Marc Andreessen, born in Cedar Falls, Iowa and raised in New Lisbon, Wisconsin, is known as a entrepreneur(Netscape), an investor(Digg, Twittter, Netvibes), a startup coach, a blogger, and a multi-millionaire software engineer best known as co-author of Mosaic. I mentioned this in yesterdays entry that this was the first widely-used web browser. He became co-founder of Netscape Communications Corporation. He was the chair of Opsware, a software company he founded originally as Loudcloud, when it was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. He is also a co-founder of Ning, a company which provides a platform for social-networking websites. He is on the Board of Directors of Facebook, Open Media Network, and eBay. Andreessen is a frequent keynote speaker and guest at Silicon Valley conferences.
After receiving his Bachelor's degree in computer science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign he worked with the university's National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), where he became familiar with Tim Berners-Lee's open standards for the World Wide Web. Andreessen, and a full-time salaried co-worker Eric Bina, worked on creating a user-friendly browser with integrated graphics that would work on a wide range of computers. The resulting code was the Mosaic web browser.
After his graduation from the university in 1993, Andreessen moved to California to work at Enterprise Integration Technologies. Andreessen then met Jim Clark, the recently-departed founder of Silicon Graphics. Clark believed that the Mosaic browser had great commercial possibilities and suggested starting an Internet software company. Soon Mosaic Communications Corporation was in business in Mountain View, California, with Andreessen as co-founder and vice president of technology. The University of Illinois was unhappy with the company's use of the Mosaic name, so Mosaic Communications changed its name to Netscape Communications, and its flagship web browser was the Netscape Navigator.
In the year between the formation of the company and its IPO, Andreessen engaged in extensive public outreach on behalf of his vision of the web browser's potential, something he had in fact done continuously since making the decision to distribute Mosaic for free via the Internet. At the time Andreessen was 23 years old.
Netscape's IPO in 1995 propelled Andreessen into the public's imagination. Featured on the cover of Time and other publications, Andreessen became the poster-boy wunderkind of the Internet bubble generation: young, twenty-something, high-tech, ambitious, and worth millions (or billions) of dollars practically overnight.
Netscape's success attracted the attention of Microsoft, which recognized the web's potential and wanted to put itself at the forefront of the rising Internet revolution. Microsoft licensed the Mosaic source code from Spyglass, Inc., an offshoot of the (ironically!?)University of Illinois, and turned it into Internet Explorer. The resulting battle between the two companies became known as the Browser Wars.
Netscape was acquired in 1999 for $4.2 billion by AOL, which then made Andreessen its Chief Technology Officer.
However, he would soon leave to form Loudcloud, a services-based Web hosting company that underwent an IPO in 2001. Loudcloud sold its hosting business to EDS and changed its name to Opsware in 2003, where Andreessen served as chairman. Opsware was purchased by Hewlett-Packard in September 2007 for approximately $1.6 billion.
***
I am borrowing this discussion, originally written on Marc's blog on March 24, 2008, with Marc and Brad DeLong, the UC Berkeley econ professor, and non-conservative on trade and wages.
Brad DeLong on the highly controversial topic of how trade with lower-income countries like China affects, or does not affect, US wages:
Marc:
...To what extent are rich countries obligated to open their markets to poor countries when the consequence is falling wages for the poor in the rich--bearing in mind that the poor in the rich are often wealthier and have more opporunity than the rich in the poor? To what extent do rich countries do themselves well--serve their national interest--by opening their markets to poor countries even when the consequence is falling wages for the poor in the rich?
Brad:
...First, between 1950 and 1997 trade and wages weren't an issue: our foreign trading partners raised their own relative wage levels at least as fast as globalization enhanced their influence, and there was no net effect of trade on wages--no link from greater openness to the global economy to greater inequality here at home.
Second, at times between 1950 and 1997 trade and wages became a political issue as a way of distracting attention from true problems. The voters of Michigan in 1985 did not want to hear that the problems of Michigan's manufacturing industries were home-grown--in the fecklessness of management and in the Reagan administration's budget deficits that pushed up interest rates which pushed up the value of the dollar and made the goods they made uncompetitive on world markets. They wanted, instead, to hear that the Japanese were doing something clever and illegitimate [certainly a widespread assumption in Wisconsin when I was growing up in the 1980's -Marc].
Third: since 1997 or so the link between expanded imports and wage inequality has become real, as our imports now embody a much larger amount of factors competing with our own lesser-skilled than they used to. How large? I don't think we know. Paul Krugman [also a non-conservative -Marc] is now writing a paper for the Brookings Institution in which he essentially throws up his hands at the question. But there are two points worth noting: (a) the effects of trade on pre-tax wage inequality are much smaller than the effects over the past generation of changes in the tax system on after-tax income inequality; (b) the effects of trade on inequality of opportunity are much less than the effects of educational inequities on inequality of opportunity.
Fourth, to the extent that we in the United States begin thinking of trade restrictions as a way to fight inequality, we are setting ourselves up for extraordinary trouble late in this century--extraordinary damage to our long-run national security.
Think of it this way: Consider a world that contains one country that is a true superpower. It is preeminent--economically, technologically, politically, culturally, and militarily. But it lies at the east edge of a vast ocean. And across the ocean is another country--a country with more resources in the long-run, a country that looks likely to in the end supplant the current superpower. What should the superpower's long-run national security strategy be?
I think the answer is clear: if possible, the current superpower should embrace its possible successor. It should bind it as closely as possible with ties of blood, commerce, and culture--so that should the emerging superpower come to its full strength, it will to as great an extent possible share the world view of and regard itself as part of the same civilization as its predecessor: Romans to their Greeks.
In 1877, the rising superpower to the west across the ocean was the United States. The preeminent superpower was Britain. Today the preeminent superpower is the United States. The rising superpower to the west across the ocean is China. that was the rising superpower across the ocean to the west of the world's industrial and military leader. Today it is China.
Throughout the twentieth century it has been greatly to Britain's economic benefit that America has regarded it as a trading partner--a source of opportunities--rather than a politico-military-industrial competitor to be isolated and squashed. And in 1917 and again in 1941 it was to Britain's immeasurable benefit--its veruy soul was on the line--that America regarded it as a friend and an ally rather than as a competitor and an enemy. A world run by those whom de Gaulle called les Anglo-Saxons is a much more comfortable world for Britain than the other possibility--the world in which Europe were run by Adolf Hitler's Saxon-Saxons.
There is a good chance that China is now on the same path to world preeminence that America walked 130 years ago. Come 2047 and again in 2071 and in the years after 2075, America is going to need China. There is nothing more dangerous for America's future national security, nothing more destructive to America's future prosperity, than for Chinese schoolchildren to be taught in 2047 and 2071 and in the years after 2075 that America tried to keep the Chinese as poor as possible for as long as possible.
Marc:
While I am far less certain than Brad and a lot of other smart people that the United States is fated to lose its position of economic preeminence in this century, I certainly agree with Brad's strategy, and I am continually surprised and alarmed to run into many well-meaning people who believe the opposite strategy would be optimal.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Friday, October 10, 2008
Is it the Furher or Amerika?
I thought I would include this interlude into the next section of my study of the impact of CERN, Tim Berners-Lee, Marc Andreessen, and the Internet have on our society today and for the future.
(courtesy of Equity Private)
Part One:
Part Two:
I will have a few of these as interesting interludes in between my multi part entry. As I got this from Andreessen, I thought this would be interesting to look a bit into the mind of Marc. I will follow with more discussion tomorrow on the topic at hand. Keep tuned and thanks!
(courtesy of Equity Private)
Part One:
Part Two:
I will have a few of these as interesting interludes in between my multi part entry. As I got this from Andreessen, I thought this would be interesting to look a bit into the mind of Marc. I will follow with more discussion tomorrow on the topic at hand. Keep tuned and thanks!
Thursday, October 9, 2008
It CERNtainly all comes full circle...
I CERNtainly find it all a bit interesting. You may have heard of the world's largest hadron particle physics laboratory or what is known in laymen terms as "The Big Collider". CERN Laboratories was founded in 1954. It was the first European collaboration of scientists from numerous countries. It is now a global scientific experiment, located on the borders or Switzerland and France, that has opened their experimental processes recently.
The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.
They sent a particle beam through the system to test it, about a month ago. Due to a few glitches then needed to shut down in order to fix a few magnetic switch issues. They will restart again soon. It simply takes a long time for the 27km tunnel that traverses underground through both countries to warm up to a room temperature for people to be enter it and fix the necessary problems, to then be re-cooled to a temperature of -271C or 1.9Kelvin. This is the temperature that helium becomes superfluid. This simply means that the gas flows with virtually no viscosity which allows for greater heat transfer for the hadron particles to fly at nearly the speed of light. The particle beam is shot through the circular tunnel and floats through the helium effortlessly to finally reach a destination of collision with another particle or solid surface.
What may not be known to many about the CERN organization is that the Internet was invented here. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web in 1990. This is where the www comes from in any internet address. The Web, as it is affectionately called, was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information sharing between scientists working in different universities and institutes all over the world. It made it easy and quite cost effective (basically free) for scientist throught the world to send information to eachother. CERN is not an isolated laboratory, but rather a focus for an extensive community that now includes about 60 countries and thousands of scientists. Although these scientists typically spend some time on the CERN site, they usually work at universities and national laboratories in their home countries. Good contact is clearly essential.
The basic idea of the WWW was to merge the technologies of personal computers, computer networking and hypertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system. The first proposal for the World Wide Web was made at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, and further refined by him and Robert Cailliau in 1990.
By the end of that year, prototype software for a basic system (BASIC) was already being demonstrated. To encourage its adoption, CERN developed a 'help service' and the now familiar Usenet newsgroups were provided. CERN provided a simple browser, which could be run on any system.
In 1991, an early WWW system was released to the high energy physics community via the CERN program library. It included the simple browser, web server software and a library, implementing the essential functions for developers to build their own software. This is known as open sourced software. A wide range of universities and research laboratories started to use it. A little later it was made generally available via the Internet, especially to the community of people working on hypertext systems. Hypertext, or the http of any internet address, is the computer language which overcomes the use of simple text. This is where multiple links and connections are established and other applications and video may be run on it.
The first web server in the United States came on-line in December 1991, once again in a pure research institute: the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. At this stage, there were essentially only two kinds of browser. One was the original development version, very sophisticated. The other was the ‘line-mode’ browser, which was easy to install and run on any platform but limited in power and user-friendliness. It was clear that the small team at CERN could not do all the work needed to develop the system further, so Berners-Lee launched a plea via the Internet for other developers to join in.
Early in 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois released a first version of their Mosaic browser, developed by the now famous Marc Andreessen. This was the precursor of the Netscape browser.
By the end of 1994, the Web had 10,000 servers, of which 2,000 were commercial, and 10 million users. Traffic was equivalent to shipping the entire collected works of Shakespeare every second. The technology was continually extended to cater for new needs. Security and tools for e-commerce were the most important features soon to be added.
An essential point was that the Web should remain an open standard for all to use and that no-one should lock it up into a proprietary system. In this spirit, CERN submitted a proposal to the Commission of the European Union under the ESPRIT programme: ‘WebCore’. The goal of the project was an International Consortium, in collaboration with the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Berners-Lee officially left CERN at the end of 1994 to work on the Consortium from the MIT base. But with approval of the LHC project clearly in sight, it was decided that further Web development was an activity beyond the Laboratory’s primary mission. A new home for basic Web work was needed.
In January 1995, the International World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded ‘to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability’.
By 2007 W3C, run jointly by MIT/LCS in the US, INRIA in France, and Keio University in Japan, had more than 430 member organizations from around the world.
Okay...why I went through this is to show the collaborative efforts that science has taken us to share knowledge and information...FREE!
I will be following this up tomorrow with PART TWO of my study of CERN, Marc Andreessen and their true effects on our global society.
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
The instruments used at CERN are particle accelerators and detectors. Accelerators boost beams of particles to high energies before they are made to collide with each other or with stationary targets. Detectors observe and record the results of these collisions. By studying what happens when these particles collide, physicists learn about the laws of Nature.
They sent a particle beam through the system to test it, about a month ago. Due to a few glitches then needed to shut down in order to fix a few magnetic switch issues. They will restart again soon. It simply takes a long time for the 27km tunnel that traverses underground through both countries to warm up to a room temperature for people to be enter it and fix the necessary problems, to then be re-cooled to a temperature of -271C or 1.9Kelvin. This is the temperature that helium becomes superfluid. This simply means that the gas flows with virtually no viscosity which allows for greater heat transfer for the hadron particles to fly at nearly the speed of light. The particle beam is shot through the circular tunnel and floats through the helium effortlessly to finally reach a destination of collision with another particle or solid surface.
What may not be known to many about the CERN organization is that the Internet was invented here. Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web in 1990. This is where the www comes from in any internet address. The Web, as it is affectionately called, was originally conceived and developed to meet the demand for automatic information sharing between scientists working in different universities and institutes all over the world. It made it easy and quite cost effective (basically free) for scientist throught the world to send information to eachother. CERN is not an isolated laboratory, but rather a focus for an extensive community that now includes about 60 countries and thousands of scientists. Although these scientists typically spend some time on the CERN site, they usually work at universities and national laboratories in their home countries. Good contact is clearly essential.
The basic idea of the WWW was to merge the technologies of personal computers, computer networking and hypertext into a powerful and easy to use global information system. The first proposal for the World Wide Web was made at CERN by Tim Berners-Lee in 1989, and further refined by him and Robert Cailliau in 1990.
By the end of that year, prototype software for a basic system (BASIC) was already being demonstrated. To encourage its adoption, CERN developed a 'help service' and the now familiar Usenet newsgroups were provided. CERN provided a simple browser, which could be run on any system.
In 1991, an early WWW system was released to the high energy physics community via the CERN program library. It included the simple browser, web server software and a library, implementing the essential functions for developers to build their own software. This is known as open sourced software. A wide range of universities and research laboratories started to use it. A little later it was made generally available via the Internet, especially to the community of people working on hypertext systems. Hypertext, or the http of any internet address, is the computer language which overcomes the use of simple text. This is where multiple links and connections are established and other applications and video may be run on it.
The first web server in the United States came on-line in December 1991, once again in a pure research institute: the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in California. At this stage, there were essentially only two kinds of browser. One was the original development version, very sophisticated. The other was the ‘line-mode’ browser, which was easy to install and run on any platform but limited in power and user-friendliness. It was clear that the small team at CERN could not do all the work needed to develop the system further, so Berners-Lee launched a plea via the Internet for other developers to join in.
Early in 1993, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois released a first version of their Mosaic browser, developed by the now famous Marc Andreessen. This was the precursor of the Netscape browser.
By the end of 1994, the Web had 10,000 servers, of which 2,000 were commercial, and 10 million users. Traffic was equivalent to shipping the entire collected works of Shakespeare every second. The technology was continually extended to cater for new needs. Security and tools for e-commerce were the most important features soon to be added.
An essential point was that the Web should remain an open standard for all to use and that no-one should lock it up into a proprietary system. In this spirit, CERN submitted a proposal to the Commission of the European Union under the ESPRIT programme: ‘WebCore’. The goal of the project was an International Consortium, in collaboration with the US Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Berners-Lee officially left CERN at the end of 1994 to work on the Consortium from the MIT base. But with approval of the LHC project clearly in sight, it was decided that further Web development was an activity beyond the Laboratory’s primary mission. A new home for basic Web work was needed.
In January 1995, the International World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) was founded ‘to lead the World Wide Web to its full potential by developing common protocols that promote its evolution and ensure its interoperability’.
By 2007 W3C, run jointly by MIT/LCS in the US, INRIA in France, and Keio University in Japan, had more than 430 member organizations from around the world.
Okay...why I went through this is to show the collaborative efforts that science has taken us to share knowledge and information...FREE!
I will be following this up tomorrow with PART TWO of my study of CERN, Marc Andreessen and their true effects on our global society.
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
are we done yet...? Can I vote now?...
Well, well, well...
It seems there is a new drinking game at the United States college campuses, and it's called, "not answering the question". Instead of "Maverick", people can get more drunk by just playing, "nope, not gonna answer that one, but darn it, I'll talk about somethin else." Sarah Palin will probably figure out a way to collect royalties for this game, but...McShouldn'thaveshowedup might have to pay out a little.
My wife and I went to a local theater where they were showing the debate on the big screen. It was a great experience to be with such a large audience and feel the emotions of the general public. The safe and expected answers from the McSame-Same camp gave no one in the audience any new news to grasp on to. The Obama camp answered the questions with detail and candor that the American public deserve at this point. Obama showed a calm demeanor, expected of someone who will be dealing with some very delicate issues, many of which will be coming at him quickly and many at a time.
When Tom Brokaw mentioned how he wanted the Senators to answer, in what order is the most important issues that the candidate will tackle, Obama had an order and the issues in detail of what would take place. McStumped, first asked to have those issues again so he could write them down, then simply stated that he would do it all...I wonder how many newspapers he reads every day to have the balls to answer the question like that? When they were asked who would you make to be the new Secretary of the Treasury, Obama has a well known, well versed supporter named Warren Buffet, who would be at least consulted, if not on the list. McShouldn't started with, "Well, it won't be you, Tom!" Like Tom Brokaw is even on his short list. What did Tom do to merit that comment?! Then, Brokaw tried to explain to the Senators that there were time lines agreed upon for the debate by both candidates that should be followed, and there were lights that blink to show them when their time is running short, to which McBlind said that maybe Tom could wave his arms a bit so he could see. If these were jokes, I think he should keep his day job. Better yet, for the sake of the country, old man, perhaps you should head back to the ranch and retire...It is difficult for me to see how anyone who doesn't make $5M/yr, as John McFortherich says is the threshold for being rich, can think he would do anything for his "friends" as he can't even say the words, middle class. This is the second debate to which he never said those words...
Pat Buchanan, a Repugnicant pundit, stated that McCant was good tonight, as he smiled a lot, acknowledged the people and looked at Tom Brokaw, and the audience, and sometimes Obama in the eyes...My god, if this is all it takes to get into the White House, I would be President. Back when I was in 8th and 9th grades we had a small clan of kids, along with my favorite history teacher and tennis coach, that would do stare downs. You would look someone in the eyes until the other person blinked or laughed. I was great at this...Hey, perhaps...nah...
Rhetoric should be disallowed in the public platform of debates or Town Hall discussions during election. I get so bored listening to the questions to McShame being unanswered and delivered with the same boring discovered lies of talking points his campaign continues to try to throw out. I felt sorry for Senator McWon't at some points. Although, I know that he wouldn't feel sorry for me if I were in those shoes, so...fuck 'im.
His continued lies and twisted truths made me feel as if he, not only had the inability to answer the questions, but found himself in an arena that was past his minute multitasking abilities. When he said to the black man in Section F, in answer to his question that with the economy in such disarray what would he do besides the bailout specifically for the people to help change this situation. First he said he would call it a rescue, McDoesn'thaveaclue went on to say to the man who asked the question that he probably had never even heard of Fannie Mae before this year, was an amazing belittlement, to what would seem the minority public, or at least that man and he should be ashamed of himself. For him to continue to espouse that he knows how to fix the economy, yet gave no answers to what that meant, yet only a few weeks ago stated that the economy was sound...it is ridiculous. If felt as though we were watching a man drowning and there was no rope to throw a line.
I'm ready to vote now...can I...
It seemed as though McTired was grasping at whatever he could get his hands onto and smiled to show the people he had some character and feeling...but it went nowhere. This man is a criminal, as was Charles Keating, but who did not do any time. McMobman quipped at one point that we need to redo health care because there may come a day when he needs hair transplants!! This man is not ready to be the President of the United States.
I say end this charade and let Obama take office before the current criminal administration pisses away the entire $700 Billion so the new administration can't do anything with it.
I give Cuddos to Obama for not laughing and calling McSad an idiot! That took a lot of self control in a very delicate and important moment in history. We need that in the White House!
It seems there is a new drinking game at the United States college campuses, and it's called, "not answering the question". Instead of "Maverick", people can get more drunk by just playing, "nope, not gonna answer that one, but darn it, I'll talk about somethin else." Sarah Palin will probably figure out a way to collect royalties for this game, but...McShouldn'thaveshowedup might have to pay out a little.
My wife and I went to a local theater where they were showing the debate on the big screen. It was a great experience to be with such a large audience and feel the emotions of the general public. The safe and expected answers from the McSame-Same camp gave no one in the audience any new news to grasp on to. The Obama camp answered the questions with detail and candor that the American public deserve at this point. Obama showed a calm demeanor, expected of someone who will be dealing with some very delicate issues, many of which will be coming at him quickly and many at a time.
When Tom Brokaw mentioned how he wanted the Senators to answer, in what order is the most important issues that the candidate will tackle, Obama had an order and the issues in detail of what would take place. McStumped, first asked to have those issues again so he could write them down, then simply stated that he would do it all...I wonder how many newspapers he reads every day to have the balls to answer the question like that? When they were asked who would you make to be the new Secretary of the Treasury, Obama has a well known, well versed supporter named Warren Buffet, who would be at least consulted, if not on the list. McShouldn't started with, "Well, it won't be you, Tom!" Like Tom Brokaw is even on his short list. What did Tom do to merit that comment?! Then, Brokaw tried to explain to the Senators that there were time lines agreed upon for the debate by both candidates that should be followed, and there were lights that blink to show them when their time is running short, to which McBlind said that maybe Tom could wave his arms a bit so he could see. If these were jokes, I think he should keep his day job. Better yet, for the sake of the country, old man, perhaps you should head back to the ranch and retire...It is difficult for me to see how anyone who doesn't make $5M/yr, as John McFortherich says is the threshold for being rich, can think he would do anything for his "friends" as he can't even say the words, middle class. This is the second debate to which he never said those words...
Pat Buchanan, a Repugnicant pundit, stated that McCant was good tonight, as he smiled a lot, acknowledged the people and looked at Tom Brokaw, and the audience, and sometimes Obama in the eyes...My god, if this is all it takes to get into the White House, I would be President. Back when I was in 8th and 9th grades we had a small clan of kids, along with my favorite history teacher and tennis coach, that would do stare downs. You would look someone in the eyes until the other person blinked or laughed. I was great at this...Hey, perhaps...nah...
Rhetoric should be disallowed in the public platform of debates or Town Hall discussions during election. I get so bored listening to the questions to McShame being unanswered and delivered with the same boring discovered lies of talking points his campaign continues to try to throw out. I felt sorry for Senator McWon't at some points. Although, I know that he wouldn't feel sorry for me if I were in those shoes, so...fuck 'im.
His continued lies and twisted truths made me feel as if he, not only had the inability to answer the questions, but found himself in an arena that was past his minute multitasking abilities. When he said to the black man in Section F, in answer to his question that with the economy in such disarray what would he do besides the bailout specifically for the people to help change this situation. First he said he would call it a rescue, McDoesn'thaveaclue went on to say to the man who asked the question that he probably had never even heard of Fannie Mae before this year, was an amazing belittlement, to what would seem the minority public, or at least that man and he should be ashamed of himself. For him to continue to espouse that he knows how to fix the economy, yet gave no answers to what that meant, yet only a few weeks ago stated that the economy was sound...it is ridiculous. If felt as though we were watching a man drowning and there was no rope to throw a line.
I'm ready to vote now...can I...
It seemed as though McTired was grasping at whatever he could get his hands onto and smiled to show the people he had some character and feeling...but it went nowhere. This man is a criminal, as was Charles Keating, but who did not do any time. McMobman quipped at one point that we need to redo health care because there may come a day when he needs hair transplants!! This man is not ready to be the President of the United States.
I say end this charade and let Obama take office before the current criminal administration pisses away the entire $700 Billion so the new administration can't do anything with it.
I give Cuddos to Obama for not laughing and calling McSad an idiot! That took a lot of self control in a very delicate and important moment in history. We need that in the White House!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
There's a hole in my pocket...
As we have discussed this issue before, we are in the midst of the largest transfer of wealth in the world's history. We, the United States, are selling ourselves off to other countries. We are highly dependent on countries like Saudi Arabia and the rest of the middle east including Iraq for over 70% of our oil needs, as well as, Japan and China for maintaining our financial stability. Who you do you think is giving us all the money for us that we use to live? On the financial side, Japan and China are the one's buying up most of our treasuries bills. Then, the securities are either sold on the open market or directly to the Federal Reserve. The U.S. public debt, as of July 2007 stood at $8.887 trillion. In addition to the national debt, the State and Local debt at the end of 2006 stood at just over $2 trillion. If you look to the right of this blog you will see the running tab of our national debt. Some consider, and perhaps rightly so, that all government liabilities, including those that the government has contracted for but not yet paid, should also be included in the national debt. Corporations must report such liabilities in their annual financial statements under G.A.A.P.(Generally Accepted Accounting Principles).
These “off-balance sheet” items include future payments for federal pensions, Medicare and Social Security. These accounts have been used creatively for years to facilitate a more balanced budget by borrowing from this fund. Through the inclusion of these obligations into the equation would dramatically increase the U.S. national debt to $59.1 trillion. That's 403% of GDP(Gross Domestic Product). On a per capita basis this amounts to $516,348 for every U.S. household! By means of comparison, the average American household currently owes approx. $120,000 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined. With a declining working population and an increasing retiring population the math simply cannot add up no matter how one tries.
You may not be aware of this but Japan held the biggest note on the US, at the end of 2006, with over $600 Billion. China owned over $400 Billion. I'm sure glad we're all friends, eh? Perhaps this is why our government put China on the favored trade list of countries. Of the U.S. debt owned by foreigners, central banks own 64% with private investors owning nearly all the rest. As of the end of 2006, U.S. treasuries made up 33% of Mainland China’s official foreign exchange reserves and 68% of Japan’s!
The Department of the Treasury publishes The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It. This up-to-date information divides the debt into two sections – Public and Intergovernmental Holdings. The former grouping includes U.S. citizens and foreigners. “The magnitude of the foreign-owned portion of the national debt is nearly three times the total amount of currency in circulation! Official numbers released by the Federal Reserve for June 2007 show the volume of currency at US$755 billion.” It seems odd, but that number seems to have a familiar ring to it...?
Our country is in debt just as millions of Americans are with their debt. Wow, could this be what we call "trickle down economics"? The irony of it is that China lends us money and buys our treasuries, we are “given” a stimulus check for a few hundred dollars and then we spend it on products made in other countries - like China, at Walmart. Then we have to foot the bill for this debt, at interest!
The problem that will arise with the Repugnicants spouting to "drill, baby, drill" is that the oil drilled in the reserves probably will NOT stay in the United States. This is a free economic world of exchange of goods. In a very short time the United States will not be the most consuming country looking for this commodity. China will begin to surpass our consumption very soon as their economy expands, as well as, their massive population increases its income and needs and desires for oil.
This is a global business and as soon as this is pumped out of the ground it will be sold to the highest bidder. That is capitalism and a global corporatocracy. Perhaps if we were to nationalize the reserves we would mandate that the oil stay in our own backyard. You know, they did this with the inclusion of Eminent Domain for Real Estate. Right! Would you really trust our government to take care of such a delicate issue? They cannot even balance their checkbook.
Brazil is in serious administrative discussions at this very date to nationalize their oil. That country is seeing the upcoming problem and they began converting to ethanol, over ten years ago. This has helped them to become completely energy independent. They do still use oil, however it is oil they drilled for themselves. Now, they begun to export their extra ethanol they produce. Their sugar cane ethanol is much more cost effective than the corn ethanol, our country espouses to. Corn ethanol is a lose lose venture, and it is currently highly subsidized so in financial terms our country is taking one step forward and two steps back on that issue. It sounds good in the sound bites and save a bit of the environment on the exhaust coming out of the cars, but the manufacturing and water consumption for this product is a losing venture. Or, we could begin to trade for ethanol with Brazil. Then will we, simply find ourselves trading OPEC for Brazil? Perhaps this is why there is the private discussions to create the Amero.
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(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
These “off-balance sheet” items include future payments for federal pensions, Medicare and Social Security. These accounts have been used creatively for years to facilitate a more balanced budget by borrowing from this fund. Through the inclusion of these obligations into the equation would dramatically increase the U.S. national debt to $59.1 trillion. That's 403% of GDP(Gross Domestic Product). On a per capita basis this amounts to $516,348 for every U.S. household! By means of comparison, the average American household currently owes approx. $120,000 for mortgages, car loans, credit cards and all other debt combined. With a declining working population and an increasing retiring population the math simply cannot add up no matter how one tries.
You may not be aware of this but Japan held the biggest note on the US, at the end of 2006, with over $600 Billion. China owned over $400 Billion. I'm sure glad we're all friends, eh? Perhaps this is why our government put China on the favored trade list of countries. Of the U.S. debt owned by foreigners, central banks own 64% with private investors owning nearly all the rest. As of the end of 2006, U.S. treasuries made up 33% of Mainland China’s official foreign exchange reserves and 68% of Japan’s!
The Department of the Treasury publishes The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It. This up-to-date information divides the debt into two sections – Public and Intergovernmental Holdings. The former grouping includes U.S. citizens and foreigners. “The magnitude of the foreign-owned portion of the national debt is nearly three times the total amount of currency in circulation! Official numbers released by the Federal Reserve for June 2007 show the volume of currency at US$755 billion.” It seems odd, but that number seems to have a familiar ring to it...?
Our country is in debt just as millions of Americans are with their debt. Wow, could this be what we call "trickle down economics"? The irony of it is that China lends us money and buys our treasuries, we are “given” a stimulus check for a few hundred dollars and then we spend it on products made in other countries - like China, at Walmart. Then we have to foot the bill for this debt, at interest!
The problem that will arise with the Repugnicants spouting to "drill, baby, drill" is that the oil drilled in the reserves probably will NOT stay in the United States. This is a free economic world of exchange of goods. In a very short time the United States will not be the most consuming country looking for this commodity. China will begin to surpass our consumption very soon as their economy expands, as well as, their massive population increases its income and needs and desires for oil.
This is a global business and as soon as this is pumped out of the ground it will be sold to the highest bidder. That is capitalism and a global corporatocracy. Perhaps if we were to nationalize the reserves we would mandate that the oil stay in our own backyard. You know, they did this with the inclusion of Eminent Domain for Real Estate. Right! Would you really trust our government to take care of such a delicate issue? They cannot even balance their checkbook.
Brazil is in serious administrative discussions at this very date to nationalize their oil. That country is seeing the upcoming problem and they began converting to ethanol, over ten years ago. This has helped them to become completely energy independent. They do still use oil, however it is oil they drilled for themselves. Now, they begun to export their extra ethanol they produce. Their sugar cane ethanol is much more cost effective than the corn ethanol, our country espouses to. Corn ethanol is a lose lose venture, and it is currently highly subsidized so in financial terms our country is taking one step forward and two steps back on that issue. It sounds good in the sound bites and save a bit of the environment on the exhaust coming out of the cars, but the manufacturing and water consumption for this product is a losing venture. Or, we could begin to trade for ethanol with Brazil. Then will we, simply find ourselves trading OPEC for Brazil? Perhaps this is why there is the private discussions to create the Amero.
***
(c)Copyright 2008 Doug Boggs
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