Debía tener 6 ó 7 años, cuando escuché la historia de Shōgun por primera vez. Mi padre nos la contaba por las mañanas, en el trayecto hasta el colegio, al ritmo al que él se leía el libro. Durante semanas cambiamos la saga de los porretas, por una historia sobre Japón.
Desde entonces, siempre que veía el libro por casa, me daban ganas de leerlo, pero nunca sacaba el tiempo para las casi mil páginas en edición de bolsillo de los años 70.
Este Agosto decidí que era el momento, y el pasado fin de semana lo terminé de leer. Es una historia apasionante, que se desarrolla en el Japón del 1.600. Muestra el choque cultural Oriente-Occidente, representado a Occidente en el Japón de entonces, portugueses de la orden jesuita, quienes habían establecido el comercio entre China y Japón, para mayor gloria y beneficio del reino de Portugal y la iglesia católica, hasta que entra en juego un barco holandés, capitaneado por un inglés reformista.
Es un libro de intrigas políticas y de poder en una sociedad medieval, gobernada por los señores feudales y de la guerra, los daimíos y sus samurais, cuya máxima es el honor.
Una guerra en ciernes se despliega a lo largo del libro, como si de una partida de ajedrez se tratase, en la que los protagonistas tienen su papel, su lugar en el tablero de juego, y uno de los dos reyes, termina haciendo jaque mate a su oponente, con una maestría y una estrategia que a veces es difícil seguir.
A la cultura milenaria de China y Japón, más avanzada en muchos aspectos que la occidental en aquella época, le faltó el dominio de los mares y la creación de las armas de fuego, para ser Oriente quien descubriese y «civilizase» a Occidente.
¿Cómo sería hoy nuestro globalizado planeta, si hubiese ocurrido así?
PD. El autor es James Clavell, quien además de grandes best sellers como Shōgun, fue guionista de películas muy conocidas, entre ellas La Mosca y La Gran Evasión.
Aunque es un poco largo, y está en inglés, incluyo un post del blog Get Energy Smart Now, que me ha gustado mucho.
——-
My name is … and I’m a Petro-holic
November 13th, 2008
Hello.
My name is X and I am a Petro-Holic, a Carbo-Holic. My last fillup was 9 gallons three days ago. My last plane flight was 24 hours ago for 2500 miles. And, my last light switch turning on was 2 hours ago. My name is X and I am a Petro-Holic.
[PAUSE]]
My name is X and I am Energy Illiterate. I cannot stand here and tell you the power measurement difference between a BtU and a KwH, the difference between Appalachian coal and Wyoming coal, or the carbon footprint of the newspaper that I read this morning. Even though I have been spending most of productive hours on energy issues for the past four years, my name is X and I am Energy Illiterate.
[PAUSE]
My name is X and I suffer from Short-Termitis. Like most Americans, I believe in Benjamin Franklin: A penny saved is a penny earned. When I go to fulfill my shopping needs, my eyes gravitate to the “bargain” of 99 cents. When I see an incandescent bulb for 25 cents sitting next to a compact fluorescent bulb for two dollars & 50 cents, even though I know better, my natural inclination is to grab that incandescent
which “costs” ninety percent less. That is, it costs less to buy even though it costs far more to own. My name is X and I suffer from Short-Termitis.
[PAUSE]
My name is X and I am afflicted with Stove-Pipeitis. My emotions can rise to enthusiasm
when faced with a great new solar product, a vision for electrifying all personal vehicles
being executed by Better Place, or a concept for algae-based fuel. My time can be caught up working with one set of problems within one organization, even as the challenge is multi-faceted and multi- organizational. My name is X and I am afflicted with Stove-Pipeitis.
[PAUSE]
I’m X. I am afflicted but I am not alone. 300 millon Americans share my affiliations.
[PAUSE]
You … I … We face a very serious challenge. In fact, just that is indicative of the problem
as we do not face a challenge but an interacting set of challenges.
We are facing a Perfect Storm of, at least, the interaction of Fiscal Crisis, Peak Oil, and Catastrophic Climate Change. We can find solutions to each of these but “the” solution to one might aggravate or inhibit solving others. We must work to find a systems-of-systems solution set that will help us, all of the US and all of us around the globe, navigate this Perfect Storm to a Prosperous, Climate-Friendly Society.
The risks and implications of the financial, energy, and climate change perfect storm almost cannot be overstated.
To deal with this set of challenges, we must transform our energy system and that doesn’t mean “Drill, Baby, Drill“.
To deal with this set of challenges, we must determine a path toward functional energy literacy for all American decision-makers on energy issues – which means all of us.
To deal with this set of challenges, we must find a path to change human nature from discounting the future in favor of the present and to end our borrowing from tomorrow to live today.
To deal with this set of challenges, we must find ways to move beyond stove-piped, single-point solution thinking to striving to understand systems-of-systems interactions and implications.
To deal with this set of challenges, we must change ourselves and our society.
[PAUSE]]
And we must do this now. Our survival depends on it.
[PAUSE]
Almost every day, there are new revelations and data highlighting the seriousness of our situation when it comes to global finance, energy, and accelerating catastrophic climate change.
Almost every day, there are seemingly magical announcements of some form of technological Silver Bullet that, hold your breath, will solve all our problems.
Let us be clear, however, that there is no such thing as a single technological Silver Bullet
when it comes to these challenges. If we are going to navigate a path forward, it will be with a series of Silver BBs, each contributing in some way to moving us forward to a more sensible and sustainable future.
Some of these Silver BBs will be technological.
Some will be policy driven.
Some will derived from financial opportunities.
There are many paths that will provide Silver BBs.
But, we will not succeed if we do not have social change.
[PAUSE]
As you well know, social change, is not something that typically occurs overnight. Consider this, we are about to have a black man go into the Oval Office.
And, not as a butler.
Did the social change that enabled that begin with the Emancipation Proclamation? Brown versus Board of Education? Colin Powell as National Security Advisor? No matter your starting point, that change certainly did not happen right away.
And, when it comes to the social change necessary for navigating this perfect storm,
we are speaking of a societal change easily of the same degrees of complexity and, in many ways, much more difficult.
And, the dismaying financial turmoil and the terrifying realities of Climate Change and implications of Peak Oil (and other peak resources) dictate that we DO NOT HAVE 150 years to make this change.
[PAUSE]
During the four years of the Bush administration, energy was not a topic that could be discussed in the halls of the Pentagon. “Energy” was OWNED by VP Cheney. It was clearly understood, when the Chief of staff of the army’s replacement was announced a year in advance. He had just spoken the truth to Congress on the numbers that would be needed in Iraq.
All of this is prelude to something to spark, I hope, a conversation as to how we can foster this social change and speed it along. Certainly, while not a welcome factor, four-dollar-a-gallon gasoline showed itself to be a motivational factor for changed behavior and increased energy literacy. For some, an Oscar-winning documentary of someone giving a slide presentation proved a motivational factor for changed behavior and increased climate impact literacy. And, a Presidential candidate, President-Elect, and President making “green jobs” and smarter energy behaviors a central point of his discussion and policies for moving the nation forward will be a motivational factor for changed behavior and spark a reduction in the nation’s energy and climate illiteracy rates.
For my part, starting almost four years ago, I have been in the nexus of a group that has sought, in our way, to help foster and hasten societal change when it comes to energy issues.
Working primarily, but far from solely, with the Department of Defense, a diverse group of government officials and screen writers, industry business developers and think tank intellectuals, energy professionals and environmental activists began a series of informal and private soiree discussions which formalized into a non-profit called The Energy Consensus. We bring in speakers and experts into our homes, striving to reduce our individual and group energy illiteracy. We strive to bring cross-discipline, inter-organizational perspectives into the discussions, seeking to find ways of interacting across traditional stove-pipes in identifying problems and potential solution paths. We have people who are working together on innovative technologies. Others striving to develop children’s books. Others fostering interacting on new ways of explaining and exploring challenges that we face.
As part of the group, we have about 150 people involved in a listserve discussion
which has, at times, had influence on government discussion. For example, one of our members, the screenwriter Nora Maccoby, had an engaging conversation with then Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld at a party on Dec 14th, 2005. Rumsfeld asked her to come back to see him. That evening Rumsfeld sent his first snowflake about energy
to his Deputy and two under secretaries asking what was the Department of Defense doing about energy conSERvation and was energy in the quadrennial defense review. (A report required by congress every four years, to look into the future.)
Nora called to tell me about her invitation from the Secretary and I suggested
that we ought to figure out what she might want to say and if she wanted to take anyone with her on this call. So I sent an email to our list with the question, “if you had 15 minutes with the SecDef, what would you want to tell him about energy?”
With in 48 hours I had received a rich, diverse, and impassioned set of suggestions. When put all together, it was 15 pages single spaced.. Someone within the list, working at a high level in the Defense Department, took the suggestions and sent them out to his email list saying, “this is important. We need to do something about it.”
To show an example of how complex causalities can be, The New York Post reported that Nora’s encounter with Rumsfeld and the discussion material from our group sparked a discussion leading to the inclusion in President Bush’s 2006 State of the union speech of the words. “we have a problem, the nation is addicted to oil.” Once the President made energy a subject the rest of us could talk about, many things started to happen.
In short order a Defense Science Board on Energy Security was announced to look at energy and national security. And other things happened within the Office of the Secretary of Defense on energy policy issues that have helped moved the Department toward more sensible energy policies even under the Bush-Cheney Administration.
Beyond the Energy Consensus, is the Energy Conversation, a monthly lecture series funded by the Defense Department and now sponsored by or partnered with 26 different Federal departments and agencies. We cover the waterfront of issues with speakers like Amory Lovins, Jim Woolsey, Walmart executives, Lester Brown, Better Place, and a host of other people for engagement in a diverse discussion space of the interacting and integrated challenges of energy, water, catastrophic climate change, and otherwise. Now, we strive not to end with this as a passive lecture.
It is a Conversation.
Our motto is :
“Listen. Learn. Connect. Share. Collaborate.”
The Energy Conversation serves as a catalyst for creating a collaborative, safe space to build a networked community of Energy Smart advocates to inform, educate and communicate with each other, their families, their home institutions, with the American people on how to build a sustainable energy future.
Let me be honest, I’m a name-tag maniac. I do not think that we can overestimate the value of name tags in LARGE readable print in meeting environments for breaking the ice and facilitating discussion. Of as much, or even more value as the presentations are the conversations and connections created through the round-tables and discussions that are sparked before, during, and after the presentations.
I know that it has been a good session when there are business cards being passed
around and, when walking by groups, I hear “I am so glad that we met.” I believe that we are achieving something when I get feedback from people who say, they would never had met these folks and never had a chance to collaborate on some new project without
the environment of the Energy Conversation.
We will not navigate our way through the Perfect Storm with business as usual. Technology will provide us some Silver BBs. Financial mechanisms can assist with Silver BBs. Government Policy and better energy standards are critical for enabling and fostering Silver BBs and their implementation. Political change is critical to enabling navigating a safe path. But, we must find our way to social
and cultural change as well.
The Energy Consensus and Energy Conversation won’t solve our energy challenges,
won’t turn back the tides of Global Warming’s rising seas. They are not, somehow, a magical Silver Bullet. But efforts like these, which strive to put people together, to inform, to break stove-pipes, to create environments where innovative solutions might emerge and find paths for implementation could represent a tool for hastening necessary social and cultural changes.
But, the challenges are not to be dismissed or discounted. The risks we face in this Perfect Storm cannot be overstated.
Let me be clear,I am spending the last years of my life dedicated to helping provide solution paths rather than enjoying pina coladas at the beach. My survival is likely not at stake, but your future prospects and the prospects for my, your, our children; for my, your, our grandchildren certainly are. And, the fact is – that those prospects will be brightened if we can speed the necessary social and cultural changes.
(Pause)
My name is X. I am a Petro-Holic. But I know people who are helping me and others fight our addiction.
My name is X. I am Energy Illiterate. But I know people who are helping me and others achieve literacy.
My name is X. I suffer from Short-Termitis. But, people are helping me and others see the long-term and work toward it.
My name is X and I am afflicted with Stove-Pipeitis. But, people are working with me and others to make the connections and break through the pipes.
My name is X. I am a connector. And, connecting people, organizations, and institutions is my role in helping to foster and hasten the social and cultural changes that will enable us to move toward a prosperous and climate-friendly future.
Esta semana se han publicado varios informes sobre medioambiente. Los datos sobre el crecimiento de las emisiones de CO2 y el impacto que la situación financiera mundial tendrá sobre las políticas medioambientales y los precios de la energía, son los principales temas tratados. Además está la campaña norteamericana a la presidencia, en la que tanto McCain como Obama, han puesto especial énfasis en su política medioambiental, como punto clave para convencer a los últimos indecisos o intentar conseguir adeptos allí donde no los tienen.
De los informes y noticias varias que me he leído esta semana, de lo mejorcito, ha sido un informe de McKinsey (Fueling Sustainable Development) y otro de Deustche Bank (Necessity and Opportunity in Turbulent times). En ambos se aborda cuál será el futuro de las políticas verdes en una etapa de recesión económica mundial, que por ella misma está consiguiendo disminuir la demanda energética, y más en concreto la demanda de petróleo. Ambos informes ven una oportunidad clara en la inversión en energías verdes (renovables y eficiencia energética) como vía para activar la economía mundial, y más en concreto de los países desarrollados y generar puestos de trabajo que palien el creciente paro y permitan una reconversión de los puestos que cubre hoy en día la industria del petróleo y sus derivados.
Los dos informes, de una forma o de otra, recomiendan a los gobiernos gravar las emisiones de CO2 y crear un marco regulatorio que incentive el desarrollo de la eficiencia energética, el ahorro de energía y las inversiones en energía verde, a sabiendas de que esto encarecerá la energía en un momento de crisis mundial, y que habrá familias que no puedan acometer este incremento en la energía. Aun así los informes indican, que el gravar las emisiones, creará un entorno favorable a la inversión en investigación de nuevas tecnologías de eficiencia energética y fuentes alternativas de energía, que permitirá en el futuro superar la actual dependencia energética de los recursos fósiles y combatir el cambio climático.
Por otra parte muchas petroleras anuncian, que no serán capaces de mantener su nivel de producción en el 2009 (especialmente las de Reino Unido), y la OPEP ha anunciado ya recortes de producción en el 2009. Si la demanda se mantiene en niveles bajos, el recorte en producción no debería afectar a los precios, pero todo indica que la reducción en la producción será lo suficientemente importante, como para que el precio del petróleo vuelva a subir, a pesar de que esta semana pasada, después de un inicio de semana con subidas en el mercado de futuros del petróleo, terminó con bajadas que dejaron el precio del barril en los 60$.
Estamos en un camino sin retorno. Los recursos fósiles se agotan (no entro en el informe que también ha salido esta semana, «The Oil Crunch: Securing the UK’s energy future» del UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil & Energy Security, con tintes claramente pesimistas pero muy realistas) y el modelo energético que ha permitido la revolución industrial y tecnológica del siglo XX, está llegando a su fin. Si el mundo no consigue superar su dependencia de los recursos fósiles, viviremos una recesión no sólo económica sino de nuestro estilo de vida. El petróleo no va a desparecer de la noche a la mañana, pero si no hay sustituto, habrá escasez, y aquellos que tengan las reservas, tendrán el poder.
Además, al proceso de agotamiento de los recursos fósiles, debemos unir el del cambio climático. Según Deustche Bank, en 2008 hemos alcanzado los mismos niveles de CO2 en la atmósfera que hace al menos 800.000 años (nos remontamos al pleistoceno). La polémica sobre si el cambio climático es o no cierto, parece que ha sido ya superada, y que la situación actual y la proyección para los próximos años, es peor, que los escenarios más negativos que se planteaban hace tan sólo cinco años. Los motivos:
Crecimiento más rápido del previsto en las emisiones de CO2, debido a la fuerte demanda energética de los últimos años.
Deforestación progresiva de la superficie forestal, en aras de la explotación maderera, la reconversión de masas de bosque a tierras de cultivo, la especulación y el crecimiento demográfico.
Tenemos que salir de la espiral en la que que estamos, y para ello tenemos que cambiar alguno de los factores que nos han traído hasta aquí.
Debemos disminuir nuestro consumo de energía y hacer un uso más eficiente de ésta, lo que muchos llaman ya «la cuarta fuente de energía» (fósiles, renovables, nuclear y eficiencia)
Debemos superar la dependencia de los recursos fósiles con nuevas energías renovables y limpias e invertir en «cleantech»
Debemos eliminar cualquier fuente de energía que pueda suponer un perjuicio adicional, a los países en vías de desarrollo, como es el caso de los biocombustibles y el impacto al alza de los precios de alimentos básicos que ha supuesto en los últimos años….
… y muchos otros puntos, que aunque relacionados, no están 100% vinculados al tema de esta entrada y que intentaré tratar en otras entradas, de otros Domingos en los que tenga tiempo.
Noche de Halloween de cine, pero no una de miedo, sino una comedia que me encantó.
Aparte de que era un enredo que rallaba en la caricatura y de quiénes eran sus actores y directores, no sabía mucho más de la película.
La historia la resumiría en una frase del jefe de la CIA al final de la película: «Joder, un lío de cojones«. Después de un comienzo relativamente serio y formal en el que se van perfilando los personajes y el quién es quién en la trama, el argumento sufre un cambio radical a consecuencia de un hallazgo sin importancia, pero que a raíz de la obsesión y falta de buen juicio de los personajes, convierte su vida y la muerte de algunos, en un juego de enredo, divertido, pero que refleja esteoreotipos de vidas vacías, carentes de motivación y llenas de insatisfacción.
Para mí lo mejor de la película son sus personajes. El que más me gusto: Malkovich (reconozco que siento una clara predilección por él, que aumentó aun más después de ver la película de Being John Malkovich) que borda el histrionismo de su papel, después Clooney, con sus engaños obsesivos, y su frase de «tengo que irme a correr«, los dos papeles femeninos están muy a la par, Tilda Swinion (la de los pesticidas en Michael Clayton), que a base de verla hacer de mala, uno termina creyéndose que es un bicho, y Frances McDormand (la de Fargo), que a base de insistir, es la única que se sale con la suya en todo este embrollo. Por último Brad Pitt, que a pesar de que con este papel, dicen que se ha descubierto un nuevo gran cómico, a mi no me terminó de convencer.
Aparte de los personajes principales, me llamó muchísimo la atención el abogado de Katie, del que me fui pensando, que o era un abogado matrimonialista de verdad o un pedazo de actor.
Es una película divertida, fresca e irónica, que como dice la coletilla del título, demuestra que la inteligencia, como casi todo en esta vida, es relativa (en las personas y en las instituciones).
Este vídeo es de este verano. Está grabado en la isla del Aire, en las galerías de Cagaire y la verdad es que en este tipo de inmersiones se echa de menos la antorcha. Hay que hacer un auténtico ejercicio de flotabilidad para grabar, iluminar al punto de grabación con tu propio foco, y no dejar que la corriente te arrastre al fondo de la galería. Además con esa cara de pocos amigos que tienen las morenas, cuando las estás grabando y amagan a salir de su guarida, acojona un poquito, y eso que sé que si no se sienten amenazadas no atacan a un bicho mucho más grande que ellas.
Hace unos años, el fondo de la costa de Menorca estaba lleno de rayas como ésta. Incluso en las playas se podían ver muchas, simplemente con las gafas y el tubo. Ahora es un privilegio ver una en una inmersión, y ésta en cuanto nos vió de lejos, se marchó todo lo rápido que pudo. En aquella inmersión bajaba con un canario que la llamó chucho, pero me parece que el chucho canario es otra especie de raya diferente, más ancha y con la cola terminada de otra forma.
Al final esta vídeo me ha quedado muy corto. Bajo sin antorcha y el pulpo lo encontramos en una cueva. Al principio estaba grabando sólo con mi foco, y hasta que no llegaron refuerzos y me dieron un poco más de luz, el vídeo muestra sólo un pequeño círculo iluminado de las patas, cabeza y de cómo avanza el pulpo. En el tramo final (el que he subido), a pesar de que sigue oscuro, por lo menos, vemos al personaje casi al completo.
George Soros es un personaje controvertido, pero si algo se le reconoce, es su amplio conocimiento de los mercados financieros y su capacidad para adaptarse a los nuevos tiempos y ganar dinero con nuevas oportunidades de negocio.
El pasado Viernes, Bill Moyers le entrevistó, y aun a tenor de aburriros voy a poner los tres vídeos con la entrevista completa y para los que prefieran leerla, su transcripción íntegra.
La entrevista merece la pena para entender la crisis financiera en la que estamos inmersos y la crisis del modelo que ha reinado en los últimos 25 años. Los retos que tenemos por delante y una visión, la de Soros, de cómo deberíamos afrontarlos.
Transcripción
October 10, 2008
BILL MOYERS:Welcome to the Journal.
You are not alone if you are worried about the financial melt down. So is my guest George Soros, one of the world’s best known and successful investors, making billions in times of boom or bust. He’s been warning for years of a financial melt down fueled by easy credit and sleepy regulation. Now he’s out with this timely book, «The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means.»
In the interest of full disclosure, you should know that I served three years on the board of George Soros’ foundation, the Open Society Institute, dealing with such issues as a free press, the rule of law, and human rights. But I’ve had no involvement in his political activities and nothing to do, with his business interests unfortunately. It’s good to see you.
GEORGE SOROS:Same here.
BILL MOYERS:Let’s imagine for a moment that we’re not in a New York studio but we are in Neely’s Barbecue Stand in Marshall, Texas, my hometown, and we’re surrounded by people I know, people who have lost half of their 401(k)s in the last three or four weeks, and what they want to know is does this financial meltdown represent the end of the American dream as they have known it.
GEORGE SOROS:No. No. I think it’s got nothing to do with the American dream as such. There has been some kind of an ideological excess; namely, market fundamentalism for the last 25 or so years. And now that world is collapsing…
BILL MOYERS:What do you mean «market fundamentalism»?
GEORGE SOROS:It’s that markets will correct themselves, that you should leave it to the markets, and there is no need for government intervention in financial affairs. Letting markets run rampant. And that doesn’t work.
Markets have the ability to adjust and they’re very flexible. There is this invisible hand. But it is also prone to be mistaken. In other words, markets instead are reflecting reality. They always look at reality with a bias. There is always a prevailing bias. I’ll call it, you know, optimism/pessimism.
And sometimes those moods actually can reinforce themselves so that there are these initially self-reinforcing but eventually unsustainable and self-defeating boom/bust sequences or bubbles. And this is what has happened now.
This current economic disaster is self-generated. It was generated by the market itself, by getting too cocky, using leverage too much, too much credit. And it got excessive.
BILL MOYERS:You used the word «disaster.»
GEORGE SOROS:The financial system is teetering on the edge of disaster. Hopefully, it will not go over the brink because it very rarely does. It only did in the 1930s. Since then, whenever you had a financial crisis, you were able to resolve it. This is the most serious one since the 1930s, there hasn’t been one as serious as this.
Unfortunately, the authorities are behind the curve. They are reacting to these crises as they emerge. One thing leads to another, one market after another gets into difficulty. And they react to it. And they don’t quite understand what’s hitting them. So they are not anticipating and not gaining control of the situation.
BILL MOYERS:This is what’s interesting, why wouldn’t the government be able to look at what you looked at and see what’s coming?
GEORGE SOROS:Because actually they have been working on false premises. This sounds very strange, but there’s been this development of, this belief of market fundamentalism. And particularly the idea that markets always revert to the mean and deviations from the mean occur in a random fashion. And you can calculate it.
And you will get a nice distribution and you can anticipate it. And based on that, you can manage your risk. And that actually was based on a false idea. This namely, the markets self-correcting because the market moods have a way of affecting the fundamentals the markets are supposed to reflect.
And there’s always a divergence between our perception and what actually exists. For instance, take the simplest situation, namely housing.
Banks give you credit based on the value of the houses. But they don’t seem to somehow understand that the value of the houses can be affected by the amount of credit they are willing to give. Now, we’ve developed these fabulous new ways of securitizing mortgages, which has made credit much more amply available.
And we’ve been able to calculate risk. And, therefore, we were willing to give more and more credit. And that has pushed up the value of the houses. Also, of course Greenspan kept interest rates too low, too long. And so you had very low interest rates, easy credit, and house prices have been appreciating at more than ten percent a year for a number of years. And the willingness to lend actually increased. There was an insatiable appetite for these new fangled securities.
BILL MOYERS:Yeah. Nobody understood, really.
GEORGE SOROS:Which they didn’t properly understand. And there was always a separation between the people who generated the mortgages and packaged them and sold them to you and the people who owned them. So nobody was paying attention to the quality of the mortgages because they didn’t have an interest. They — all day collecting fees. And then there were other people holding the mortgages.
BILL MOYERS:Right.
GEORGE SOROS:And that was not factored into those instruments. The idea was that by distributing risk, you actually reduce risk. But by separating the principal from the agent, you actually greatly increase the risk. And that was not reflected. And the rating agencies didn’t realize it. So they gave triple-A ratings. And then a few weeks later, those triple-A bonds became practically valueless. And that’s what has happened.
BILL MOYERS:But how does the system become deranged like that? So separated from reality like an individual who goes insane because he or she is separated.
GEORGE SOROS:Well sometimes we get carried away. I mean, you know, let’s say in the Middle Ages, people were religious. And so they had tremendous discussions about how many angels can dance on the eye of a needle. Now, if you believe that angels can dance then that’s a legitimate question. And this is exactly what has happened here. You thought that you could slice and dice and engage in this kind of financial engineering. And it became very, very sophisticated and got carried away.
BILL MOYERS:What happened that we lost control?
GEORGE SOROS:There was a failure of regulations because they couldn’t understand these new instruments. But they said, «Oh, well, the banks have very good risk management techniques. So we leave it to them to calculate their own risks.»
And, you see, it wasn’t only in the housing market. There were all kinds of other financial instruments. So there was not just one bubble. I describe in my book there is the housing bubble. But this housing bubble, when that burst, it was only the detonator that exploded the bigger bubble, the super bubble.
Which is this 25 years of constant credit expansion using greater and greater leverage. The amount of credit in the economy has been growing at, I don’t know, I don’t know the exact figure, but maybe at least twice as fast as the economy itself. I think it’s more like three.
And now, suddenly, you have a contraction of credit. And it’s a sudden thing. And it’s a period of great wealth destruction. And that’s how these poor people in Texas suddenly find that their 401(k) is worthless.
BILL MOYERS:So as we talk, Secretary Paulson and the government seem to be coming around to what you’ve been advocating and that is taking taxpayer money, public capital, and injecting it directly into the banks — in effect, nationalizing some of these banks. Why do you think that will work when everything else has failed?
GEORGE SOROS:Well unfortunately because they are delaying it, it may not work so well because there’s a certain dynamism. And they’re always behind the curve. So there are many things that they’re doing now if they had done several months ago, it would have turned things around.
BILL MOYERS:That’s a very gloomy assessment. You’re saying that everything they’re doing is coming too late? How does that ultimately play out?
GEORGE SOROS:Unfortunately, that is the case. I’m quite distressed about it. I hope that you know, eventually they’ll catch up.
We are determined to put the money in, not to allow the financial system to collapse. And that’s the lesson we learned in the 1930s. It’s an important lesson. But because we are behind the curve, the amounts get bigger and bigger. If we understood it earlier, we could have brought it to a halt perhaps sooner. But they’ve got still a number of things to do. And this idea, you see, of just buying noxious instruments of you know, off the balance sheet of the banks was a non-starter.
BILL MOYERS:But that was the idea.
GEORGE SOROS:But it was the wrong idea.
BILL MOYERS:But this is disturbing, George. If everything we’re doing keeps accelerating the downward negative feedback and isn’t working, are you suggesting, can one insinuate from what you say that we’re heading for 1930?
GEORGE SOROS:Hopefully not. But we are heading for undoubtedly very difficult times. This is the end of an era. And this is a fact.
BILL MOYERS:End of an era?
GEORGE SOROS:At the end of an era.
BILL MOYERS:Capitalism as we have known it?
GEORGE SOROS:No. No, no, no. Hopefully, capitalism will survive. But the sort of period where America could actually, for instance, run ever increasing current account deficits. We could consume, at the end, six and a half percent more than we are producing. That has come to an end.
BILL MOYERS:So what do we do now?
GEORGE SOROS:We are probably at the height of the financial crisis. I think it can’t get much worse. I think it could get a bit worse yet. But then you have the fallout in the real economy.
BILL MOYERS:We’re in a downward spiral.
GEORGE SOROS:We are in a downward spiral.
BILL MOYERS:How long will it go on?
GEORGE SOROS:Look the one thing that my theory says is that you can’t predict the future because the future depends on how you react to it. So if we do the right things then things will not — will be less painful. If you do the wrong things, they’ll be more painful. Now, so far we’ve been doing the wrong things. I very much hope that we’ll have a different government in a few months and they’ll be doing the right things.
BILL MOYERS:Well, don’t be shy. What do you think the new government should do?
GEORGE SOROS:Well, first of all you have to prevent housing crisis from overshooting on the downside the way they overshot on the upside. You can’t arrest the decline, but you can definitely slow it down by minimizing the number of foreclosures and readjusting the mortgages to reflect the ability of people to pay. So you have to renegotiate mortgages rather than foreclose.
And you provide the government guarantee. But the loss has to be taken by those who hold the mortgages, not by the taxpayer.
BILL MOYERS:You mean the homeowner doesn’t take the loss. The lender.
GEORGE SOROS:The homeowner needs to get relief so that he pays less because he can’t afford to pay. And the value of the mortgage should not exceed the value of the house. Right now you already have 10 million homes where you have negative equity. And before you are over, it will be more than 20 million.
BILL MOYERS:But, you’re talking about taking action three months from now, whether it’s a McCain administration or an Obama administration. What happens in these next three months? And I’m serious about that.
GEORGE SOROS:I am very worried about it. And I hope that they will have a new secretary of treasury, somebody else.
BILL MOYERS:Sooner than later?
GEORGE SOROS:I…
BILL MOYERS:You don’t think…
GEORGE SOROS:It would be very helpful if…
BILL MOYERS:You don’t think Paulson’s up to it?
GEORGE SOROS:Unfortunately, I have a negative view of his performance.
BILL MOYERS:Why?
GEORGE SOROS:Because he represents the very kind of financial engineering that has gotten us into the trouble. And this buying off the noxious things was a…
BILL MOYERS:Buying the bad assets, that was his…
GEORGE SOROS:Yeah.
BILL MOYERS:First idea.
GEORGE SOROS:Yeah, and before that, he wanted to create a super SIV, special investment vehicle, to take care of the other special investment vehicles. That didn’t fly. And they are now within a week recognizing that they have to change and inject money into the banks to make up for the whole in the equity because those banks lost money. And they can’t make it up by taking their assets off their hands. You have to recognize the losses and replenish the equity.
BILL MOYERS:Is that what you would do with the bailout money now? Right now?
GEORGE SOROS:Yes, yes, yeah.
BILL MOYERS:You would put it where?
GEORGE SOROS:Into the capital of the bank so that the capital equity can sustain at least 12 times the amount of lending. So that’s an obvious thing. And every economist agrees with this.
You see, what is needed now the bank examiners know how those banks stand. And they can say how much capital they need. And they could then raise that capital from the private market. Or they could turn to this new organization and get the money from there. That would dilute the shareholders. It would hurt the shareholders.
BILL MOYERS:Of the bank?
GEORGE SOROS:Of the banks. Which I think Paulson wanted to avoid. He didn’t want to go there. But it has to be done. But then, the shareholders could be offered the right to provide the new capital. If they provide the new capital then there’s no dilution. And the rights could be traded. So if they don’t have the money, other people could, the private sector could put in the money. And if the private sector is not willing to do it then the government does it.
BILL MOYERS:The assumption of everything you say is that the government is going to be a big player now in the economy and in the financial markets. But what assurance do we have that the government will do a better job?
GEORGE SOROS:We don’t. Right now they are doing a bad job. So you want to use the government as little as possible. The government should play a smaller role. In that sense, people who believe in markets, I believe in markets. I just want them to function properly. To the extent you can use the market, you should use the market.
Governments are also human. They’re also bound to be wrong. Moreover, they are bureaucratic. So they are slow and they are subject to political influence. So you want to use them as little as possible. But to not to use them, see, assumes that markets are perfect. And that is a false belief.
BILL MOYERS:Has the whole global system become so complex with such gargantuan forces interlocked with each other, driving it forward, that it doesn’t know how to obey Adam Smith’s natural laws?
GEORGE SOROS:No, I think our ability to govern ourselves doesn’t keep pace with our ability to exercise power over nature, control over nature. So we are very complicated civilization. And we could actually destroy our civilization because of our inability to govern ourselves.
BILL MOYERS:Would this all be happening if we still had a strong sense of the social compact? I mean, our social safety net has been greatly reduced. The people have a real sense that the gods of capital have left little space for anyone else. People at the top don’t have much empathy for people at the bottom.
GEORGE SOROS:There is a common interest. And this belief that everybody pursuing his self-interests will maximize the common interests or will take care of the common interests is a false idea. It’s a suitable idea for those who are rich, who are successful, who are powerful. It suits them to justify you know, enjoying the fruits without paying taxes. The idea of paying taxes is an absolute no-no, right?
BILL MOYERS:Unpatriotic.
GEORGE SOROS:Unpatriotic. So, yes, you must have, in my opinion, you need, for instance, a tax on carbon emissions. But that is unacceptable politically. So we are going to have cap and trade. And the trading will have all kinds of loopholes and misuse of the regulations and all kinds of ways of making money without actually dealing with the problem that it’s designed to cure. So that’s how the political process distorts things.
BILL MOYERS:So let’s think about those people down at Neely’s Barbecue going home tonight having heard you. What they’ve heard you say is the system is really disfunctioning right now. It’s out of control. Nobody’s in charge. They’ve heard you express your own worry that in the next three months it could get much, much worse.
And they’ve heard you say that you don’t see much good news immediately on the horizon. So let’s leave them something to think about as they go home. Let them go home and say, «Mr. Soros said here are three things we can do, simply.» One?
GEORGE SOROS:Well, deal with the mortgage problem. Reduce foreclosures. Recapitalize the banks. And then work on a better world order where we work together to resolve problems that confront humanity like global warming. And I think that dealing with global warming will require a lot of investment.
You see, for the last 25 years the world economy, the motor of the world economy that has been driving it was consumption by the American consumer who has been spending more than he has been saving, all right? Than he’s been producing. So that motor is now switched off. It’s finished. It’s run out of — can’t continue. You need a new motor. And we have a big problem. Global warming. It requires big investment. And that could be the motor of the world economy in the years to come.
BILL MOYERS:Putting more money in, building infrastructure, converting to green technology.
GEORGE SOROS:Instead of consuming, building an electricity grid, saving on energy, rewiring the houses, adjusting your lifestyle where energy has got to cost more until it you introduce those new things. So it will be painful. But at least we will survive and not cook.
BILL MOYERS:You’re talking about this being the end of an era and needing to create a whole new paradigm for the economic model of the country, of the world, right?
GEORGE SOROS:Yes.
BILL MOYERS:One of the British newspapers this morning had a headline, «Welcome to Socialism.» It’s not going that way, is it?
GEORGE SOROS:Well, you know, it’s very interesting. Actually, these market fundamentalists are making the same mistake as Marx did. You see, socialism would have worked very well if the rulers had the interests of the people really at heart. But they were pursuing their self-interests. Now, in the housing market, the people who originated the houses earned the fee.
And the people who then owned the mortgages their interests were not actually looked after by the agents that were selling them the mortgages. So you have a, what is called an agent principle problem in socialism. And you have the same agent principle problem in this free market fundamentalism.
BILL MOYERS:The agent is concerned only with his own interests.
GEORGE SOROS:That’s right.
BILL MOYERS:Not with…
GEORGE SOROS:That’s right.
BILL MOYERS:The interest of…
GEORGE SOROS:Of the people who they’re supposed to represent.
BILL MOYERS:But in both socialism and capitalism, you get the rhetoric of empathy for people.
GEORGE SOROS:And it’s a false ideology. Both Marxism and market fundamentalism are false ideologies.
BILL MOYERS:Is there an ideology that…
GEORGE SOROS:Is not false?
BILL MOYERS:Yeah.
GEORGE SOROS:I think the only one is the one that I’m proposing; namely, the recognition that all our ideas, all our human constructs have a flaw in it. And perfection is not attainable. And we must engage in critical thinking and correct our mistakes.
BILL MOYERS:And that’s one…
GEORGE SOROS:That’s my ideology. As a child, I experienced Fascism, the Nazi occupation and then Communism, two false ideologies. And I learned that both of those ideologies are false. And now I was shocked when I found that even in a democracy people can be misled to the extent that we’ve been misled in the last few years.
BILL MOYERS:The book is «The New Paradigm for Financial Markets: The Credit Crisis of 2008 and What It Means». George Soros, thank you for being with me.
Debía tener 6 ó 7 años, cuando escuché la historia de Shōgun por primera vez. Mi padre nos la contaba por las mañanas, en el trayecto hasta el colegio, al ritmo al que él se leía el libro. Durante semanas cambiamos la saga de los porretas, por una historia sobre Japón.
Sylvia García 