[p2p-research] Obama's reversal of promises = pathological lying?

[Michel Bauwens]

Marc,

you probably saw this:

[image: newsvine:EC2 for Poets - Dave Winer explains how to create a server
in the cloud]<http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.p2pfoundation.net%2Fec2-for-poets-dave-winer-explains-how-to-create-a-server-in-the-cloud%2F2009%2F03%2F22&h=EC2+for+Poets+-+Dave+Winer+explains+how+to+create+a+server+in+the+cloud>

March 18, 2009: the tipping point that signals the beginning of the
end?<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/march-18-2009-the-tipping-point-that-signals-the-beginning-of-the-end/2009/03/22>
[image: photo of Michel Bauwens]Michel Bauwens
22nd March 2009

 I’m realizing I’m on thin ice here, as I have no professional understanding
of economics, but nevertheless, I want to relay a convincing scenario, that
some of my p2p friends have been sending to my mailbox.

Starting point is the recent creation of an additional $1 trillion of public
debt by the Federal Reserve on March 18, 2009, also called ‘quantitative
easing <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/business/economy/19fed.html?>’

The first alert came from the blog of Paul Jonrion in
France<http://www.pauljorion.com/blog/?p=2354>,
who calls it the ‘date for the end of capitalism’

*This is almost certainly hyperbole*, but nevertheless, it reports on the
alarm bells that have been ringing, including with well respected economists
like Nouriel Roubini.

The importance of this decision by the Obama administration is that an
important fraction of analysts are now convinced that the wheels of
hyper-inflation has been set in motion, and the the value of the dollar will
most definitely loose substantial value at some point.

The Asia Times brings us a detailed and well-documented must-read three
partanalysis <http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KC14Dj04.html>predicting
the end of the dollar-centric world:

*“Increasingly ominous clouds are gathering in what could soon be the
perfect storm against the United States dollar and against the present
dollar-centric global financial order.”*

In another article<http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China_Business/KC18Cb01.html>,
it analyses that China has secretly set in motion a policy to divest itself
from its US dollar holdings, so that it will no longer possess more than a
50% share of it, a reduction that would be sufficient to function as a
hedging strategy (with any loss of the dollar being compensated with the
rise of the other 50%).

If true, and the article offers good documtation on this, then this would be
extremely significant, because it is the effective end of the China-U.S.
compact that sustained the neoliberal model, and means that China has given
up on the U.S.

The Asia Times shows that part of the divestment is going to buying
depressed western assets, thereby positioning itself a leading role in a
post-meltdown world.

They write:

*“There is mounting evidence that China’s central bank is undertaking the
process of divesting itself of longer-dated US Treasuries in favor of
shorter-dated ones. There is also mounting evidence that China’s
increasingly energetic new campaign of capitalizing on the global crisis by
making resource buys across the globe may be (1) helping its central bank to
decrease exposure to the dollar, while (2) simultaneously positioning China
to make much greater profit on its investment of its reserves into hard
assets whose prices are now greatly beaten down, while (3) also affording it
greatly increased control of strategic resources and the geopolitical clout
that goes with it.”*

*Effects on the P2P Scenarios*

As our readers may recall, we have in the past offered two contrasting
scenarios for a transition towards a more p2p-oriented world, with a first
expected phase, of emergency to parity, occurring within a renewed
green-capitalist expansion phase, that could occur after the bottoming out
and restructuring during this meltdown. We’ve called this first scenario,
the ‘high road to peer to peer’.

We are partly inspired by Carlota Perez’ interpretation in her book,
Technological
Revolutions and Financial
Capital<http://p2pfoundation.net/Technological_Revolutions_and_Financial_Capital>.
This book analyses the history of industrial capitalism as a series of great
surges, coinciding with upswings of the Kondratieff economic cycles. In
short, she witnesses cycles of 60-70 years, characterized by an upswing of
high growth based on new technological revolutions, and a stagnating
downswing based on speculative financial capital. Each times such a
downswing ends, occurs a great depression, in which the old order and social
compact dies and needs to be replaced by another.

We are precisely in such a bottoming-out, a process that may take up to 15
years as in the previous Depression, so that any talk about any recovery in
2010-2011, can at most be a short blip.

As previously the crisis period may be accompanied by periods of great
social dislocation, such as can occur through hyper-inflation.

After this, we could presume that structural reforms, and in our
interpretation, a new social compact based on a partial compromise with the
demands arising out of the new structure of desire around open and free,
participatory, and commons oriented practices, may usher in a
green-capitalist expansion phase, which would bring peer to peer practices
to parity level (at the end of this 30 year process) with the market forces.

A complicating factor is of course that the combined effect of Peak Oil and
Climate Change, what some have called the Long Emergency, may greatly
complicate such a hypothetical
recovery<http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/opinion/08friedman.html?>and
instead set in motion a period of much longer decline.

As we indicated
previously<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/the-obama-backlash-are-his-policies-hooverite/2009/03/19>,
the tragedy of Obama may be that he has come too early on the scene, and not
be the Roosevelt that we expected, but rather the Herbert Hoover that
attempted fruitlessly to save the previous system and the ailing financial
system of the 1920’s.

The desperate measures of March 18, which do not offer any structural
solutions, could instead be the agent of doom, pushing the U.S. into
hyper-inflation, breaking the final back of the old order, without creating
the conditions for recreating the new.

If the restructuring fails, and complicated decline perpetuates the crisis,
then the high road scenario, i.e. the relatively peaceful rise of peer to
peer social forms in a context of economic expansion, may not occur, and
instead we may have to turn to the scenarios of observers like John Robb,
who see peer to peer then only occurring amongst resilient communities, but
which exists amongst the rubble of global dislocation. This is what we have
called the ‘low road to peer to peer’.

It’s too early to have a definitive judgment, and Obama clearly has
exhibited a reformist zeal in the other aspects of this endeavours, but
nevertheless, it would certainly seem that March 18 is the tipping point
that signals the definitive burial of the old neoliberal order and the
break-up of the U.S.-China compact that sustained it.

For more reflection on the current crisis, please watch the following
must-see video, by David Harvey and Alexander Cockburn:


On Tue, Mar 24, 2009 at 1:01 AM, marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was "triggered" violently by two things in that video (which is over the
> top for sure)
>
> 1. His Chief of Staff saying that if you're on the no fly zone then you are
> not one of us and you're a terrorist. My girlfriend is on the no fly list.
> She's born here. American blood. Her family came here in 1700s. She had
> participated in anti-war demonstrations. Every time we go to the airport
> it's one big fiasco. To say that she and people like her are terrorists is
> BLIND and DANGEROUS to the extreme as far as liberty goes.
>
> 2. The "civilian security force" he is advocating for and the basic
> training. I had lived in a country that implemented those same schemes and
> then got into war within 3-5 years after that. This triggers me to the
> extreme as I have seen such preparation come before disaster, not after.
>
> 3. Broadcasting an official presidential campaign message (on TV) that says
> NAFTA was a mistake then turning to the Canadians and saying that it's just
> campaign rhetoric.
>
> Because I am triggered by these two events, my trust in Obama is null and
> void.
>
> You do have a point in being level headed and applying pressure especially
> since he has the upper hand and will continue to have the upper hand no
> matter how many people get triggered and angered.
>
> Marc
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 10:18 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> no politician that I know of would be able to keep all of his promises ...
>>
>> his record is mixed, and he's broken a number of them,
>>
>> but to call that pathological, i.e. singling him out as extreme, seems
>> over the top, as is the rest of this conspiracy video ...
>>
>> I think that a balanced judgment would require different sources and a
>> more level-headed judgment of what he's done or not ..
>>
>> of course, his administration stance on the RIAA and other matters is
>> problematic,
>>
>> a critical stance, coupled with self-organizing activity and pressure on
>> the administration by the social forces that elected him, would still seem
>> the right option,
>>
>> Michel
>>
>> 2009/3/23 marc fawzi <marc.fawzi at gmail.com>
>>
>>>
>>> Skip to 45:00 minutes through the video and wait for a recount of of
>>> Obama's reversal of promises.
>>>
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
>>>
>>> Then forward to 1:01:00 and watch Greenspan saying on PBS that the
>>> Federal Reserve is above the President and above Congress.
>>>
>>> Seeing how pathological lying (or pathological reversal of promises)
>>> allowed people that I know intimately to manipulate and deceive their
>>> employees, partners, and investors and as a result profit in the tens of
>>> millions of dollars I can see clearly why Obama finds it tempting and
>>> irresistible to use the same method.
>>>
>>> In fact, one can argue that mega success in America is achieved through
>>> pathological lying, manipulation and legally protected theft.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> p2presearch mailing list
>>> p2presearch at listcultures.org
>>> http://listcultures.org/mailman/listinfo/p2presearch_listcultures.org
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
>> http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
>> http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI
>>
>> Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
>> http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
>> http://p2pfoundation.ning.com
>>
>> Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens
>>
>> The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
>> http://www.shiftn.com/
>>
>
>


-- 
Working at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dhurakij_Pundit_University -
http://www.dpu.ac.th/dpuic/info/Research.html -
http://www.asianforesightinstitute.org/index.php/eng/The-AFI

Volunteering at the P2P Foundation:
http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net -
http://p2pfoundation.ning.com

Monitor updates at http://del.icio.us/mbauwens

The work of the P2P Foundation is supported by SHIFTN,
http://www.shiftn.com/
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