Robert Paterson's Weblog

The Financial Sector has captured America

Now should Andrew Hall get his $100 million bonus? How does what he does help the larger world? (NYT)

Corporate pay has become a live grenade in the aftermath of the largest series of corporate bailouts in American history. In March, when American International Group, rescued at vast taxpayer expense, was to give out $165 million in bonuses, Congress moved to constrain the payouts, and protesters showed up at the homes of several executives.

As it happens, one can see some of those homes from Mr. Hall’s front lawn. But his case is more complex. Mr. Hall, raised in Britain and known for titanium nerves and a collection of very pricey art, is the standout performer at an operation that has netted Citigroup about $2 billion over the last five years. If Citigroup will not pay him the huge sums that he has long made, someone else probably will.

The added wrinkle is that Mr. Hall works in a corner of the trading world that appears headed for its own infamy. Regulators are pushing to curb the role of traders like Mr. Hall, whose speculation in the energy markets may have played a major role in the recent gyrations of oil prices.

That suggests that last summer, drivers paid more at the pump, at least in part, because of people like Andrew J. Hall. How do you hand $100 million to a guy who may have profited because gas hit $4 a gallon?

Whatever the answer, the case of Mr. Hall highlights the hazards of mixing the public interest with capitalism at its most unbridled.

Source Simon Johnson Atlantic

The Price of Poor Journalism

So many who defend the media as it is - state that we need them to protect us from the "baddies". Here is Umair Haque's rejoinder to that:

There is relatively little profitability left in the economy outside the financial sector. Wall Street and its subsidiaries now account for over 50% of all income in America. They have done so through a series of de facto coups, as both Simon Johnson and I have referred to them.

Yet, almost no one protected the public interest. Almost no one chronicled Wall Street's excesses. Almost no one kept watch over Washington's capture. Almost no one defended the swelling ranks of the vulnerable. Those few that did were marginalized — instead of lionized — by the industry itself.

Where was the fourth estate when our political, economic, and social institutions were being systematically dismantled? What has happened to our economy parallels what Mugabe did to Zimbabwe. Was the fourth estate asleep while this happened? Like other power brokers, it was negligent — and, perhaps worse, complicit.

If newspapers had protected the public interest like they were meant to, they would be more profitable. Everyone would be better off today — including newspapers — if newspapers had chronicled this transfer of value. Yet, by failing to protect the public interest, they helped create the conditions for the transfer of value away from people who do stuff, to people who speculate on stuff.

These are the poor choices of management, who committed strategic seppuku by trading near-term profit for long-run prosperity. Newspapers are full of awesome journalists who are deeply ethical people who chose journalism exactly because they want to do meaningful stuff that matters. But newspaper management — like the management of nearly every other industry under the sun — traded tomorrow for today. And that's the problem that nichepapers — just part of a larger generation of "M" organizations — are solving....

What have the publishers of our newspapers stood up for? When will they stand up for something greater than profit?

Getting ready for Swine Flu - What about Food?

Have you been a bit sickened by all the self serving civil servants claiming that they must take priority?

In the rush to get ready there is on area of life that I have not heard discussed at all. Food!

What happens if the trucks stop? What happens if the warehouses stop? What happens if Sobeys shuts? - Not a good place for us all to go to anyway if we want to avoid meeting.

We have about 3 days fresh food on the shelves.

PEI would be out of food in a week. Less if there is panic buying.

We could be out of food for 2 months.

This vulnerability is of course a product of our current system.

So what to do?

Well we are stocking up with at least 2 months of food. Mainly pulses and rice etc. But what if we have food and our neigbours don't? Will we let them go hungry?

I don't think that relying on us all to have enough will work. There are many families who run out of food i the 4th week of every month anyway.

I urge the EMS group to deal with this now.

The chances of my house burning down, of needing a police man, of needing to pay my taxes, even of routine medical care pale into insignificance when thousands have nothing to eat.

Who is in charge of planning?

Post Consumerism?

Being middle aged, chubby, bearded and male has had one big advantage. I have joined a club of similar types who have all found some success in the old world but who now profoundly reject it. But this group are more than misanthropes - most of them are very perceptive as well. Here is a gem that came in this morning:

Except for embellished versions of goods and services that were available up to the late 1980s there's nothing any longer to motivate the modest status aspirations of the masses -- which up until then were kept sweet and pacific. Unless they rotate their kitchen, bathroom and garden make-overs faster than ever which, maybe, a quarter of the population may still be able to do in the coming years, there's fat little else to acquire -- to be able to say "I've arrived!" -- "Here I am. I've joined the middle-classes now".

Consumerism as we've known it in the Western world has gone for good now.

It is going to take at least another generation or two before politicians realize this (if indeed they'll have a meaningful role at all in future times -- we'll probably be run by the civil servants, just like the Chinese). Meanwhile, where is status to be found if it's not in the goods we buy?

Well, I'll tell you. Status is to be found by means of much more ancient attributes than merely possessing gewgaws. It will be by skill, ability, integrity and reputation within the many specialized niches which are now so characteristic of this increasingly complex world.

It's going to require a totally new attitude to education. Instead of education being about "expanding one's mind" as those romantic pseudo-intellectuals have been telling us -- and has held sway -- for the past 50 years, it's going to have to be by educating children to levels of specific skills that enable them to get a job in this new complicated world.

Once they have a job and have some status in society then, by all means, it's highly desirable for them expand their minds if they want to. And the best way to do that is for the state to get out of education as fast as possible and let parents' aspirations decide what sorts of schools they want their children to go to.

This itself would take two or three generations before it works its way round to actually upgrading the formative culture within the majority of homes, but why should adults not be given the freedom to choose quality -- as it emerges sooner or later in everything else they buy? What makes education so different from choosing a dentist or hairdresser or buying a flat-screen TV?

Heresies

Bees - What can you do? Have a meadow

Thanks Brian

Roof Top Farming in Brooklyn!

A Farm Grows in Brooklyn...on a Rooftop! from SkeeterNYC on Vimeo.

The sun is blazing hot, but there’s a light breeze.The smell of compost thickens the air. And Annie Novak teaches a group of 20 or so Brooklynites some things about organic farming.(Farm to Table)

Welcome to Rooftop Farms, a 6,000 square foot rooftop farm providing fresh produce to local residents and restaurants via bicycle. In fact, that’s the only way they’ll transport their bounty. Their produce supplies nearby restaurants like Marlow & Sons in Williamsburg and Anella in Greenpoint. They’ve even made a trip to Franny’s on Flatbush Avenue, about 5.5 miles away.

It’s a farm, a learning center, an example of what’s possible in the urban landscape. From up here, with a better vantage of all the naked rooftops the city has to offer, it’s easy to imagine more city dwellers growing food this way.

Rhondaforever - The 3D Drawing Tool

Years ago, I was in the car with my son James and we were talking about perspective in art. We were wondering how it would be possible to draw in more than 2 dimensions. For the New World of Networks demands that we describe it in 3D.

Now with Rhondaforever - James brilliant programming pal Amit Pitaru has designed such a tool. Rhondaforever.com

Amit actually developed this back in 2003 but now they are ready.

The last time we had such a shift in perspective was at the outset of the Renaissance when artists moved from a perspective based on social hierarchy (Kings were big, Bishops smaller, peasants very small) to the perspective of the artist (2D). At first this was so hard to do, that artists needed a tool to help them.

I see this as being more than a nice to have for artists. Finally we will be able to draw the networked world

The hands on the screen belong to James Paterson. He is using "Rhonda", a 3D drawing tool developed by Amit Pitaru circa 2003.

The first half of the video shows James doing a drawing start to finish. In the second part James is cycling through various previous drawings, created between 2004 and 2005.

For the last several years Rhonda has been shown in galleries, museums, festivals and conferences. We are excited to finally release this video online (about time!).

Even more exciting is that our good friends Zach Lieberman (openframeworks) and Zach Gage (synthpond) have just joined the Rhonda Team! With their help we will be creating stable releases of Rhonda for various platforms.

Food Inc - Coming to City Cinema in August

The Canadian, the American, the Frenchman & the Italian.....