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I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
The use of economic sanctions against aggressors like Russia, may be circumvented
by third party transfers. In an article on a blog site, posted yesterday,
“12th round of sanctions targeting Russia: This will surely hurt Putin”
Story by Henrik Rothen •
(22nd October, 2023)
it was suggested that certain Eastern European countries were being used by exporters
domiciled in the EU, to get around sanctions. If true then the whole purpose of those sanctions may be negated. Meanwhile, at least one EU country is calling for a total trade embargo on EU-Russia economic transactions. But enforcing such an embargo in all EU countries may prove to be impossible. All an EU exporter has to do is use third party transfers to get around such restrictions. The only difficulty that this may cause is that there may be some concern about the payments from Russia. Most western banks will not handle such money transfers. But there are Asian banks more than willing to facilitate such matters.
Again it’s the policing of sanctions and embargoes that is the most difficult part of such actions if they are NOT recognised by all countries. Just like tax havens, bank transfers between parties trying to avoid sanctions merely take place in jurisdictions not party to those sanctions and embargoes.
The only way to impose reliable economic pressure on Russia is to target its foreign exchange reserves. The last time the Russian government found itself desperately short of hard currency reserves, many ATMs inside Russia switched to dispensing only US dollars. Simply put the exchange rate for the Russian rouble tanked. This made economic life inside Russia very difficult. The black market and black economy flourished but only because trades were in US dollars. Inflation got out of control and a form of rationing had to be introduced for imported goods.
The NSW Government recently tabled the Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Bill 2023, which proposes to legislate NSW’s net zero by 2050 target and establish an independent Net Zero Commission to monitor the State’s progress.
The Bill proposes to legislate NSW’s target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 50% by 2030 and to achieve net zero GHG emissions by 2050.
The Climate Change (Net Zero Future) Bill 2023 was referred to the NSW Parliament Legislative Council Portfolio Committee No. 7 – Planning and Environment on 12 Oct 2023 for inquiry and report.
Submissions closed yesterday (Oct 25).
So far, 33 submissions are now publicly available to view. Submissions include:
#005 Mr Geoffrey Miell
#017 Climate Council of Australia Ltd;
#018 ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes;
#019 Australian Security Leaders Climate Group.
Public hearings are scheduled on 27 & 30 Oct 2023.
A committee report is required by 17 Nov 2023.
https://www.parliament.nsw.gov.au/committees/inquiries/Pages/inquiry-details.aspx?pk=3016
How Hamas could destroy Israel
I’m not saying this outcome is highly likely, or even intended by Hamas, but there is now a non-fanciful worst-case scenario in which it accidentally achieves its genocidal goal.
The population of the Gaza enclave is 2 million. Even in normal times, it isn’t self-sufficient in anything and depends on foreign aid to survive. All crossings into Israel are now sealed. The UN say that 100 trucks a day are needed to enter Gaza from Egypt through the Rafah crossing, to meet minimum needs for food, drinking water and medicines. Israel has allowed under 20 a day, and not every day. The UN also demand that fuel be let in too. This has been refused by Israel, on the grounds that Hamas has plenty to spare. The electricity grid has collapsed and hospitals are dependent on oil-powered generators to function. The same is true for any pumping stations for water and sewerage still functional. Guterriez has been sounding increasingly apocalyptic in his his public statements, and he has very good sources of information as UNWRA runs a good part of Gaza’s public services.
If this pattern does not change in the next few days, the stage may well be set for a humanitarian disaster on a scale not seen since the famine in Ethiopia in 1983-85. Wikipedia: “[the famine] affected 7.75 million people (out of Ethiopia’s 38–40 million) and left approximately 300,000 to 1.2 million dead.” Many earlier great famines had an even higher death toll, and sieges like Caesar’s of Alesia. However, they are not very useful guides to Gaza because of the great difference between starvation and thirst.
A healthy adult human body can go without food for at least a month, but without water for only about eight days, depending on the air temperature and level of activity. The survival timetables are obviously shorter for the vulnerable: the sick and injured, old people and infants, pregnant and nursing women. These make up a substantial proportion of the Gaza population. Many sieges in history ended from starvation, often after months or even years. I can’t find any that ended from lack of water apart from Tortona in Italy in 1155, which only lasted two months.
At a ballpark estimate of 1 only litre of drinking water per day, the population of Gaza needs a minimum supply of 2,000 tonnes a day, or 50 40-tonne truckloads. They are not getting them. The minimum number is well over twice the current flow for all aid supplies including food and medicine. Dirty water can be boiled, but that needs fuel, which has been cut completely. A drinking water crisis in Gaza would develop very quickly, moving in only a few days from isolated reports of deaths among vulnerable groups to mass casualties. There would presumably be a political response, but this is unlikely to be fast enough to halt the emergency before this happens. A delayed response could lead to deaths in the hundreds of thousands: no response to a million, half the pre war population, but this doomsday scenario is not very probable.
To be clear, I do not suggest that either Israel or Hamas intend any such thing, but it could still happen from their negligence, fuelled on both sides by rage and exculpatory groupthink. The initial actions (Hamas’ dreadful pogrom followed by a legitimate Israeli mobilization) are in no way morally equivalent, but their ongoing ones that risk mass civilian deaths are much less distinguishable.
Recall that moral responsibility for such evil is not a fixed quantum to be shared out but an open-ended burden. The bank robber analogy holds. If one armed criminal robs a bank and is caught, he faces say 10 years in prison. If there are two robbers, they don’t get 5 years each but 10 again. They bring in a driver: he may get only 7 years as he didn’t use a gun or plan the heist, but the other two stay at 10. In general, if you are involved in a bad situation, can reasonably foresee bad consequences, have a reasonably obvious and feasible course of action available to prevent these, and don’t take it, you are responsible for the ensuing mess.
It makes no difference if there are other actors for whom this is also true. I suggest that if the Gaza crisis does lead to 100,000 civilian deaths, Israel and Hamas with both be 100% morally responsible for them. Third party apologists for the war crimes of either would have their own lesser responsibility, also additional to that of the principals. Guterriez will have no responsibility because he did everything in his power to stop the catastrophe.
A human-created disaster on this scale would have major fallout. It would probably be the end of Hamas. This would not matter much as it would soon be replaced by a similar violent irredentist group. But for Israel, it would mean a traumatic loss of the battered but till now robust claim to moral superiority over the neighbours. The crime would heighten the already sharp divide in Israeli society between liberal and largely secular urban Israeli Jews and hardline and imperialist ultra-religious ones, drive a wedge between Israel and Diaspora Jews over the Zionist idea, and eliminate what’s left of pro-Israel bias among gentiles across the world. A good part – sorry, lump – of blame for the current crisis lies with the hardliners. They remind us irresistibly of their predecessors the Zealots, who led the Jews of Palestine into an unwinnable and disastrous war with the mighty Roman Empire and destroyed Temple Judaism forever. Modern Israel might survive the crisis, but there is a good chance it might not. Possible outcomes go all the way from an okay single-state solution to a mass exile of Jews like that of the French pieds noirs in Algeria in 1962. Hamas members could then celebrate their victory – except that they will all be dead too.
Rawls and inequality
Recommended reading: Andrew Koppelman, “Rawls, Inequality, and Welfare State Capitalism”, September 2023 https://watermark.silverchair.com/ajle_a_00057.pdf
Koppelman is an American constitutional lawyer, not an economist, so is not likely to be on the radar of typical readers here. Wide-ranging and lively. I wouldn’t take his word for it on the causes of inequality, but worth your time. I sympathise with his take that ownership of the means of production, a major component of Marx’s and Rawls’s utopias, is a red herring. remote from real issues of rights and power imbalances in the workplace.
Ikonoclast will like this quote from Rawls: “The thought that real saving and economic growth are to go on indefinitely, upwards and onwards, with no specified goal in sight, is the idea of the business class of a capitalist society.”
Oops, another dud link. Trying again: https://direct.mit.edu/ajle/article-pdf/doi/10.1162/ajle_a_00057/2159273/ajle_a_00057.pdf
James, I totally agree about the water issue – and the nice thing about water is, I don’t see any way that it can be made into a weapon – hurray.
Still, I cannot be so quick to absolve the UN. The more I hear about what it has been up to in that region, the more I think that in fact a *great deal* of blame attaches to it. Frankly, I’m going to need to see a very serious examination of where aid has been going. Who has been funding Hamas all this time? (I gather it is Qatar and Iran, but who else?)
And in addition to aid, it doesn’t sound to me as though the UN is at all fair or balanced in its approach, or in the least helpful at solving conflicts. It reminds me of a high school cafeteria, in the way it functions.
Having said that, its communication function seems essential. I hope we all find a way out of this cul-de-sac. Too many people have died already.
Dr James E Hansen published his latest communication on 27 Oct 2023 titled To Understand and Protect the Home Planet. It begins with:
https://mailchi.mp/caa/to-understand-and-protect-the-home-planet
Hansen tweeted:
Will this change attitudes with the elites? Probably not…
Sketch of a basic DIY solar still: https://ars.els-cdn.com/content/image/3-s2.0-B9780128219201000054-f08-02-9780128219201.jpg
It’s something I would certainly try to make, under less pressure than the Gazans. Presumably glass works much better than plastic sheeting for the cover, but the sheeting is far cheaper and more available. You also need two buckets, some tubing, and a frame you could cobble together from bombsite salvage. The duct tape is optional. It’s not as full solution, but could still keep a lot of people alive
Would the water still need to be boiled, after it’s collected? I guess this would be starting with sea water? (Ours is frequently dirty near shore, sad to say.)
I like the design though, it does look like something regular people might manage.
Of course, I hope other options will arise too. (Btw, is it just the news coverage here, or is Europe not really doing much to help mediate?) This method might take a while, and it’s so many people.