Dana Blankenhorn

Things Left Unsaid

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 38 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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It does not always pay for leaders to speak the truth. Sometimes, when leaders speak the truth they can give the game away and in that moment lose it.

But I’m “just” a blogger. And here are two truths for our time. First, the war with ISIS is actually a war between Saudi Arabia and…Saudi Arabia. Second, the rise of Alibaba may be the greatest existential threat China’s Communist Party has yet seen.

First things first.

The Saudi kings gained power by imposing an absolutist ideology, Wahhabism, on the Gulf Arabs. They were, in their time, no different than ISIS. No one cared then because no one knew just how much oil was under their feet.

Today the world depends on Arabian oil. Oil is the global currency. But for decades many Arabs, spurred by their Wahhabist beliefs (think of it as an Arab Tea Party), have been giving financial backing to young men who would practice a purified form of the ideology on the Sunni people and, by extension, on the whole world. Reagan encouraged this practice. One result was Al Qaeda. But that practice of fomenting war against the West did not end with 9-11. That event, and the Iraq War which followed, probably encouraged many wealthy Arabs in their hatred and distrust of the West.

They doubled down. They funded ISIS.

Crowdsourcing Science: A Modest Proposal

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 37 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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Ever since I became a working journalist, in 1978, I have said that the industry needs new business models to continue. I was ignored, and the whole enterprise is now threatened by that failure.

My son is now the same age I was in 1978. He’s 23. His ambition is to become a scientific researcher. He will get his biology degree next spring and is looking for a graduate program. (If you want a German-Irish Atlantan who can speak to your Chinese and Arabic-speaking grad students, drop a line.)

Until recently I naively figured there was no way he’d run into the same kind of business model problem, and intransigence, I did in my life. I was wrong.

As a recent NPR piece showed biomedical researchers are addicted to a single business model, applying for (and somehow getting) government grants to support basic research. This is unreliable. It leads to boom-and-bust cycles that destroy careers.

The answer lies in new business models.

When You Kill All the Predators the Prey May Kill You

by Robin Blankenhorn

Imagine this. You are driving north on I-75 in Atlanta, heading toward the I-285 Perimeter, when you see two white tailed deer along the side of the road, less than 20 from the southbound lanes.

This really did happen, to me, last weekend.

My dad and I were heading to the Silver Comet Trail for a bike ride when I saw those two deer, near Mt. Paran Road, in the Buckhead neighborhood. While many would be very happy to see that, my thought was more on how many people they might kill.

It goes without saying that people fear predators. They can kill us and would gladly use us for their next meal if given the chance. Look at that we have done to wolf, bear, and shark populations because of that fear. (The picture is from a Boston lawyer's blog post about a deer attack on a jogger.)

You would be surprised at how few humans these predators kill in a year. This number pales in comparison to what herbivores kill, and especially deer, because we have killed all the predators that might otherwise keep their numbers in check. 

The War against Oil Remains The Real Battle of our Time

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 36 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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The darkness in any generational crisis consists of false choices, with advocates of “once and for all” solutions lined up against supporters of democracy, of liberty, and of free markets.

So far, democracy has won every time.

But when people are inside the crisis, it’s hard to tell that this will be the outcome. Until then, the crisis continues.

At this point it’s important to understand the nature of the current crisis. It’s not about the housing bubble, and it’s not about Democrats or Republicans. It’s about oil, which is in such artificial scarcity as to actually be the world’s currency. Those who have it have, since 1973, been soaking up the rest of the world’s wealth for themselves, and its political power, as the world runs on oil.

A 21st Century War Is Economic

Think of this as Volume 18, Number 35 of the newsletter I have written weekly since March, 1997. Enjoy.

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We are accustomed to thinking of wars as being fought with guns. That’s how all 20^th century wars were fought.

But the Ukraine and Syria show us something different. The wars of the 21^st century are economic.

Right now, the European Community and Russia are in a competition to see whose economy can sink less, and which side can suffer the economic fall more. That will define what happens to the Ukraine.

What soldiers do, on either side, matters less than the willingness of politicians to support them, and that depends on popular willingness to suffer some economic loss. Vladimir Putin is betting that Russians will suffer a 10% hit to their income better than western Europeans will take a 2% hit.

Europe, meanwhile, is arguing over how to take that hit. Will the European Central Bank resort to extraordinary measures to avoid the hit, risking bank balance sheets, or will it let recession return? Already, there are indications that some Dutch banks are squirreling away cash to evade the bank’s current moves, which include negative interest on deposits. If it becomes every bank for itself, that’s a win for Putin.

On the other side, Russia’s oligarchs are taking a big hit to their wealth stoically, so far.  If the West wants to increase that pressure they might tell billionaires like Alisher Usmanov, who co-owns Arsenal, and Mikhail Prokhorov,  who owns the Brooklyn Nets, that they must choose between their western assets and their eastern loyalty. If they choose the western assets, Putin loses.