Re: Elephant in the room....

On Sep 30, 1:38 pm, "Martha Adams" <mh...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Rooms in money and politics discussion are getting to
be a real pain because there are these *elephants*
turning up all around the place.  And these are very
significant because 1) Government cannot settle space
because they can't keep a focussed project moving thru
consecutive administrations;

When Eisenhower was asked to form NASA he worried that it would
detract from US commitment to the needs of the Cold War. He feared US
enthusiasm for space would cause a huge waste in the barren wasteland
of space. To this end he organized the agency without a strategic
head. No CEO no board of directors. No body of distinguished experts
with the power to dictate to the agency what its goals will be going
forward. Eisenhower maliciously put the Vice President in charge of
this important role - knowing that it would make of the agency, a
political foot ball. And as a result, produce a leaderless agency
that would eventually lose favor with the American people and end the
whole experiment in disgrace. It was Eisenhower's hope that space
travel would go the way of the dirigible - and disappear from human
conciousness - except for air headed enthusiasts.

Fact is - government uncorrupted by financial interests - can do
wonderful things. Like cure incurable diseases - like Polio. These
sorts of things are under-reported in the modern age - for a whole
host of other reasons. But there is a 'can do' capacity of
governments and public - when conditions are right. The conditions
are not right - decisively made so by special interests who see in the
will to explore space or the will to remake the world a better place -
distruptive unpredictable outcomes that challenge their authority.


2) whatever they do costs
ten times as much as if business did it;

We must be careful when we apply such analysis. In any industrial
process there are early stage developments, mainstream development,
and antique development. Government can get involved at all stages -
and can foul things up at all stages. Government can also help
things along when conditions are right.

Early stage, there is no market - so no incentive for private
individuals to invest in the development of a thing for which no
market exists. This is early stage - and costs are naturally far
higher than in any other stage, since everyone is learning about the
thing. The development of transistors and integrated circuits for use
aboard ICBMs for example, led ultimately to the mainstream use of ICs
by industry, and the early ICs were laughably inefficient and costly -
yet the government paying these prices - led naturally toward the
development of more commercial mainstream stuff.

Mainstream development - a market exists - and industry meets the
needs of that market. Government sometimes gets involved in this.
Such as breaking a strike, or rebuilding an industry after an attack
or a natural disaster, or reorganizing a business that has failed for
whatever reason. Governments can be quite efficient, if they are not
corrupt at this stage, and turn over assets fairly to private sector.

Antique development - haha - I made this up cause i couldn't think of
any better way to say it. The government gets involved in a service -
say the post office - or elementary education - and it does things a
certain way - and does not change - because that process that way
becomes highly political - and does not allow change. freezing
things into an antique pattern. This can happen in a highly
regulated industry as well. The telephone industry or insurance
companies or banking industry - are good examples.

3) they are
too accessible and vulnerable to faith-based ideologs
who offer instant simple solutions: all you need is in
the Bible (or the Koran) and you just brainwash your
kids so they see it same as you....

This is endemic to our information age - science has not yet resolved
the hero task of the scientific age - and has turned its back on real
growth and adventure due to the risks percieved by special interests
in addressing real challenges. So, fantasy challenges predominate.
Sociologists and historians see these as the earmark to a culture in
decline. It is a side effect of the first point - lack of true
leadership - and not necessarily inherent in government operations per
se.

Where this gets relevant is business that undertakes
to settle Space,

Without the rule of law and an uncorrupted police force- money is
meaningless - and business becomes organized crime - this too reflects
a culture in decline. Without a clear scientific organizing principle
- Freud wanted to see brought about a humane culture - but failed to
clearly define his terms - our culture is doomed to be a low culture -
and will not accede to high culture status until we resolve the hero
task of the modern age - opposing this effort are special interests
who have power BECAUSE we are a culture in disarray and decline.

needs a lot of money.  Where do you
keep a lot of money as you are building up to the work?

Zero taxes help.

Chances are, you have it in the *financial market.*  

All the money has left the USA for Dubai. I don't know if you noticed
that. Then made its way to Shanghai where it resides today.

Which is in a remarkable pickle right now.

Yes, it started with the Gulf War - and will end with either the USA
resolving some very serious issues - or falling to join USSR on the
trasheap of history.

 And one of
the questions you can ask about that is,

Is it really so that government supervision couldn't
see a *$700 billion* crash coming at us?  ??

Legend has it that we lost Vietnam because we lost the hearts and
minds of the American people. So, since that time, censorship has
been in place against international press. You don't see any pictures
in the USA of Osama bin Laden after a certain date, and no recent
statements from him in the USA. This is most obvious. Less obvious
are things Americans know nothing about unless they actually listen to
non-USA media when travelling overseas.

One is that since the beginning of the Gulf War there has been a
steady disinvestment in US banking and financial markets. Where do
you think the money for the Palm and World islands came from? lol.
There has also been a stead investment in China. Where do you think
they are getting the money to build rockets and host the olympics and
so forth? The Shanghai market is growing - the Chinese banking
system is growing more stable. The US system is dying from a
liquidity crisis.

This is unreported in the USA - and so most US bankers don't see it.
In fact most don't even consider the impact of foreign currency flow
back to the USA on banking practicies and liquidity ... so, without a
clear statement of what's happening - due to censorship at the federal
level - they can be forgiven for not seeing what's going on.

The trouble is th eroot of the problem isn't $700 billion shortfall -
its the $7,000 billion taken out by the foreign investors to put into
China. that money will not return easily. No amount of regulation or
bail out will create it - we can print lots of money certainly - but
we'll under mine the value of our own currency that way.


And if it is, then anyone who has managed to build up
a large quantity of money, must get on his knees daily
to thank the Goddess of Good Luck.

haha. I had a daughter five years ago in Switzerland. Her mom didn't
want to come back with me to the USA - so i put most my holdings in
Swiss francs in 2003. Yes, i thank the goddess of good luck for my
daughter every day.


 Who we all know,
is fickle.

Only apparently so.

So one of those very big questions that is not getting
asked is, how do we not do *that* again?

There is a short term middile term and long term answer

short term

1) zero out taxes on capital, capital gain, bank deposits and interest
- basicaly make the USA a tax haven - this will get lots of foreign
money back into the USA and not cost much since we don't make much
from these taxes anyway.

2) declare victory in Afghanistan and Iraq - and withdraw - leaving a
Saudi controlled UN peace keeping force - with aid given Saudi
Arabia. One Arab force is going to dominate in the region, we might
as well choose whch one - and help them all we can - this will cause
Saudi money to flow back into the USA.

medium term

3) lower government expenses and tax rates to match - that is, lower
tax rates on bsiness in ways that promote capital formation and job
growth. balance this with lower government spending. One way to do
this is increase efficiency of government spending- another is to
reduce mlitary expenditures from $2,000 per person per year to $400
per person per year.

4) in 1908 henry ford introduced the assembly line. He increased wages
from less than a dollar to $5 per day - citing incresaes in
productivity. Asked why he didn't take the extra $4 per day as profit
- he said he wanted his workers to buy the things they made. It was
only that way it made sense to create systems that mass produced
items. The assembly line and Ford's vision made the American Middle
Class possible. With automation we have the capacity to make the next
step - develop industrial processes that end disparity of income among
all Americans in a generation - by uniformly increasing productivity
of all jobs to very high levels, and affording pay high enough so that
20% of all wages are easily saved after everything people want is
purchased by them, and 5% of all wages are easily invested as well.
This will end civil discord and improve the reliability of our
financial systems. this is not a social program, but an economic and
technical one with a social purpose. We are ending disparity by
reengineering industry, not society. The goal is to have very high
wages, very high productivity and very low costs - where the USA
competes with ANY nation on quality price and volume despite high wage
rates and short work hours.

5) in 1956 Shell predicted the decline of oil production in the USA by
1970 at an API conference. A few weeks later Lewis Strauss AEC
chairman was asked what America would do in 1970. He responded that
with the present progress in nuclear high temperature reactors, that
by 1970 power would be too cheap to meter. Brookhaven National Labs
by 1959 had developed a high temperature nuclear reactor that made
hydrogen from water more cheaply than oil at $1 per barrel - and
proposed replacing all coal fired plants in the USA with high
temperature nuclear plants that produce electricity at less cost than
coal fired plants, and convert the coal with hydrogen to synthetic
gasoline for use in the USA. The USA would then have a pollution free
source of electricity, and continued exports of fuels, even while
domestic supplies declinned. This program has been stalled since the
1950s and the scientists who proposed it marginalized Hydrogen made
at low cost from water by any source of primary energy - may also be
adapted to refine very low grade ores allowing the use to export a
wide range of commodities at very low cost - giving the US - along
with its manufactured goods - something to trade for its currency -
and stabilizing its economy going forward.

longer term

6) space based resources and assets - by developing very large
reusable launch vehicles the USA could put up

a) communications constellations - global wireless broadband
b) powersat constellations - global wireless power

by developing nuclear pulse capabilities the USA could put up

c) capture NEAs - orbital resources
d) solar powered remotely operated factorysats

by developing MEMs based rockets powered by lasers from space as well
as on board chemical propellants the 'USA could

e) develop ultra-low cost delivery of products from orbit to any
point on Earth
f) develop ballistic package devliery service point to point
g) develop ballistic global transport system.

Would allow the USA to expand its economic influence and wealth.

Seems to me, thru Bush and his Republicans, the whole
thing is in the hands of a small group of fob's in
Washington (Friends of Bush) and they have a simple
plan for double-action extraction of money from the
USA into their pockets.  

It may very well be that the Chinese and Saudi's have corrupted our
political system with this administratoin. It could also be that
we've just ben very unlucky in our choices recently.

However this is a contnuation of a failed policy - Truman/Eisenhower
setup the present trading regime. The US was at the top of the heap.
It had to be during the Cold War - to avoid a nuclear Pearl Harbor.
it had to maintain a war footing in peace. So, it had to resort to
chicanery to keep its edge. So, we were the world's bankers and
retailers. Our allies were our manfucturies. Our firends supplied
food and raw material. Our enemies were isolated.

US farming and manufacturing - with the exception of miilitary - went
to the wall. The US became a nation of Republican shopkeeps.

This creates a disparity of income - beneficial to the US - and allows
the US to spend a lot on military - without paying a huge price - and
its why the US with only 4% of the world wealth - consumes 45% of the
world's stuff.

But it cannot last, because we pay with dollars, and there is nothing
those who support us can buy with their dollars. So they acucmulate
overseas.

So by Johnson's administation inflation became an issue. Nixon
finally went off the gold standard and established a system of
international trade of curency. This worked until the second term -
when Yen and Marks increased in value - and Germans and Japanese
started buying US real estate and businesses in large numbers. Nixon
opened up to China - and moved American investments into China out of
German and Japan - which collapsed their currencies - for a while.

Reagan changed the banking rules - to beat back inflation - while
cutting taxes - this allowed foreigners to invest heavily in the US
financial markets. killing the S&Ls in the process and setting us up
for our prsent crisis.

But it worked well - before the crisis. You buy gasoline and some of
the money goes to an oil sheik. the oil sheik invests in US bank
instruments, and underwrites your mortgage. You buy clothes and some
of the money ends up in China. China buys a bank instrument in the US
and underwites your credit card debt. All is right with the world.
2/3 of the value of the US banking system is derived from foreign
deposits.

George Bush invaded Iraq and pissed of the Saudis who started taking
money out of the US banking system. After a year in Iraq, they took
the $22 price cap off oil to show their displeasure. All George had
to do in December 2004 to get a new price cap, was to come up with a
withdrawal plan over the next 12 to 18 months. He didn't do that -
and now oil is over $100 per barrel - and MORE money is being sucked
out of the US economy never to return.

The Saudi's invested their idle cash in China and India. Those
markets skyrocketed. By summer of 2007 - Shanghai exchange became
larger than NASDAQ - people took notice, and in July, major moves of
capital out of US markets into Shanghai markets caused a severe
liquidity shortage in the US banking system - and the subprime market
collapsed - as the weak link. This caused a write down of loans -
which caused wealth to evaporate - subtracting more liquidity from the
market very rapidly - this spread to Fannie Mae and Freddie Max - to
the insurers of these loans - to the investment banks backing the
insurers - to the mainline banks banking the investment banks - and on
and on it went.

$18 trillion has been removed from the US economy by this process
since the start of the Gulf War - and none of it was allowed to be
reported openly or discussed critically - because such criticism MIGHT
adversely impact the willingness of the Americna people to engage in
the war. their hearts and minds thing.

They profited from building up
to the crash; now they will profit (with Bush's help)
from the ...getting-out of it.  Not doing that again,
is not the topic.

No they're trying to save the system without letting on what the hell
is going on.

And how is anybody going to do space settlements out
of this crazy economy?

yes - those who develop energy resources for the usa, those who
develop automated manufacturing for the usa, those who develop
improved methods of banking in the usa - with AI systems built into
wireless pdas-


Titeotwawki -- mha  [sci.space.policy 2008 Sep 30]

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