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| Thu Jun 16 23:51:11 2011 Vancouver Riots |
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| Thu Mar 24 22:46:19 2011 Bankrupt Portugal |
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| Thu Feb 10 16:39:00 2011 Peak Oil Revisited |
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| Thu Jun 16 23:51:11 2011 Vancouver Riots Crowdsourcing vs. crowds |
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| For those of you that follow hockey, the
Stanley Cup finals completed last night, and Boston beat Vancouver for the title.
Although people do tend to be somewhat irrational about sports, some Vancouver Canucks fans (or supposed fans) took things a bit overboard and rioted in anger over the loss. Actually, it's not clear that they were angry about losing, but they certainly wanted to riot. Almost 150 people needed to visit the hospital, and 100 people were arrested. Also, there was looting and damage to businesses, cars overturned and set on fire, and the usual riot mess. The damage was spread around a hundred blocks downtown. The worst part of rioting? Rioters often get away with it. They fade into the crowd, and aren't easy to identify. They smash some windows, grab some loot, and disappear. However, that may change this time. A few websites are supporting crowdsourcing as a way to identify as many people as possible in the riots. The idea is that anyone can post pictures and video of the riots, and people can surf what's there to see if they recognize anyone. If they recognize anyone, they are encouraged to contact the Vancouver police. Pretty cool! I sure hope they catch a number of rioters this way. There is some coverage of the sites here, and you can see some example crowdsourcing sites here and here. See anyone you know? I haven't yet heard of people running footage or images through Facebook's facial recognition software, but it seems like an obvious next step! That would be a fast and accurate way to identify people in the crowd. There is definitely a risk of vigilante action or false accusations for this, but it is no worse than not using crowdsourcing, and may be a way to help identify looters and criminals easier. Also, it requires that people volunteer their photos, so hopefully Vancouver rioters will be identified and brought before authorities, but participants in the Arab Spring will remain safely unknown to authoritarian governments. Comments |
Related: geopolitics Unrelated: books economics energy environment lists mathematics predictions science |
| Thu Mar 24 22:46:19 2011 Bankrupt Portugal Another EU domino falls? |
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| With the
tsunami in Japan, and
continued unrest in the Mideast, it was easy to miss today's headlines that
Portugal's prime minister resigned and
the country needed an EU bailout to avoid default.
Furthermore, not only is Portugal very likely to need a bailout, it increased speculation that Spain may be next. Why did Portugal's prime minister resign? Because all the opposition parties and most of Portugal's organized labor opposed his austerity measures to get the budget under control. Rather than accept the required spending cuts and tax raises to fix the country's fiscal problems, there were strong protests to raise government wages instead. Obviously, that would just make the problem worse, however much the wage increases may be desired or even deserved. This followed a familiar pattern:
Now we see the same pattern in Portugal, and I and others believe Spain will be next. I'll make a prediction that Spain will ask for an EU bailout before the end of 2011. One option may be to let Portugal default! Countries have defaulted before ( Sovereign Bankruptcies). Portugal isn't a complete basket case, and defaulting would still put them in a position where they'd have to enact severe austerity measures, but they could rebuild on their own. A default may not be much worse than an EU bailout anyway, and may be healthy to remind investors that giving your money to governments is not a safe bet. This would raise the borrowing costs for all countries, which would also be a good thing. And it would be a strong message to Spain that it needs to get its own house in order, and not also rely on an EU bailout. But I don't think that will happen. Portugal and Spain will ask for, and receive, EU bailouts instead. Before we in the US start pointing fingers, remember that our own budget is pretty hosed as well. In fact, just yesterday it was noted that our federal disability funds are about to run out because they are being abused by many states. And even without people abusing disability benefits, scheduled spending means Medicare and Social Security will start to hit insolvency in 2017. In fact, Medicare is already running a deficit and is burning through the taxes of previous years. And like everyone facing crises in European countries, even though the mathematics make it obvious that we have to reduce Medicare and Social Security spending, many people don't want their benefits to go down. (However, the latest bipartisan efforts to address the problem are a very encouraging step.) The main learnings? First, deficit spending does eventually catch up to you. And second, if a country lets things get out of control, most people won't want to fix it, because it will mean they'll have less money during the austerity period. That means fixes get postponed until they are too late, and the recovery (if it happens) is much more severe. The main thing is to vote for representatives that will get the budget under control. Representatives are terrified of touching Medicare or Social Security because they think we'll vote them out. We have to let our reps know that we'll support responsible budget planning, even if it means reduced benefits, to avoid bankruptcy. Comments |
Related: economics geopolitics predictions Unrelated: books energy environment lists mathematics science |
| Thu Feb 10 16:39:00 2011 Peak Oil Revisited Are oil reserves overstated? |
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| Today I saw another mention of a leaked cable from the
Wikileaks trove. People are apparently publishing new leaked cables all the time as they find
interesting tidbits.
This particular series of leaked cables showed that throughout 2007-2009, US diplomats believed that Saudi Arabia had overstated its crude reserves by up to 40 percent. In particular, a high-ranking executive at Saudi Aramco, the Saudi Arabian national oil company, stated that he believed their reserves were inflated, and he convinced US diplomats and other international energy experts. In general, there have long been suspicions that OPEC countries have inflated their reserves. It has been hard to tell how worried to be: how much of the bump was due to improved measurements or accounting changes, versus more arbitrary changes? The leaked cables are significant because they indicate that even insiders believe the reserves are arbitrary inflated to a large extent. Does this mean we'll suddenly run out of oil? No, there are still around a trillion barrels of proven reserves. But the Saudi/Aramco reserves are most critical because now that Russian production is declining, Saudi Arabia is the only country in the world who is capable of keeping up with the world's growing oil consumption. And the problem with limited reserves isn't that we run out of oil, instead the problem with limited reserves is that the cheap oil runs out quickly, leaving only more expensive oil to be extracted. And so, over time, oil production peaks. The leaked cables indicate that Saudi oil production could peak in the next ten years, which they say is "not good news." Worse, it means global oil production could peak earlier--if it hasn't already. The bottom line? As I've said before ( Peak Oil), expect gas prices to start going up significantly again, and they probably won't come down. Or if they do come down, it will because of further economic recessions, not improved production. So start planning now! Expect gas to hit $5 or even $10 a gallon in the next ten years. If you do a lot of driving, see if you can move nearer to public transit, because you won't want to be driving much. Comments |
Related: economics geopolitics environment Unrelated: books energy lists mathematics predictions science |
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