporations could be partners – working together with governments to ensure sustainable and fair development. Independent watchdogs are necessary! But positioning yourself as ready to fight to the death without compromise, as if you are in warfare, is not useful or helpful when people on ‘the other side’ might actually be ready to sit down and talk to you if you are reasonable and well-informed, and have solutions that are practical, not utopian.

As should be clear from the above discussion about population growth and future energy needs, stopping all production is utopian, i.e. unrealistic. Economic collapse and anarchy would ensue, and how many of us truly believe that would a good thing? Bring achievable, constructive solutions to the table. All the money oil companies spend on dealing with injunctions and lawsuits filed by environmental groups would be better spent on working together to get the job itself done right in the first place.

Oil companies, for their part, shouldn’t be forcing citizens to prove harmful effects on their water supply or land in court, and making gag orders part of their agreements with property owners. They should be taking immediate action to correct their technologies and methods if they are adversely affecting the communities they operate in. And governments could make sure they do – and make sure the long-term outcome is the most important focus for everyone.

The only thing we should be radical about is moderation.

Until next time,

R.

A small gallery showing the damage caused by rapid and unsafe development of our energy needs.

Enviromental damage from energy exploration

MIDDLE LAND, STATE OF PARA, AMAZON, BRAZILSeptember, 2004Illegal deforestation and land grabbing (grilagem) in the Middle Land, State of Pará© Greenpeace/ Alberto CésarGREENPEACE HANDOUT - NO RESALE - NO ARCHIVE - OKFOR ONLINE REPRO - CREDITLINE COMPULSORY
MIDDLE LAND, STATE OF PARA, AMAZON, BRAZILSeptember, 2004Illegal deforestation and land grabbing (grilagem) in the Middle Land, State of Pará© Greenpeace/ Alberto CésarGREENPEACE HANDOUT - NO RESALE - NO ARCHIVE - OK FOR ONLINE REPRO - CREDITLINE COMPULSORY

Source Unknown

image source

An Almost Made Up Poem

I see you drinking at a fountain with tiny
blue hands, no, your hands are not tiny
they are small, and the fountain is in France
where you wrote me that last letter and
I answered and never heard from you again.
you used to write insane poems about
ANGELS AND GOD, all in upper case, and you
knew famous artists and most of them
were your lovers, and I wrote back, it’ all right,
go ahead, enter their lives, I’ not jealous
because we’ never met. we got close once in
New Orleans, one half block, but never met, never
touched. so you went with the famous and wrote
about the famous, and, of course, what you found out
is that the famous are worried about
their fame –– not the beautiful young girl in bed
with them, who gives them that, and then awakens
in the morning to write upper case poems about
ANGELS AND GOD. we know God is dead, they’ told
us, but listening to you I wasn’ sure. maybe
it was the upper case. you were one of the
best female poets and I told the publishers,
editors, “ her, print her, she’ mad but she’
magic. there’ no lie in her fire.” I loved you
like a man loves a woman he never touches, only
writes to, keeps little photographs of. I would have
loved you more if I had sat in a small room rolling a
cigarette and listened to you piss in the bathroom,
but that didn’ happen. your letters got sadder.
your lovers betrayed you. kid, I wrote back, all
lovers betray. it didn’ help. you said
you had a crying bench and it was by a bridge and
the bridge was over a river and you sat on the crying
bench every night and wept for the lovers who had
hurt and forgotten you. I wrote back but never
heard again. a friend wrote me of your suicide
3 or 4 months after it happened. if I had met you
I would probably have been unfair to you or you
to me. it was best like this.

Charles Bukowski