Mike Tyson on Gentrification

I went back to Brownsville with my reality-TV-show crew, they're doing a segment about my childhood racing pigeons, and Brownsville's all upscale now. They got surveillance cameras, buildings that were abandoned cost, like, a million now, and I'm thinking, My life must've been a lie, 'cause there's nothing there that looks like my childhood. This white woman come up, and I'm thinking, Wow. When I was a kid, she would've been robbed and raped and left for dead. This is a real strange scenario, and I just wanted to cry. I'm like, "Who am I? Where's my heritage?"(1)

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1'Everything You Think You Know About Mike Tyson Is Wrong' - Details; Solotaraff

A General Level of Toxicity in the Enviornment

Americans are being "bombarded" with cancer-causing chemicals and radiation and the federal government must do far more to protect them, presidential cancer advisers said on Thursday...

"The incidence of some cancers, including some most common among children, is increasing for unexplained reasons," wrote the two panel members, Dr. LaSalle Leffall, professor of surgery at Howard University College of Medicine in Washington and Margaret Kripke, an emeritus professor at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.(1)

I wonder if the increasing numbers of autistic children is a result of this.

We have trashed the environment in so many ways that we may be overwhelming our bodies natural filters. This might affect young children the most, since they have the weakest defenses.

1'Americans "bombarded" with cancer sources: report'- Reuters; Fox

'Jeb Bush is Married to a Latina'

Simon Rosenberg worries:

"Jeb [Bush] is married to a Latina, is fluent in Spanish, speaks on Univision as a commentator, his Spanish is that good...And if you look at the electoral map in 2012, you have to assume that Obama is going to have a very hard time in holding North Carolina and Virginia. The industrial Midwest, where the auto decline has been huge, has weakened Obama's numbers... a great deal. So Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin become a bit more wobbly. So if you're Barack Obama, the firewall is the Latin belt from Florida to southwestern California. And there is only one Republican who can break through that firewall. And it is Jeb."(1)

Apparently appeals to fuzzy skin color solidarity is all the Democratic Party has to offer. One would think that Jeb's economic vision would offer some possibility of criticism.

Sorry, the U.S. can't function smoothly even on its on terms, a bourgeoise Republic, as a balkanized collection of identity interests. That only works when there is an overwhelming -for instance- Protestant Establishment, to play off of. But even the Power Elite as an Establishment is disintegrating (as David Brooks recently wrote).

Maybe the newly engorged ruling class can get it together, but maybe not.

1'The Bush Revvial' - Huff Po; Stein
2'The Power Elite' - NYT Op-Ed; Brooks

Migrant Villages Under Lock and Key

The government calls it "sealed management." China's capital has started gating and locking some of its lower-income neighborhoods overnight, with police or security checking identification papers around the clock, in a throwback to an older style of control.

Introducing the future middle-class that will drive consumption for the next 30 years ?

I wonder if anyone in the finance world has thought seriously about how social and political institutions in China, and Asia for that matter, are going to get from Point A to Point Z to accommodate this burgeoning - or prospective burgeoning- middle class.

1'Beijing starts gating, locking migrant villages' AP; Anna

A Growing Credibility Crisis

So says the Financial times, about Obama's presidency:

“The bottom line here is that Americans don’t believe in President Obama’s leadership,” says Rob Shapiro, another former Clinton official and a supporter of Mr Obama. “He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can’t think of how he could do that.”

Actually, the entire U.S. ruling elite - and their assorted Yes Men, courtiers, poolboys and Hacks - face a growing a credibility crisis. For what does the Republican leadership offer in response but a collection a retreads, nutcases and hucksters; i.e. Gingrich, Palin and Romney.

The slaughters in Iraq and Afghanistan, Katrina, the Oil Spill, the Financial Crisis...it goes on and on.

1'Obama faces growing credibility crisis' - Financial Times; Luce

China's Malacca Dilemma

Referred to obliquely in a recent NYT op-ed. Therese Delpech, of the Carnegie Institute and the French Atomic Energy asks military shy Europeans:

"If Taiwan, to our common misfortune, should become the object of a confrontation between China and America, the Europeans may have to do some work — in the Middle East, for example, helping block maritime routes. Is Europe prepared to consider this, let alone actually do it?"

The 20 Families of International Gangsterism (G-20 political and finance leaders) have not yet declared a 'a war' but they always remind each other who holds the power of the gun. Hu knows it.

Why would this scenario be mentioned in an editorial in the paper of record, but to remind the 'new master' China that it is painfully vulnerable to energy blockade ? Much like Japan was once upon a time.

1'Where Is Your Military Might, Europe?' - NYT Op-Ed; Delpech

Murdoch and Bloomberg Team Up For Immigration Reform

Mayor Bloomberg headed up to News Corp headquarters this morning (6/24) to talk on Fox and Friends with Fox owner Rupert Murdoch to announce his new coalition to press for national immigration reform.

The aim of the coalition is to press the economic argument for immigration reform, and the mayor has recruited a large set of CEOs to join him.

Liberals and the Left seem to be headed for the standard gutting and filleting on this issue. In the U.S. everything and anything is subordinated to the interests of the wealthy.

Perhaps we could call legislation out of this 'reform' push the Bracero Program for Computer Programmers Act.

1'With Murdoch, Bloomberg Launches National Coalition On Immigration' - New York Observer; Brown

Ongoing Textile Strikes in Bangladesh

1'Garment workers protest in Bangladesh' - UK Guardian

Add it to the Trade Deficit

As the Gulf Coast oil spill continues to gush, U.S. seafood suppliers are turning to Asia to ensure Americans have enough shrimp for their gumbos, Creoles and cocktails this summer, but some of those overseas cupboards are low themselves...

The price of plump black tiger shrimp is at a 10-year high in Vietnam, selling for around $13.50 per kilogram ($6.14 per pound), said Bui Dung, a manager at Minh Phu, Vietnam's biggest shrimp exporter in the southern Mekong delta province of Ca Mau...

"The demand, particularly from the U.S., is huge," Dung said. "We receive order requests from U.S. importers almost everyday...

Meanwhile, many Vietnamese-American shrimpmen are going bankrupt.

1'US raps on Asian shrimpers' doors after oil spill' - AP; Mason

About That Yuan Rise

Half of China's textile firms may risk going bankrupt if the value of the Chinese currency yuan rises 5 percent against the U.S. dollar given the industry's thin profit margins.(1)

China needs to go up the value chain if the yuan continues to rise - which they are doing - but even this would mean exacerbated unemployment in the developed world, or protectionism. The aggregate demand simply isn't there to absorb capacity and lowering wages in the largest markets isn't going to do much for that problem.

1 "China's textile firms may face bankruptcy on yuan appreciation: newspaper" - Xinhuanet

Kobe Bryant and Arthritis

Arthritis really sucks, especially if you are young and in a field that requires work with the hands. Many people might scoff at Kobe Bryant's arthritis problems , but as a musician who has dealt with a similar issue, it is quite debilitating and demoralizing to deal with when it directly affects one craft. And the thing is, arthritis can't really be 'cured' by a pill or an operation. It never goes away, you just deal with it. In this way, Bryant really is a remarkable athlete given the fine motor skills needed to shoot a ball through a tiny hoop. But I still don't like the Lakers.

1'Kobe Bryant has the index finger of an 83-year-old man' - Yahoo Sports; Kerby

Tolerating High Unemployment

Why ? The capacity for solidarity in the American working class seems greatly eroded. The list of Others is longer than ever. Go to any campus in California and one will find plenty of tabling on some issue of identity, as long as the identity has nothing to do with class. Identity rights is fine and dandy, once upon a time it was actually radical. It mostly isn't now. Louisiana has an Indian-American Republican governor and South Carolina is about to add a second. The right wing is more than willing to accept non whites as long as they are solid class warriors. So table away. The Roman ruling class had a phrase : Divide et Impera. Though Rome rotted away from the inside as well.