Making another million

Do you feel like a million today? Here is a million and some change - http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
How does that feel?

I will not rant about the ludicrous injustice of this. Just look at the number again if you aren't already in the mood.

I want to talk about the idiocy of the ostensibly hard nosed economists/foreign policy experts and other miscellaneous cultural managers.

Lets talk about the economists first. There is an internal structure to the discipline - a caste system. The theorists (basically failed or greedy mathematicians) are the brahmins, the econometricians are the Vaishyas (the moneyed upper caste in the Caste System) - in the present context white collar technicians for Corporate America and the like (Yes, corporate America uses caps to describe itself) and the empirical/development economists who are the shudras (blue collar). Of course, the Marxists and others who deviate from the doctrine are the untouchables.

As in any doctrinal system there is not much wrong with the logic - the theorists ensure it is mathematically consistent, rather the doctrinal task assigned to economists consists of completely irrational acceptance/imposition of certain premises. Basically that human beings are fundamentally greedy, outcome oriented and care only about their own interests. So one has all these nonsensical paradoxes about why people vote, why they care about African poverty, why do they offer to share rather than take everything for themselves? Of course, all these deviations are discovered (kinda like white people discovering the New World) by empirical economists who are not allowed to speak in front of the theorists (thats the key). The indoctrination, as usuals, works - it has been found that economists are more selfish that others.

Most of the economists are doing their research on why people deviate from their conception of rational actors. (What the fuck is rational about pathological, insensitive jerks who don't care about anything other than themselves?) You would not believe the extent of literature in, for example, evolutionary game theory in this genre. The usual finding - in the long run it doesn't make sense for people to be pathological, what an amazing discovery!

The other central strand of propaganda is downright deception. Everyone who cares to look knows that almost all the industries are oligopolies (or have administered prices and subsidies). Yet in every single analysis they assume perfect competition which gives them the results that are desired of them obviously.

The most important secret in economics is the obvious fact that ALL economies that grew rich did so under very protectionist, state capitalist regimes. Europe, East Asia - There are no exceptions. The havoc wrecked on Mexico, Bolivia et al by imposing obviously terrible policies was criminal. I hold the economists culpable.

Let me clarify - there is no conspiracy and not all economists toe the line. This is how it works: If you have the wrong ideas you get weeded out at some point - getting admission into grad school, getting published, getting tenure track positions, research grants and getting tenure. The system is stable precisely because it is not rigid. Just like keeping a volume of Chomsky along with 20,000 volumes of intellectual masturbation, outright propaganda and mind candy suffices to make Barnes and Noble appear impartial.

I'll get to the Foreign Policy and Area Studies (Orientalists later). Sorry about the plethora of parentheses.

Another apoclyptic dream

I had another apocalyptic dream last night. This one was not directly about a nuclear attack. Rather it was plainly obvious that it was set in a scene of a grim nuclear holocaust.
Some of my friends and family were with me. We were running up the stairs of a great auditorium. There was smoke and the building was shaking as it would in an earthquake. We knew that an eruption was going to occur from the ground below and we were running to the top of the building to escape the onslaught. Apparently, the radioactive waste had reached the water table under the city and was exploding on contact resulting in sulphuric eruptions on the ground above. The biosphere had become unstable and there was no safe place to go. Running away from danger seemed very everyday like. That is not to say that there was no adrenalin rush. We were running for our lives. As soon as we reached the penultimate floor, the earth below the building erupted, we managed to get onto the top floor just in the nick of time. Giant waves of molten concrete looking sulphuric radioactive earth rushed up the building in an eruption. It came up to the top floor and cooled off immediately, mid air, a second before we would've been engulfed. The raped earth formed abominable shapes around us, silently screaming at us. I have never been as relieved and horrified all at the same time.

The dream may be fantastic but the potential of a nuclear holocaust in our lifetimes is a real possibility. When the three curves intersect in three decades: Oil production is expected to peak in 2040 (and then fall while demand rises inexorably) exactly when China is expected to overtake the US as the World's biggest Economic power. The Third curve is the peak of nuclear proliferation - it is expected that dozens of states will have nuclear capability by then, including many in the Middle East and Japan. The Washington planners are pretty explicit that they will not tolerate any 'potential challengers' to their 'full spectrum strategic dominance of the globe' (See the last National Security Document). The whole point of the Iraq war is to take control of the oil fields and to use that as a strategic weapon against challengers (no military or industry functions without oil). The Oil Wars in a sense already began when the US conquered Iraq ( yes, conquered) but this is just warm up. Wait for the real action in just a few decades.

If there are historians in the 22nd century, they will call this period of human history, the Oil Age. Perhaps, they will look back with a sense of tragedy and surprise at the lunacy of the 'rational' planners in Washington today.