Wasted

Here's an article on e-waste with an unsurprisingly theme: there's a lot of it, it's growing fast, especially in big countries that talk big about environmentalism.  But there are two interesting elements in this story: what constitutes e-waste, and what a waste it is.

Most of the e-waste in this model, in bulk at least, is made up of "fridges, washing machines and other domestic appliances at the end of their life."  In other words, large appliances that have some electronic components I guess.  60% by weight comes from these sources, and only 7% by computers, printers, cell phones etc.--stuff that we more readily think of as e-waste.  Weight and number are two ways of measuring it but neither quite gets at environmental impact.  But there's quite a bit with contaminating metals, compounds, chemicals and gases.

However, there's this: "Waste that could have been recovered and recycled was worth $52bn, including 300 tonnes of gold – equal to 11% of the world’s gold production in 2013."

Which suggests further problems with recycling and recycling industries.  It seems to me that after a much publicized start, government at all levels have dropped the ball on making recycling work, let alone the priority it must be.

Reality Check

The dangers of economic inequality (which are largely founded on economic injustice) threaten our economy and our polity, and in the process they cause suffering and destruction to real people.  They limit and may destroy the chances of future generations.  All of this--and all the economic and political theory outlined in President Obama's speech and my last two posts--are demonstrably true.

But they don't tell the whole story.  To the extent that in the end, none of this may matter much.  Because virtually all economic theory is fantasy.  It is, to be sure, really pretentious and boring fantasy, and the purveyors of these fantasies dress in severe suits and ties, and are boring and pretentious.  But nothing Disney ever produced is as unreal as the economics accepted as operating procedure by the global economy, by the institutions of commerce and finance and government, at every level.

Economic theories work within the premises, in both senses: they work within the artificial constructs, the closed system, within the building.  And for a few hundred years we've managed to pretty much stay inside the building.  But the building is not self-contained, not really.  The natural world outside it is essential to its survival, to our survival.  And the laws there are very different, and we've been ignoring them.  The world is so big that we got away with ignoring them.  But we're too big now, and we're destroying the world's ability to continue to give us life.

The most obvious way to translate this into economics is by assigning cost.  Costs are calculated without regard to the resources used and the environment ruined, such that it will not sustain as much life, or any life, in the future.  The jargon is that environmental costs are "externalized," that is, ignored.  But these days there is far too much damage being done on scales that are almost unimaginably vast and fast, by and on behalf of far, far too many people. 

We're using up resources and poisoning our planet, destroying the diversity of life we don't really understand, and in the process, we are destroying the human future.  And our economics ignores this most important fact.  If we don't get this right, none of the rest is going to matter for very much longer.

Waste is one of the most ignored problems.  Of all the resources that go into making products we use, only 6% of the materials actually show up in the products themselves.  And then many of the products become waste in short order, often toxic waste.  The computer revolution, which looks so clean and futuristic, is making this very much worse.  The rapid proliferation and obsolescence of devices is creating waste on a stupendous scale.  There are more discarded cell phones in Japan than there are Japanese.  It's getting worse, utterly out of control, and it is utterly ignored.

The greatest costs to be exacted on human civilization are the result of greenhouse gases still polluting and deforming our atmosphere at a record rate, decades after the dangers they pose were known.  The latest international climate crisis conference, in Durban, South Africa, is now over.  An agreement was reached in its final hours that some are hailing it as a modest success, and a blueprint for progress.  Others are less enthusiastic.

My first impression is this: The agreement (which is basically to negotiate a new treaty) sets out a framework that will be available in the near future, should world leaders (conspicuously absent at this conference) and their governments be scared enough by climate catastrophes into looking for a way to act, to forestall even worse effects.  And perhaps to deal with the effects then happening.

I don't think there are many climate scientists or close observers of climate science and what's already happening worldwide who believe that even a strong global treaty in 2020 is going to prevent climate catastrophe beginning in this century, and a much altered climate for the planet for many centuries. But if action is taken the prospect might be that the return to a very hot climate before human life arose--and one which would make human civilization unlikely if not impossible--might be forestalled, eventually. 

But nobody really knows.  Nobody knows what small changes may result in big changes.  Nobody knows if we've already passed any number of tipping points or not.  What almost everybody knows is that greenhouse gases in the atmosphere have caused, are causing and will cause global heating, with dire consequences for at least a significant proportion of the human species, and eventually negative consequences for all.  Not to mention the polar bears.  Every species lives within an interdependent ecology.  Some adjustments for some species are possible.  But the economy of life in the real world sometimes rules extinction, or something very much like it.

We're smart enough to figure that out.  But it does look like we've been too slow to accept it, take it seriously and act on it at the scale of the problem. This is the ultimate economics, and without dealing with it, the rest is going to be superseded.    

Economy 2010 Part 1

There was an interesting economics debate at Salon this week. First up was their columnist Michael Lind, asserting that the Clinton boom of the 90s was essentially an illusion, and its premise--that a better educated workforce in knowledge jobs with high tech information infrastructure (the Internet, etc.) was creating a prosperous New Economy--was wrong. That's important, because in many respects, it's what the Obama administration is promoting to revive the economy now.

Lind writes that the productivity gains were overestimated by as much as 20%, with much of the rest accounted for by the tech and housing bubbles. Most gains were made by the top 1% of earners anyway--with the middle class losing ground. Lind's prescription for actual prosperity is: "The most effective way to raise wages at the bottom would be to increase the bargaining power of workers, by unionizing the service sector and by tightening the labor market through restricting unskilled immigration. That would probably spur genuine productivity growth over time as employers substituted technology for more expensive labor." He suggests that the corporate backers of the "middle way" Democrats discourages this, and so the Democratic party doesn't get behind such an effort.

A day or two later, Will Marshall of the Progressive Policy Institute disputed Lind's thesis and conclusion. He argued that productivity did increase in the Clinton years, and that economic gains were felt across all income levels. He also cites economic data showing "strong positive returns to educational attainment," so "it seems perverse to argue that Clinton and his allies, as well as President Obama, are mistaken in wanting to see more Americans attend college. "

As usual with these things, they often argue past each other. Marshall writes that steep drops in union membership is due to the fading industrial sector, but doesn't mention Lind's argument that unionizing service workers should be a priority. Lind seems to ignore the structural changes involving information tech that Marshall cites as transformative. Finally, there's no reason that the country--or the President--should have to choose between advocating better educational opportunities and more and stronger unions.

Still, it's an interesting debate. I don't know if Lind's economics is right, but it makes sense to me that stronger and more widespread unions are needed to get working Americans a just wage, and (along with more reasonable--that is, higher--corporate taxes) return this country to the economic and social balance as well as the prosperity of the 50s and 60s.

On the other hand, Marshall is right about changes: neither the economy nor society resembles or could resemble the 50s and 60s in important respects. Putting aside for a minute the new reliance on the service economy, the information technology aspect is only part of the relevant equation. The corresponding part, which neither Lind nor Marshall mention, is energy. U.S. prosperity was fueled by cheap fossil fuel energy, and an energy grid that is now deteroriating and obsolete, even without the need to replace fossil fuels.

President Obama has emphasized that jumpstarting a new economy and creating jobs requires emphasis on new clean energy technologies, and both the manufacturing and service companies and jobs to create a clean energy industry. He's advocating, he's envisioning, and he's devoting chunks of the Economy Recovery and Reinvestment Act money to such projects.

There are lots of pieces to this puzzle, though. There's the question of markets and market share, and whether the U.S. will innovate and lead in this area as it did to a debatable but substantial degree in information technology. So far, the evidence isn't entirely favorable, as countries in Europe and South America as well as Japan and China are in some ways ahead. Given our dependence on the global marketplace, this is probably a big deal--especially if the transformation of the U.S. itself relies on foreign-made systems. Can't happen? Ask General Motors about that.

A clean energy boom might help to restore some manufacturing to the U.S. economy mix, and some better wages. The idea that the service economy can remain so dominant requires such elements as robust government spending (politically unlikely, especially in the states) and foreign slave labor manufacturing (unlikely to continue, as the places where that's economically feasible are declining, even apart from the moral depravity of the practice.)

The debate has been raging for years now on just when fossil fuels are going to become so expensive that solar, wind etc. become competitive. As limitations on coal become part of the equation, and as oil is a finite resource, it seems inevitable. One aspect of this that fascinates me is that those on the left, right and center who are totally in love with the Internet and cellular networks and all the new devices using them, manage to not think about all the energy they use. (A few years ago, George Gilder projected that Internet computing would soon require as much power as the entire U.S. economy did in 2001). As well as all the toxic chemicals they use and electronic garbage they create and to make them (author Hunter Lovins estimates the manufacture of a laptop computer creates 4,000 times its weight in waste. Cell phones are being discarded in the billions.) These are going to be enormous problems. We can't go on forever, advocating an end to greenhouse gas pollution, while using fossil fueled electricity to say so.

What nobody wants to talk about is more of less, of the enormous waste built into this consumer economy that is unsustainable. Or the distinct possibility that there are no models for what's happening, and neither Lind nor Marshall, nor any oft-quoted economist, has anything like an accurate idea of what's ahead.

My Name is Kafka, How May I Help You?

Our phone hasn't been working for weeks. Apart from the blessed silence, there has been the never-ending battle to get some attention from The Phone Company. Back in the day, when they first were The Phone Company, Ma Bell, etc., the monopoly and public utility combined, you could at least call the nearest office, talk to somebody, and get the appropriate repair person. Now, even though we live in a town the population of which would fit easily into a middling college stadium, with a larger but still fairly small city a few miles away, we're left with 800 numbers that don't work, talking to robots and India, and an online system designed to discourage anyone from using it.

And guess what, the monopoly never left, just the service. For us, it's the same company: AT&T, which bought up the various local and regional companies that were formed when Bell was forced to shed them in the 1970s. Well, Ma Bell is back, only now she's even more Kafkaesque.

The Phone Company got broken up because it was a monopoly, and because as such, it controlled the introduction of new products and limited choices. They owned the phones and everything else connected with them. So now we have a bewildering array of choices, plus all the complexities of what the phone company is responsible for and what they aren't. And the monopoly, where it counts: the wire.

The alternative for Internet is the cable company, another monopoly, which is just as allergic to service.

Check out their web pages and try and find how to contact them to get a problem diagnosed and repaired. If you accidentally hit upon the right 800 number, try getting a repair appointment out of their robot voice. You can scream "agent!" and "operator!" at him, and after a wait you might get one. Who will refer you to another number--and the same robot.

Our problem is complicated, having to do with the DSL jack, even though the DSL is fine at the moment, but the phone doesn't work. We've figured out that much, with the help of an electrician and the one human being apparently not in India I managed to talk to.

We're seriously considering joining the now one-third of Americans who have cell phones but no land line. But that's not much of a solution. We still have to deal with the DSL, or else go to cable, and the cable company is just as service-averse. Their web page is no better. They all offer you a stunning array of options to buy stuff and services. AT&T is apparently in the satellite TV business now as well. But try to find a contact number.

In addition to discouraging low-profit services like repair, there is the additional motive of discouraging land lines altogether, partly because they aren't as profitable in general than cellular, but also because there are legal requirements, in order to insure that all Americans have the basic right of phone service, no matter where they live. That makes the whole business less profitable, and therefore, something to discourage.

The cynicism of all this is pretty sickening, but equally sickening is the ethic behind it. It's all about buying, not repairing. That's a big problem with the alternative: the cell phone is the epitome of the throwaway culture. There are millions of cell phones--perhaps billions by now--that had a brief life of use but will exist for much longer as long-term toxic waste. E-waste is a growing problem that will soon be overwhelming.

I don't have one, although this now probably means I will have to give up my goal of being the last American to have a cell phone, but I'm pretty sure that the idea of getting a cell phone repaired would create blank stares in an entire generation. It does not compute.

In the meantime, don't call us, we'll call you. On Margaret's cell phone.