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Money is a symbol- a direct symbol for wealth of any variety at all- food, land, time, machines, services etc.– and isn’t a ‘real’ thing in and of itself. Created because it helped facilitate trade between ‘wealth-creators’ of different varieties, it allowed a shoemaker to get bread from baker who already has shoes. Its a fairly simple concept, really, and one which truly did facilitate efficiency- as long as money was viewed and understood as the symbol that it was. A problem occurs when you separate the symbolic from the actual- the symbolic becomes capable acting in an opposite fashion to it’s actual.

Now enters the conception of ‘compounding interest’ - the backbone of capitalism of all stripes. The idea is that money accumulates more money around it, and the more money there is, the more money it can accumulate faster. this is a concept which works quite well, and makes sense, in mathematical principle.

in nature, however, a different rule prevails– the laws of entropy. every system is slowly decaying, and requires ‘work’ of some variety to keep it where it is. this is inherently opposite to the laws of compounding interest, and yet the symbol of money is meant to represent physical wealth.

how did the process of symbolism allow for a complete reversal of the natural order? i’m not sure what the historical imperative for this development was, but i find it extremely curious, and wonder if anyone has any insight for me …

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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today saw a small announcement, gobbled up by the constant newsreel and spit out onto marginalized and fairly unlinked and unheadlined pages, regarding the abandonment of the windfall profits tax as a way to generate tax revenue to pay for the social spending which obama’s campaign constantly promised.
look in any of the business websites to see the response of the money and powerful– glee, ebulation, disdain for the rhetoric of the measure as a ‘populist way to cozy up with American voters and never a real policy issue’.
people will say ‘oh, but gas is below $50 a barrel now, how can we charge a windfall tax on them, they’re hurting during this downturn as well– the only problem with that logical reasoning is that they filled their coffers with record breaking profits 6 consecutive quarters, when dollars were cheap and plentiful, and during this downturn will use that expanded wealth to even greater self benefit. during a deflationary period, those that gained immediately before gain a second time; you make money when its cheap, and loan it out when its expensive… simple supply and demand. the current economic state is even more reason to punish those profiteers that accrued so much wealth during the 90s and early part of the new millennium on the backs of credit-card obsessed americans— if we don’t punish them for their crimes during those periods, they become exponentially more powerful when their gains are made concrete by lowered levels of cash flow in their competitors and dissenters.

but obama doesnt see it like that, and he doesnt have an economic team which sees beyond the dow jones industrial average.

moreover, without that kind of revenue stream, how can you expect to pay for the large scale infrastructure changes, much needed r+d on renewables, or any of the other grand plans paraded before the american people?

read the story of victor paz– president elected in bolivia in 1985 on campaign promises of social programs, infrastructure update, and progressive social policies. once elected, he convened a high and mighty economic team, which went through every line of the budget, cutting the programs that didnt work [social spending] and improving the ons that did [by privitizing them].

please watch out president elect very carefully, as it seems that each time he’s made a decision, it has gone against the rhetoric of his campaign, the very nature of the independent movements he co opted to get elected, and the best interests of the vast majority of american’s who voted for him.

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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The comparisons between Obama and FDR seem to come easily to people—populist politicians who utilize advanced technologies to galvanize the people around them, men who’ve come into power during incredibly challenging times, and against incredible odds. Many of these comparisons imply a connection between their political agenda’s, but the connection is tenuous at best, and duplicitous at worst.
In witnessing Obama’s Transition Economic Advisory Board, we’re witnessing the first stages of the coalescence of Obama’s ideas into action, and a preview as to the direction his administration will take. This group of 17 has been presented as the intellectual wellspring from which our countries problems will be solved, and has been often likened to FDR’s brain trust. Unfortunately, other than being economic advisors to a president-elect during the interregnum, there isn’t much comparable about the groupings.
Roosevelt’s brain trust was comprised of scholars, economists, labor activists, proponents of grassroots agriculture, and intellectuals interested in the Soviet experiment. In comparison, Obama’s collection is entirely Washington insiders, Wall St. bankers, and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, some of whom can be argued have been essential to the deregulation which led to the financial breakdown itself.
On the Board, and also shortlisted for Treasury Secretary, is Larry Summers, made famous for his actions in disassembling Glass-Steagall as Treasury Secretary for Clinton in the 90s. An ardent supportor of open market free trade and globalization, he angered people around the world when he asserted that developed countries should export their pollution to less developed nations because the economic impact of the people’s sickness or death would be less damaging to the international economy. He also believes that women are genetically inferior in terms of science and math, and perhaps most damning of all, also sat on an Economic Advisory Board for Reagan in the 80s.
Try to compare that to Felix Frankfurter, the supreme court judge who founded the ACLU and advocated for the recognition of the newly formed Soviet Union.
This weekend is the big economic summit in Washington, and while Obama declined his invite to attend, he’s sending Madeleine Albright and Jim Leach. While Summers was Treasury Secretary, the law which destroyed Glass-Steagall was created by, and named after, Jim Leach. [please see Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act of 1999]. Albright, in a slightly different angle, has been hawkish to the point of embarrassment, quoting herself as saying to Colin Powell, “What’s the point of you saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can’t use it? She was also forced to resign from the Genocide Prevention Task Force after she wouldn’t recognize the Armenian Genocide. Just to top this all of, and connect it to her economic leanings, she’s currently serving on the Board of Directors at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Specifics aside, the generalizations of the groups say it all—Obama has succeded in compiling a group with a complete uniformity of opinion— laissez-faire politics, rampant globalization, hawkish tendencies, and a dedication to serving the private good.

This isn’t the change we need. In fact, looking at how many have sat as Treasury Secretary since the Reagan era, it doesn’t seem like change at all.

Obama’s Team
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/nov/07/barack-obama-teab-advisors
FDR’s Brain Trust
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Trust

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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Too Big to fail. Its a phrase uttered regarding some of the financial giants in our midst during their most trying times, and it was true, to a point. Any company employing thousands, with shareholders beyond those numbers, and its credit default swaps on other companies balance sheets , is too big to fail- their destruction can produce fallout affecting hundreds of other businesses in similarly fragile positions, bringing down a whole sector of the economy. The automakers are within that realm, and they seem to be the next probable recipient of our public money.

Rescuing the financial sector, if it had been done properly, could have eased the us into the period deflation which seems imminent, cushioning the weakening balance sheets of the entire web of CDS, CDO, and CLO markets all over the world. Unfortunately, that hasn’t been the case, and the bailout money has been the largest heist in history. We need to learn from our previous mistakes in order to avoid repeating them, and the auto industry may give us that opportunity.

In a system where someone is going to pour in money, and lots of it, lets consider what the most effective investment should be. In this instance, those shareholders are the unwilling citizens and the government which will be on the hook for the bet it made. The bailout money can’t be handed out as dividend. The bailout money can’t be used to buy weaker rivals. The bailout money can’t be hoarded in outside investment. The bailout money can’t be used to pay off existing high interest debt.

We need to ensure that the bailout dollars are used in a multi durational strategy- short term by keeping employed their most vulnerable, but truly focused on effecting the long term future of the company by investing in its success in new developments. There is a way to do this which falls directly in line with the described direction of the incoming administration.

If you’re going to bailout GM, you’re should do it by reviving the fully electric car. In the late 90s GM developed a fully electric car which had the base necessary to create a new electric driving structure in this country. I’m not going to go into details on why the EV1 and the fully electric car is a world improving innovation, ‘Who Killed The Electric Car’ does an excellent job of that, instead I’m just going to call it out as the necessary kind of innovation needed to create a new kind of business model for GM to run on.

In one swoop we can save an ailing giant in this country, and inspire it to change in order to avoid long term catastrophe. There are some other elements which would put this effort on strong footing, a policy framework to surround this kind of action which can increase its efficacy.
Similar to the Clean Air act in California in the 90s, we require any automaker who wants to sell cars in America to produce and sell a certain percentage of them as fully emission less.
Next you impose a stepped duty and taxation structure that encourages the sale of domestic fully electric cars, and discourages foreign combustion cars.
Then you establish the creation of the charging infrastructure as a new kind of public works program– there will be a lot of gas stations to convert in a short period of time.

I’ve read speculation that Obama won’t be able to enact his ‘green collar revolution’ because of the massive spending outlays of these bailout packages, but here is a perfect opportunity to capitalize on the confluence of forces. The clean air act, new taxation and duties, and public works programs for infrastructure change are possible, especially during times when crisis makes the politically impossible, politically inevitable.

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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During the first three months of FDR’s presidency, he made so many sweeping changes, so quickly, that the period has been memorialized in capitalization as ‘The Hundred Days’. Books are written, lectures given, arguments had about this brief [but fecund] legislative period 70 years ago focused policy and action on the people of the country, the ‘Forgotten Men’.
That time period looked like this one- there is political will for change, and a leader who’s [stated] mission is to challenge the status quo and wage a class war for redistribution along more equitable lines.
My contention has always been that there are 5 pieces of paper, which if signed into law with a framework around them, could better the world the same ways creating the minimum wage, establishing the FDIC, generating public works programs, and removing the rampant speculation from commercial banking [Glass-Steigal]. In no particular order…

- 1- Take the cap off of social security
- 2- Shift agricultural subsidies
- 3- Enact a windfall profits tax on oil and gas
- 4- Moratorium on home foreclosure
- 5- Increase protectionist duties

1- Right now, a person making $105,000 a year pays the same amount into Social Security as someone who makes $15,000,000 a year. If you were to remove that cap, and replace is with a regressive tax rate from $105k upwards, you could create a Social Security surplus with ease.
2- Our agricultural subsidy policy goes something like this “hey farmer, we’re going to pay you to grow corn. No matter what the market price is, we’re going to pay you money on top of it— that action is going to continue to push down prices ad infinitum [which will slowly bankrupt you, because we’re going to set a lower target price every year.] Also, it’ll function as a subsidy for High Fructose Corn Syrup, which has been definitively linked to Type2 Diabetes and obesity.” Instead, I think we should establish a subsidy for ‘organic’ farmers, for farmers growing multiple simultaneous crops [active polyculture], and an additional subsidy for crops which get to the consumer within 200 miles of the farm [those would probably go to distributors, and not farmers]
3- The primary reason that gas is so expensive is because speculators have taken the energy market over. Every month for the last 7, the secretary general of OPEC has said that production is more than enough to meet demand, and that market prices are being driven skyward by greedy speculators on the mercantile exchange. Also, while your gas tank sits empty and your local stores prices for freight increase to the point that you can no longer afford the goods, Exxon Mobile has made the largest corporate profits every quarter for several years running. Let’s enact a Windfall profits tax on the oil and gas industries- we can use the money to fund alternative energy development, and it’ll scare those speculators out of the game, reducing the gas at the pump back down to market levels.
4- The financial crisis we’re in has been jump started by the bursting of a housing bubble, and subsequent foreclosure rate increases- I’ve written about this previously—and now we’re in the beginnings of a serious recession. Let’s put a moratorium on home foreclosure- it’ll heal the banks balance sheets and give them an income stream [which will be good for us taxpayers, considering we’re about to buy 700billion in stock in those companies]. It’ll keep people in their houses and off of social welfare programs, and it’ll instill confidence in the country that the govt is going to step in an *help people* in that ways that it can.
5- We continue to see that good jobs get shipped overseas, and industries in America become fewer each year. Let’s enact some protectionist duties to help keep our industry where it is- having too great a distance between the market and the means of production has never made good business sense. With only slight increases to our national duty rates on frozen food, textiles, and machine goods, etc. we could be competitive with the rest of the world again. The product is only cheap because the labor is cheap, so if we use our duty rates to make it so that at the same price as its being manufactured in Pakistan and shipped to Los Angeles, it could be manufactured in South Carolina, then business will adapt to that model.

All of these kinds of solution are based on historical precedent and current need. The country is faced with an enormous number of challenges, and our next political leader will have a widespread mandate to ‘provide the change we need’, and we need to make sure that these are the kinds of changes that occur.

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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ahhh, the reliable journalism of the nytimes, consistently helping the pervailing forces of our government make arguments for American occupation of remote countries has begun to strike up the band in an effort to legitimize pressure for US led unilateral action in Pakistan.
In an article by staff writer Jane Perlez, we’re presented with ‘facts on ground’ which document how feebly the Pakistani government is managing to combat the pervasive threats from the Taliban in the tribal regions of their nation.
She compares the plan being enacted to the ‘largely successful Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq’, but says thats the Pakistani counterpart hasnt been as effective, because unlike in Pakistan, the Iraqi tribes “woke up to millions of dollars in government assistance, and the support of the [US] Third Infantry Division.” [[parentheses mine]]

ahhh, and here her stripes begin to show… so the problem with the response to ‘terror’ organizations in Pakistan, who’s evils include ” imposing taxes, issuing permits for businesses and handing out… justice” is that the American Military isn’t there to help. I wonder if this article was written or published with the goal of creating public support for a war in Pakistan and legitimizing the 100+ deaths of Pakistani citizens on Pakistani soil by American military in the last 2 months? In recent weeks, the drama has heated up as the Pakistani military has started to shoot at American soldiers and aircraft who run forays into Waziristan, and the American gov’t and ‘international community’ has started to put pressure on the Pak gov’t to allow these incursions– the resistance to this primarily being that it compromises Pakistan’s sovereignty and could be the first step in all-out occupation.

please, when the nytimes prints this kind of bold war propoganda, please ignore it.
the article is right here

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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As I watch the financial situation in this country continue in the wrong direction, I begin to see the press move slowly in the direction of reason– conveniently after the opportunity to make the correct decision has already passed.
Dissident voices from all over the financial world spoke out against a bailout, saying that if it doesn’t address the two primary issues- effective regulation and an easing of the foreclosure spike– then the corrosion of the marketplace was going to inherently continue. The confidence which the bailout was supposed to inspire was quickly dispersed in the face of appalling retail numbers, unemployment, and massive write downs at the largest financial institutions- none of which are effected by the bill.
Democracy does not operate without accurate representation of the facts by the news media, and unfortunately, it seems that the larger the available audience, the less likely the source is to depict reality. What is the action at work when the op-ed columnists and staff writers ignore possible solutions when the country, and congress, are in hot debate… only to espouse them when the votes are cast and the policy set? We have to learn that the toothpaste cannot be squeezed back into the tube, and we have to make the right decisions the first time– especially if they are the kinds of decisions which dedicate hundreds of billions of dollars into a policy which, even in its infancy, has proven meaningless.
And now, as I finally begin to read good ideas regarding debt for equity swaps, and forcing the commercial banks to renegotiate with their foreclosures, i’m equally saddened, because the time for these suggestions is passed, and ‘Government Sachs’ is already busy carving up the treasures we paid them in tribute.
What else can our popular media obfuscate?
What other ideas can they suppress from public debate while the iron is hot and the decisions are being made?

We’re currently watching the international community salt the fields of Pakistan in preparation for war- we’ve begun giving enriched uranium to the Indians again, and the turmoil is forcing a capital flight from Pakistan which has devalued their currency so badly that their primary port city [Karachi] is experiencing rolling blackouts and they’re becoming beggars to the IMF and Wold Bank.
The rule of law in Zimbabwe is being subverted by a power grab from Mugabe’s illegal and unelected government, forcing the Movement for Democratic Change to back away from the power sharing arrangement which hundreds fought and died to earn. This can push the country back into brutal repression and civil war– all ‘brokered’ by the same Thabo Mbeki who castrated the movement of Nelson Mandela in South Africa.
Using illegal ‘presidential signing statements’ to put the Iraqi oil fields within the jurisdiction of the American military, and bullying the puppet Maliki led government of Iraq into accepting a Status of Forces Agreement [SOFA] which will allow for the indefinite occupation of Iraq by US military and contractors who aren’t even beholden to the rule of Iraqi criminal law, President Bush and the Democratic Congress cement the future of Iraq as a war torn resource mine.
Awareness of the populace will allow for a political mandate to make the kinds of changes which we all see as essential– but without the awareness of the issues, the populace is impotent against the forces of the powerful into whose hands our social constructions have put all of the weapons and tools, and against the forces of nature which have made the powerful irrevocably corrupt.

Reed Mollins
reedmollins@gmail.com

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