The World According to Thomas PM Barnett

Earlier this year I was privileged to be invited to become an contributing analysis at a new enterprise, that by it's own description is;“A Global Marketplace of Geopolitical Analysis.” Over the past ten months Wikistrat has grown to now include some of the most tuned-in group of experts and analysts ever assembled, all for the purpose of providing a real time analysis tool. Recently the CEO of Wikistrat, Joe Zamel wrote a post on Dr. Thomas PM Barnett's Blog explaining how Dr. Barnett was a major influence in founding this team. He went on to urge readers to view the series of briefs that explain the "Five Strategic Flows" that will drive the advance of globalization and connectivity into the future. As a way of sharing these briefs in full, I have embed them below for your viewing. It takes about an hour to watch all six briefs; them you are encouraged to form your own analysis of Barnett's vision of the future. You may not agree with his vision, but it will fill your mind with nuggets of pure information to chew upon as you decide if you are going to be a passenger, or step forward to be involved in building a future worthy of your children and grandchildren. Now for Dr. Barnett.

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" (Introduction, and the Pentagon's New Map) Pt 1

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" (Flow of People) Pt 2

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" (Flow of Money)  Pt 3

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" (Flow of Energy) Pt 4

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" (Flow of Food) Pt 5

Wikistrat's "The World According to Tom Barnett" (Flow of Security) Pt 6

Finally, for those who have not seen Dr. Barnett's explanation for how Wikistrat came about.

"My Best Explanation of Wikistrat Yet."

The coming war on obesity and consumption

Obesity in America

Obesity in world

Daily food consumption

This week, Thomas Barnett penned a column for the World Politics Review that predicted the coming clash over food, as the Western style diet comes under fire for obesity and it's byproduct of major health issues becomes the target of both the nanny state, and nations where food is a matter of survival. Barnett called it this way.

The real clash of civilizations in the 21st century will be not over religion, but over food. As the emerging East and surging South achieve appreciable amounts of disposable income, they're increasingly taking on a Western-style diet. This bodes poorly for the world on multiple levels, with the most-alarmist Cassandras warning about imminent resource wars. But the more immediate and realistic concern is the resulting health costs, which will inevitably trigger a rule-set clash between nanny-state types hell-bent on "reining in" a number of globalized industries -- agriculture, food and beverages, restaurants, health care and pharmaceuticals -- and those preferring a more free-market/libertarian stance.

This clash won't necessarily pit East versus West or North versus South, or even democracies versus authoritarian regimes. The core of this struggle will be about sustainability versus individual freedom of choice, because, as a recent Financial Times editorial put it, "Individuals have a right to indulge in excesses, but they also have responsibility for costs."

Read more:
The New Rules: Time to Worry About Over-Eating, not Over-Population

Barnett penned his column, just a few hours before Denmark became the first country in the world to pass what has been dubbed the "Fat Tax" to combat the growing obesity in Denmark, as they confront rising health care costs in a country with state provided cradle to the grave health care costs are predicted to rise faster than the kilos on millions of personal scales.

Denmark on Saturday became the first country in the world to impose a fat tax after a week in which consumers hoarded butter, pizza, meat and milk to avoid the immediate effects.

"We have had to stock up with tonnes of butter and margarine in order to be able to supply outlets," Soeren Joergensen of Arla Distribution told AFP.

The new tax, designed by Denmark’s outgoing government as a health issue to limit the population’s intake of fatty foods, will add 16 kroner ($2.87, 2.15 euros) per kilo (2.2 pounds) of saturated fats in a product.

Read more:
Denmark levies worlds first fat tax

It now appears other nations with state sponsored healthcare programs are considering similar taxes. Can the US be far behind? Personally, in an age where we all end up sharing the cost of programs like Medicare, and in in the future, some form a national health care system, as well as swelling personal health insurance rates, taxes on things that contribute to obesity and in turn health issues might make sense. The common sense solution would be to charge obese people more, but that would be considered discrimenatory so we all get to pay. The bigger question as raised by Thomas Barnett is how to feed a swelling population of 7 billion and growing without being labeled a pariah for consuming geometrically more than the majority of the planet.

A roadmap for dealing with Pakistan

Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan attacked three NATO supply trucks on Tuesday, officials said. The New York Times reported on Tuesday evening that Pakistanis had been responsible for a 2007 ambush on U.S. soldiers.

 

The summer as waned and fall will soon usher in our second decade in the long war in Afghanistan. Last week troubling news about the often suspected and now confirmed involvement against our forces by Pakistan have come to light. Thomas Barnett has this excellent analysis of the situation and offers up five reasons for walking away from Pakistan and leaving her next door neighbors to checkmate her regional miss-behavior. Tom wrote this to introduce his column for Esquire's Political Blog.

In the wake of Admiral Mike Mullen offering such electrifying testimony last week, various commentators — and respectable ones, like Christopher Hitchens and Dexter Filkins — are circling the "long war" question of the moment: What to do about Pakistan? And it's clear to anybody with a brain at this point that Pakistan has abused our trust and military assistance as much as — or worse than — we have long abused that fake state in our pursuit of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. So now, as the West's fiscal crisis kicks into high gear, progressively denuding us of NATO allies while Congress finally gets serious about reining in the Pentagon's vast budget, we've come to a clear tipping point in the whole Af-Pak intervention as its tenth year of operations draws to a close.

My advice here is simple: It is time for both Afghanistan and Pakistan to stop being our problem and ours alone to solve. The Bush-Cheney unilateralism segued right into the Obama-Biden version: We simply refuse to deal with the regional powers, all of which want a far bigger say in how this whole thing settles out. Instead of working with India, China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran — and accepting that their more vigorous management of the situation would mean "victories" for them and not us — we've chosen consistently to side with Pakistan, which not only wants but is committed to keeping the region unstable.

Barnett continues by serving up five reasons, outlined below:

1. Focus on the Arab Spring instead.
2. Follow Al Qaeda elsewhere where it's really going.
3. Make new friends. And make China babysit.
5. Leave 'em be.

Now take a few minutes to read over what he is proposing and see if the logic floats?


Read More:
Pakistan America Relations

Voices on Grand Strategy, or Lack There of.

This past week saw China send it's first aircraft carrier out for sea trials. The reaction ranged from outright calls to a return to a Cold War footing to this inquiry from our State Department, which prompted this comment from CDR Salamander.

This is not helpful.

The PRC is a sovereign nation with legitimate maritime security requirements that are easily understood by anyone with an even rudimentary understanding of where maritime strategy and commerce come together.

The fact that the DOS would ask this in public does too things; it insults the Chinese through its patronizing tone and it makes our nation look like it is led by arrogant imperialists at best, simpletons at worst.

The good CDR goes on to suggest how the Chinese should respond.

"Here are our plans for our follow-on carrier development. Also, the Chinese people would like to know what plans the United States government has to bring its credit rating to back AAA. Our people worry about their investments. Until the Americans do that and assure worries in the investments by the Chinese people in the sovereign debt of the American government, we do not see the reason for their continued spending on such an unnecessarily large and offensively-minded military.

We have had concerns about the American ability to service their debt for some time and we've been quite open with them with regard to the lack of transparency from the Americans regarding their capabilities to ensure their own economic stability."

CDR Salamander is not one to trifle with defense issues, as having spent considerable time serving his country and continues to write astute and biting comments about the eroding state of our naval centric defense posture.

Read more:
State Dept. Makes Us All Look Stooopid

The bigger problem that looms before us, is when issuing a bumbling statement, the Dept of State, which speaks for our current leadership; reveals a dangerous lack of a grand strategy for managing the rise of a great power. Bryan McGrath offered up this next post on Information Dissemination where he argues that being prepared for war is the best way to avoid one.

I submit that while we are sometimes surprised by events (or appear to be), we have also been astoundingly and dramatically right in our prediction of the future on occasion. Put another way, if we are so bad at predicting the future, the entire concept of deterrence—conventional and otherwise—must be questioned. Because deterrence has at its heart—the animating impetus of an event or events yet to come which one does not desire to see. And I for one am not ready to make that leap. My case will be supported with only one vignette, but it is an important one. And then, it leads to a recommendation or two.

We must as a nation, face the possibility that the United States will someday fight a war with China. We must recognize that the way of human existence seems to presuppose conflict between a rising power and the status quo power where interests intersect. We must recognize that this conflict would be ruinous to China, to our nation, and potentially to much of the world. We must recognize that the central tenet of our national security strategy must be to ensure that such a war never happens. Unfortunately, this is currently not the case.

McGrath lays out a strategy that in an effort to discuss all possibilities, deserves a careful read.
On Predicting the Future

More on Chinese naval intentions can be found at.
Andrew Erickson

To put this all in prospective, here is a list of the current aircraft carriers in service in the world. China's would be joining India, South Korea and Thailand, other Asian nations who feel compelled to have an aircraft carrier.
World's Aircraft Carriers

Joining the discussion about the critical importance of having a "Grand Strategy" is Great Satan's Girlfriend Courtney Messerschmidt who posted this epistle in a style described as Dixie fried Esperanto by Carl Prine.of Line of Departure which hosted  this post. Here is a teaser to encourage you to check it out as well as the links to support her astute argument.

Uniquely powerful — the only one of her kind!

Hegemonic unipolarity and the “Off Shore Balancing” act are facing off at the highest (almost) levels of Great Satan’s Academic and Actualizing apex.

As best understood, the Offshore Balancing fans are frightened that gap shrinking, global orderliness and reinforcing desired myriad nation state behavior will become more dangerous, more difficult and more expensive. Control of and over the internat’l system should shrivel as Great Satan radically redefined her interests to maintaining home turf integrity and maybe might sorta try to prevent a massive near field competitor from commanding enough resources to threaten North America.

Off Shore Balancing by def means Great Satan would ease up on military commitments to NATO, Nippon, SoKo and Taiwan in general — though there are good cases to be made that Offshore Balancing would look a lot like hyperpuissance’s overbearing preponderance in PACRIM.

Read the whole post:
Courtney's Complaint

Crossroads of Global Economy

Closing out the post today, comes this from Thomas PM Barnett who serves up this evidence that the "Grand Strategy" that has guided the United States for the past half century and in complete hindsight, going back to Theodore Roosevelt, has led to a world order  that has seen the rise of a truly global middle-class. His comments are brief enough to post in full, but to get the full vision click on the link to view his parting comments and the link to the article and graphs.

It is THE amazing achievement of US grand strategy that we've created the conditions by which the chart of the direct left unfolds. If ANYBODY tells you that globalization is bad or unfair or says similar things about US "empire" since WWII, then simply show them the slide on the left, because it knocks those lies right out of the ballpark.

Or to be more succinct: the US-created and -enabled globalization process never replicated the dynamics of colonialism - i.e., kept the poor down. It did the exact opposite. The rest is just whiny bullshit propagated by little minds who refuse to accept it. We built a world order that enabled the rise of a global middle class, which means near-universal democracy is in the works (there will remain bedroom communities for the nonviolent rejectionists - we'll just ask them to put orange reflector signs on their buggies). 

Read more:
Chart of the day: Filling in the gaps on emerging economies = economic dynamic of century

Why We're All Mad As Hell at Washington

Cutting the credit rating

Where is it going to come from?

Summer brings the posting on most blogs to a slower pace, as some like this site slow down, or for some, a pause as the go on vacation. The news of the July was dominated by a house divided upon itself, as those we charge with leadership and the expectation to rise above the bubbling mass of goo that most Americans have come to see in Washington; played chicken with our future in order to appeal to their hardcore constituency.

Usually, I refrain from taking any political side, but a post today by blog friend, author and geo-strategist Thomas PM Barnett perfectly articulated my feelings about the current state of our economy, and the lack of visionary leadership by all who are charged with keeping the country safe, strong and prepared for the future. Barnett's post starts off by commenting on a column by Thomas Friedman in the NYT's and excerpting comments from Kenneth Rogoff, an economist from Harvard who Tom paraphrases this way.

Rogoff's point is simple but very revealing: we've all known this crisis to be a financial one versus the usual biz cycle. Recovering from biz-cycle contractions is historically a quick affair, but recovering from a financial crisis is typically more the 5-7 years horizontal scenario. Rogoff's key insight is to state the obvious (for most of us consumers): the "recovery" of the business cycle has already arrived and it changed nothing for most people, because the hangover is a long-term credit contraction - i.e., the huge deleveraging.

This led Barnett to bring the current crisis home, and describe how it affected him personally. His observation and feelings are shared by all of us Americans, who have struggled to maintain their mortgages, paid their taxes, hustled to recover income lost due to the downturn, and hold out hope that both parties will gin up some backbone to understand that we ALL, are plenty pissed off at everybody in Washington. See if his words don't sound like that angry voice in your own head?

I feel this personally in spades: built a nice big house in 05-06 at the height of the bubble (of course, I walked away from the old house with an inflated sum, so no complaints), so the house is priced in that way - as is my mortgage. At the time, no problem, because I'm getting paid in a bubblicious way.

Then the crisis. All of a sudden everyone says my labor is worth a whole lot less. Still love me and the work, just want to pay a lot less. Everybody is doing this, except my mortgage holder. He wants that to stay the same. 

I'm lucky. Despite losing a ton of income over the past two years, I've scrambled and replaced the vast majority. I have to work three times as hard for 5 times as many customers, but I'm managing because I'm not reliant on any one job and I'm willing to hustle.

So I do the right thing and don't strategically default on a mortgage, which is tempting, not because I can't pay it because I can - and am. It's tempting because, geez, why should I pay off this debt honorably across this long crunch while so many others get help or simply run away? Because when I do, I subsidize all their behavior.

Tom goes on to point out, what many of us who work hard have come to feel like, the problem!

Worse, I have a White House that claims I'm the problem because I don't pay enough taxes and so it wants to soak me because that's an evil state of affairs. Funny thing is, I pay the Fed a whopping sum every year - about three times as much as my dad ever made in a year while he supported us seven kids. So naturally, when more than one out of every three dollars I make goes to the government, I feel like I'm supporting all sorts of programs for the needy, plus I'm doing the right thing by the mortgage, plus I keep up my charity donations, plus I pay 3 private grade school tuitions (saving the public schools) and two public college tuitions (eldest daughter and wife). I don't ask for any hand-outs from the government. Hell, I fund them and am glad to do so. But then I'm told I'm the reason why the government is so in debt (not enough taxes from the "rich") and yet I'm the dupe who continues honoring that mortgage from another era while paying for the bail-outs of those who can't. And you know, I don't feel like I'm the problem - or evil for doing all that.

Tom Barnett has been called many things, but the one that stands out, is of being an optimist about the future. When I read this next paragraph, it gave me pause that he glass was full and he had reached the point that he would not stand by and take it anymore.

But no, I have no optimism about the future of our economy right now. I don't how I could. I know what I know about globalization and America's long-term strengths, but I look at Washington and I see clueless politicians with no business experience spending all their time trying to tear each other down and I wonder why I must suffer these fools.

His final words ring like the battlecry from the discouraged middleclass.

But most of all, I f--king hate the government right now for being such incompetent boobs. I would be happy to see them all lose in 2012 - and will vote that way.

Read more:
Rogoff's "second great contraction" and why I'm mad as hell at Washington

With a growing number of Americans, 47% paying no federal income tax, against the shrinking 53% who do, and with the crisis at hand, raising taxes in some form is in the cards, but as Rogoff suggests, it must be on something other than personal income; like a tax on gasoline or a national sales tax. Otherwise if it is raised on those who earn over $250,000, then even the lowest should have to pay something, at least a few percentage points to give them a dog in the fight.

800- million and Falling

Number of people living on $1 a day

Global Poverty Rate

Four years ago this past May, Paul Collier's book The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can Be Done About It told of the rapid fall of poverty rates that affected about 80% of the world's population. He noted that there were about one billion people who were still living on less than $1.00 per day and all means to lower that number was defying all traditional means. He had held out little hope for change if the them current handout schemes continued.

Earlier this month, an article posted at Yale Global Online reported something that garnered almost no fan-fare, that the number of desperately poor, had not just slipped below one billion, but was dropping by 70 million a year, according to the authors, Laurence Chandy and Geoffrey Gertz. Their data flies off the pages as evidence that the world is moving towards a middleclass majority.

It is customary to bemoan the intractability of global poverty and the lack of progress against the Millennium Development Goals. But the stunning fact is that, gone unnoticed, the goal to halve global poverty was probably reached three years ago.

We are in the midst of the fastest period of poverty reduction the world has ever seen. The global poverty rate, which stood at 25 percent in 2005, is ticking downwards at one to two percentage points a year, lifting around 70 million people – the population of Turkey or Thailand – out of destitution annually. Advances in human progress on such a scale are unprecedented, yet remain almost universally unacknowledged.

This should be heartening to every living soul. What is means besides, providing new markets for developed and the fast developing countries but less conflict as noted in this observation by the authors as to the possible causes and effects.

How and why sustained high economic growth in developing countries took hold are questions likely to be debated by economic historians for many decades. Already one can point to a number of probable sources emerging or accelerating around the turn of the century: an investment boom triggered by rising commodity prices; high growth spillovers originating from large open emerging economies that utilize cross-border supply chains; diversification into novel export markets from cut flowers to call centers; spread of new technologies, in particular rapid adoption of cell phones; increased public and private investment in infrastructure; the cessation of a number of conflicts and improved political stability; and the abandonment of inferior growth strategies such as import substitution for a focus on macroeconomic health and improved competitiveness.

Read more, and the linked report below:
With Little Notice, Globalization Reduced Poverty

Poverty in Numbers:


This information is something that grand strategist and advocate of the American model of liberal free trade Thomas PM Barnett, has written and spoken about for almost a decade. He defines this moment in history as:

•Globalization IV (2001-present), is defined by the enormous structural changes wrought by the simultaneous rise of numerous great powers and the emergence of a global middle class.

Some used to find his optimistic views hard to swallow, the proof is coming in spades to show that the world is moving towards being mostly middleclass. The truth is that he has been spot-on in defining the age. It is high time that Americans get on board the boat and discover that we have to embrace those new markets and go forth like our ancestors did when the built this grand experiment that has primed the very pump leading to the world being better off than any time in history. Barnett, writes this week about what he called a must read article in the Wall Street Journal that explains how the west mis-understands the economic growth in China. Barnett excepts the best nuggets of the article and add a rich sauce to enhance the author Liu Junning's words.

Read his analysis:
What is eternal and Ephemeral about China and this modern world system we call globalization

Number of US Jobs from Exports. Map from East-West Center

Now all this might make Americans say okay, our own country is hurting, what is Globalization and free trade doing for us? This next article also from Yale Global Online, will illustrate how connected America's economy has become with Asia.

“Jobs” is now a fraught four-letter word for America. With unemployment in the United States hovering around 9 percent, the word resonates for millions of struggling individuals and families, not to mention politicians and policymakers. And no other geographical region in the world today receives more attention in that context than Asia. “Jobs lost to Asia” is a refrain of politicians and media, yet the facts tell a different story. Trade and investment with Asia creates jobs in the US.

Student Economic Impact on US. from East-West Center

In a detail rich article the author Satu Limaye relates how job growth created by Asian trade has risen to 850,000 jobs in the United States. He points out that Japanese foreign direct investment in the U.S. account for 665,000 jobs. One of the proposals Thomas Barnett has made is an increase in Chinese direct investment in American businesses to stimulate job growth, instead of buying Treasury bonds. The article goes on to note the jobs and money generated by everything from students to tourism and immigration where the contribution of the 10 million foreign born Asians are contributing to the economy, culture and politics.

Read more:
Asia Matters For America

Global Cities: The Future Centers of Power

Beijing skyline

Mubai skyline

Urbanization

The past two week has seen an ongoing competition sponsored by Wikistrat and judged by their chief analysis Thomas PM Barnett. Barnett provided his readers with an update on the week two results in a post this week. He begins by explaining how it is run and his responsibility.

As head judge of Wikistrat’s International Grand Strategy Competition, I wanted to update everybody on what’s emerged across the second week of the contest. As you may already know, the competition brings together approximately 30 teams comprised of PhD and masters students from elite international schools and world-renowned think tanks. Those teams, evenly distributed over a dozen or so countries (so as to encourage intra-country as well as inter-country competition), were challenged in Week 2 to come up with national and regional trajectories in relation to their country-team assignments (Brazil, China, EU, India, Iran, Israel, Japan, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, South Africa, Turkey & US).

As head judge, I assign points to teams based on their activity throughout the week. In this second week, each team generated those two trajectories to the tune of about 10,000 words each, or close to 300,000 words across all the teams. Naturally, a ton of interesting nuggets emerged, so here’s my hit list of provocative ideas.

Those nuggets number twelve theories or visions of the future and range from seeing the U.S. re-focus on the Western Hemisphere, and the EU encouraging immigration from fellow Roman Catholic states/regions, to India and China's growing influence. One topic heading caught my eye because I had just been reading another blog that had a great post that supported the contention that:

4) The future is all about who’s got the most global cities (EU2/Oxford)

Barnett has this to add about this opinion from the Oxford team.

I’m a big believer in this, because if you add up the coastal megacities of the world, you’ve got half the planet’s population and the vast majority of its connectivity and traffic. Get the coastal megacities wired up right, and globalization can’t fail. Team Oxford brought this out in their critique of Europe’s lack of global cities, saying that, besides London, none of the capitals really qualify on the scale of such behemoths as New York, Los Angeles, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Istanbul, etc. EU2’s point: make the investment if you want to stay relevant in the rule setting.

Read more:
Grand Strategic Competition Update (Week 2)

Shanghai skyline

The support for the comments about global cities is found in this post from The Enterprise Resilience Management Blog where Steve DeAngelis writes this about emerging market consumers and where they will live.

In several past posts, I've made the assertion that economic progress generally precedes political transformation. The logic for that is fairly straight forward. When a population moves out of poverty and into the middle class (i.e., its members find themselves with discretionary spending money), their attention naturally turns to politics. Why? The reasons are many. To name a few: they don't want their hard-earned cash taxed too heavily; they want freedom of movement and expression; and they expect the government to provide them with services that improve their quality of life. Because economic progress has such a dramatic impact on politics, both political and economic analysts are carefully watching the emergence of the new global upper and middle classes. Fareed Zakaria told Nora Dunne, "The growth in emerging markets is not just at the economic level. It's also happening in terms of psychology. Chinese, Indians, and Koreans are feeling a much greater sense of political confidence and assertiveness. You see this on the world stage everywhere."

Zakaria's claim that economic progress is leading to political transformation "everywhere" may sound like hyperbole, but it is not far from the mark. There are only a few dark corners of the world where globalization has yet to shine its light. Most new members joining the global upper and middle classes will come from urban settings. Analysts from McKinsey & Company claim, "Over the next 15 years, 600 cities will account for more than 60 percent of global GDP growth."

The next sentence in the article has a link to interactive map that allows the viewer to see the pattern of growth. DeAngelis quotes from an article published by McKinsely.

"More than 20 of the world's top 50 cities ranked by GDP will be located in Asia by the year 2025, up from 8 in 2007. During that same time period, our research suggests, more than half of Europe's top 50 cities will drop off the list, as will 3 in North America. In this new landscape of urban economic power, Shanghai and Beijing will outrank Los Angeles and London, while Mumbai and Doha will surpass Munich and Denver. The implications—for companies' growth priorities, countries' economic relationships, and the world's sustainability strategy—are profound." ["Urban economic clout moves east," by Richard Dobbs, Jaana Remes, and Sven Smit, McKinsely Quarterly.

Read more
Emerging Market Consumers, Part 1

Here is the link to the McKinsey Quarterly site and the interactive map that is an excellent source to illustrate the effective spread of the middle class around the globe. Click on the map link and see the world of the future open to explore with the click of your mouse.
Cities: The Next Frontier for Global Growth

May Day: Time to Ponder the Future

May Pole, Germany

Future cities

The First of May for most people today, is associated with socialist movements. But in this context I will adhere to the traditional meaning when May Day marks the end of the un-farmable half of the year in the Northern hemisphere and ushers in a tangible Spring.

In keeping with that theme, I thought it would be good to ponder the future. By the end of this year 2011, there will be 7 billion of us residing on this rock we call Earth. That is an increase of 5.5 billion in my lifetime. To illustrate what a world with 7 billion would be like, take a few minutes to check out this link.
7 Billion: National Geography Magazine 

Now that you have an idea of how many humans will as the video notes, would if standing shoulder to shoulder, fit in the city limits of Los Angeles proving that balance, not space will be the challenge of future generations.

This century has been heralded by some as being the Pacific century when Asia rules the world. Before you get too complacent with that concept, take the time to read this next post from Thomas Barnett who comments on whetherAsia will stall or fulfill that dream.

Next comes two fascinating posts from Tom Barnett's colleague Steve DeAngelis of Enterra Solutions. In a two part post entitled "Life a Hundred Years from Now" DeAngelis chronicles predictions from noted futurists about what life would be like in 2111. Steve begins.

Earlier this year I posted a few blogs dealing with short-term predictions about the future. A few daring souls have taken the long view and predicted what life might look like some hundred years from now. The thing that always strikes me about early science fiction movies that depict the future is that completely missed miniaturization except perhaps for "ray guns." So I'm not too sanguine about anybody's ability to predict things very far into the future.

This first part makes some startling predictions about space travel and exploration and touches on the changes in the nuclear family and other social issues.

Read more:
Life a Hundred Years from Now: Part 1

Now for part two and what I found was the real meat of predictions. As you read the post and feel a level of scepticism creeping in, remember to stop and think what someone your age and living at the turn of  the 20th century would feel if told of the all the advances in technology and medicine we enjoy today. Only the most esoteric dreamers would entertain such thoughts. Steve starts by quoting from Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the Future.

"If someone from 2100 could visit us now, how would we view them? Probably like the gods of mythology. They would command everything around them by wishing for it. They would have perfect and ageless bodies. And they would ride across the universe in magical chariots. In the past, we feared the gods of mythology. In the next 100 years, we will become them. Based on interviews with 300 of the world's top scientists, I've put together some predictions for what that world, 100 years in the future, will look like. This is not a work of science fiction, since prototypes of these inventions already exist, and all of them obey the laws of physics."

The post goes on to list the ten predictions about the future that seem not so far fetched in light of how far we have come in the past century.

1. The Internet will be in your contact lenses.

2. Computers will disappear, as will cell phones, clocks, watches, and MP3 players.

3. Cars will be driver-less, using GPS to navigate without the help of an alert human behind the wheel.

4. Doctors will be able to grow 'spare parts' for our organs as they wear out.

5. The human life span will be extended.

6. Molecular 'smart bombs' circulating in our blood will home in on, zap, and kill cancer cells.

7. Our toilets and bathroom mirrors will contain DNA sensors, capable of detecting proteins emitted from perhaps a hundred cancer cells in a cancer colony, 10 years before a tumor forms.

8. The robot industry will dwarf the size of the current automobile industry.

9. Tourists will soar into outer space via space elevators.

10. With advanced technology also will come advanced dangers, especially biological warfare, nuclear proliferation, and global warming.

A fascinating list that bodes of great advances and as noted in prediction 10, might be the residual of 7 or 8 billion people trying to find balance amid a growing demand for excellence, where unskilled and semi-skilled becomes as obsolete as the tools noted in prediction 2.

Read more
Life a Hundred Years from Now: Part 2

April 12, 1861: The Second Most Important Day In American History

The most important date in American history is July 4, 1776 Independence Day, the second most important day is April 12, 1861 , the day the Civil War began. The attention paid to this date is scant even on the 150th anniversary. Why is it important? First and foremost the war brought an end to slavery and led to citizenship being granted to all born in the United States . Beyond the monumental achievement of ending slavery, the Civil War  set the legislative stage for Lincoln to start the country moving from a loose collection of states, as Lincoln called them, to becoming the United States of America as we know it today.

Homesteaders

1862 dollar

An equally lasting achievement, according to Thomas Barnett in his recent book Great Power: American and The World After Bush, was that Lincoln "front loaded" America's post-war recovery which spread people and connectivity across the continent so that within a quarter century, America was poised to become the the dominant power of the 20th Century. Using five bills passed in the 37th Congress, Lincoln set the stage that would shepherd America into the next century. The Homestead Act  transferred 270 million acres of federal land to private hands. The Pacific Railroad Act began to tie the nation together and linked those far flung homesteads with the developed east. To make it easier to conduct business across the nation, Legal Tender Note made the "Greenback" bill we came to know and love. To lay the groundwork for higher education, the Morrill Act was the first federal aid to education bill by providing land for colleges in each state. Finally, the Second National Bank Act stabilized the banking institutions with the issuance of Treasury bonds and created a uniform monetary policy. Lincoln pulled this off with the 37th Congress that was seated with a Republican majority in both houses after the Southern states withdrew their members.

So When you are next casting about for something profound to say at the next social get-together remember the second most important date in American history. And for those who like counter-factual considerations, imagine how we would have fought World War I or II or contronted the Cold War if we were still a loose collection of states. We'd have looked just like NATO, made up of European Union countries, trying to organize themselves to end Gaddafi's rule or muster more that token support for Afghanistan. 

Two Damn Good Reads About the Future

Tom Barnett answers an important question

A connected World

Profane, but concise description of the importance of these two recommended articles for the information contained within each.

The first, comes by way of Thomas P.M. Barnett in response to questions from a college student. Barnett's answers are solid gold advice for any person who interested in making a serious difference in the world. I was stimulated to pursue my current course after picking up his first book, The Pentagon's New Map back in the Spring of 2004. Barnett's horizontal thinking philosophy meshed with my own constant need to keep seeking new targets and subjects to uncover. Barnett answers three questions which pretty much chart out a pathway for any one seeking a rewarding future, where to quote Barnett's father is; "Making your natural hobby you career and getting paid for it." As a father, and teacher, I find Barnett's response perfectly suited for today's youth who have grown up on multi-tasking and used to constant change with each new technology advance. Here are the questions and a sample of Tom's answers.


How did you translate a career from being a Cold War analyst to an idea generator?

I didn't really. I wasn't really ever a "Cold War analyst," despite my training. In truth, I would have been magnificently unhappy if I had stayed a classic academic or become an intell analyst - or if the Cold War hadn't ended. I just have no staying power on subjects, defined by me as working a particular field for years and years as many people do. It just would have driven me insane. The longer I get trapped in one subject, the more depressed I become. I truly get off on drawing linkages between things versus cracking nuts on any one subject.

Is there any advice you have for students who are interested in making a serious difference in the world?

That's an inherent skill set for thinking laterally/horizontally, and since you will be changing subject matters constantly, the key is to develop your preferred tool kit of analytic approaches. There is no set way to do this, in my mind, you just want to consciously collect great analytic tricks, maneuvers, procedures as you go along. I probably have about three dozen that I use over and over again in all sorts of subject areas, because I've come to trust them in terms of the revealed output. So you think of them as tracking tricks, like stuff I always do when I'm canoeing a new river. Not the fastest route, but one that rewards you in the accumulation of impressions that lead to analysis. Being observant is everything. Analytically, my whole life feels like one big deja vu, meaning I am constantly saying to myself, "I think I've spotted this dynamic somewhere else before."

How did you develop your philosophies?

By constantly seeking out the most interesting and fear-filled work I could find, subjects where, by most accounts I had no business trying to forge new thinking (Isn't there somebody more established who can crank out an answer we all know and love - in advance?). If I don't feel over my head on some level, I don't like the work as a rule, unless the balancing factor is some insane ambition or unusually deep-in-the-future scope that allows a whacked amount of freedom in approach. One of those three factors needs to be in place.

Read the rest:
Questions from OH college student

diaper recycling plant

Someday Starbucks will be the only name?

This next article comes from Steve DeAngelis, CEO of Enterra Solutions and the fine blog Enterprise Resilience Management. Steve turns his attention in this post to the three "R's" with a twist where before they meant; reading, riting, and rithmathic, they now mean; reuse, recycle, and repurpose.

When companies think about waste, they think about shrinking profit margins. Every effort is made to reduce waste so that profit margins can be increased. I suspect that consumers won't get serious about waste reduction and recycling until they see waste in terms of dollar signs as well. Since Americans continue to increase the per capita amount of waste they generate rather than reduce it, it is apparent that generating waste has yet to hit them in their pocketbooks in a significant way. Fortunately, there are a number of entrepreneurs and established companies that do take waste seriously because they have realized that there is money to be made from recycling waste. In America, the three "R's" used to stand for: reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic. Today the three "R's" stand for: reuse, recycle, and repurpose.

Here is an example of a few of the things being recycled.

"DIRTY DIAPERS -- A plant in Quebec turns soiled diapers into fuel. Using a method called pyrolysis, the plant heats up the diapers without oxygen. That breaks down the molecules of both the diapers and their, um, contents, yielding synthetic methane gas and diesel-like oil.

"COFFEE -- Coffee grounds can consist of up to 20 percent oil, making them an abundant source of biofuel. Researchers at the University of Nevada-Reno have separated oil from grounds and turned it into biofuel. The result even smells like your favorite java joint."

"URINE -- Ohio University's Gerardine Botte can convert urine to hydrogen, which is used to make electricity. While it's hard to collect enough human urine to make the process commercially viable, it may be a boon for hog farmers, who have trouble disposing of pig urine.

Maybe we will soon see Starbucks in competition with AM-PM where you can fuel up as you get your latte. The bottom line is this is another example of people thinking horizontally and laterally versus the vertically structured existence of the past half century where many have become slaves wearing blinders to the possibilities on the horizon.

Read more:
From Waste to Wealth
Enjoy reading, and if your a parent, pass Barnett's wisdom along to your son or daughter to consider as they plan their future path.

HG's Saturday Night Gazette

Saturday Even Post 1949

Egypt in turmoil, 2011

Years ago, a famous magazine was the Saturday Evening Post which was a staple in millions of American homes offering up short stories and serials on pre-television evenings. The Post eventually faded from the coffee tables to now re-appear six times a year and  now on line. The blogs have taken over from the post and even the Main Stream Media in being source for stories and information. Keeping with the tradition started first by Benjamin Franklin when he ran the fore-runner of the post the Pennsylvania Gazette, this blog offers up reads of the week or for a Saturday evening.

Egypt continues to dominant the attention of most of the world less China where fear of similar protests has brought censorship of non-official new about Egypt.

As the popular uprising ends it's second week, attention already begins to turn to ask how the signals were missed. The New York Times reports that President Obama is already faulting our spy agencies for not reading the tea leaves.
Obama Said to Fault Spy Agencies

This post from Small Wars Journal points to information first published in 2004 that posed that question.

With the recent turmoil in North Africa and unrest in the Middle East, we decided to dust off and revisit several previously published articles by friends of Small Wars Journal. The intent is two-fold: 1. To determine if some of these events were predictable given open source research and analysis and 2. To better understand the causal factors leading towards small wars. In the Middle East, some of these factors are self-evident: oppressive regimes, lack of personal and religious freedoms, lack of jobs, and lack of hope in the future; however, scarcity of resources remains an understudied area.

Read more:
Revolt in North Africa, Was it Predicted?

This article seems to mirror much of what geo-strategist Thomas Barnett has been writing about since publication of the best selling The Pentagon's New Map that growing discontent in places like North Africa would occur as the youth bulge, begins to fray against the suppression of decades of suppressive didictatorship's. The past few weeks has seen Barnett on top of the developments as he share his experience in a series of posts and video links. Barnett called the root of the recent uprisings an outgrowth of the Big Bang theory.

For an up to date source of news about Egypt and other political boils, blisters and scrapes worldwide, I recommend Small Wars Journal's Roundup where major news stories are cataloged and linked at one source.

Finally, if watching the events in Egypt unfold didn't make you feel like a cast member of Sanctum , then read this next and final piece.

Gerry Garibaldi worked in Hollywood as a screenwriter and executive before becoming a high school teacher at an inner city high school. His story in City Journal.org  is depressing, and a mirror held up to society that reveals the bounty of a over indulgent society.

In my short time as a teacher in Connecticut, I have muddled through President Bush’s No Child Left Behind act, which tied federal funding of schools to various reforms, and through President Obama’s Race to the Top initiative, which does much the same thing, though with different benchmarks. Thanks to the feds, urban schools like mine—already entitled to substantial federal largesse under Title I, which provides funds to public schools with large low-income populations—are swimming in money. At my school, we pay five teachers to tutor kids after school and on Saturdays. They sit in classrooms waiting for kids who never show up. We don’t want for books—or for any of the cutting-edge gizmos that non–Title I schools can’t afford: computerized whiteboards, Elmo projectors, the works. Our facility is state-of-the-art, thanks to a recent $40 million face-lift, with gleaming new hallways and bathrooms and a fully computerized library.

Read on as the article drills into the reason that after all the above effort, it appears to be for naught.

Here’s my prediction: the money, the reforms, the gleaming porcelain, the hopeful rhetoric about saving our children—all of it will have a limited impact, at best, on most city schoolchildren. Urban teachers face an intractable problem, one that we cannot spend or even teach our way out of: teen pregnancy. This year, all of my favorite girls are pregnant, four in all, future unwed mothers every one. There will be no innovation in this quarter, no race to the top. Personal moral accountability is the electrified rail that no politician wants to touch.

Garibaldi pulls no punches in describing why this has become such a problem.

Within my lifetime, single parenthood has been transformed from shame to saintliness. In our society, perversely, we celebrate the unwed mother as a heroic figure, like a fireman or a police officer. During the last presidential election, much was made of Obama’s mother, who was a single parent. Movie stars and pop singers flaunt their daddy-less babies like fishing trophies.

Read on:

From the FBI: 63 percent of all suicides are individuals from single-parent households. From the Centers for Disease Control: 75 percent of adolescents in chemical-dependency hospitals come from single-parent households. From the Children’s Defense Fund: more than half of all youths incarcerated for criminal acts come from single-parent households. And so on.

And now if you have not run out of breath, read the whole story.
“Nobody Gets Married Any More, Mister”