Will Blog for Food

New York City: A Monday in Manhattan - Part I

On a Monday morning in October, 2006, I headed for New York City, Manhattan Island to be exact, for a day doing my favorite pastime - walking around, exploring and taking pictures. "New York, New York: a city so nice they had to name it twice." I  recall the lyric by Jon Hendricks on one of my favorite jazz albums by George Russell, the epitome of sophistication, especially Bill Evans' work on it. From rural upstate NJ, I headed down route 23 for the by now familiar ritual: 23 to 46 to 3 to Secaucus, parking at the North Bergen Park Ride and taking the bus through the Lincoln Tunnel to the Port Authority Bus Terminal at 8th Ave and 42nd St. This is the only way I've gone to NYC for years because 1) for a senior rate of $5.00, you get to park all day and a free bus trip to and from Manhattan, 2) you don't have to pay the toll for the Lincoln Tunnel ($6.00), and 3) you don't have to drive (let alone park) in NYC which is an excruciating experience because you have to fight off a million taxicabs and unruly pedestrians. Instead, it's a pleasure to take the subway which goes everywhere. Get yourself a subway map (free) and you've got the city in the palm of your hands. You can also get an all day "Fun Pass" for $7.00 which allows you unlimited use of the subways and busses.

I wanted to walk and take pictures so I didn't get a fun pass. I would eventually take the subway back to Port Authority after my feet were tired and so I could make my dinner date with Morty and Renee Geist. Morty was my music teacher at Wantage. My goal for the day was to cover the upper East Side documenting sites that are meaningful to me - mainly jazz or art-related, but skyscrapers as well. "It's not the beauty and the beast side, not the East Side."

But first, after hitting the street, I did a brief detour to the West Side in the Hells Kitchen area. First stop - the Ayres building at 410 W 47th St. I had just seen Bob Ayres at our class reunion the previous Saturday. Bob was a great musician who graduated from Sussex High School and Julliard, played with a number of different symphonies, and now owned or leased this 5 story building and rented out musical equipment.

My next stop was the landmark Worldwide Plaza building, 825 Eighth Ave, the most visible building on the West Side in midtown Manhattan. Built in 1989 this 50 story skyscraper is one of New York's icons. By the way there is a Starbucks on the ground level. Although my girlfriend had given me a $25.00 Starbucks card before my trip, I had already had Dunkin Donuts in Franklin, NJ (they don't have Starbucks in Sussex County) before I started my trip so I didn't overindulge by having my favorite - a grande mocha!

The building of One Worldwide Plaza was documented in a BBC/PBS mini-series and a companion book Skyscraper: The Making of a Building by Karl Sabbagh. I'd seen the documentary and wanted to verify that this was the actual building. The building is crowned by a copper roof known as "David's Diamond" after the architect, David Child. There are two smaller buildings on the site also.

From here I headed over towards Times Square and my original planned route starting at 42nd St and heading east toward Grand Central Station. Times Square is always a good place to snap a few pictures. It's the center of Manhattan,  the center of all the hubbub, feverish activity and the capital of capitalism. The picture above was taken along the way. I was lucky to have such great picture taking weather - a perfect sunny day!

Bryant Park is located on 42nd St just behind the New York Public Library. By the way you can click any of these pictures to make them larger. If you click on the New York Public Library, you'll see that it actually says New York Public Library right on the building.

Continuing east on 42nd St we see the Chrysler Building looming up. It's located just past another NYC landmark, Grand Central Station, at the intersection with Lexington Ave. There was a big competition in the 20s between the skyscraper builders to see which building was going to be the tallest and which building was going to be finished first. The Chrysler Building pulled even with H. Craig Severance's 40 Wall St, and then Severance added two floors to his building to claim the title of world's tallest building. But not for long. Not to be outdone, architect William Van Alen secretly constructed the 185 foot spire inside the Chrysler Building and then hoisted it into place to present  New York with a fait acccompli and the world's tallest building until the Empire State Building came along and built a humungus TV tower on top to claim the title. Both the Empire State and the Chrysler are examples of art deco architecture, and the Chrysler Building comes complete with "hood ornaments." By the way Chrysler stiffed Van Alen on his fee. Why, I don't know. I think the Chrysler Building has the better location in  midtown Manhatttan close to Grand Central Station. 40 Wall St is now owned by Donald Trump.

Finally, we reach our goal on 42nd St: Grand Central Station. From here we go north on Park Avenue to our eventual destination, Carl Schurz Park on the Upper East Side. But I think I will stop here and rest for now. Here are a couple of pictures of Grand Central Station. We will continue in Part II.

I will Lower Your Taxes (and Raise Your Debt)

When politicians tell you they will lower your taxes, what they leave unsaid is that they will concomitantly raise your debt - your share of the national debt, that is. The Bush tax cuts have added trillions to the national debt which has largely been borrowed from Chinese and Arab central bankers who have an excees amount of dollars due to the US' massive trade deficit with China and, in the Arabs' case, petrodollars. This is purely and simply the national equivalent of credit card bingeing. Any person can run up his or her credit cards with impunity until the limit is reached. Once that happens, "sanctions" such as fees and penalties start to kick in. Before you know it, you're hounded by creditors. With the US, on a national level, we might ponder the question "When will our credit card limit be reached?"

In 1989, when the country started worrying about the national debt, it stood at 2.7 trillion dollars. Eleven years later, in September 2000, it exceeded 5.6 trillion dollars.  It now stands at more than 8.3 trillion dollars, belying all hopes that the national debt would decline and completely disappear, leading to a balanced budget.  Thus, George W. Bush has established a new national debt record. Bush's own contribution to pushing up the level of the national debt is quite significant. He cannot blame reduced federal revenue receipts on the 2001 recession (due to the dot.com bust) or the increasing volume of the national debt on problems inherited from the Clinton administration. That recession is long over, economic growth has been looking up, and the unemployment rate has declined, even though outsourcing overseas has shifted abroad quite a sizable number of jobs. It must not be forgotten that the Clinton administration left a fiscal surplus of 2 percent of the GDP and that the Bush administration has converted it into a deficit. This has happened mainly as a result of the generous tax cuts for higher income groups and military adventurism abroad. Needless to say, it is the Bush administration that has been responsible. If the policies pursued by the Bush administration are not reversed, by 2016 the national debt is likely to reach 12.8 trillion dollars. Mind you, this is the estimate given by the Congressional Budget Office.

The world is awash in dollars because of our trade and national deficits. The US Treasury borrows large amounts of money every day in the bond markets mainly, under the Bush Administration, to fight wars and lower taxes. Everyone wants their taxes lower rather than higher, and no one stops to think that there might be eventual consequences to that just as there are to overborrowing and overspending on a personal level. Because this is the Republicans' stock in trade - lowering your taxes - fiscal prudence and responsibility go out the window. As long as there are foreigners willing to buy up US debt, this process can continue indefinitely and Americans can get a free ride. Or this is what Republican conservatives want you to think. The truth is it can continue until a limit is reached. Then we will wake up one day to find the US not only morally but financially bankrupt. Deficits don't matter until they do.

When will that happen? When oil is traded for currencies other than the dollar. When China becomes more interested in buying up US real assets rather than US debt. Conservatives who used to stand for a balanced budget have completely abandoned that element of conservatism in favor of financial profligacy. American individuals out of self-interest are more interested in having their taxes lowered than in a balanced national budget. Republicans are all too eager to exploit this "tragedy of the commons" and disastrous feedback loop until they can't exploit it any more. That is the point where other countries (mainly those holding large amounts of American debt) will start dictating to us what we can do. Americans, who so much value their freedom, will plainly and simply lose it. If other countries stopped lending us money tomorrow, taxes would have to rise abruptly and precipitously just to pay the interest on the national debt amounting to some $406 billion in FY 2006. Interest  on the national debt is consuming a larger and larger percentage of all Federal expenditures.

Since Bush took office the dollar has dropped a whopping 30 percent against the euro. At the same time Bush has added another $3 trillion to the national debt and increased the trade deficit to an astonishing $800 billion a year: 6.5 percent of GDP. The US now needs $2.5 billion per day just to cover its trade deficit. No one believes that this will go on forever, in fact, Greenspan sagely noted that it was “unsustainable." The Bush administration seems to think that if they corner the global oil trade by integrating Iran and Iraq (60 percent of world oil will come from the Middle East by 2020) into the US economic system, they can forestall the demise of the greenback as the world’s “reserve currency.” As long as oil continues to be denominated (mainly) in dollars, the dollar will remain the de facto international currency and western elites will maintain their role as the stewards of the global system. However, as America’s debts continue to mushroom, the US produces fewer manufactured goods, and the oil-producing countries become more hostile to Bush’s belligerent foreign policy, there’s a real chance the dollar will be abandoned as the main unit of foreign exchange. If this happens, then the $3 trillion that is currently held in central banks overseas will flood the US, triggering hyper-inflation and economic disaster.

The national debt is $8.5 trillion. Interest payments are the third largest expenditure after social security and medicare outlays (around $650 billion) and defense (war) spending (around $540 billion).  Eventually, especially if the dollar slides in value against other currencies, the euro or another Asian currency will look like a better repository for other countries' national reserves. Or they will prefer buying up US real estate or investing in US stocks to buying Treasury bonds. This is what was behind President Bush's threat to veto any bill disallowing the United Arab Emirates to buy up US ports. We can't afford to offend our bankers. They might not want to hold US dollars any more and then where would we be?

Last winter, much of the United States was figuratively up in arms over the prospect of an executive branch deal to permit Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), to operate U.S. port facilities. This was seen, with just reason, as a potentially disastrous breach of national security, since it would put our port security in the hands of a company owned by a government cozy with al-Qaeda. Yet less than six months later, Congress enacted a "free-trade" agreement with Oman — which borders Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE — that would permit government-controlled companies in that Arab nation to own and operate U.S. ports.

Kevin Phillips in "American Theocracy" writes about the financialization of the US. We have reached the point where the process of moving money around contributes more to the GDP than does manufacturing. Hedge funds have assumed a larger position in US financial affairs which leads to increased volatility in the stock markets.

Many of America’s fiscal troubles could have been mitigated by prudent management or judicious leadership, but that won’t change things now. The system is not in the control of the elected representatives and the deeply rooted problems are likely to persist until a calamitous event precipitates a fundamental change. The imbalances are now so humongous that everyone agrees that something has to give. The system is on its last legs as manifested by its increasing tendency to express itself in terms of repression at home and militarism abroad; the ominous signs of an injured beast in its death throes. From the cratering hedge funds, to the faltering dollar, to the fizzling housing bubble, western-style capitalism is in the advanced stages of collapse. Deregulation and liberalization have only hastened its decline. The mighty locomotive of global growth is slowly grinding to a standstill, bogged down by the accumulated weight of it own inconsistencies and inequities. Change is coming, for good or bad.

At the same time that the dollar is devaluing relative to the euro and trade and national deficits are mounting, the US real estate bubble fueled by low interest rates, deregulated adjustable rate mortgages and interest only loans is collapsing. American consumers, having become accustomed to refinancing their houses to support their lifestyles, are awakening to a new day of economic debt servitude especially after the bankruptcy laws have been strengthened at the banks' behest.

Some day US citizens will awaken to the fact that lowering taxes and reckless spending both on a personal and national level have done nothing except to achieve a state of penury for many if not all Americans. Deficits don't matter until they do.

Bush Not Staying Course: US Becoming an Irrelevancy in Iraq

Now that President Bush has announced that he will not stay the course in Iraq, the US role is being overtaken by events. The Iraqis are taking matters into their own hands, alright, but not in the way the Bush Administration had envisioned. The US troops on the ground are stretched to their limit. They cannot be everywhere at one time, and they cannot contain the violence. They are just sitting ducks. There is no coherent central government or military force that represents the Iraqi "people." Rather there are several Iraqi peoples all at war with each other. Neither the US or any military force in Iraq can contain the violence and provide security for the Iraqi people. Chaos and anarchy reign. The generals in the war room are just moving meaningless military units around on the map with all the efficacy of Hitler in his bunker moving non-existent German divisions, still trying to come up with a winning strategy. Finally, Hitler accepted the reality of losing but blamed it all on the German peoples' lack of drive to assert their Aryan superiority over the inferior undermensch. Will the neocons, similarly, blame the debacle in Iraq on the American peoples' unwillingness to "stay the course"?

A military solution was never possible in Iraq. Military minds are control freaks. We're going to do this and get this result. Then we'll do that and get that result. This is rational, left brain thinking. The only problem is that, when you have a dispersed bunch of antagonists, none of whom seem to do anything that make any sense, this type of rational, control freak thinking goes nowhere. All the US is doing now in Iraq is getting itself killed a few soldiers at a time. We're accomplishing nothing there; the situation would probably improve if we just "cut and run," but the egos of the military planners cannot live with this result: that we have accomplished nothing but to destabilize the middle East and strengthen the hand of Iran. So even though Bush has turned tail and will not stay the course after he has been "talking tough" with the American people for years telling them he's going to "stay the course" and "get the job done" even though "there's a lot of work to do" and "the situation is tough" but it's "worth it in the end," this is all only so much bullshit!

This is a fitting result for an administration that invaded a sovereign nation pre-emptively based on lies and deception and then conducted the war incompetently. Starting an unprovoked war, basing a military invasion on falsehoods and then operating from incompetence has accomplished nothing but to weaken the US, waste half a trillion dollars on military adventurism, besmirch our reputation with the rest of the world and hasten the day when our banker, China, will become the world's dominant power. By means of arrogance and hubris, the Bush Administration has singlehandedly done its utmost to reduce the US to the status of a third world nation. From superpower to third world status in one administration! Worse than winning, losing or cutting and running, the US has become an irrelevancy. Events are taking their course and the US with the mightiest military force in the world is powerless to do anything about it. When will the control freaks and neocon superpower egoists learn that they can't control everything that goes on in the world, and that we might better just mind our own business and try to get along with the rest of the world instead of trying to contol it? When are the American people going to wake up and realize that the Republicans have nothing to offer but fearmongering and turn the fearmongerers out of power?

Book Review: "Armed Madhouse" by Greg Palast

Greg Palast's book, "Armed Madhouse," is an eye opener since, although I was thoroughly convinced that the Bush Administration had plans for the ultimate disposition of Iraq's oil, I hardly suspected that there were two plans: Plan A and Plan B. Within a month of Bush's inauguration, the State Department and the National Security Council met in Walnut Creek, CA to plan the invasion of Iraq. The 323 page plan they came up with was like a coup: decapitate the Iraqi head of government, namely Sadam, and replace him with someone more suitable leaving everything else the same including the state owned oil ministry. This plan would only shut down Iraq for a few days, and then Iraq would open again for business. There would be no long, drawn-out occupation. Why did they want to get rid of Sadam? Sadam was jerking around the oil markets thereby interfering with OPEC and its self-designated control over world oil pricing. The troops would be in and out in 3 days. This plan was Colin Powell's baby. It's also what the Saudis and Big Oil, including ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, British Petroleum, Royal Dutch Shell and ChevronTexaco, wanted.

Shortly after 9/11, the neocons, based in the Defense Department with roots in Project for the New American Century (PNAC) which included Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Elliot Abrams and Dick Cheney, got into the act. They drafted Plan B which called for total war and a complete rewrite of Iraq's laws, regulations and policies affecting everthing especially the oil. This would not be a 3 day wham bam thank you maam but a lengthy occupation. Their 101-page confidential document spells out a complete make-over of Iraq's economy in accordance with the Chicago School's free market philosophy: tax breaks for the rich, putting all state owned assets, including banks, up for grabs to foreign investors, even new copyright laws protecting software and music!

Essentially the War in Iraq involved a shadow war between the Defense Department and the neocons on the one hand and the State Department, Big Oil, the Saudis and OPEC on the other. The neocons wanted to bust the Saudi-controlled OPEC cartel with their ability to control the worldwide price of oil thus making oil prices a function of the free market. The Saudis set quotas for each oil producing member country including Iraq and Iran thus controlling the price of oil worldwide. Since oil prices were set in dollars (oil had to be bought and sold in dollars), the US and Saudi Arabia were essentially in bed together. This was especially true of the Saudi royal family and the Bush family which have ties going way back. This makes it curious as to why Rumsfeld and the neocons prevailed at first in the invasion and the post-invasion occupation in which Jerry Bremer was installed as the "Emperor of Iraq." (By the way, Bremer was a friend of mine at Andover which also produced George W Bush.) Bremer, having worked for Kissinger & Associates, represented the neocons and started the process of auctioning off Iraqi assets to the highest bidders and tinkering with the Iraqi Constitution.

After about a year of this, President Cheney had a change of heart. He was split in his allegiance to the neocons and his allegiance to Big Oil. After all, Cheney, Condoleeza Rice and George W had all been oil executives. You might wonder why Big Oil would not want Iraqi oil assets auctioned off to them so that they could bust OPEC's stranglehold on oil pricing and so that they could make big bucks owning and controlling Iraqi oil and pumping and selling it at as great a rate as they could. The answer is that the price of oil is completely controlled by the Law of Supply and Demand. Pumping more oil does not result in greater profits. Pumping less oil and then jacking up the price of oil due to oil shortages results in greater profits. The same ruse was perpetrated by Enron in its quest to "screw little old ladies in California." Therefore, Big Oil is completely happy to have OPEC and the Saudis essentially keep the supply down and prices up. If everyone was free to pump as much oil as they wanted, there would be a resultant glut, prices would fall and profits would diminish. We've seen how limited supplies of oil and recent record high prices have resulted in insanely high oil company profits. So effectively, Big Oil's interests are the same as OPEC's interests. While a cartel among oil companies is illegal, a cartel among nations such as OPEC is not. They act as the world governing body for setting production quotas and hence oil prices and profits.

Dick Cheney, with his allegiance split between the neocons and Big Oil, finally woke up one day and decided Bremer and the neocons had to go. At that point the neocon plan to turn Iraq into a "coaling station" was out and the State Department's Plan A, which kept the state owned oil company (with heavy participation by Big Oil) intact, went into effect. The only problem was that the US was starting to lose control of the entire situation in Iraq so it didn't make much difference whose plan for control of Iraqi oil assets was operative. However, the battle between the State Department and Big Oil and the Saudis on the one hand and the Defense Department and the neocons on the other rages on even as the war in Iraq rages on. It's anyone's guess as to what the final outcome will be. But it seems clear that it's in the interests of the Iraqis to be a docile and compliant member of OPEC, and, if and when they regain control of their economy, to kick Big Oil out of Iraq altogether.  Meanwhile, there are other forces at play in the world such as oil producers Venezuela's and Iran's antipathy to the US and China's increased demand for oil which could throw OPEC out of kilter and undermine Saudi control of world oil pricing. If and when oil can be bought and sold in euros or some other major currency, the US will not be able to count on an unlimited credit card limit with which to run interminable budget deficits and fight interminable wars without raising taxes.

The US Can Satisfy All Its Energy Needs Without Buying Any Foreign Oil

The US has a domestic supply of energy in the form of coal equal to all the known oil reserves in the middle east. So why are we depending on oil for our energy? Big corporate interests want us to buy oil not coal. Coal is a lot cheaper than oil. Already, half the electricity generating plants are powered by coal. The technology is emerging for coal fired electricity producing plants to be pollution free, and electric car technology is already here. That means that, in addition to all out household and industrial electricity consumption needs, all our transportation needs can be powered by electricity ultimately produced from coal.

America has more thaan 274 billion tons of coal reserves - a 250 year supply based on current usage levels. That's 29 times the known US reserves of natural gas and 54 times the known US reserves of oil. The use of coal to generate electricity in the US rose by over 188% between 1970 and 2003, and government experts predict that the use of electricity from coal will rise by another 25% by 2020. The US produces more than 1 billion tons of coal each year or about 35% of the world's coal supply - more than any other country. Wyoming is the state that produces the most coal (about 390 million tons in 2004), and Montana has the largest reserves (about 120 billion tons).

Another reason to make coal the US' primary energy source is that it's more affordable than other sources of energy including oil. Energy costs place the highest burden on low and middle income families. In 2005 families earning less than $10K spent 48% of their income on energy costs. Families earning $10K to $30K spent 17% while families earning over $50K spent only 5%. Costs for household energy use have risen much slower than costs for transportation due largely to the fact that over half the electricity produced comes from coal which is relatively cheap compared to oil. While household energy costs due to electricity use increased 12% from 2000 to 2005, energy costs due to fuel oil increased 67%. Similarly, business energy costs will be reduced by a greater usage of electricity produced from coal resulting in increased competitiveness and more jobs.

In the early 70s the Federal Congress passed the first Clean Air Act. Since then pollutants from coal based power plants have been reduced by 35% while electricty produced from coal has been increased 180%. Technological improvements in the generation of electricity from coal will result in the first pollutant free coal based electricity generating plant by 2012. These plants will produce hydrogen as a by-product which can then be used for hydrogen powered vehicles and will completely contain carbon dioxide which is the main greenhouse gas.

FutureGen is an initiative to build the world's first integrated sequestration and hydrogen production research power plant. The $1 billion dollar project is intended to create the world's first zero-emissions fossil fuel plant. When operational, the prototype will be the cleanest fossil fuel fired power plant in the world. The initiative is a response to President Bush's directive to draw upon the best scientific research to address the issue of global climate change. The production of hydrogen will support the President's call to create a hydrogen economy and fuel pollution free vehicles; and the use of coal will help ensure America's energy security by developing technologies that utilize a plentiful domestic resource. Additionally, other countries will be joining the U.S. to participate in the project. The prototype plant will establish the technical and economic feasibility of producing electricity and hydrogen from coal (the lowest cost and most abundant domestic energy resource), while capturing and sequestering the carbon dioxide generated in the process. The initiative will be a government/industry partnership to pursue an innovative 'showcase' project focused on the design, construction and operation of a technically cutting-edge power plant that is intended to eliminate environmental concerns associated with coal utilization. This will be a 'living prototype' with future technology innovations incorporated into the design as needed. The project will employ coal gasification technology integrated with combined cycle electricity generation and the sequestration of carbon dioxide emissions. The project will be supported by the ongoing coal research program, which will also be the principal source of technology for the prototype. The project will require 10 years to complete and will be led by the FutureGen Industrial Alliance, Inc., a non-profit  industrial consortium representing the coal and power industries, with the project results being shared among all participants, and industry as a whole.

The technology to use coal to produce a substitute for natural gas and fuel for jet planes exists today. By 2025 all coal powered electricity generating plants could be converted to ultra -low near zero emissions.

The US path to the future is clear: more dependence on cheaper coal based electricity for household, business and transportation use, less dependence on more expensive and less reliable foreign oil. The question is: will we have the political leadership and collective will to implement a rational future for America or will we continue to be governed by politicians who are only concerned about catering to corporate interests in return for campaign contributions and lobbying jobs.