Not others’ opposition
Nor what they did or failed to do,
But in oneself should be sought
Things done, things left undone.
Dhammapada 4(6): 50
Saturday, November 07, 2009
Forestry in Cambodia
The late Cambodian patriarch, Maha Ghosananda (1929-2007), once said to Robert Aitken, Roshi: "We are forest monks, but there are no more trees in Cambodia."
Dropping Ashes on the Buddha
When Zen Master Seung Sahn began teaching in the West, he developed a set of twelve kong-ans called the "Twelve Gates." These cases form the core of the tradition's kong-an training.
Today, I'd like to examine the Sixth Gate, "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha." Here's how the case appears on the school's website:
A man came into the Zen Center smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke in the Buddha-statue's face and dropping ashes on its lap.
The abbot came in, saw the man, and said, "Are you crazy? Why are you dropping ashes on the Buddha?"
The man answered, "Buddha is everything. Why not?"
The abbot couldn't answer and went away.
Zen Master Seung Sahn asked the following questions about this case:
1. "Buddha is everything." What does that mean?
2. Why did the man drop ashes on the Buddha?
3. If you had been the abbot, how could you have fixed this man's mind?
Commentary: How do you meet the Buddha? Where do you throw away ashes? Its all very clear. Your correct function is always in front of you.
Note: There is an important factor in this case that has apparently never been explicitly included in its print versions. Zen Master Seung Sahn has always told his students that the man with the cigarette is also very strong and that he will hit you if he doesn't approve of your response to his actions.
Commentary
The "cigarette man" is a difficult fellow, but not so different from the various difficult people we meet in daily life. Essentially, he's just a person who rains on our parade.
Before we can "fix the cigarette man's mind," we must first perceive how his mind functions.
If we discover that he will accept guidance, then we can guide him. If we discover that he won't accept guidance, then we can guide him out of our lives.
Not everyone will accept good medicine. But we must give it, so that the opportunity for awakening remains open.
Source: http://www.godrinktea.com/
Today, I'd like to examine the Sixth Gate, "Dropping Ashes on the Buddha." Here's how the case appears on the school's website:
A man came into the Zen Center smoking a cigarette, blowing smoke in the Buddha-statue's face and dropping ashes on its lap.
The abbot came in, saw the man, and said, "Are you crazy? Why are you dropping ashes on the Buddha?"
The man answered, "Buddha is everything. Why not?"
The abbot couldn't answer and went away.
Zen Master Seung Sahn asked the following questions about this case:
1. "Buddha is everything." What does that mean?
2. Why did the man drop ashes on the Buddha?
3. If you had been the abbot, how could you have fixed this man's mind?
Commentary: How do you meet the Buddha? Where do you throw away ashes? Its all very clear. Your correct function is always in front of you.
Note: There is an important factor in this case that has apparently never been explicitly included in its print versions. Zen Master Seung Sahn has always told his students that the man with the cigarette is also very strong and that he will hit you if he doesn't approve of your response to his actions.
Commentary
The "cigarette man" is a difficult fellow, but not so different from the various difficult people we meet in daily life. Essentially, he's just a person who rains on our parade.
Before we can "fix the cigarette man's mind," we must first perceive how his mind functions.
If we discover that he will accept guidance, then we can guide him. If we discover that he won't accept guidance, then we can guide him out of our lives.
Not everyone will accept good medicine. But we must give it, so that the opportunity for awakening remains open.
Source: http://www.godrinktea.com/
The Fact: The Mayan Calendar does not predict the end of the world in 2012
First of all, the Mayans don’t have a calender they have calendars which often interlocked. The calender that has given rise to the myth of the end of the world is the Mayan long count calendar. According to Mayan Mythology, we are living in the fourth world or “creation” so to speak. The last creation ended on 12.19.19.17.19 of the long count calendar. That sequence will occur again on December 20, 2012. According to the Mayans this is a time of great celebration for having reached the end of a creation cycle. It does not mean the end of the world but the beginning of a new “age”. Does the world end every December 31st? No – we go on to a new year. This is the same as the Mayan creation periods. In fact, the Mayans make many references to dates that fall beyond 2012. The idea of 2012 being the end of the world was actually first suggested by New Age religionist José Argüelles in his 1987 book The Mayan Factor: Path Beyond Technology.
Source: http://listverse.com/2009/09/21/top-10-fascinating-facts-about-the-mayans/
Source: http://listverse.com/2009/09/21/top-10-fascinating-facts-about-the-mayans/
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Thoroughly Modern Marx
By Leo Panitch
Ironically, one of the most radical proposals making the rounds today has come from an economist at the London School of Economics, Willem Buiter, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and certainly no Marxist. Buiter has proposed that the whole financial sector be turned into a public utility. Because banks in the contemporary world cannot exist without public deposit insurance and public central banks that act as lenders of last resort, there is no case, he argues, for their continuing existence as privately owned, profit-seeking institutions. Instead they should be publicly owned and run as public services. This proposal echoes the demand for “centralization of credit in the banks of the state” that Marx himself made in the Manifesto. To him, a financial-system overhaul would reinforce the importance of the working classes’ winning “the battle of democracy” to radically change the state from an organ imposed upon society to one that responds to it.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4856
Ironically, one of the most radical proposals making the rounds today has come from an economist at the London School of Economics, Willem Buiter, a former member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee and certainly no Marxist. Buiter has proposed that the whole financial sector be turned into a public utility. Because banks in the contemporary world cannot exist without public deposit insurance and public central banks that act as lenders of last resort, there is no case, he argues, for their continuing existence as privately owned, profit-seeking institutions. Instead they should be publicly owned and run as public services. This proposal echoes the demand for “centralization of credit in the banks of the state” that Marx himself made in the Manifesto. To him, a financial-system overhaul would reinforce the importance of the working classes’ winning “the battle of democracy” to radically change the state from an organ imposed upon society to one that responds to it.
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4856
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Protiviti Financial Crisis FAQ Series: Part 4
Part 4: Did We See It Coming?
March 30, 2009 (SmartPros) -- Signs of the problem appeared as early as late 2006 but didn't begin to snowball until the first half of 2007. In the fourth part of our Protiviti FAQ series on the global financial crisis we present a calendar of events and early indicators.
Part 4: Did We See It Coming?
When were the first signs of the current crisis apparent?
While there were signs of the problems to come toward the end of 2006, the real magnitude of the problem began to surface in the first half of 2007, with such events as the bankruptcy filing of New Century in April 2007 and Bear Stearns’ June 2007 US$3.2 billion rescue of two of its hedge funds that were invested in subprime. Many would say that “crisis level” was reached in August-September 2007, when the money market sector that is critically important to banking and financial operations temporarily froze and the Federal Reserve Bank and European Central Bank added US$100 billion in liquidity into the system, which calmed the market for a short period.
How has the crisis unfolded since Fall 2007?
Even when the crisis began to unfold, few would have predicted the events that have occurred to date in the financial markets. The following timeline highlights some of the major developments and also illustrates the global impact of the crisis:
September 2007
British bank Northern Rock is besieged by worried depositors as its wholesale funding sources dry up; the British government and Bank of England guarantee the deposits; Northern Rock is subsequently nationalized.
The U.S. Federal Reserve starts a series of interest rate drops to ease the impact of the housing slump and mortgage crisis.
October 2007
Profits at U.S. financial giant Citigroup drop sharply. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowers its 2008 growth forecast for the European region to 2.1 percent from 2.5 percent, in part because of spillover from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and credit market crunch.
December 2007
U.S. President Bush unveils a plan to help up to 1.2 million homeowners pay their loans.
World central banks agree to inject at least US$100 billion into the interbank markets.
January 2008
Swiss banking giant UBS reports more than US$18 billion in writedowns due to exposure to the U.S. real estate market.
Citibank writes down US$18 billion; Merrill Lynch sells a US$6.6 billion stake to foreign investors, including the Korean and Kuwaiti governments.
In the United States, Bank of America acquires Countrywide Financial, the country’s biggest mortgage lender. The Federal Reserve slashes the interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5 percent following a sell-off on global markets. Another cut at month’s end lowers it to 3 percent.
February 2008
Fannie Mae, the largest source of money for U.S. home loans, reports a US$3.55 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2007, three times what had been expected.
March 2008
On the verge of collapse and under pressure by the Federal Reserve, Bear Stearns is forced to accept a buyout by JPMorgan Chase. The deal is backed by Federal Reserve loans of US$30 billion.
In Germany, Deutsche Bank reports a loss of €141 million for the first quarter of 2008, its first quarterly loss in five years.
The Federal Reserve spearheads a coordinated push by world central banks to bolster global economic confidence by announcing moves to add US$200 billion into markets.
Carlyle Capital falls victim to the U.S. credit crisis as it defaults on US$16.6 billion of indebtedness.
The United States frees up another US$200 billion to back troubled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
April 2008
The IMF projects US$945 billion in losses from the financial crisis. The G7 ministers agree to a new wave of financial regulation to combat the protracted financial crisis.
Deutsche Bank reports a US$4 billion writedown.
Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual, among others, sell shares to boost capital.
June 2008
Home repossessions more than double as the U.S. housing crisis deepens.
S&P cuts ratings of Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.
July 2008
California mortgage lender IndyMac collapses. Troubles for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to grow, and the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve move to guarantee the debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The U.S. Congress gives final passage to a multibillion-dollar program to address the mortgage and foreclosure crisis.
Spain’s largest property developer, Martinsa-Fadesa, declares insolvency.
Beginning in September 2008, the financial landscape began to change so quickly, with so many economies and companies impacted, that the events described below for September through the current period do not begin to convey all that has transpired.
September 2008
The U.S. government seizes control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a US$200 billion bailout.
Lehman Brothers investment bank declares US$600 billion bankruptcy. The bulk of its U.S. business (without “toxic” assets) is bought by Barclays Bank. Its U.K. business is put into administration.
Merrill Lynch is acquired by Bank of America.
The United States bails out insurance giant AIG for US$85 billion. (In October, the Federal Reserve extended AIG another US$38 billion in additional credit.)
The last two standing major U.S. investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, convert to bank holding companies.
U.S. regulators seize Washington Mutual in the largest-ever U.S. bank failure. JPMorgan Chase acquires the assets, assumes the qualified financial contracts and makes a payment of US$1.9 billion. Claims by equity, subordinated and senior debt holders are not acquired.
The British government intervenes to save major mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley.
The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg announce the takeover of substantial parts of Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance company Fortis. The State of the Netherlands subsequently nationalizes Fortis Bank Nederland, Fortis Insurance Netherlands, Fortis Corporate Insurance and the Fortis share in ABN AMRO Holding.
The German Finance Ministry announces that the government and top banks are moving to inject billions of euros into troubled mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate.
The Icelandic government and Glitnir Bank announce a state takeover of a 75 percent stake in Glitnir. The government subsequently seizes Landsbank and Kaupthing Bank, the country's largest lender, effectively completing the nationalization of the banking system and pushing the country itself to the verge of bankruptcy.
Citigroup announces it has reached an agreement to purchase the banking assets of Wachovia Corp. in a transaction that would involve Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protection of losses above US$42 billion in a US$312 billion pool of loans, in return for which Citicorp would grant the FDIC preferred stock and warrants. (Subsequent to this, Wells Fargo & Company announces that it will acquire all of Wachovia Corp. with no FDIC assistance, and this deal transpires.)
October 2008
The largest (US$700 billion) intervention in the capital markets becomes law in the United States.
The U.K. government agrees to commit up to £500 billion to the U.K. banking system in a combination of equity injection into and partial nationalization of a number of the United Kingdom’s biggest banks, underwriting of interbank lending, and liquidity injection.
The U.K. businesses of Icelandic banks are either put into administration or have their assets frozen amid concerns that the many U.K. depositors in Icelandic banks will otherwise lose their money.
Major government capital injections are subsequently agreed upon with leading U.K. retail banks Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB, in return for (in addition to the financial terms) commitments of certain bonus and dividend restrictions/prohibitions and lending practice commitments to individuals and small businesses.
Government capital injections into major banking groups are announced in France, Germany and the United States.
Central banks across the world cut rates to stimulate the market and mitigate recessionary impacts as the crisis appears to be spreading.
Despite government actions worldwide, the markets remain unconvinced. On Friday, October 10, the Dow Jones suffers its largest-ever point swing and the S&P 500 concludes its worst week since 1933. In Japan, the Nikkei falls almost 10 percent, its biggest drop in 20 years. The FTSE drops more than 10 percent, its worst fall since 1987.
Finance officials from the Group of Seven meet in Washington, D.C., and issue a five-point plan.
In Paris, 15 European Union leaders meet for an emergency summit on the financial crisis.
Regulators in the United States and Europe announce new measures to stabilize the market, including direct capitalization of financial institutions, guarantying interbank lending, and adding or increasing deposit insurance schemes.
The crisis hits the Middle East when the Kuwaiti government is forced to bail out Gulf Bank, which said defaults by counterparties on eurodollar derivatives contracts forced it to seek government intervention.
The Japanese government unveils a ¥5 trillion stimulus package.
Global markets end October with the worst losses in history, despite a strong final week.
November 2008
A Thai government official calls for the creation of an Asian Financial Community for the less-affected Asian financial institutions to help stabilize the global system.
Central banks continue to inject liquidity into the market and to lower rates.
The U.S. government announces a restructuring of its bailout of AIG.
China announces a massive stimulus plan.
American Express receives Federal Reserve approval to become a bank holding company.
The U.S. Big Three automotive companies ask Congress for a US$25 billion bailout.
December 2008
The French government announces a €26 billion stimulus package, which includes support for construction and small business.
The Government of India announces a US$4 billion stimulus package to help the export, real estate and infrastructure sectors.
Sony announces factory closings and the reduction of 8,000 jobs globally in the face of slumping sales of consumer electronics.
The Government of Japan announces that it plans to double the size of its previously announced stimulus plan.
The U.S. government approves funding for the U.S. auto industry, while Canada unveils an emergency loan program for the Canadian subsidiaries of General Motors and Chrysler.
The Irish government announces plans to recapitalize all of its listed banks.
The Federal Reserve approves the application of GMAC to become a bank holding company.
The U.S. manufacturing index falls to a 28-year low.
Companies across the globe announce major layoffs.
January 2009
Retail experts warn that dismal holiday sales will result in significant store closures and retail bankruptcies.
The U.S. Department of Labor confirms that more people lost jobs in 2008 than in any year since World War II.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reaches a preliminary agreement to sell IndyMac Bank to a consortium of private equity firms, at an estimated loss of US$9.4 billion to the FDIC fund.
Early indications are that the new Obama administration will bring changes in the way TARP funds are allocated, with a shift toward dealing more directly with the foreclosure problem.
Citigroup announces a plan to split into two with separate firms managing its traditional banking business and its riskiest investment assets.
New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini predicts that U.S. financial losses from the credit crisis could reach US$3.6 trillion.
Germany considers an emergency fund of up to €100 billion (US$135 billion) in state-backed loans for companies facing a credit crunch.
Canada unveils a C$40 billion stimulus plan.
Official government figures confirm that the United Kingdom is now in recession for the first time since 1991.
The U.K. government unveils a plan to guarantee up to £20 billion of loans to small businesses to help them survive the economic downturn.
Spain becomes the first country to lose its S&P AAA rating since Japan in 2001.
The French government announces its plan to provide €5 billion in credit guarantees to help Airbus sell aircraft to customers struggling to secure financing.
The Obama administration begins revealing plans for its stimulus program; estimates of the cost of this program range from US$775 billion to more than US$1 trillion.
Outgoing President Bush requests the release of the remaining US$350 billion in TARP funds.
Iceland’s government collapses following political turmoil prompted by the financial crisis.
February 2009
From China comes the news that 20 million migrant workers (15.3 percent of a total of 130 million) have lost their jobs in the country’s coastal manufacturing centers.
China announces that its exports in January suffered the largest drop in 10 years.
The Australian government passes a AU$42 billion stimulus bill.
U.S. unemployment rises to its highest level since 1992.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Geithner holds a press briefing on TARP II and world markets decline given the lack of detail provided.
The U.S. government passes a US$787 billion stimulus bill.
The Spanish economy falls into recession for the first time in 15 years.
Deutsche Bank announces a €3.9 billion loss in 2008, its first since its restructuring after World War II.
UBS announces a loss of SF20 billion for 2008 and another large round of job cuts.
Nissan Motors announces plans to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide – 8.5 percent of its workforce – because of a steep decline in sales.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] “A Memo Found in the Street,” Ritholz, Barry L., Barron’s, September 29, 2008, available at online.barrons.com.
[ii] “A financial crisis unmatched since the Great Depression, say analysts,” The Guardian, March 18, 2008, available at www.guardian.co.uk.
[iii] “Roubini Predicts U.S. Losses May Reach $3.6 Trillion,” Meyer, Henry and Daya, Ayesha, Bloomberg.com, January 20, 2009, available at www.bloomberg.com.
Source: http://accounting.smartpros.com/x65976.xml
March 30, 2009 (SmartPros) -- Signs of the problem appeared as early as late 2006 but didn't begin to snowball until the first half of 2007. In the fourth part of our Protiviti FAQ series on the global financial crisis we present a calendar of events and early indicators.
Part 4: Did We See It Coming?
When were the first signs of the current crisis apparent?
While there were signs of the problems to come toward the end of 2006, the real magnitude of the problem began to surface in the first half of 2007, with such events as the bankruptcy filing of New Century in April 2007 and Bear Stearns’ June 2007 US$3.2 billion rescue of two of its hedge funds that were invested in subprime. Many would say that “crisis level” was reached in August-September 2007, when the money market sector that is critically important to banking and financial operations temporarily froze and the Federal Reserve Bank and European Central Bank added US$100 billion in liquidity into the system, which calmed the market for a short period.
How has the crisis unfolded since Fall 2007?
Even when the crisis began to unfold, few would have predicted the events that have occurred to date in the financial markets. The following timeline highlights some of the major developments and also illustrates the global impact of the crisis:
September 2007
British bank Northern Rock is besieged by worried depositors as its wholesale funding sources dry up; the British government and Bank of England guarantee the deposits; Northern Rock is subsequently nationalized.
The U.S. Federal Reserve starts a series of interest rate drops to ease the impact of the housing slump and mortgage crisis.
October 2007
Profits at U.S. financial giant Citigroup drop sharply. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) lowers its 2008 growth forecast for the European region to 2.1 percent from 2.5 percent, in part because of spillover from the U.S. subprime mortgage crisis and credit market crunch.
December 2007
U.S. President Bush unveils a plan to help up to 1.2 million homeowners pay their loans.
World central banks agree to inject at least US$100 billion into the interbank markets.
January 2008
Swiss banking giant UBS reports more than US$18 billion in writedowns due to exposure to the U.S. real estate market.
Citibank writes down US$18 billion; Merrill Lynch sells a US$6.6 billion stake to foreign investors, including the Korean and Kuwaiti governments.
In the United States, Bank of America acquires Countrywide Financial, the country’s biggest mortgage lender. The Federal Reserve slashes the interest rate by three-quarters of a percentage point to 3.5 percent following a sell-off on global markets. Another cut at month’s end lowers it to 3 percent.
February 2008
Fannie Mae, the largest source of money for U.S. home loans, reports a US$3.55 billion loss for the fourth quarter of 2007, three times what had been expected.
March 2008
On the verge of collapse and under pressure by the Federal Reserve, Bear Stearns is forced to accept a buyout by JPMorgan Chase. The deal is backed by Federal Reserve loans of US$30 billion.
In Germany, Deutsche Bank reports a loss of €141 million for the first quarter of 2008, its first quarterly loss in five years.
The Federal Reserve spearheads a coordinated push by world central banks to bolster global economic confidence by announcing moves to add US$200 billion into markets.
Carlyle Capital falls victim to the U.S. credit crisis as it defaults on US$16.6 billion of indebtedness.
The United States frees up another US$200 billion to back troubled Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
April 2008
The IMF projects US$945 billion in losses from the financial crisis. The G7 ministers agree to a new wave of financial regulation to combat the protracted financial crisis.
Deutsche Bank reports a US$4 billion writedown.
Citigroup, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual, among others, sell shares to boost capital.
June 2008
Home repossessions more than double as the U.S. housing crisis deepens.
S&P cuts ratings of Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Lehman Brothers.
July 2008
California mortgage lender IndyMac collapses. Troubles for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac continue to grow, and the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve move to guarantee the debts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
The U.S. Congress gives final passage to a multibillion-dollar program to address the mortgage and foreclosure crisis.
Spain’s largest property developer, Martinsa-Fadesa, declares insolvency.
Beginning in September 2008, the financial landscape began to change so quickly, with so many economies and companies impacted, that the events described below for September through the current period do not begin to convey all that has transpired.
September 2008
The U.S. government seizes control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in a US$200 billion bailout.
Lehman Brothers investment bank declares US$600 billion bankruptcy. The bulk of its U.S. business (without “toxic” assets) is bought by Barclays Bank. Its U.K. business is put into administration.
Merrill Lynch is acquired by Bank of America.
The United States bails out insurance giant AIG for US$85 billion. (In October, the Federal Reserve extended AIG another US$38 billion in additional credit.)
The last two standing major U.S. investment banks, Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, convert to bank holding companies.
U.S. regulators seize Washington Mutual in the largest-ever U.S. bank failure. JPMorgan Chase acquires the assets, assumes the qualified financial contracts and makes a payment of US$1.9 billion. Claims by equity, subordinated and senior debt holders are not acquired.
The British government intervenes to save major mortgage lender Bradford & Bingley.
The Netherlands, Belgium and Luxembourg announce the takeover of substantial parts of Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance company Fortis. The State of the Netherlands subsequently nationalizes Fortis Bank Nederland, Fortis Insurance Netherlands, Fortis Corporate Insurance and the Fortis share in ABN AMRO Holding.
The German Finance Ministry announces that the government and top banks are moving to inject billions of euros into troubled mortgage lender Hypo Real Estate.
The Icelandic government and Glitnir Bank announce a state takeover of a 75 percent stake in Glitnir. The government subsequently seizes Landsbank and Kaupthing Bank, the country's largest lender, effectively completing the nationalization of the banking system and pushing the country itself to the verge of bankruptcy.
Citigroup announces it has reached an agreement to purchase the banking assets of Wachovia Corp. in a transaction that would involve Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) protection of losses above US$42 billion in a US$312 billion pool of loans, in return for which Citicorp would grant the FDIC preferred stock and warrants. (Subsequent to this, Wells Fargo & Company announces that it will acquire all of Wachovia Corp. with no FDIC assistance, and this deal transpires.)
October 2008
The largest (US$700 billion) intervention in the capital markets becomes law in the United States.
The U.K. government agrees to commit up to £500 billion to the U.K. banking system in a combination of equity injection into and partial nationalization of a number of the United Kingdom’s biggest banks, underwriting of interbank lending, and liquidity injection.
The U.K. businesses of Icelandic banks are either put into administration or have their assets frozen amid concerns that the many U.K. depositors in Icelandic banks will otherwise lose their money.
Major government capital injections are subsequently agreed upon with leading U.K. retail banks Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB, in return for (in addition to the financial terms) commitments of certain bonus and dividend restrictions/prohibitions and lending practice commitments to individuals and small businesses.
Government capital injections into major banking groups are announced in France, Germany and the United States.
Central banks across the world cut rates to stimulate the market and mitigate recessionary impacts as the crisis appears to be spreading.
Despite government actions worldwide, the markets remain unconvinced. On Friday, October 10, the Dow Jones suffers its largest-ever point swing and the S&P 500 concludes its worst week since 1933. In Japan, the Nikkei falls almost 10 percent, its biggest drop in 20 years. The FTSE drops more than 10 percent, its worst fall since 1987.
Finance officials from the Group of Seven meet in Washington, D.C., and issue a five-point plan.
In Paris, 15 European Union leaders meet for an emergency summit on the financial crisis.
Regulators in the United States and Europe announce new measures to stabilize the market, including direct capitalization of financial institutions, guarantying interbank lending, and adding or increasing deposit insurance schemes.
The crisis hits the Middle East when the Kuwaiti government is forced to bail out Gulf Bank, which said defaults by counterparties on eurodollar derivatives contracts forced it to seek government intervention.
The Japanese government unveils a ¥5 trillion stimulus package.
Global markets end October with the worst losses in history, despite a strong final week.
November 2008
A Thai government official calls for the creation of an Asian Financial Community for the less-affected Asian financial institutions to help stabilize the global system.
Central banks continue to inject liquidity into the market and to lower rates.
The U.S. government announces a restructuring of its bailout of AIG.
China announces a massive stimulus plan.
American Express receives Federal Reserve approval to become a bank holding company.
The U.S. Big Three automotive companies ask Congress for a US$25 billion bailout.
December 2008
The French government announces a €26 billion stimulus package, which includes support for construction and small business.
The Government of India announces a US$4 billion stimulus package to help the export, real estate and infrastructure sectors.
Sony announces factory closings and the reduction of 8,000 jobs globally in the face of slumping sales of consumer electronics.
The Government of Japan announces that it plans to double the size of its previously announced stimulus plan.
The U.S. government approves funding for the U.S. auto industry, while Canada unveils an emergency loan program for the Canadian subsidiaries of General Motors and Chrysler.
The Irish government announces plans to recapitalize all of its listed banks.
The Federal Reserve approves the application of GMAC to become a bank holding company.
The U.S. manufacturing index falls to a 28-year low.
Companies across the globe announce major layoffs.
January 2009
Retail experts warn that dismal holiday sales will result in significant store closures and retail bankruptcies.
The U.S. Department of Labor confirms that more people lost jobs in 2008 than in any year since World War II.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) reaches a preliminary agreement to sell IndyMac Bank to a consortium of private equity firms, at an estimated loss of US$9.4 billion to the FDIC fund.
Early indications are that the new Obama administration will bring changes in the way TARP funds are allocated, with a shift toward dealing more directly with the foreclosure problem.
Citigroup announces a plan to split into two with separate firms managing its traditional banking business and its riskiest investment assets.
New York University Professor Nouriel Roubini predicts that U.S. financial losses from the credit crisis could reach US$3.6 trillion.
Germany considers an emergency fund of up to €100 billion (US$135 billion) in state-backed loans for companies facing a credit crunch.
Canada unveils a C$40 billion stimulus plan.
Official government figures confirm that the United Kingdom is now in recession for the first time since 1991.
The U.K. government unveils a plan to guarantee up to £20 billion of loans to small businesses to help them survive the economic downturn.
Spain becomes the first country to lose its S&P AAA rating since Japan in 2001.
The French government announces its plan to provide €5 billion in credit guarantees to help Airbus sell aircraft to customers struggling to secure financing.
The Obama administration begins revealing plans for its stimulus program; estimates of the cost of this program range from US$775 billion to more than US$1 trillion.
Outgoing President Bush requests the release of the remaining US$350 billion in TARP funds.
Iceland’s government collapses following political turmoil prompted by the financial crisis.
February 2009
From China comes the news that 20 million migrant workers (15.3 percent of a total of 130 million) have lost their jobs in the country’s coastal manufacturing centers.
China announces that its exports in January suffered the largest drop in 10 years.
The Australian government passes a AU$42 billion stimulus bill.
U.S. unemployment rises to its highest level since 1992.
U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Geithner holds a press briefing on TARP II and world markets decline given the lack of detail provided.
The U.S. government passes a US$787 billion stimulus bill.
The Spanish economy falls into recession for the first time in 15 years.
Deutsche Bank announces a €3.9 billion loss in 2008, its first since its restructuring after World War II.
UBS announces a loss of SF20 billion for 2008 and another large round of job cuts.
Nissan Motors announces plans to cut 20,000 jobs worldwide – 8.5 percent of its workforce – because of a steep decline in sales.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[i] “A Memo Found in the Street,” Ritholz, Barry L., Barron’s, September 29, 2008, available at online.barrons.com.
[ii] “A financial crisis unmatched since the Great Depression, say analysts,” The Guardian, March 18, 2008, available at www.guardian.co.uk.
[iii] “Roubini Predicts U.S. Losses May Reach $3.6 Trillion,” Meyer, Henry and Daya, Ayesha, Bloomberg.com, January 20, 2009, available at www.bloomberg.com.
Source: http://accounting.smartpros.com/x65976.xml
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
The Last Question By Isaac Asimov
The last question was asked for the first time, half in jest, on May 21, 2061, at a time when humanity first stepped into the light. The question came about as a result of a five dollar bet over highballs, and it happened this way:
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth’s poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
“It’s amazing when you think of it,” said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. “All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever.”
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. “Not forever,” he said.
“Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert.”
“That’s not forever.”
“All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?”
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. “Twenty billion years isn’t forever.”
“Will, it will last our time, won’t it?”
“So would the coal and uranium.”
“All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can’t do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t have to ask Multivac. I know that.”
“Then stop running down what Multivac’s done for us,” said Adell, blazing up. “It did all right.”
“Who says it didn’t? What I say is that a sun won’t last forever. That’s all I’m saying. We’re safe for twenty billion years, but then what?” Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. “And don’t say we’ll switch to another sun.”
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov’s eyes slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov’s eyes snapped open. “You’re thinking we’ll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren’t you?”
“I’m not thinking.”
“Sure you are. You’re weak on logic, that’s the trouble with you. You’re like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn’t worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.”
“I get it,” said Adell. “Don’t shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too.”
“Darn right they will,” muttered Lupov. “It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won’t last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all.”
“I know all about entropy,” said Adell, standing on his dignity.
“The hell you do.”
“I know as much as you do.”
“Then you know everything’s got to run down someday.”
“All right. Who says they won’t?”
“You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said ’forever.’”
“It was Adell’s turn to be contrary. “Maybe we can build things up again someday,” he said.
“Never.”
“Why not? Someday.”
“Never.”
“Ask Multivac.”
“You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
“No bet,” whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.
Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.
“That’s X-23,” said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, “We’ve reached X-23 — we’ve reached X-23 — we’ve —”
“Quiet, children,” said Jerrodine sharply. “Are you sure, Jerrodd?”
“What is there to be but sure?” asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.
Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.
Someone had once told Jerrodd that the “ac” at the end of “Microvac” stood for “analog computer” in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
Jerrodine’s eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. “I can’t help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth.”
“Why for Pete’s sake?” demanded Jerrodd. “We had nothing there. We’ll have everything on X-23. You won’t be alone. You won’t be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded.”
Then, after a reflective pause, “I tell you, it’s a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing.”
“I know, I know,” said Jerrodine miserably.
Jerrodette I said promptly, “Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world.”
“I think so, too,” said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father’s youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth’s Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
“So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.”
“Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.”
“What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II.
“Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?”
“Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?”
“The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.”
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.”
“Now look what you’ve done, “ whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
“How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered to Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.”
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.”
Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.”
Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.”
Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, “Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?”
MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. “I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion.”
Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
“Still,” said VJ-23X, “I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council.”
“I wouldn’t consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We’ve got to stir them up.”
VJ-23X sighed. “Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More.”
“A hundred billion is not infinite and it’s getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years —”
VJ-23X interrupted. “We can thank immortality for that.”
“Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.”
“Yet you wouldn’t want to abandon life, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, “Not yet. I’m by no means old enough. How old are you?”
“Two hundred twenty-three. And you?”
“I’m still under two hundred. —But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we’ll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we’ll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we’ll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?”
VJ-23X said, “As a side issue, there’s a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next.”
“A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year.”
“Most of it’s wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those.”
“Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We’ll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point.”
“We’ll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas.”
“Or out of dissipated heat?” asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
“There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC.”
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
“I’ve half a mind to,” he said. “It’s something the human race will have to face someday.”
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, “Can entropy ever be reversed?”
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, “Oh, say, I didn’t really mean to have you ask that.”
“Why not?”
“We both know entropy can’t be reversed. You can’t turn smoke and ash back into a tree.”
“Do you have trees on your world?” asked MQ-17J.
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
VJ-23X said, “See!”
The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
Zee Prime’s mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity — but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
“I am Zee Prime,” said Zee Prime. “And you?”
“I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?”
“We call it only the Galaxy. And you?”
“We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?”
“True. Since all Galaxies are the same.”
“Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different.”
Zee Prime said, “On which one?”
“I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.”
“Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.”
Zee Prime’s perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: “Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?”
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
“But how can that be all of Universal AC?” Zee Prime had asked.
“Most of it, “ had been the answer, “is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine.”
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime’s wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime’s mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. “THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN.”
But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, “And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?”
The Universal AC said, “MAN’S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF.”
“Did the men upon it die?” asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, “A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.”
“Yes, of course,” said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
Dee Sub Wun said, “What is wrong?”
“The stars are dying. The original star is dead.”
“They must all die. Why not?”
“But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them.”
“It will take billions of years.”
“I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?”
Dee sub Wun said in amusement, “You’re asking how entropy might be reversed in direction.”
And the Universal AC answered. “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Zee Prime’s thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime’s own. It didn’t matter.
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
Man said, “The Universe is dying.”
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars build, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
Man said, “Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years.”
“But even so,” said Man, “eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum.”
Man said, “Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC.”
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.
“Cosmic AC,” said Man, “How many entropy be reversed?”
The Cosmic AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Man said, “Collect additional data.”
The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.”
“Will there come a time,” said Man, “when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?”
The Cosmic AC said, “NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Man said, “When will you have enough data to answer the question?”
“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
“Will you keep working on it?” asked Man.
The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL.”
Man said, “We shall wait.”
The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
Man’s last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
Man said, “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”
AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Man’s last mind fused and only AC existed — and that in hyperspace.
Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken technician ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
And there was light—
[ downlode.org etext library ]
Alexander Adell and Bertram Lupov were two of the faithful attendants of Multivac. As well as any human beings could, they knew what lay behind the cold, clicking, flashing face — miles and miles of face — of that giant computer. They had at least a vague notion of the general plan of relays and circuits that had long since grown past the point where any single human could possibly have a firm grasp of the whole.
Multivac was self-adjusting and self-correcting. It had to be, for nothing human could adjust and correct it quickly enough or even adequately enough — so Adell and Lupov attended the monstrous giant only lightly and superficially, yet as well as any men could. They fed it data, adjusted questions to its needs and translated the answers that were issued. Certainly they, and all others like them, were fully entitled to share In the glory that was Multivac’s.
For decades, Multivac had helped design the ships and plot the trajectories that enabled man to reach the Moon, Mars, and Venus, but past that, Earth’s poor resources could not support the ships. Too much energy was needed for the long trips. Earth exploited its coal and uranium with increasing efficiency, but there was only so much of both.
But slowly Multivac learned enough to answer deeper questions more fundamentally, and on May 14, 2061, what had been theory, became fact.
The energy of the sun was stored, converted, and utilized directly on a planet-wide scale. All Earth turned off its burning coal, its fissioning uranium, and flipped the switch that connected all of it to a small station, one mile in diameter, circling the Earth at half the distance of the Moon. All Earth ran by invisible beams of sunpower.
Seven days had not sufficed to dim the glory of it and Adell and Lupov finally managed to escape from the public function, and to meet in quiet where no one would think of looking for them, in the deserted underground chambers, where portions of the mighty buried body of Multivac showed. Unattended, idling, sorting data with contented lazy clickings, Multivac, too, had earned its vacation and the boys appreciated that. They had no intention, originally, of disturbing it.
They had brought a bottle with them, and their only concern at the moment was to relax in the company of each other and the bottle.
“It’s amazing when you think of it,” said Adell. His broad face had lines of weariness in it, and he stirred his drink slowly with a glass rod, watching the cubes of ice slur clumsily about. “All the energy we can possibly ever use for free. Enough energy, if we wanted to draw on it, to melt all Earth into a big drop of impure liquid iron, and still never miss the energy so used. All the energy we could ever use, forever and forever and forever.”
Lupov cocked his head sideways. He had a trick of doing that when he wanted to be contrary, and he wanted to be contrary now, partly because he had had to carry the ice and glassware. “Not forever,” he said.
“Oh, hell, just about forever. Till the sun runs down, Bert.”
“That’s not forever.”
“All right, then. Billions and billions of years. Twenty billion, maybe. Are you satisfied?”
Lupov put his fingers through his thinning hair as though to reassure himself that some was still left and sipped gently at his own drink. “Twenty billion years isn’t forever.”
“Will, it will last our time, won’t it?”
“So would the coal and uranium.”
“All right, but now we can hook up each individual spaceship to the Solar Station, and it can go to Pluto and back a million times without ever worrying about fuel. You can’t do THAT on coal and uranium. Ask Multivac, if you don’t believe me.”
“I don’t have to ask Multivac. I know that.”
“Then stop running down what Multivac’s done for us,” said Adell, blazing up. “It did all right.”
“Who says it didn’t? What I say is that a sun won’t last forever. That’s all I’m saying. We’re safe for twenty billion years, but then what?” Lupov pointed a slightly shaky finger at the other. “And don’t say we’ll switch to another sun.”
There was silence for a while. Adell put his glass to his lips only occasionally, and Lupov’s eyes slowly closed. They rested.
Then Lupov’s eyes snapped open. “You’re thinking we’ll switch to another sun when ours is done, aren’t you?”
“I’m not thinking.”
“Sure you are. You’re weak on logic, that’s the trouble with you. You’re like the guy in the story who was caught in a sudden shower and Who ran to a grove of trees and got under one. He wasn’t worried, you see, because he figured when one tree got wet through, he would just get under another one.”
“I get it,” said Adell. “Don’t shout. When the sun is done, the other stars will be gone, too.”
“Darn right they will,” muttered Lupov. “It all had a beginning in the original cosmic explosion, whatever that was, and it’ll all have an end when all the stars run down. Some run down faster than others. Hell, the giants won’t last a hundred million years. The sun will last twenty billion years and maybe the dwarfs will last a hundred billion for all the good they are. But just give us a trillion years and everything will be dark. Entropy has to increase to maximum, that’s all.”
“I know all about entropy,” said Adell, standing on his dignity.
“The hell you do.”
“I know as much as you do.”
“Then you know everything’s got to run down someday.”
“All right. Who says they won’t?”
“You did, you poor sap. You said we had all the energy we needed, forever. You said ’forever.’”
“It was Adell’s turn to be contrary. “Maybe we can build things up again someday,” he said.
“Never.”
“Why not? Someday.”
“Never.”
“Ask Multivac.”
“You ask Multivac. I dare you. Five dollars says it can’t be done.”
Adell was just drunk enough to try, just sober enough to be able to phrase the necessary symbols and operations into a question which, in words, might have corresponded to this: Will mankind one day without the net expenditure of energy be able to restore the sun to its full youthfulness even after it had died of old age?
Or maybe it could be put more simply like this: How can the net amount of entropy of the universe be massively decreased?
Multivac fell dead and silent. The slow flashing of lights ceased, the distant sounds of clicking relays ended.
Then, just as the frightened technicians felt they could hold their breath no longer, there was a sudden springing to life of the teletype attached to that portion of Multivac. Five words were printed: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
“No bet,” whispered Lupov. They left hurriedly.
By next morning, the two, plagued with throbbing head and cottony mouth, had forgotten about the incident.
Jerrodd, Jerrodine, and Jerrodette I and II watched the starry picture in the visiplate change as the passage through hyperspace was completed in its non-time lapse. At once, the even powdering of stars gave way to the predominance of a single bright marble-disk, centered.
“That’s X-23,” said Jerrodd confidently. His thin hands clamped tightly behind his back and the knuckles whitened.
The little Jerrodettes, both girls, had experienced the hyperspace passage for the first time in their lives and were self-conscious over the momentary sensation of inside-outness. They buried their giggles and chased one another wildly about their mother, screaming, “We’ve reached X-23 — we’ve reached X-23 — we’ve —”
“Quiet, children,” said Jerrodine sharply. “Are you sure, Jerrodd?”
“What is there to be but sure?” asked Jerrodd, glancing up at the bulge of featureless metal just under the ceiling. It ran the length of the room, disappearing through the wall at either end. It was as long as the ship.
Jerrodd scarcely knew a thing about the thick rod of metal except that it was called a Microvac, that one asked it questions if one wished; that if one did not it still had its task of guiding the ship to a preordered destination; of feeding on energies from the various Sub-galactic Power Stations; of computing the equations for the hyperspacial jumps.
Jerrodd and his family had only to wait and live in the comfortable residence quarters of the ship.
Someone had once told Jerrodd that the “ac” at the end of “Microvac” stood for “analog computer” in ancient English, but he was on the edge of forgetting even that.
Jerrodine’s eyes were moist as she watched the visiplate. “I can’t help it. I feel funny about leaving Earth.”
“Why for Pete’s sake?” demanded Jerrodd. “We had nothing there. We’ll have everything on X-23. You won’t be alone. You won’t be a pioneer. There are over a million people on the planet already. Good Lord, our great grandchildren will be looking for new worlds because X-23 will be overcrowded.”
Then, after a reflective pause, “I tell you, it’s a lucky thing the computers worked out interstellar travel the way the race is growing.”
“I know, I know,” said Jerrodine miserably.
Jerrodette I said promptly, “Our Microvac is the best Microvac in the world.”
“I think so, too,” said Jerrodd, tousling her hair.
It was a nice feeling to have a Microvac of your own and Jerrodd was glad he was part of his generation and no other. In his father’s youth, the only computers had been tremendous machines taking up a hundred square miles of land. There was only one to a planet. Planetary ACs they were called. They had been growing in size steadily for a thousand years and then, all at once, came refinement. In place of transistors had come molecular valves so that even the largest Planetary AC could be put into a space only half the volume of a spaceship.
Jerrodd felt uplifted, as he always did when he thought that his own personal Microvac was many times more complicated than the ancient and primitive Multivac that had first tamed the Sun, and almost as complicated as Earth’s Planetary AC (the largest) that had first solved the problem of hyperspatial travel and had made trips to the stars possible.
“So many stars, so many planets,” sighed Jerrodine, busy with her own thoughts. “I suppose families will be going out to new planets forever, the way we are now.”
“Not forever,” said Jerrodd, with a smile. “It will all stop someday, but not for billions of years. Many billions. Even the stars run down, you know. Entropy must increase.”
“What’s entropy, daddy?” shrilled Jerrodette II.
“Entropy, little sweet, is just a word which means the amount of running-down of the universe. Everything runs down, you know, like your little walkie-talkie robot, remember?”
“Can’t you just put in a new power-unit, like with my robot?”
“The stars are the power-units, dear. Once they’re gone, there are no more power-units.”
Jerrodette I at once set up a howl. “Don’t let them, daddy. Don’t let the stars run down.”
“Now look what you’ve done, “ whispered Jerrodine, exasperated.
“How was I to know it would frighten them?” Jerrodd whispered to Jerrodine. “It will quiet them down.” (Jerrodette II was beginning to cry, also.)
Jarrodd shrugged. “Now, now, honeys. I’ll ask Microvac. Don’t worry, he’ll tell us.”
He asked the Microvac, adding quickly, “Print the answer.”
Jerrodd cupped the strip of thin cellufilm and said cheerfully, “See now, the Microvac says it will take care of everything when the time comes so don’t worry.”
Jerrodine said, “and now children, it’s time for bed. We’ll be in our new home soon.”
Jerrodd read the words on the cellufilm again before destroying it: INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
He shrugged and looked at the visiplate. X-23 was just ahead.
VJ-23X of Lameth stared into the black depths of the three-dimensional, small-scale map of the Galaxy and said, “Are we ridiculous, I wonder, in being so concerned about the matter?”
MQ-17J of Nicron shook his head. “I think not. You know the Galaxy will be filled in five years at the present rate of expansion.”
Both seemed in their early twenties, both were tall and perfectly formed.
“Still,” said VJ-23X, “I hesitate to submit a pessimistic report to the Galactic Council.”
“I wouldn’t consider any other kind of report. Stir them up a bit. We’ve got to stir them up.”
VJ-23X sighed. “Space is infinite. A hundred billion Galaxies are there for the taking. More.”
“A hundred billion is not infinite and it’s getting less infinite all the time. Consider! Twenty thousand years ago, mankind first solved the problem of utilizing stellar energy, and a few centuries later, interstellar travel became possible. It took mankind a million years to fill one small world and then only fifteen thousand years to fill the rest of the Galaxy. Now the population doubles every ten years —”
VJ-23X interrupted. “We can thank immortality for that.”
“Very well. Immortality exists and we have to take it into account. I admit it has its seamy side, this immortality. The Galactic AC has solved many problems for us, but in solving the problems of preventing old age and death, it has undone all its other solutions.”
“Yet you wouldn’t want to abandon life, I suppose.”
“Not at all,” snapped MQ-17J, softening it at once to, “Not yet. I’m by no means old enough. How old are you?”
“Two hundred twenty-three. And you?”
“I’m still under two hundred. —But to get back to my point. Population doubles every ten years. Once this Galaxy is filled, we’ll have another filled in ten years. Another ten years and we’ll have filled two more. Another decade, four more. In a hundred years, we’ll have filled a thousand Galaxies. In a thousand years, a million Galaxies. In ten thousand years, the entire known Universe. Then what?”
VJ-23X said, “As a side issue, there’s a problem of transportation. I wonder how many sunpower units it will take to move Galaxies of individuals from one Galaxy to the next.”
“A very good point. Already, mankind consumes two sunpower units per year.”
“Most of it’s wasted. After all, our own Galaxy alone pours out a thousand sunpower units a year and we only use two of those.”
“Granted, but even with a hundred per cent efficiency, we can only stave off the end. Our energy requirements are going up in geometric progression even faster than our population. We’ll run out of energy even sooner than we run out of Galaxies. A good point. A very good point.”
“We’ll just have to build new stars out of interstellar gas.”
“Or out of dissipated heat?” asked MQ-17J, sarcastically.
“There may be some way to reverse entropy. We ought to ask the Galactic AC.”
VJ-23X was not really serious, but MQ-17J pulled out his AC-contact from his pocket and placed it on the table before him.
“I’ve half a mind to,” he said. “It’s something the human race will have to face someday.”
He stared somberly at his small AC-contact. It was only two inches cubed and nothing in itself, but it was connected through hyperspace with the great Galactic AC that served all mankind. Hyperspace considered, it was an integral part of the Galactic AC.
MQ-17J paused to wonder if someday in his immortal life he would get to see the Galactic AC. It was on a little world of its own, a spider webbing of force-beams holding the matter within which surges of sub-mesons took the place of the old clumsy molecular valves. Yet despite its sub-etheric workings, the Galactic AC was known to be a full thousand feet across.
MQ-17J asked suddenly of his AC-contact, “Can entropy ever be reversed?”
VJ-23X looked startled and said at once, “Oh, say, I didn’t really mean to have you ask that.”
“Why not?”
“We both know entropy can’t be reversed. You can’t turn smoke and ash back into a tree.”
“Do you have trees on your world?” asked MQ-17J.
The sound of the Galactic AC startled them into silence. Its voice came thin and beautiful out of the small AC-contact on the desk. It said: THERE IS INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.
VJ-23X said, “See!”
The two men thereupon returned to the question of the report they were to make to the Galactic Council.
Zee Prime’s mind spanned the new Galaxy with a faint interest in the countless twists of stars that powdered it. He had never seen this one before. Would he ever see them all? So many of them, each with its load of humanity — but a load that was almost a dead weight. More and more, the real essence of men was to be found out here, in space.
Minds, not bodies! The immortal bodies remained back on the planets, in suspension over the eons. Sometimes they roused for material activity but that was growing rarer. Few new individuals were coming into existence to join the incredibly mighty throng, but what matter? There was little room in the Universe for new individuals.
Zee Prime was roused out of his reverie upon coming across the wispy tendrils of another mind.
“I am Zee Prime,” said Zee Prime. “And you?”
“I am Dee Sub Wun. Your Galaxy?”
“We call it only the Galaxy. And you?”
“We call ours the same. All men call their Galaxy their Galaxy and nothing more. Why not?”
“True. Since all Galaxies are the same.”
“Not all Galaxies. On one particular Galaxy the race of man must have originated. That makes it different.”
Zee Prime said, “On which one?”
“I cannot say. The Universal AC would know.”
“Shall we ask him? I am suddenly curious.”
Zee Prime’s perceptions broadened until the Galaxies themselves shrunk and became a new, more diffuse powdering on a much larger background. So many hundreds of billions of them, all with their immortal beings, all carrying their load of intelligences with minds that drifted freely through space. And yet one of them was unique among them all in being the originals Galaxy. One of them had, in its vague and distant past, a period when it was the only Galaxy populated by man.
Zee Prime was consumed with curiosity to see this Galaxy and called, out: “Universal AC! On which Galaxy did mankind originate?”
The Universal AC heard, for on every world and throughout space, it had its receptors ready, and each receptor lead through hyperspace to some unknown point where the Universal AC kept itself aloof.
Zee Prime knew of only one man whose thoughts had penetrated within sensing distance of Universal AC, and he reported only a shining globe, two feet across, difficult to see.
“But how can that be all of Universal AC?” Zee Prime had asked.
“Most of it, “ had been the answer, “is in hyperspace. In what form it is there I cannot imagine.”
Nor could anyone, for the day had long since passed, Zee Prime knew, when any man had any part of the making of a universal AC. Each Universal AC designed and constructed its successor. Each, during its existence of a million years or more accumulated the necessary data to build a better and more intricate, more capable successor in which its own store of data and individuality would be submerged.
The Universal AC interrupted Zee Prime’s wandering thoughts, not with words, but with guidance. Zee Prime’s mentality was guided into the dim sea of Galaxies and one in particular enlarged into stars.
A thought came, infinitely distant, but infinitely clear. “THIS IS THE ORIGINAL GALAXY OF MAN.”
But it was the same after all, the same as any other, and Zee Prime stifled his disappointment.
Dee Sub Wun, whose mind had accompanied the other, said suddenly, “And Is one of these stars the original star of Man?”
The Universal AC said, “MAN’S ORIGINAL STAR HAS GONE NOVA. IT IS NOW A WHITE DWARF.”
“Did the men upon it die?” asked Zee Prime, startled and without thinking.
The Universal AC said, “A NEW WORLD, AS IN SUCH CASES, WAS CONSTRUCTED FOR THEIR PHYSICAL BODIES IN TIME.”
“Yes, of course,” said Zee Prime, but a sense of loss overwhelmed him even so. His mind released its hold on the original Galaxy of Man, let it spring back and lose itself among the blurred pin points. He never wanted to see it again.
Dee Sub Wun said, “What is wrong?”
“The stars are dying. The original star is dead.”
“They must all die. Why not?”
“But when all energy is gone, our bodies will finally die, and you and I with them.”
“It will take billions of years.”
“I do not wish it to happen even after billions of years. Universal AC! How may stars be kept from dying?”
Dee sub Wun said in amusement, “You’re asking how entropy might be reversed in direction.”
And the Universal AC answered. “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Zee Prime’s thoughts fled back to his own Galaxy. He gave no further thought to Dee Sub Wun, whose body might be waiting on a galaxy a trillion light-years away, or on the star next to Zee Prime’s own. It didn’t matter.
Unhappily, Zee Prime began collecting interstellar hydrogen out of which to build a small star of his own. If the stars must someday die, at least some could yet be built.
Man considered with himself, for in a way, Man, mentally, was one. He consisted of a trillion, trillion, trillion ageless bodies, each in its place, each resting quiet and incorruptible, each cared for by perfect automatons, equally incorruptible, while the minds of all the bodies freely melted one into the other, indistinguishable.
Man said, “The Universe is dying.”
Man looked about at the dimming Galaxies. The giant stars, spendthrifts, were gone long ago, back in the dimmest of the dim far past. Almost all stars were white dwarfs, fading to the end.
New stars had been built of the dust between the stars, some by natural processes, some by Man himself, and those were going, too. White dwarfs might yet be crashed together and of the mighty forces so released, new stars build, but only one star for every thousand white dwarfs destroyed, and those would come to an end, too.
Man said, “Carefully husbanded, as directed by the Cosmic AC, the energy that is even yet left in all the Universe will last for billions of years.”
“But even so,” said Man, “eventually it will all come to an end. However it may be husbanded, however stretched out, the energy once expended is gone and cannot be restored. Entropy must increase to the maximum.”
Man said, “Can entropy not be reversed? Let us ask the Cosmic AC.”
The Cosmic AC surrounded them but not in space. Not a fragment of it was in space. It was in hyperspace and made of something that was neither matter nor energy. The question of its size and Nature no longer had meaning to any terms that Man could comprehend.
“Cosmic AC,” said Man, “How many entropy be reversed?”
The Cosmic AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Man said, “Collect additional data.”
The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL DO SO. I HAVE BEEN DOING SO FOR A HUNDRED BILLION YEARS. MY PREDECESSORS AND I HAVE BEEN ASKED THIS QUESTION MANY TIMES. ALL THE DATA I HAVE REMAINS INSUFFICIENT.”
“Will there come a time,” said Man, “when data will be sufficient or is the problem insoluble in all conceivable circumstances?”
The Cosmic AC said, “NO PROBLEM IS INSOLUBLE IN ALL CONCEIVABLE CIRCUMSTANCES.”
Man said, “When will you have enough data to answer the question?”
“THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
“Will you keep working on it?” asked Man.
The Cosmic AC said, “I WILL.”
Man said, “We shall wait.”
The stars and Galaxies died and snuffed out, and space grew black after ten trillion years of running down.
One by one Man fused with AC, each physical body losing its mental identity in a manner that was somehow not a loss but a gain.
Man’s last mind paused before fusion, looking over a space that included nothing but the dregs of one last dark star and nothing besides but incredibly thin matter, agitated randomly by the tag ends of heat wearing out, asymptotically, to the absolute zero.
Man said, “AC, is this the end? Can this chaos not be reversed into the Universe once more? Can that not be done?”
AC said, “THERE IS AS YET INSUFFICIENT DATA FOR A MEANINGFUL ANSWER.”
Man’s last mind fused and only AC existed — and that in hyperspace.
Matter and energy had ended and with it, space and time. Even AC existed only for the sake of the one last question that it had never answered from the time a half-drunken technician ten trillion years before had asked the question of a computer that was to AC far less than was a man to Man.
All other questions had been answered, and until this last question was answered also, AC might not release his consciousness.
All collected data had come to a final end. Nothing was left to be collected.
But all collected data had yet to be completely correlated and put together in all possible relationships.
A timeless interval was spent in doing that.
And it came to pass that AC learned how to reverse the direction of entropy.
But there was now no man to whom AC might give the answer of the last question. No matter. The answer — by demonstration — would take care of that, too.
For another timeless interval, AC thought how best to do this. Carefully, AC organized the program.
The consciousness of AC encompassed all of what had once been a Universe and brooded over what was now Chaos. Step by step, it must be done.
And AC said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT!”
And there was light—
[ downlode.org etext library ]
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Boddisatva as a Parent
We are confused by words.
Emotions have some utility in the
comprehension of ourselves.
The insight that those emotions afford
are at best a guess based on experience.
Love is as much a guess
as it is a practice of faith.
And for me, Thursday.
Making my son
smile as he fell slept
restores some of that faith.
Emotions have some utility in the
comprehension of ourselves.
The insight that those emotions afford
are at best a guess based on experience.
Love is as much a guess
as it is a practice of faith.
And for me, Thursday.
Making my son
smile as he fell slept
restores some of that faith.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
The Baseline
By Scott Horton, Harper's Magazine.
Back in the days when I was a lawyer representing mining companies (you may have noticed the absence of environmental advocacy in this space), we used to arrange, on acquiring a new mining site, for a “baseline study.” The object was to put the company in a position to demonstrate, when some later issue arose over pollution, what part of the problem was there when we started. I think it’s useful at 11 days before the inauguration of Barack Obama to do a baseline study–to look at what he’s inheriting.
The simple description would be to say it’s an unprecedented mess, and indeed to use a few expletives in the process. The closest analogy certainly is the turnover from Herbert Hoover to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. I’m with John Judis: “We may not simply be facing a steep recession like that of the early 1980s, from which we can extricate ourselves in a year or two, but something resembling the Great Depression of the 1930s.” I also share Judis’s fundamental concern that Obama’s conduct does not yet show that he fully appreciates the magnitude of the calamity that hangs over the nation and the world at this moment.
So here are three of the flashing red lights, all from the newspaper headlines of the last few days:
*
7.2. The current unemployment rate is 7.2%, which in the view of many analysts considerably understates the problem. Taking the approach used by other industrialized nations, our rate might actually be more on the order of 10%. In any event, Bush 43 leaves office with a sixteen-year high in unemployment—matching the record that inspired the American electorate to drive his father, Bush 41, from office. By contrast, Bush inherited a country with a 4.2% unemployment rate, the lowest in 16 years, following an administration that created 20 million jobs. Bush destroyed 2.6 million jobs in the course of 2008 alone.
*
2 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office recently put out its best guess as to the budget deficit that Bush was leaving behind for FY 2009: $1.2 trillion. But that number is almost certainly low. For instance, Strategas analyst Dan Clifton reworks the numbers and comes up with $2.2 trillion. In any event, it will be the biggest deficit in America’s history. By comparison, Bush came into office following the longest sustained peace-time economic expansion in U.S. history under Clinton, who left behind a budget surplus of $559 billion. The total cost of the Bush Administration is estimated by Joe Stiglitz and Linda Blimes in our January cover story at over $10 trillion. Bush was the costliest presidency in U.S. history, by a wide margin; the debt burden he’s leaving behind may be close to triple the one he inherited.
*
Afghanimire. The prestigious congressionally created think-tank the U.S. Institute of Peace issued a massive analysis of the Bush Administration’s performance in Afghanistan and the mess it’s leaving behind for Obama. Conclusion: George W. Bush and his administration have had close to eight years to address the process of building a stable and friendly government in Afghanistan, and they leave office with no measurable achievements, notwithstanding billions expended. All the analysts are agreed on the nature of the problem, too. The Bushies constantly pursued short-term, highly cosmetic goals while neglecting—or even aggravating—the fundamental problems that make the country unstable. Some of their stupider policies were apparently driven by a desire to play to their domestic Religious Right political base—leading Bush to prioritize a highly counterproductive drug suppression program pursued using tactics that were guaranteed to fail from the outset.
Is it really possible for a single president in a single term to bring the nation back to the status quo ante the arrival of the Bush-Cheney hurricane? Almost certainly not. And as we measure Obama’s progress over the coming years, we should measure it realistically against the steaming pile of excrement he inherited from his predecessor. Obama truly has inherited mission impossible.
Source:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004164
Back in the days when I was a lawyer representing mining companies (you may have noticed the absence of environmental advocacy in this space), we used to arrange, on acquiring a new mining site, for a “baseline study.” The object was to put the company in a position to demonstrate, when some later issue arose over pollution, what part of the problem was there when we started. I think it’s useful at 11 days before the inauguration of Barack Obama to do a baseline study–to look at what he’s inheriting.
The simple description would be to say it’s an unprecedented mess, and indeed to use a few expletives in the process. The closest analogy certainly is the turnover from Herbert Hoover to Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1933. I’m with John Judis: “We may not simply be facing a steep recession like that of the early 1980s, from which we can extricate ourselves in a year or two, but something resembling the Great Depression of the 1930s.” I also share Judis’s fundamental concern that Obama’s conduct does not yet show that he fully appreciates the magnitude of the calamity that hangs over the nation and the world at this moment.
So here are three of the flashing red lights, all from the newspaper headlines of the last few days:
*
7.2. The current unemployment rate is 7.2%, which in the view of many analysts considerably understates the problem. Taking the approach used by other industrialized nations, our rate might actually be more on the order of 10%. In any event, Bush 43 leaves office with a sixteen-year high in unemployment—matching the record that inspired the American electorate to drive his father, Bush 41, from office. By contrast, Bush inherited a country with a 4.2% unemployment rate, the lowest in 16 years, following an administration that created 20 million jobs. Bush destroyed 2.6 million jobs in the course of 2008 alone.
*
2 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office recently put out its best guess as to the budget deficit that Bush was leaving behind for FY 2009: $1.2 trillion. But that number is almost certainly low. For instance, Strategas analyst Dan Clifton reworks the numbers and comes up with $2.2 trillion. In any event, it will be the biggest deficit in America’s history. By comparison, Bush came into office following the longest sustained peace-time economic expansion in U.S. history under Clinton, who left behind a budget surplus of $559 billion. The total cost of the Bush Administration is estimated by Joe Stiglitz and Linda Blimes in our January cover story at over $10 trillion. Bush was the costliest presidency in U.S. history, by a wide margin; the debt burden he’s leaving behind may be close to triple the one he inherited.
*
Afghanimire. The prestigious congressionally created think-tank the U.S. Institute of Peace issued a massive analysis of the Bush Administration’s performance in Afghanistan and the mess it’s leaving behind for Obama. Conclusion: George W. Bush and his administration have had close to eight years to address the process of building a stable and friendly government in Afghanistan, and they leave office with no measurable achievements, notwithstanding billions expended. All the analysts are agreed on the nature of the problem, too. The Bushies constantly pursued short-term, highly cosmetic goals while neglecting—or even aggravating—the fundamental problems that make the country unstable. Some of their stupider policies were apparently driven by a desire to play to their domestic Religious Right political base—leading Bush to prioritize a highly counterproductive drug suppression program pursued using tactics that were guaranteed to fail from the outset.
Is it really possible for a single president in a single term to bring the nation back to the status quo ante the arrival of the Bush-Cheney hurricane? Almost certainly not. And as we measure Obama’s progress over the coming years, we should measure it realistically against the steaming pile of excrement he inherited from his predecessor. Obama truly has inherited mission impossible.
Source:
http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/01/hbc-90004164
Friday, January 02, 2009
2009.
“ May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.
Neil Gaiman
Neil Gaiman
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
