Where the Wild Resources Are

For states with massive urban populations, often politically blue, versus states whose economies are driven by mining, farming and extracting natural resources, often politically red, there is a clear conflict on climate change. Impose strict environmental controls and urban dwellers breathe better while the resource-extractors have to pay more money to ply their trade. Money seems to trump breathing.

The big impacts of fires, flooding, storm surges, droughts, and changes in disease patterns tend to be ignored by just about everybody. Too big to contemplate. Most of us are simply not willing to make the big changes in our lifestyles when burning newly-found fossil fuels make staying the course so easy. The public is so absorbed with our teetering economy that there has been very little in the way of a public outcry for massive change in our environmental policies. You don’t get elected in this country touting environmental responsibility.

Look at the track record of Republicans vs. Democrats on global warming issues. It’s easier if you simply state that there is no determinative evidence that global warming is scientific fact (even though well-north of 95% of all qualified scientists swear it’s real), which is a socially-conservative’s “proper” response to the issue. It’s a slam dunk if your campaign chest is filled with money from the “energy sector.” Here’s the way it really is.

“Democrats have twice pushed serious bills to force greenhouse gas polluters like coal-fired power plants and oil refiners to pay to pollute. Both of those bills — one by President Bill Clinton in 1993 and one by President Obama in 2010 — ultimately failed, contributing to heavy Democratic losses in midterm elections.

“Lawmakers who back such efforts, which represent a threat to the bottom lines of the fossil fuel industry, particularly coal, the nation’s top source of carbon pollution, have been criticized by campaigns from Republicans, Tea Party-affiliated ‘super PACs’ like Americans for Prosperity, and the coal and oil industries…

“During this year’s midterm election campaigns, Republicans have used carbon-control policies as a political weapon, calling Mr. Obama’s E.P.A. rules a ‘war on coal.’ The Senate Republican leader, Mitch McConnell, who is running for re-election in the coal-heavy state of Kentucky, has vowed to use every legislative tactic available to block, repeal or delay those rules if Republicans win control of the Senate this fall.

“Within that context, many in the Republican establishment think that talking about climate change — and, particularly, any policy endorsing a tax on fossil fuels — would be political suicide for a Republican seeking to win the party’s nomination in 2016.

“The United Nations report says that if the world’s major economies do not enact steep, fast climate policies well before 2030, in order to cut total global emissions 40 to 70 percent by 2050, the prospects of avoiding a global atmospheric temperature increase of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, the point past which scientists say the planet will be locked into a dangerous future, will be far more difficult and expensive.” New York Times, April 15th.

So for most elected officials, they won’t be the ones who really suffer the nasty consequences of over-use of fossil fuels. That post-apocalyptic reality belongs to the youngest (and most helpless) people on earth. Simply put, we are betting their health, life expectancy and quality of life in a rigged game, one that they can only loose. How do politicians feel about betraying their own children, grandchildren and what might survive beyond? Obviously, not bad enough.

I’m Peter Dekom, and exactly how do you feel about your stance on the subject and what you have been willing to do about it?

Cadmium, Nickel and Arsenic

China is an amazing country with a fascinating and rich cultural heritage. The new “communist” government – a political system premised on an elite cadre of carefully recruited and groomed officials charged with doing what’s best for the people – has lifted over one billion people out of the depths of dire poverty and moved this nation to a clear vector to become the largest economy on earth. Its megalopolis urban centers are glistening tributes to modern architecture, its factories among the most productive on earth and its infrastructural triumphs often put Western counterparts to shame. This centrally-directed growth has produced staggering wealth, legions of new millionaires and billionaires and global influence that Mao Zedong could never have envisioned during his tenure at the top.

True, this growth hasn’t reached all of China; there are hundreds of millions of Chinese in rural and central areas that have yet to see the kinds of benefits seen in the coastal towns and larger cities. That’s on the government’s agenda for the next few years. But rapid growth, directed at the expense of just about everything else, has left China with two massive problems that are deeply problematical for China’s President Xi Jinping: massive high-level corruption and one of the most polluted environments on earth. These issues are actually two sides to the same coin.

With new coal plants by the hundreds coming online every year, king coal has decimated the air quality all across China, and even the capital, Beijing, has air quality so bad that instruments that measure emissions see the needles pinned beyond extreme danger zone (they can’t even get readings), and anyone who can afford them has expensive air filters in their cars, offices and homes. That glistening architecture often isn’t even visible behind the thick haze.

Waterways are deeply polluted. Dead fish and livestock wash down rivers, lakes are no longer able to be used to secure drinking water, and continuous toxins wash out of unregulated factories and carry the dangerous chemicals leached into the soil back into waterways, defying solutions. Until now, it has been a state secret as to exactly how bad it is. But Xi Jinping is serious about fixing the problem, and that means increasing transparency. He knows that public unrest at this horrific problem is becoming a threat to party control. A new Chinese government study, now released to the public, is a strong statement as to President Xi’s new priority.

“Almost a fifth of China's soil is contaminated, an official study released by the government has shown… Conducted between 2005-2013, it found that 16.1% of China's soil and 19.4% of its arable land showed contamination…The report, by the Environmental Protection Ministry, named cadmium, nickel and arsenic as top pollutants.

“There is growing concern, both from the government and the public, that China's rapid industrialisation is causing irreparable damage to its environment…The study took samples across an area of 6.3 million square kilometres, two-thirds of China's land area.

“‘The survey showed that it is hard to be optimistic about the state of soil nationwide,’ the ministry said in a statement on its website… ‘Due to long periods of extensive industrial development and high pollutant emissions, some regions have suffered deteriorating land quality and serious soil pollution.’.. Because of the ‘grim situation’, the state would implement measures including a ‘soil pollution plan’ and better legislation.

“Levels of pollution ranged from slight to severe…About 82.8% of the polluted land was contaminated by inorganic materials, with levels noticeably higher than the previous survey between 1986 and 1990, Xinhua news agency quoted the report as saying… ‘Pollution is severe in three major industrial zones, the Yangtze River Delta in east China, the Pearl River Delta in south China and the northeast corner that used to be a heavy industrial hub,’ the agency said.” BBC.co.uk, April 18^th 

Got it, but why? Toxic dumping? Some. But it mostly comes down to where farmers get water to irrigate. Pour water that has been fouled with toxic metals by processing plants or factories, and the land absorbs that water for a very, very long time. For crops like rice, where fields are intentionally flooded, the damage is so much worse: rice in particular absorbs those toxic metals rather completely, adding poison to the food chain. Chinese vegetables, anyone? And poisoned food terrifies people, and threatens politicians who let it happen.

Those are statistics. Here are the facts: It has been a long-standing policy that local communist party branches (even though party officials are often moved across the country by the central authorities) control local businesses and permitting. And until they reach the highest levels of national party administration, there’s an unwritten rule that local party regulators are able to sit on the boards of the companies they regulate and get compensated in cash and stock for those services.  Even when senior party officials have to cut their ties to such corporate positions to rise to the top, the “no company interests rule” often skips over the positions of power that remain with their immediate family.

Here’s how all that comes out in the Western press: “The central government has promised to make tackling the issue a top priority - but vested interests and lax enforcement of regulations at local level make this challenging… The public, meanwhile, have become increasingly vocal - both on the issue of smog and, in several cases, by taking to the streets to protest against the proposed construction of chemical plants in their cities.” BBC.co.uk.

How does this work? Beijing tells the local party officials to begin implementing a clean-up. The party official tells that to the companies they regulate and on whose boards they sit. The CEO tells the “board member” what the clean-up costs will be, how long the plant has to be shut down to effect the changes… and that they will, unfortunately, have to suspend payments to “board members” until it’s all done. All-too-often, the board members then vote to defer the clean-up until some undefined later period. Oh, and the company needs more access to energy to grow, so another coal-fired regional plant is authorized and built. And so it goes. Xi knows the drill, but he also knows if the people get pissed enough, the party will begin to lose legitimacy, so he has to figure out how to implement a fix.

Before we get too smug about our environmental policies, let’s say that incumbent businesses in the U.S. have paid substantial sums to American politicians and their campaigns to under- or de-fund state and federal environmental agencies, taken away or reduce their power, appointed industry-friendly administrators, have supported the gridlock in Congress that effectively stops tighter controls from being implemented and prevented the United States from entering into global treaties with clear goals to reduce the burning of fossil fuels and the concomitant release of disastrous greenhouse gasses. As horrible as China’s environmental problems might be, they could actually embarrass us by beginning a massive clean-up before we do. Truth is that we all needed to start this clean-up…. yesterday.

I’m Peter Dekom, and sometimes “legitimized” corruption is infinitely more destructive than that under-the-table stuff!

Let’s Play the Expensive Drug/Procedure Game

We make it impossible for Americans legally to order their prescription drugs from other countries, even when it is the same drug made by exactly the same company. Hard to justify “quality-control” reasons for this wasteful, uncompetitive and malignant restriction when it is exactly the same product.

So let’s play the game with a little help from the April 17th Huffington Post, citing: “The latest data from the International Federation of Health Plans, an industry group representing health insurers from 28 countries including the United States, once again illustrates that American patients pay the highest prices in the world for a variety of prescription drugs and common procedures like childbirth and hospital stays.” We’re not even going to look at the cheapest alternatives (which would really shock you) to each of the following ailments/procedures… I am simply going to give you the numbers for the second most expensive price in the world (by country).

Acid Reflux. Common Treatment, Nexium. Standard Prescription Cost Range in the United States ($196 to $395): average $215. Standard Prescription in New Zealand: $60.

Multiple Sclerosis. Common Treatment, Copaxone. Standard Prescription Cost Range in the United States ($3,875 to $4,018): average $3,903. Standard Prescription in Switzerland: $1,357.

Common Treatment, Gilenya. Standard Prescription Cost Range in the United States: ($4,169 to $12,792): average $5,473. Standard Prescription in Canada: $2,541.

Leukemia. Common Treatment for Some Form, Gleevec. Standard Prescription in the United States ($5,482 to $11,007): average $6,214. Standard Prescription in Switzerland: $3,633.

Hospital Stay (Daily Rate). Cost Range in the United States ($1447 to $12726): average $4293, New Zealand average: $2,491.

By-Pass Surgery. Cost Range in the United States ($47,982 to $151,886): average $75,345, Australia, $42,130.

Hospital Delivery (Physician and Hospital). Cost Range in the United States ($7,308 to $17,354): average $10,002, Switzerland, $8,307.

When you are desperate, facing a life and death moment, costs can literally kill you. “Prescription drugs are particularly expensive in the U.S. relative to elsewhere in large part because most other countries set prices for medicines through their universal health care programs, which the U.S. doesn't have. This can hit hardest for people, even those with health insurance, when they need the latest medicines to treat serious diseases.

“Look at the price differences in the U.S. for these big-ticket prescription drugs, which are about twice as expensive in America as in the next-highest country and much more so than in the lowest-cost nations… And despite the persistent claims by nearly anyone holding or seeking public office in the U.S. that America has the best health care system in the world, there's scant evidence that we're getting higher-quality medical treatment or enjoying healthier lives than our counterparts abroad. What's more, the U.S. still leaves tens of millions of its own citizens without health coverage, and will continue to do so even a decade into the implementation of Obamacare.” Huffington Post.

We rank 80th on a global scale measuring a mix of quality of healthcare with relative access to the system. There are 33 countries with better infant mortality rates than we have. There are 34 nations with longer average life expectancies than do we. When Obamacare passed, any semblance of creating competitive low cost components – from a government low cost insurance alternative (like Medicare) to allowing access to cheaper prescriptions from overseas – were crushed by powerful industry lobbyists whose jingling cash-hints of campaign contributions made the difference.

Think all this won’t impact your actual treatments? Bottom line, if a treatment is likely to work (and you desperately need it) but it’s too expensive, your health and life just might not be worth saving even if you have coverage. Folks are seriously thinking about how to apply cost-savings to expensive treatments. “Saying they can no longer ignore the rising prices of health care, some of the most influential medical groups in the nation are recommending that doctors weigh the costs, not just the effectiveness of treatments, as they make decisions about patient care.

“The shift, little noticed outside the medical establishment but already controversial inside it, suggests that doctors are starting to redefine their roles, from being concerned exclusively about individual patients to exerting influence on how health care dollars are spent… ‘We understand that we doctors should be and are stewards of the larger society as well as of the patient in our examination room,’ said Dr. Lowell E. Schnipper, the chairman of a task force on value in cancer care at the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

“In practical terms, new guidelines being developed by the medical groups could result in doctors choosing one drug over another for cost reasons or even deciding that a particular treatment — at the end of life, for example — is too expensive. In the extreme, some critics have said that making treatment decisions based on cost is a form of rationing.” New York Times, April 17th. Death panel, anyone? For example, there is a new highly effective treatment for Hepatitis C, but costs an average of $84,000 to administer. Want to pay for that under Medicaid, Medicare or expect easy coverage under a pile of lower-end insurance policies? See a battle looming?

And every year, medical costs rise faster than the average worker’s pay rises. Every year for well-over a decade, the buying power for average Americans has fallen. The medical cost lines are going to cross the affordability line at this pace, sooner rather than later. We’re close to that even now. Most of us won’t even be able to afford the deeply discounted, often government subsidized cost of Obamacare. Then what? Why do we begin to solve problems when it’s too late to do it intelligently and effectively? Because incumbents with money want it that way.

I’m Peter Dekom, and we are way too blasé about life and death issues that really impact our daily lives… like financial regulations to prevent collapse or really addressing environmental quality and healthcare… but that’s okay, it only hurts our children and grandchildren, so who cares?

Been Here Before

The economy sucks even with some of the most incredible stashes of natural resources on earth. The only way you have even a semblance of acceptable employment is because your shrinking population keeps the job statistics manageable, but all the growth vectors are going the wrong way.

Your country has been humiliated in global politics. Parts of what was once your great nation, now technically separate countries, are seeking alliances and connectivity with countries and philosophies you spent decades fighting. Military alliances from those former foes are linking to countries all around you. You and your people feel deeply humiliated, ignored by the rest of the world.

But, you’re fiercely proud, have one of the most powerful nuclear arsenals on earth with state-of-the-art missiles, aircraft and ships to deliver them as well as one of the most modern armies on the planet. Your people are looking to you for leadership, and you have carefully isolated, imprisoned or eliminated any political forces that could seriously topple you. Unfortunately, some of those “opponents” carried some pretty heavy sway at the top of the economic ladder, and losing them continues to have a negative impact on economic growth and stability.

So what’s a leader to do? We’ve been here before. Throughout history.  When the economic signs look down, find someone to blame, create a cause célèbre where your greatest power can be showcased. Rattle your sabers, deploy them if you believe you can get away with it… Let the world quiver in fear at “what could happen.” Become the focus of their attention, recapture the power headlines and show your disdain for the agendas of your neighbors and your foes. If you have economic power because of overdependence within those neighbors on your supply of natural resources – particularly their fragile energy needs – let them sweat.

After World War I, when Germany was reeling and humiliated from the imposition of war reparations and further slammed by The Great Depression a few years later, Adolph Hitler began flexing his muscle by sequentially annexing the Sudetenland, Austria and then, the straw that broke the back of the European “appeasers” and sparked WWII, Poland. He had “Jews” to “blame” for his country’s woes. He started his expansionist moves, saw that the rest of the world didn’t really seem to care… and continued.

Today, we have Vladimir Putin, whose post-Crimean invasion popularity within his native Russia was hitting the 80% mark, even as the Russian economy was in shambles and heading south. Putin had his distraction. He has the “liberal” west to blame. Crimea was back as a part of Russia… and the world drilled down on the masked “insurgents” occupying buildings and attacking Ukrainian military installations in mostly-ethnically Russian eastern Ukraine.

Putin seemed to be fomenting the unrest with his own operatives in that sector, then decrying any defensive moves that the Ukraine (seemingly powerless and teetering) might take to defend their sovereign territory as “the government killing or threatening their own people.” Three pro-Russian “protestors” (Ukraine refers to them as “terrorists”) were killed as they assaulted a Ukrainian military installation. Massive Russian forces gathered on the border with this eastern region.

Would Putin invade and annex more Ukrainian land… perhaps the entirety of that nation? “Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he has ‘a right’ to send troops into Ukraine but hopes he will ‘not have to exercise that right.’… Mr Putin said he hoped the crisis would be resolved through dialogue… Talks have opened in Geneva between Russia, Ukraine, the EU and US - the first since unrest erupted in Crimea.

“In his annual live television phone-in, Mr Putin warned the Ukrainian authorities of ‘the abyss they're heading into’ and urged dialogue… He also admitted for the first time that Russian forces had been active in Crimea, which was annexed by Moscow last month. Previously he had insisted that the camouflaged, masked gunmen who took over Crimea were a local ‘self-defence’ force.” BBC.co.uk, April 17th. Will a little more eastern autonomy and recognizing Russian as another official language in Ukraine be enough to stem further aggression?

Russia threatens to cut natural gas supplies (or raise prices significantly) to European powers if they continue to escalate sanctions, and the Russian economy continues to plunge. Yet with this “distraction,” Putin bought time, built power and solidified his domination over any opponents. But for how long? At what point do the people start asking the hard questions about why their economy is sinking so fast? Will the Russian people turn on Putin? Will he escalate his military ambitions to prolong the distraction and lock his power?

Will the US-Russian interim agreement hold? Ukraine’s supposed to be more open and tolerant, and the pro-Russian building occupiers are supposed to give the buildings back. “Under the agreement negotiated in Geneva, the Ukrainian government would grant amnesty to protesters who leave the government buildings they have occupied and agree to give up their arms, unless they are suspected of murder or other capital crimes… International monitors from the Organization of Security and Cooperation in Europe, a 57-nation group that includes Russia, are to play a “leading role” in helping Ukrainians carry out the de-escalation measures.” New York Times, April 17th.  Does Russia really care, or does Mr. Putin see the rising cost of aggression, hearing the economy wolves howling in the background?

“With inflation rising, growth stagnating, the ruble and stock market plunging, and billions in capital fleeing the country for safety, the economy is teetering on the edge of recession, as the country’s minister of economic development acknowledged on [April 16th].

“Mr. Putin, who just lavished $50 billion on the Sochi Olympics, also must now absorb the costs of integrating Crimea, which economists and other experts say has its own sickly economy and expensive infrastructure needs. The economic costs have been masked by recent patriotic fervor but could soon haunt the Kremlin, as prices rise, wages stall and consumer confidence erodes.

 “Even before the Crimean episode, and the resulting imposition of sanctions by the West, Russia’s $2 trillion economy was suffering from stagflation, that toxic mix of stagnant growth and high inflation typically accompanied by a spike in unemployment. In Russia, joblessness remains low, but only because years of population decline have produced a shrunken, inadequate labor force.

“In recent weeks, international and Russian banks have slashed their growth projections for 2014, with the World Bank saying the economy could shrink by 1.8 percent if the West imposes more sanctions over Ukraine. By some accounts, more than $70 billion in capital has fled the country so far this year and the main stock market index fell by 10 percent in March — and a dizzying 3 percent just on [April 15th] over fears of greater Russian involvement in Ukraine.” New York Times, April 16th.

While there is a touch of “revenge joy” watching the Russian economy tank – justice against a malevolent aggressor and supporter of the toxic Syrian Assad regime – bad economies often motivate leaders to take dangerous actions. Does Putin know when or how to stop? Does he know how to play his hand without making a really bad situation worse? And if he misplays that hand, how exactly does the rest of the world react… or suffer? Do missiles launch and troops deploy against this aggressor… or do we swallow hard and accept this power realignment? Is there middle ground that douses the fire… and what is the next confrontation we should expect?

I’m Peter Dekom, and thinking that we (with less global support than we believe) can contain and control a man desperately solidifying his power under very harsh economic times is a very scary assumption.

The Best of the Worst

Names like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton, etc., etc. suggest a notion of bold leadership, the best of the best that this country has to offer and a vector of hope for a better future, even through some of the most difficult times in our history. But in an era of smear campaigns, SuperPACs driving those campaigns and adding misleading slogans and myths to the mix, new and unlimited campaign contributions over ever-increasing categories of donors, 24/7 news organizations dealing with no more than 3 hours/day of real news (needing to fill the other hours driven by ad sales not truth) and an Internet that uncovers dark secrets and foments lies and distortion with ease, the best of the best are increasingly wary of stepping into the political fray.

Today’s political processes? Solid brains with active problem-solving skills, an ability to see paths for bi-partisan compromise, are rapidly giving way to proselytizing extremists – skilled at repeating broad and usually meaningless but catchy-slogans with virtually no linkage to real solutions or genuine truths – who are willing to embrace the causes of the big donors with agendas on their mind. Money, money, money! Tell social conservatives whatever they want, promise a no-compromise political blockage to the legislative system, champion gerrymandering, and smile with palm-outstretched from donors looking to keep that playing field completely tilted in favor of those with donation cash to spread around. Democrats, bewitched and bewildered with less access to SuperPAC cash, are running around being little more than defensive and reactive. They don’t have a lot of answers or vision anymore.

Like him or not, President Obama has been a pin cushion for more than a few barbs, and perhaps a few sharp knives, that focus on his individual “shortcomings” (real and fabricated, racist and untrue). He wasn’t born in the United States, say the Birthers, or is depicted in the severest racist incarnation (a monkey-like visage, used in segregated times to depict ‘Negroes’ as inferior to whites – examples above). And worse.

Or unlike any other time in post-19^th century America – where every single piece of seminal social legislation (income taxes, voting rights, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc.) has been submitted time and again to Congress to fix flaws that surfaced when the programs were launched – Obama’s seminal legislation (the Affordable Care Act) cannot get the slightest hearing before any House Committee for a fix (it’s always about repeal… 54 House votes for repeal, zero for repair). My way – er… my donors’ way – or the highway.

“‘If you were to call it an Obama generation, there was a window,’ said John Della Volpe, the director of polling at the Institute of Politics at Harvard University. ‘That opportunity has been lost.’ He said the youth who came of voting age around the time of the 2008 election have since lost interest in electoral politics, and pointed to a survey he conducted last year among 18- to 29-year-olds. Although 70 percent said they considered community service an honorable endeavor, only 35 percent said the same about running for office.” New York Times, April 13^th.

And the numbers are dropping. There is this growing perception that embracing a serious political career is about finding the donors who will contribute and saying whatever you need to get those campaign contributions. Leadership and vision have left the building. Our political choices are becoming just picking from the least-objectionable “least-qualified” candidates, those willing to do anything for political power without regards to genuine public service. The best of the best are increasingly unwilling to step into the vileness that now defines electioneering in the United States.

I’m Peter Dekom, and while we are not getting the political system we want, perhaps we are getting the political system we deserve.