The extreme Tory Brexiteers are not quite so thick that they all fail to realise that once the nation understands the extent of the damage that a 'hard Brexit' will do to the economy, the government will have to back away from that option. So their tactic has been to push as hard as possible for the government to adopt positions from which a complete retreat would be impossible.
As the government has started to publish slightly more precise position papers as a basis for negotiations with the extremely well-prepared team around M Barnier it is clear than common sense is still present in most of the arguments and suggestions that are appearing. And while this moderate position is developing, so the events in the economy - and the predictions to which they trend - show that the UK would be ruined to an incalculable extent if it withdrew from the European Free Trade Area. Mrs May has made sticking-points [or 'red lines'] on immigration and the the ECJ [the European Court of Justice]. The immigration issue has been somewhat clarified by the discovery that the number of international students remaining in the UK when their visas expire each year is certainly less than 20,000: not the hundred thousand of the May myth. Also, the largest flows of immigrants by country of origin are India, Poland and Pakistan: the immigration that has been unaffected by the European policy of freedom of movement - that has always been under British control - is massive; and it is that migration that is of most concern to many people. On the issue of the European Court it is evident that some compromise will be made, that allows the ECJ a role in Britain that is not 'above' the British courts.
Meanwhile, the economic data stack up against the idiotic assertion that the UK can survive as an economic power, and maintain the people's living standards, outside the cocoon of the European Economic Area. Britain's growth is lowest among the G8, productivity is not improving, the decline of the pound [now 18% against the euro, since the referendum] more than offsets any benefit that the UK gets from its exports seeming cheaper in other countries; and government policy continues to be hurtful to firms and their capacity to invest. Today the Chambers of Commerce point out that three policy initiatives that lie within Mrs May's concept of a caring society are laying a heavy toll on business and on employment. The living wage has been increased, while the productivity of labour generally is not increasing. Mandatory workplace pensions are part payable by employers, and employees who have their share of the contribution to pay are seeking wage increases to pay it, so it is a double-whammy for employers. And in addition, the introduction of the apprenticeship levy on firms [according to the number of people they employ] will better educate those who could well become unemployed in coming years, as technological change makes the skill that the apprentices acquire become redundant]. An economy that should be training the young in the mathematics and in the principles of engineering and coding that support IT and AI [artificial intelligence] is instead preparing young people for jobs whose obsolescence is virtually inevitable.
The economy's capability to employ the whole available population increasingly depends on investment, adaptation and the rising productiveness of industry and commerce, on which productivity improvements depend. Living standards are now falling, and people are feeling it. Real wages are still lower than before the crash of 2008; and although the USA has begun to rein in Quantitative Easing and raise interest rates, and the European Central Bank is expected to so the same soon [it may announce steps in that direction at Jackson Hole this weekend] there is no sign that the Bank of England under Mr Carney - who is to be absent from Jackson Hole - has the opportunity of the bottle to do similar things.
As the extreme fragility of the British economy becomes more apparent, the idiocy of the Cameron-Clegg-Osborne gang and of their 'project fear' becomes more obvious. One can have slender sympathy for Mrs May as the inheritor of the mess and the inheritor of Brexiteer bullying, but not very much. She is grown up, and should be able to recognise the weakness of her negotiating stance. If she does not act on that basis, she will attract odium even greater than that which has settled in the Cameron clique.
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Friday, 25 August 2017
Tuesday, 22 August 2017
Afghanistan: Trump Digs Deeper
Donald Trump has a genius for digging holes to sink into. Amid the several areas of confusion that he has created in US politics, he has now announced the opposite of one of his most consistent campaign promises. His new minders have persuaded him that the risks in abandoning the disastrous Afghan campaign are so much greater than any potential benefits of quitting that the US must stay. And if they are to stay, they have to reinforce their resources there. Then they have to cajole their allies into helping them. Mrs May has already committed more forces, though less than 100 troops: for now. As has been noted here several times, Afghanistan has never been 'pacified' by alien forces. Alexander the Great, the great Moguls, the British Empire, and the Tsars all failed; before Brezhnev brought the USSR to bankruptcy by his attempt to subdue the country.
Ever since the US sent forces into Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden under the Command-in-Chief of George W Bush, many strategists have argued that the 'real' seat of terror is probably in Pakistan: which is where Bin Laden was finally tracked down. The people who were sheltering Bin laden temporarily were the Taliban, so removing them from power became objective number one. Once that was achieved, at least to the extent of having avowedly non-Taliban ministers installed in Kabul, it became clear that Afghanistan would be dangerously unstable - from the American perspective - if alien forces left. So the US and its little herd of followers stayed, and continued to loose lives and use up resources.
In the terms of western democracies, Afghanistan will never be stabilised. Trump, at least, has recognised this to the extent that he has renounced any pretension at building a democratic state: yesterday he simply said that his troops will 'kill terrorists'. How to identify an enemy or a 'terrorist' among the tribesmen of the Himalayas has never been answered explicitly. If someone if carrying a gun, it may be to protect his sheep from wolves. In such a social context, when someone is actually attacking western forces they can be regarded as legitimate targets; but not otherwise. The conflict cannot be won; but it will send a new flood of young men on the trail to Europe, hoping to join Merkel's million: some of whom will have nefarious intentions. And so the migrant problem for Europe, and explicitly for the European Union, becomes more intense.
In this one sense, Brexit might seem to provide a desirable context for the UK to strengthen its borders further. But then we came up against the problem of paying for proper border controls. To establish, man and maintain adequate borders for the UK would require a vast investment, followed up by hundreds of millions of pounds of recurrent expenditure. If that border is both a customs border and a border against the passage of people and financial assets, as Mrs May seems to desire, the cost is multiplied. Either austerity will have to be abandoned, or state expenditure in all areas but border controls will have to be cut back so far as to create intolerable strains throughout society.
So Trump's abandonment of yet another campaign commitment leads directly to a double dilemma for Britain. First comes the question, how can we meaningfully join 'the leader of the free world' in his madcap Afghan plan: if, as indicated by the government, we will submit so to do; within the present limits of defence spending? Second, how do we pay for meaningful border controls here in the UK?
Thus we come to the most consistent and fundamental issue with which this blog has always been concerned: how can we create the national income that will enable Britain to afford a better living standard for all and maintain the position of the UK in world affairs and in the world economy? The answer begins with the repudiation of the Economics that enforces austerity on the regime: we need a Political Economy that reinforces the concept of productivity by recovering from limbo the need for productiveness. I will return to this topic in the coming days: meanwhile, when you have time, do a word search in the past issues of this blog to see what productiveness means and implies.
Ever since the US sent forces into Afghanistan in pursuit of Osama Bin Laden under the Command-in-Chief of George W Bush, many strategists have argued that the 'real' seat of terror is probably in Pakistan: which is where Bin Laden was finally tracked down. The people who were sheltering Bin laden temporarily were the Taliban, so removing them from power became objective number one. Once that was achieved, at least to the extent of having avowedly non-Taliban ministers installed in Kabul, it became clear that Afghanistan would be dangerously unstable - from the American perspective - if alien forces left. So the US and its little herd of followers stayed, and continued to loose lives and use up resources.
In the terms of western democracies, Afghanistan will never be stabilised. Trump, at least, has recognised this to the extent that he has renounced any pretension at building a democratic state: yesterday he simply said that his troops will 'kill terrorists'. How to identify an enemy or a 'terrorist' among the tribesmen of the Himalayas has never been answered explicitly. If someone if carrying a gun, it may be to protect his sheep from wolves. In such a social context, when someone is actually attacking western forces they can be regarded as legitimate targets; but not otherwise. The conflict cannot be won; but it will send a new flood of young men on the trail to Europe, hoping to join Merkel's million: some of whom will have nefarious intentions. And so the migrant problem for Europe, and explicitly for the European Union, becomes more intense.
In this one sense, Brexit might seem to provide a desirable context for the UK to strengthen its borders further. But then we came up against the problem of paying for proper border controls. To establish, man and maintain adequate borders for the UK would require a vast investment, followed up by hundreds of millions of pounds of recurrent expenditure. If that border is both a customs border and a border against the passage of people and financial assets, as Mrs May seems to desire, the cost is multiplied. Either austerity will have to be abandoned, or state expenditure in all areas but border controls will have to be cut back so far as to create intolerable strains throughout society.
So Trump's abandonment of yet another campaign commitment leads directly to a double dilemma for Britain. First comes the question, how can we meaningfully join 'the leader of the free world' in his madcap Afghan plan: if, as indicated by the government, we will submit so to do; within the present limits of defence spending? Second, how do we pay for meaningful border controls here in the UK?
Thus we come to the most consistent and fundamental issue with which this blog has always been concerned: how can we create the national income that will enable Britain to afford a better living standard for all and maintain the position of the UK in world affairs and in the world economy? The answer begins with the repudiation of the Economics that enforces austerity on the regime: we need a Political Economy that reinforces the concept of productivity by recovering from limbo the need for productiveness. I will return to this topic in the coming days: meanwhile, when you have time, do a word search in the past issues of this blog to see what productiveness means and implies.
Tuesday, 8 May 2012
The Big Idea
The doomsters have been saying that Britain is 'exhausted' for over a century; and much earlier Sir William Gilbert had castigated people who favour "all centuries but this one and all countries but their own". A whole cottage industry sprung up during the Second World War and burgeoned after Victory, asserting that the clapped-out country could be satisfied with its gargantuan effort against the Nazis and sink through obsolescence into terminal decline softened by the smug self-satisfaction of films that extolled wartime successes while industry and commerce could slide away into foreign hands.
The United States, asserted to be Britain's greatest ally, has always been the most determined enemy of the British Empire: wartime aid was given in accordance with the 'Atlantic Charter' by which Churchill agreed that the empire would be abandoned as soon as possible. India was dumped in 1947: the Labour government was so keen to slough-off that 'problem' that they authorised their Viceroy to enforce the partition of Pakistan from India, despite the certainty that hundreds of thousands of deaths would occur immediately and decades of armed confrontation would ensue. Where the strategic interests of the USA required Britain to stand firm against communist subversion of colonial territories - as in Malaysia and Greece - the British stood fast: otherwise the abandonment of territories in which the US saw business opportunity was encouraged. An incompetently-devised and poorly managed project to produce vegetable oil in East Africa was taken as a sign that the colonies would always be loss-leaders that the could not be afforded, and the process of withdrawal was accelerated.
Britain is now left with direct responsibility only for a few scattered island dependencies, mostly in the Atlantic but with outposts in the Indian Ocean, Antarctica and the Pacific. These are seen as burdens. The Falkland Islands have become newly controversial as oil reserves are explored, and no government dares to speak of negotiations on sovereignty with Argentina while the snivelling minions of the Treasury wring their hands at the current and potential cost of maintaining sovereignty. There have been plans to build an airport on St Helena for well over half a century, but the current highly viable plan may yet fall victim of spending cuts. Because they are useful to the Americans, Ascension and Diego Garcia both serve as major mid-ocean airfields: while other tiny settlements are regarded as inescapable burdens.
This whole picture is desperately inappropriate. Adding together the coastal waters of the UK and all its dependencies, Britain has the biggest marine frontiers in the world. Within those borders - which can now be delineated exactly by satellite plotting - the boldest venture of the planet is begging to be empowered. While other nations look to monumentally expensive space exploration or the capture of asteroids, Britain has the geographical, geomorphological, biological, oceanographic and practical skills to develop its own oceanic resources sustainably and for the long term. It is so obviously a viable prospect that politicians can not be expected to recognise it until it is hammered into their heads, past the nonsense of 'The Big Society' and the petty arguments about membership of the eurozone. The world's investors would line up with open wallets, hoping to capture the cream by again allowing the British state to create and flog-off assets: and unless they are stopped the politicians would again waste the assets that the people can create. This is the last great opportunity that Britain has been given by the adventurism of our ancestors: it must be captured. If that is to be done, we can move within a decade into the comfort created by being in conformity with the Laws of Politicial Economy.
The United States, asserted to be Britain's greatest ally, has always been the most determined enemy of the British Empire: wartime aid was given in accordance with the 'Atlantic Charter' by which Churchill agreed that the empire would be abandoned as soon as possible. India was dumped in 1947: the Labour government was so keen to slough-off that 'problem' that they authorised their Viceroy to enforce the partition of Pakistan from India, despite the certainty that hundreds of thousands of deaths would occur immediately and decades of armed confrontation would ensue. Where the strategic interests of the USA required Britain to stand firm against communist subversion of colonial territories - as in Malaysia and Greece - the British stood fast: otherwise the abandonment of territories in which the US saw business opportunity was encouraged. An incompetently-devised and poorly managed project to produce vegetable oil in East Africa was taken as a sign that the colonies would always be loss-leaders that the could not be afforded, and the process of withdrawal was accelerated.
Britain is now left with direct responsibility only for a few scattered island dependencies, mostly in the Atlantic but with outposts in the Indian Ocean, Antarctica and the Pacific. These are seen as burdens. The Falkland Islands have become newly controversial as oil reserves are explored, and no government dares to speak of negotiations on sovereignty with Argentina while the snivelling minions of the Treasury wring their hands at the current and potential cost of maintaining sovereignty. There have been plans to build an airport on St Helena for well over half a century, but the current highly viable plan may yet fall victim of spending cuts. Because they are useful to the Americans, Ascension and Diego Garcia both serve as major mid-ocean airfields: while other tiny settlements are regarded as inescapable burdens.
This whole picture is desperately inappropriate. Adding together the coastal waters of the UK and all its dependencies, Britain has the biggest marine frontiers in the world. Within those borders - which can now be delineated exactly by satellite plotting - the boldest venture of the planet is begging to be empowered. While other nations look to monumentally expensive space exploration or the capture of asteroids, Britain has the geographical, geomorphological, biological, oceanographic and practical skills to develop its own oceanic resources sustainably and for the long term. It is so obviously a viable prospect that politicians can not be expected to recognise it until it is hammered into their heads, past the nonsense of 'The Big Society' and the petty arguments about membership of the eurozone. The world's investors would line up with open wallets, hoping to capture the cream by again allowing the British state to create and flog-off assets: and unless they are stopped the politicians would again waste the assets that the people can create. This is the last great opportunity that Britain has been given by the adventurism of our ancestors: it must be captured. If that is to be done, we can move within a decade into the comfort created by being in conformity with the Laws of Politicial Economy.
Tuesday, 6 December 2011
Politicians: Out of their Depth?
Witty people who have never borne political or business responsibility can be highly vocal in expressing their criticism - and their ridicule, quickly descending into contempt - for office-holders who are struggling to pursue their ends in difficult, unpredictable and often adverse conditions. There are a large number of leaders at the present time who seem to have a limited [or even obtuse] perception of the situations that they are attempting to manage.Critical opposition is very often easier to mount than is reasoned presentation of feasible alternative options. Let us take a few examples that are in the News this evening.
In Moscow and other Russian cities there are small but significant demonstrations against the continuance of Vladimir Putin in office: either as Prime Minister or as President. These are at least matched numerically by demonstrating supporters of Putin's party; but it is notably oppositionists who are being arrested. In recent months, around the time of his announcement that he will again run for the Presidency of the Russian Federation, Putin has presented himself as a fitness fanatic, and a game hunter, and a supporter of the Arts, and a politico-economic polymath, and a populist who was astonished to hear boos directed at him when he came into the arena during a recent sporting event. He has done enough positive things for the country to enable him to seek re-election on the basis of that healthy record; but he seems to be unable to believe that. He also appears to lack any vision about how he can increase genuine popular support by tackling endemic problems that have emerged in a rapidly developing and changing socio-economic nexus. He has tried to project a 'personality' that is so multi-faceted as to be unsustainable, as well as fundamentally incredible; while he has been notoriously indulgent to corruption. He will never convince the punters that he is Superman; and by every device that he uses to try to demonstrate the impossible he increases the opportunities for satire. Even his fiercest critics have conceded that he has had every chance to gain the presidency by a real electoral majority: but now he is threatening his chances both by inviting ridicule at his antics, and by his toleration of cronyism and corrupt business practice, and by the exploitation of political and bureaucratic processes by venial officials who he retains in post. This is very sad for him [and it could be terminal, if he allows his personality to sink into megalomania] and it is tragic for Russia which he has demonstrated the ability to serve so well.
President Obama's gift, which is also his curse and his potential doom, is his fluency. He can be highly articulate both in set speeches and in off-the-cuff utterances; but the more he says off-script, the more apparent it is to the growing army of his critics that his understanding of issues is incomplete [at least], his power to analyse complex data appears to be exiguous, and he appears to have no attainable plans for delivering benefits to voters, despite the release of many billions of dollars by his administration and by the Federal Reserve system acting in cahoots with the federal government. The more Obama takes centre-stage and holds forth, the less credible he appears to be; the more money his administration spends, the less relevant he seems to be in the legislative process and yet he carries the primary blame for the lack of impact of the limited policies that are adopted.
The remarkable Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is constantly criticised for doing too much and to little to grow the economy, for obstructing measures of liberalisation and for letting in too much alien capitalism, for tolerating the residual curse of the caste system and for indulging capricious [and probably crooked] untouchable politicians, for being locked-in to party-political croneyism and for being meritocratic. All of which adds up to showing balance, moderation, and a positive skill in directing a cabinet of more than thirty ministers and in getting responses out of an immense, inert bureaucracy. This is an outstanding political achievement that is working to the economic and social benefit of a massive and fast-expanding population.
No such single figure prevails in China. The complex hierarchy of past, present and future holders of the highest posts in the echelons of the Communist Part - and thus of the state- is partially understood by foreign commentators; though all assessments of power shifts and secret alliances are subject constantly to revision. No system that channels humans who are heavily endowed with ambition and personality through the corridors of the Great Hall of the People and the courtyards of the Forbidden City can work as smoothly as the Chinese authorities would have one believe: but their system has responded remarkably well to the complex processes of liberalisation and hugely rapid economic change and development, delivering 9%+ economic growth despite the turmoil in global capital markets and its impact on American and European buyers of Chinese goods. In recent days various Chinese ministers and bank officials have popped up as expert spokespersons on the specific issues of the day; talking truth to the diminishing western powers, asserting China's independent assessment of policy options, emphasising that their country is now a responsible global superpower and demonstrating that this truly is the case.
The different modes of success of Indian and Chinese leadership do not betoken a general superiority of Asian political models, or of Asian politicians over the rest of the global crop. I have lost count of the succession of ineffectual Japanese Prime Ministers who have come and gone since I first had the privilege of being a visiting professor there; and the politics of South Korea hardly bear forensic examination. Thailand has a Prime Minister who was elected solely because she is somebody's sister; and the entire country is scared of what will happen when the revered King dies and his heir - generally regarded as a wastrel, or worse - claims the inheritance. Sri Lanka is a military dictatorship, Pakistan is prey to factions that assemble and undermine sullenly-consensual governments that exist by striking compromises with the military. Politics in Indonesia and Malaysia is being edged slowly in the direction of 'moderate Islamism', which also seems to be the trend is the Arab world from Saudi Arabia to Morocco. Iran is suffering an attempt at permanent revolution that could be ridiculous if it were not armed to be dangerous to its neighbours; while Iraq is the agonised outcome of more than half a century of conflict.
We have not yet glanced at the prevailing political mode in most Asian states, nor any in Latin America: so there is much of the world left to review in future blogs. One area that must briefly be mentioned in this wide-ranging look at the political effectiveness of various people and situations is Europe. Two countries - Italy and Greece - are directly ruled by EU Proconsuls; and half a dozen are constitutional monarchies where the party-political mix in government is pragmatic and is not existentially important. In France, Germany and the United Kingdom, despite very different rhetoric surrounding the relative position of the state government to the EU, it is clear that their politically-insecure leaders see the maintenance of the Union as the key priority. The original purpose of the Union was to prevent a third 'world' war: now it is seen as potentially [though not yet actually] an entity big enough to allow the European economy that is being overtaken by emergent powers to have a chance of survival on the world stage. The political leaders in the predominant EU member states, and [often more so] in the smaller states that follow them, are focussed on what Europe can do for the economic environment, and thus enable growth to return and eventually generate enough new wealth to transcend the present gloomy prospect. That was the proposition on which Heath 'sold' the EEC to the British Parliament and people, and Cameron and Merkel and Sarkozi are relying upon the same hope today. Not much fruit has sprung from Heath's planting of forty years ago and the politicians of 2011 understand that they cannot get away for long simply by saying that the long-term gains [when we are all dead] will make the short-term pains [that will be felt for several years of the immediate future] worth while. The message is impossible to deliver in a positive package, but that is the message to which the inescapable impact of the Iron Law of Wages has driven them. For European connoisseurs of politician rhetoric, if for nobody else, interesting times lie ahead.
For an explanation of the Iron Law of Wages, see Personal Political Economy which is accessible from this site.
No such single figure prevails in China. The complex hierarchy of past, present and future holders of the highest posts in the echelons of the Communist Part - and thus of the state- is partially understood by foreign commentators; though all assessments of power shifts and secret alliances are subject constantly to revision. No system that channels humans who are heavily endowed with ambition and personality through the corridors of the Great Hall of the People and the courtyards of the Forbidden City can work as smoothly as the Chinese authorities would have one believe: but their system has responded remarkably well to the complex processes of liberalisation and hugely rapid economic change and development, delivering 9%+ economic growth despite the turmoil in global capital markets and its impact on American and European buyers of Chinese goods. In recent days various Chinese ministers and bank officials have popped up as expert spokespersons on the specific issues of the day; talking truth to the diminishing western powers, asserting China's independent assessment of policy options, emphasising that their country is now a responsible global superpower and demonstrating that this truly is the case.
The different modes of success of Indian and Chinese leadership do not betoken a general superiority of Asian political models, or of Asian politicians over the rest of the global crop. I have lost count of the succession of ineffectual Japanese Prime Ministers who have come and gone since I first had the privilege of being a visiting professor there; and the politics of South Korea hardly bear forensic examination. Thailand has a Prime Minister who was elected solely because she is somebody's sister; and the entire country is scared of what will happen when the revered King dies and his heir - generally regarded as a wastrel, or worse - claims the inheritance. Sri Lanka is a military dictatorship, Pakistan is prey to factions that assemble and undermine sullenly-consensual governments that exist by striking compromises with the military. Politics in Indonesia and Malaysia is being edged slowly in the direction of 'moderate Islamism', which also seems to be the trend is the Arab world from Saudi Arabia to Morocco. Iran is suffering an attempt at permanent revolution that could be ridiculous if it were not armed to be dangerous to its neighbours; while Iraq is the agonised outcome of more than half a century of conflict.
We have not yet glanced at the prevailing political mode in most Asian states, nor any in Latin America: so there is much of the world left to review in future blogs. One area that must briefly be mentioned in this wide-ranging look at the political effectiveness of various people and situations is Europe. Two countries - Italy and Greece - are directly ruled by EU Proconsuls; and half a dozen are constitutional monarchies where the party-political mix in government is pragmatic and is not existentially important. In France, Germany and the United Kingdom, despite very different rhetoric surrounding the relative position of the state government to the EU, it is clear that their politically-insecure leaders see the maintenance of the Union as the key priority. The original purpose of the Union was to prevent a third 'world' war: now it is seen as potentially [though not yet actually] an entity big enough to allow the European economy that is being overtaken by emergent powers to have a chance of survival on the world stage. The political leaders in the predominant EU member states, and [often more so] in the smaller states that follow them, are focussed on what Europe can do for the economic environment, and thus enable growth to return and eventually generate enough new wealth to transcend the present gloomy prospect. That was the proposition on which Heath 'sold' the EEC to the British Parliament and people, and Cameron and Merkel and Sarkozi are relying upon the same hope today. Not much fruit has sprung from Heath's planting of forty years ago and the politicians of 2011 understand that they cannot get away for long simply by saying that the long-term gains [when we are all dead] will make the short-term pains [that will be felt for several years of the immediate future] worth while. The message is impossible to deliver in a positive package, but that is the message to which the inescapable impact of the Iron Law of Wages has driven them. For European connoisseurs of politician rhetoric, if for nobody else, interesting times lie ahead.
For an explanation of the Iron Law of Wages, see Personal Political Economy which is accessible from this site.
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Whose Century?
In announcing her decision to propose that India should become an approved customer for Australian uranium, the Prime Minister said that it was appropriate for Australia to become more accommodating towards India in this "Asian Century". China is already a huge customer for Australian minerals, and India buys significant quantities of those that are not subject to export constraints. It is very much in Australia's interests for everyone in the emerging regional economies to be allowed to bid competitively for supplies. Uranium is a special case among industrial materials, because it is exceptionally important in the replacement of fossil fuels as well as by reason of the risk that the mineral may be processed for weapons.
The involvement of Australian forces in Afghanistan must be taken into account in a decision to supply the aboriginal enemy of Pakistan with uranium. India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since the calamitous decision was taken by Earl Mountbatten [as the final Viceroy, endowed with absolute dictatorial power] to allow the creation of an Islamic state within the dissolving imperial India. Tens of millions of Muslims remained in India where they have not notably been oppressed: while millions of Hindus died in partition and afterwards, and they have virtually been eliminated from Pakistani territory. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and has exported the technology to make them to North Korea and to other rogue states; and elements in the Pakistani military are reported increasingly to be supporting Australia's opponents in Afghanistan. The only power with the means and the will to contain Pakistan is India: while India is hesitant to be placed in that position, not least because this could cause China to strengthen its ties with Pakistan and create two power-blocks in Asia. The geopolitical background is inescapable in this consideration of the implications of the opening of trade in uranium from Australia to India.
In speaking of an Asian Century Julia Gillard was not referring primary to actual or potential patterns of military alliance and engagement. She was expressing the conventional contemporary view that the growth of major Asian economies will mean that by 2099 China and India and Japan and probably Indonesia will be economic powers at least equal to the European Union and to the North American free trade area. Brazil and other economies off the Eurasian landmass will also be major powers; but the largest shift in global economic focus is already well advanced from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and the west Pacific. Australia is near the hot spots, and is well resourced with minerals. But water is short in many parts of Australia much of the time; as it is becoming extremely hard to obtain water in large parts of China and in swathes of India. Pakistan's problems of governability have been enhanced in recent years by random assaults of drought and flood which have also affected neighbouring provinces of India.
Industrialisation and a high consumer living standard depend crucially on there being a high availability of potable water, washing water, plant-watering water and water of the quality appropriate for a huge range of industrial purposes. Cities, even more than rural communities, depend for their survival absolutely on the efficient disposal of human, animal and industrial waste; much of which is in the present phase of technology most effectively transported in water through sewerage systems to the appropriate treatment plant. This will only be an Asian Century - or an Australian Century - if the issues or water supply and sewage disposal are mastered proportionately to the level of population and to the operative mix of economic and social activities. This requires huge ongoing investment. A superabundance of people, ideas, techniques, minerals and sustainable energy sources will founder if the supply of water fails, or if sewerage is swamped.
So what of tired old Europe, and of the no-longer-so-super USA today? Will the gods of water treat them kindly? Not so far! Texas and neighbouring states have had record-breaking drought and heat last summer, and now air currents [most notably the Jet Stream] that normally track well to the north have in recent days brought exceptional snow and cold to the south-central USA and then proceeded south of their usual route to Europe, resulting in a record drought in most of the western continent. The Alps are almost without snow [such that my Club is contemplating cancelling their annual expedition], while the eastern Rockies in North America have an early abundance of the stuff. The Danube and the Rhine are at unprecedentedly low levels for the time of year, with ships grounded at several points along the Danube; while half the City Of Koblenz on the Rhine was evacuated today [December 4] for the disposal of a huge world war two bomb that had been exposed by a remarkably low flow on the river. In legendarily wet little Britain there are floods in the west, early snow in the north and intensifying drought in the south and east.
Nature usually corrects - and frequently over-corrects - for exceptional events such as storm, drought, forest fire or deep freeze: but there are no guarantees. Large areas of Africa have passed under desert in the past half-century: conservation was not helped by local agricultural practices but desertification was certainly not caused primarily by human agency. The historically massive Lake Chad has virtually disappeared. The climate-change lobby report each and every datum that contributes to a mass of evidence that the earth is warming; and spin it with the assertion that human agency is the primary source of the warming. The geological record shows constant change: hot and cold periods have alternated over millions of years, without previously having had the assistance of mankind.
In the absence of sufficiently satisfying scientific predictions as to the impact of the predicted climate change on humans, science-fiction writers have supplied scenarios; and those that have had the greater credence tend to be the most pessimistic. Against this background speculation about an Asian Century becomes more complex and broadly less optimistic. Water, alongside energy, has to be factored into all economic planning options. But there has always been a problem about prices:Adam Smith [1776] wrote of the 'paradox of value': diamonds - which then were ornamental only, they had no industrial uses as they do now - were highly priced, while water -which was absolutely essential to support life - was a free good for the farm-based population. Water is now rapidly becoming expensive, worldwide. It has been delivered to cities at huge cost since ancient times, and in this century as cities demand more water for direct human consumption [and for thousands of other purposes] the cost of supplying and removing it are increasing: and more and more often the cost is no longer picked up by the government: the charges are imposed on the users by creating a 'market' in water supply. The cost of installing abstraction, transport and storage facilities for 'wholesale' water, added to the cost of piping the water to millions of 'retail' users in homes and businesses, means that deliverers of water supplies are natural monopolies..The creation of a wholly fictitious 'market' in these circumstances, with shares issued to real investors and a regulator [in the UK this is OFWAT] makes pricing water a fabulous piece of fantasy: yet every human's need for water every day makes water supply a fundamental reality.
The Economics and the Politics of water [and of sewerage] present an increasingly important set of considerations that should influence all economic planning and projections. "The rain falleth upon the just and the unjust" and "the wind bloweth where it listeth", according to the oldest surviving religious texts. The availability of water will determine whether economic plans succeed, or are made nonsense. Schemes to ensure the future availability of water are phenomenally expensive in both monetary cost and in the toll on human, animal and vegetable ecosystems: and on the human psyche. The global economy would be hard pressed to address a hemispheric drought: yet in most economic planning an abundance of water is taken for granted. That is foolish.No modelling that I have ever seen, for example a projection of the future trend of the euro against the US dollar, has ever made allowance for a catastrophic long-term failure of the water supply. Recognition of this basic fact calls into question the whole apparatus of economic forecasting: so who can now show that this is definitively the Asian Century?
The involvement of Australian forces in Afghanistan must be taken into account in a decision to supply the aboriginal enemy of Pakistan with uranium. India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads since the calamitous decision was taken by Earl Mountbatten [as the final Viceroy, endowed with absolute dictatorial power] to allow the creation of an Islamic state within the dissolving imperial India. Tens of millions of Muslims remained in India where they have not notably been oppressed: while millions of Hindus died in partition and afterwards, and they have virtually been eliminated from Pakistani territory. Pakistan has nuclear weapons, and has exported the technology to make them to North Korea and to other rogue states; and elements in the Pakistani military are reported increasingly to be supporting Australia's opponents in Afghanistan. The only power with the means and the will to contain Pakistan is India: while India is hesitant to be placed in that position, not least because this could cause China to strengthen its ties with Pakistan and create two power-blocks in Asia. The geopolitical background is inescapable in this consideration of the implications of the opening of trade in uranium from Australia to India.
In speaking of an Asian Century Julia Gillard was not referring primary to actual or potential patterns of military alliance and engagement. She was expressing the conventional contemporary view that the growth of major Asian economies will mean that by 2099 China and India and Japan and probably Indonesia will be economic powers at least equal to the European Union and to the North American free trade area. Brazil and other economies off the Eurasian landmass will also be major powers; but the largest shift in global economic focus is already well advanced from the North Atlantic to the Indian Ocean and the west Pacific. Australia is near the hot spots, and is well resourced with minerals. But water is short in many parts of Australia much of the time; as it is becoming extremely hard to obtain water in large parts of China and in swathes of India. Pakistan's problems of governability have been enhanced in recent years by random assaults of drought and flood which have also affected neighbouring provinces of India.
Industrialisation and a high consumer living standard depend crucially on there being a high availability of potable water, washing water, plant-watering water and water of the quality appropriate for a huge range of industrial purposes. Cities, even more than rural communities, depend for their survival absolutely on the efficient disposal of human, animal and industrial waste; much of which is in the present phase of technology most effectively transported in water through sewerage systems to the appropriate treatment plant. This will only be an Asian Century - or an Australian Century - if the issues or water supply and sewage disposal are mastered proportionately to the level of population and to the operative mix of economic and social activities. This requires huge ongoing investment. A superabundance of people, ideas, techniques, minerals and sustainable energy sources will founder if the supply of water fails, or if sewerage is swamped.
So what of tired old Europe, and of the no-longer-so-super USA today? Will the gods of water treat them kindly? Not so far! Texas and neighbouring states have had record-breaking drought and heat last summer, and now air currents [most notably the Jet Stream] that normally track well to the north have in recent days brought exceptional snow and cold to the south-central USA and then proceeded south of their usual route to Europe, resulting in a record drought in most of the western continent. The Alps are almost without snow [such that my Club is contemplating cancelling their annual expedition], while the eastern Rockies in North America have an early abundance of the stuff. The Danube and the Rhine are at unprecedentedly low levels for the time of year, with ships grounded at several points along the Danube; while half the City Of Koblenz on the Rhine was evacuated today [December 4] for the disposal of a huge world war two bomb that had been exposed by a remarkably low flow on the river. In legendarily wet little Britain there are floods in the west, early snow in the north and intensifying drought in the south and east.
Nature usually corrects - and frequently over-corrects - for exceptional events such as storm, drought, forest fire or deep freeze: but there are no guarantees. Large areas of Africa have passed under desert in the past half-century: conservation was not helped by local agricultural practices but desertification was certainly not caused primarily by human agency. The historically massive Lake Chad has virtually disappeared. The climate-change lobby report each and every datum that contributes to a mass of evidence that the earth is warming; and spin it with the assertion that human agency is the primary source of the warming. The geological record shows constant change: hot and cold periods have alternated over millions of years, without previously having had the assistance of mankind.
In the absence of sufficiently satisfying scientific predictions as to the impact of the predicted climate change on humans, science-fiction writers have supplied scenarios; and those that have had the greater credence tend to be the most pessimistic. Against this background speculation about an Asian Century becomes more complex and broadly less optimistic. Water, alongside energy, has to be factored into all economic planning options. But there has always been a problem about prices:Adam Smith [1776] wrote of the 'paradox of value': diamonds - which then were ornamental only, they had no industrial uses as they do now - were highly priced, while water -which was absolutely essential to support life - was a free good for the farm-based population. Water is now rapidly becoming expensive, worldwide. It has been delivered to cities at huge cost since ancient times, and in this century as cities demand more water for direct human consumption [and for thousands of other purposes] the cost of supplying and removing it are increasing: and more and more often the cost is no longer picked up by the government: the charges are imposed on the users by creating a 'market' in water supply. The cost of installing abstraction, transport and storage facilities for 'wholesale' water, added to the cost of piping the water to millions of 'retail' users in homes and businesses, means that deliverers of water supplies are natural monopolies..The creation of a wholly fictitious 'market' in these circumstances, with shares issued to real investors and a regulator [in the UK this is OFWAT] makes pricing water a fabulous piece of fantasy: yet every human's need for water every day makes water supply a fundamental reality.
The Economics and the Politics of water [and of sewerage] present an increasingly important set of considerations that should influence all economic planning and projections. "The rain falleth upon the just and the unjust" and "the wind bloweth where it listeth", according to the oldest surviving religious texts. The availability of water will determine whether economic plans succeed, or are made nonsense. Schemes to ensure the future availability of water are phenomenally expensive in both monetary cost and in the toll on human, animal and vegetable ecosystems: and on the human psyche. The global economy would be hard pressed to address a hemispheric drought: yet in most economic planning an abundance of water is taken for granted. That is foolish.No modelling that I have ever seen, for example a projection of the future trend of the euro against the US dollar, has ever made allowance for a catastrophic long-term failure of the water supply. Recognition of this basic fact calls into question the whole apparatus of economic forecasting: so who can now show that this is definitively the Asian Century?
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