Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones)
Date: 12 Nov 1996 13:14:23 GMT
bds@ipp-garching.mpg.de (Bruce Scott TOK ) wrote:
>Mike Asher (masher@tusc.net) wrote:
>: As an aside, I will note that the majority of agricultural land in the
>: world is farmed with low-tech inefficient methods. Expantion of the use of
>: modern agriculture, new species, and good infrastructure, can more than
>: double world food production. All without an additional acre being farmed,
>: though, in the US at least, agricultural land usage has been on the decline
>: for many years. Perhaps you have some statistics here?
>
>You are welcome to calculate the increase of the crude oil drawdown rate
>if the rest of the world farms the way the US does.
There is nothing here about the rest of the world farming "the way the
US does." Feeding chemical fed corn to cattle is a singularly stupid
way of both using land and feeding people.
The major hindrances to the productivity of land are the lack of
potassium and of nitrogen. The United States burned its eastern
forests to export potash to Europe, then conquered the Pacific to get
the islands it authorised itself to seize under the Guano ct of 1899.
Modern agriculture -- modern, not American, being Asher's keyword --
replaces these olde tyme moves with the simple strewing of phosphate
rock, available in vast quantities in Saskatchewan, Idaho, California,
Peru, and elsewhere.
In American agriculture the main source of nitrogen is ammonia, which
used to be made out of electricity, and is today made more cheaply
from natural gas. This is not the only way of doing it. India and
China both built large populations on small land areas by planting
nitrogen fixing plants, lentils and soybeans, respectively.
It will be a quick fix, literally, in Sudan once the civil war ends,
to alternate soybeans with millet on the Bor uplands. This will mean
an immediate, cheap, and huge improvement of productivity; the
necessary survey work has already been done, by satellite, and is on
file on the Internet at University of Arizona. My partner's family,
those who have not been murdered by the government, own some of the
land, and bide their time in universities in Europe, Canada, Botswana.
I think there is an automatic Nobel Prize in either chemistry of peace
for the person who comes up with the nitrogen-fixing grain, tuber, or
fruit tree. As genetic engineering -- think of it as a new kind of
biodiversity -- proceeds, I expect these prizes to be claimed over the
next few years.
-dlj.
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: Steinn Sigurdsson
Date: 12 Nov 1996 14:36:29 +0000
ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) writes:
> Steinn Sigurdsson (steinn@sandy.ast.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
> : ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) writes:
> : >
> : > Maybe things will get better in the future, as you say. But things
> : > will have to get _much_ better before the price of fish falls to, say,
> : > its 1935 level. Back then, fish was two and a half times cheaper than
> : > it is today, relative to the CPI. Even since 1970, the price of fish
> : > has gone up 40% faster than overall inflation. "We're running out
> : > of fish" doesn't seem like such a bad summary to me.
> : Ah, the price of _what_ fish, where?
> : Are you comparing sardines in the Bay
> : Area or salmon in London?
> These figures are from the Consumer Price Index, so it's the price
> of fish in supermarkets in US metro areas. It's a weighted average
> of all types of fish, and includes products like canned tuna.
> Also, I could have been clearer about how I calculated these figures.
> From 1970-1995, overall inflation was 393%, while the price of fish
> rose 548%. I quoted 548/393 = 1.4, or a 40% higher relative price.
Those will then include a different bunch of fish
in the initial and final figures. Eg in the 80's significant
amount fresh fish was airlifted to restaurants on the East
Coast, at a considerable premium, a practise that would
have been unthinkable in 1970.
Penetration of ocean fish to markets in the central US
increased, as did market penetration of prepared fish,
both practises involve higher cost retail in exchange
for consumer convenience.
A number of different species of fish were introduced to
US markets in that interval, some "exotics" that again
commanded a premium price.
Finally, exchange rates fluctuated in the interval,
and a fair chunk of US consumption is imported.
BTW, there has been substantial technological improvement
in fist cathcing. This has been dampened both by high
capital cost of replacing equipment, and, more significantly,
very high subsidies of inefficient fisheries by many nations.
Subject: part 38: vince foster, the NSA, and bank spying
From: "J. Orlin Grabbe"
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 10:53:50 -0800
Part 38: Allegations Regarding Vince
Foster, the NSA, and Banking
Transactions Spying
by J. Orlin Grabbe
(continued from Part 37)
What answers Jim Leach's House Committee on
Banking and Financial Services received from the
National Security Agency's (NSA's) Inspector General is
not known, but apparently the NSA stonewalled the
investigation. On July 23, 1995, Gregory Wierzynski
emailed me, asking "Do you have suggestions on how we
could verify some of the elements in the Norman story?
I've talked to Chuck in Kentucky and am still in touch
with him. But his stories have not panned out, even
partially. I would be most interested in your ideas." I
found this statement remarkable, and knew that
Wierzynski was being deliberately obtuse. Moreover,
neither I--nor anyone else of my acquaintance--had told
Wierzynski that I was talking to Chuck Hayes in Nancy,
Kentucky.
Jim Norman had first suggested that I call Hayes--
had even implied that Hayes wanted me to call--but
initially I had been reluctant to do so. There were enough
people trying to get me off the Internet, and I was dubious
of the motives of an ex-intelligence operative. But when I
finally did so, we spent a hour and twenty minutes on the
phone in a wide-ranging conversation about money-
laundering. I jumped around from topic to topic, bringing
up numerous obscure connections between the
intelligence community and banking. In each case Hayes
was right there with me, adding details to what we were
discussing. From time to time I would make deliberate
mis-statements to see if Hayes would catch the
discrepancies. He did. By the end of the conversation it
did not matter to me whether Chuck Hayes was just a
hillbilly Kentucky junk dealer or an ex-member of CIA's
division D. His knowledge spoke for itself. He had an
intimate acquaintance with banking wire transfers, bank
computer operations, and banking-intelligence
connections, as well as detailed insights into current
hidden money-laundering channels.
Hayes was already familiar with my article *The
End of Ordinary Money*. He said he had gotten his copy
from the CIA library. The CIA had apparently either
downloaded it from the Internet, or perhaps had obtained
it through Robert Steele. Eric Bloodaxe, a.k.a. Chris
Goggans, an ex-Legion of Doom member who edited a
hacker publication called *Phrack*, had suggested I sent
copies to Winn Schwartau of *Information Warfare* fame,
and to Robert Steele, whose company Open Source
Solutions, Inc., published a newsletter entitled *OSS
Notices*, which advocated some radical changes to the
process of intelligence collection. Steele had reviewed
them as follows: "J. Orlin Grabbe has produced the first
two in a series of three papers on digital cash, and I found
them both educational and provocative. . . . He
approaches the matter from a civil libertarian/civil
disobedience perspective, and I find his perspective on the
history of U.S. policy and technology, as well as the
alternatives, well-worth review. This is a thoughtful
popular perspective on issues of electronic privacy which
bears on both the protection of intellectual property and
electronic civil defense" (*OSS Notices*, vol. 3, issue 5,
May 31, 1995).
Chuck and I had some differences, to be sure.
Hayes was spending much of his time tracking drug-
money laundering through the U.S. financial system. I
looked at the War on Drugs from an economic
perspective: supply restriction leading to vast profit
margins, with concomitant political payoffs and political
corruption, while in the meantime prisons were being
over-crowded with casual drug users. It was an exercise
in insanity. Nor was I a fan of the DEA, with its record of
civil rights violations. Hayes, by contrast, liked the DEA
for their street smarts, which contrasted with the desk-
level bureaucrats he was somewhat contemptuous of at
the CIA. But Hayes was gunning for the people at the top
of the drug-dealing and money-laundering pyramid, and
this was fine with me. There was a close association
between those administering the War on Drugs, and those
profiting from it. In the case of money-laundering, it was
even more blatant: it was hard to differentiate the money
launderers from those that administered the money-
laundering laws. I did not approve of the money-
laundering laws themselves with their invasions of
personal financial privacy. But on the other hand, hoisting
government junkies on their own petard did not perturb
me. Over a period of time, Hayes and I developed an
information-sharing arrangement.
Hayes was at the moment following the financial
flows through Arkansas financial institutions, as well as
through Mellon Bank in Pittsburgh. Also involved were
New York banks, some members of the Chicago
Mercantile Exchange, and at least one important official
at the Federal Reserve. On the Arkansas front, Hayes was
quite open in telling me he was going to nail Jim Guy
Tucker to the wall, and over the following year I watched
him do just that. One might assume from such a
statement that Hayes was a Republican, out to get
Democrats. But in fact Hayes' father had been a local
Democrat party official, and Hayes had been a friend and
admirer of John Kennedy. Hayes was not political in that
sense, any more than I was.
Some people have a strange habit of trying to
interpret everything in political terms. When I first spoke
to Sarah McClendon, she asked me, "Why are people
saying all these things about Clinton, and they aren't
saying anything about George Bush?" I refused to bite. I
told her I didn't give a shit about the difference between
Republicans and Democrats--that this was about
criminality, not about partisan politics. Some people--
Republican or Democrat--are honest, and some are not.
Sarah herself kept referring to the Clintons (Bill and Hill)
as "virgins," which amused me to no end. But my interest
was not partisan, and never has been.
In a contrary vein, Jack Blum, who recently joined
Jim Leach's House Committee on Banking as an
investigator (and who quickly recommended they drop
their Mena investigation), told Marianne Gasior that I was
a right-wing nut because of what I had written about Bill
and Hillary Clinton. Marianne said, "I don't think so,"
and read off my resume. Blum's response: "You're
kidding." Gasior was politically a liberal Democrat, and
when she was pursuing a case against Kennametal, which
had done business with Iraq during the Gulf War, she
received some support from Democrat politicians,
because the issue was embarrassing to Republican
interests. *Time Magazine* did a write-up of her efforts ("A
Matter of Honor," June 21, 1993). But when she began to
ask questions about what Hillary Clinton was doing on
the board of Lafarge Corporation, which was part of the
same smuggling network, Democrat support for her
research quickly evaporated (see "Whatever Happened to
Iraqgate?", *The American Spectator*, November 1996.)
To the average political hack, partisanship always takes
precedence over the search for truth.
In Wierzynski's case, while supposedly
investigating money-laundering for the House Committee,
he seemed to be actually serving other interests--perhaps
the Pentagon's, perhaps someone else's. Hayes had come
up with financial records showing that fifty to seventy
million dollars a day of drug-related money was being
laundered through the institutions he was looking at.
Wierzynski couldn't understand how such a thing was
possible. He wanted "proof" in a neat little package, say a
memo entitled "Today's Money-Laundering Report". He
seemed to expect to ask a few questions, and then *voila!*--
the darkest secrets of American political life would be
exposed. So it is not surprising that Wierzynski's
investigation had gone nowhere before Jack Blum arrived
to call the whole thing off. Meanwhile, Wierzynski's son,
in school in England, had been indicted for supplying
information to a group of Russian hackers in St.
Petersburg, who had pulled off a heist of Citibank funds.
Both Wierzynski and Stephen Gannis, the Counsel
for the House Committee on Banking and Finance, were in
touch with a San Francisco attorney named Charles O.
Morgan. Systematics (now a subsidiary of Alltel) had
hired Morgan to lie about its relationship to the NSA, and
Morgan proceeded to do just that. In an April 5, 1995,
letter to Michael Geltner, an attorney for Agora, Inc.,
Morgan wrote: "None of ALLTEL's operations or
subsidiaries has ever had any connection in any capacity
with the Central Intelligence Agency, the National
Security Agency, or any other similar agency in the
United States Government; . . ." But recent documents
obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by *The
Washington Weekly* from NSA show that, for example,
that "The Arkansas-based security contractor Systematics
Inc. on September 14, 1990 was awarded a $166,000 NSA
contract to build a 'Sensitive Compartmented Information
Facility' (SCIF) in Ft. Gillem, Georgia" (*The Washington
Weekly*, Nov. 11, 1996).
Morgan similarly denied any connection between
Web Hubbell and Systematics, writing, "Webster Hubbell
never served as an attorney or in any other capacity for
ALLTEL Corporation, or for any of its operations or
subsidiaries, other than a single instance in 1983, when
Systematics, Inc., engaged Mr. Hubbell to pursue a
competitor that was using Systematics, Inc.'s propriety
software without authorization; . . ." But it is a matter of
public record that when in 1978 Jackson Stephens tried to
take over First American bank (later acquired by BCCI),
that the bank sued Systematics along with BCCI, Bert
Lance, and Jackson Stephens. Filing briefs for
Systematics were Webster Hubbell, along with C.J. Giroir
and Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Hubbell subsequently went
to the Justice Department, and then to jail, after receiving
a $500,000 payment for unspecified legal services from
Indonesia's Lippo Group. C.J. Giroir left the Rose Law
Firm and set up a consulting firm to arrange deals
between the Lippo Group and Arkansas-based firms.
Hillary Clinton recently declared her friendship for ex-
Lippo employee and Democrat fund-raiser John Huang,
and was also indicted by grand juries in Little Rock and in
New York in October 1996. These indictments have not
yet been made public.)
But the non-pursuit of the drug-money laundering
trail by the Leach Committee was not surprising. It
stepped on too many toes. Hayes and I agreed that the
U.S. was being rapidly transformed into a narco-republic.
The drug cartels had penetrated the highest levels of the
Justice Department and the FBI, elements of the
intelligence community, and were additionally bribing a
broad assortment of state and federal government
employees and politicians. Even more alarming, the
cartels were now making inroads into the White House.
And the Clinton administration, with lax security
stemming largely from a variety of drug-related issues,
along with a pre-existing legacy of political corruption in
Arkansas, had created a free-for-all playground for
foreign agents. Everything was for sale, from trade policy
to nuclear codes. Moreover, Bill Clinton (or perhaps those
he surrounded himself with, while he partied on the side)
was making rapid progress in turning the FBI and the
Secret Service into a private political police force--a
Gestapo whose duty was to investigate and harass (and
even kill) his political opponents, and to cover up
evidence of his own bad deeds.
Extraordinary times required extraordinary
measures. Enter the Fifth Column.
(to be continued)
November 12, 1996
Web Page: http://www.aci.net/kalliste/
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: brshears@whale.st.usm.edu (Harold Brashears)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 19:21:15 GMT
l.mcfadden@mail.utexas.edu (Loretta McFadden) wrote for all to see:
>Mike wrote:
>
>> >Tremendous increases, although the curve is obviously approaching an
>> >asymptote. Rice, another staple, has recently seen the introduction of new
>> >high-yield species and is increasing along similar lines. Dozens of
>> >companies are creating new species of fruits and vegetables; expect another
>> >yield explosion here within the next decade.
>
>OK - I promise to butt out after this - in fact I don't think I'll be able
>to stand reading this outdated debate. Mike, why are you acting as if the
>"Green Revolution" hasn't been debunked years ago?
Really, who debunked it and when? If this were the case, would we not
be seeing declining yields/acre? Do you have evidence of this, or do
you consider your assertion sufficient? See "world Crop Production",
USDA/FAS, WCP 5-87, May, 1987 or "World Agricultural Production",
WAP-1-91, Jan 1991.
>Why are you ignoring the real reason farmland is declining in this country
>(ie: being covered in suburpia) - because so much of it has lost it's
>value as farmland, thanks to the ignorant short-term strip-mining approach
>of petro-chemical farming?
USDA has been studying soil erosion for years, and would like nothing
more than to prove it to be a large problem, and hence generator of
programs for them to administer. Their survey found the average loss
to be 7 tons a year per acre of farmland, while natural regeneration
runs at 5 tons a year/acre. Call it a net loss of 2 tons per acre.
Two tons an acre is 1/65 of an inch. Thus, in 65 years, the average
farmland will lose 1 inch of topsoil. Assuming it has been farmed the
entire 65 years. Some fallow years will make up for this loss.
>Hey - even the popular press (GASP) has heard
>the news. Much of the best farmland in this country eroded into the ocean
>years ago. Biggest question of all - why are you on this list? Is it just
>to bait people who acknowledge these facts?
I don't know about Mike, but I understand your arguments. You make
assertions, present no references, state that even the press agrees
with you (like that's a good reference!), then question the motive of
the character of the previous poster. Too typically an example of
modern postings on the net.
>Betsy
Is your name Loretta or Betsy? Or both?
Regards, Harold
----
"Monster one minute. Food the next."
Kiakshuk, Inuit Hunter
Subject: Re: Inequality and Stratification.
From: Roy_Langston@mindlink.bc.ca (Roy Langston)
Date: Tue, 12 Nov 1996 11:04:11 -0800
In article <568s8l$jm7@earth.alpha.net>, jeblair@earth.execpc.com (Je
Blair) wrote:
> Thus wealth (assets-liabilities) is the integral of net income (money in -
> money out) over time. Or to look at it the other way, income is the
> derivative of wealth. But none of this really answers the question of which
> is the BETTER measure of economic well being.
It does if you are paying attention...
> This is basically a
> subjective judgment; but I think the men/women example in the post
> indicates that most people think income is the better measure.
They are simply and totally wrong. Would you be better off with an income
of $1 million a year, and have to pay every penny, year after year, as
part of a court settlement, or for an expensive medical treatment? Or
would it be better to have absolutely _no_ income, but $1 billion in
assets to spend as you wish?
It would be difficult to understate the intellectual capacities of someone
who thinks income is a better measure of economic well-being than assets.
> ASSETS as a LIABILITY?
>
> You challenged my suggestion that in certain cases, what is normally
> considered an asset can be a liability. And yes, this does on the surface
> appear to be a contradiction. But I will stick by my claim and give some
> additional examples.
>
> A. Porgy and Bess, Act 1, Scene 2: In the song "I got plenty o' nuttin'",
> Porgy explains that he is happy that his life is not burdened by material
> possessions. "the folks with plenty of plenty got to keep a lock on the
> door. Afraid somedody's agoin' to rob'em while dey's out amakin' more."
> (dare I post this on sci.econ??)
"Freedom's just another word for nothin' left to lose." Sure. But
freedom != economic well-being.
> B. From my original post: an elderly couple with a low income who own their
> own home with no desire to move. The more the value of their house
> increases, the higher their property tax bill, and the less they have to
> spend. For them, the richer they are, the less they can afford. This is
> especially a problem in Wisconsin where a modest home can have property
> taxes of $3-4,000 per year, and is rising rapidly every year.
More of the same old shell game. The elderly couple have _chosen_ what
they want to spend their money on: their property taxes. If that does not
suit them, let them get a reverse mortgage, or arrange for deferment of
their taxes until they pass away or no longer want the house.
Would you whine about someone's poverty if they wanted to spend all their
money on drugs, but government operations were increasing the price out of
reach? What if they were living on their own 200-foot yacht, and the
maintenance costs were eating up all their income? Would you still claim
that they are not well-off?
> C. Landlords in a rent controlled area often cannot charge enough rent to
> cover their property tax bill, and cannot evict the tenants.
??? The problem is rent control, not property taxes. Can this really be
so difficult to understand? Suppose the official price of grain is set
well below the minimum cost of production (as it is in some countries):
would you complain about the cost of land, the cost of seed, the cost of
fertilizer, the cost of labour, but never mention the
_price_control_?????????
> David Suskin
> had a program on this many years ago in NY City. He was trying to show how
> selfish slumlords are when one of them offered to sell him an apartment
> building (assessed value hundreds of thousands of dollars) for one dollar.
> He refused the offer.
There is an additional irrationality in NYC: improvements are taxed at
twice the rate of land. This policy is guaranteed to produce slums. One
study estimated that if this tax ratio were to be reversed, NYC would be
totally free of dilapidated buildings within 10 years.
> E."It is harder for a rich man to get into Heaven than for a camel to pass
> through the eye of a needle". Will great wealth be a asset on Judgement
> Day?
We're not talking about Judgment Day. We're talking about Tax Day.
> FAMILY vs PERSON
>
> Finally, in judging economic well being, should income (or wealth) figures
> be used on a per person or a per family basis. I argue for family, to avoid
> the problem of many people (children and non-working spouses) who are well
> off but have no income. You say this will give tax incentives for people to
> marry (or more likely today to NOT marry--see "the economics of marriage on
> my web page).
>
> But I am just considering the question of what kind of statistics to
> consider when evaluating economic well being. This does not imply any
> POLICY positions about how to IMPROVE it.
Probably the best way is to measure the per-person spending (_not_ income)
of each family unit that shares expenses.
-- Roy Langston
Subject: Re: The Limits To Growth
From: ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin)
Date: 12 Nov 1996 20:32:19 GMT
Steinn Sigurdsson (steinn@sandy.ast.cam.ac.uk) wrote:
: ssusin@emily11.Berkeley.EDU (Scott Susin) writes:
: > These figures are from the Consumer Price Index, so it's the price
: > of fish in supermarkets in US metro areas. It's a weighted average
: > of all types of fish, and includes products like canned tuna.
: > Also, I could have been clearer about how I calculated these figures.
: > From 1970-1995, overall inflation was 393%, while the price of fish
: > rose 548%. I quoted 548/393 = 1.4, or a 40% higher relative price.
: Those will then include a different bunch of fish
: in the initial and final figures. Eg in the 80's significant
: amount fresh fish was airlifted to restaurants on the East
: Coast, at a considerable premium, a practise that would
: have been unthinkable in 1970.
The fact that the basket of fish changes implies that the
price change is _understated_. If people hadn't compensated
for the price increase by switching to cheaper fish,
the index would have increased by more than 40%.
Also, the index I quoted doesn't include restaurant food
(that's why I described it as "the price of fish in
supermarkets").
: Penetration of ocean fish to markets in the central US
: increased, as did market penetration of prepared fish,
: both practises involve higher cost retail in exchange
: for consumer convenience.
I doubt that this effects the CPI. I think you're
confusing the price level with price changes.
: A number of different species of fish were introduced to
: US markets in that interval, some "exotics" that again
: commanded a premium price.
You misunderstand how new goods are introduced into the CPI.
Expensive new varieties of fish won't increase the index,
unless they are also _increasing_ in price rapidly.
: Finally, exchange rates fluctuated in the interval,
: and a fair chunk of US consumption is imported.
This is totally irrelevant. The CPI people check out
the price of fish in retail establishments, and
don't make any distinction between domestic and
imported.
: BTW, there has been substantial technological improvement
: in fist cathcing. This has been dampened both by high
: capital cost of replacing equipment, and, more significantly,
: very high subsidies of inefficient fisheries by many nations.
--
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Scott Susin "Time makes more converts than
Department of Economics Reason"
U.C. Berkeley Thomas Paine, _Common_Sense_