MrG's Blog & Notes

* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with monthly entries.

[*] NEWS FOR OCTOBER 2019

CHAOS IN THE WHITE HOUSE: The usual turmoil coming out of the White House took a grotesque turn on 6 October, when -- following a conversation between US President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan -- Trump ordered US troops out of northeastern Syria, where they had been supporting America's Kurdish allies. On 9 October, the Turks began an offensive into the region, the goal being to set up a "buffer zone" from which the Kurds were excluded, with Syrian refugees living in Turkey relocated into it.

There was a bizarre flurry of activity from the White House in response, with Trump making loud noises to tell the Turks to back off. They did after a few days, but apparently only because they had accomplished their objectives. Americans were treated to videos of Kurds being summarily executed by Turkish militias, and of the vehicles of American troops being stoned by Kurds as they pulled out. It appears that the US military's reaction to the order was fury from the top down. It is not clear if Trump's outrage at Turkey's action was sincere -- or if he had been so ignorant as to not realize the obvious consequences of his decision.

That was overshadowed by the move in Congress towards impeachment of Trump. The House Democrats moved into aggressive investigation mode, slapping the White House with subpoena after subpoena. The subpoenas were all dismissed, of course, but that was clearly expected. The bottom line was that Trump is not offering a defense as the case builds up against him, which is not going to help him much when it comes to a vote.

The Trump White House has, as a defensive tactic, made a big fuss about the fact that the House didn't hold a vote to move forward on the impeachment investigation. That's nonsense, the House makes its own rules, and neither the executive nor the judiciary has much to say about it. The vote would be a foregone conclusion:

• There are 435 House members, meaning 218 to win a majority vote.
  
  
• There are 235 Democrat House members, with fewer than ten that might vote NO -- meaning 225 YES votes, carrying the motion.
  
  
• All the Republicans would likely vote NO.

In short, holding a vote would simply underline what was already known. In addition, the demand for a vote by the White House was nothing more than stalling for time; if a vote were held, the White House would not be a bit more cooperative, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi knew it.

In the same way, on 23 October, a gang of House Republicans, led by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, barged into the rooms in which the hearings were being conducted, with a disruptive ruckus following. The intruders were demanding that the investigations be conducted in public, which was really no more than trying to derail them -- after all, how many criminal investigations are conducted in public? The meetings were confidential, because the investigators didn't want witnesses coordinating their stories, and the investigation touched on classified matters. Indeed, were they conducted in public, the White House would be able to, and would, plead national security to be uncooperative.

Besides, there are plenty of Republicans in the investigation as well, so the claim that Democrats were plotting a "coup" was nonsense. However, after the Gaetz's "uprising", such as it was, Speaker Pelosi finally went ahead and scheduled a vote, knowing perfectly well that the Republicans would just find more things to nitpick about. Whatever, the vote would help show they're not really serious. As far as the complaints about a lack of transparency went, the Democrats have got into the habit of replying: "We'd really like to see Trump's tax returns."

* The Trump machine continued to try to smear Joe Biden, through his son Hunter Biden. That is going nowhere; Hunter Biden did indeed have a checkered past, but there was nothing in it to link his father to illegal activity. That was not the case with Donald Trump, who had sent him minions around the world to "research" -- that is, fabricate -- conspiracy theories to smear his enemies. The fact that the transcript of the phone conversation with Ukrainian President Zelensky confirms all the accusations of illegal activity has been simply dismissed with a vehement: "There's nothing there!"

Oh, but there is something there. CNN conducted an interview with J.W. Verret -- a George Mason University law professor who advised Trump in the pre-transition phase of his presidency -- who said:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Verret also urged Democrats to focus on both the Ukraine scandal and the findings in the Mueller report when dealing with the impeachment inquiry, saying they were interrelated:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Verret is entirely correct that the Mueller report needs to be made one of the pillars of the case for impeachment, and it's likely it will be. His claim that Nancy Pelosi "empowered" Donald Trump to commit more crimes, however, is dubious. The Mueller report did not give the Democrats ammunition to make a persuasive case for impeachment of the president; attempting to do so under that circumstance was as likely, or more likely, to do the Democrats harm, instead of Trump. It might be better said that Pelosi gave Trump more rope, and now he's done a good job of hanging himself. The Democrats had to move on the issue: they couldn't possibly let such unethical conduct by a president slide.

The question is -- will the Republicans? Impeachment is certain to make its way through the House of Representatives. All it requires is a majority vote, the Democrats have the majority; the House GOP are almost certain to vote NO, though it will be meaningless. It won't be meaningless once it falls into the lap of the Senate GOP, since Trump's future hangs on their vote. They can either vote YES on impeachment, and inflame Republican voters, or vote NO, and approve corruption. Approving corruption would be fatal to the party over the long run.

Trump's conduct is appearing increasingly unhinged. On 16 October, House Democrats had a meeting at the White House with Trump, with Trump by all accounts throwing a massive tantrum, a "meltdown". The Democrats walked out. The specifics are not too clear, but it's perfectly believable. Later, Trump tweeted a photo of Nancy Pelosi at the meeting, claiming it showed her in a meltdown herself -- when all it showed was a woman, standing in a room full of seated men, emphatically speaking her mind to Trump. Nobody with sense could see anything unflattering to her in it. Apparently, she was telling Trump that with him, "all roads lead to Putin."

That accusation is true -- it doesn't make any sense, but it's still true. The next day, 17 October, White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney was giving a briefing to reporters, with one saying, in response to a comment by Mulvaney: "What you're describing is a quid pro quo." Mulvaney blandly replied:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

The bit about the DNC server related to a subtext of Trump's Ukraine story, involving dubious tales of a Democratic National Committee server in Ukraine -- don't ask for details, it doesn't make sense. In any case, Mulvaney had flatly confirmed that, yes, the Trump Administration had pressure Ukraine to help smear Trump's enemies. A cartoonist summarized Mulvaney's response: "We're corrupt. Get over it."

The photo of Pelosi confronting Trump, incidentally, is one for the history books: it might be in the running for the Pulitzer Prize. Inspection of the details show some of the participants in the meeting obviously not enjoying being there. Seated directly to the right of Trump was Army General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; his hands were clasped on the table, and he was staring at the tabletop, as if trying to wall himself off.

Trump did score a clear win on 27 October, when he announced that US special forces had hunted down and killed Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, a top Islamic State official, in Syria the day before. Trump crowed about the killing, and it was hard to begrudge him that. However, that evening he went to a World Series game at the Nationals Park stadium in Washington DC -- to be loudly booed by the fans, who chanted: "LOCK HIM UP! LOCK HIM UP!"

That wasn't really surprising, Washington DC having heavily voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and most of the citizens never having been fans of Trump. However, it did seem to surprise Trump, with a video showing him clearly taken aback -- it was only a momentary lapse, and he quickly regained his normal blustery demeanor.

Given the high noise level, it's easy to forget the rest of the world exists. It hasn't gone away, of course, with one issue lurking, almost invisibly, in the shadows: Iran has been very quiet, which suggests a nasty surprise from their corner in the not-too-distant future.

* Trump's fans remain unshakeable in their faith in him, and insist the future belongs to them. During October, Moody's Analytics, a reputable analysis firm, released a study that said, given the strong economy, the 2020 election was "Trump's to lose". That was alarming -- four more years of Trump would be calamitous [UPDATE: As of 2026, a true prediction] -- but on consideration, the Moody's report didn't bring anything new to the party. It was predicated on the idea that a good economy is a big boost to an incumbent president's popularity. That's true under normal circumstances, but these are not normal circumstances.

Trump just barely won in 2016, losing the popular vote on low voter turnout. Since entering office, he has continued his 2016 campaign, cultivating the same voters, while deliberately antagonizing everyone else. There is the possibility that Trump might lose the popular vote and win the electoral vote again; but the odds are against it. There have been over 50 US elections, with only five of them overturning the popular vote -- so on that basis, it's a one-in-ten throw. Worse for Trump, no one president has overturned the popular vote twice.

Trump still might win, no ruling that out, and no forgetting it: hope for the best, expect the worst. Much is predicated on who the Democrats nominate in the 2020 primary election. Whoever is nominated, I will vote for that person without hesitation. As they say on Twitter: #VoteBlueNoMatterWho.

PUTIN FLYING HIGH? As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com ("The Spy Who Came In From The Cold", 24 October 2019), when Russian President Vladimir Putin went to Brisbane in 2014 for the G20 meeting, he was thoroughly snubbed. Russia had annexed Crimea, intervened in the eastern Ukraine, and shot down a passenger airliner. Russia had been kicked out of the G7 group, and was under sanctions.

Now Putin is flying high, holding the good cards in Syria, solidifying an alliance with China, and brazenly disrupting Western nations. On 22 October, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan went to Putin's residence in Sochi to cut a deal to carve up Kurdish territory in Syria. Earlier in the month, Putin was given a grand reception in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are cognizant of the fact that Russia is the world's second-largest oil producer; they have other reasons to like Putin. European leaders seem to be seeking a thaw in relations, and have been pressuring Ukraine to come to an accommodation with Russia -- even though it's not likely to be one that much benefits Ukraine.

That's impressive for a country with an economy the size of Spain's, runaway corruption, and life expectancies on a par with those of developing nations. One key to Putin's success was his ability to rebuild Russia's decrepit armed forces into a modern, professional fighting force. However, he has also been politically astute, both in recognizing and seizing opportunities, and in sticking by his allies regardless.

Neither Barack Obama nor Donald Trump have been inclined to do much in Syria. Putin accordingly recognized that Russia had a free hand there, able to take actions without fear of a Western response -- and to an extent, was similarly emboldened to take actions against Ukraine. Putin backed up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a brutal dictator, with the West remaining generally indifferent to what went on in Syria. That lesson was not lost on other actors in the Middle East, particularly Saudi Arabia. Russia did not care about their human-rights abuses, while the West came across as weak, preachy, and two-faced.

In short, to a large extent, Putin is strong only because the West is weak, and he knows it. Syria is more or less a failed state, a prize of little real value. In the relationship with China, Russia is the junior partner. At home, Russians are becoming poorer every year, and they are getting sick of corruption that flows down from the very top to the bottom. Putin's grandstanding military adventures used to rouse patriotic enthusiasm, but that has faded, to be replaced by public irritation. In Moscow municipal elections in September, Putin's United Russia Party took a drubbing.

Russia is still under Western sanctions; Putin would like the sanctions lifted, his presidency-for-life accepted, and a free hand in Ukraine and other nations in Russia's backyard. As THE ECONOMIST put it, the West should ...

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

PUTIN IN AFRICA: As discussed in a related article from ECONOMIST.com ("The Art Of Darkness", 24 October 2019), Vladimir Putin's skills have been amply demonstrated in Africa. In 2017 Faustin Archange Touadera, the president of the Central African Republic (CAR), was in big trouble. The country is poor and rebellious, with about a dozen militias fighting the government and each other. France had pulled out its troops in 2016, and the CAR was under an arms embargo, With no alternatives, Touadera turned to Russia.

That got results. The Russians managed to get the arms embargo lifted, and then sent arms and merceneries to help Touadera -- with Touadera acquiring a Russian security advisor who had once been with the GRU, Russian military intelligence. Russian companies set up offices in Bangui, the capital, to obtain concessions for mining. When three Russian journalists had the bad judgement to investigate what Russia was doing in the CAR, they were murdered in 2018.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union competed with the United States for influence in Africa, with both sides ultimately finding out there was little payback for the cost of doing so. Russian interest in Africa collapsed along with the Soviet Union -- but from 2015, Putin became interested in Africa, partly as an end-run around Western sanctions. Russian trade with Africa has more than tripled since 2006, while Russia is now the single biggest arms exporter to the continent. To demonstrate his influence in Africa, on 23 and 22 October -- right after talking to Turkish President Erdogan to carve up Kurdish territory in Syria -- Putin hosted 40 African leaders at his residence in Sochi.

Russian arms sales end up being only a part of Russian involvement in the internal affairs of African countries. CAR is a prime example of this approach: for less than $6 million USD in military aid, Russia obtained minerals concessions and refined tricks for manipulating other states. The Russians have similarly meddled in Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Guinea. The Russians work to procure favors and help elect officials friendly to the Russian cause. They are now pursuing the same strategy in Mozambique.

Some in the West are worried about creeping Russian influence in Africa -- but that is overestimating Putin. Russia has little economic clout in the continent, lagging behind the USA, EU, and China. Alexander Gabuev, Russia's leading expert on China, says: "China got the juiciest bits. Russia was left to mop up the leftovers." Russian military assistance to Africa tends to be modest and on the cheap. Meddling in the politics of African governments isn't always that rewarding, either; African politics tends towards the devious and treacherous, with some African governments playing Russia off against the USA and China.

The growth in trade was from a very low level. In 2018, the total value of Russian trade with sub-Saharan Africa was $5 billion USD, less than that of Turkey, Singapore, or Thailand. In comparison, US and Chinese trade was worth $120 billion USD and $35 billion USD. Deals between Russia and African states may be announced with great fanfare, and then amount to nothing. Russia is particularly hobbled by the fact that it has relatively little to sell to African countries.

Russia is a bit player in Africa, inclined to cultivate dodgy leaders who the other players don't greatly like to deal with. Putin would like Africans to see Russia as a great power -- but in reality, it isn't, any place in the world. Once the Western democracies get rid of Trumpism and its equivalents, the democracies will hopefully re-assert themselves, with Putin's authority declining accordingly.

BREAKING UP BIG TECH: As discussed in yet another article from ECONOMIST.com ("Breaking Up Is Hard To Do", 24 October 2019), in recent years, America's Big Tech firms -- Amazon.com, Facebook, Google, Apple -- have come up heavy fire, with proposals that they be brought to heel, and possibly broken up. Presidential hopeful Senator Elizabeth Warren is particularly focused on breaking up Big Tech, having adopted a two-pronged strategy towards that end.

First, she wants to revoke tech mergers judged "anticompetitive", because they were undertaken to neutralize potential competitors. The primary target of this effort is Facebook, which in 2012 bought Instagram, a picture-heavy social network, for $1 billion USD; and in 2014, paid $19 billion USD for WhatsApp, an instant-messaging service. Industry observers believe FaceBook bought out these two companies because they promised to be serious rivals. Warren also wants to tackle other buyups, such as DoubleClick, an advertising exchange bought by Google, and Whole Foods, a grocery chain acquired by Amazon.

Second, she wants Big Tech to establish a more level playing ground. For example, Amazon is both a retailer that sells products made by other companies, and also sells products under the company label, notably Amazon Basics. Apple similarly hosts the app store on the iPhone, but also offers its own apps. That gives Amazon and Apple an incentive to undercut other companies selling through their stores. Warren wants operators of any online marketplace which generates annual global revenues of more than $25 billion to be declared "platform utilities" and prohibited from both owning a platform and doing business on it.

The big difficulty in both cases is trying to figure out the actual effect of such actions. What would Facebook's business environment look like if it hadn't bought Instagram and WhatsApp? What if Facebook had simply tried to compete directly with them? Who knows? Similarly, do Amazon Basics products unfairly compete with other products sold on Amazon.com? They're typically bare-bones offerings, made by other companies on contract to Amazon.

It's very hard to put a value on the economic benefit of Warren's measures. They also put the government in the tricky position of micro-managing big companies. Governments are not, and should not be in business; they can establish constraints on business and set broad goals, but they don't know how to run businesses. That's even more the case for Big Tech, which still exists in a dynamic business environment, kept chaotic by rapidly changing technology. The politics of implementing Warren's measures would also be tricky, with Congress and the courts not necessarily playing along.

Even if, say, Facebook is broken up, will it really do anything to slow the company down? Harold Feld of Public Knowledge, a Leftish think-tank, likes to talk of the "starfish problem". Some starfish have great powers of regeneration: cut them up, and the pieces quickly grow into complete new starfish. Similarly, one component of a tech giant could become dominant again because of network effects. Break-ups, Feld argues, need to be complemented by regulation that weakens this effect -- for instance, with requirements that a user of one instant-messaging service can exchange texts with another.

Nonetheless, breakups are still possible, with the widely-detested Facebook being a particular target. Facebook would fight back legally -- a leaked comment to that effect drew an angry response from Warren, though it is obvious the company would do so -- and the battle would be long and difficult. If Facebook were broken up, that leads to the question of whether it would really do much good. Maybe it would be better, meaning less troublesome and more effective, to zero in on specific company policies, and mandate less ambitious, more focused changes that clearly make sense.

[UPDATE: Facebook got a lot of flak later for saying they wouldn't challenge false statements in political ads. There was a lot of outrage over that, with Elizabeth Warren taking out an ad telling ridiculous lies about Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg -- but, taking Facebook's point of view, what else could the company do? Facebook is under heavy fire from the Right for "censorship", and insisting that the company supervise the content of political ads places the firm in an impossible position.

There is clearly a problem here, but as Zuckerberg himself has more or less pointed out, in the absence of any consistent laws regulating what the Facebook should or should not do, the company ends up doing what it thinks best to do. Somebody's going to complain, no matter what Facebook does.]

WOOD PULP COOLER: Back in the old days, cheap coolers made completely of styrofoam were commonly seen on beaches and other vacation spots. Styrofoam got a deservedly bad reputation, however, since it tends to clutter up the environment: it isn't recyclable, and it takes forever to break down.

In much the same way that styrene foam bracings in boxes for products have been largely replaced by biodegradable bracings -- which are much easier to dispose of, and not so troublesome after they have been -- cooler maker Igloo is now offering a cheap cooler made out of wood pulp. The "Recool" can be re-used a number of times; and when it finally gives up the ghost, it can be shredded and put into a compost pile. Igloo expects to sell the biodegradable cooler for like ten dollars.

RECYCLED PLASTIC: In loosely related tech news, as discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("Just 10% Of US Plastic Gets Recycled" by Alex Fox, 22 April 2019), plastics are not easy to recycle, one problem being that dyes and flame retardants added to the plastics are hard to sift out of them. Now, researchers have developed a new plastic that can be easily broken down, and separated from additives -- yielding plastic that looks like new.

To make the new material, researchers tweaked a "vitrimer" -- a class of glasslike plastics developed early in this decade -- by adding molecules that alter the chemical bonds holding it together. These new bonds, called "dynamic covalent diketoenamine bonds", can be broken with less energy than needed to break down traditional plastics. As a result, the new plastic can be broken down into its constituents using just a solution of water and a strong acid at room temperature.

The process also doesn't need catalysts, reducing cost, and eliminating the need to separate the catalyst for re-use. The plastic isn't weak, either; it needs strong acids to break it down.

Traditional plastic recycling produces dirty gray pellets, known as "nurdles", that don't have much value, but this new process results in like-new material, and the plastic doesn't need to be sorted out from other plastics because it separates from the other plastics in the process. The question remains of whether manufacturers will use it; possibly some regulatory incentives might help.

AERIAL TREE TRIMMING: In unusual news, there was a video circulating on Twitter of a helicopter trimming tree branches away from power lines, using an array of circular saws on a sling. The general reaction in the comments was: "You must be kidding us!" For myself, I was curious about how well that worked, so I googled around and found an article on TDWORLD.com -- a website devoted to electrical power transmission and distribution -- titled "Aerial Saw Is Boon to Line Trimming" (by Rick Mowbray & William C. Cox IV, 16 May 2017).

It appears that the idea of aerial trimming began in the 1980s, somebody at US company Aerial Solutions INC coming up the idea of using a helicopter to trim trees away from power lines. Tree branches can sometimes damage or short out power lines, and so power companies need to keep trees trimmed back. This is particularly troublesome because power lines run over the hills and through the woods, meaning they're not always easy to access from the ground.

There was considerable skepticism that the idea would work, but Aerial Solutions proved that it did, and they've been doing it for over 30 years now. The current aerial saw design features ten 60-centimeter (2-foot) diameter saw blades, attached to a 27.4-meter (90-foot) long aluminum boom. The saws are driven through a set of belts by a 21-kW (28 HP) internal-combustion engine. The boom sling scheme features bracing to prevent it from twisting. Aerial Solutions uses MD 500 helicopters for the job, but it appears there are other companies in the business, using different cutter systems and helicopters.

The video showed the helicopter pilot swinging the boom around deftly, which did look unsafe, but of course the pilot is thoroughly trained and qualified -- in particular, for handling sling loads on a helicopter, which is hazardous to begin with. It is not done in near proximity to human habitation, and the work area is cleared of people before cutting begins. If the boom gets stuck in the branches, the pilot can cut it loose, for recovery by ground crew.

It turns out that aerial trimming is safer than ground trimming. Ground trimming involves getting crews out to remote places through which the power lines run, and then using ladders plus power cutters of some sort to do the job. Power cutters and ladders do not play nice with each other. Aerial cutting allows a small crew to do the job much faster, with less hazard overall. It's well-established, highly effective, and power-line companies regard it as a normal tool.

[*] NEWS FOR NOVEMBER 2019

INFLATION IN DECLINE: A survey from THE ECONOMIST ("The End Of Inflation?", 12 October 2019) posed the question: whatever happened to inflation? Inflation used to be something that happened every now and then -- notoriously in the 1970s -- but today, there's more concern about inflation being too low, threatening to tip into the economic suffocation of deflation.

It was once believed that a healthy economy and low unemployment would tend towards inflation, but it's just not happening, even though central banks have cut their prime lending rates to the bone. Partly the reason inflation has been tamed is because central banks have indeed become more adept at keeping it under control. However, there are other reasons, and not all of them are good.

The supposed link between high employment and inflation is represented by what is called the "Phillips curve", devised by New Zealander economist William Phillips in the 1950s -- incidentally, as something of an end-product of an ingenious hydraulic analog computer Philips built to simulate economic systems. What's happening now is simply not on the curve; there's no visible correlation between high levels of employment and inflation. There are several possible reasons for this:

• Companies are making fat profits, and can absorb higher labor costs without raising prices. Even if their profits aren't fat, competition may force them to maintain prices in the face of higher labor costs.
  
  
• Automation is ensuring greater worker productivity, meaning constant or even declining labor costs.
  
  
• Stagnation of worker's wages. This might be called a "dirty secret", but it's hardly a secret, indeed seems to be somewhat exaggerated: wages have been broadly rising, just at a slow rate.

One line of thought has suggested that Amazon.com, the world's monster online retailer, is helping to keep inflation low, by a relentless drive towards low prices, with a concomitant drive towards leading-edge automation. Amazon is also not noted for its generosity to employees. This scenario doesn't seem to be the whole truth, since retailers like Walmart and Target have been pursuing the "low-cost leader" strategy for decades, linked to low-cost producers elsewhere -- and Amazon is also showing some signs of becoming more employee-oriented.

Nonetheless, there does seem to be a relationship between high technology and low inflation. Not only has technology meant business automation, it has also meant dramatically falling costs for consumer technology. Today, anyone can buy a cheap smartphone that's far more powerful than an expensive mainframe computer of the 1970s. In addition, in an information-driven society, most of the information is free to the consumer, being supported by advertising; or available at modest cost, since the internet provides huge volumes of distribution. Inflation has continued in sectors that aren't easily automated: education, medicine, housing, insurance.

Of course, there's a global aspect to inflation as well. One big one is commodities prices: it was, after all, the oil shocks of the 1970s that did much to drive up prices in that era. The growth of demand for commodities in emerging markets, particularly China, did have inflationary effects -- but for the time being, demand for commodities has been sluggish overall, and so not inflationary. It is an interesting possibility that the movement towards renewable energy, as well as sustainable production, will mean commodities will have less influence on inflation.

Another factor is the availability of low-cost labor markets elsewhere. However, not all work is sensibly off-shored, and the global economy is shifting towards services at the expense of menial manufacturing jobs -- particularly as automation keeps making inroads on factories. A third global factor is the graying populations of the developed world, who have been more inclined to save than the young, restraining economic activity.

So is inflation beaten for good? Nobody believes that -- but at present, the real fear in monetary policy is deflation. Central banks, unfortunately, have become targets for ideologues of the Left and Right. The Left has pushed dubious policies like "modern monetary theory", which suggests governments can run up massive deficits, as long as inflation doesn't take off. The Right has pushed against any interest rate cuts, to keep the economy booming, inflation be hanged.

The Right actually has a good point, in that in a global economy tending towards deflation, there's a fair case for risking more inflation; but ignoring the risks of inflation is careless. There is, at present, a need for central bankers to reconsider monetary policies of the past in a changed global economic landscape. They will do so carefully; central banks are necessarily conservative, not daring to conduct risky experiments.

BILLIONAIRES ATTACKED & DEFENDED: As discussed in an essay from ECONOMIST.com ("Squeezing The Rich", 9 November 2019), the Era of Trump has, not surprisingly, led to a resurgence of popular anti-capitalist sentiment. Presidential candidates are leading the charge, targeting America's billionaires. Elizabeth Warren wants to take up to 6% of their wealth -- not income, wealth -- in tax every year, while Bernie Sanders says they "should not exist". In the UK, Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn similarly asserts that a just society would have no billionaires, and had vowed to "go after" Britain's super-rich.

The Left is inclined to believe that billionaires represent policy failures, that billionaires are corrupt on the face of matters. Sometimes realities appear to support that view. On both sides of the Atlantic, some billionaires have thrived in anti-competitive markets -- for example, Facebook and Google dominate online advertising. One can find lists online of companies that offer online advertising services for those who are shut out of Google's Adsense online advertising network -- but the "Adsense alternatives" are tiny, and exist strictly on the margins. Google gives them little chance to compete.

In the meantime, Big Money sends lobbyists to the offices of politicians to make sure the system works for Big Money. About a fifth of America's billionaires made their money in industries in which government capture or market failure is the norm. In particular, they also fund Rightist advocacy organizations to tear down regulations and cut taxes.

However, that's a one-sided view of the world. For every Mark Zuckerberg, the boss of Facebook, there are several technology entrepreneurs with plenty of rivals. Think of Anthony Wood, who created Roku, a video-streaming platform; or Tim Sweeney, co-founder of the firm behind "Fortnite", a video game. Nobody can sensibly accuse these innovators of having sewn up their markets or of depending on state favors. The same goes for sportsmen such as Michael Jordan or musicians like Jay-Z, billionaires both.

Business competition can be brutal, sometimes cruel, but it also means innovative companies responsive to consumers -- with only a small number of business leaders getting filthy rich in the process, in somewhat the same way that few musicians are as rich as Jay-Z. As far as billionaires pushing Rightist causes go, there are others, if not as many, who push Leftist causes.

The central difficulty with an indiscriminate hostility to the wealthy is that the "wealthy" tend, in the limit, to be defined as "anyone who is better off than I am." It makes people worry that an overbearing state will take away what they've got. Yes, wealth is a worry when it becomes entrenched, or is shielded from disruptive forces, and governments are right to take it on. Yes, in the USA, marginal income tax rates for the rich are absurdly low, and inheritance taxes have been largely allowed to fade away. Anyone with a vast fortune should have no problem passing a comfortable living on to offspring; but what value is there to America in establishing a hereditary empire?

More generally, it might be wise to take on the push towards indefinite intellectual-property and copyright protections; to penalize clearly anticompetitive business practices; to take a cautious approach towards mergers and acquisitions; and to fix campaign-finance laws that give excessive clout to Big Money. Such focused measures promise to accomplish much more than demagogic attacks on the wealthy as a class.

* In that vein, billionaire Steve Ballmer, once boss of Microsoft, was on the DAILY SHOW with Trevor Noah, who asked him:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Ballmer looks like a big mug, along the lines of the late actor Pete Boyle, but he's very sharp, and surprisingly charismatic. Noah found that Ballmer struck exactly the right note, not whining at all about the alleged "war on billionaires", instead saying in effect: "It's negotiable."

As Trevor Noah seemed to understand, Ballmer was not really conceding much to Elizabeth Warren. He knows perfectly well that, in the discussion on taxes, he's got the stronger hand to play. One of the first problems is that a wealth tax is, effectively, a kind of property tax, and the US Constitution denies the right of the Federal government to impose property taxes -- never mind the details, it's painful.

In addition, a wealth tax is easily gamed, since it can be very difficult to determine net wealth -- particularly for the ultra-rich, whose fortunes are largely tied up in non-liquid and not all that tangible assets. The French government had a wealth tax for a while; they gave it up in 2017, replacing it with a property tax. On top of all that, there's the obvious reality that, if overbearing taxes are imposed on the ultra-rich, they will inevitably offshore their wealth. If there's a war on billionaires, they know they have the means to fight back. The bottom line is, again: "It's negotiable."

TRIBOELECTRIC EFFECT: As discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("The Secret Of Static Electricity? It's Shocking" by Alex Fox, 12 September 2019), people have always known about static electricity. Kids today find out about by rubbing their feet on a thick carpet, and then giving someone a zap. However, scientists are still puzzled as to why certain, but not all materials, pick up static charges when rubbed.

Unlike the electrical currents flowing through a power line, static electricity -- as its name states -- stays put, building up in materials that don't conduct electricity very well, like rubber or plastic. Such insulators are "tribo-electric", accumulating a static charge when rubbed together, sometimes with each other.

In a recent study, researchers were investigating another electrical phenomenon, called "flexo-electricity", which concerns electrical charges concentrated by bending certain materials. In the microscale, even apparently smooth materials are covered with protruding bits; rubbing the material bends the protrusions, concentrating electric charges. It was long suspected that the tribo-electric effect had something to do with some difference between the materials being rubbed together -- but it turns out, it has mostly to do with the surface microstructure. This research could have applications in designing, say, oil refineries to make them safer, or to build more effective tribo-electric generators.

ELASTOCALORIC EFFECT: In somewhat related news, as discussed in an article from SCIENCEMAG.org ("A Fridge Made From A Rubber Band?" by George Musser, 10 October 2019), it's an interesting little experiment to stretch a rubber band, and hold it to one's lips; it will feel warmer. Let it go, and it will be cooler. This "elastocaloric" effect can transfer heat in much the same way as does compressing or expanding a fluid refrigerant in a fridge or air conditioner.

Now researchers have developed a cooling scheme based on both stretching and twisting a rubber band. Engineering graduate student Wang Run at Nankai University in Tianjin, China, and colleagues compared the cooling power of rubber fibers, nylon and polyethylene fishing lines, and nickel-titanium wires. For each material, they pulled a 3-centimeter length taut in a vise, and then wound it up using a rotary tool. The different fibers warmed up by as much as 15 degrees Celsius (27 degrees Fahrenheit). When the fibers were unwound, they cooled by the same amount.

To investigate the phenomenon, the researchers probed the molecular structure of each fiber using x-ray beams. The mechanical stresses of twisting rearranged molecules into a more ordered state -- but didn't change the net order in the system did not change. The twisting instead results from an increase in the molecular vibrations, meaning a higher temperature.

By twisting and untwisting the fibers in a water bath, the researchers were able to evaluate their efficiency as coolants. For the rubber fiber, they measured a heat exchange of about 20 joules of heat energy per gram -- up to eight times more energy than the rotary tool expended. The other fibers performed about as well. The efficiency is similar to that of standard refrigerants. A refrigerator based on twisting fibers would avoid the use of refrigerant gases, which have tended to be troublesome.

The researchers have gone on to build and test a tiny refrigerator, about the size of a ballpoint pen cartridge, using the "twistocaloric" scheme. They see the technology as not merely being useful for refrigeration, but for other applications as well -- such as strain gauges or mood rings.

FUND WITH CHIPTUNES: I download music videos from YouTube every morning, convert them into MP3 files for my listening enjoyment. One of the channels I like is 8 BIT UNIVERSE, which is devoted to "chiptunes" -- music played as if on a 1980s computer, the genre sometimes being called "bleep-bloop music". 8 BIT UNIVERSE churns out at least one music video every day, and has over 850,000 subscribers.

Chiptunes are fun, as long as they are fun; music that isn't snappy or upbeat tends to be obnoxious. 8 BIT UNIVERSE does movie and TV themes, anime and game themes, and notably pop music -- tracking contemporary pop tunes closely, but also covering older pop music as well. I find some of their renditions of classic rock tunes fun, sometimes when I didn't like the original version very much.

With Halloween coming up, 8 BIT UNIVERSE focused on Halloween themes, for example THE MUNSTERS TV show theme; and then the fun, corny 1962 Halloween hit MONSTER MASH -- which works perfectly as a chiptune. On reading the comments for MONSTER MASH, one poster said that it was "the anthem of mathematicians everywhere!" Huh? What? I was mystified, but another poster explained:

   THEY DID THE MATH!
   The monster math!
   THEY DID THE MATH!
   It was a monster graph!
   THEY DID THE MATH!
   They calculated in a flash!
   THEY DID THE MATH!
   THEY! DID! THE! MONSTER! MATH!

"Oh." All professions have their inside jokes.

* Also back on the home front, I finally had to call it quits on my Oculus Go VR headset. I had heard that, after a time, people tend to work through VR sickness, but I found out it was just getting worse -- I would get nauseous right away. I mothballed the headset, and deleted my Oculus account, flushing the few games I had bought along with it.

I was puzzled at my troubles with the headset, since I'm not particularly prone to motion sickness. What I really want is something for activity games, which I really enjoy. For the time being, I'm getting good use out of my Xbox 360 / Kinect. I think I'll get a bigger TV for it, I have plenty of pocket money in my budget.

I also got curious to see if the old online Flash games were still around, or if they had been replaced by HTML5. They have indeed, as demonstrated by the website CRAZYGAMES.com, which has over 8,000 HTML5 games on it. I've only sampled a few, but on the basis of the sample, some of the games are slick. There's much more to explore there.

[*] NEWS FOR DECEMBER 2019

TRUMP IMPEACHMENT CONTINUED: The impeachment effort against President Donald Trump continues to roll along, powered by testimony given to the House Intelligence Committee in November. Gordon Sondland -- a wealthy hotelier, made the ambassador to the EU after giving a million to the Trump campaign -- had testified on 20 November, giving a sweeping overview of the entire mad plot, implicating many of Trump's lieutenants: "We followed the president's orders. Everyone was in the loop. ... The suggestion that we were engaged in some irregular or rogue diplomacy is absolutely false."

What was surprising, if not so much in hindsight, was that Sondland's testimony indicated the Trump Administration didn't want Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden. All Ukraine had to do was announce they would do so: "The only thing I heard from Mr. Giuliani or otherwise was that they had to be announced."

That makes perfect sense: a serious investigation might get in the way of making stuff up. Incidentally, Sondland seems like a good-natured fellow. One of his aides told the investigation of overhearing Sondland talking to Trump on a phone, and telling Trump that Ukrainian President Zelenskey "loves your ass." On being queried about that, Sondland grinned and replied: "Yeah, that sounds like something I'd say." Good answer.

Other witnesses reinforced the case, with UK-born White House security wonk Fiona Hill blasting the Republicans on 21 November in a low-key British fashion:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

Hill did acknowledge that Ukrainian officials had been publicly critical of Trump in 2016, which she called "ill-advised." She also agreed that some Ukrainian officials had tried to "curry favor with the Clinton campaign," partly, she said, because they assumed Hillary Clinton would win. Hill said: "I think it was unfair for people to already call the election and to make attacks, also, on candidate Trump and on President Trump. I don't believe there should be any interference of any kind in our elections."

Nonetheless, anything the Ukrainians did was trivial compared to what the Kremlin was doing, Hill saying Russian interference in the 2016 election was "personally directed" by President Vladimir Putin and involved the country's military and foreign intelligence services. Hill added there was "little evidence of a top-down effort by Ukraine" to meddle in the election.

* The process having gone through the House Intelligence Committee, it then went to the Judiciary Committee, which started out by bringing in three constitutional scholars to weigh the validity of the argument for impeachment. Not surprisingly, they all stated it was entirely justified -- which is what anyone else with sense would have concluded as well.

Not to be outdone, Republican members of the committee brought in one Jonathan Turley of George Washington University -- who claimed, preposterously, there was no substantial evidence of "high crimes & misdemeanors" that justified impeachment. Turley's phone then began ringing off the hook with unfriendly calls; that was regrettable, but given how infuriating he was, it was understandable.

The Republican members of the committee didn't even do that well, attempting to smear the three other scholars as "Never Trumpers" -- they almost certainly were, but that was a diversion from the question of Trump's guilt -- and worse, of being "Harvard scholars". One of the three, Pam Karlan of Stanford Law School, pointed out that the Constitution doesn't give the president the power to do just anything, like give titles of nobility: "So, while the president can name his son Barron, he can't make him a baron."

That led to a noisy fit from the Republicans, led by Matt Gaetz of Florida, the pretext that Karlan had no right to "smear" Barron Trump. Granted, it was an attempt to be a bit too clever, but the response was like straight out of Monty Python -- by people who didn't realize they were being funny.

House Republicans, among their other games, tried to "out" the whistleblower who came forward with the scandal -- but as House Democrats pointed out all along, everything the whistleblower said had been corroborated by other sources, and the whistleblower needed protection. The Republicans continued to find other ways to stall and obstruct, with the result of further reinforcing the case against Trump.

In the end, the House Judiciary Committee issued two articles of impeachment on 18 December -- one for Trump's attempt to get Ukraine's help in smearing Joe Biden and his son Hunter, and one for obstruction of Congress. Neither of them were arguable in any sensible way. The House voted to pass the articles of impeachment on 18 December. When House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the results, a cheer began to rise from the body of the House; it ended abruptly with a sharp look and a short sweep of the hand from the Speaker. The message was: No gloating, this is trouble we'd rather not have.

* In principle, the articles of impeachment were to be handed over to the Senate for workup to a trial -- but as so much else in the Era of Trump, events took yet another bizarre turn, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell flatly dismissing the impeachment, and saying that no serious action would be taken on the trial. He all but said: We plan to whitewash the president, and there's nothing you can do about it. There wasn't the slightest subtlety in the message.

That was unacceptable to the Democrats; they have a solid case against Trump, and Trump's refusal to address any of the charges against him all but proves it. Nobody is betting that the Senate GOP will vote to impeach Trump, but the facts have to be revealed. Once they are, action can take place down the road. It's actually Mitch McConnell who's in the bad situation, since he can't make impeachment go away -- and trying to derail the impeachment trial only makes Trump look even more guilty. Why would McConnell resist a fair trial if it might exonerate Trump? McConnell resists it because he fears the facts, and for good reason.

During the public hearings, Trump predictably bad-mouthed some of the witnesses. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi commented:

QUOTE:

END_QUOTE

While the impeachment hearings are Representative Adam Schiff's show, Pelosi is the executive director. She has demonstrated she understands Trump perfectly, and speaks of him with understated contempt. She's in control, and has become the first hero of the fight against Trump. Presidential hopeful Amy Klobuchar said, on the campaign trail: "If you think a woman can't beat Donald Trump, Nancy Pelosi does it every single day."

Trump has been saying that he's looking forward to the trial, since he believes it will give him a platform to smear Joe Biden. It is hard to see that as workable: it would be ridiculous, and characteristic, of Trump to offer as a defense of himself, an attempt to spin the trial into one of a political rival. It's unlikely to fly.

Trump fans are gloating that the impeachment will backfire on the Democrats, and ensure Trump's win in November 2020. In reality, the approval / disapproval level for Trump is static, at about 45% / 55%, excluding the few who don't care and don't vote. Trump will neither lose nor gain votes from impeachment -- and he lost the popular vote in 2016, on low turnout. The 2018 midterms had high voter turnout, and the Democrats can bank on high turnout in 2020. It's possible that Trump could win in 2020, but it's not a good bet.

Impeachment will not hurt the Democrats; the only people who hold it against them are Trump fans, who hate them anyway. With Democratic voters overwhelmingly in favor of impeachment, Democrat members of Congress would suffer if they didn't vote for impeachment. Independents are about half and half on the issue, so they're a wash. Impeachment will drive heavy Democrat voter turnout in November 2020 -- definitely above average, possibly record-breaking. What actually happens in the election, of course, remains to be seen.

* In the meantime, Trump has been piling on the usual trash -- notably denouncing wind turbines, high-efficiency toilets and washers, and LED lights. More significantly, Trump greatly agitated the military by pardoning US Army First Lieutenant Clint Lorance and Major Matt Golsteyn of separate war zone murder charges, and to restore the chief petty officer rank of SEAL Eddie Gallagher, who was found guilty of posing with a dead prisoner. Lorance had been convicted and had served six years of a 19-year sentence, with a Federal review pending; Golsteyn was to have stood trial in February 2020. This led, by some confused process, the dismissal of Navy Secretary Richard Spencer.

It appears troubles between Trump and the military are growing. 2020 is going to be a very chaotic year. One of the many peculiarities of Trump is that, when he gets in trouble, instead of backing up, he charges forward. He believes he can shove any obstacle out of the way, and as long as nothing bad has happened to him so far, he just redoubles his efforts. He doesn't seem to know the First Rule of Holes: "When in one, stop digging." Again, it is possible that Trump will win in November 2020 -- but will a majority of Americans vote for someone who can't be taken seriously?

CROSSWALK MIRAGE: REUTERS.com reports that a group of Thai artists have come up with an ingenious traffic-safety gimmick: they paint crosswalks with false shadowing and perspective so that approaching drivers see the crosswalk as concrete slabs floating above the roadway. The illusion goes away at close range, but it has proven effective in making drivers slow down. We'll likely be seeing this meme elsewhere in the near future.

FAKE VAMPIRE TEETH: As discussed in an article from THE ECONOMIST ("Dentistry For The Undead", 30 October 2019), one Maven Lore of New Orleans has a unique profession: he fabricates prosthetic vampire teeth. Lore used to be a graphics designer, but now he spends his days turning humans into vampires.

His work as a "fangsmith" is a reflection of the popular fascination with vampire stories. It's not a seasonable novelty business; he sells the teeth all year round, for as much as $1,200 USD a set. Most of his clients wear the fangs regularly; 90% of them are women in the age range of 20 to 40. While some are wannabe vampires or cosplayers, others just like the fangs.

Lore begins making vampire teeth by examining a client's face and smile. He then tries to match the shade of the client's normal teeth to one of six acrylic tones. Next, he gets a cast of the client's relevant existing teeth with putty, to use the cast to make the teeth. Most of the time, the fit is so precise that no glue is needed -- except if they're fitted on dentures. It doesn't appear that any of his clients have been staked yet.

MY NEW TV & FIRE CUBE: I mentioned wanting to get a new, bigger TV for use with my Xbox 360 / Kinect game machine. I was thinking of getting a 40-inch (101-centimeter) TV -- but then I took a tape measure to the plastic shelving I use as my game station, and realized: "That's HUGE!" I set my sights lower, and bought a refurbished 32-inch (81-centimeter) Samsung TV, for less than $200 USD, including a stand so it could sit on top of the game station shelving.

Once I got it, I set it up and found it very much what I expected; it was a big improvement on Kinect gameplay. It also had, somewhat to my surprise, a preloaded system of online channels; I hooked the TV up over wi-fi, and had access to dozens of channels. The only one of them that amounted to much was the CBSNEWS channel, the rest being definitely low-budget -- indeed, one was nothing but non-stop video captures of computer gameplay.

However, that led me to remember I had a Amazon Fire TV stick plugged into an older TV, which had been gathering dust after I switched to watching videos on my smartphone. I switched the Firestick to the Samsung TV, and quickly got it working. What was lurking at the back of my mind was that I needed a system to check weather and news in the morning. I changed my day schedule so I don't get online until about four hours after I get up -- meaning I didn't get a weather report before I went for my morning walk, and didn't know how warmly to dress. It was also nice to check the news early, in case something big happened overnight. I was using my smartphone to do that, but I didn't find it all that convenient for the job.

With the TV and the Firestick, I could instead turn on the TV to get weather and news, while I went through my wake-up routine. That led to the next question -- how best to get that data from the Firestick? Amazon Fire does offer video news, but local weather was trickier. I concluded, knowing the Firestick is effectively an Android computer, that the best thing to do was download news and weather apps.

That presented a bit of an obstacle, in that Amazon's selection of apps for the Firestick is weak -- and Amazon, not playing well with Google, doesn't make access to the Android Store easy. I did some searching online, to find a website named "firesticktricks.com" that pointed to a third-party appstore, named "Aptoide TV", that was tailored to Amazon Fire. Following the instructions on the website, I got a "Downloader" app -- very plain-vanilla -- from Amazon, and then downloaded the Aptoide TV app. I installed it, set up an account for myself on the Aptoide TV appstore, and then had access to over 900,000 apps. Boggles the mind.

Incidentally, Aptoide is actually a software firm in Portugal that builds client apps and server systems for people wanting to set up their own appstores -- the software firm doesn't appear operate appstores themselves. It does appear that Google, not surprisingly, does things to discourage use of Aptoide appstores, and Aptoide has taken Google to court with the EU for trying to suppress competition. Sounds like Aptoide has a good case.

While I was tinkering with the Fire TV Stick, I found that Amazon had a newer version, that was compatible with Amazon's Alexa virtual assistant. On investigating, I found that Amazon had the "Fire TV Cube", which was more powerful than the stick, and looked like the better deal. I switched gears and ordered one. I had plenty of pocket money, and it wasn't very expensive -- about $135 USD, along with an HDMI cable.

After I received the Firecube, I got it running without too much trouble. Now I get up in the morning and ask: "Alexa, weather." -- to get a weather update. That done, I say: "Alexa, TV on." "Alex, flash briefing." -- to get the news. If I want to play my XBox game machine on the new TV, I just turn it on, and say: "Alexa, switch HDMI 1." There's a lot more I can do with the FireCube, but it'll take time to figure it out. I've still got to download Android apps; the first one I did wouldn't work. Fortunately, the Firecube has a settings menu that allows apps to be deleted.

I'll have to get a bluetooth game controller so I can play downloaded Android games. A bluetooth speaker would be nice, too. I've got my house updated with adapters in the dual AC wall sockets, most of the adapters having six AC sockets, the latest also having twin USB sockets. I had to rearrange them so I could make sure everything had power. That's what happens when I accumulate gadgets.

I've had to set up a schedule for recharging my gadgets. I recharge the ones I use regularly -- smartphones, bluetooth headphones, a bluetooth micro-keyboard -- every week, and recharge everything else quarterly. Battery life is a function of the number of charge-discharge cycles, and is also dependent on the depth of discharge. That means trying to balance the number of recharges versus depth of discharge. Such is life in the 21st century.