International Events VII- Afghan Catastrophe

[Winterfell is Burning]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

That's not about capitalism though. And the captains of industry don't need democracy to get political power. In fact the captains of industry don't really want political power to extend beyond themselves, so they mostly don't want actual democracy interfering with their interests. Hence, most captains of industry being on the political right, and the political right being a lot more motivated to suppress voting. The rich mostly want an oligarchy, which is really on the authoritarian spectrum rather than the democracy spectrum.

You're not disagreeing with me as much as you think- either that or I'm misunderstanding what you said, which is always a strong possibility.

Authoritarian regimes as a rule don't like capitalism, because eventually someone gets wealthy enough to challenge their power, and free enterprise means eventually some technology gets created and/or widely distributed enough to cause problems (whether it's the internet, printing press, cell phones, etc). No one in the Taliban reads Hayek, I bet as much as you want on that.

That doesn't mean oligarchs (again, as a rule) don't prefer a regime that allows maximum freedom for them and just enough freedom for the peasants ordinary people to buy their products and don't go on revolt. The problem is that authoritarian regimes are inherently unstable,- if you're paying up Putin, fine,  but one day he might decide you're a threat and you get a nice dose of polonium for breakfast, or one day it's business as usual in Hong Kong, on the other there's a revolution that doesn't stop for months.

So, the smarter ones (admittedly, there's less of those than one would expect) prefer a regime in which the people can buy anything,  don't have booths in their throats, but only can do so much to change the system and corporations have most of the control by buying politicians- say, a two party democracy in which there's few differences in the economic policies of the mainstream candidates of the major parties in practice, regardless of what they promise in their campaigns. I'm sure you can think of some examples.

 

4 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You're overestimating the size of the bribes. There are famous counter-examples, but as a rule the people collecting the bribes don't get wealthier than the ones doing the bribing.

 

They don't have to- plutocratic dictators usually don't care if an American or European or Chinese company is making more money than him when exploring the country's oil/gold/etc,,because they have no interest in his position or local affairs. The problem is when a possible competitor is getting richer.

 

 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

2 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Moving out of the COVID thread.

@Fragile Bird My apologies, I don't recall you asking this question in the past. How much dairy we import depends on what you mean by that. Do you mean for retail or for manufacture? For cheese specifically we import cheese from about 40 countries I can't give you a precise figure on the proportion of cheese imported vs consumed but based on an average price of $15/kg the imported cheese would be 15% of our total cheese consumption.

Total dairy imports is ~$320 million, but that is a mix of ingredients for manufacture and products for retail, and I don't know the breakdown.

The WTO allows the use of tools to counteract subsidies and dumping, but that is not what you are doing, hence the WTO imposing limits on what dairy products you can export. You can target foriegn subsidies and dumping to level the playing field, but instead you tip the playing field in the totally opposite direction.

@Deadlines? What Deadlines? That just raises the sustainability question. If we accept that it is possible, under suitable conditions, to farm cows for milk that is both environmentally and economically sustainable, then there will be conditions under which farming cows for milk is environmentally and / or economically sustainable. Arguably in most places in Canada farming cows for milk is either environmentally or economically unsustainable or both. So, why should the rest of the country prop up something that is unsustainable? There are lots of things that can be done sustainably in Canada, including potentially a niche diary industry. Arguably the Canadian govt should be helping most dairy farmers to transition to something other than dairy, and not continuing to prop up a sector that is unsustainable.

Wool became economically unsustainable here to support our past levels of production, so thousands of farmers transitioned to dairy with basically no help from the government. Consequently our national sheep numbers were cut by ~65% over a period of about 20 years, and what sustains that sector is now meat, which previously was more of a by-product (to the extent way back in the past about 15% of the lamb production in at least one year was rendered into meat and bone meal because there was nowhere to sell it). Part of the reason is because the govt removed all farm subsidies in the early 80s. Farmers had to adapt and become more efficient, they hated it and kicked and screamed, but they were forced to suck it up and adapt or find something else to do. Some adapted, some found something else to do, for some it was dairy, for others it was something other than farming.

Our agriculture sector has seen a massive transformation (some would argue not for the better with a substantial move to dairying) which includes some diversification despite a lot of land moving from sheep production to dairy.

There is no reason other than sentimentality to preserve the current Canada dairy status quo.

There's a lot there and I'm not exactly "crisp" right now, but I'll try to answer in a way that's fair to your comment.

There are a lot of concepts that are being conflated. "Protectionism", "price controls" and  "subsidies" are not the same thing.

Price controls prevent one or two large producers from undercutting everyone and controlling the whole game. This would necessitate anti-trust mechanisms that would require breaking them up and that would be a waste of time. I suspect New Zealand has some kind of mechanism that does the same. You mentioned "dumping".

Canada's system or regulations and quotas is intended to promote stability in our agriculture industry and food supply, regardless of what the economy or climate at large is doing. The protectionism is not there to prop up an industry is not viable. it's there, in part, to prevent the worlds largest food producer, who can literally drive trucks and rail cars full of product across our border, from swamping us. Product that they can produce incredibly cheaply because they do subsidize the hell out of their stuff. They also use certain types of bovine growth hormone to increase milk production (that they overproduce anyway) that is illegal here.

What happens to those Canadian farms after they go under? At the risk of sounding xenophobic, do they end up being owned by foreigners? More on food security later...

You, on the other hand do not share a land border with 'Murcuh. Instead, You have pretty good access to nations representing, what, two billion people? Who are all net importers of food. Hey, I'm not knocking it. 

Food security: For example, this is the reason Japan jealously guards its domestic rice farmers. They may import everything from petroleum to raw materials but one way or another they will be able to feed themselves.  

Now consider, Canada's ally and largest trading partner unilaterally imposed massive steel and aluminum tariffs (on the order of 100-200%) as a strong arm tactic during the recent NAFTA negotiations. This was not just done unilaterally, it was done by a single human being, President Trump; with no law or emergency measure being passed and without a word of debate in congress. I doubt he even told his party leadership he was going to do it. And the thing that triggered all this was maybe a handful of wealthy donors or a lobbying firm who were pissed off about a few million dollars a year in sales of some milk by-products. How comfortable would you be giving his political allies greater access, and possibly greater control of your food supply?

 

[The Anti-Targ]

7 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said:

There's a lot there and I'm not exactly "crisp" right now, but I'll try to answer in a way that's fair to your comment.

There are a lot of concepts that are being conflated. "Protectionism", "price controls" and  "subsidies" are not the same thing.

Price controls prevent one or two large producers from undercutting everyone and controlling the whole game. This would necessitate anti-trust mechanisms that would require breaking them up and that would be a waste of time. I suspect New Zealand has some kind of mechanism that does the same. You mentioned "dumping".

Canada's system or regulations and quotas is intended to promote stability in our agriculture industry and food supply, regardless of what the economy or climate at large is doing. The protectionism is not there to prop up an industry is not viable. it's there, in part, to prevent the worlds largest food producer, who can literally drive trucks and rail cars full of product across our border, from swamping us. Product that they can produce incredibly cheaply because they do subsidize the hell out of their stuff. They also use certain types of bovine growth hormone to increase milk production (that they overproduce anyway) that is illegal here.

What happens to those Canadian farms after they go under? At the risk of sounding xenophobic, do they end up being owned by foreigners? More on food security later...

You, on the other hand do not share a land border with 'Murcuh. Instead, You have pretty good access to nations representing, what, two billion people? Who are all net importers of food. Hey, I'm not knocking it. 

Food security: For example, this is the reason Japan jealously guards its domestic rice farmers. They may import everything from petroleum to raw materials but one way or another they will be able to feed themselves.  

Now consider, Canada's ally and largest trading partner unilaterally imposed massive steel and aluminum tariffs (on the order of 100-200%) as a strong arm tactic during the recent NAFTA negotiations. This was not just done unilaterally, it was done by a single human being, President Trump; with no law or emergency measure being passed and without a word of debate in congress. I doubt he even told his party leadership he was going to do it. And the thing that triggered all this was maybe a handful of wealthy donors or a lobbying firm who were pissed off about a few million dollars a year in sales of some milk by-products. How comfortable would you be giving his political allies greater access, and possibly greater control of your food supply?

 

We have one mechanism, but it's a domestic one, which requires our dominant dairy company, Fonterra, to guarantee milk supply to independent companies at a set price. This prevents a domestic monopoly but it doesn't distort international trade or retail prices. They are not selling to independents at cost or below cost with a govt top up, they are selling to independents at an adequate margin so that they make a return from this domestic supply, but are not gouging.

So what it seems you are driving at is that you are punishing the entire world because of the threat the USA represents, for fear that if you actually only targeted the USA they would cause you a lot of pain. I have no problem with implementing counteracting measures against countries that are tipping the scales in their favour, that's consistent with WTO rules. I wish you well in trying to manage your bilateral relationship with the USA, we're not exactly having an easy time of it ourselves. But if your dairy sector is viable so long as someone isn't rigging the game, why are you tarring us and others with the same brush?

[Rippounet]

Ah, I see what this is. We're getting into semantics here.

14 hours ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

Authoritarian regimes as a rule don't like capitalism, because eventually someone gets wealthy enough to challenge their power, and free enterprise means eventually some technology gets created and/or widely distributed enough to cause problems (whether it's the internet, printing press, cell phones, etc). No one in the Taliban reads Hayek, I bet as much as you want on that.

You write as if capitalism entailed free enterprise.
I believe this is a common mistake (it does not).

I personally use a simple and relatively narrow definition of capitalism: "capitalism" comes from "capital", i.e. money as investment. This is different from free enterprise (which can be associated with the "free market" ideology) according to which anyone can create or invest in an enterprise/corporation.

Because I make a distinction between the two, I would say (for instance) that China is now a capitalist country in which freedom of enterprise is controled and/or limited by the State and the Communist (ha ha) Party.

This is why, from where I sit, authoritarian regimes do love capitalism, as long as the "capital" in capitalism is their own, that of their family, or friends, or associates. In other words, authoritarian regimes want to choose who gets to be a capitalist.

To drive the point home, there are some fascinating writings by heterodox (heretical!) economists arguinh that capitalism and freedom of enterprise are actually antithetical.
The argument is rather easy to understand. Capitalism mechanically entails a certain concentration of money (capital): the most successful corporation will generate more profit that can be invested than others, thus ensuring that its dominant position is not threatened by the emergence of competitors.
My brother-in-law, who worked for the French ministry of finances, once told me that it's even worse than that, because the largest corporations all have ties to the financial sector, thus ensuring that potential competitors can't get loans and emerge to threaten them.
Hence why the 'free market" is an illusion. Not that it could be anything more imho (see Polanyi for a longer explanation on the topic).

 

[Padraig]

6 hours ago, Rippounet said:

This is why, from where I sit, authoritarian regimes do love capitalism, as long as the "capital" in capitalism is their own, that of their family, or friends, or associates.

Makes sense.  Authoritarians may turn against some capitalists but I don't think any authoritarian regime has ever turned against capitalism (ignoring the cases which began as anti-capitalists)?  In fact, they have a long history of working very closely together. Authoritarians love making money.  Helps them finance their pet projects.

And yes, there is a risk that authoritarians will turn against your friendly capitalist but authoritarians can turn against everybody.  Family, friends etc.  The army is probably the biggest exception.

The challenge with democracy then is that it needs a lot of work.  It can easily go backwards.  I'm really curious to see where Tunisia will go over the next few years.  I'd be concerned right now.  It probably needed a huge amount of financial investment but that doesn't really happen anymore.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

It's only a low level elected position, but Rome has a Mussolini back in the government. 

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

On 10/6/2021 at 6:16 AM, The Anti-Targ said:

We have one mechanism, but it's a domestic one, which requires our dominant dairy company, Fonterra, to guarantee milk supply to independent companies at a set price. This prevents a domestic monopoly but it doesn't distort international trade or retail prices. They are not selling to independents at cost or below cost with a govt top up, they are selling to independents at an adequate margin so that they make a return from this domestic supply, but are not gouging.

So what it seems you are driving at is that you are punishing the entire world because of the threat the USA represents, for fear that if you actually only targeted the USA they would cause you a lot of pain. I have no problem with implementing counteracting measures against countries that are tipping the scales in their favour, that's consistent with WTO rules. I wish you well in trying to manage your bilateral relationship with the USA, we're not exactly having an easy time of it ourselves. But if your dairy sector is viable so long as someone isn't rigging the game, why are you tarring us and others with the same brush?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

In other news.

That Poland - EU row over the rule of law is really something. That could very well lead to a Polexit.

For the casual readers of EU politics.

The EU at its very core is a political/legal organization.

When you sign up to join, you accept the primacy of EU law (and rulings of the ECJ). I think Articles I and XVI (?) of the treaties state that pretty explicitly. So the Poles also signed up for that, when they joined.

The right wing goverment in Poland has in recent years taken moves to do away with the independence of the judiciary with legal reforms to deal with obstinate judges (I think their official line is to deal with the after effects of Soviet rule or something, yes, 30 years late). The EU and ultimately the ECJ saw it for the assualt on the independece of the judiciary it is, and has very slowly and timidly started to take measures. Things have now escalated by the more in-line judges of the Polish supreme court ruling: the EU treaty violates the Polish constitution in parts (check above) and declared Polish law supreme.

So I fully expect the EU to react with force and hit Poland financially. As they are one of the biggest beneficiaries from subsidies, this can hurt quite bad.

 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Not sure where to place this news item.

That Facebook and his daddy Zuckerberg are both full of shit isn't really news, and is becoming sorta performative art. How shit fb is, and how it views its users as products can be seen here.

The thick of it is, a British dude developed a software tool that automatically made you unfollow unwanted news feeds, instead of doing manually, and thus apaprently saving hours of your life. I can't say how much effort it takes, as I don'T have an fb account, and have no intention of ever getting one.

FB didn't appreciate that service to humanity has banned the software developer from all its platforms and sent him a cease and desist letter demanding him to take down the software and reveal the source code and stuff. I mean ofc they did, the less time you spent on their platform the less data to mine, the less advertisements they can sell, the less useful the product, pardon users are to them.

So let me conclude with the obligatory.

Fuck Mark Zuckerberg

[The Anti-Targ]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not sure where to place this news item.

That Facebook and his daddy Zuckerberg are both full of shit isn't really news, and is becoming sorta performative art. How shit fb is, and how it views its users as products can be seen here.

The thick of it is, a British dude developed a software tool that automatically made you unfollow unwanted news feeds, instead of doing manually, and thus apaprently saving hours of your life. I can't say how much effort it takes, as I don'T have an fb account, and have no intention of ever getting one.

FB didn't appreciate that service to humanity has banned the software developer from all its platforms and sent him a cease and desist letter demanding him to take down the software and reveal the source code and stuff. I mean ofc they did, the less time you spent on their platform the less data to mine, the less advertisements they can sell, the less useful the product, pardon users are to them.

So let me conclude with the obligatory.

Fuck Mark Zuckerberg

You fool! Do not come between a Nazgul and his prey!

[The Anti-Targ]

 

Pretty cool.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/technology/2021/10/android-earthquake-early-warning-system-alerted-kiwis-ahead-of-5-3-magnitude-shake.html

Quote

Android earthquake early warning system alerted Kiwis ahead of 5.3 magnitude shake

The magnitude 5.3 earthquake which hit the lower North Island and upper South Island on Tuesday gave some a bit of a shock - but not for the reason you might think.

More than 17,000 people reported to GeoNet they felt the earthquake with the majority saying it was 'weak' or 'light'.

But an unspecified number got a pre-warning that their world was about to be shaken thanks to an early warning system on their Android phones.

"How cool is it that my Android phone alerted me of an incoming earthquake a few seconds before it happened?" one user wrote on Twitter.

"That's a great way to use technology, Google!"

The early warning system was introduced to New Zealand in April, with the country being among the first in the world to get access to the technology.

It works because phones can detect the seismic waves indicating an earthquake may be happening using their built-in accelerometers.

A signal, including a rough location, is then sent to a central server, which then uses other phones to figure out if an earthquake is actually happening, where it is and its magnitude.

I got the alert on my work and personal phones. I guess because it uses the phone's accelerometer it probably won't detect anything if the phone is already in motion, like walking, driving etc. I was in the office and my phones always sit on my desk, so they were stationary at the time. I felt the Earthquake but it was so light I initially thought my colleague sitting opposite was jiggling our desks.

[Fragile Bird]

I see some asshole with a bow and arrows has been running around shooting people, killing some, in Norway. 

[BigFatCoward]

12 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

I see some asshole with a bow and arrows has been running around shooting people, killing some, in Norway. 

5 dead so far. That is such a bizarre story. Almost certainly terror related based on new updates 'known to police, recently converted to Islam'. 

[Arakan]

On 10/6/2021 at 4:03 AM, Winterfell is Burning said:

Authoritarian regimes as a rule don't like capitalism, because eventually someone gets wealthy enough to challenge their power, and free enterprise means eventually some technology gets created and/or widely distributed enough to cause problems (whether it's the internet, printing press, cell phones, etc). No one in the Taliban reads Hayek, I bet as much as you want on that.

Yeah that’s utterly wrong and ahistorical as well. No need to further comment this. 

[Arakan]

On 10/6/2021 at 6:14 PM, Rippounet said:

Ah, I see what this is. We're getting into semantics here.

You write as if capitalism entailed free enterprise.
I believe this is a common mistake (it does not).

I personally use a simple and relatively narrow definition of capitalism: "capitalism" comes from "capital", i.e. money as investment. This is different from free enterprise (which can be associated with the "free market" ideology) according to which anyone can create or invest in an enterprise/corporation.

Because I make a distinction between the two, I would say (for instance) that China is now a capitalist country in which freedom of enterprise is controled and/or limited by the State and the Communist (ha ha) Party.

This is why, from where I sit, authoritarian regimes do love capitalism, as long as the "capital" in capitalism is their own, that of their family, or friends, or associates. In other words, authoritarian regimes want to choose who gets to be a capitalist.

To drive the point home, there are some fascinating writings by heterodox (heretical!) economists arguinh that capitalism and freedom of enterprise are actually antithetical.
The argument is rather easy to understand. Capitalism mechanically entails a certain concentration of money (capital): the most successful corporation will generate more profit that can be invested than others, thus ensuring that its dominant position is not threatened by the emergence of competitors.
My brother-in-law, who worked for the French ministry of finances, once told me that it's even worse than that, because the largest corporations all have ties to the financial sector, thus ensuring that potential competitors can't get loans and emerge to threaten them.
Hence why the 'free market" is an illusion. Not that it could be anything more imho (see Polanyi for a longer explanation on the topic).

 

There is this rose-tinted glass definition of capitalism /market economies which spread through many economic studies in the 90s and 00s. The fairy tale of the ideal market. So many suppliers, so many customers that no one had real power. All totally transparent. The perfect world, the perfect capitalism. Oligopols or even Monopols they were just abominations, not „true free market“. 

Obviously that’s all nonsense. Capitalism is an intrinsically hierarchical system. The natural order is competition and the natural urgency to control more and more of a particular market, thus the big fish eats the smaller one. Until there are a bunch of equally strong fish left or only one. 

This is the big lie especially neoliberals try to sell us: oligopolies and monopolies are not the rule but the exception. Wrong. Without external intervention by the state and anti trust laws, we only would have Oligopols and monopolies. 

Too many examples to list them. It happens always and everywhere.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

On 10/12/2021 at 7:00 PM, The Anti-Targ said:

 

Pretty cool.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/technology/2021/10/android-earthquake-early-warning-system-alerted-kiwis-ahead-of-5-3-magnitude-shake.html

I got the alert on my work and personal phones. I guess because it uses the phone's accelerometer it probably won't detect anything if the phone is already in motion, like walking, driving etc. I was in the office and my phones always sit on my desk, so they were stationary at the time. I felt the Earthquake but it was so light I initially thought my colleague sitting opposite was jiggling our desks.

I think the Japanese have had an Earthquake warning system on those lines for quite some time.  It’s only a few seconds warning but enough to get to slightly safer location than you were when you got the warning.

[The Anti-Targ]

First ever malaria vaccine approved by the WHO. My uncle died from malaria about 20 years ago. Let's hope the anti-vaxxers don't switch their focus to that. Huge potential public health game changer for vast numbers of people. Lets also hope donor countries put resources into getting it out there.

[IheartIheartTesla]

I was under the impression that the conservative-liberal split for malaria tended to fall under the DDT/mosquito net lines, with the environmental fall out of the former and the inefficacy of the latter being the debating points. Hopefully (famous last words) a vaccine would be acceptable to most and the anti-vaxxers would play a small part here unlike their oversized influence in an ongoing public health crisis.

[Werthead]

China test-fires a suborbital hypersonic missile which circled the Earth once before landing ~24 miles off-target.

Reportedly US intelligence was left reeling by the test, which they considered several years from China's capability.

Hypersonic missiles with glide capability which can effectively drop on targets from directly above are very difficult to detect and, travelling at speeds exceeding Mach 5, almost impossible to intercept.

[The Anti-Targ]

China is afraid, so China is going to do things that will make it less afraid. But then America is going to be afraid at what China did to make itself less afraid and will do something to make itself less afraid, which will make China afraid again. Totally sound strategy for global peace and prosperity.