When a country is attacked, and the attacker is focused solely on total victory, domination, destruction, something else is going on, behind the scenes, in the global environment. With news and instant communications flying around the planet, a peace loving burgeoning majority of humans (peace is after all an intrinsically life sustaining natural order and we would not be alive without it), are taking sides.

After all, we can’t help projecting, what if it was us being bombed? Thus a wave builds, almost invisibly, which at its routes is akin to an Hegelian anti-thesis.

And as criminal thugs are cast out of planetary societies, so too are whole groups (which can be described as “whole nations”) are, by necessity, cast out of a planetary society.

This “casting out”, this penalty, is evidence of what the philosopher Hegel surely would have called an “antithesis.” This species human survival trait is what is happening now. It is going to take some time. Hegel called what emerges a “synthesis.”

So after death and wide destruction, peace and harmony inevitably returns to the planet. And yes, we all do suffer fools and evil doers. Part of sharing a planet together.

Almost any publicly facing issue is subject to political (or similarly, social) contention. Now, mind numbing contention. This likely also results in procrastination in working out and testing potential solutions. This routine delays achieving good outcomes, or worse, invites bad outcomes. It is better to anticipate potential problems, and thoroughly understand their underlying trajectories and likeliness. For example, aggressively delaying dealing with global warming, will likely bring us to the point of “much harder to reverse,” or worse “the point of no return”. Conversely, weighing epidemics, recessions, inflation, wars, and climate change, by their probabilities, with constant reference to their potential damage to humanity, is the only logical way to address them in a rational society.

Walking down most streets in American cities, one can’t help but reflect that on average, almost every other person that walks by you, voted for Trump.

Yet well before election time, a plethora of disqualifying information, revealing future predictive behavioral characteristics, had already emerged. We had Charlottsville. Or credible reports of female molestation. Or grabbing woman by the …….

Or after his election loss, the devastating directions to his staff at his election denying rally to disable metal and gun detectors, because the people in the crowd, were “not there to hurt me”. Never mind the police, other guards. And members of Trumps’ own crowd.

Those that have joined Trump as political allies, have been learning some of Trump’s elementary secrets. Like how to cheat a political or business opponent. Think Trumps’golf game, and his habit of moving the ball when other players were not looking. Or gaming the IRS. Or misleading one’s bank, to make him more “loan worthy”, or wildly inflating property insurance claims. No one really questions the validity of the respective news reports.

News is not all fake. If it were, by now, no one would trust anything, which is absurd. Almost everyone believes there is a material substance to at least some of the reporting regarding Trump’s behavioral foibles, Nothing can remain a secret for long anymore. There are too many observers and observation points.

For Trump, everyone is really an opponent or potential opponent that needs to be treated accordingly. Those seeking Trumps endorsement, surely, if elected, or before, will likely have to perpetuate some “good” relationship. Probably based on such things as accolades, money, status and the promise of pardons for Trumps’ people, or Trump himself, as reciprocation.

A potential danger is electing another Republican, that might be a “wolf in lambs clothing”, or a baby wolf in lambs clothing. Adopting Trump techniques and style. A Disantis for example, may have to privately pledge loyalty to Trump to “earn” a hardy endorsement, and one that is not rescinded prior his own re-election or presidential run. Do we know now what contingent currency Trump will demand in return? And, of course, part of the endorsement would no doubt require the quid quo in the form of a Trump pardon when or if needed. A profitable business deal perhaps? It is all a matter of endorsements. It is sadly already obvious that a Republican presidential candidate may not have much of a chance of being elected president absent a Trump endorsement, and an un-endorsement would likely be fatal. This is the “curse” the Republican leadership has brought on themselves.

Republican politicians, hoping for re-election, now have to publicly compliment the naked emperors’ clothing for all to see. While non-captives of his cult, can only look on in amazement. It is unreal, and truly unbalancing, sadly bearing a resemblance to the very early days of Hitlers’ rise to power.

Trump is adept at using persuasion techniques, which largely explains his following. It surely was not his skill at governing a country, state, or city, and arguably, even a business (I say arguably) because he has now really “gotten caught”. (Using this phrase “gotten caught” is ironic because it is itself one of his favorite persuasion techniques), bringing public suspicion to any adversary of his choosing.
Caught for what, you might ask? As the mind falls asleep, few ask. These techniques are well known to those who study the science of persuasion. They are incredibly effective. For example, using “social proof.” Example, the claim “everybody knows,” “everybody is saying,” makes the listener want to join “everybody” by simply agreeing with the claimant.

Or nicknaming his adversaries, making them fight to get their identity back. He has got 6 or seven of these tactics, and they are highly effective, having enabled him to get this far. Even Hitlers’ Mein Kampf, highlights, for example (though many more comparisons can be sited) the concept of large rallies, one of Hitler’s favorite tactics, providing all onlookers the persuasion technique of ‘social proof.” “Wow”, one bystander might reason, can all these people be wrong?

No need to define how far Trump got, it was an amazing feat, but with unfortunate history making repercussions, and now books and books have and will continue describing the journey. The cascade has years ago started. The historical record, looked at through almost any perspective, will be hard to deny by future generations of Americans. It is an inevitability.

Historical events, and the reality that surrounds them, though subject to some level of debate, are hard to completely deny. A famous man’s Ill judgement, irrationality, poor mental condition, countered by cunning, evilness, narcissism, will all be universally recorded, and eventually seen, alike, by most onlookers. It will be a long-term embarrassment to America.

There will always be lots of eyes on Trump. He has made himself a “newsmaker.” He has a “following”. That is both good and bad. Every front has a back. The bigger the front, the bigger the back. Trump (and his eventually humiliated followers) will pay an awful price. The only pertinent question is how much will all the rest of us pay?

7/9/22: Martin Westerman

A black hole at the center of a spiral galaxy called The Milky Way causes it to revolve in the universe. But 25,800 light-years away at the galaxy’s far end, on a tiny planet populated by tinier creatures – a small collection of pale-skinned hominids, think the galaxy revolves around them.

They call themselves “homo sapiens,” they call their planet “Earth,” and they are the latest hominid species to exist on Earth, which is 4.5 billion years old (1 year = a rotation of Earth around the “sun,” a minor star at the center of their solar system). Hominids have existed there for 1 million years. Sapiens – also known as “humans,” have existed for 100,000 years.

But today, about 40 million loud, pale humans who call themselves “White,” and live in an artificially bordered area called “the United States” (located between two bodies of saltwater they call “oceans”), are screaming and arming themselves against being “replaced” by hominids of other skin colors. Earth is divided into many artificially bordered areas (“towns,” “counties,” “cities” “states,” “provinces,” “countries”), each with its own human population, in various shades of skin color, various levels of “development” (ability to provide populations with adequate water, food, shelter and commerce), and various languages for communication.

Sapiens have developed a trait they call “humor,” which involves creating surprise at incongruity in context, or in a short story or question called a “joke.” The final statement of a joke is called a “punch line.” Humor stimulates a range of reactions, from a relaxation of the face to several bursts of exhaled air. Most sapiens possess some capacity for generating or appreciating humor, but generally, the more agitated the humans (like the Loud Whites), the less they appreciate humor. Humans judge humor with one of two statements: “That’s funny,” or “That’s not funny.”

Here is some humor:
• If sapiens are the last of five hominid species who once walked on Earth, and they have already replaced the other four species by seeing them die off, killing them or interbreeding with them, why is any sapiens worried about replacement?
• A joke: what do you call a sapiens whose skin color ranges from pink to brown? Punch line: A White.
• Another joke: What do Whites call non-Whites? Answer: “People of color” (or “POCs”).
• Another joke: which sapiens group represents less than 0.5% of Earth’s total population, and barely 20% of the United States White population, but thinks they’re the only humans who should occupy the Earth? Punch line: Loud Whites. Is that funny?

The Loud Whites’ activities in the United States would be humorous and insignificant if they existed in a vacuum, such as an asteroid in space. But they live amongst other humans, and magnify their agitation through demonstrations, murders, and broadly distributed public media, and control of local governments (agreed-on structures for managing affairs within borders).

Most Loud Whites subscribe to the “Christian” religion (religion: a belief and principles system generally based on myths, and presided over or commanded by one or more all-powerful gods or god-like sapiens). Must humans on Earth have agreed to abide by a Christian calendar based on the supposed birth date of the demi-god Jesus Christ, even though there is no agreed Year 0, time actually began at the birth of the Earth, and many hominid religions mark time differently, starting from 5780 to 10,000 years before the present year. The current Earth year is 2022 post-Jesus Christ birth, but is called A.D. (after death), while the years before the birth are called B.C. (before Christ). No Christians acknowledge the indulgence of other cultures in granting their time frame primacy, by calling it the “Common Era.”

Christianity shares founding documents (The Bible) with two other religions – Islam and Judaism. The Bibles are contradictory: they counsel both loving and respecting all creations on Earth, and dominating and killing all creations on Earth. The Loud Whites speak of the former, and act on the latter.

To power their activities on Earth, hominids originally used energy resources on the planet’s surface – water, wind, burnable materials (woody plants, oils from plants and animals), and heat from their sun. But late in the 1600s A.D., they discovered burnable, carbon-based energy sources beneath Earth’s surface (coal, oil and gas). These “fossil fuels” are the decayed by-products of life forms that lived on Earth 65 million years before hominids. They were wiped out by a meteor that struck Earth, caused geological disruption and oxidation, left dust and carbon compounds blanketing the atmosphere, and killed most of Earth’s life forms. Eventually, other life forms replaced them, including hominids 64 million years later.

Now, burning fossil fuels powers most hominid activities and inventions. Their oxidation produces carbon dust and compounds, which are again overloading Earth’s atmosphere and killing its plants, animals and humans. Hominid activities, including agriculture, habitation development, resource extraction, and landfills (designated collection areas for unusable objects), are displacing living areas of other life forms, driving many to extinction, and replacing them with imported species of flora and fauna.

Most of Earth’s flora and fauna exhibit both intelligence and the ability to communicate, but humans consider themselves Earth’s premier life form, and rarely recognize other species’ capacities, or communicate with them. Instead, humans exploit them for their food and economic assets. Humans even cannot recognize intelligence in other humans, or communicate with them, if their beliefs, cultures and/or colors differ from their own.

Since the Christian (or Common Era) 1400s, Whites from Earth’s Northern hemisphere have conquered vast areas of Earth’s Western and Southern Hemispheres by force, overwhelming, enslaving, subverting and/or killing (replacing) the original inhabitants (White and non-White alike) – all for the glory of the Christian gods. Whites accept and celebrate replacing others, but not others replacing them.

As part of their conquests in the 1700s, Whites created the ironically named “United States,” structured to favor only Whites over all POC, including the original inhabitants (misnamed “Indians”). Their founding document states that “All men are created equal,” but it meant only White males, not White females. POC were imported from the Southern Hemisphere to labor as slaves on farms without citizenship rights, and forcibly converted to Christians. When large groups of other United States Whites in the 1800s decided slavery was wrong, the pro-slavery Whites declared war on them to retain their slaves. They lost the war, and the anti-slavery Whites, who controlled the government, freed the POC slaves, and granted them citizenship rights. But pro-slavery Whites have been resisting this progress ever since, and now they control the United States government.

As POCs (and women) sought to achieve the freedom, economic and political status of White males, ruling Whites restricted their opportunities. The small group of Loud Whites has invented “white replacement theory” as the latest reason to restrict POC rights. Most POC Christians and non-Christian Whites think benefits can derive from shared opportunities, and do not subscribe to “White replacement theory.” But many Whites acquiesce to restricting POC and women’s opportunities, as a way to retain White male supremacy. Many Loud male and female Whites use their Christianity and 18th Century United States founding documents to justify restrictions on the rights and opportunities of anyone who does not agree with them – both POCs and non-compliant females.

Loud Whites insist the Christian religion is the best and only belief system, and that fossil fuel production, poisoning of air, land and water resources and life forms that depend on them, and warring activities are harmless and justified. They also insist that anyone who disagrees with them should be destroyed. Loud Whites therefore pose significant dangers to others on Earth.

It would appear that Loud White hominids should worry less about POCs replacing them, and more about their effect on Earth. Their planet’s natural processes may dispose of them and the hominids they fear, and replace them all with new life forms in due ourse. Whether this happens or not won’t matter to the planet, its solar system, the stars or the black hole around which they, not the Loud Whites all revolve.

Why the environmental movement will fail, and how you can make money on it
 Martin Westerman / ©2022

If you had let environmental groups pick your stocks since the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, instead of paying high-priced “gurus” to pick them, you’d have long-ago made your fortune. Why? Because the environmental groups’ villains included aircraft, chemical, fossil fuel, pharmaceutical, tourism and other bedrock enterprises of the New York Stock Exchange, S&P 500 and mutual funds. Environmentalists would have picked you a winning portfolio at a bargain price.

More than 50 years after Earth Day #1, every country in the world still depends on fossil fuels to power its economy – from energy generation and leaf blowers to transportation and wars (currently, U.S. vs. “drugs” and Russia vs. Ukraine), all supplied by such climate change deniers as Shell, Exxon, BP and Gazprom. As the price of fossil fuels rises, economies decline; as they fall, economies rise.

Today’s Americans have bigger things to think about than the environment. As former Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson asked Exxon shareholders on May 29, 2013: “What good is it to save the planet if humanity suffers?”

One might find that statement ironic. Without a planet, there would be no humanity, hence indeed no suffering. And thus all human potential forever gone.

Economists in the early 1990s conservatively valued the environment’s benefits and savings (ecosystem services) at $33 trillion a year (Robert Costanza et al.), a number that dwarfed the $28 trillion generated by the world’s economies. But ecosystem services do not show up on any public or private entity’s balance sheets. No accounting standard (GASB or GAAP), or budgets or financial statements assess or account for oxygen production, carbon sink, erosion control, stormwater management, public health, property value enhancement, extreme weather moderation and more that the environment provides for free. In 2022 dollars, the $54 trillion value of Earth’s ecosystems still dwarfs all value that enterprises create (E-commerce? Only $5.5 trillion).

While irony informs environmentalists, it doesn’t inform investors. Even though the scale of “soft” green assets (the environment) dwarfs the scale of hard “grey” ones (built infrastructure), investments in “grey” assets dwarf those in green. Successful enterprises operate “in the black,” unsuccessful ones “in the red.” None operate “in the green.”

Following Rachel Carson’s 1962 expose book Silent Spring, the U.S. banned DDT, which major U.S. chemical companies had been producing. Yet, the Stockholm Convention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) includes an exemption for DDT, where its benefits to control insect-borne illnesses “outweigh (human) health and environmental risks.” Where humans benefit, harming the planet and its life forms is an acceptable trade-off.

Americans’ balanced portfolios and wealth building are based on investments in enterprises that create more negative than positive impacts on the environment: the real estate, agribusiness, aircraft, automotive, asphalt, beauty, building materials, cement, chemical, clothing, coatings and paints, construction, defense, electrical and electronics, fast food, fossil fuels, furniture, glass, government, grocery, health care, hospitality, marine, medical, metals, mining, pharmaceuticals, plastics, tourism, treated wood and waste management industries.

Besides stuffing landfills, North America’s investment sweethearts have also created “forever chemicals” and substances that either do not, or take decades or centuries to break down in the environment: DDT, heat- and oil-resistant poly- and per-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), flame retardants (PBDEs), insulation liquids (PCBs), lethal radioactive waste (from the energy, military and medical establishments), and micro-plastics, phosgene, cyanide, herbicides (e.g., DuPont’s Agent Orange and Monsanto’s glyphosate), roadway paint, vehicle tire and rail brake dust, lead, arsenic, asbestos and mercury. Most of these products are now found in and harm humans, other fauna, flora, air, land and water. The U.S. is also the world’s #1 plastic waste contributor, and a chief contributor to the 50 million tons of electronic waste dumped every year worldwide.

“This isn’t personal; it’s business,” goes the saying. People can afford to be moral or immoral. Money is amoral. And survival of for-profits, non-profits, governments and economies depends on money.

Environmentalists have made the moral case, showing human impacts on polar bears and other animal s. But they have failed to get the monetary impacts incorporated into business and government balance sheets (via GASB and GAAP). They have come close with Ecosystem Service Valuation (ESV) – incorporating ES monetary values in nature restoration projects, and with Transfers of Development Rights (TDR) – land swaps between suburban and exurban landowners. The exurb retains a pastoral landscape by selling development rights to parties who add development density in other urban or suburban locations.

But the specialization inherent in capitalist economies challenges environmentalists. It has unwittingly separated end users, intermediaries and producers from the environment that provides the resources for their products and their survival on Earth.

One way to help reduce that separation is to extend private property rights to their end point: any material mined or produced on private property remains the property of the mining or producing company. Thus, any transfer through monetary exchange to intermediaries and end users would make possession of that property a limited-term lease, so the originator and/or its assigns would be responsible for the material’s ultimate disposition. This would internalize costs, and stop the transferring of disposal responsibility to others. But the opposite occurs.

Externalizing environmental costs has changed the planet’s weather patterns, as well as the migration and growth patterns of marine and land animals and plants. Rare bomb cyclones, heat domes, atmospheric rivers, thermal inversions, and wildfire seasons are now becoming common. The resulting destruction and dislocation costs are astronomical. But the U.S. economy regards payments for fire-fighting, damage recovery and resettlement, medical care, increased use of fuels and electric power for mitigation of heat waves (air conditioning) and cold snaps (heating), and even increased insurance premiums – as credits, not debits on the U.S. GDP. Our accounting systems are obviously flawed.

Thus, human commerce and exploration have unwittingly spread invasive species and diseases worldwide. Europeans since 1634 have brought smallpox, Yellow Fever, cholera, scarlet fever, and Spanish flu to the Americas. Also, polio, Asian flu, HIV-AIDS, SARS, Swine Flu, ZIKA, Ebola, H1N1, Norovirus, MERS and COVID. Likely next epidemics: monkeypox and avian flu. They have proliferated plant diseases, too: blights that killed the American chestnut, corn species, boxwood and other flora; fungus infections that killed oaks and larches; rusts and borer insects that are killing madronas, birches and other trees. All these diseases have generated widespread deaths, massive impacts to world economies, and profitable activities for chemical, pharmaceutical and bio-tech companies.

We eat unwittingly – more meat per capita today than in 1970, even as global bovine flatulence (methane) from the livestock and dairy industries adds more greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere than cars, aircraft, trains, ships and all other modes of transport. Meanwhile, U.S. factory farming of beef, pork and poultry generate more waste than local disposal systems can manage.

We drink and irrigate unwittingly. The U.S. Forest Service reports that half of our 204 freshwater basins cannot keep up with demand, and within the next 50 years, many parts of the U.S. could see their freshwater supplies shrink by two-thirds. Consumption-encouraging water agreements and government policies ignored potential extreme weather impacts, and the time, snow pack and rainfall required to replenish water supplies. Americans are boosting GDP in their search for more drinking and irrigation water – digging more wells, and building energy-intensive desalination plants, which deliver filtered water at about twice the price of fresh, but at 99.4% less than the cost of bottled. About 80% of their power comes from fossil fuels, 11% from renewables, and 9% from deadly-waste nuclear.

And we live unwittingly. Environmentalists assert that urban areas are the most ecological places to live. Today, nearly half of the world lives in them. But they present downsides: heat island effect, income inequity, economic and governance challenges, traffic congestion, poor air and water quality, aging infrastructure, supply chain issues, elimination of green spaces, commercially delivered invasive species, high living costs, increased homelessness and slum growth, drinking water and waste-disposal challenges, high energy consumption, high resident and worker stress, faster disease spreads, shorter lifespans.

Meanwhile, a population the size of Florida – about 21.5 million, is roaming the planet as “climate refugees” (U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)). By 2050, a population the size of China – 1.5 billion, may be out there. The wrong perspectives here are (a) expecting humans will adjust to climate changes, and (b) viewing refugees as potential customers for housing, clothing, food and entertainment.

Environmentalists have succeeded since Earth Day 1970 in passing laws and creating agencies that have made significant progress in both addressing environmental problems, and improving human product efficiencies. But politics trumps the environment. Right-wing U.S. politicians and conservative justices, financed by the U.S. commercial, fossil fuel and agribusiness industries are now working through the North American administrative, judicial and legislative systems now to dismantle those agencies and laws.

All of this reminds me of a scene from the television series Battlestar Galactica (Episode #206), where the Cylon Symbiant whispers into her partner’s ear, “There’s one thing we know about human beings with certainty: they are masters of self-destruction.”

Art imitates life. In Sapiens, Yuval Harari notes that, “The moment the first hunter-gatherer set foot on an Australian beach (from Africa) was the moment that Homo Sapiens climbed to the top rung of the food chain on a particular landmass and therefore became the deadliest species in the annals of planet Earth.”

Most ironically, homo sapiens is the last of five hominid species that once walked the Earth. But its record of driving animal and plant species to extinction is second only to the meteor that hit Earth 66 million years ago and wiped out 97% of all life. While humans consider themselves uniquely intelligent, all Earth’s plant and animal species display intelligence – from basic instinct to near-human reasoning. Yet humans rarely recognize or communicate with those intelligences, and instead have asserted their own primacy, and exploited “lesser species” for their protein, ritual value and other assets. Often, groups of humans do not recognize the intelligence of other humans, or communicate with them if their belief systems or color differ from their own.

Humans should have long ago mastered the challenge of “Saving the Earth.” But polarized politics, stymied governments, patterns of commerce, land development, travel and conflict show that humans have little interest in or political will to change their habits.

The economy is providing well for them, and all welfare and progress depend on healthy economies. So the environmental movement will fail, but we’ll all make money on it — until the environment fails us.

Why the environmental movement will fail, and how you can make money on it

Since Earth Day in 1971, if you had paid $10 a year to join the Sierra Club and Greenpeace instead of shelling out thousands a year to financial gurus for the “best” stock picks, you’d be rich now. Why? Because those groups’ “environmental villains” list included most of the fossil fuel, pharmaceutical, commercial and agribusiness “bad actors” that underlie the S&P 500. So basically, the environmental movement would have picked a winning portfolio for you at a bargain price.

More than 60 years after Rachel Carson alerted us to the dangers of DDT, it’s still the pesticide of choice for eradicating mosquitoes where mosquito-borne illnesses are prevalent. More than 120 years since Teddy Roosevelt declared, “I’ve been poisoned!” after reading Sinclair Lewis’ meat packing industry expose, The Jungle, meat consumption and land devoted to cattle ranching in the U.S. have increased. Between those bovines and dairy cows, cattle flatulence is now counted as a major contributor to global climate change.

While energy efficiency in all human inventions and buildings has improved, and the EPA was created and laws passed and enforced to reduce pollution in air, water and land, no government has yet valued the environment in monetary terms. Even though its benefits and savings (“ecosystem services”) were valued in the early 1990s at more than $33 trillion a year (about $54 trillion in 2022 dollars — Robert Costanza et al.), no government or enterprise in North America has assessed or accounts for those values in their budgets or financial statements. The only land value they recognize is real estate appraisal. Owners of private timber lands make more money selling their land for subdivisions than by harvesting the trees on it. So residential and commercial land development has continued unabated, millions of acres of trees have been cut, habitats erased and ecosystem services lost.

The “green lifestyle” (living in dense residential areas, taking public transit everywhere, bearing few children, eating organic and vegetarian, etc.), hasn’t become mainstream, despite more than 50 years of marketing, promotion, experimentation and discussion since the first Earth Day. Organic food products cost 2-4 times more than standard products; “ecological” construction and commercial products are also cost significantly more. Many enterprises now practice “sustainable business,” but most of those on the Sierra Club-Greenpeace bad actor list don’t. There are 18.7 billion Google entries under “Going green,” and 1.8 billion under “books on green practice,” yet this massive self-help area has relatively few practitioners.

Recyclable and compostable materials are mixed in most restaurants and commercial enterprises, and end up in landfills. Industries rarely control their end-user waste, or much of their own production waste. Plastic collects in rivers, and in sea and ocean hot spots and gyres; lethal radioactive waste generated by the energy, military and medical establishments since the 1930s has yet to find a re-use or permanent disposal site. The freighters and tankers that carry the world’s globalized fuels and products burn a gallon of sulfurous oil per 150 feet they travel across our oceans. A Los Angeles study found that ocean-going ships berthed at Long Beach docks produce more aggregate air pollution than all five million cars on the LA freeways.

Every country in the world uses some fossil fuel to power its economy, from coal-fired power plants to leaf blowers to weapons systems. When the price of fossil fuels goes up, the economy goes down. Humans keep mindlessly boosting their carbon output, blanketing the earth in dust and greenhouse gases, and ignoring that egregious carbon producer, war. Most of it does not get mitigated in carbon offsets.

Let’s also add the long-term effects of toxins that have been released into the environment over the centuries – from early millennia lead and mercury to current DDT, PCBs and methane. None are being fully addressed or mitigated. Chemical flame retardants (PBDE’s) for example, harm human nervous systems, hormonal functions and reproductive organs, and cause cancers. They vaporize when heated, or simply rub off of products where they’ve been applied, and rise into the air as dust that can travel great distances. They take decades to break down. Many countries in the world, but not the U.S., have outlawed them. Manufacturers have replaced them with other flame retardants, and these chemicals are also sparsely regulated in the U.S.

Diseases have also been globalized since the Spanish flu and cholera epidemics appeared around 1918. Following on, we have seen polio, Asian flu, HIV-AIDS, SARS, Swine Flu, ZIKA, Ebola, H1N1, MERS and COVID, with more to likely appear. COVID has been the deadliest virus in the U.S. since Spanish flu.

As humans produce harmful products, lurch from crisis to crisis, dig themselves out of wars, natural disasters and vast man-made catastrophes at fabulous costs in lives, resources and treasure, I’m reminded of a scene on the tv series Battlestar Galactica, where the alien symbiont whispers into her partner’s ear: “One thing we know about humans: they are masters of self-destruction.”

We created this mess. How do we dig ourselves out of it and save the Earth? The question seems ridiculous, since this is the only place in the universe where we can survive. Of course humans would mobilize to save themselves. Yet, they don’t. Between polarized politics and stoking the economy with purchases of goods and services, commercial and residential development on former forest and farm lands, travel, uses of non-recyclable and non compostable materials that are simply investments in long term landfill development, and driving billions of fossil-fueled miles in millions of vehicles, they exhibit no interest in or political will to change their habits. The economy is providing well for them.

All welfare and progress depend on a healthy economy, and sustainable business is a more expensive and less economical proposition than standard practice. People have bigger things to think about than the environment – jobs, homes, families, prestige, entertainment, politics. So the environmental movement is failing, but we’re all making money on it.

Martin Westerman,(4/1/2022)

What Biden could have said:

My fellow Americans, 90 years ago a madman in Europe threatened to destroy the world if Europe did not give him a piece of Czechoslovakia. So Europe capitulated, and gave Adolf Hitler that piece of Czechoslovakia. But then he wanted all of Czechoslovakia, as well as Austria and Poland. After that, he wanted the rest of Europe. The United States and allies around the world went to war to stop that madman, and decades of peace and prosperity have followed.

A great historian once said, if we don’t learn the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them. Today, another madman is threatening to destroy the world if he doesn’t get a piece of Ukraine. The world gave him Crimea in eastern Ukraine, but now Vladimir Putin wants all of Ukraine. And then he will want Latvia, Estonia and Albania, and Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and half of Germany. He seems to think that he can recreate the Soviet Union, or Russia of the czars. He cannot. Time has moved on. And if he doesn’t move with it, history will leave him and Russia behind.

But Mr. Putin has not gotten the message of history yet. Instead, he has activated his nuclear arsenal and threatens a global catastrophe if he doesn’t get his way. If the world does not give him Ukraine, he says he will destroy us all.

So we will now be clear. First, the United States does not abide authoritarian government here at home, and it does not abide authoritarian governments attacking sovereign states abroad.

We went to war 90 years ago to prevent a madman from imposing his violent, authoritarian rule over Europe. The United States supports the will of people in every country to choose the government they want. Putin is not giving Ukraine that choice.

This unprovoked attack on Ukraine is partly the fault of the previous American administration. It gave Mr. Putin the impression that the United States is weak and that it will not act to prevent naked aggression against a peaceful, sovereign state. Nothing could be further from the truth. The United States economy is the strongest in the world, and we are using it to support the people of Ukraine, so they can determine their own future. It is up to them, not Russia, to choose their future.

The United States military is unequaled in the world. We choose when and where to engage for the greatest possible effect. We and our European allies warn Mr. Putin that he does not want to invite our combined military force into the Eastern European theatre to act on Ukraine’s behalf. The leader of Russia may also have forgotten that no state has ever acted on a nuclear threat, thanks to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is one third the size of the United States. So what the Russian leader is telling us is that he is willing to risk nuclear warfare, and to sacrifice all of Russia to get Ukraine. That kind of thinking is illogical, and it can only make sense to a madman.

In the card game of poker, a player without the winning cards may pretend that he has them anyway. We call that a bluff. We are confident that Mr. Putin is bluffing, and he does not hold the winning cards.

So I now urge all world leaders who support self-determination for every country, to warn the Russian leader that he must cease his country’s aggressive actions, and pull all Russian and Russian proxy forces out of Ukraine. Otherwise, he and his country will face immediate and severe, global diplomatic and economic consequences.

The Russian leader has said that economic sanctions against Russia are an act of war. This is almost humorous coming from a man who is waging unprovoked war against a peaceful neighboring state.

Next, the United States will continue its diplomatic and economic sanctions against the aggressor until its war operations cease and it removes its forces from Ukraine. In addition to those actions, I am ordering US forces Europe to DEFCON 2, and I am authorizing US commanders, and requesting NATO commanders to alert their Russian counterparts that US and NATO air forces will begin enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine at 1200 hours local time February 6, 2022. I am also authorizing US forces to respond appropriately to aggressive behavior by Russian military ships and planes at sea and in the air. Until now, US naval and air forces have exercised enormous restraint and grace in the face of provocative and unwarranted acts by their Russian counterparts. Our naval and air forces no longer need to exercise that restraint.

Likewise, the United States and its Allies and supporters have exercised enormous restraint in the face of this Ukraine aggression. We have reached our limit. It is time for the Russian state to cease its aggression, and act as a modern partner with its neighbor nations. It cannot turn back the clock. It cannot rebuild the Soviet Union. It cannot recreate the Russia of the czars. It cannot reverse the tide of history. Any attempt to do those things is not just folly.

What Biden could have said:

My fellow Americans, 90 years ago a madman in Europe threatened to destroy the world if Europe did not give him a piece of Czechoslovakia. So Europe capitulated, and gave Adolf Hitler that piece of Czechoslovakia. But then he wanted all of Czechoslovakia, as well as Austria and Poland. After that, he wanted the rest of Europe. The United States and allies around the world went to war to stop that madman, and decades of peace and prosperity have followed.

A great historian once said, if we don’t learn the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them. Today, another madman is threatening to destroy the world if he doesn’t get a piece of Ukraine. The world gave him Crimea in eastern Ukraine, but now Vladimir Putin wants all of Ukraine. And then he will want Latvia, Estonia and Albania, and Yugoslavia, the Czech Republic, Poland, and half of Germany. He seems to think that he can recreate the Soviet Union, or Russia of the czars. He cannot. Time has moved on. And if he doesn’t move with it, history will leave him and Russia behind.

But Mr. Putin has not gotten the message of history yet. Instead, he has activated his nuclear arsenal and threatens a global catastrophe if he doesn’t get his way. If the world does not give him Ukraine, he says he will destroy us all.

So we will now be clear. First, the United States does not abide authoritarian government here at home, and it does not abide authoritarian governments attacking sovereign states abroad.

We went to war 90 years ago to prevent a madman from imposing his violent, authoritarian rule over Europe. The United States supports the will of people in every country to choose the government they want. Putin is not giving Ukraine that choice.

This unprovoked attack on Ukraine is partly the fault of the previous American administration. It gave Mr. Putin the impression that the United States is weak and that it will not act to prevent naked aggression against a peaceful, sovereign state. Nothing could be further from the truth. The United States economy is the strongest in the world, and we are using it to support the people of Ukraine, so they can determine their own future. It is up to them, not Russia, to choose their future.

The United States military is unequaled in the world. We choose when and where to engage for the greatest possible effect. We and our European allies warn Mr. Putin that he does not want to invite our combined military force into the Eastern European theatre to act on Ukraine’s behalf. The leader of Russia may also have forgotten that no state has ever acted on a nuclear threat, thanks to the doctrine of mutually assured destruction. Russia’s nuclear arsenal is one third the size of the United States. So what the Russian leader is telling us is that he is willing to risk nuclear warfare, and to sacrifice all of Russia to get Ukraine. That kind of thinking is illogical, and it can only make sense to a madman.

In the card game of poker, a player without the winning cards may pretend that he has them anyway. We call that a bluff. We are confident that Mr. Putin is bluffing, and he does not hold the winning cards.

So I now urge all world leaders who support self-determination for every country, to warn the Russian leader that he must cease his country’s aggressive actions, and pull all Russian and Russian proxy forces out of Ukraine. Otherwise, he and his country will face immediate and severe, global diplomatic and economic consequences.

The Russian leader has said that economic sanctions against Russia are an act of war. This is almost humorous coming from a man who is waging unprovoked war against a peaceful neighboring state.

Next, the United States will continue its diplomatic and economic sanctions against the aggressor until its war operations cease and it removes its forces from Ukraine. In addition to those actions, I am ordering US forces Europe to DEFCON 2, and I am authorizing US commanders, and requesting NATO commanders to alert their Russian counterparts that US and NATO air forces will begin enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine at 1200 hours local time February 6, 2022. I am also authorizing US forces to respond appropriately to aggressive behavior by Russian military ships and planes at sea and in the air. Until now, US naval and air forces have exercised enormous restraint and grace in the face of provocative and unwarranted acts by their Russian counterparts. Our naval and air forces no longer need to exercise that restraint.

Likewise, the United States and its Allies and supporters have exercised enormous restraint in the face of this Ukraine aggression. We have reached our limit. It is time for the Russian state to cease its aggression, and act as a modern partner with its neighbor nations. It cannot turn back the clock. It cannot rebuild the Soviet Union. It cannot recreate the Russia of the czars. It cannot reverse the tide of history. Any attempt to do those things is not just folly.

Fox News (simple) and all advertisers on that media.

Cancel culture for everybody!

Cancel culture is becoming the new Godwin’s Law. Godwin (1990) said as any online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler becomes more likely. Today, the same applies to “cancel culture.” Reductio ad Hitlerum is now an overblown Reductio ad cancelum.

Cancel culture has been the human norm since the dawn of history. It only appears new today because the phrase was re-invented in 2017 to describe “cancelling” the reputation and accomplishments of someone prominent (like Harvey Weinstein) who had behaved or spoken egregiously. But since then, it has come to include “cancelling” groups (Confederacy sympathizers), monuments and site names (named abusers, criminals and slaveholders), turns of phrase (anything non-PC), and finally, whole culture (white people).

The Neanderthal, Denisovans, Homo Naledi and other homo erectus species have disappeared, some (like Neanderthals) apparently canceled by us homo sapiens, some wipoed out by environmental disasters. Today, we are the last of the homo erectus species (unless Yeti and Sasquatch still walk the Earth).

Sapiens ended up here by overrunning, absorbing and/or killing off the world’s other tribes, cultures and species. The Neanderthal, Denisovans, and Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Nabateans, Babylonians, Spartans, Phoenecians, Visigoths, Sassanids, Çatalhöyük, Cahokia, Angkor, Harappan, Maya, Anasazi, Clovis, and so many more are just memories now. All were actually cancelled.

Generally, current humans stand on the bones and rubble of canceled predecessor cultures, get excited about their pasts, and use past names for present sites, enterprises and sports teams. Why? Would today’s folk really want to recreate those past cultures as places for themselves to live? That seems to be the goal of “Make America Great Again” (MAGA) supporters. Homo sapiens’ success rests on its ability to see what isn’t and imagine what could be. Imagination is the realm of fantasy, belief and creativity; it comes before truth and facts. While most of us grow out of the fantastical world of children as we mature, many of us don’t.

In this country, where the norm is peaceful transitions of government, the mostly white MAGA people and the politicians who represent them oppose it. Transition is progress, and they fear progress will cancel their way of life. They want to recreate some form of imaginary past America, where whites were not just in the majority, they were the most visible color of human everywhere – in business, government and media. The MAGAs don’t want to see any non-white colors. To them, having to share power means getting their culture eliminated.

That’s ironic. American Indians fought the railroads and the killing of buffalo, because it actually was canceling their way of life. Southern plantation owners fought elimination of slavery, because it cancelled their Antebellum culture. They were right. At the turn of the 20th century, whites who were 2nd or earlier generation immigrants themselves, fought new immigrants whom they feared would take their jobs and cancel their “true American” culture. They were wrong. From the 1860s to today, Blacks have fought embedded racism because it canceled their African culture and is still cancelling their lives.

More ironic are Southern plantation whites in a new insurrectionist form (proof enough to believe in reincarnation?), attacking the U.S. Congress, as it affirmed the peaceful transfer of government power January 6, 2021. They claim Congress was trying to cancel their culture. To any observer, it is clear they don’t know what it means to “cancel” a culture, they haven’t read the U.S. Constitution – even though nearly 150 of the Congresspeople who represent them took an oath to protect and defend it, and they don’t know what America stands for, even though they grew up here.

They don’t balance their fantasies with facts and truth. Besides thinking they’ll “save America” by attacking its Congress and courts, they imagine that COVID is a hoax, science can’t be trusted, Trump won the presidency in 2020, and the U.S. faked the moon landing. They run to “free” women and “save babies” from Planned Parenthood clinics that rarely (< 3%) perform abortions, and attack a pizza parlor that serves pizzas but was rumored to abuse children. The goal is always to intimidate, threaten and kill opponents so they can retain power. And they have formed groups for 150 years to cancel non-white cultures: the Ku Klux Klan, the Know Nothing Party, the American Nazi Party, John Birch Society, QAnon, Proud Boys and white nationalists. These fantastical American “saviors” act mostly like foot-stamping, breath-holding children. William Golding laid out the worst-case scenario of this in his book, Lord of the Flies. It ended with abuse, injuries and death – and the child characters crying out for rescue by adults. Nearly a third of Americans are magical MAGA thinkers, and so are about 25% of the U.S. Congresspeople who represent them – as well as large minorities of leaders in more than 20 U.S. states. While none of these groups is in the majority, most hold power anyway thanks to the electoral privileges of gerrymandering, and control of voting structures. They also use police forces, the levers of government, and denial of access to voting, to public spaces, free speech, public meetings and services, and redress of grievances to intimidate and disempower opponents. Much of this is unconstitutional and illegal. Rep. Devin Nunes, (R-CA), for example, enlisted the U.S. Dept. of Justice (DOJ) under Attorney General Bill Barr, to aid him in trying to shut down the Twitter account of a “cow” that posted critical comments about him, and sue the unknown person who created the cow. When the DOJ activity was publicized, the assistant state’s attorney Michael Friedman, who in effect served as Nunes’ personal attorney, refused to comment. Like parenting, corralling and shutting down bullies takes work – especially on a national scale. It requires standing up to them – nationally and in every state, embarrassing them, prosecuting their actions, laughing at them, and educating them. An Nunes-DOJ investigation is underway; a move is afoot to disbar Bill Barr; the Biden DOJ is going after the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol insurrectionists; lawsuits have been filed in every state against Republican legislatures attempting to suppress and restrict voting, as voting rights advocates continue registering voters and supplying them with the means to get mailed ballots and reach the polls despite new state restrictions. And President Biden and Congressional Democrats and Independents are mostly standing up to obstructionist Republicans, and forcing approval of needed legislation that helps block and reverse the bullies’ agendas. American culture is hard at work, and most everyone is participating. It doesn’t look to me as if anything or anyone is getting canceled.

Bernie Madoff and Trumps’ Big Lie
4/16/21

Trump Madoff With More Than Our Money.

Bill Kaufman

Thoughts of the Madoff scandal seems a world away, only to come back to us now on his lonely death in jail. There are so many parallels with our Trump saga, that do apply to this moment.
Fakery is not an innocent sin, lies about important stuff could break your bank and make you sick.

Madoff, like Trump, was a phenomenal faker. Madoff created a sub-reality that continued to comfort and assure his numerous investors (not unlike Trump followers) with the belief that they needed his “miraculous” skills. None of it was true.

The financial “returns” were faked, as interest or dividends were compounded, merely on paper, for some investors, while some lucky few were paid out monthly to investors who chose not to “re-invest”.

But these dividends and interest did not flow from real investments. They were paid out from funds supplied by new investors. The original investments were quickly gone, in financing the Madoff life style, office expenses, and in attracting new investors, to continue the scam.

You might ask, how can “investors” be so naïve? And surprisingly, his roster included some very wealthy, thought to be sophisticated investors, and their accountants and attorneys who signed off on their ’ investments.

So how could have Madoff attracted and fooled so many smart and successful people? and was Trumps’ success (short though it was) a direct parallel?

Three critical red flags stand out:

1.Madoff paid interest or dividends somewhat above what was readily available in the then current investment market, but not quite high enough to be terribly abnormal. Trumps’ equivalent, reward cronies with posh jobs, acolytes who could possibly (albeit with a generous mental stretch) be considered qualified and therefore “normal”.

2.Recruit select and prestigious investors (such as known personalities) to act as “attractors,” that is, as informal salesmen, “model” believers and promoters, who could persuade others to invest, due to their standing in the public eye. Trumps’ version, give the biggest tax breaks to rich folk voters, to create supporters (or new investors, as it were). And use the concept of “social proof.” That is like Trump saying “look at all the prestigious and famous folks who want to serve under me, who support me, and who will vote for me.” It’s easy to note how Trumps’ very wealthy supporters were vocal and strategic. It is unreasonable to imagine they would have been so, absent the enormous tax benefits that they were rewarded.

3.Get rid of auditors, supervisors, and managers that are not totally compliant to your wishes and who would not be willing to overlook obfuscations and lies. Replace them with believers and cronies.

Let us look at #3 first. Mutual funds, hedge funds, exchange traded funds, money managed funds, all have one thing in common. They all use a professional custodial service. This is typically a trust bank, like the DTC (Deposit Trust Company). Many large banks also offer this service. This involves the trust company taking delivery of the security, such as stock shares, bonds and notes, that are purchased and verifying their “good order”.
Effectively, they serve as objective monitors or overseers. It is a big and important job, and just one of those companies, for example, the DTC (Depository Trust Company), holds 54 trillion dollars worth of securities for the benefit of investors.
Not having a custodian is akin to not having an overseer like a Walter Shaub, past head of the U.S. Government Ethics Office, who described the Trump White House as setting a tone that “ethics does not matter”. Prior to his resignation, Shaub was concerned that the United States would be seen as a kleptocracy. Trump couldn’t wait to get rid of anyone who was a designated overseer, replacing them with a crony.

Interesting to note, not having an outside custodian, which Madoff also declined, is not illegal.

Now #2. Rich people are respected, often thought smarter than most. They are attractive perspective investment endorsers because they are influencers. How did Madoff attract them? How did Trump attract them? Simple, give them what they desire. Just give them more money. How? Give them invented dividends and interest on their money, more than they could otherwise earn in traditional safe investments, such as bonds and certificates of deposit.

Similar to Madoff, Trump was enabled to “give” the richest Americans money by simply lowering their taxes. The national debt (falling on rich and poor together) created was of no concern, not coming due until long after the Trump era. Like Trump, Madoffs’ only concern was keeping the ponzi scheme going. Obviously, Madoff was creating an ugly future for his investors. But unlike the Madoff investors, the majority of Americans were pulled into the disastrous Trump “investment” program even after voting against him.

Now #1. One of the first principals of investing is that higher returns inevitably involve higher risk. Great money managers often trade risk for higher returns, though in a very measured and educated way. One of the key measures for a money manager is their “risk adjusted return.” This is simply a measure of the fluctuations of their portfolio compared to the return it generates. Even a high return portfolio in the longer term, could be considered inferior to one with a lower return. Put simply, if the high return portfolio fluctuates markedly, it will have a diminished risk adjusted return. Thus, a lower return portfolio, could often be considered superior, if it has less fluctuations.
Consequently, Madoff invented and credited dividends that were too high, and too stable, in light of what “normal” investment portfolio assets might generate.

Effectively, the “return” generated in his portfolio would have been a remarkable achievement since unaccompanied by greater portfolio fluctuations (implying greater risk). The credited dividends were too stable and regular. They were abnormal. It appeared that Madoffs’ program was defying gravity. And those dividends were Madoffs’ largest selling point.

Indeed, if it was just plain old dumb luck, why would anyone bet on that? Many people actually believed Madoff was a genius.

Simply combining that notion with the known reality that there was no custodian, no outside objective due diligence, no accountant public audits, it was really the simplest of calls.

It was a bad intentioned “emperor” who really was naked situation. Who couldn’t see it coming? One really does have to question the common sense of Trump’s endorsers and voters, so similar to Madorf enablers, investors and promoters.

The giant difference, we were all forced to invest with Trump, and we very predictably lost.