tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-67201546311933067032024-03-13T20:26:45.520+08:00The Green ReserveSustainability and good governance... with a little bit of bioremediation mixed in.GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.comBlogger151125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-15420658205286844942020-07-10T17:01:00.000+08:002020-07-10T17:05:04.542+08:00Supply-side economics sacrifices people to support corporationsEveryone knows the adage “you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.” In the case of supply versus demand-side economics, this analogy is instructive. As with many things in economics, the supply versus demand argument is often presented as a chicken-and-egg problem: there can be no demand without supply, and no supply without demand. There are exceptions to this rule. The Black Market is a perfect illustration of how strong enough demand forces supply to make itself available. On the other side, it seems that certain (seemingly unwanted) innovations such as the iPad can make their own market simply through their existence (and superior marketing).<br />
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The issue, then, is whether supply or the demand is the more suitable model to manage from a policy perspective. In each case, the market is called upon to make certain things happen without intervention, and the government intervenes in a different part of the market to stimulate this desirable behaviour. Arguments between the two schools mainly focus on the relative effectiveness of government intervention. In this simplified argument between the two, I also propose that the aims of the intervention in each school of thought are different.<br />
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Supply-side economics believes that increasing the efficiency of corporations ensures they are able to produce goods that are needed by society. This may involve tax cuts, subsidies, unencumbering the company from restrictive environmental laws, allowing for less legal “friction” in the market (e.g. not restricting banks from being involved in investments in financial instruments), and allowing unhindered financial transactions. In supply-side economics, the place where the government intervenes is fundamentally in paying for externalities of corporations. All of the initiatives listed above involve the government reducing its income to minimise corporate costs (e.g. tax cuts), or accepting to pay for unexpected corporate costs (e.g. environmental deregulation). A good recent example of this practice would be the federal government’s decision to accept the liability for Alberta’s orphan oil wells to the tune of almost $2 billion. The government accepts the externalities of the oil companies in order to ensure they can operate at higher efficiency - avoiding costs and maximising profits. The expected effect in the market is that efficient corporations can grow faster, expand their business, offer lower prices to consumers, and catalyse other businesses into existence.The problem? The fundamental goal of the system is economic growth. It chases a measure that does not have a direct correlation to employment, to health, or to personal satisfaction. Supply-side economics is a sham because it is one of the most harmful examples of Goodhart’s Law. Goodhart’s Law is officially stated as “any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes,” but is perhaps best simplified as “when a measure becomes a target, it’s no longer a useful measure.” GDP is supposed to be a measure of how well the economy is faring, but it doesn’t take into account whether there’s hunger, homelessness, or disease. It simply records how much money moved. When corporations prosper, the measures that express their prosperity look good. Since they are denominated in dollars, they are easy to plot, simple to understand, and marvellously easy to use in projections. Not so human security, comfort, happiness, family harmony, or mental state. To relate back to the saying, we can measure how much water there is very easily, but we can’t measure the horse’s desire or ability to drink the water. Because the water is measurable, it’s easier to focus our measures on water availability than horse thirst. In sum, supply-side absolutely assists corporations, but there is no adequate way of proving whether it helps people. On the flipside, supply-side economics blames the consumer for not availing themselves of the plentiful and cheap products of the market. The problem with this concept is that a horse that can’t stand can’t drink.<br />
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Demand-side economics believes that stimulation of demand will increase supply, and that government intervention should be on the consumer (or product) side of the market than on the producer side. The core of the policy arguments in this blog has been that UBI rather than food subsidies or income tax cuts is the best way to stimulate demand. The demand-side argument will therefore centre on giving people the capacity to be consumers in the market. This means the government does not accept corporate externalities, does not relax environmental laws to privilege business, does not have to lower corporate tax rates, and doesn’t care if businesses fail. If innovation relies on creative destruction, we can’t depend on legacy businesses to take us there. Supporting the consumer in expressing their desires with money is therefore a better way to encourage economic advancement and fulfil consumer needs. This method also gives policy tools to the government that do not directly affect business. Instead of modifying corporate behaviour through innovation grants, tax incentives, and corporate fines, government will find it far simpler to induce consumers to purchase certain things. A simple thought experiment can illustrate the idea. Imagine the government wants to shift all cars to emissions-free models by a certain date. Would it be better to regulate, induce, and provide grants for corporations to make more inexpensive electric cars available? That would be the process under supply-side economics. Under demand side, governments ensure consumers all have cash to purchase the cars, and set a date by which any and all CO2-emitting cars are fined whenever they are seen on the road. Supply-side economics is far more unpredictable, and relies on the beneficence of companies - which typically runs counter to their self-interest. Demand-side economics uses the self-interest of the consumer and gives them the ability to exercise it. Corporations are conflicted about what to do with their windfall, consumers are not. In demand-side economics, it’s not the fault of the people that they don’t get the product they want - it’s the fault of the corporations. Instead of blaming a person for being poor and not getting what they need, we should give people money to get what they need and let the market adapt to fulfil it. In sum, we should empower consumers to say “I will pay for water here” and allow the businesses that fulfil that consumer demand to reap the benefits.<br />
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GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-88394014701048029322020-07-08T13:29:00.000+08:002020-07-08T13:32:47.123+08:00Focus on the people, not corporationsA fundamental agreement across the political spectrum is that wealth should be constantly redistributed throughout the economic system. Libertarians and Communists and everyone in between agree on redistribution. They just disagree on who should do it. Moving more to the centre of the political spectrum, where we find the policy range of the major Canadian political parties, there actually seems to be a consensus that corporations should do approximately 90% of the redistribution and government approximately the remaining 10%. This is, of course, based on the unemployment rate in Canada - typically hovering between 5 and 7% of eligible workers. Furthermore, this aid is supposed to be transitory. It is specifically designed to get people back into the corporate cash redistribution program. The differences between the parties on this specific piece of orthodoxy are virtually nonexistent. The most orthodox, i.e. the Liberals and the Conservatives, have modeled the economy on the basis of job preservation through the protection of companies that have large numbers of employees. The only fundamental difference in approach seems to be the companies they prefer to focus on, be they manufacturing in Ontario and Quebec or resource extraction in Alberta and Saskatchewan. The approach, however, is identical.<br />There are a number of policy levers that can be used to tweak the corporate status quo to achieve the goal of wealth distribution via corporations. Prime amongst these is tax law. There is a belief that decreasing corporate tax rates invites corporations to set up shop, and incentivising hiring through tax deductions is a good way to maintain a healthy workforce. Tax law is used to give innovation subsidies, incentivise pollution reduction, and allow for depreciation on working capital. Here is the problem: the labyrinth of corporate tax breaks are costing us over <a href="https://business.financialpost.com/opinion/the-40-billion-reason-canada-needs-real-corporate-tax-reform" target="_blank">$40 billion per year</a>. Let’s put that in human terms. That’s enough money to give 1 million Canadians - over 3% of the entire population - a salary of $40,000. To put that in perspective, the COVID crisis has created the worst job loss in recorded Canadian history. About 1 million jobs have been lost. If we eliminated corporate tax dodges, all of these people could have a salary and there would still be money left over.<br />The obvious objection to this equation is that increasing the amount of money that corporations pay in taxes would shrink the economy as companies would fail. This is because people buy stuff that companies produce, those companies hire people to produce that stuff, and if that stuff becomes too expensive for companies to produce, they go bankrupt. In this chain of consequences, companies appear to create the jobs. If you look closer, however, this is not true. Companies are created by consumer demand, not immaculate conception. The reason that companies produce stuff is because people buy it. People buy it because they have both the desire and the money. Where our models depend on corporations to create jobs, we are actually focusing on the wrong part of the economic chain of being. Stuff is sold because there is demand and money, not because there is supply. Companies are disposable intermediaries between people and stuff. Cash, however, is not a disposable intermediary. The more cash people have, the more demand can be expressed in the market. If we focus on the consumers and not the producers, we will allow the efficiencies of the market to correct for any corporate failures due to the change in taxation. If we support demand, supply will follow.GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-30303493861951436912016-10-03T02:51:00.000+08:002016-10-03T12:54:05.074+08:00Cultural Genocide and the Useful Idiots <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
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<span style="font-size: small; text-align: start;"><b><i>Sadly, this is where the Boys in Short Pants of the Harper Government were able to make what was one of the most masterfully cynical communications coups of their entire reign. They admitted to the crime of genocide piecemeal, and in so doing, avoided admitting to the actual crime of genocide.</i></b></span></blockquote>
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I had griped for a long time that the Harper Government had only one purpose for the <a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/index.php?p=3" target="_blank">Truth and Reconciliation Commission</a>: to negotiate the word "genocide" out of the findings. The word "genocide" frightens politicians to their very core. Genocide means action must be taken. Politicians prefer options, but genocide seeks remedy that cannot be easily redefined, reframed, or spun. Germany understands this perhaps better than anyone: the only option when convicted of the horror of genocide is to hang one's head, admit wrongdoing without reservation, and do everything possible to seek redress for the wronged party. Germany has truly acted legally, symbolically, and politically to ensure her populace understands this culpability. One might consider this a model response to the finding of genocide. With this in mind, I could not accept that such a group of manipulative spin doctors would ever allow the word genocide to slip into the findings. It would be political suicide. And yet, there it was:<br />
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The establishment and operation of residential schools were a central element of this policy, which can best be described as “cultural genocide.” [<a href="http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Principles%20of%20Truth%20and%20Reconciliation.pdf" target="_blank">page 6</a>]</blockquote>
Needless to say, I was very surprised and pleased. Finally, the ruthless snake-oil salesmen had done something true and good. Finally, they had allowed themselves to state things as they were, and not as they could be spun to their advantage. But something nagged at me: what, exactly, did they mean by "cultural genocide"? Thankfully, the very same document explains what was meant by this term:<br />
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Physical genocide is the mass killing of the members of a targeted group, and biological genocide is the destruction of the group’s reproductive capacity. <b>Cultural genocide is the destruction of those structures and practices that allow the group to continue as a group</b> [emphasis added]. States that engage in cultural genocide set out to destroy the political and social institutions of the targeted group. Land is seized, and populations are forcibly transferred and their movement is restricted. </blockquote>
Still, the nagging continued. You see, genocide is not defined in Canadian law; it is certainly not defined in the findings of Royal Commissions. The accepted definition for genocide belongs to international law, specifically the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide. There is no such thing as the hair-splittingly precise division of this concept into Physical and Cultural. There is just genocide, defined in <a href="https://treaties.un.org/doc/publication/unts/volume%2078/volume-78-i-1021-english.pdf" target="_blank">Article 2 of the Convention</a> as:<br />
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...any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: </blockquote>
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(a) Killing members of the group;<br />
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;<br />
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;<br />
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group<br />
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. </blockquote>
In truth, the only thing these definitions have done is split Article 2 subsection a) away from Article 2 subsection e). Sadly, this is where the Boys in Short Pants of the Harper Government were able to make what was one of the most masterfully cynical communications coups of their entire reign. They admitted to the crime of genocide piecemeal, and in so doing, avoided admitting to the actual crime of genocide. Even in the definitions provided by the findings, elements of the internationally accepted definition of genocide are plainly admitted, but are hidden in plain sight.<br />
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In this case, they had a little assistance. The term "Cultural Genocide" has actually been bandied about since 1944 by Raphael Lemkin - originator of the word genocide itself. It was never included in any official documents, and its meaning has already been argued about for decades. As a matter of fact, the word almost found its way into the <a href="http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf" target="_blank">UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples</a>, but was ultimately found to be a distraction, and removed in favour of genocide (simpliciter). There is already a strong tradition of argument about the nebulous and distracting term, and there will henceforth continue to be.<br />
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This is where the useful idiots come in. When the findings were reported, there was not a single news outlet that reported this as a finding of genocide. Every single mainstream news outlet reported it as "cultural genocide" without any further soul searching or analysis. They even glossed over the fact that not one line after the admission of "cultural genocide", the findings admit to "physical genocide" and "biological genocide" as well. But that was only the first step. The definition of "cultural genocide" in the report is short and imperfect. It would make the career of any grad student in international law to write a concise legal definition that could be cited from this point forward. Especially now that it is in an official government document. Meanings and ramifications can be argued about in academic circles for decades, and some, like me, might assert that the definition is meaningless and amounts to genocide pure and simple... but that's exactly the point. Now, my interpretation is simply a single inhabitant in a diverse ecology of legal and academic interpretations of what is now official documentation, for which there will be no true final resolution. The charge of genocide has been given to the academics, and they will dissect it to meaninglessness. Those are the true useful idiots - the tools who will be incapable of resisting the urge to whitewash the charge of genocide by assisting Harper's old spin doctors in redefining it.<br />
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What does a charge of genocide mean? Political action. Mandatory action. A charge of "cultural genocide" on the other hand means argument and hand-wringing. By the exploitation of an obscure argument, the media sound byte of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission was deprived of its rightful teeth. You now know that cultural genocide doesn't exist: the destruction of a culture by forced relocation and erasure of cultural artefacts is still genocide by definition. It demands immediate and resolute action to seek redress. Reconciliation will be very difficult if we get this wrong.GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-77848433757441358792015-05-08T11:21:00.002+08:002015-05-08T11:24:40.829+08:00Neo-Mercantilism<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
When consulting with developing countries about restructuring their debt, the IMF generally determines what cash crops would grow best in the area and encourages their cultivation as one way to bring in foreign currency. As advice, this is not terrible. In theory, if a Ghanaian farmer can crop cocoa to sell, he can buy cassava to eat and pocket a profit for himself in Ghanaian cedi that were purchased with the US dollars that bought his cocoa. A boon for him and his government, the constant purchase of Ghanaian currency by US dollars ensures baseline demand for the cedi. With a baseline value set for the cedi, the currency can float within a reasonable margin. This allows Ghana to purchase US dollars at a steady rate so they can acquire strategic resources such as oil at a stable relative price. In this theoretical instance, everyone benefits.<br />
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In reality, things are slightly different. While exports of Ghanaian cocoa do create a baseline demand for Ghanaian currency, that is about where the benefits cease. Cassava, once the staple starch of a large portion of sub Saharan Africa, is much less available as cultivation of cocoa has replaced it. You see, as one country goes, so have gone her neighbours. If one country has had its debt restructured by the IMF and the rest have not, then trade of cash crop income for staple crops might allow for one country to arbitrage its agricultural sector against another country's. In reality, however, everyone is chasing the same strategy, because everyone is having their debt restructured by the IMF. Cassava plantations still exist, but the fact is that you make real cash with cocoa, and buy Thai and American grain to eat.<br />
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Ironically, the only states that can pursue the production of low-value staples are first-world countries which typically subsidise this production heavily. So, instead of Ghana producing profits through cocoa sales and buying cassava from Benin, they spend their capital on Thai and Chinese rice and American corn. The Ghanaian diet has changed due to the changes in their markets. Whereas the cash cropping brings in a relative monetary gain, it gets spent in nations that don't need the money, on subsidised produce that is not the traditional food of Ghana. While temporarily liberating the countries in question from want of money, they become yoked to first world nations for want of calories – and fertilizer.<br />
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Cash cropping deals in dollars per acre. This way of looking at agriculture is not going to be fruitful if the price of staples increases. An increase in the price of staples means a reduction in profit for all the nations who, like Sri Lanka and its tea, Ghana and its cocoa, and Colombia and its coffee, are depending on arbitraging that difference in value between luxuries and staples to remain fed. When the prices of staples rise, calorie farming is more important than cash cropping. Word to the wise: the price of staples is rising. What’s more, in order to increase yields per acre, developing countries with cash crops have gotten themselves onto the agribusiness treadmill. While I am pretty ambivalent about the health issues surrounding GMOs (I don’t really think they are that terrible for you), I am completely livid about the economic implications of addicting farmers to seed contracts. Agribusiness has a way of eating up the profit of farmers big and small to pay for seeds and chemicals. If we look at this issue fundamentally, it’s a question of good, old-fashioned mercantilism. The proverbial North demands the proverbial South to produce its luxuries, the South obliges, and find itself unable to feed its populations. Never fear, says the North – we will sell you the grain you need to survive, and we’ll give you the pesticides and seeds you need to grow more cash crops. Just give us back that profit you made on the first shipment of coffee, and we’ll be on our way…<br />
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Agriculture is one sector that can't turn on a dime. Olives take 20 years to mature. Apples might take five. Shifting from one field crop to another might take one year, but it also entails selling one's entire product one year for enough money to buy the seeds or plantings for the next. If the tea market goes flat, and it makes sense to pull up the tea bushes (Gods forbid) and plant something starchy, there's the loss on the fire sale, the labour to pull up the old production, but then the investment in the precursor implements and seeds for a whole new type of farming. That's an enormous opportunity cost. When money is scarce, this change is difficult at the best of times. Like any one of us changing to a completely new line of work, we have to start at the bottom, and that is a choice any one of us would put off as long as humanly possible. This is why, if we hit a price barrier for any given agricultural commodity, it is possible a large plurality of farmers would simply give it up en-masse because they had held out to the last minute and had no other way out. Like cacao farmers infested with frosty pod, they will keep producing until they can produce no more.<br />
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The solution? Under the current economic regime there is no real solution. Scientists in the North will develop more interesting varieties of cacao and sell them to the people in the South, diminishing the South’s profit while still shackling them to the task of producing our luxuries. The creation of a GMO is certainly a solution to the problem of a chocolate shortage. It is not a solution to the systemic problem of the mercantilist exploitation of the proverbial South. Lack of crop diversity will make them more prone to food shortages, and reliant on agricultural subsidies in other countries to maintain the low cost of their own labour. This is both a fragile and abusive relationship that simply increases long-term instability in the system.<br />
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In the end, the economic system is made up of every single relationship it facilitates. A failure in one part is never isolated, and those who perceive themselves to be immune from shocks are delusional. If we increase the fragility of the links in our economy, we are ensuring future failures. If understanding of the economy from a systemic perspective were the norm, we would curb our own profit motive not simply out of altruism, but for our own self-preservation.</div>
GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-53262507806277790802013-07-07T15:05:00.000+08:002013-07-07T15:30:49.214+08:00It Wasn't Me<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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In Halifax, November 1998, one Mr. Richard Marriott and Ms. Gail Stone were shot in an <a href="http://novascotia.ca/just/public_safety/rewards/case_detail.asp?cid=52">as-yet-unsolved double homicide</a>. They were common-law partners, and owned substantial real estate investments. As you may know, both marriage and common-law unions give spouses extremely powerful property rights: as soon as I die, my spouse automatically inherits everything I own. When there is a double homicide of this nature, to put it morbidly, <b>who dies last, wins</b>. Ms. Stone died four days after Mr. Marriott, and therefore her estate inherited everything. Now, if you're in a loving and equitable relationship, and you've done your wills together, and you make certain both sides of the family are taken care of in either will, then you hope that there will be no fighting over the spoils... but quite frankly, every single will in existence has probably been perceived as unfair by most beneficiaries of the estate. In this case, there was a fight over the properties, and during said fight, some interesting facts popped up.<br />
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You see, Mr. Marriott was a drug dealer, and his cars and bling and houses were <u>proceeds of crime</u>. Proceeds of Crime statutes exist in pretty much every jurisdiction around the world (possession is 9/10ths of the law, after all!) and they all say more or less the same thing. If a gain is ill-gotten, it don't belong to you. If you get an ill-gotten gain from someone else, it's still ill-gotten. Just because you didn't cap someone's ass and steal their prize-winning pet Japanese Carp to sell on the black carp market, doesn't mean it's not a hot carp any more. The carp's still stolen - it's just now in possession of someone who didn't otherwise commit a crime. As a matter of fact, a person who purchases (for example) a hot carp - even if they had no knowledge of the fact it was stolen - may still be charged for being in possession of proceeds of crime. One key mitigating factor in sentencing is typically the amount of "due diligence" a buyer does before purchase. If a judge asks the question "ok, you had no knowledge that the carp was hot, but<i> how hard did you try</i> to find out whether it was hot or not?" then you'd better have done some searching and legitimately come up with nothing. It's like the typical "but she told me she was 18" defence: if you didn't try to verify the facts, you're still guilty. And a dipshit.<br />
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What happened to the properties? Well, they were subject to some <a href="http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=proceeds+of+crime&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/ns/nsca/doc/2001/2001nsca84/2001nsca84.html&searchUrlHash=AAAAAQARcHJvY2VlZHMgb2YgY3JpbWUAAAAAAAAB">pretty serious court wrangling</a>. For those of you whose eyes glaze over at the very sight of legalese, I'll save you the pain and duress. This case was an appeal of an earlier decision that awarded - in the eyes of the Crown - too much to the estate of Ms. Stone. Specifically, the estate had somehow managed to claim one of the houses in its entirety when all money used to purchase the house, except the down payment, was a proceed of crime. The court eventually sided with the Crown, indicating that the house would be forfeited and the deceased's estate would receive the amount of the legitimate down payment. Justice was done, and Her Majesty the Queen of Canada slept well that night, after tucking in all her corgis.<br />
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The nice thing about this case is that we can all understand the essential issues of <b>justice </b>surrounding it. If you do something bad, you should not gain because of it, <i>nor should anyone else gain from anything ill-gotten</i>. It's not about the <b>person </b>who possesses the ill-gotten gain,<b> it's about the ill-gotten gain itself</b>. If I come to your house, surrounded in police, and wave a forged title deed in front of your face and have you forcibly evicted, I have <a href="http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/c-46/page-176.html#h-102">uttered a forged document</a> (Criminal Code s. 368) and gained by it. If I die and pass that property on to my <i>squeaky-clean volunteers-in-an-old-folks-home patriotic-to-a-fault rescues-animals-from-shelters always-buys-a-crate-of-girl-guide-cookies-and-gives-them-to-the-homeless</i> son, the property is still ill-gotten. No matter how good a person my son is, he's now in possession of the proceeds of crime: YOUR rightful house! I doubt you'd consider him a particularly good person unless he gave it back to you. His claims of "but *I* didn't steal the house!" would likely (and rightly) fall on deaf ears. We all understand the basic justice in this. It's simple. In the terms of our tradition of English law, it's "Natural Justice": fair and unbiased application of law in the spirit of procedural fairness. Property rights have been an essential part of our laws for centuries.<br />
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It's for this reason that we can now, potentially, look at <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/emma-pullman/albertas-underground-tar-sands-oil-blowout_b_3543481.html">this news story</a>, regarding the use of Beaver Lake Cree land by oil companies, through the lenses of the same justice. When corporations are able to use properties that impinge on the rights of anyone to the <a href="http://oilsandsrealitycheck.org/factcategory/human-rights/">rightful use of their own property</a>, they cannot make the "but *I* didn't confiscate the land" defence. When the judiciary of Canada makes a decision that <a href="http://www.edmontonjournal.com/business/Appeal+court+paves+Cree+nation+oilsands+case+trial/8477719/story.html">the rights of the Beaver Lake Cree Nation under Treaty 6</a> could be violated by current oil extraction, we can understand through the lens of Natural Justice that the claim (and the finding) is sensible and right. Whether a corporation says "she told me she was 18" or "we didn't knowingly violate Treaty rights", the result should be the same: under our system of law, in the eyes of our own idea of justice, and in the spirit of Natural Justice, the Beaver Lake Cree have a claim that must be heard. Whatever the final decision, they certainly deserve a hearing.<br />
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I didn't come here to talk about some random drug dealers, obviously. When I speak to my (non-First Nations) friends about First Nations issues, many routinely counter the arguments by saying "why are they blaming me for something I didn't do?" Well, it's correct that none of us took First Nations' lands, none of us violated the Treaties directly, we are not in any way directly responsible for the situation almost all First Nations find themselves in... but some among us are benefiting from the <i>proceeds of crime</i>. While that does not mean we are bad - it cannot change our ethical essence - it means we may be in possession of something that isn't rightfully ours. We need to understand that no matter how good we are (and most of us are good), no matter how generationally removed we are from the Treaties, the First Nations are not telling us "you did something wrong", they are saying "some among you are benefiting<i> from the wrong done by others</i>".<br />
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I'm a product of British Isles stock and a third generation Canadian. There isn't a drop of First Nations blood in my body (any First Nations peoples reading this will likely add the ellipsis "...that you know about"). I look at things through a distinctively European lens, and my capacity to comprehend the First Nations' worldview is particularly weak - but I do understand the philosophical concept of Justice, as do you. Next time you hear about a First Nations issue, please - PLEASE - use your empathy. I'm not asking for you to give up everything you own, put on a hairshirt, and self-flagellate for the rest of your life. I just ask you, I beg you: please have empathy. Please listen. Please understand that the First Nations are simply trying to claim what is their right under the Treaties the government signed with them. If I took your house by the use of a forged deed and passed that house on to my son, you would still try to get your rights back. Your quarrel is not with my son, but with the rights I passed to him.<br />
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<a href="http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2013/07/healing_walk_3_global_warming_images1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://priceofoil.org/content/uploads/2013/07/healing_walk_3_global_warming_images1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I would fight for your rights to your property under law, firstly because it's the right thing to do, but also because protecting your right to your property strengthens my rights to my property. Our approach to our First Nations brothers and sisters should be no different. Protecting their rights to their lands under the Treaties strengthens our own legal claims to our legitimate property. We should seek <a href="http://www.healingwalk.org/tarsands">justice for all</a>. For Canadians like us, it's only natural.GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-49337465924154939912013-07-02T11:18:00.000+08:002013-07-02T11:50:28.788+08:00Subverting the Global Economy through Local Action Part 2[<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/04/subverting-global-economy-through-local.html">part 1 here</a>]<br />
<br />
For a while, I had intended to write this post all by myself and make it a masterpiece of bloggery, so I started looking around for inspiration and links.<br />
<br />
And I found others have already mastered this topic.<br />
<br />
So I'm not going to write an article, post, diatribe, or paean: I'm going to stop right here and link to others' works that cover the topic far more thoroughly than I could in a single article. The overriding thesis: we don't need to do anything particularly organised to overturn the current economic order. All we need to do is reduce our overall need for money. That can be done through sharing, gifting, cooperation, crafting, making, and swapping - all of which is fun and builds community, which is far more useful than money. But don't take my word for it:<br />
<br />
The concept of <a href="http://earthship.com/earthship-village-ecologies">Earthship Village Ecologies</a> links ecological concepts by creating work and resource flows rather than currency flows, and creating community instead of economy.<br />
<br />
This is a good core article on the economic underpinnings of the <a href="http://www.stwr.org/economic-sharing-alternatives/one-world-one-wealth.html">Sharing Economy</a>, and how we can resuscitate it for the modern age.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://creativecommons.org/about">Creative Commons</a> is a global <a href="http://opensource.org/history">open-source style movement</a> that gives a legal basis for sharing IP without giving corporations or individuals the opportunity to monetise or acquire the rights to an idea, product, or piece of work. A good example is this website for the sharing of <a href="http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:22537">free designs for 3d printing</a>, in this case featuring designs for how to print an entire flying quadcopter. It's quite simply a fact that IP stifles small-scale economic development and in many cases is counterproductive. The people who realise this can share their concepts and code through these above movements so that their ideas serve the greater good of the community and allow small-scale economic development to expand.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.twnside.org.sg/title/com-cn.htm">anti-colonial</a> and anti-enclosure movement rising in (primarily) the third world seeks to defend cultural legacy from corporate patents.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://www.transitionnetwork.org/sites/www.transitionnetwork.org/files/Transition%20Research%20Primer.pdf">Transition Towns movement</a> seeks to create regional and local economic autonomy and development from the "great powering down" that is starting now. The link is a practical primer on how to get local research to assist in economic development on a local level.<br />
<br />
This is just the tip of the iceberg, but countless groups are looking at a less cash-intensive future that is more community-based, sustainable, and happy. Less money can mean less security in these cash-intensive times, but less need for money means greater security, more community, and in the end, more happiness for all concerned (except the bankers, who might actually have to learn to work for a living).GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-52447463326414789642013-04-09T20:40:00.000+08:002013-07-02T11:26:16.872+08:00Subverting the Global Economy through Local Action, Part 1It's a common and nonetheless sad story that, no matter where or who we are, we assume that the only way to change our lot in life is to rally behind a figure who, inevitably, betrays his or her ideals once in a position of power. The politicians who win elections can bend but won't act, and those who won't bend and would act: don't win. Leaders are, on the whole, incapable of NOT doing what the system is set up to make them do. In a democracy, politicians appeal to their base with stirring rhetoric to get elected, and once in power, must compromise and please the majority. That's the democratic system. On the other hand, authoritarian concentration of power comes greater need to offer power and wealth to the people who support you, and no matter how benevolent the despot, his innate sense of entitlement and ability to rationalise make it impossible for him to resist the trappings of power and reject its substance. So much for leaders.<br />
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So what have we got to rely on? First, we must take power over ourselves. Power over oneself is the greatest of powers, but we just happened to have become acculturated to giving this power up to authority to the point that we don’t know that it’s gone. Next, realise that there’s a lot more in this society than just governments and individuals. We're not only talking about ourselves, but the communities that we left behind to inhabit our soulless suburbia. Building on a few of my previous articles, I wanted to talk about how to use your personal power to make the world a better place. No, this isn't intended to be some kind of self-help or inspirational article. This is a blueprint for a peaceful and insidious revolution that just happens to be inspiring.</div>
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The global economy has made many goods very affordable. The more globalised we become, the cheaper everyday items seem to get. Economies of scale, container ships, and big box stores are efficient: they are able to produce the most amount of widgets for the lowest price. Efficiency is exactly what the global economy is about. Companies can move production of widgets to the countries with the lowest-cost workforce, countries that provide the most favourable tax laws, or countries that subsidise corporate inputs. Given the smorgasbord of potential options for cost externalisation (fancy language for how corporations make other people pay for the stuff they use) and arbitrage (fancy talk for simultaneously exploiting the margin in price between two regions for profit), companies can naturally make their homes in locations that offer them lowest cost for their operations.<br />
<br />
The problem with this efficiency is that it means one thing: concentration. Profits become concentrated when corporations operate in an environment where they are free to reduce or externalise their costs. As much as I believe in the free market, I believe that everything from lower salaries and cheap electricity to favourable tax legislation and undervalued currencies are externalities naturally produced by the current way of doing business. My definition of a truly free market is as free of these corporate advantages as it is free of hindrances. All externalities must be internalised to create a truly free market. Economies work best when all actors have an even playing field. When the field is uneven, groups can effectively arbitrage (for example) the high-currency consumer power of country A with the low currency and tiny salaries of country B. There are plenty of multinationals that would be unable to survive if it wasn't for these arbitrages and externalities. In my opinion, they shouldn't survive: they are poster-children for unfair business practices and unsustainability... but I also understand that, when the only <a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2011/03/green-capitalism-god-that-failed.html">goal of a corporation</a> is to <a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2011/03/end-of-profit-motive.html">expand share value</a>, they will naturally act amorally to achieve these ends.<br />
<br />
The WTO (formerly GATT) has facilitated a kind of corporate wonderland where corporations (through their governmental proxies) can take countries to court for throwing up trade barriers. Trade barriers, in this case, can mean even something as simple as <a href="http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dispu_e/cases_e/ds26_e.htm">health legislation</a> (where the US forced the EU to accept hormone-laden beef that has been linked with increased risk for cancer) or <a href="http://www1.american.edu/ted/venez.htm">environmental protection legislation</a> (where Venezuela forced the US to allow them - effectively - to sell more polluted gasoline on the US market than extant EPA legislation allowed), or indeed <a href="http://www.asil.org/insigh46.cfm">human rights legislation</a> (where Massachusetts was forced to deal with Myanmar even though they had made legislation that disallowed them to deal directly with despotic regimes). This is simply in their nature: corporations act to increase share value. They will use all tools at their disposal to grow, and prying open other markets is one of the things necessary for growth past a certain point. It is no surprise that GATT became the WTO and the WTO may likely expand to the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21782080">TPP</a>. It's a natural evolution. Predictable, really.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br />
We need a way for economic proverbial Davids to compete against proverbial economic Goliaths. The purpose is not to abolish the WTO, throw out the multinationals, eat the rich, and establish a dictatorship of the unions. That can't be done, especially not through any kind of direct conflict. No, the purpose is to make the people in your immediate area able to compete against <b>money</b>. Not simply against this company or that company, or this product or that product, but against the fundamental underpinnings of the entire neoliberal economy: money itself. </div>
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<br />
More in the next instalment. <a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2011/12/end-of-wishing.html">Read this</a> for a taste of the direction we're going. A shout out to <a href="http://valhallamovement.com/mission">The Valhalla Movement</a>, a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/193767764084359/">step in the right direction</a>.</div>
GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-9730696366877152032013-04-09T19:28:00.001+08:002013-04-09T19:28:27.683+08:00Influencing BehaviourIt is easiest to get someone to do something when you make it in their own best interest to do so.<br />
<br />
If it is in their own best interest to do something and they do not do it, perhaps they suffer from a lack of information.<br />
<br />
If they have adequate information about something in their best interest and they do not do it, perhaps they lack the capacity.<br />
<br />
If they have the information about and the capacity to do something in their best interest and they do not do it, perhaps you have miscalculated the priorities of their interests.GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-32436107986433815942013-03-17T20:45:00.000+08:002013-04-09T20:16:46.229+08:00More farming issues<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A few links for you:<br />
<br /><a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/sep/02/era-of-cheap-food-over">The era of cheap food may be over</a> (overview)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If the World Bank's projections are anything like accurate, further massive productivity gains from agriculture are going to be needed over the next two decades. There will be an extra 70m mouths to feed every year, which will result in a 50% increase in demand for food by 2030. Meanwhile, the amount of arable land per person will continue its long-run downward trend.</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/16/britain-farming-crisis-how-tough">Britain's farming crisis: 'People don't realise how tough everything is'</a> (cost of feed due to scarcity)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So they had to turn to higher volumes of concentrates than usual, where costs have shot up too, because of grain price rises on the international markets. "Feed has gone up by £50 or £60 a tonne." With each animal consuming a couple of tonnes of concentrate a year, that's a major cost. "As a result, the milk price is still below the cost of production because of the cost of that feed."</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/16/uk-farmers-face-disaster">UK farmers face disaster as 'perfect storm' strikes</a> (environmental pressures)<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Farming faces a perfect storm. Appalling weather – 2012 was the second wettest year on record in England – has coincided with disease in livestock, including bovine TB and Schmallenberg in sheep, which causes birth defects. On top of this there are commercial pressures, with retailers driving prices down because of the state of the economy, combined with the cost of animal feed needed to replace poor quality silage due to the weather, shooting up by 40%.</blockquote>
This summer is probably going to be pretty expensive to shop for food.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-53553402146724191832013-02-20T21:57:00.001+08:002013-04-09T20:17:02.201+08:00Predicting Future Economic Behaviour: The Price of Food Will Rise<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Pretty lame, isn’t it? I mean, pretty much everyone knows
that the price of food is already rising. It’s really quite a do-nothing
hypothesis when you think about it. “The price of food will rise”. Is that it?
Stating the obvious? Does that kind of statement make a guy some kind of
economic wizard? No. But I must say this, on the anniversary of Copernicus’
birthday: stating the obvious worked for him.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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The reason why the simple statement “the price of food will
rise” is so important is not the statement itself. Saying “the earth rotates
around the sun” is not, in itself, earthshaking. It’s what follows thereafter.
All of a sudden the orbits of the inner and outer planets make sense. When you
see the obvious, sometimes other facts that are difficult to reconcile become
reconcilable. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>The Price of Staples Will Rise</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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We all know that the price of food is rising, but we’re also
hearing about droughts causing crop losses in the US and now <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/b2b7fdde-75f0-11e2-b702-00144feabdc0.html?ftcamp=published_links%2Frss%2Fglobal-economy%2Ffeed%2F%2Fproduct#axzz2LDa692Ah">Russia is feelingthe pinch</a>, too. With the world’s biggest corn producer and the world’s biggest
wheat producer putting out fewer crops, economists have already been able to
project that beef, for example, will likely be more expensive toward the middle
of this year due to the raising price of feed grain. With more droughts
happening lately, the pressure on staples will be constant, and while we can’t
necessarily say that the base price of staples will go up, it will fluctuate
higher and, on average, be more expensive. When this happens, the meat
downstream becomes more expensive by extension. Keep it in the back of your
mind now that Russia has shut its doors to grain exports – likely until June –
and many previously self-sufficient countries (I’m looking at you, China) are
no longer self-sufficient. India is another case where, while they appear to
have food under control, the per-person consumption of food calories is lower
than in many other food-importing countries and I fear that lowering these
calories-per-person is simply not something the Indian market can absorb.
Americans can stand to eat fewer calories. Indians may not be able to. Will
feed lots be profitable anymore if grain becomes too pricey? Perhaps there will
be a rise in grass-fed cattle, which will increase demand for range land.
Either way, the meat gets more costly and land gets more scarce. Mid-term result of grain no longer flowing from Russia? The Maghreb, one of the main importers of Russian grain, may have even more unrest to deal with. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/05/egyptians-short-on-food-are-told-to-eat-less/">Watch</a> <a href="http://bikyanews.com/85541/the-coming-crisis-egypts-food-energy-faces-uncertain-future/">Egypt</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Inflation Will Rise</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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The majority of the world spends the majority of its pay on
food. North Americans and Europeans are something of an anomaly that way. I’ve
already mentioned that inflation in China is on the rise, and when I left
China, inflation was high – until they changed the proportions of goods in the
grocery basket used to calculate inflation. In effect, inflation in China is a
shell game: they don’t want the official number to be too high, so they change
the make-up of the products it’s based on. The items they reduced in the basket:
food. Sadly for the central government, the people know what’s going on,
because they are spending most of their pay on just that. Salaries are going up
to cover food price increases. Workers would not go back to the factories after
the economic crisis for the same pay they worked for prior. Workers are
desperate for enough cash to pay for food – and I’ve already argued that<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/search?q=work+food"> food determines the base price of the workforce</a>. If the cost of food goes up, the
cost of work goes up, and food-importing countries will be impacted more. This
is one place where the First World worker has the advantage: we can absorb a
price rise in food. Others cannot. In the long run, scarce food may start to
make us more competitive than we currently are.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>Trade Imbalances Will Shift and Potentially Reverse
(eventually)</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The Chinese have a long memory, and the Opium War is almost
a current event on the time scale of that ancient civilization. To oversimplify
the reasons China and England became embroiled in this one-sided conflict, we
can say that there was a massive trade imbalance between the two countries. In
effect, China grew tea and England bought it for gold. The natural problem
being that tea can keep growing forever and gold is finite. In order to reverse
the flow of bullion, England started assisting opium dealers in trading a
different plant product for precious metals. This made the Chinese angry, and
they started burning things. That gave the British the opportunity to go in and
blow things up, and make the Chinese take the opium – illegal or no. To sum up,
trade imbalances make people touchy. Currently, the Chinese hold a trade
imbalance against the US which – to a degree – works in both nations’ favour.
The Chinese are building an enormous pile of US dollars (not having learned
anything from the Opium War, I suppose), and the US gets cheap goods and an
endless supply of loans. Once food becomes more expensive, however, the flow of
those dollars will slow. This will not require gunboat diplomacy, drug running,
or any other kind of shenanigans. It will occur naturally as a consequence of
more expensive staples. While there will be volatility in the staples market as
the US and Russia have alternating bumper/poor crops (this hurts only the
farmers, though – everyone else is more or less unscathed, but farmers start
killing themselves when prices do this), eventually the average price of
staples will rise. China will be unable to increase its own internal staple
production to meet its needs due to overuse of chemicals, lack of groundwater,
and desertification. With the relaxing of restrictions on domicile imposed by
the hukou system, farmers will start moving to the city in droves. Who once
were productive farmers will become consumers in the food system, and leaving
large tracts of land to be turned into real estate deserts. I contend China’s
food production will never rise in a meaningful way unless a miracle happens
and they all of a sudden have a Green Leap Forward. Not bloody likely, but I
remain open to serendipity.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This means there are implications for Chinese productivity. Its
growth once predicated on cheap unskilled labour, the cost of hiring in China
will rise with the price of food. The same kind of production will become
untenable in China. Foreign investment – already seeking alternative places to
flow such as Vietnam and the Philippines – will threaten to dry up. What may
this mean? It may make China blink on monetary policy. One option would be to
allow the Yuan to float, the other option would be to unilaterally have the
Yuan to rise in value against the dollar. Trade imbalance is going to force
changes in monetary policy one way or the other, but this one thing I will say:
do not underestimate the power of the US dollar. While its value is more or
less based on the fact that it is the global fiat currency for petrol purchase
(and the reserve currency for many other international transactions), even in
an era of decreasing oil demand due to high price, the USD will retain value
because we’ll be buying grain with it – or at least the Chinese will be.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Will there be a grain war? A more exciting reporter than I
might say “maybe”. I say “no”. Will there be very boring high-level discussions
about monetary policy amongst the grand high mucky-mucks of the Chinese
Communist Party and Indian Cabinet? Yes. They may even get into heated
arguments. I know. Perish the thought. We live in such turbulent times.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>And then There’s the Death and Famine</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Oh yes, I forgot. The over billion people that live on
between one and two dollars a day will go hungry in droves. This will not have
an economic impact on you. I guess you can decide for yourself whether this issue
matters to you or not.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<b>The Copernican Economic Shift</b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So once the economic shift begins, several bets are off. One
may be the direction in which trade imbalances begin to flow. Another will be
the ability of China to retain its growth in manufacturing centres. Will China
shift its monetary policy? Will arable land become a <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/a0933e86-333b-11e2-aa83-00144feabdc0.html">highly desirable asset class</a>? I think there are strong chances of these things happening, if only
moderately, in the coming years. One thing I think is a certainty is the
increase in the cost of arable land due to interest not only from investors but
other states scrambling for the single most important strategic resource in any
nation’s arsenal: food. As the old yarn goes, “buy land – they ain’t making any
more of it”.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-21564991163022970102013-02-09T08:49:00.000+08:002013-02-09T08:51:31.012+08:00Part 3: Irrationality does not exist because of data<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/02/ramifications-failure-of-rational-actor.html">Part 1 is here.</a><br />
<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/02/part-2-irrationality-does-not-exist.html">Part 2 is here.</a><br />
A very strong contender for an actor most similar to the
schizophrenic is an investment or venture capital firm (or trader). Both
receive large amounts of potentially specious data and must interpret it in
order to predict the future – a high-entropy proposition. All finance and
investment relies on complex models and practices. All these models and
practices are false: if one was true, there would be no such thing as a failed
investment. All these same models are, to at least some degree, descriptive of
what the market does, because they would not be used if they did not have some
kind of predictive power. It remains to be seen whether this is because the
models evolve with the market or the market evolves with the models. The issue
here is data: I can’t guarantee you that my interpretation of market data will
be accurate or not, but I can guarantee you that I have far less market data
than an investment firm. Leaving entropy completely out of this, because we are
all victims of high entropy when trying to predict the future: who will do
better at reading the market, the person with less or the person with more data?
In general, the odds would favour the person with more, and that is our last
nail in the coffin of irrationality.<br />
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Hindsight is 20/20 they say, and failed investments eventually
make sense when fully analysed. The problem is that they have to fail in order
to determine holes in the model. The humans who developed the model have to
have the humility to make necessary changes to the model to preclude such
failures in the future. The model must be disseminated accurately and applied
appropriately to have a chance of improving its predictive capability. Do these
things happen? Occasionally. Normally, the same well-worn model tends to go
back out into the field; its shortcomings described as a 1-in-100-year anomaly
or a failure of interpretation. Is this rational? Depends on the environment –
how many times had the model succeeded before? Depends on the entropy – was bad
data entered into the model? Depends on the data – was there enough to give the
model a chance of success? Indeed, hindsight is 20/20, and what was a rational
investment choice is now seen, in the light of new data, to have been
“irrational”. But was it? With just a little more data, the benefit of
hindsight (low entropy), and the ability to understand the whole environment,
we can certainly say the decision was wrong, but was it irrational? Not at all.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Environment, entropy, and data can actually be boiled down
into one simple concept: information. Environment is the source of all data;
entropy is the factor that affects an actor’s interpretation of data; the
concepts of data and information are more or less the same. We can truthfully
say that “all actors are rational depending on their information”. As an
illustration, consider what happens to you after you die. In reality, it doesn't matter what you think, what matters is that you realise you are dealing
with a situation in which the information has high entropy. You can easily
agree that many people who see these words will believe something different
than you about the topic. They will, if they disagree with you, consider your
views irrational, and you theirs. If you reflect back on the reasons for which
your views are rational, you can see the environment in which you were brought
up, the experiences that reinforced the ideas you hold, and the data that you
inserted into your mental model of how the world works in order to come to your
rational conclusion. You can also transpose that experience directly to all the
other people who come to this page and disagree with you. While the result is
different, the information was not; while the end decision is rational to
everyone who reads these words, it is not, necessarily, right.<o:p></o:p></div>
GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-3003012917011710742013-02-09T08:44:00.002+08:002013-02-09T10:13:47.085+08:00Part 2: Irrationality does not exist because of entropy<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/02/ramifications-failure-of-rational-actor.html">Part 1 is here.</a><br />
Another actor who often finds themselves tarred with the
classical epithet of irrationality is the schizophrenic. The condition of
schizophrenia gives a person access to a new source or sources of data to which
others may not have access. This data may or may not be perceived as “real” by
the schizophrenic. The condition of schizophrenia may, over time, make the
sufferer so suspicious of all data that they become less capable of separating
accurate data from the physical world and the data derived from other sources. Information
Theory, which considers data not by its content, but by its simple existence as
a quantum of communicable information, is the best lens to view this type of
“irrationality”. Specifically, the concept of entropy in Information Theory
provides a key to one part of the puzzle.<br />
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Entropy is the probability of being able to predict the
content of a piece of data. It is less probable for me to predict the winning
lottery numbers than it is to predict the outcome of a coin-flip. The result of
a coin flip is a piece of data. The winning lottery numbers are also, taken
together, a piece of data. Entropy tells us that one is easier to predict than
the other because there are more potential results for one piece of data than
another. While this sounds like straight probability, be warned: Information
Theory started in the 1920s and gave you such wondrous toys as the Voyager
space probe and the CD. We’ve only just come to the mouth of the rabbit hole on
this topic, and this paper isn’t long enough to go too deep.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Experiences that are a product of a schizophrenic’s
environment produce interesting results. When a person hears voices or sees
things that he is unable to differentiate from the simple physical reality
others perceive, his world is no longer bounded by the same rules. Some of the data
he receives is unbounded by physical laws. This may or may not help him in
trying to sort the physical from the perceived. If a vision or sound accords
with the laws of physics, a schizophrenic may be forced to determine whether or
not this seemingly real data is truly real. This is akin to flipping a coin and
seeing a heads – but not knowing whether the result is due to the actual coin
toss or simply due to one’s own perception. There is greater entropy in a
schizophrenic’s life because even if he receives data, he must still determine
whether it is “real”. In such a high-entropy environment, it is very difficult
to discuss rationality simply based on environment. Whereas the environment is
the source of sensory input to the actor, the high entropy of the data received
from the environment changes the very nature of that data. Environment plus
entropy yields potential uncertainty, and that uncertainty can lead to what
might be called “irrationality”. Still, if a person is schizophrenic and is
acting in a high entropy environment, they are simply making the best choice
available to themselves under the circumstances. That is a perfectly rational
action, and while the schizophrenic deals with high entropy all the time, everyone
experiences a moderate level of entropy because our perception is imperfect.<o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/02/part-3-irrationality-does-not-exist.html">Part 3 here.</a></div>
GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-17262023721282530642013-02-09T08:26:00.002+08:002013-04-29T05:30:30.549+08:00R.A.M.ifications: the Failure of the Rational Actor ModelThe Rational Actor Model (RAM) is one of the principal foundations of Game Theory. It assumes that an actor, be it individual or
corporate, will always act in its own self-interest when faced with a decision.
Self-interest is taken to be objectively interpreted: there is a “best choice”
in any situation that can be mathematically proven. Suboptimal choices are
considered irrational. The concept of rationality itself is the very first
problem with the RAM, as I will argue that there is no such thing as
irrationality, and therefore rationality is a red herring. RAM tends to place
all actors in the model on the same level in terms of environment, entropy, and
data. This renders the model nondescriptive, as RAM cannot apply when actors
come from different environments, have different weights assigned to their
experiences (entropy), and have different levels of data about a situation. Data
gaps are a fact of life and “perfect” data is an anomaly. These three ideas
spell the death knell of the current RAM as a descriptive assumption. The only
way to save RAM is to rid ourselves of the concept that there is such a thing
as “irrationality”.<br />
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Irrationality does not exist because of environment<o:p></o:p></div>
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A poster child for the classical concept of irrationality is
North Korea. Of the states in the world, few are more erratic, and none so
erratic are so disruptive. The problem with analysing North Korea is that it
can be seen through numerous lenses, and many of those lenses are not
objective, but based on values judgements. Anyone who asks a question of Korea
that starts with the words “why don’t they just…” and then recommends a course
of action simply hasn’t put the time in to understanding North Korea as a
rational actor. If anything other than the perpetuation of the regime was North
Korea’s sole interest, such speculation would be potentially instructive. As it
stands, we have a nation of some 20 million people which supports a tiny
oligarchy – the only people who truly have “skin in the game” – in their
chessboard of internal politicking. Internally, the Kim clan must assure
dominance over the other petty power brokers, and externally, North Korea must
milk the international community for aid while never truly allowing one state
to become their sole interlocutor. Erratic acts – such as powering down the
Yongbyon reactor only to power it up again secretly, kidnapping Japanese
citizens and then releasing them some decades later, and sinking the occasional
South Korean patrol ship then denying such activity on the world stage – serve
to draw close and then alienate states each in their turn. So long as one state
can give it aid and begin to make headway in the Hermit Kingdom, North Korea
can afford to push away another for its own internal ends. <o:p></o:p></div>
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North Korea acts erratically, but not irrationally. Time and
time again, results have proven to North Korea that such continuous games of
“he loves me, he loves me not” get it the results it desires. Like a spoilt child,
rewarded for his tantrums, so is North Korea a classic enfant terrible of the
global stage. If such action is calculated to produce a desired result, and if
such action is based on previous experiences of success, then how can it be
called irrational? The best way to understand an actor like North Korea is not
to ask “will North Korea react rationally to this offer”, but “what is the environment
in which this action could be considered rational?” In the case of Korea, its
experiences dictate that these actions will produce a desired result. The
actions taken are erratic, but calculated; to consider North Korea anything but
a rational actor in such a situation likely betrays an ideological
presupposition on behalf of the interpreter. <o:p></o:p></div>
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In order to understand North Korea’s actions, we require
access to data regarding its previous decisions and the results thereof. Environment
is key – even applied Game Theory teaches us this. For example, in a 2005 paper
(“Investigation of Context Effects in Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma Game”),
Evgenia Hristova and Maurice Grinberg detailed predictive strategies for
cooperation in iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma games, finding that cooperation was
not simply based on the games being played with the current opponent/partner,
but all previous partners. Based on reading I had done in University, I
determined that I would attempt an experiment myself that came out of
Post-Modernist critique of the RAM through discourse analysis. I had a class of
MBA students in a Business Strategy course divide into two teams. The professor
of the course explained the rules for iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma in extremely
competitive terms. For example, we made certain he said “opponent”, “beat”,
“compete”, and “win”. When I explained
the rules, I used extremely cooperative terminology: “partner”, “resolve”,
“cooperate”, and “participate”. The results were definitive, at least to me: In
one-off games, the competitors always won. In iterated games, when cooperators
were paired with cooperators, they by far scored highest. Any other pairing was
so affected by the existing discourse – or became so disenchanted by their
“partner’s” lack of cooperation – that they were dominated by defections. The
history, the environment of each player, was a factor in their strategic
choices. Those strategic choices were preordained by our simple choice of
words. Were those choices irrational? No. They were purely environmental.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Notes on Game Theory and human choices:<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://users.auth.gr/~kehagiat/GameTheory/05PapersAdvanced/Shubik1970.pdf">http://users.auth.gr/~kehagiat/GameTheory/05PapersAdvanced/Shubik1970.pdf</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://rss.sagepub.com/content/4/1/8.full.pdf+html">http://rss.sagepub.com/content/4/1/8.full.pdf+html</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://dornsife.usc.edu/labs/alker/documents/reason_causes_games.PDF">http://dornsife.usc.edu/labs/alker/documents/reason_causes_games.PDF</a><o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/02/part-2-irrationality-does-not-exist.html">parts 2</a> and <a href="http://greenreserve.blogspot.com/2013/02/part-3-irrationality-does-not-exist.html">3 here</a>!</div>
GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-79790752238788274732012-08-17T06:08:00.001+08:002012-08-17T14:49:41.630+08:00It... Lives!Now witness the mushrooms of this fully COLONISED and OPERATIONAL spawndry basket!<br />
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<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_oyOROC8fk8/UC1vXSry0EI/AAAAAAAAAGk/Yf302YqX4ho/s640/blogger-image--1558241835.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="299" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-_oyOROC8fk8/UC1vXSry0EI/AAAAAAAAAGk/Yf302YqX4ho/s400/blogger-image--1558241835.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-74785623047733026912012-08-11T15:31:00.004+08:002012-08-11T20:42:04.658+08:00Mushroom Projects and New Hobbies<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VgBDff2w5Xg/UCWrMS6UX5I/AAAAAAAAAGE/jRnyu6myxr0/s1600/blogger-image--1376246880.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VgBDff2w5Xg/UCWrMS6UX5I/AAAAAAAAAGE/jRnyu6myxr0/s640/blogger-image--1376246880.jpg" /></a><br />
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I'm back after a long vacation away in Northern Canuckistan and I'm devouring Sandor Katz' paean to pickling: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Art-Fermentation-Exploration-Essential/dp/160358286X">The Art of Fermentation</a>. I've just today gone out to Salcedo Market to get some farm-fresh ginger root and turmeric root, and grabbed some red ginger from the local Rustan's. Also, with the availability of Muscovado sugar (from raw cane juice), I couldn't help but liberate a couple kilos for my nefarious purposes.</div>
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Using instructions from the book, I've put together a ginger bug and a turmeric bug: these things are simply fermentation starters made from water, sugar, and shredded roots (with skin). Each day, you add a little more shredded root and sugar. It can take about three days for a good vigourous ferment to get going, but once the ferment starts to work, it's going to be time to make ginger beer! I'll also make turmeric beer and if I can find galangal, I'll do that one, too.</div>
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<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-EhbEjCYsKko/UCWrLo1wMnI/AAAAAAAAAF8/3rCpGhxQPQg/s640/blogger-image--1875377512.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: black; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /></span><span style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-EhbEjCYsKko/UCWrLo1wMnI/AAAAAAAAAF8/3rCpGhxQPQg/s320/blogger-image--1875377512.jpg" width="320" /></span></a>
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In other news, I have been able to clone the reishi mushroom from my front yard using a rather unorthodox method. Thanks to the fact my wife was away, I was able to do this. I took a bunch of wood chips and stuck them in a couple jars. I then topped the jars with water and stuck them in the microwave for five minutes. It made the room smell interesting, but the water-infused wood (and the jars) were well and truly sterilised. I sealed the jars and let them cool. Once cooled overnight, I plopped a few bits of wood chips from my tree stump into them, and left them about four weeks. This is what I now have:</div>
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<a href="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-42LoJNRAa2A/UCWrNNbLmdI/AAAAAAAAAGM/_hZDOmUHh8o/s640/blogger-image-1677649514.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-42LoJNRAa2A/UCWrNNbLmdI/AAAAAAAAAGM/_hZDOmUHh8o/s640/blogger-image-1677649514.jpg" /></a></div>
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Thoroughly mycelially - enhanced wood chips with no apparent source of contamination.</div>
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<a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vAN7Ne6pQDw/UCWrN99RlwI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/F_s_2uNyBVA/s640/blogger-image-1690616686.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vAN7Ne6pQDw/UCWrN99RlwI/AAAAAAAAAGQ/F_s_2uNyBVA/s640/blogger-image-1690616686.jpg" /></a></div>
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I also colonised some pure coir just to prove it could be done. This was done in conjunction with my spawndry basket. News on the spawndry basket front: It flushed!!!!!</div>
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And then it deliquesced because I wasn't at home to see the mushrooms flush (see above note on me being in Northern Canuckistan on long holiday). I've since put the basket out in the rain where it will keep wet and hopefully flush again. The mushrooms had grown only at the bottom of the bucket (close to the only source of moisture) due to lack of water, in my reckoning. If I can infuse the whole thing with moisture, I hope that I can get a better second flush.</div>
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Projects, projects, projects... at least I am on the right track with the ginger beer, my wife is highly supportive of any activity that provides her with yummy and nutritious ginger beer!</div>GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-81063401123455665712012-07-15T11:02:00.002+08:002012-07-15T11:06:04.486+08:00Spawndry BasketI must admit to wondering whether my wife reads my blog. If she does, I should find out soon after she discovers this post. <br />
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<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LBFZ2C9ThnQ/UAIwQBp4aSI/AAAAAAAAAFw/LhmhmNpd3r8/s640/blogger-image--284261036.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-LBFZ2C9ThnQ/UAIwQBp4aSI/AAAAAAAAAFw/LhmhmNpd3r8/s640/blogger-image--284261036.jpg" /></a></div>
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I'm calling this a Spawndry Basket because it's yet another crazy mushroom spawn experiment, only this time with a laundry basket. One of the projects from the DVD "Let's Grow Mushrooms" was a great big laundry basket filed with straw bulk substrate and pleurotus spawn. I'm doing the "Philippines version" of that by boiling up some shredded coir and layering that with spawn.</div>
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I'm accustomed to my mushroom projects failing, but that's not to say I'm too terribly sad about the failures. I'd rather get them out of my system now while it doesn't matter. I'm also not really setting myself up for success. I'm primarily interested in totally dumb methods of doing stuff, because I'm dumb. I want resilience, not perfection. In this case, if the substrate isn't colonised, I will try again with more coir. Eventually something will work. We had to have done this in an era before clean rooms, so I'm going to keep banging at it until I've got something that functions.</div>
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If it works, WHEE! more oyster mushrooms for me, and I will start stealing people's waste coconut husks.</div>GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-56955635354895251522012-07-09T17:53:00.000+08:002012-07-09T17:53:58.235+08:00Vermicomposter<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VMie3NNPhPc/T_qik0KJA6I/AAAAAAAAAFY/PnZ_jXzybZs/s640/blogger-image--251306664.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><img border="0" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-VMie3NNPhPc/T_qik0KJA6I/AAAAAAAAAFY/PnZ_jXzybZs/s640/blogger-image--251306664.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Thanks to the kind Hala Chaoui of <a href="http://www.urbanfarmsorganic.com/about.html">UFO</a>, I now have a vermicomposting unit! I went from shipping box to fully built in ten minutes exactly. Instructions were clear and well-illustrated. I've got a few projects this week, after getting some more spawn from the mighty men of the <a href="http://www.ministryofmushrooms.com/">Ministry of Mushrooms</a>, I want to make at least one (maybe two, maybe three) laundry-basket mushroom projects. I learned the process from the DVD "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Lets-Grow-Mushrooms-Marc-Keith/dp/B0011ZJ53G">Let's Grow Mushrooms</a>", and as long as I can get spawn, it seems bloody easy. Just boil your substrate and layer it lasagne-style in a laundry basket... keep it watered, and BOOM! Mushrooms. Let's see if it works. If it does, I will have more num-nums for the worms in the form of spent mushroom substrate.</span></div>
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<span style="text-align: -webkit-auto;">Anyhow, after all that work I was tired so I had a beer and sat down for a while.</span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IwRnug5veiI/T9VnEDtuRyI/AAAAAAAAAFM/geswFAb9GTw/s1600/Ganoderma.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="149" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-IwRnug5veiI/T9VnEDtuRyI/AAAAAAAAAFM/geswFAb9GTw/s200/Ganoderma.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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I appear to have Reishi mushrooms growing on a stump in my front yard. They exhibit the classic kidney shape and rust brown spore print, with the white active growing area also notably present. I have another stump that I wouldn't mind giving over to Reishi propagation, so I'd better learn how!</div>
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Just wait 'til I tell the guys at Ministry of Mushrooms!</div>GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-63985240093357346102012-06-10T23:37:00.001+08:002012-06-11T16:39:26.066+08:00Mycelium Running... for real this time.<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I appear to have had some luck running mycelium in coir and wood chips lately. See the above three jars filled with bits of happy mycelium? They are from left to right, pure-ish coir to mixed coir and wood chips. So far it seems like the rightmost mixture is the happiest, though it could also have something to do with the fact it appears to have retained a little more moisture than the others. The pure-ish coir jar seems to have good, fuzzy mycelium in it:</div>
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Whereas the one in the mason jar seems to have developed some other form of mould to compete with the pleurotus ostreatus. Perhaps a holdover from its days holding other foods and not being as thoroughly cleaned as it should have been:</div>
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<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5c-TSr9O1-A/T9S5kTlSlCI/AAAAAAAAAEo/M6_MDCeRiTg/s640/blogger-image-62889504.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-5c-TSr9O1-A/T9S5kTlSlCI/AAAAAAAAAEo/M6_MDCeRiTg/s320/blogger-image-62889504.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
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If I had supervision of any kind at this time, I might be forced to throw it out, but I really want to see just what happens... and if it goes rank, I'm putting it under the microscope, by gum!</div>
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The black soldier fly is doing well. They are crawling off a lot nowadays, so I hope we are getting an increase in the local population. I am not yet ready to start collecting them as I have nothing to use them for. If the neighbourhood allowed it, I would have gotten a chicken or something to et the BSFL, but I think they are going to have to go into an aquarium of fish eventually as fish food. They eat bloody fast though and I'm alone in the house now with dwindling amounts of food to give them. I had a bunch of people over last night, so we had some scraps, but I can't well have a party every night just to feed my BSFL. </div>
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Then again, I suppose I could, and it would be pretty awesome to have a maggot-themed party, I'm sure.</div>
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Lastly, I've ordered a vericomposting kit to compost the castings of the BSFL into some friable compost. In order to keep moisture in the indoor food collection bin down, I've been putting dustings of coir in the bottom. These are slowly building up in the BSFL bucket as the BSFL can't really eat coir. After a good soak in the bacteria-rich goo that the BSFL leave in the bucket, it should be soft enough to be able to be eventually digested by the worms I hope. Also would like to plug the vermicomposter's designer, from UFO (<a href="http://www.urbanfarmsorganic.com/">Urban Farms Organic</a>). Check out their designs for high-volume modular composters. I will be reporting back to UFO on how they work out here in the tropics on BSFL leavings.</div>
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That's me up-to-date, more news as it happens...</div>GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-54987169634960082672012-05-26T23:36:00.003+08:002012-05-26T23:37:19.829+08:00Mushroom Fail, Soldier Fly Win<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lcElkwrHIY4/T8D3lr-EHSI/AAAAAAAAAEc/_DTKFxOYHBY/s1600/BSFL.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lcElkwrHIY4/T8D3lr-EHSI/AAAAAAAAAEc/_DTKFxOYHBY/s320/BSFL.JPG" width="181" /></a></div>
While it seems my mushroom bin went rank due to moisture pooling in the bottom of the container, the larvae that I had once worried were not black soldier fly appear now to be black soldier fly. I'm not 100% certain - heck, I'm not 100% certain about many things - but they do seem to have taken on the proper form of BSF.<br /><br />My dear mushroom contacts over at <a href="http://www.ministryofmushrooms.com/">Ministry of Mushrooms</a> came through for me today with some spawn to pick me up from being morose about a failed first mushroom experiment. One kilogram of oyster mushroom grain spawn to experiment with on my coir! Next, I'll have to purchase a pressure cooker...GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-53744405159112902012-05-20T11:35:00.001+08:002012-05-26T23:37:31.902+08:00More Mycelial LoveIt appears the mycelium is taking to the coir substrate, with the moist coffee grounds maintaining the humidity of the mix notably high. It appears almost as if the coffee grounds are doing double duty, as they can be metabolised by the mycelium and they provide an obvious amount of moisture: obvious by the waft of moist air I get when I pop open the container. Let's see where this goes! <div class="separator"style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-mRwlyd_d3eM/T7hmdHTXTZI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/bnzR2xMn5W4/s640/blogger-image-87367845.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-mRwlyd_d3eM/T7hmdHTXTZI/AAAAAAAAAEQ/bnzR2xMn5W4/s640/blogger-image-87367845.jpg" /></a></div>GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-85994561109245683352012-05-17T17:43:00.002+08:002012-05-26T23:37:31.912+08:00Mycelium Running?The title of this post is, of course, a riff on Stamets' great work <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mycelium-Running-Mushrooms-Help-World/dp/1580085792/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1337247633&sr=8-1">Mycelium Running</a>, one of the three inspirational treatises by Stamets I'm working from. The others are <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Growing-Gourmet-Medicinal-Mushrooms-Stamets/dp/1580081754/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1337247633&sr=8-2">Growing Gourmet and Medicinal Mushrooms</a> and <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Mushroom-Cultivator-Practical-Mushrooms/dp/0961079800/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1337247633&sr=8-3">The Mushroom Cultivator</a>. I say "inspirational" in part because they are inspirational, but also in part because I'm not doing anything Stamets really recommends. However, after pasteurising my bulk substrate of coir, palm fronds, and coffee grounds, I appear to have mycelium running!!<br />
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<a href="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/580126_10150952663416488_708016487_12401788_875202215_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc7/580126_10150952663416488_708016487_12401788_875202215_n.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
<br />GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-18992849225684741002012-05-12T09:49:00.001+08:002012-05-26T23:37:31.892+08:00Phase three... or is it five? Mushrooms.Got a fruiting bag of mushrooms to provide mycelium for a clone. The guys at the <a href="http://www.ministryofmushrooms.com/">Ministry of Mushrooms</a> at Saturday's Salcedo market are pretty awesome and helpful. I've now got a pot to sterilise my bulk substrate, some coir, some leaves, and I think I'm ready to go. <br />
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<a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-SzRqnK1cGIM/T63BrVWhN0I/AAAAAAAAAEE/V2B9bKVhybM/s640/blogger-image--1524532374.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-SzRqnK1cGIM/T63BrVWhN0I/AAAAAAAAAEE/V2B9bKVhybM/s640/blogger-image--1524532374.jpg" /></a></div>GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-49959854185312292362012-05-11T14:48:00.002+08:002012-05-12T09:57:20.078+08:00Treats for the Maggots<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vK4Q1tBA8cA/T6y0BzJKr4I/AAAAAAAAADg/XhF6LTUX7lg/s1600/2012-05-11+maggots+001.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vK4Q1tBA8cA/T6y0BzJKr4I/AAAAAAAAADg/XhF6LTUX7lg/s320/2012-05-11+maggots+001.JPG" width="239" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QF3Pe5VS0Dw/T6y0K6KCLXI/AAAAAAAAADo/L3QqNm_Ya2s/s1600/2012-05-11+maggots+011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-QF3Pe5VS0Dw/T6y0K6KCLXI/AAAAAAAAADo/L3QqNm_Ya2s/s320/2012-05-11+maggots+011.JPG" width="239" /></a></div>
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I hear Black Soldier Fly larvae like coffee grounds. My friends at the neighbourhood Starbucks obliged me with a metric assload of coffee grounds, some of which I intend to use in bulk substrate for growing mushrooms, some for my BSFL. The BSFL are quite active - today I found a couple on the roof of the bin and a couple on the walls. The reports I had heard from other tropical BSFL ranchers that they have incredible climbing abilities when the walls of the bin are wet appear to be substantiated. Now, to use that to my advantage in self-harvesting...<br />
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You can see the great, big, fat and happy larvae on my trowel there in the picture on the right. There is an incredible amount of size variance amongst the larvae, and these were easily 1cm long and perhaps 3mm-4mm wide. Many are still tiny. Just from observation, the fat ones are found in the vicinity of meat and the skinny ones seem to be found around vegetables, so I imagine the BSFL have sublimely fast metabolisms and their growth is only limited by the amount of protein they can find in their environment. I learn more every day.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f0mFLiyvP-c/T6y1rT3EsjI/AAAAAAAAAD4/FrZ_FnVyc3E/s1600/2012-05-11+maggots+015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f0mFLiyvP-c/T6y1rT3EsjI/AAAAAAAAAD4/FrZ_FnVyc3E/s320/2012-05-11+maggots+015.JPG" width="239" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nrOVcBAdMiE/T6y1gNEQrzI/AAAAAAAAADw/fI6INeAT7AQ/s1600/2012-05-11+maggots+013.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nrOVcBAdMiE/T6y1gNEQrzI/AAAAAAAAADw/fI6INeAT7AQ/s320/2012-05-11+maggots+013.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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In other news, the coconut guy came today to hack down some coconuts for us. I had one to celebrate. Deeeeee-licious. Of course, I saved the husk to dry for coir.<br />
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I gotta admit, I really have this wonderful sense of not knowing what the hell I'm doing, but truly enjoying just trying stuff out and seeing what works. The main thing is that I'm not throwing all this stuff in the garbage. It will go back into the land, somehow.<br />
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<br />GreenReservehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11983489732617974558noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6720154631193306703.post-19791188867609289492012-05-10T21:57:00.000+08:002012-05-10T21:57:09.818+08:00Affnan's Aquaponics<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_kiwWdODqX6M/S2_6nmk5QUI/AAAAAAAABnI/2Xo62p_a0a4/s640/valve.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="226" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_kiwWdODqX6M/S2_6nmk5QUI/AAAAAAAABnI/2Xo62p_a0a4/s320/valve.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://affnan-aquaponics.blogspot.com/2010/02/affnans-valve-detailed-explanations-of_9459.html">This man</a> is my hero. His experimentation into siphons (and his incredible explanation of siphon optimisation) is breathtaking.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0