International concerns and promises

Keeping with a breather from the US election... (phew!) ... except for maybe a lagniappe at the end. Still, there are adjacent topics worth contemplating!  Such as: Instead of building A Wall, Why Not a Binational Border City?  Consider...

Border City - plans by Fernando Romero

A Mexican architect, Fernando Romero, has a utopian vision for a walkable city straddling the U.S.-Mexico border. And no, that does not mean surrendering sovereign border control. Just bring it into the 21^st Century. People in the city would wear their ID openly.  It is called your face. 

Moreover, there is a fact we must face.  We are achieving what should always have been the Number One U.S. foreign policy goal – to help create a stable, middle class Mexico – another Canada – along our southern flank.  No measure could do more to enhance our security and – ultimately – economy, and it is exactly one of the effects of NAFTA. It has resulted in net immigration from Mexico into the US turning negative, as the Mexican middle class burgeons and, yes, is starting to buy megatons of stuff from north of the border.

 Sorry left and right wingers.  You have both been short sighted and dumb on this one.

== The Big Picture on Nation States ==

As Distrust Mounts, U.S. and China Battle Over New Rules of Global Order: An interesting Big Perspective article, pertaining to US-China relations, by Wang Jisi, one of China’s “America experts.” Here's an excerpt:

 ‘In the political area, China advocates the “democratization of international relations,” which is to realize democratization on a country level in the international system where developing countries hold the majority. However, the United States continues to advocate reinforcing the “liberal international order” and promoting the “democratization of the world,” which is related to individual freedom and rights of the people. Between these two rules, there are insurmountable obstacles.’

Also: ‘Both China and the United States attach a high degree of importance to cybersecurity and regard each other as one of the main sources of cybersecurity threats they face, but the two countries have very different focal points: China is more concerned about political infiltration of its domestic network that may undermine the leadership’s authority, while the United States is concerned about “online hackers” stealing U.S. commercial secrets or attacking security agency websites.’

This seems a fair summary, as far as it goes. Yet it glosses over fundamentals. 

Essentially, the Chinese leadership views it as inherently destabilizing and dangerous to vest sovereignty and power in billions of autonomous human beings – a position that they share with almost all previous human cultures on this planet. In other words, their elitism and paranoia is normal.

Even within the U.S. and other nations that have done this vesting - switching to an openness-accountability model - a large share of elites recoil at the experiment in distributed, autonomous and effective citizenship. History shows that these experiments are rare and do not seem “natural” to people already in power.

Of course, then it’s pointed out that these experiments in distributed-flattened systems based on reciprocal accountability have also been fantastically successful – at engendering scientific, commercial, economic and happiness advancements. 

To which the inevitable response is to point out disadvantages. These include worries about the flighty chaos or intemperate public fads and whims. (See our own Federalist Papers.) It does seem logical that a serene, intelligent and thoughtful elite should be more effective. In China’s case, that elite consists largely of engineers, which has put off for a decade or more their hitting the "wall of competence" at state planning.

In China, an earnest effort was made to incorporate some controllable aspects of western society – corporations, mass education and investments in technology – while retaining the top-down control of traditional, pyramidal hierarchy.

Even in the West, there is severe discomfort with the next step… giving humans powers of citizenship pertaining to the planet and its institutions.  Certain elements of “world government” – courts and bureaucracy – have been allowed, while others – e.g. an elected executive and legislature – have been banned even from discussion! All authority is vested in two hundred nation states, a situation that plays into the hands of anti-democratic forces.

Now... consider China's Debt Crisis:  “China’s "credit to GDP gap" has reached 30.1, the highest to date and in a different league altogether from any other major country tracked by the institution. It is also significantly higher than the scores in East Asia's speculative boom on 1997 or in the US subprime bubble before the Lehman crisis. Studies of earlier banking crises around the world over the last sixty years suggest that any score above ten requires careful monitoring.” 

This from John Mauldin’s newsletter. China’s problem is not federal government debt, but corporations and local governments that are drowning in red ink. ‘Outstanding loans have reached $28 trillion, as much as the commercial banking systems of the US and Japan combined. The scale is enough to threaten a worldwide shock if China ever loses control. Corporate debt alone has reached 171pc of GDP, and it is this that is keeping global regulators awake at night.’ 

To be clear… there is still room for a soft landing. But we are pushing the envelope of even very smart human competence. In fact, I feel no schadenfreude. I wish them luck.

== Tax Havens and Secrecy ==

Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa is following the script I described in my 1989 novel EARTH -- as he lambasts tax havens and financial secrecy as the principal villains consigning half the world’s population to poverty.  “Half of the world’s wealth is now in the hands of the richest 1 percent. Shockingly, just 62 individuals hold more wealth than the poorest half of the world put together.”

To be fair, Correa leaves out some good news… that half of that poor-half have been climbing out of extreme poverty in recent years, mostly by their own efforts but assisted by global trade and by improved infrastructure and governance. Neighboring Peru, in particular, has seen results from vesting the poor in their own property, according to the brilliant plans of economist Hernando de Soto Polar, combining both libertarian and liberal ideas. A version of “leftism” that is decisively different from the catastrophic Chavez-Madero approach in Venezuela.

Only read Correa’s denunciation of banking secrecy, which was exposed in all its evil by the Panama Papers episode a while back.  In EARTH I portray the world after a charismatic developing world president got fed-up and crafted an alliance of such nations to go after… Switzerland.  (Read about the Helvetian War!) But in the near term:

“We are taking the bold step of calling a national referendum to decide whether or not elected politicians and civil servants will be allowed to hold assets in tax havens. If our proposal, known as the “Ethical Pact,” passes the test of the electorate, all such public servants will have one year from the referendum to bring their wealth back into the country or be barred from office.

“Across Latin America, $340 billion in tax payments are evaded annually to the detriment of poverty and inequality reduction in what is still the world’s most unequal region…. Oxfam calculates that 32 million people in Latin America would be lifted out of poverty if income tax was paid in full in the continent as opposed to hidden in tax havens.”

Number one on my priority list for Hillary Clinton’s presidency would be to negotiate treaties – among the world’s nations, and between the states of the US -- to reduce or eliminate the foul practice of hiding who owns what.

Finally...

Comics can shed light (and occasionally humor) on serious global issues, as shown by Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis: Story of a Childhood, Art Spiegelman's Maus: A Survivor's Tale, or Joe Sacco's Journalism in a Visual World. Sarah Glidden's latest entry into graphic journalism - Rolling Blackouts: Dispatches from Turkey, Syria and Iraq - attempts to humanize the ongoing international refugee crisis. Watercolor illustrations and dialog illuminate the hardships of daily struggle for individuals displaced by war or repression -- showing the fear, resilience and courage of families facing horrific situations and yet, managing to build new lives.

== Okay I can't help myself! ==

The damned election.  We were just out canvassing for Colonel Doug Applegate, running for the 49th District, against the infamous hypocrite and French Revolution-style aristocrat Darrell Issa. Indeed, it's good to see both Clinton and Obama turning vigorous attention to Congress. For just 2 out of the last 22 years, have we had a Congress that was not locked into a torpor of utter futility by the laziest political party in U.S. history.

Dogmatic? Tools of the top 0.001%?  Sure? Tipping into troglodytic racism?  Yep. Waging outright war on science and every other professional caste? Yep. Insane. But it is important to note that none of these has been as damaging to the republic as that slothful refusal to even hold hearings about any issues important to a 21st Century American and world.

Worst of all has been the laziness.  Moreover. And Donald Trump is not a disease on the Republican Party.  He is a symptom. 

Don't be fooled into ticket splitting.  The GOP needs to be sent home for 2 years of wound-licking and reflection. Republican voters need to replace monsters like Issa with some of the grownup conservatives the party used to provide, capable of pragmatism, moderation, conversation, sane argument, appreciation of facts (science) and actually negotiating. Which means dropping the Hastert Rule. Concocted by those two prime role models -- the sexual predator perverts Dennis Hastert and Roger Ailes. 

You decent American conservatives out there can help this repair and renewal.  Starting this November by sending home every member of the current cult of GOP leaders. Yes, and at the state level, too.

Hey, 2018 ain't so far. Come back with a new team. Heck, maybe YOU are that kind of old fashioned adult.